OnStage

Chris Rawson's OnStage: The Jimmys are launched

2009-06-29T19:48:00Z

NEW YORK, 2 a.m. Saturday night/Sunday morning --

What a great start to the Jimmys! Some of the pros on the judges panel clearly thought they were doing community service by judging a group of high school students, but watching the 32 young contestants do their audition solos and ensemble pieces, they were surprised to discover a freshet of real (if unformed) talent. As one said, in only partial exaggeration, a few of the 32 could move to New York right now and get work.

Afterward, Van Kaplan and I adjourned with the five judges to a backstage room at NYU's handsome Skirball Center, and the debate was smart and long. Pictures of the consensus best boys and girls, about a half-dozen of each, were put up on the wall and their performances praised and faulted in surprising detail.

They weren't necessarily the best from Van's or my point of view, but we bit our tongues, being there just to facilitate. In my own case, about half were, and half weren't, but I'm not a pro - well, not that kind of pro. In Van's case, he's had the experience of working with the kids for several days, so he knows a lot more, good and bad. But here the focus was properly on their performances.

The real fun was later, as the Pittsburgh crew of 15 or so that's running the Jimmys piled into a bar across the street from the NYU dorm where most of them are staying. After several days of working with heterogeneous high school students, about half of whom have some idea of musical theater (and even professional credits), while the others are good singers who don't otherwise know what's going on, and after more than a few well-earned drinks, there was some definite letting-off of steam, much of it very funny. You know, backstage stories. My lips are sealed.

Last night's judging was just to create a hierarchy. In tonight's show, with Kathy Lee Gifford as host and Tommy Tune among the presenters, the judges will watch the ensemble pieces again (where they reprise bits of the performances that won their local awards), then adjourn to pick four finalists -- two girls, two boys -- who will do their solo numbers. Then a quick vote for the two winners.

Last night's judges were Bernie Telsey, leading casting director (and much more); Nick Scandalios, Nederlander organization exec v-p; Kent Gash, actor, director, CMU grad and head of a musical theater program at the Tisch School at NYU; Montego Glover, actress on "Color Purple," etc.; and Susan Lee, native Pittsburgher, marketing whiz and idea woman with the Nederlanders.

Montego and Susan were actually sitting in for Alecia Parker of National Artists Management and Scott Ellis of Broadway's Roundabout Theater, both of whom were stuck elsewhere. But they'll be here tonight, with Montego and Susan participating also, for continuity.

BTW, my title turns out to be Judicial Administrator, so don't cross me. I have Powers -- and I don't mean just the Irish whiskey of that name.

A few tickets to the 2009 Jimmy Awards are still available at www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu, at 212-352-3101 or at the Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South). The show's at 7:30 p.m.

Pictures: (Top) Van Kaplan talks to some exhausted contestants (director/choreographer Kiesha Lalama-White at left); (2) Elizabeth Bailey of CAPA; (3) Kian McCollum of Chartiers Valley.

Student Blog: Click here for a student's eye blog, by last year's Kelly Critic Award winner, Casey McDermott.

* * *

The 32 nominees for the 2009 National High School Musical Theater Award are: Elizabeth Bailey (Pittsburgh CAPA - Pittsburgh, PA); Erin Borain (Alpharetta High School - Atlanta, Georgia); Alec Brashear (Lower Dauphin High School - Hershey, PA); Rebecca Brinkley (Cedar Ridge High School - Raleigh, NC); David Broyles (Newton South High School - Beverly, MA); Anthony Bruno (Bergen County Academies - Millburn, NJ); Stephanie Cooksey (Stratford High School - Houston, TX); Alejandro Fallick (Stratford High School - Houston, TX); Sarah Franklin (Lutheran High School of OC - Yorba Linda, CA); Grace Hardin (Ridgefield High School - Norwich, CT); Emily Higgins (Danvers High School - Beverly, MA); Seth Johnson (Cary Academy - Raleigh, NC); Julia Knitel (Fair Lawn High School - Millburn, NJ); Krystal Lawton (The School of the Arts - Rochester, NY); Sam Leake (Sterling High School - Wichita, KS); Stephen Mark (Ridgefield High School - Norwich, CT); Chauncey Matthews (San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts - San Diego, CA); Kian McCollum (Chartiers Valley High School - Pittsburgh, PA); Ryan Morton (Orange County School of the Arts - Yorba Linda, CA); Mallory Moser (Trinity Valley School - Fort Worth, TX); Adrien Pellerin (Atlanta International School - Atlanta, GA); Joe Pudetti (Penfield High School - Rochester, NY); Keegan Rice (Shawnee Mission West - Kansas City, MO); Michelle Rubich (Briarcliff High School - NY, NY); Aaron Sauer (Don Bosco Prep High School - NY, NY); Taryn Sprenkle (East Pennsboro High School - Hershey, PA); Samantha Steinmetz (Blue Valley High School - Kansas City, MO); Emma Stratton (Canyon Crest Academy - San Diego, CA); Alex Syiek (Huntington Beach High School - Fullerton, CA); Patrick Thomas (Colleyville Heritage High School - Forth Worth, TX); Gina Velez (La Habra High School - Fullerton, CA) and Jenny Wine (Wichita East High School - Wichita, KS).

A Pittsburgh brand hits the Big Apple: Kelly Awards, meet the Jimmys

2009-06-28T20:06:00Z

Sunday noon -- A picture and short story in Saturday's PG promised I was blogging from The Jimmys in New York, but that starts tonight, with the first round, and I'm just on my way to NYC now.

Named after legendary theater producer Jimmy Nederlander, the Jimmys are the national extension of Pittsburgh CLO's Gene Kelly Awards for Excellence in High School. Pittsburgh CLO has partnered with Nederlander Presentations Inc. (second largest Broadway theater owners); Van Kaplan's staff is heavily involved; and most of the production staff is from Pittsburgh, from music director Michael Moricz and choreographer Keisha Lalama-White to lighting and sound gurus Andy Ostrowski and Chris Evans.

The talent representing Pittsburgh is Elizabeth Bailey, a student at Pittsburgh CAPA who won this year's Kelly for best actress in the title role in "Anna Karenina," and Kian McCollum, from Chartiers Valley, who won for playing Robbie Hart in "The Wedding Singer." In NYC, they're going up against 30 more local winners from similar high school musical competitions in 15 other cities around the country -- all of them based, directly or indirectly, on the example of the Kellys, which next year celebrates its 20^th year. (Click here for Elizabeth's and Kian's pictures.)

The 32 contestants have been in NYC since Thursday, working with theater pros. Tonight is the first round of the judging and the finals are Monday. I won't be blogging live, partly because it isn't a TV show (yet -- but they've sent a video crew and are making a documentary), but mainly because I'm involved. My role has been variously described as coordinator of judging or judge wrangler. The judges are five New York agents, casting directors, etc. (actual names when I get them later), with me to keep them on task. I'll know more about that later, too.

But someone is blogging already -- Casey McDermott, a senior at Chartiers Valley and last year's winner of the Kelly Critic prize. She's been here since Thursday with the 32 finalists. The picture is of her and me backstage at the 2008 Kelly Awards. For Casey's blog, which describes the first several days of this Big Apple adventure, click here.

