Inside Theater

One of the most buzz-worthy Broadway shows of the spring season is Kinky Boots, the pop musical from composer/lyricist Cyndi Lauper and writer Harvey Fierstein. Adapted from the 2005 British film of the same name, which was itself inspired by real-life events, it tells the tale of Charlie Price, an aimless twentysomething who moves to London with his success-driven girlfriend Nicola, only to be summoned back to his hometown of Northampton after his father passes away. With the family shoe business deteriorating, Charlie reluctantly takes over to try to save jobs and the company. A chance encounter with a drag queen named Lola inspires him to specialize in kinky boots for cross-dressing men who need strong high heels, but at first it’s a hard sell to his employees, some of whom will need to accept Lola as the designer and accept their change of direction. It’s a story about overcoming prejudice and sometimes embracing the outrageous.

The social graces, traditional roles and quaint backdrops of 1950s Kansas belie an unease that some people feel underneath the norms that they conform to in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Picnic. When college dropout and Hollywood failure Hal Carter comes home to roost, lacking any real vocation or direction, he reconnects with his well-to-do college buddy Alan Seymour and meets Seymour’s girlfriend Madge Potts and her sister and single mother. While everyone prepares for a big town picnic, and Alan prepares to spend time with his sweetheart before heading away for a semester at school, Hal and Madge become irrepressibly drawn to each other, sharing an urge to flee the small town, which threatens the peace, harmony and conformity of those around them.

The latest Broadway incarnation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has generated a big buzz, thanks to star Scarlett Johansson as Maggie, and the well-rounded cast includes Ben Walker (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) as Brick, veteran Irish actor Ciarán Hinds as Big Daddy and Broadway veteran Debra Monk as Big Mama. Williams’ tale focuses on a wealthy plantation family whose patriarch (Hinds) may be dying of cancer. He has two sons as potential heirs to his cotton business — the self-serving Gooper and his wife and brood of five bratty children, and the alcoholic Brick (Walker) and his distraught, rejected wife Maggie (Johansson) who are childless. Gooper is strongly vying for the estate, but Big Daddy favors the troubled Brick, who spurns his wife physically and mourns the death of his close friend Skipper. On the evening of Big Daddy’s birthday, a firestorm of emotions is swelling and ready to burst in the household.

Charles Dickens never completed the story of Edwin Drood because he died during its creation. Thus composer/lyricist Rupert Holmes fashioned a tongue-in-cheek, self-referential musical (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) about the story that takes place in London’s Music Hall Royale in 1895. It’s a show within a show — there is a chairman leading us through everything, and the actors even come out in costume prior to the show to warm theatergoers up before setting about performing a bawdy murder mystery.

David Korins loves Annie, and knew that he had a huge responsibility in designing sets for the first re-imagined version of the famed 1977 musical, whose numerous hit songs (“Tomorrow,” “Maybe,” “It’s A Hard Knock Life”) are embedded in our cultural DNA. The current Broadway incarnation is the third production of the beloved show, and the first not directed by original director/lyricist Martin Charnin. Director James Lapine chose Korins as his scenic designer, and the latter felt quite honored to be a part of a team that wanted to make the show equally engaging for adults as children. Known for creative scenic work on shows like Godspell, Passing Strange and The Pee-wee Herman Show, Korins wanted to help redefine the musical — originally inspired by a Harold Gray comic strip, about little orphan Annie, plucked from an abusive Lower East Side orphanage to spend the Christmas holidays with rich and powerful Daddy Warbucks, who then becomes her benefactor — for a new generation.

A rustic, seemingly peaceful New England home erupts into chaos overnight when a bickering middle aged couple (Martha and George) receive a late-night visit from a younger couple (Honey and Nick) after they all attend a university faculty schmoozefest. What begins as mildly sarcastic banter with an undercurrent of middle aged marital anxiety and professional jealousy devolves into a twisted game of emotional cat and mouse as the older couple teases, coaxes, derides, flirts with and tries to dominate the younger couple. Things progressively deteriorate in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? until the generational clash, fueled by ideological differences, sexual tension and dark secrets, reaches its morbid denouement.

There are many expectations that come with the term “Broadway musical:” flashy numbers, dazzling lights and sounds, extravagant sets and eye-popping colors. Chaplin: The Musical, a funny and poignant look into the life and career of legendary film comedian Charlie Chaplin, offers a majority of those things, but when it comes to sets and color palette, the creators offer a different approach. Given that their subject became iconic through silent black and white films, director Warren Carlyle and his creative team create a monochromatic look with desaturated colors to make us feel like we are entering that bygone era, and the numerous set pieces are staged more minimally than one might expect.

Like many other disciplines in the theater, lighting design has undergone a big shift in recent years as technological innovations have increased and as the demand for more eye-popping shows has grown. At times it feels like Broadway has gone Hollywood, but seasoned LDs know how to strike the right balance between the artistic and the technical. Not every big show has to be over-the-top to be effective; it all comes down to what the show and its story require. Both Don Holder and Ken Billington have tackled their share of smaller productions, big extravaganzas and other projects. Their latest credits include Annie and Chaplin: The Musical, respectively. Their combined experience came to the fore when they sat down with PLSN in Billington’s office to discuss their craft, their careers and their philosophies.

Broadway musicals lean towards spectacle — flashy lighting, dynamic choreography, show-stopping numbers to rouse the masses. But sometimes subtle is better, especially when it comes to a tragicomic play like End of the Rainbow, which is interspersed with musical numbers by famed singer Judy Garland, portrayed with pizzazz by Tony Award nominee Tracie Bennett.

While Broadway has become a haven for family-friendly entertainment, some people want to spice things up along the Great White Way. That’s where the production of Spiegelworld’s Empire comes in. The irreverent show is a bawdy mix of circus stunts, cabaret performance and vaudevillian hijinks filled with innuendo, naughty jokes and a touch of skin. The circus acts range from a highly agile acrobatic trio clad in lingerie to twirling, high-speed skaters to an amazing balancing act with bones and a feather. It’s a rollicking good time for adults.

The producers of the Tony Award-nominated Ghost: The Musical certainly wanted to create an eye-popping visual experience for their audience, and after two incarnations in England (Manchester, and then London), the Broadway version is the most video-intensive and tightly-sequenced of them all. It’s not simply telling the story of artist Molly Jensen and her banker husband Sam Wheat, who, after being murdered, emerges as a restless spirit and tries to warn Molly about impending danger through the assistance of psychic Oda Mae Brown. And it’s not about replicating the tone and look of the movie. It’s about creating a unique theatrical experience where a love story spanning life and death unfolds, but along the way we get the thrill of witnessing floating objects onstage, experiencing a supernatural subway ride and watching Sam’s spirit walk through a door.

The recent revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man features a stellar cast performing a 52-year-old political drama that is as relevant and important today as when it first emerged. The compassionate Secretary William Russell (John Larroquette) and his less experienced, cutthroat competitor Senator Joseph Cantwell (Eric McCormack) play political rivals in the same party seeking the endorsement of former President Arthur “Artie” Hockstader (James Earl Jones). The escalating drama echoes the dirty tactics being used in modern politics, and the witty, often biting dialogue really transports audiences into this intense race that unfolds primarily in two hotel suites during convention time.