LGBTQ news and entertainment
I don’t I can even explain how much I love this pic…
Betty Buckley shared this pic on her Instagram (if you don’t follow her there, you’re really missing out).
Something about the energy of an opening night in NYC with a new play, etc, etc… You can just see the exuberance in Betty Lynn’s face.
And then there’s the perfect “Texas” hair – which Betty would know something about, don’t you know?
p.s. did I mention she got RAVE reviews…?
From the New York Times: “Gertrude is the grandmaster of such gambits. And, as written by Foote and played with unexpected restraint by Ms. Buckley, she’s a precise and cleareyed study in the arrogance of the entitled rich. The scenes in which Gertrude apologizes — sort of — for her drunken bad behavior are ruthlessly well observed. You realize that in Harrison, being rich means never having to say you’re sorry.”
From The Hollywood Reporter: “Buckley is the undeniable standout as the volcanic Gertrude, whose pathetic neediness is vividly demonstrated by her alcohol-fueled rages. But the rest of the talented ensemble is equally fine, especially Foote, a veteran performer of her father’s work, who is deeply moving as the quietly dignified and unexpectedly strong-willed Sybil, and the always wonderful Smith, whose venerable career includes an early film appearance opposite James Dean in East of Eden.”
From Broadway.com: “The magnetic Betty Buckley, almost never seen on stage without a highball glass in her hand, manages to be both vile and surprisingly sympathetic as a conniving, needy socialite who throws tantrums, makes false promises and otherwise manipulates everyone she sees.
Veanne Cox is delightfully snotty as Buckley’s frenemy, a rich and bored housewife who taunts her drunken husband (Adam LeFevre) and flirts with any man in sight.”
From Newsday: “Betty Buckley, finally back with a character worthy of her, is wonderful as the rich, monstrous widow, matched greed for grasping greed by Veanne Cox. The great Lois Smith brings sweet gusto to the abused matriarch, while Hallie Foote plays disappointment proudly in director Michael Wilson’s impeccable production.”
Don’t miss the chance to see Buckley’s triumphant return to the New York stage in The Old Friends, now through October 6.
I love theatrical successes. And I really love it when it happens to completely deserving projects and artists.
Michael Urie (of Broadway and “Ugly Betty” fame) has had a big success with his new play “Buyer & Cellar” off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre where the production has recouped it’s initial investment of $500,000 in only 9 weeks!
Urie stars in the the play as a struggling actor who goes to work for Barbra Streisand.
From the New York Times:
Few Off Broadway shows ever turn a profit, and even fewer do it this quickly. But “Buyer & Cellar” received strong reviews last spring in its first production at the 99-seat Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, then transferred to its current 199-seat house in late June. The show recouped in late August, according to the lead producer, Darren Bagert, and has grossed more than $1 million at Barrow Street, which has a strong track record of profitability.
Mr. Urie is set to perform “Buyer & Cellar” next year in Los Angeles and Chicago, the producers said, and talks are under way for productions in San Francisco, Toronto, and Dallas.
Starring Betty Buckley, Lois Smith, Veanne Cox, Hallie Foote, Cotter Smith, Melle Powers, Sean Lyons, Adam LeFevre and Novella Nelson.
Directed by Michael Wilson.
Now running and extended through October 6.
For more information, go to signaturetheatre.org
Randy Report favorite, Rachelle Rak, will star in The Big Show, an immersive re-imagination of the Eugene O’Neill play Thirst told through the life story of Francis Farmer.
Via Broadway World:
Audiences will be transported to 1950 where they will experience an evening in the rec room at Sunnyland: a hospital for the mentally insane. Inspired by American Horror Story: Asylum and inventively choreographed by Charlie Sutton (Kinky Boots, WICKED) this eerie imaginative new piece features dance and stars Broadway veteran Rachelle Rak (FOSSE, Catch Me If You Can) with Purdie Baumann (SMASH, Radio City Rockette), Kristine Bendul (Cinderella, SMASH, Come Fly Away) and Alex Michael Stoll (Evita, West Side Story).
The Big Show runs Sunday evenings at 7:30pm and Mondays at 2:00pm and 7:00pm, August 18, *19 (Double Feature Benefit Performance tickets are $50), 25, 26. Tickets are $18.
The Big Show is part of an exciting fusion of current Broadway talent and accomplished visual artists to be presented byWorking Artists Theatre Project in the gallery space at 210 East 43rd Street this August. This vibrant, provocative, and interactive melange of theatre, dance, music, art, and photography is not to be missed!
Betty Buckley is one of the most fab people I know (how cool that I even get to say that???).
Betty is in NYC for the new world premiere of the Horton Foote play, The Old Friends.
Directed by Michael Wilson, the play will star Betty, Hallie Foote (the late playwright’s daughter and a renowned interpreter of his work), and Lois Smith. It begins performances Aug. 20 at the Signature Theatre’s Pershing Square Signature Center, with official opening set for Sept. 12.