Couch potato Chris Rawson views the Tonys -- and gloats over his predictions

2009-06-08T04:00:00Z

7:30 pm

Many a year at this time, I'd have already been jostling for an hour alongside the red carpet, getting in a word or two with the Tony nominees I knew or was rooting for. The best scheme was always to squirm in beside someone with a TV camera who would attract the press agents peddling the bigger names. It was sort of like the relationship between those small fish and big sharks, where the small fry eat the remnants left behind but also perform some service for their hosts. In my case, I usually knew more than the TV interviewers about the actual shows, so I could slip them a question or two.

But not now. I'm giving myself a year off (as I did last year, too), which means I get to take the couch potato route and see the show that most people see, the one on TV. I recognize the irony -- that the art form which glories in actual shared presence displays its wares, on this night, via the electronic enemy. Still, I'm expecting to have a real good time, no matter who wins.

8:20 pm

Weird but wonderful to watch all the other shows join in on "Let the Sunshine In." Slightly ominous, though, to be reminded by the V-O that we were going to see more than the usual musical numbers this year, the sub-text being that they're eager to sell touring shows, with the inevitable result that fewer awards will actually be awarded on camera. And why is Neil Patrick Harris the host? "I'm on TV," as he said with due modesty.

Lots of star power, though: quick shots of Geoffrey Rush, Edie Falco, Angela Lansbury, then Jane Fonda as the first presenter. Did you notice that she neatly split the pronunciation difference between Ga-DOH and GOD-o?Featured actor in a play: Roger Robinson! I couldn't be happier.

8:50 pm

"Shrek" led off with its strongest suit, word-play comedy, designed to appeal to the grownups while the story plays to the kids. And it featured Christopher Sieber, their best shot at an individual Tony -- with the three leads sitting back down in the audience to watch the finale.

Featured actress in a play: Angela Lansbury, her inevitable 5th Tony. The audience response seemed like the real thing, heartfelt. "Thank you for having me back."A number from "Mamma Mia"!? So yesterday.

First play excerpt: "33 Variations." No, sorry -- just a little film clip. Will Ferrell, "as a Broadway veteran," "trodding the boards." Good joke: "best score," the naked cast of "Hair.

"Book: "Billy Elliot." Score: "Next to Normal"! My first loss. (I expect many more -- like Best Orchestrations, which also went to "Next to Normal," as the V-O just told us.) Their thank-yous got the first abrupt cut-off.

"West Side Story" showed one of its best dance numbers, the Dance at the Gym, in which Tony and Maria have their Romeo & Juliet encounter. Sweet. 9:25Susan Sarandon! "She looks pretty good," I said, in that unemphatic, tentative, noncommittal way you use when your wife is listening to you praise another woman. " She's FABULOUS," said wife growled back.

Director, play: Matthew Warchus, a great choice, but he should have won for "The Norman Conquests," which is a greater accomplishment. Although now that I think of it, it's the British cast. The "God of Carnage" cast is American and had to be rehearsed here, so maybe it was the right result, after all.

"A surprisingly big small play," Warchus called it, by "a writer of great precision and audacity." Note that he could have been talking about either Yasmina Reza and "Carnage" (as he was) or of Alan Ayckbourn and "Norman." Then he thanked his wife for keeping "calm back home," allowing him to "manufacture marital mayhem" on Broadway -- a remark that would also have applied equally to "Norman."

Director, musical: Stephen Daldry, "Billy Elliot." I love that he thanked the crew.

Special event: I predicted "Liza at the Palace," but in retrospect, I wish the Tony had gone to the wonderful "Slava's Snow Storm," which I saw a number of times off-Broadway. I wish everyone could have a chance to see it some time. Certainly everyone has already seen Liza one time or a half-dozen.

9:40 pm

What was that? Granted, my attention is somewhat frayed, pecking away at this laptop as I try to watch (sort of like being backstage, after all), but that quick cut-away to previously awarded Tonys was hard to follow. Did they say that best orchestrations was a tie between "Next to Normal" and "Billy Elliot"? That explains Matthew Warchus' crack about "rather hoping for another tie" (i.e., with himself), the tie being something he would have known about before we were told. So I get a half-point here, after all.

Best book, "Billy"; best choreography, ditto. Did I get those right?

And the regional theater Tony to the Signature Theater of Arlington, Va. -- on the recommendation of the American Theatre Critics Association. I make that point because I'm an ATCA member. So I understand what drives the Theater Wing to have its annual spot extolling itself, but it's always one of the dullest parts of the telecast. (I heard later that my friend Jeffrey Jenkins, who moderates some of the Theater Wings "working in the theater" seminars, showed up in the video clips. So I guess I wasn't watching very carefully, or I just assumed the spot would be boring and worked at making a post.)

Supporting actor, musical: Gregory Jbara! What a sweetheart he is and showed himself to be, talking to his kids in his thank you, and bringing out his wife, who took care of them while he was on Broadway taking care of all those Billy Elliots.

Supporting actress, musical: Karen Olivo, speaking up for the dream in us all. I regret not having yet seen "Next to Normal," but I'm intrigued by what I've heard and seen so far.

10:20

Jessica Lange appears. "Also beautiful," says Mary, unprompted. "I like these beautiful mature women." (Well, yeah, to tell the truth, so do I.)

Actor, play: Geoffrey Rush. Classiest speech so far, with its clever leap from "French existential absurdist tragedy" to a witty insistence on the Frenchness of all the other nominees, including the one in the play by David Mam-ay.

And then the necrology -- what a huge, sad list. Natasha Richardson. Harold Pinter. Edie Adams (who starred in the first Broadway musical I ever saw). James Whitmore. Horton Foote. Clive Barnes. Tom O'Horgan. Bea Arthur. Robert Anderson. Robert Prosky. Pat Hingle. Anna Manahan. Eartha Kitt. Hugh Leonard. William Gibson. Paul Sills. And Paul Newman. How can we lose so many? And almost every year it's like this. How profligate life -- and talent -- can be.

Another section of earlier awards announced, and what with glancing down at the laptop, I just didn't get them all. But I did see that "Joe Turner" won for lighting and "Billy Elliot" won a bunch more, as I expected. And did "Shrek" really win for costumes, as I predicted (without any real confidence)?

I loved Frank Langella's riff on failing to be nominated for "Man for All Seasons." Great deadpan, impish humor. Actress, play: Marcia Gay Harden (a good choice). "What a glorious season to be on Broadway." Another classy speech, with deft praise of her fellow nominees.

Then Sir Elton John. (Sir? What's happened to the peerage? Well, whatever, it happened long ago, when England really did become a democracy.)"

Legally Blonde" does a number: call it an ad.

Harvey Fierstein, with that extraordinary growl of a voice, awards best revival of a play to "Norman Conquests," which deserved to win, and best play to "God of Carnage," which I feel less enthusiastic about -- it's a fine, crisp play, but I was rooting for Horton Foote's "Dividing the Estate."

11:15

Sorry, a long wait for this installment. I couldn't tear myself away from the prodction numbers; the one from "Jersey Boys" was better than the show.

