Dan Stevens, Star of ‘Downtown Abbey,’ To Make His Broadway Debut in ‘The Heiress’ Opposite Jessica Chastain & David Strathairn

Dan Stevens, star of the Golden Globe-winning series Downton Abbey, will play the role of “Morris Townsend” opposite Academy Award® nominee Jessica Chastain and Academy Award® nominee and Emmy® Award winner David Strathairn in the Tony Award®-winning play The Heiress.

“I couldn’t ask for a more exciting Broadway debut: to work on such a fascinating play, with such fantastic actors as Jessica Chastain and David Strathairn and one of Broadway’s great directors, Moisés Kaufman,” said Stevens. “I can’t wait to get started.”

Stevens is currently shooting season three of Downton Abbey. On stage, his credits include the lead role of “Septimus Hodge” in David Leveaux’s hit West End production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, and the “Doctor” in Tom Stoppard and André Previn’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour at the National Theatre. Read more

Christian Borle on the ‘Smash’ Season Finale, What to Expect in Season 2 and ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’

The season finale of Smash is tonight and while I’m an episode behind – shhh, don’t tell me what happens – I’m still 100% in the camp for the show. That being said, I do hate when they break out in song at places other than a theater, performance space or when they daydream. Like that time when Ivy (Megan Hilty) and Karen (Katherine McPhee) suddenly started singing in the middle of Times Square? Yeah, that’s awful. Please stop that. 

The good news is that it might now it has a new showrunner. Christian Borle, who plays Tom on the series, talked with the LA Times about next season and what might be in store for the show.

“I just met [new show-runner] Josh Safran for the first time last week and kind of heard what was on the docket, and it’s going to be a totally different … show. The show is almost getting rebooted,” he said.

He went on to say that he thinks in season 2, the show will “delve more into the process of the creation and what the writing partnership is, the nuts and bolts of that room. We looked at it briefly in Season 1 but didn’t really; it was kind of, in a way, a shorthand to get us to the next event.” Read more

Andrew Garfield on ‘Death of Salesman’, Playing Spider-Man, and Handling Celebrity

Perhaps ten or twenty years ago it would’ve been quite a shock for an actor to go from starring in what many consider the greatest American play on Broadway to playing a superhero in a big-budget movie that opens a few weeks later. 

But when the actor is as talented and passionate as Andrew Garfield it isn’t so surprising.  In a candid interview with the New York Times, Garfield spoke about the vast difference between the two roles and how he deals with celebrity.

Garfield admits the he took on the role in A Death of a Salesman in a way as a response to his experience shooting The Amazing Spider-Man, saying, “It was more of an antidote to the previous experience.  Not that the previous experience was bad, just that it was specific. I wanted to balance it out somehow. Plus, any mention of Miller, I’m sold.”  In fact, he confesses that Biff’s growing pains are similar to his own struggle to establish his identity, explaining, “The struggle of Biff is so universal, especially for someone my age: trying to come to terms with who you are as opposed to who you thought you should be.  That’s why there are sobs in the theater, because everyone has an understanding of that very distinct feeling of: ‘Let me go. Let me be what I am.’ I’m going through that right now.” Read more

Josh Young on His Tony Nomination for ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’: “I assumed…weeks ago that this probably wouldn’t happen for me”

Josh Young, currently starring on Broadway as Judas Iscariot in Jesus Christ Superstar, has been nominated for a 2012 Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical and in an interview with Playbill.com, Young spoke about his nomination. 

He said, “Not only is [the Tony nomination] such an honor and to get it for this role and to get it for my Broadway debut, but I really am so happy that it happened with this show and this company because I love the show, and I especially love the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.  The Festival has been such a huge part of my life for the past two-and-a-half years…The fact that my nomination might bring a little more recognition to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, that’s kind of what means the most to me.  They’ve been so supportive of my career and of me for the last couple of years.” Read more

Zooey Deschanel to Play Loretta Lynn in the Broadway-Bound Production of ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’

Last night, country music legend Loretta Lynn announced from the stage of the Ryman Auditorium that she chose Zooey Deschanel to portray her in an upcoming Broadway-bound stage adaptation of Coal Miner’s Daughter. 

Right after that announcement, Deschanel joined the Lynn onstage for a duet of the song, “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

The onstage announcement and performance echoed the 1979 Grand Ole Opry appearance where Lynn invited a young Sissy Spacek onstage to announce that she had chosen the actress to portray her in the forthcoming film. Spacek went on to win the Academy Award for her performance.

