This is my second post in five days about a WNYC show. Clearly, while everybody else dashes off into the new media, I’m hunkered over the radio dial, blissfully churning my own butter and putting up preserves. But this interview with Willem Dafoe on the Leonard Lopate show adds a fun dimension to the new Richard Foreman spectacular Idiot Savant at the Public, particularly when he raises a wicked eyebrow (you can actually hear it over the air) at Foreman’s avowal that this time he’s serious! He’s quitting! No more plays for him! Willem, for one, thinks Foreman will be back.

If you’re hungry for a little vintage Dafoe (not to mention a baby-faced Jon Stewart) watch this 2002 interview, in which he manages to shoehorn in some touching chat about his love for the theater, or pop over to UbuWeb to watch Rhyme ‘Em to Death, the Wooster Group’s bizarre film version of the “trial of the goat” sequence from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Perfect amuse-bouches for the Idiot Savant…

Stephen Mangan in The Norman Conquests

The theater world rose to arms this week when news broke that CBS—the national network that villainously agrees to broadcast New York’s local theater awards in three hours of prime time every year—was plotting to relegate the awards for Best Revival of a Play, Best Book and Best Choreography to the ghetto of preshow presentation, rubbing elbows with the awards for design and orchestration. Among the most prominent voices against this decision were Kevin Spacey (whose Old Vic company is producing The Norman Conquests) and the composer Stephen Schwartz, with the former focusing on Best Revival and the latter on Best Score. (Amid the hubbub, hardly anyone seemed to remember that these same three awards had been similarly banished to the pretelecast slot last year.)

Then came word, via Spacey’s Twitter feed, that the situation was evolving: “Great news theatre lovers,” he wrote early this afternoon. “Got official word that the Tony Awards have reconsidered and Best Play Revival will now be on the telecast on CBS.” We certainly hope that turns out to be true. We do not count ourselves among the diehards who hold that every award should be on the CBS telecast; asking people across the country to care about stage shows they will probably never see is tricky enough, without also expecting them to give a hoot about who designed the lighting for those shows. Choreography, sadly, may have to be sacrificed into that realm nowadays; but Best Book and, especially, Best Revival of a Play really do belong in the big leagues.

The latter, in fact, is one of this year’s most exciting categories. Will The Norman Conquests capture the day, as most pundits seem to expect? Or will Mary Stuart, Godot or Joe Turner stage an upset? As you watch the awards, feel free to check the winners against our bold predictions here—and keep your eye out for possible upsets in the categories of Best Score, Best Featured Actor in a Musical and more. We’ll be here after the show and the next morning to deliver our postmortems on what everyone always says is a boring show but which everyone also secretly knows is a pretty exciting night.

When the Tony nominations were announced on May 5, many observers were surprised that, from the cast of Anthony Page’s excellent revival of Waiting for Godot, only one actor had been nominated: not leads Nathan Lane or Bill Irwin, or John Goodman for his acclaimed supporting turn, but John Glover: the least famous actor of the group, in the smallest of the four main parts. But there’s no denying that Glover—who won a 1995 Tony for Best Featured Actor in Love! Valour! Compassion! (which also costarred Lane, who was also surprisingly snubbed that year)—makes a fierce impression as the feral servant Lucky, who is silent save for a single, lengthy, tour de force outburst of aphasic verbiage. We met up with him recently to discuss his performance.

Congratulations! Are the fists and fur flying backstage because only you got a Tony nomination?
No, no! I called Nathan yesterday morning and he was laughing on the phone about it. That guy is great, he’s got his head screwed on the right way. He’s amazing. Read more »

Well, our 2009 Tony predictions are now officially up, right here, and we’re feeling the pressure. Last year, we had our best showing ever, nailing 23 of our 26 2008 Tony Award predictions—the second-best result of all pundits’ predictions, behind only Broadway.com’s Paul Wontorek. Will the wily Wontorek best us again this year? Check our predictions against the winners on Sunday night to find out. But meanwhile, we hope our guesses will help keep you afloat in your local Tony pool.

Dividing the Estate, by the late Horton Foote, tracks the disintegration of a family legacy, and is very much an ensemble work. But in the play’s 2007 Off Broadway production at Primary Stages as well as its Broadway transfer last year, Hallie Foote—the playwright’s daughter, and a premier interpreter of his work—emerged as first among equals in a very fine cast. For her superb efforts, she has been rewarded with a Tony nomination in the category of Best Featured Actress in a Play.

Time Out New York: On the page, your part in Dividing the Estate doesn’t seem as funny as you made it. Was it conceived that way?
Hallie Foote: The play had been done before, a long time ago in a regional theater. I saw it, and I don’t remember it being done like that. When I work on a part, sometimes I get an instinct about it—and I just had this instinct about Mary Jo. They actually wanted me to play the other sister, because they kind of think of me that way—I do parts like that. But there’s this other side of me. And a lot of the stuff that happened, we discovered in the rehearsal process—like the temper tantrums and all that stuff. That was all me. But it came out of the lines and the language and the situation, you know? And Michael [Wilson], my director, is terrific—he just let me go for it.