I enjoyed the producer's praising the "God of Carnage" cast as "the acting equivalent of Rodger Federer." And it was a treat to see the elusive, diminutive Yasmina Reza in person. (Well, TV gives that illusion.) I didn't think she ever left Paris.

Angela Lansbury introducing Jerry Herman! They don't make ‘em like them any more. Well, of course they do -- show biz is amazing that way -- but you have to wait decades to discover just who they are.

Kristen Chenoweth is always welcome, right? Accepting the musical revival award she handed out, Oskar Eustis wore one of those white ribbons (so did Anne Hathaway) urging repeal of the California ban on gay marriage.

David Hyde Pierce entered with a great joke, then awarded best actor in a musical to Alice Ripley, clearly a popular winner in the hall. You could see how intensely she believed her JFK quote about the power of art over politics. "Musical theater is a fine art," she insisted. Yes, indeed.

Liza, wearing all her troubled, astonishing life in full view, brought a lot of tradition to the best musical award to (of course) "Billy Elliot." Among the thanks-yous, the one I thought stood out was to John Barlow, "Broadway's greatest publicist." There are several others who would contend for the title, but it was extraordinary to hear a publicist so praised -- and this on the same night that much admired and liked publicist Shirley Herz received a Tony Honor (not quite a Tony, but who's counting?).

And the telecast saved the best for last, a tightly written version of "Tonight," commenting on the evening. Some writer was working quickly and under pressure backstage, but kudos to Neil Patrick Harris, who more than justified his emceeship with faultless delivery. Here's the only lyric I had time to get down: "this show could not be any gayer, if Liza were named Mayor, and Elton John took flight!" I'm off to find the full lyrics, doubtless already available somewhere on the web.

BUT FIRST: how did I do on my predictions? Frankly, I think I was ridiculously lucky, especially with the design awards, where I did some guessing, but a quick count shows me with 20.5 right and 6.5 wrong. That's what? 76 percent? I'll take it. But I better go check before I crow.

LATER: Yes, 20.5 out of 27 is right. I checked Gwen Orel's picks, and she had 13 out of 25, which is really unfair, because she saw more of the nominated shows than I did.

But nothing's fair in the predictions biz, Gwen.

LATER, STILL: I've just read all of Gwen's posts from backstage, and it's extraordinary how much material she recorded and how well she captures the dynamic of the print media room. But what I really enjoy is the personality she gives it (hers, of course). To read her posts, go to pgTHEATERnow at the top of the Theater page (www.post-gazette.com/theater. Or use this direct link. In either case, you'll have to work back through 11 posts, but it's well worth it.

The couch potato views the Tonys -- and then gloats over his predictions

2009-06-07T23:50:00Z

7:30 pm

8:20 pm

Three Billy Elliots! West Side Story! Stockard Channing! (Who was that in duet with her?) "Rock of Ages"! Dolly Parton! Liza! "Hair"! They sure packed them all into that opening medley, didn't they? Weird but wonderful to watch all the other shows join in on "Let the Sunshine In." Slightly ominous, though, to be reminded by the V-O that we were going to see more than the usual musical numbers this year, the sub-text being that they're eager to sell touring shows, with the inevitable result that fewer awards will actually be awarded on camera. And why is Neil Patrick Harris the host? "I'm on TV," as he said with due modesty.

Featured actor in a play: Roger Robinson! I couldn't be happier.

8:50 pm

Featured actress in a play: Angela Lansbury, her inevitable 5^th Tony. The audience response seemed like the real thing, heartfelt. "Thank you for having me back."

A number from "Mamma Mia"!? So yesterday.

First play excerpt: "33 Variations." No, sorry -- just a little film clip. Will Ferrell, "as a Broadway veteran," "trodding the boards." Good joke: "best score," the naked cast of "Hair."

Book: "Billy Elliot." Score: "Next to Normal"! My first loss. (I expect many more -- like Best Orchestrations, which also went to "Next to Normal," as the V-O just told us.) Their thank-yous got the first abrupt cut-off.

"West Side Story" showed one of its best dance numbers, the Dance at the Gym, in which Tony and Maria have their Romeo & Juliet encounter. Sweet.

9:25

Susan Sarandon! "She looks pretty good," I said, in that unemphatic, tentative, noncommittal way you use when your wife is listening to you praise another woman. "She's FABULOUS," said wife growled back.

Director, musical: Stephen Daldry, "Billy Elliot." I love that he thanked the crew.

Broadway Diary: 9 plays in 6 days, the PG group, some friends and the Sardi's bar

2009-06-01T07:34:00Z

Tuesday, May 5

Flew up early to beat the rush -- i.e., the PG ShowPlane group, arriving tomorrow with uber-competent Paul and Jackie Busang of Gulliver's Travels -- and also to see a couple of more shows. For once, Broadway is awash in plays, not just musicals, and I had a devil of a time deciding which eight shows to cram in the standard six-day Broadway week, although this time I could actually do nine, because "The Norman Conquest" has a Saturday morning show.

For the first night I chose the Bill Irwin-Nathan Lane-John Goodman-John Glover "Waiting for Godot" (that's GOD-o). I give the actors pride of place because Beckett's play is such an established classic. I first encountered it in a drama survey at Harvard in fall, 1959. The play had just made its English language debut in London 1955, and it seemed very strange and new and we congratulated ourselves for being on the cutting edge. Now, as I'm coming up on my 50^th anniversary with it on the page and stage, it feels as though it's always been there, the essential play of the 20^th century.

With me were dear friend Janes Hewes and my daughter Celia and her husband, Jeb, and it's because of him that we went backstage afterwards -- Irwin, a master of physical theater who for many years rarely even spoke on stage, has long been a student of Jeb's mother, Brenda Bufalino, a master tap dancer.

Wednesday, May 6

Today started with the big morning melee for the press and Tony Award nominees (announced Tuesday), which I've written about at length (see the May 8 post, below).

Then for something very different in the afternoon: Lynn Nottage's "Ruined," off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club's City Center Stage 1, a must-see because it just won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama. With me was Gwen Orel, who has contributed to PG theater coverage for almost a decade. "Ruined" is an epic play on a horrendous subject, the rape of women in contemporary African civil wars, but nonetheless it manages to achieve some uplift. It's very much a contemporary version of "Mother Courage," the equivalent character of Mama Nadi being the best part of the play.

BTW, I expect to write reviews of all these shows in the weeks ahead. (NOTE: Now, I already have, most of them. Go to www.post-gazette.com/theater for one group review of three musicals and another of four (five) plays.)

(These are our New York granddaughters, not street mimes. On the left, Alice, playing in the park; just below, Ella, with the clown mask she got for her birthday.)

For dinner, I met the PG group at Barbetta's, a handsome, classy place on Restaurant Row. This year's group wasn't big, just 30-some, but they were lively. And Barbetta's started us off on a very high note.

I can't say quite so much for the group's first show, "West Side Story," which is richly lyrical and makes novel use of Spanish for added authenticity, but lacks the gut-wrenching feel of danger I expected. Maybe it's just too familiar -- this is another show I first encountered in college, when the first national tour came through Boston. But even the most familiar tragedy should still be able to stir you deeply.