However, Betty loves taking pictures and she recently posted great photos on her Instagram account of the gorgeous window at Bergdorf Goodman. What I love is that Betty captures not only the window design itself, but in the reflection you can see her taking the picture in the middle of all the gorgeosity (I may have made that word up, but it seems appropriate).
Don’t miss the premiere of Horton Foote’s play – here’s ticket (and more) info.
And if you’re in NYC, just note that that person taking pictures next to you on the street just might be a certain Tony Award winner… 🙂
Follow Betty on Instagram here.
Time to rehearse “Razzle Dazzle”…
I have to say, this is an amazing cast. Glad they let the “old guy” play in their sand box 🙂
Wow, what great casting.
Joe Manganiello is slated to star as “Stanley Kowalski” in the Fall 2013 production of A Streetcar Named Desire at Yale Repertory. Dates for the show are September 20-October 12.
The award winning René Augesen will play opposite Manganiello as “Blanche Dubois.”
More info on the production at YaleRep.org
Horton Foote’s work has been produced at Signature Theatre in previous seasons. He was the fourth Playwright-in-Residence during its 1994-95 season.
Signature Theatre also produced the world premiere of The Last of the Thorntons in its 2000-01 season and The Trip to Bountiful, featuring Lois Smith, in the 2005-06 season.
“In The Old Friends, matriarch Mamie Borden and the remaining members of two longtime Texas farming families await a visit from Mamie’s son Hugo and his wife Sybil,” press notes state. “When Sybil arrives with alarming news, old friends on opposing sides must confront the issues surrounding legacy, loyalty, and the meaning of happiness that have hounded them for generations.”
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| Photo: Ken Jacques |
I just spent the last few weeks staging the musical CHICAGO at San Diego Music Theater, which opened Saturday night. I’m very proud of the cast who were all uber-fantastic to work with.
Readers have emailed me asking how it all went. Here’s the review from San Diego’s major newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. Nice mention for me (thanks Union-Tribune) but the credit really goes to the fabu cast:
With its just-opened production of the sharply comic Kander & Ebb musical, San Diego Musical Theatre delivers all that. It’s the kind of polished, propulsive staging that’ll remind you why “Chicago” keeps running endlessly on Broadway.
Ron Kellum directs a versatile (and conspicuously fit) cast led by Kyra Da Costa as the alpha jailbird Velma Kelly and Emma Radwick as the upstart “merry murderess” Roxie Hart. Both bring comic chops and solid vocals to the roles of the antiheroines who wind up competing for dubious celebrity in the crime-fixated Windy City of the 1920s.
Robert J. Townsend steps in smartly as the defense lawyer Billy Flynn, giving this debonair character a nice bite of the cynical. The show’s smaller but still piquant roles also find good matches in Ria Carey as the jail honcho Matron “Mama” Morton (although she could stand to vamp it up a bit more); Jason James as Roxie’s seriously meek husband, Amos; and A. Saunders, who played the gossip scribe Mary Sunshine on Broadway and reprises the role here.
Musical director/conductor and SDMT regular Don Le Master leads a tight 13-piece band that brings loads of saucy personality to such memorable numbers as “All That Jazz,” “Razzle Dazzle” and (especially) “Cell Block Tango.” And choreographer Randy Slovacek stays true to the style and spirit of the late, great Bob Fosse without seeming slavish.
The show’s setting, the Birch North Park Theatre, is a bit of a mixed blessing. The feel of the place fits the piece: “Chicago” is set in 1929, the same year the ornate theater opened as a vaudeville and movie house, as SDMT co-executive director Gary Lewis pointed out before Saturday’s opening-night performance.
But the house’s shallow rake means sight lines can be dicey when the ever-limber “Chicago” dancers get down low on the stage floor.
Still, it’s more than worth a little neck-craning to see that ensemble at work, including such standouts as Jennifer Simpson (Go-to-Hell Kitty), Chuck Saculla (Roxie’s doomed squeeze Fred Casely) and Katie Whalley, who has an amusing turn as an inmate explaining her “creative differences” with her promiscuous boyfriend. (“He saw himself as alive. I saw him as dead.”)
Matthew Novotny’s lighting evokes a certain sepia-toned seediness, and Janet Pitcher’s excellent costumes – black on black on black, with boatloads of bowlers and a spangle here and there – match the musical’s tone of sexy, dark satire.
Kudos for this show? To borrow from “Tango”: They have it comin’.
Here’s a few more pics from the opening night performance (all photos by Ken Jacques):
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| Emma Radwick as “Roxie” |
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| “Me and My Baby” |
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| “We Both Reached for the Gun” |
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| Robert Townsend and ladies – “All I Care About Is Love” |
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| Kyra Da Costa (“Velma”) and Emma Radwick (“Roxie”) in “Nowadays” |
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| Ria Carey (“Mama Morton”) and Kyra Da Costa (“Velma Kelly”) |