Did you get any input or guidance on the performance from your late father?
I sometimes would ask questions while we were in previews, just to make sure. One risk I run an actress is that my voice can get a little shrill sometimes—and he’d let me know if he thought it was. At one point I was pushing a little and he said, “Ya know, you’ve got to relax, and not do that.” So it was more technical stuff with my dad. Occasionally he thought I was going off in a wrong direction, but not so much with this play. I think he thought I pretty much understood the character and how everything worked.

The play had a lot of Chekhovian elements. and a fascinating blend of actors to bring out all of its tones.
Yeah, it did. Someone like Liz [Ashley]—every night, she’s there 100 percent. You could just see this matriarch that was pulling the strings and getting these kids to go ballistic. It was very, very interesting to see each actor pick a kind of character element and really work with it. And then we all sort of tied it into this ensemble piece. I think that worked really well.

Are you involved with Signature Theatre Company’s season-long production next year of your father’s nine-play The Orphans’ Home Cycle?
Yes. I’m going to be in it, My dad finished it just before he died. He was able to see the first six, which I was totally happy about. And I am really proud of it. I think it’s going to be quite wonderful.

In the original Broadway production of Hair, the two largest roles, Claude and Berger, were played by the musical’s librettists, James Rado and Gerome Ragni. Forty years later, in the joyful new Hair revival, the authors’ shoes are being filled with authority by Gavin Creel and Will Swenson—both of whom have snagged Tony nominations for their work (Creel as Best Lead Actor, Swenson as Best Featured Actor). We recently grabbed them aside for a quick chat.

How are we gonna control the youth energy that you’re unleashing every night at the Hirschfeld?
Creel: Don’t! I don’t wanna control it at all. I want ’em to get on fire and go out on the streets and picket things.

It’s a youthquake!
Creel: Yeah, a youthquake. That’s a good way to put it. I want people to be joyfully unruly and, like, wake up. I feel like the cool thing about this show is that it’s speaking to teenagers. They think, Oh, yeah, this is ours.
Swenson: I love watching the parents who went through the ’60s bringing their kids and showing them, “Look! We were cool!” And hippie chic is all the rage right now, fashion-wise and movement-wise, so it’s cool to see the kids responding to that as something they have in common with their parents.

The characters you’re playing are supposed to be around 18 years old, right? How is that being handled?
Creel: Well, it’s being handled carefully. I talked to Diane when I first met her, and my two biggest questions were: How long is my wig gonna be, and, How old does my character have to be? Because I’m 33 years old, and I’m not gonna play an 18-year-old—I’m just not. And she said, “As long as you fall in the draft age, you can be any age that you want—but you have to be between 18 and 26.” And so I chose him to be 25 and, like, five months.

But Will’s character has a song about getting kicked out of high school.
Swenson: Yeah, but we figured that he’s also a rebel and was one of those kids that got held back and back. And I was like, “That might be a little bit of a stretch.” But then one night I was on the subway and—I’m not kidding you—two girls right next to me were talking about this loser guy in their high school, and they were like, “Get this—he is 25 years old!” “No, he’s not!” “No! It’s true! He’s been held back every year and he’s still in high school.” And I went, “Yes! Absolutely—it could happen.”

How do you maintain your energy, Will? Because you get to start that show at really high intensity and just keep driving it.
Swenson: I do a lot of cocaine and heroin. And then I drop acid, just to put a chill on the whole thing right before the show. [Laughs] No, I do a Red Bull now and then to try to up the energy; I’m an old man compared to these 20-year-old kids running around in the show. But…this sounds cheesy, maybe, but it’s one of those shows. You just go. Once you get out there, the energy from the audience and the tribe is palpable and you can’t hold back.
Creel: He doesn’t. He gives 190,000 percent. And then he’ll come off and be, like, limping, and I’ll be like, “Do it a little less!’ “Okay, I will!” And then he goes out and hits the high notes and stretches his body around.
Swenson: It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked onstage, by far. It’s a lot.
Creel: It’s amazing, because they talk about the original company doing methamphetamines and dropping acid and doing the show, or smoking pot, or drinking and partying. I don’t know that they did it all the time, but it was a lot.
Swenson: I’ve spoken with them. They did.
Creel: Okay, they did. The thought of it! I just don’t know how they did it. I guess because there wasn’t a mold—they were sort of setting the bar. But I can’t do that. I’m more disciplined in this show than I’ve been in any show that I’ve been in.We’re steaming and drinking tea and warming up…
Swenson: We’re taking care of ourselves the best we know how, and I still wake up every morning and I’m like, “Did I break a rib?”

For a woman who has a brassy, juicy role in the season’s No. 1 musical, Haydn Gwynne seems like the humblest diva on the Street. Gwynne originated the stage role of Mrs. Wilkinson in Billy Elliot over in London, and now she’s been nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for re-creating it in New York. At the nominee press event earlier this month, we caught up with the shy, earnest but classy performer, who just might ride the Billy Elliot juggernaut to Tony glory come June 7.

Time Out New York: How’s the Broadway run been going for you? It’s been six months now, right? Pining for England?
Haydn Gwynne: It’s been more than six months! I came over in July, when we first started rehearsal. Shows have opened, closed and collected awards in the time that it took us just to rehearse our show. It’s great. It’s been exhausting, I can’t pretend. I’m here with my kids, they’re in school here and I’d love to have more time off to see more of New York, or America even. But this is the reason that I’m here, to do this job. And fortunately, this city’s got a lot of energy, so willy-nilly you’re buoyed up along with it. Read more »

Marc Kudisch has made a specialty out of playing bad guys on Broadway: the preening Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, the manic Jackie in The Wild Party, the tyrannical Baron in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the Snake in The Apple Tree. So when the creative team behind 9 to 5 needed someone to play Franklin Hart—the show’s archetypal male-chauvinist-pig boss man—they knew just whom to ask. Not surprisingly, the role has netted Kudisch his third Tony nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Musical. We pulled him aside for questioning at the Tony nominee press reception.

Read more »

Not everyone admired Arthur Laurents’s new revival of West Side Story quite as much as we did, but about one thing, at least, everyone agreed: As Anita, the girlfriend of a Puerto Rican gang leader, Karen Olivo is giving a breakthrough performance. It has earned her, among other plaudits, a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, a category in which she must be considered the front-runner. We caught up with her at the Tony nominees junket.

Read more »

We’re three weeks away from the Tony Awards and things are getting really, really tense. Check it out:

It’s official, rumor-mongerers! Child star, sitcom cad, webisode camp villain, out-and-proud gay celebrity, musical-theater cutie and all-around funny, funny, funny man Neil Patrick Harris will host the 63rd annual Tony Awards on June 7 from Radio City Music Hall. Good news? Bad news? Meh news? Sound off, dear opinionated reader!

Never let it be said that Christopher Sieber isn’t working hard for his Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Musical. The strapping and likable actor plays vertically challenged Lord Farquaad in Shrek the Musical, and it’s fair to say he got the job on his knees. He portrays the diminutive, villainous Farquaad skittering around the stage at half his height, most of his body hidden by a black bodysuit. We talked to him at the Tony nominee press event. Read more »

At last week’s Tony Awards nominee meet-and-greet, we caught up with the wonderful Harriet Walter. She’s nominated for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her icily brilliant turn as Elizabeth I in Mary Stuart. Her costar (and co-nominee), Janet McTeer, might have the title role, but Walter gives her friend a run for her money onstage and off. Q&A after the jump. Read more »

Yesterday, we took a first look at how the Tony Awards nominations stack up against our own choices. Today, we finish the job by examining the eight acting categories—several of which were extremely competitive this year, especially on the distaff side. Given the sheer volume of fine performances, a few were bound to be snubbed. But did the Tony nominators make the right calls? Let’s see.

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We’re still playing catch-up here after a long and grueling several hours this morning spent interviewing a variety of Tony nominees as they paraded through the eighth floor at the Broadway Millennium Hotel. We talked to scads of actors and behind-the-scenes folks for all the nominated shows. But guess what? There were lots of people we saw who (phooey) decided not to spend time with Adam and me. Could it be because we reviewed their shows poorly? Or is it simply because they are great big **STARS** and we are just smart alecks with impeccable taste and witty puns? Lord only knows. Fact: Liza Minnelli made funny faces for the cameras but didn’t stop to give us any quotables. More after the jump. Read more »

On Friday, we posted our list of TONY nominees: the shows and actors that would have been nominated for Tony Awards this year had we at TONY done the nominating. So how did the actual nods match up against our choices? Reasonably well—but not, alas, perfectly. Let’s take a closer look, shall we? Today, we look at the nonacting categories.

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Let the bitching over Tony nominations begin! Namely, how could the nominating committee shut out Simon McBurney’s exceptional revival of All My Sons? The production ran in the fall (Oct 16–Jan 11) and Tony’s short-term memory could be a factor. At the time, everyone was abuzz about the fact that Mrs Tom Cruise was making her Broadway debut. Katie Holmes is certainly not much of a stage animal, but she acquitted herself fairly well. She had vital support from the truly stellar Patrick Wilson, John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest. The real achievement, though, was the overall power of McBurney’s vision, how his abstract staging elevated Arthur Miller’s 1947 postwar social drama into a relevant and particularly American tragedy. See Adam Feldman’s typically astute review here. And guest blogger Isaac Butler had some intelligent analysis here. All My Sons made Team Theater’s Best of 2008 lists—all three of us! Yet somehow Tony left it out. Mind you, the ones they did nominate—Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Mary Stuart, The Norman Conquests and Waiting for Godot—are all grand and satisfying by their own lights.