Our group was treated to a post-show chat with several cast members, arranged for us by new CMU grad ('08) Tro Shaw, a wiry, plaintive Anybodys in the show. With her was George Akram, a very handsome, laid back Bernardo, who talked about the different Hispanic cultures represented in the cast. Tro remembers getting bitten by the show biz bug at age 4, in a production of "Romeo and Juliet." She was also a gymnast at A.C.T. in San Francisco -- as you can see in her lean, nimble movement.

With them was Matt Hydzik, the standby for Tony, a Hopewell native who won a 1999 Kelly Award in Quaker Valley's "Fiddler on the Roof" (and shared a Shakespeare Monologue and Scene award that year with Gillian Jacob), then went to Penn State. Matt recalled studying with Mario Melodia at the Edgeworth Club and the arts program at Sewickley Academy, and studying also with Ingrid Sonnichsen and Jill Wadsworth. Others in the show with Pittsburgh connections whom we didn't get to meet include Mike Cannon who plays Snowboy and Eric Hatch (Point Park) as Big Deal.

There's also a small Pittsburgh connection for Argentinian Josefina Scaglione, who spent a couple of months in her mid-teens in a summer dance program at Point Park. ..... Thanks to Pittsburgh playwright Jim McManus, a friend of Tro's, who first put me in touch with her.

Did I end up that night at the Sardi's bar for a post-post-show drink? Maybe, maybe not, but I did that more nights than not. Part of the attraction is watching a real pro mixologist (that;'s him in the picture) perform his efficient wonders.

Thursday, May 7

I spent a good part of the day filing my story about Wednesday's Tony nominees press mele -- an OnStage Journal entry far more timely than this one. Then my wife Mary arrived -- that's her, noting Eugene O'Neill's plaque on a Times Square shop.

The PG group went to "Billy Elliot," but since I've seen in several times in both London and New York, I went with Mary to "Living Together," technically the second play of "The Normal Conquests" trilogy, though we saw it first. All three plays intertwine so tightly that it's hard to know where to begin or end, and as soon as you've seen one play you'd like to go back and re-see another to get an extra degree of interlocking detail you missed the first time around. I even think you can tell who's seen which other part when they laugh for seemingly no reason -- it's because they just remembered what scene in another play a character has just entered from or is exiting to.

Friday, May 8

This day I had a treat I look forward to in NYC -- picking up Ella and Alice, our grandchildren, at their West Village school and wandering home with them through Greenwich Village. We usually manage to hit an ice cream or pastry shop, and this time we started out by playing hide and seek in a gorgeous little garden parklet near their school. Then we all went out to supper, celebrating Ella's 11^th birthday -- amazing that she's so old.

I missed the PG group's morning walking tour, which is always of a different, interesting corner of NY, and, to increase my regret, always with a really good lunch to follow.

At night, I went with the PG group to "Guys and Dolls," for which my expectations weren't especially high. As so often happens, the result was that I had an unexpectedly good time. Of course, "Gs and Ds" is one of the greatest musical comedies of all time. It's also the only one containing references to my two homes, Pittsburgh and Rhode Island.

Mary went instead to August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," which I'd already seen twice, once with some students in my August Wilson course at Pitt and then for the opening. I'm still hoping to get back to see it a third time before it closes its limited run -- though if it does well at the Tonys, I suppose it might extend. (By the way, if you go, cough up a buck for the Lincoln Center Theatre Review in the lobby -- it includes several interesting essays relating to Wilson, plus one by me.)

Saturday, May 9

This was the ShowPlane day that traditionally starts early, in a hotel meeting room, with coffee and discussion of what we've seen so far. There was a nice turnout, which always surprises me, since I'd probably sleep in if I were in their place. As always, the group had plenty to say about what they'd seen -- it always stretches me to try to stay a few steps ahead and have something to tell them, because they always have plenty to tell me.

Everyone headed in different directions for late morning shopping and then individually-chosen matinees. Some probably preferred even more shopping to a matinee. But Mary and I did more theater in spades, heading first to the 11:30 performance of "Table Manners," supposedly the first part of the "Norman Conquests" trilogy.

There we ran into Mark Rylance and his wife, musician Claire van Kampen, who were settling in to see the one-day marathon of all three parts of the trilogy. In case you've forgotten, we know Mark in Pittsburgh from his pajama-clad Hamlet at the Public Theater back in 1991, then from his visits in 2003 and 2005 with the Shakespeare's Globe company from London in the all-male, original practices versions of "Twelfth Night" and "Measure for Measure."

Mark was at "Norman" partly to see the work of director Matthew Warchus, who has directed him several times, most notably (to me) in "Life X 3" (London) and "Boeing Boeing" (Broadway). Warchus also directed "God of Carnage," which means he's competing with himself for a Tony. Mark told us he's been offered a Broadway production of "La Bete," that modern Moliere-like comedy with the longest opening comic monologue in the history of the universe (Pittsburgh saw it done at Playhouse Rep by the brilliant Heath Lamberts).

The moment "Tables Manners" ended, even before the curtain call (and I love curtain calls), Mary and I were out the door sprinting five or six blocks to Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage," a really slick, satisfying comedy -- almost embarrassingly so, because we find ourselves laughing so hard at the self-satisfied upper-middle-class. I'm already casting the Pittsburgh production in my anticipatory imagination.

"Carnage" is short, so we had time for a quick trip to the Drama Book Shop on 40thSt., an essential part of every New York visit, and then a visit and drink with Jeffrey Eric Jenkins and wife Vivian. Jeffrey's been a friend ever since we took graduate theater classes together at CMU in the early ‘80s (he got a degree, I became a theater critic); we've shared leadership roles in the American Theatre Critics Association; and now I get to torment him by being late with my essays for the "Best Plays Theater Yearbook" he edits.

Then Mary was off to feast on the two fine actresses in "Mary Stuart," while I joined the PG group for "9 to 5," an entertaining musical version of the 1979 movie comedy. Afterward, the group met with CMU '04 grad Megan Hilty, who plays Doralee, the Dolly Parton role, and Mark Myars, dance captain and swing. That's Megan and me in the picture, up above -- note the ghost light on the empty stage behind me. (Other Pittsburghers in the cast are Gaelen Gilliland, Fox Chapel High School '92, and Neil Haskell, Point Park.) The cast was high on just having recorded Parton's score.

That night Mary and I definitely did repair to Sardi's, along with Gwen Orel, former PG critic Phil Stephenson and his fiancee Miriam Walden (that's them just above, with me -- why do I look so tired?) and the PG's Sharon Eberson and Maria Sciullo. And who should we run into but Simon Jones, who we'd see the next day in "Blithe Spirit." Together, we all kept that mixologist busy.

Sunday, May 10

The PG group left this morning. Or so I assume -- I was still asleep.

Mary and I finally got started in time for an all-too-short visit to MOMA and its shops, before "Blithe Spirit," a perfectly light and light-hearted end to a week of theater.

We visited Simon backstage afterward, then watched him sign some autographs and took him across the street to his local, which is of course Sardi's, where he has the added pleasure of visiting his hair, memorialized in his caricature, which dates from 1986.

So we were pleasantly sloshed when we finally grabbed a cab to head for LaGuardia and return to the real world.

Captions, from the top:

1. Posters in Shubert Alley.

2. Alice (not her real nose).

3. Ella (not her real face).

4. Sardi's mixologist, at the upstairs bar with the view of Shubert Alley.

5. Mary and the Eugene O'Neill plaque in Times Square.

6. Christine Ebersole (who plays the ghostly Elvira) and SImon Jones (the pragmatic Dr. Bradman), backstage at "Blithe Spirit."

7. Ella's birthday dinner.

8. Phil Stephenson, Miriam Walden and a tired CR, back at Sardi's!

9. Simon Jones (right) visits his hair (left) amid the caricatures of fame at Sardi's.

Tony Nominees scrum with the media: Dolly, Jane, three Billy Elliots and smiles amid the maelstrom

2009-05-08T12:45:00Z

NEW YORK -- The PG's annual spring ShowPlane to Broadway brought me here just in time for Wednesday morning's press event, a giant media reception for the Tony nominees who had been announced the day before. Call it a fan's fantasy, organized chaos or a scrum, it was a jam-packed 3½ hours.

I arrived early enough to get checked in, pass down the breakfast buffet and walk all around the site - the entire eighth floor of the Millennium Broadway Hotel, just off Times Square.

[Captions of all pix are gathered at the end of the story.]

Stepping off the elevator you met a big Tony Awards backdrop for the obligatory photographs with Tony dignitaries. Then turning left you passed nine TV cubicles, each with chairs, cameras, lights, monitors, interviewer and crew; continuing in a clockwise zig-zag, you walked down a packed photographers' gauntlet with another Tony backdrop; then 13 more TV cubicles; another gauntlet of radio, internet and Big Paper stations (Variety, N.Y. Times, Village Voice, USA Today); and then, finally, the smaller papers, among them the PG, tucked in between the Seattle Times (who apparently never showed up) and El Dario/La Prensa -- pretty fancy international company.

The great thing about being at the end of the line was that it put you right back at the beginning, watching the nominees as they stepped off the elevators directly into interview maelstrom. So I can't say I spent much time at my table, instead ranging freely, talking with the celebs as they stacked up waiting for one TV interview or another.

The printed PG sign at my table lacked the final h in Pittsburgh, but just after I'd written it in, Theater Wing chief Howard Sherman showed up to do the same -- a measure either of his attention to detail or his having nothing left to do but let the morning's machine run itself. There was plenty of help with that, not just from all the nominees' flacks and agents but also a large P.R. staff. It was needed, because very suddenly the whole site was pulsing with nominees and their posses.

One of the first to arrive was fresh young Josefina Scaglione, the pretty Argentinian playing Maria in "West Side Story." I'd heard she'd once been at Point Park, and she confirmed it -- at age 14 she spent two summer months there in a musical theater program.

Equally fresh is tall, pencil-thin Sutton Foster, another part-time former Pittsburgher -- she spent one year at CMU. She says she's signed to play Princess Fiona in "Shrek" until November. We snapped a picture of her with the three Billy Elliotts, David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Keril Kulish. In the Tony committee's best move, they're nominated together as a trio, and they moved through the scrum as a diminutive three-headed unit, wider than tall, unfailingly cheery and responsive.

It happened that I talked most with the Billys' father, Gregory Jbara, mainly because I've enjoyed him in plenty of shows and he has such positive memories of Pittsburgh, having come through with several tours ("Born Yesterday," "Chess") and to work on a few movies. He especially recalled Grandview Avenue ("the name of the street I grew up on") and working once in "Forever Plaid" with Canonsburg's Paul Binotto. I'd seen Jbara's sweet, round face on Broadway in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Victor/Victoria" and "Damn Yankees," the latter two of which had him working with Rob and Kathleen Marshall, to whom he sends heart-felt best wishes.

He says the "Billy Elliott" company is so big -- 53 actors -- that there's hardly room for them in the dressing rooms. There are actually four Billys, counting the understudy, who performs twice a week just like the other three, although his billing precluded his sharing the nomination. I don't know which Billy the PG group will see, but they're all distinctive, giving Jbara and the rest the nightly challenge of variety, which helps keep the show fresh. "The entire evening hangs on each Billy," Jbara said.

Since I'd seen "Billy Elliott" in London, he pointed out how much his role was reconceived for Broadway, "allowing me to be goofier and more vulnerable." His role as the working class father confused by his son's dance talent touches many a nerve: "Dads stop me on the street" to talk about it. As we parted he said, "have a cocktail for me at the Gandy Dancer." And when I ran into him later in the melee, he'd obviously been thinking about Pittsburgh, because he'd remembered the fries at the O -- something that stays with you a long time, take that how you will.

I was particularly eager to talk with Roger Robinson, whose marvelous performance as Bynum in August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" should make him a lock for Best Supporting Actor. (Bynum is really the lead, but "Joe Turner" is rightly considered an ensemble play, so everyone's classified as supporting.)

Roger told his accompanying publicist, Barbara Carroll, he was eager to get his picture taken with Dolly Parton (nominated for her score for "9 to 5"). I couldn't believe how small Dolly is, albeit interestingly structured and glowing all over like neon. I was eager to get a picture of the picture-taking. "Beauty and the Beast," I told him we'd caption it; "but which is which?" He liked that. But Dolly had her own mini-scrum moving her from one interview to another, and in the turmoil, I'm not sure if Roger got his wish.

I had a good talk with the "Joe Turner" sound designer Leon Rothenberg (co-nominated with Scott Lehrer). Sound contributes a lot to the magical realism of the show. Rothenberg pointed out it works on three levels: the natural environment (factory sounds, wind, rain), musical (a Taj Mahal score that reaches back from the blues to West Africa and combines guitar and African kora) and "the emotional or subliminal environment." Most of the latter is pretty subtle: "you get it when it goes away," he said.

This is only Rothenberg's second Broadway show, the first being "Impressionism," the modest Jeremy Irons-Joan Allen vehicle just now concluding a quiet run. So he could actually say of his Tony nomination that he's really "just happy to be here." Still, he wouldn't mind winning. Do you put it on your business card, I asked? "If you win," he said. "Or maybe print it on your forehead!"

Spotting Geoffrey Rush ("Exit the King") getting ready to leave, I made the obvious crack, asking if it was time for the king to exit. He smiled and said just about every photographer had had the same idea of posing him by an exit sign. He's also been given an ornate, antique electric exit sign for his dressing room, but the stage crew is still figuring out how to get it wired up.

Joining me for much of the time was Gwen Orel, a Pitt Ph.D. and former PG stringer who will be covering the Tony Awards for us -- blogging, twittering, who knows what all.

In the surging maelstrom I had brief encounters (or not) with a number of other stars -- Jane Fonda, Angela Lansbury, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden, Karen Olivo (a dynamite Anita in "West Side Story"), Liza Minelli (she's pretty tiny, too), etc., etc.

Gradually camera crews started to pack up and the long morning wound down. Having been to a starry "Waiting for Godot" the previous night (Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, John Glover), I was heading to the matinee of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Ruined" before meeting the PG group for "West Side Story" at night.

I'll start telling you about the shows tomorrow. By the end of the weekend, I should have a better line on how the Tony races are shaping up.

CAPTIONS, from the top:

(1) The "West Side Story" crew, with the Theatre Wing's Howard Sherman at left and Josefina Scaglione (Maria) and Karen Olivo (Antia) in the middle.

(2) Jeff Daniels ("God of Carnage"), right, intervewed amid the throng.

(3) Three Billy Elliotts and one Sutton Foster.

(4) Gregory Jbara, Billy Elliott's dad.

(5) Diminutive Dolly.

(6) Jane Fonda signs a Tony nominees display.

(7) Marcia Gay Harden ("God of Carnage").

(8) Back out on Times Square, show biz goes on.

Kelly Awards, Jimmys, Tommy Tunes, Mancinis (and Tonys tomorrow)

2009-05-07T20:50:00Z

The nominations are out! As in my last post, I mean, of course, the Kelly Award nominations. I was interested that the four high school Kelly shows I saw and wrote about this year did very well. More comment on this later, but first, hurry to secure your tickets to the Kelly Awards gala at the Benedum, May 23, every yeat one of the hottest tickets and best evenings in Pittsburgh theater.

(PHOTO at right: students from the six schools nominated for Best Choreography in the 2009 Gene Kelly Awards receive their medallions on May 6. Matt Polk picture.)

This year, the 19^th since Pittsburgh CLO started the Kellys, there's a further wrinkle. As we first reported at length last summer (read the background here), the CLO and the Nederlander Organization (the Avis of Broadway landlords, and a cross-country theatrical power) have started the National High School Musical Theater Awards -- which, rendered simoply as the ol' NHSMTA doesn't exactly fall trippingly off the tongue, so it's just as well that they've presumed on the familiarity that should come with recognition and named the awards The Jimmys, after one of the masters of Broadway, James M. Nederlander.

As a result, this year's Best Actor and Best Actress winners, announced at the Kellys May 23 gala, will go to New York to compete against the winners of 15 other regional contests. (Unfortunately, unlike the August Wilson Monologue Contest, which held its national finals at Broadway's August Wilson Theatre, the Jimmys finals won't be at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre, where I'm seeing "Guys and Dolls" tomorrow night, but at the Skirball Center at NYU. It just doesn't sound the same. But it's still the Big Apple.)

Of the other 15 regional programs involved, all of which started by adopting the model pioneered by CLO, four are named like the Kellys for native musical theater favorites: Tommy Tune (Houston), Betty Buckley (Fort Worth), John Raitt (Fullerton, Cal.) and Shuler Hensley (Atlanta). Other cities are San Diego, Kansas City, Witchita, Rochester, Raleigh, Hershey, Norwich (Conn.), Beverly (Mass.), Nyack (NY), Millburn (NJ) and La Mirada (Cal.).

(PHOTOS: Competition for the Jimmeys will be stiff, judging by these pictures of winning 2009 shows; (above) Stratford High School's "Barnum," Tommy Tune Award [Bruce Bennett photo]; and (below) Atlanta International School's "Into the Woods," Shuler Hensley Award [Ed Zeltser photo].)

All these regional competitions are run by professional theaters, most of them big musical theater companies like CLO (North Shore in Beverly, TUTS in Houston, Starlight in Kansas City), some of them big regional theaters (Old Globe in San Diego, Paper Mill Playhouse in NJ). My guess is that it's that pro theater dimension that excluded the Mancini Awards, which were initially not in the Jimmys, then in, now out. As for the Westmoreland Night of the Stars, that's ineligible because it's a showcase, not a competition.

I'm still the only big city (well, medium city) theater critic I know who regularly writes about high school shows. For that, I can thank the CLO and the Kellys. I found myself doing a bit of a rant at last week's American Theatre Critics Association conference about the value of covering high school musicals, which includes publishing the Kelly Critics online, all as a way of encouraging the theater audiences, not to mention the performers, of the future -- and at the same time, covering theater that really matters to readers and also getting kids to read newspapers.

And here's a thought: Now that this national competition is an add-on to the two best-actor Kelly awards, the CLO should consider adding another step to the judging -- i.,e., for the six best actor and six best actress nominees, add a one-day workshop in Pittsburgh, with evaluations by the mentors added to the Kelly judges scores to choose the winners. After all, we want to send the two strongest representatives to NY, and the regular Kelly judging is inevitably tied closely to the vagaries of specific schools and shows.

Coming tomorrow in this space: spending four hours (yesterday) with the Tony nominees.

Nominations for Tony and Kelly Awards; belated happy birthday Bill and August; recent plays on Pittsburgh stages

2009-05-06T06:54:00Z

The nominations are coming! The nominations are coming!

Not the Tony nominations -- they were announced yesterday morning and should be in today's Post-Gazette. I mean the nominations for the Gene Kelly Awards for Excellence in High School Musicals, to be announced at 5 p.m. today by the CLO to a cheering throng at the Benedum Center. We know that throng will cheer, because they're the ones receiving the nominations, which means word has gone out to them in advance, to be sure they'll be there to receive their medallions and have their pictures taken. And since dozens of high school teachers and students already know about the nominations, you can bet word has seeped out here and there. (Cue the images of the gossip-spreading "Telephone Hour" song from "Bye Bye Birdie.")

I was a Kelly judge this year, but I missed Friday's marathon judges' meeting because I was at a critics' conference in Sarasota. I submitted my votes for the shows I judged, but I didn't get to participate in the long, intense discussions, so I don't have an inkling what the nominations will be. I wait with bated breath, and I'll probably find some results to disagree with -- what judge wouldn't?

I have some thoughts about the Tony nominations, too, but I'll hold them back until I've bolstered opinion with a little more knowledge. I'm in New York right now, seeing eight Broadway shows this week, after which I'll know more of what I'm talking about.

Happy Birthday, Bill and August

The end of the term at Pitt and the critics' gathering (about which, expect a full report next week) made me an even more infrequent blogger than usual, so I missed congratulating Shakespeare on his 445th birthday (a week ago Thursday, April 23), and I missed noting sadly what would have been August Wilson's 64th birthday (a week ago Monday, April 27). It's still hard to believe August isn't still with us, harvesting that creative imagination and artistry. What a loss.

The biggest celebration of August's birthday wasn't in Pittsburgh, but New York, where nine local winners from Atlanta, Pittsburgh and New York met (fittingly) at Broadway's August Wilson Theatre in the first national finals of the August Wilson Monologue Contest. I've had a brief report from August's dramaturg and friend, Todd Kreidler, who said it was such a wonderful evening as to ensure the contest will continue into the future.

Kenny Leon was emcee, talking about August while the judges scored each contestant. Ruben Santiago-Hudson also talked, and he and others, including Phylicia Rashad, read "Money Blues," a selection of excerpts from the 10 Pittsburgh Cycle plays that Todd arranged. Best of all, the occasion (which was free to the public) was a kind of reunion of Wilsonian soldiers, aka the August Wilson theatrical family.

The contestants met Todd for breakfast at the Edison Hotel Coffee Shop, August's favorite Broadway diner, and they all won boxed sets of the 10 cycle plays published by TCG. The main thing I don't know is who won the competition, for which the prizes included small amounts of cash and a major scholarship to Point Park University. I'll catch up with that and let you know.

Meanwhile, on Pittsburgh stages

A lot of theater rolled down the three rivers while I was grading term papers and convening with the critics. First was "Angels in America: Perestroika," the second part of Tony Kushner's great contemporary epic (at Pitt, ended April 11). Holly Thuma had directed Part 1; this was directed in a different, equally compelling mode by C.T. Steele. It's been said (even by Kushner) that Part 2 is "klunkier" than Part 1, because it was put together quickly, but I didn't feel that. Rather, Part 2 just feels more tentative and unresolved, as it would have to be, looking ahead of itself into the unknown. It was certainly fun to see different students take on these great roles, but with the continued stiffening of pros Doug Mertz and Elena Alexandratos as Roy Cohn and Hannah Pitt.

"Angels" supposes that God went on vacation and left mankind to its own devices on April 18, 1906, right after the San Francisco earthquake. Who can contradict that? But just how much was he on the job before that?

I caught up with Keith Reddin's "Human Error" (at City through May 10), which was reviewed by Anna Rosenstein. It's one of those seemingly-slight plays that grows on you as it shrinks in your rearview mirror. Reddin's wit is obvious right off, but you don't exactly know where it's going -- as Miranda (Tasha Lawrence) and Erik (Matt Walton), the two air crash investigators, bickered in an early scene, I made a note, "he succeeds getting under her skin, if not under her clothes," only to discover in the next scene that he does both. (But I can't believe he keeps his socks on.) The greater emotional depths reveal themselves slowly in the metaphoric connection between airplane crashes and human relationships.

Still, their investigation begins to seem like a long serial date until the play deepens with the introduction of a crash survivor, Ron (Ray Anthony Thomas). At the end, Miranda and Ron say goodbye, wishing each other safe trip -- and suddenly the emotion hit home for me. I complimented Lawrence on this a few days later, when we did an audio interview for the PG (click on podcasts on the theater page and go to April 10), and she said she remembered something had been unusual at that performance -- she hadn't been quite in control, and it struck her in an "odd" way. . . . Wow. . . . How often do we forget that theater is a live art and each performance really is different?

(By the way, our May 1 podcast is a conversation with Ray Thomas, touching on "Human Error" but also his many August Wilson roles.)

I caught up with Lorca's "Yerma" (Quantum Theatre, closed April 26), also reviewed by Anna. The excitement of Lorca, I think, is in his daring poetic yoking of opposites: earthy grit and the stars, dance and murder, social oppression and soaring flight.

I myself reviewed O'Neill's "Moon for the Misbegotten" (at the Public through May 17), which strikes me as sharing something with August Wilson's "Seven Guitars" (opened last weekend at Pittsburgh Playwrights, through May 24): besides being tragi-comedies by two of the premier American playwrights, they're both backyard plays that dramatize personal loss. "Seven Guitars" stars Homestead native, Pitt grad and Wilsonian soldier Montae Russell, whose podcast interview is due to go online later this week.

I'm looking forward to seeing "Seven Guitars" next week with some alumni of my August Wilson course at Pitt. If you're one of those alumni, please contact me at crawson@post-gazette.com.

And now to bed. I have a "meet the nominees" event to go to in NYC this morning -- Tony nominees, that is. I wonder who the Kelly nominees will be, back at the Benedum?

By the way, a whole slew of Kelly Critic reviews of high school musicals finally made it through the Chris Rawson editing machine. You can find them piled up under either of two links on the PG theater page.

The August Wilson theatrical family celebrates again on Broadway

2009-04-20T07:46:00Z

It was too big to take it all in -- not just the play, but last Thursday's opening night party.

That's also true of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," big, thrilling and mysterious, often cited as his personal favorite among his 10 Pittsburgh Cycle plays. I heard him say that several times, but perhaps his more considered statement was that he regarded Herald Loomis' vision of the city of bones (the mid-Atlantic graveyard of the slave ships) as his finest achievement.

Anyway, I've had my say about the Lincoln Center revival in today's review (click here). And you can read more than a dozen other reviews on the Lincoln Center website.

[On the right: Constanza Romero, August Wilson's widow, and Bartlett Sher, "Joe Turner" director, being photographed outside the theater.]

But first, the party. Opening nights on Broadway traditionally start early, a legacy of the day when the critics had to be given extra time to sprint to their papers and file their reviews for the next morning. Although for some years critics have actually been invited to the final previews, the early opening survives, perhaps mainly to give the post-show party more time.

Last Thursday's "Joe Turner" opening was slated for 6:30 p.m.; my host, Ann Cattaneo, told me it would be at 6:45; and it actually got under way at 7:05. It came down at 9:50, a relatively trim 2¾ hours -- it had certainly been longer when I saw it two weeks earlier with a van load of students from my August Wilson course at Pitt.

So we were partying by 10, since the site was just a couple of doors down 44th Street at the Millennium Broadway Hotel, familiar to me as one of the two hotels we use for our PG Broadway ShowPlanes. The "Joe Turner" party took over the whole of the hotel's eighth floor, several large rooms opening onto each other, with what seemed like a half-dozen big buffet lines laden with not just a post-show snack but a real banquet.

I can't even guess how big the crowd was -- 300? 500? More? This is what it means to have an institutional producer -- few commercial producers would offer such hospitality.

[On the left, Pittsburgh actress/producer Tamara Tunie and actor/director Ruben Santiago-Hudson.]

My daughter Celia and I were at the Lincoln Center Theater Review table, hosted, as I say, by Ann Cattaneo, Lincoln Center dramaturg and co-executive editor (with John Guare) of the LCTR, the classy publication that supports Lincoln Center shows with background essays. I also got to meet Alexis Gargagliano, the editor, who had been a dream to deal with.

(Disclosure: my essay on the Pittsburgh Cycle and the Hill District is one of seven essays, poems and interviews in the "Joe Turner" issue, No. 48, available at the theater for a donation of $1. Or you can subscribe. Or download the essays from the Lincoln Center website. For a complete archive of past issues, go to the LCTR website -- but there, the most recent issue now available is No. 45, Spring, 2008.)

The party was most fun as another of the recurring gatherings of the August Wilson Theatrical Family, a movable feast I've been able to dip into at other openings over the years. I'm always interested in touching base with the actors I know from past shows, many of whom I've interviewed.

[On the right, Michael Cummings (Ruben), Amari Rose Leigh (Zonia) and Danai Gurira (Martha).]

But first comes the real family, represented on this occasion just by August's widow, Constanza Romero, and his oldest daughter (by his first marriage), Sakina Ansari, plus Dena Levitin, Constanza's assistant in managing the estate. All three were their usual friendly selves.

This was very much Constanza's party, of course -- it was her and August's friendship with Bartlett Sher when he ran the Intiman Theatre in Seattle that led to her approving him to direct this "Joe Turner," the first non-African American to direct one of the plays on Broadway. I was happy to talk with her at some length about her plans for August's papers and unpublished works.

They and others asked about Pittsburgh's August Wilson Center for African American Culture, which plans a soft, ceremonial opening sometime in the next few months and the real thing in the fall. I had to explain, as usual, that the Center's name doesn't mean it will be a center for the study or celebration of August Wilson. Although his work is among the performing and visual art it will celebrate and present, it is the August Wilson Center mainly in the same way that the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center also honor their namesakes.

Chief among the stalwarts of the theatrical family I talked with at the party were Anthony Chisholm, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, S. Epatha Merkerson, Paul Butler and Willis Burks II. I spotted Samuel L. Jackson (also the husband of LaTanya Richardson Jackson, playing Bertha).

[On the left, Amari Rose Leigh (Zonia) poses for a picture with Marsha Stephanie Blake (Mattie); Sakina Ansari is in the middle rear.)

I missed some others reported present at the show, including Julianne Moore, Edie Falco, Debra Winger (wife of Arliss Howard, playing Selig) and Spike Lee.

Those with a Pittsburgh connection I was able to talk to included Homewood novelist John Edgar Wideman (my first time to meet this handsome man -- he told me about one long encounter with August, a new friendship cut off by his early death); old friends Tamara Tunie of Homestead and CMU and Kent Gash, also of CMU; Elizabeth Van , who directed "Piano Lesson" at CMU last year; Dormont's Stephen Flaherty and his two partners, (personal) Trevor Hardwick and (artistic) Lynn Ahrens; and Michael Mitnick, young playwright with a future.

I also talked with most of the cast members, especially Ernie Hudson (Seth), Marsha Stephanie Blake (Mattie), Danai Gurira (Martha), young Amari Rose Leigh (Zonia; she was delighted to hear her character was named for August's grandmother); and understudy Nyambi Nyambi, who told me he'd found two of the characters' names in blues songs.

[On the right, at the end of the party: Constanza Romero and Dena Levitin surrounding actor Anthony Chisholm.]

Among August's many accomplishments, he could take pride in providing artistic opportunity and challenge to such a large and talented theatrical family.

And if a fraction of those I've offered to take on a tour of August Wilson's Hill take me up on the offer, I'm going to be busy.

Stage Review: 'How I Learned to Drive' at Off The Wall

2009-03-28T07:37:00Z

I finally made it down to Off the Wall Productions in Little Washington the weekend before last. (That it took me so long to write this review suggests what it means to be semi-retired -- i.e., as busy as ever.) And I discovered that Off The Wall is an ambitious little art theater with a big appetite for challenging plays, witness its current show (current only through Saturday), "How I learned to Drive."

Context is a big part of it, of course. "How I Learned to Drive" wouldn't be as big a surprise staged in Pittsburgh, where you expect edgier subject matter. In fact, in Pittsburgh it was first staged by the Public Theater, not the most cutting-edge company in town. That was in 1999, during the regime of previous artistic director Eddie Gilbert, hard on the heels of its New York debut in early 1998.

But playwright Paula Vogel's theme, the sexual abuse of a girl by her uncle, 27 years her senior, and its effect on her life, is legitimately disturbing. And it's made even more disturbing, perversely enough, by being presented as such a comical, confiding, all-American family memory play, and using the whole gamut of possible metaphoric connections between two of the rites of maturity, learning to drive and sex.

(In the picture, Erika Cuenca as L'il Bit is at the right. The others are Allison Cahill, F.J. Hartland and Lissa Brennan, who play different roles but principally L'il Bit's aunt, grandpa and grandma. Click here for a picture of L'il Bit and Uncle Peck.)

Of course we like L'il Bit, now nearly 35 as she narrates her own story. But astonishingly, we rather like her Uncle Peck, too, even though we know right off that he has some far-from avuncular designs on her. But he seems more a chivalrous romantic than a pedophile, and he brings something appealing into L'il Bit's life, so it's easy enough for us to close our eyes to the seamy side and the potential effects of what he's up to.

His wife does that. As apparently often happens, she rather blames L'il Bit for attracting her husband. She doesn't want to call him on whatever he's doing -- she'd rather blame the victim and hope that her husband will come back to her eventually. In other words, she's a co-conspirator, if only by inaction.

L'il Bit herself is also guilty of downplaying Peck's abuse of her, if only in avoiding until the last minute her full revelation of what it was. But lest we wax censorious, we should notice that we're implicated, too, because, as I say, we've also wanted to make excuses for Uncle Peck.

Gradually we discover the costs that L'il Bit has hidden. At the end of the play, in re-living for us her first sexual encounter with Peck, when she was just 11, L'il Bit finally tells us that was "the last time I ever lived in my body." And that's even though, when she turns 18 (as she tells us from the vantage point of 17 years later), she breaks clear of him. But she does it only by dropping out of college and cutting herself off from her family, too. Now, almost twice as old as she was when she last saw him, she still suffers emotionally.

As this brief plot summary suggests, the play jumps all over time-wise, driving forward and then looping back, and then back again, the better to introduce us to the story from many angles, before finally making its full import clear. Along the way, there's plenty of humor, but it's often of the slightly queasy, rueful kind, such as the social consequences of L'il Bit's discomfort with her large breasts. We watch her memories of suffering in gym class, showing a self-consciousness that oddly mirrors Peck's.

There are clearly similarities between them, and not just because they share embarrassment over their hapless, trashy relatives. Just as he's addicted to liquor and young girls, even though he knows both are bad for him, so too she is addicted to him, as the most worldly guy around, even though she knows that even the circumscribed sexual relationship they develop is bad for her.

Erika Cuenca is a feeling, delicate actress who balances L'il Bit carefully on the thin line between insightful and obtuse, giving a very fine performance. Her bouts of apparent happiness are constantly shadowed by ominous clouds -- you yearn for her, even though you know it's not going to turn out well. All I find lacking is an early touch of the hurt that we know is festering, even though she hasn't told us about it.

As Peck, Ron Siebert matches Cuenca in delicacy. He doesn't have quite the scope for comedy that she does, and his performance lacks variety, but within its carefully circumscribed limits, it has a perverse heroism, freeing her at the end to seek herself in flight. We don't get inside Peck the way we do L'il Bit, but what the playwright and actor do show us is cautionary and deeply sad.

In addition to the two principles, the play's "Greek Chorus" (F.J. Hartland, Lissa Brennan and Allison Cahill) plays a variety of (mainly) dim-witted relatives, getting lots of laughs in the process. The firm, clarifying direction is by Linda Haston, and all the designers' work helps support the play.

Inevitably, there's rude language of different kinds, extended by double-entendre. Pedophilia, L'il Bit tells us, "has nothing to do with bicycling." This isn't a play to take young students too. For that reason alone, it's indeed a surprise to see it in Little Washington, even though that's a college town.

It's even more of a surprise to find such an ambitious little theater, using Equity actors and staging plays with polish and professionalism, in an intimate theater carved out of an old house. I say I just "discovered" Off The Wall, as though that were somehow to my credit, when it's actually been there right along, for a year. I've been meaning to get there to see what they can do, and I'm glad I finally made it. Thanks to artistic director Virginia Wall Gruenert and managing director Hans Gruenert, Washington apparently has a capable small professional theater in its midst.

For the final performances (Fri.-Sat. 7:30 p.m.), call 724-873-3576 or visit www.insideoffthewall.com. Off The Wall is at 147 N. Main St. in Little Washington.