Thursday, July 20, 2006

Big Wheel Keep on Turning

When will Roundabout announce what is going to be at Studio 54 in the fall? Come on, I'm getting bored with the speculation. I hope it's something that brings Anne Heche back to Broadway, but I guess her television series will make that an impossible dream. If it is canceled early (and, of course, I wish only the best for Anne Heche), maybe she can do something in the spring. I must plant those seeds.

Speaking of the season (forgive me for that segue), I got an email asking me if there was anything that I haven't mentioned on my list that could come to Broadway pre-Tonys. There is honestly no way of saying--there could be something genius in London, off-Broadway or at some regional theater that will come in and surprise us. That happens every season. There are two things that I do want to add to my possible list right now however--Fences and Nightingale.

I know this is a sacrilege to say, but I am not a HUGE August Wilson fan. I think some of his stuff is really good--I just have never thought his work is consistently amazing or anything. (And I would have so named a theater after Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams first, despite their stumbles.) That being said, I have never seen Fences and I am very excited about the Ike and Tina version at the Pasadena Playhouse this fall. I mean, honestly, Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne have a good track record together (especially Akeelah and the Bee people, Akeelah and the Bee). Plus, I've always heard Fences is superb. August Wilson is a hard sell, but if it gets good reviews out-of-town, this starry mounting could come in as early as the end of October.

Now Nightingale... I bet many of you don't know what that is. Nightingale is a one-person play Lynn Redgrave wrote, inspired by memories of her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Kempson. She actually wrote it for an actress by the name of Caroline John to star in (which happened overseas), but then she realized that she is much more famous that John (that is how I imagine it happened, at least), so now she herself is starring in it. It will be at the Taper in LA this fall and it very well could come here after it finishes out there in November. Now Vanessa Redgrave (who I consider the crazy one) is already scheduled to be on Broadway in a one-person show this spring. Will we hear of a bitter rivalry? Will there be a fight to the death? Alas, more impossible dreams.

Note that I'm not saying either of these things is going to come. And I am not even touching on where the hell they would possibly go (especially Nightingale, which would need one of the very popular small houses to survive), but, I offer more food for thought. Now I'm tired. I HATE the summer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Laurence Fishburne on stage? RUN, don't walk. He's amazing.