Sizzlin Ballroom

SIZZLIN’ BALLROOM: BURN THE FLOOR’S CREATIVE FORCE:
JASON GILKISON
By: ELLIS NASSOUR

NYTimes critic Charles Isherwood termed Burn the Floor, the ballroom dancing spectacular now at the Longacre, "every bit as flashy and tacky as you would expect." WOW! Those two qualities, both of which are so alien to Broadway!, are perhaps what’s making the Aussie production such a hit. That and the fact that thanks to smash TV shows such as Dancing with the Stars the world seems dance crazy.

Broadway’s Fall Season

Thrillers. Memoirs. Musicals. Comedies anyone? The stage is set for a diverse season on Broadway. Here’s the lineup:
By Isa Goldberg

2009 Tony Award Predictions

By Gordin & Christiano

Best Play: God Of Carnage
Yasmina Reza’s shallow dissection of contemporary social hypocrisy will win in a weak year, where the best new plays were seen Off- Broadway. Note: the Pulitzer Prize winning Ruined by Lynn Nottage is still playing at MTC.

Best Musical: Billy Elliot
The musical based on the movie of the same name is perfection and recently won 10 Drama Desk Awards. Billy will dance away with multiple Tonys as well.

Tony Awards

By Ellis Nassour

On Sunday, June 7, the Broadway community gathers at Radio City Music Hall for the American Theatre Wing’s 63rd annual Tony Awards. The show will be carried as a live, three-hour special on CBS, beginning at 8 P. M.
At Wednesday morning’s reception for the nominees, who were announced only the day before, several interesting facts about the Awards came to light.

Drama Desk Nominees Feted

Drama Desk Nominees Feted; Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton Reunite; Fonda and Channing Among Presenters for May 17 Awards to be Hosted by Harvey Fierstein
by Ellis Nassour

Timing is everything in theater. And at Friday’s cocktail reception for the 54th Annual Drama Desk Awards nominees the timing couldn’t be better for 9 to 5: the movie co-stars Dolly Parton, in a luminous black and white outfit and making her Broadway debut as composer of 9 to 5: the musical; and Jane Fonda, back on Broadway after a longgggggg absence in 33 Variations, carrying her precious dog Tulia.

EARTHA KITT (1927-2008)

The eternally youthful multi-talented singer, dancer, cabaret entertainer has left us.
Renowned as the self proclaimed "sex kitten" in a career that spanned five decades, the actress was active as recently as last September where she performed at Cafe Carlyle. Her accomplishments cover every facet of the entertainment industry, but she may be best know to millions as the Cat Woman of the long running "Batman" television series. Orson Wells called her "the most exciting woman in the world." And the world will be a little less exciting now that she’s gone.

Fashion On Broadway & Beyond

Photography by Barry Gordin

Tricia Walsh Smith wearing a striking Catherine Malandrino at the opening of “Deuce”

HARLOLD PINTER DIES

The Noble prize winning British playwright Harold Pinter, acclaimed for his dark menacing stories of bleak lives, passed away at 78 after a prolonged battle with cancer. He won the Noble Prize for literature in 2005 and his acceptance speech at the time was most profound. Just this past season, Pinter was represented on Broadway with a star studded revival of his classic The Homecoming.

Liza’s At The Palace and WOW!

by Ellis Nassour

"Quiet please, there’s a lady on stage.
She may not be the latest rage,
But she’s singing and she means it;
And she deserves a little silence…"

[Carole Bayer-Sager/Peter Allen]

Well, she didn’t get it!

The audience response was near pandemonium. After Liza with a Z took six bows, including ones with her pianist Billy Stritch, music director Michael Berkowitz and the 12-piece orchestra, she reluctantly left the stage, completely drained and wet from perspiration, wrapped in Stritch’s arms.

Words of Wit & Wisdom

Tom McMorrow’s "Words of Wit and Wisdom"

THEATERLIFE.COM has discovered a delightful new book for which we hope to help find a publisher. Written by Tom McMorrow, a former theater critic of the Daily News, past president of The Drama Desk and editor of the Drama Desk News for all lovers of elegant language, Words of Wit and Wisdom has been hailed by educators (see below), who have called it “monumental” and compared it to Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary.

Barbara Cook Celebration

Philharmonic Celebrates Barbara Cook Milestone

by Ellis Nassour
Barbara Cook caricatures by SAM NORKIN

The New York Philharmonic will host a belated celebration of and with Barbara Cook to mark her 80th birthday, which was October 25. Miss Cook will reminisce about her storied career and sing from her lengthy repertory of songs by Bernstein and Comden and Green, Lerner and Loewe, Arlen and Mercer, Gershwin and Caesar, Hammerstein and Romberg and, among others, a friend named Stephen. The concerts are Monday and Tuesday, November 19 and 20, Mo at 7:30 at Avery Fisher Hall. An additional concert is also set for Tuesday, January 8. 2008

Fashion Benefit At Kleinfeld

KLEINFELD generously sponsored an Afternoon of Elegance, a glamorous Fashion Show with a dash of bold modern style, at their magnificent 35,000 square foot showroom to benefit the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. One hundred seventy five guests attended a private Champagne Reception and Fashion Show at Kleinfeld’s extraordinary fashion emporium, which runs the length of an entire city block on West 20th Street in the heart of Chelsea.

The Lady In Question

Drag legend extraordinaire Charles Busch is making a return engagement to the Bay Street Theater MainStage in a revival of his much acclaimed satire The Lady in Question, which begins previews on August 14 and will run through September 2. Mr. Busch was last seen here during the summer of 2004 in a revival of Auntie Mame on the MainStage, when he played another legend Mame Dennis, made famous by yet another legend, the film and theater star Rosalind Russell. Christopher Ashley, who helmed the current Broadway hit Xanadu, will direct Lady. He also directed the outstanding Broadway productions of All Shook Up and the revival of The Rocky Horror Picture Show earning a Tony nomination in the process.

World Premiere at Bay Street

Turandot: The Rumble for the Ring
By Gordin & Christiano

Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner, the creators of a new rock opera, Turandot: The Rumble for the Ring, which will be making its World Premiere at Bay Street from July 10 – August 5, are a dynamic duo that just happen to be married to each other. I met with them a couple of weeks ago at a rehearsal studio on the 5th floor of Playwright’s Horizons on West 42nd Street in New York City, where Diane was hard at work putting the cast through their paces in preparation for this week’s opening. Their hip new musical is based on a classic fairytale "Turnadot," not the Puccini opera, although, their account bears many similarities. Their Turandot, however, is set in the violent World of Professional Wrestling, but the press release declares the show is "jam-packed with some of the greatest arias from other operas…only this time they are set to a rock beat." After watching a portion of a rehearsal and chatting with the stimulating couple, I am convinced this clever theatrical event may be one of the most unique happenings on the East End this summer.

Legally Blonde

Orfeh and Andy Karl Score As Paulette and Kyle in Legally Blonde
by Ellis Nassour

“Tweenboppers” rejoice: Legally Blonde has arrived on Broadway! Shop, shop, shop to your heart’s content in the show boutique.

There’s good news onstage, too. Laura Bell Bundy, Christian Borle, Orfeh, Andy Karl and all the Legally Blonde gang will be around a while in the show that got almost across-the-boards positive reviews. It’s been exciting audiences for weeks now, and has just been Drama Desk-nominated for Outstanding Musical. One might expect a few nods come Tony Award nomination time.