Broadway productions certainly draw a lot of fanfare, but don't overlook the vibrant offerings of Off Broadway. While the productions that take place in Off Broadway theaters are less expensive and less publicized, they often have exceedingly well-crafted scripts and exceptional performers who are interested in experimental and challenging work. Artistically influential and culturally diverse, Off Broadway has debuted eight of the last 10 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Here are TAP's recommendations for the week of APsaA's Winter 2008 Meeting.
The Mandrake
The Pearl Theatre Company
80 St. Mark's Place
212-598-9802
The setting is Renaissance Italy; the playwright, Niccolo Machiavelli. Callimaco will dare anything to bed the beautiful married Lucrezia, but must first overcome the obstacle of her husband and the vexatious reality that the virtuous Lucrezia scoffed at romance.
Two Thousand Years
The New Group
The Acorn Theater
410 West 42nd Street
212-244-3380
Hot off their recent smash hit Abigail's Party, artistic director Scott Elliott and longtime collaborator Mike Leigh present Two Thousand Years, which had a sold-out run at London's National Theatre. Leigh's play tells how an assimilated Jewish family's quiet life in suburban London is upset when their son becomes seriously devout.
Next to Normal
Second Stage Theatre
307 West 43rd Street
212-246-4422
In this over-stimulated and pharmaceutically-based world, one seemingly normal suburban family comes to grips with a long buried secret in this haunting and darkly funny new musical. With provocative lyrics and a riveting score, Brian Yorkey's Next to Normal explores the limits to which people will go to keep themselves sane and their families in place.
Beckett Shorts
New York Theater Workshop (NYTW)
79 East Fourth Street
212-460-5475
Samuel Beckett's four one-act plays, Act Without Words I and II, Eh Joe, and Rough for Theatre, are theatrical gems directed by five-time Obie award-winner JoAnne Akalaitis. Mikhail Baryshnikov leads a cast that includes David Neumann, Karen Kandel, and Bill Camp. The production features music by Philip Glass.
The 39 Steps
Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
212-719-1300
Patrick Barlow's comic adaptation of John Buchan's classic spy thriller has been adapted into a hilarious spoof of the book and the Hitchcock film. The “unstageable” thriller is staged, with four cast members playing a minimum of 150 roles. The story revolves around an innocent man who learns too much about a dangerous spy ring and is then pursued across Scotland, before returning to London to foil the villain's dastardly plans. The 39 Steps contains every single legendary scene from the award-winning movie—including the chase on the Flying Scotsman, the escape on the Forth Bridge, the first theatrical biplane crash ever staged, and the sensational death-defying finale in the London Palladium.
Rock ‘N’ Roll
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45th Street
212-239-6200
Tom Stoppard returns to Broadway this fall with Rock ‘N’ Roll. Stoppard explores the significance of rock music as a symbol of both personal and political freedom along with its accompanying risks, spanning two decades from the Prague Spring of 1968 to the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The play's double perspective focuses on a Czech freedom fighter while also tracing three generations in the family of a Cambridge professor, a Marxist philosopher who resolutely clings to his faith in Communism. The score includes the sounds of The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Grateful Dead, U2, and Pink Floyd.
August: Osage County
Imperial Theatre
249 West 45th Street
212-239-6200
Tracy Letts's (Bug, Killer Joe) take-no-prisoners family saga comes to Broadway after a critically acclaimed run at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. When the patriarch vanishes, all of the Westons must return to the family home in rural Oklahoma to care for their afflicted (and mistress-of-manipulation) mother. With rich insight and brilliant humor, Letts paints a vivid portrait of a Midwestern family at a turning point.
Come Back, Little Sheba
Biltmore Theatre
261 West 47th Street
212-239-6200
Lola's dog Sheba is physically missing, and her husband Doc is emotionally AWOL, when a pretty young thing arrives on the scene.
Dottie Jeffries is APsaA's director of public affairs.
Marie, an attractive young boarder, gives new meaning to the lives of Doc and Lola Delaney, married for 20 years and grindingly unhappy. Shocking in 1950 for its frank references to alcoholism and premarital pregnancy, Sheba, by William Inge, helped usher in an era of realistic domestic dramas. This Manhattan Theatre Club production stars S. Epatha Merkerson.
November
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street
212-239-6200
November by David Mamet is set in the month notable for elections as well as presidential pardons of Thanksgiving turkeys. Nathan Lane stars as President Charles Smith who is running for re-election, and some subjects (civil marriage, gambling casinos, lesbians, American Indians, presidential libraries, questionable pardons, campaign contributions) just won't go away.
The Seafarer
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street
212-239-6200
Playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, Shining City) concocts a ghost story that is funny, chilling, and profound. The Seafarer, a production of London's National Theatre, is directed by the author.