Inside Theater

It’s quite understandable if you roll your eyes at the thought of yet another movie being transformed into a Broadway musical, but the outstanding Once is a rare exception. “I had seen the movie on my own when it first came out and loved it,” recalls Tony Award-winning lighting designer Natasha Katz. “I remember reading in the New York Times that they were turning it into a musical and hoped that somebody would ask me to do it. I don’t always feel that way, and I was lucky enough to actually have been asked.”

The phantasmagorical paintings of early Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch offered fantastic visions of Heaven and Hell that not only thrived during the repressive Spanish Inquisition but have influenced generations of painters in the subsequent 500 years since his death, not to mention being important forerunners to the 20th century Surrealist movement. Yet while his highly-detailed, thematically rich tapestries — the most famous of which is the powerful triptych The Garden Of Earthly Delights — have beguiled people’s imaginations for centuries, there have not been many films or plays that have delved into the life of this stunning and original artist.

It’s very rare when an off-Broadway production arouses international controversy and sets the stage for a highly anticipated Broadway run, but in the case of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, that is exactly what happened. Composing legend Stephen Sondheim wrote a letter to The New York Times that was like the musical “shot heard ‘round the world,” condemning the Boston-based production by director Diane Paulus at the ART last fall before he had even seen it. While that is negative attention, that’s still a lot of free publicity, and people’s ears perked up. Sondheim’s issue was with the fact that the show, being transferred from operatic to musical theater form, was going to include some modern revisions that were actually approved by the Gershwin estate.

Lysistrata Jones, which recently finished a brief run on Broadway, was a fun, breezy, loose take on the classic Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, about the titular character’s desire to end The Peloponnesian War by having Greek women withhold sex from their lovers until peace is negotiated.

Although Noël Coward’s witty play Private Lives is an intimate tale told with only five characters, the set design for the latest Broadway production (which just closed), imported from London’s West End through a run in Toronto, offers impressive and visually striking sets to accompany the bedroom farce. But it makes sense to have grand sets for emotionally explosive comedy, which finds a divorced couple (Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross) accidentally staying adjacent to one another while honeymooning with their new spouses on the French Riviera. Naturally, all sorts of nostalgic sexual shenanigans ensue. Originally written in 1930, the play resonates with modern audiences in its mischievous tone and sly views on marriage and divorce.

Lighting designer Bob Barnhart has 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry under his belt, including 17 years as an LD working on the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, the Miss USA Pageant and with performances by musical artists ranging from Barbara Streisand to The Rolling Stones. He also has a theatre background, worked for Flying By Foy for seven years. But no matter how much experience one has accumulated, there is always something new to contend with, and in the case of the well-received Andrea Bocelli concert in Central Park this past September — captured on the new live DVD, Concerto: One Night In Central Park — the unknown factor was Mother Nature herself. “It’s the wind that really did us in,” Barnhart tells PLSN when discussing his design work on the event. The show still looked great, despite the rain during the first half of the show that had umbrellas popping up everywhere.

Those stepping into the Marquis Theatre on Broadway to see the current revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies are immediately consumed by a theatre draped in tattered gray tarps that extend into the sides of the venue and above the stage. Sounds of wind moaning in the background waft out of the speakers, conjuring a ghostly atmosphere. These elements help to set the stage, so to speak, for a set spotlighting a dilapidated theater where members of an old follies group meet for one last time to reunite and reminisce before the structure will be torn down.

One of the hottest tickets on Broadway is Anything Goes, the vibrant, colorful revival of the famed Cole Porter musical. The mixture of classic showtunes, a lively cast, the return of the charming Joel Grey and the exuberant energy of star Sutton Foster has won over audiences and critics. The fun, fluffy tale of romantic and criminal shenanigans on the high seas was a hit in the Depression and now resonates with modern audiences seeking similar relief from economic stress. And the new production’s three-tiered boat set, which includes smaller set pieces that slide out from its nooks and crannies, is a triumph of scenic design.

Brian MacDevitt Lights Three Distinct Worlds

Fresh from the minds of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Avenue Q composer/lyricist Robert Lopez, Book of Mormon is the hottest ticket on Broadway right now, and with good reason. The profane-yet-profound send-up of religious faith is ripe with hilarious humor as a naive Mormon elder seeks to get sent on a mission to Orlando, FL but ends up in Uganda, Africa — with a socially awkward and annoying peer.

It’s redundant to proclaim Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark as the largest, costliest and most ambitious production in the history of Broadway. But when one breaks it down on a technical level and in terms of numbers, it becomes really impressive.

Stephen Aldy Guirgis’ play, The Motherf**ker With the Hat, automatically created a stir with its bleeped title (it was referred to as The Mother With the Hat during this year’s Tony Awards ceremony), and it definitely created a reaction among its audience. Many people who probably expected to see a lot of co-star Chris Rock’s comedic shtick were treated to a powerful show about a recovering alcoholic, played by Tony nominee Bobby Cannavale (one of six nominees on the show), coping with his own weaknesses and his girlfriend’s perceived infidelity while dealing with the dubious motivations and wisdom of his AA sponsor, played by Rock.

Incandescent lighting has been crossfading with more-efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for years, with interest spurred on by, among other things, government regulation. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed into law by then-President Bush, will start phasing out the most common incandescent light bulbs in 2012.