“It’s a long way from Butcher Holler to Broadway in New York City. I never imagined I’d see Coal Miner’s Daughter on a movie screen, and now I can’t believe it’s going to be on a stage for people to see,” said Lynn. “I’m going to be right there in the front row. And I know Zooey is going to be great – she sings and writes her own songs just like I do, and we even have the same color eyes!” Read more

Tom Hanks to make his Broadway Debut in Nora Ephron’s New Play, ‘Lucky Guy’

The New York Post is reporting that Tom Hanks will make his Broadway debut this January in a limited run of Nora Ephron‘s new play Lucky Guy.

The show is about a former New York newspaper columnist named Mike McAlary, who died in 1998 from colon cancer at the early age of 41. The show follows McAlary’s life during two imports periods: when he wrote about the famous Abner Louima case (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize) and when he “wrongly accused a lesbian of making up a rape charge to publicize feminist causes.”

According to the paper, Hanks has been looking to do a play in New York for a while but nothing ever gelled until Ephron, who also wrote Sleepless in Seattle, showed him the script.  Read more

Why Did the Broadway Musical ‘Leap of Faith’ Fail So Quickly?

Broadway is a tough business, with many shows taking years to recoup their initial costs and others never breaking even.  One from this season that is likely to fall into the latter category is Leap of Faith, which despite four Tony Award nominations (including Best Musical) is closing after being open for less than a month because of poor ticket sales.  Based on a more-or-less forgotten 1992 Steve Martin movie, the New York Times did an extensive write-up analyzing why the show failed and the perils of Broadway productions.

It’s rare that a Tony-nominated play closes before the Tony Awards since the production will not only won’t be able to reap the publicity that comes from the nominations but also won’t be able to be seen by the awards voters.  That didn’t make a difference for Leap of Faith, which according to the Times was losing about $275,000 per week as a result of bad tickets sales that were blamed on awful reviews.  Read more

‘The Best Man’ & ‘The Columnist’ and Get Broadway Extensions; ‘Lonely, I’m Not’ Does too!

After the news that both Leap of Faith and How To Succeed are set to close, here’s a bit of good news: Both The Columnist and Gore Vidal’s The Best Man have announced that their Broadway runs will be extended. And, Second Stage’s production of Lonely, I’m Not has just announced they will as well.

 
Read more

Documentary Trailer: ‘The Standbys’ Tells the Story of 3 Broadway Understudies

Here’s the trailer for a new documentary called, The Standbys. It’s the story of 3 Broadway understudies (Ben Crawford, Merwin Foard, and Aléna Watters) and it looks great. I want to see it now. Like, right now. 

The film also features Michael Riedel of the New York Post, Cheyenne Jackson, Bebe Neuwirth and David Hyde Pierce – all of which you can see in the trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: The Standbys is a story of the actors you don’t see. Those performers who are so talented that huge Broadway productions trust them to stand by backstage as understudies for the lead to carry an entire show. The only catch is that they’re never going to be famous enough names to actually be given that lead role in a production. This documentary film follows three amazingly gifted but undiscovered performers backstage on Broadway through their dramatic ups and downs, struggles and triumphs, onstage performances and private lives. All of them fighting against long odds with the hope that one day all of their hard work will finally earn them a moment in the spotlight to prove what they’re capable of.

The film will premiere this Saturday, May 12 at 2 PM at The Paley Center for the Media as part of the 2012 Tony Award Film Series.

Check it out below!  Read more

Kathleen Turner Talks About ‘The Perfect Family’ and Her On-Screen Absence: “I have been so wrapped up in my stage work”

Kathleen Turner’s newest project is the dramedy The Perfect Family, which opened May 4.  In an interview with NBC New York, Turner spoke about her first leading movie role since 1994’s Serial Mom. 

She said, “I have been so wrapped up in my stage work.  That’s been where my focus has been going the last few years.  I got the chance to do Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And develop two new plays.  I’m also taking a one-woman show called Red Hot Patriot: the Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins to Washington before the elections.”

Despite going back to a film, Turner admits she finds theater more satisfying.  “Being on stage is something you really share with the audience and the other actors,” she said. “Film-making, not only do I find it on the whole now rather formulaic—so many of the storylines or scripts that I read are so predictable or follow a set pattern or are remakes of TV shows—but the material itself is not very challenging.  And the process of film where you act for 20 minutes, stop while they reset the lights for an hour or two, act for another 20 minutes (the same material) and then you sit down again while they reset the lights.  Stage to me is so alive, so immediate.” Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »