Latest news with #Ragtime
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘We all grew up on that movie': How a beloved cartoon went from screen to stage
If you ask Millennials to name the animated films that shaped their childhoods, it's likely quite a few will point to 1997's Anastasia, which builds upon the discredited myth that an eight-year-old Romanov noble survived the Russian Revolution. It's a 20th Century Fox production, not Disney (back when those were separate companies), but it has many of the hallmarks that define a classic Disney animated hit of the '90s: a headstrong princess, talking animal companion, dastardly magical villain and catchy songs that stick in your head for, well, the rest of your life. That last part is due to Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who wrote the songs for the movie: she the lyrics, he the music. The pair have collaborated for decades on iconic shows including the multi-Tony-Award-winning Ragtime, so when the movie of Anastasia was being adapted into a stage musical, Ahrens and Flaherty were tapped to revisit their work. The brief was to keep the beloved songs that made the movie so memorable, but add new material and bring the whole thing from the world of animation into something more grounded. 'I think we all grew up on that movie,' says Ahrens. 'We were young writers. We went out to Hollywood, we had a big adventure, we did a movie and then 20 years or something passed. And just like all the little girls who loved that animated movie, we grew up. It was so, not only wonderful, but enlightening to have another look at it and to see it's much richer and much, much more emotional than we had thought of it.' The talking bat was gone, as was evil wizard Rasputin, as the stage production took a more adult look at the story. 'It was if we were meeting old friends that we had loved that we had not seen for a very long time, and getting a chance to write for these characters and to flesh them out,' says Flaherty. 'Our leading man, for example, he sings in two small parts of two songs in the film, but he never really had his own moment to tell us who he was and what made him tick. And so we got to write two new songs for that character alone.' It turns out little girls who resonated with the movie in the mid-1990s want to reconnect with their old friends, too. Ahrens remembers clearly the crowd reaction at the show's first performance. 'There were women in the audience dressed like Anastasia, and I nearly lost my mind. They were wearing crowns and wigs and bands, it was incredible. And I realised, oh my God!, these women grew up on this movie ... I began to realise that there was something very profound about the music and about the story that grabbed people as little ones. They've grown up, they've had their own families. Grandmothers come with their daughters, come with their granddaughters.'
The Age
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘We all grew up on that movie': How a beloved cartoon went from screen to stage
If you ask Millennials to name the animated films that shaped their childhoods, it's likely quite a few will point to 1997's Anastasia, which builds upon the discredited myth that an eight-year-old Romanov noble survived the Russian Revolution. It's a 20th Century Fox production, not Disney (back when those were separate companies), but it has many of the hallmarks that define a classic Disney animated hit of the '90s: a headstrong princess, talking animal companion, dastardly magical villain and catchy songs that stick in your head for, well, the rest of your life. That last part is due to Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who wrote the songs for the movie: she the lyrics, he the music. The pair have collaborated for decades on iconic shows including the multi-Tony-Award-winning Ragtime, so when the movie of Anastasia was being adapted into a stage musical, Ahrens and Flaherty were tapped to revisit their work. The brief was to keep the beloved songs that made the movie so memorable, but add new material and bring the whole thing from the world of animation into something more grounded. 'I think we all grew up on that movie,' says Ahrens. 'We were young writers. We went out to Hollywood, we had a big adventure, we did a movie and then 20 years or something passed. And just like all the little girls who loved that animated movie, we grew up. It was so, not only wonderful, but enlightening to have another look at it and to see it's much richer and much, much more emotional than we had thought of it.' The talking bat was gone, as was evil wizard Rasputin, as the stage production took a more adult look at the story. 'It was if we were meeting old friends that we had loved that we had not seen for a very long time, and getting a chance to write for these characters and to flesh them out,' says Flaherty. 'Our leading man, for example, he sings in two small parts of two songs in the film, but he never really had his own moment to tell us who he was and what made him tick. And so we got to write two new songs for that character alone.' It turns out little girls who resonated with the movie in the mid-1990s want to reconnect with their old friends, too. Ahrens remembers clearly the crowd reaction at the show's first performance. 'There were women in the audience dressed like Anastasia, and I nearly lost my mind. They were wearing crowns and wigs and bands, it was incredible. And I realised, oh my God!, these women grew up on this movie ... I began to realise that there was something very profound about the music and about the story that grabbed people as little ones. They've grown up, they've had their own families. Grandmothers come with their daughters, come with their granddaughters.'
UPI
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Patti LuPone apologizes for remarks about Kecia Lewis, Audra Macdonald
1 of 3 | Patti LuPone has apologized for disparaging remarks she made about her fellow Broadway stars Audra Macdonald and Kecia Lewis. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo May 31 (UPI) -- Patti LuPone has apologized for her recent remarks about her fellow Broadway stars Kecia Lewis and Audra Mcdonald after hundreds of members of the New York theater community attempted to get LuPone disinvited to the Tony Awards. "For as long as I have worked in the theatre, I have spoken my mind and never apologized. That is changing today," LuPone said in an Instagram post Saturday. "I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful," she added, referring to comments that appeared at the end of a wide-ranging article published online May 26. "I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others and has run counter to what we hold dear in this community. I hope to have a chance to speak to Audra [McDonald] and Kecia personally to offer my sincere apologies." Variety said an open letter -- signed by about 500 people connected to the New York theater community -- made the rounds Friday, condemning LuPone's remarks and asking the organizers of the Tony Awards to ban her from Broadway's biggest night. Audra McDonald: 20 images of the Tony winner Audra McDonald (L), who plays the lead role of Sarah, and novelist E.L. Doctorow listen to opening night speeches during curtain call for the Broadway musical "Ragtime" based on the E.L. Doctorow novel in New York City on January 18, 1998. Doctorow died in 2015 at the age of 84. Photo by Ezio Petersen/UPI | License Photo
Los Angeles Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Simply impeccable: This musical at A Noise Within in Pasadena shines with understated excellence
'A Man of No Importance,' an off-Broadway musical based on the 1994 film that starred Albert Finney as a Dublin bus conductor with an obsession for Oscar Wilde and a yen for amateur theatricals, was a natural fit for playwright Terrence McNally, the bard of lonely city dwellers with conflicted longings. Collaborating again with Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), the team behind the musical 'Ragtime,' McNally wrote the book for a musical that might just as easily have been the basis for another of his compulsively funny, emotionally searing character studies. The scale here is far more compact than 'Ragtime.' But 'A Man of No Importance,' which is receiving a lovely revival at A Noise Within in Pasadena under the graceful direction of the company's producing artistic director, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, finds freedom in Wilde's iconoclastic example. Alfie Byrne (Kasey Mahaffy), a disciple of Wilde's (in more ways than one), has decided to stage the heretical 'Salome' with his ragtag troupe at his neighborhood church, St. Imelda. Alfie, who's either being willfully obtuse or radically uncompromising, sees nothing sacrilegious in Wilde's one-act tragedy. At the defiant Wildean center is infamous Salome, Herod's manipulative stepdaughter. Frustrated by her failed attempt to seduce Jokanaan (better known as John the Baptist), she demands the prophet's head be brought to her on a silver platter. Her outrageous request is granted after she dances the dance of the seven veils for her besotted stepfather, in a play that careens into multiple taboos under biblical cover. Alfie is convinced that he's found his Salome after a mysterious young woman named Adele (Analisa Idalia) nervously boards his bus. He must get permission to stage the play at St. Imelda's social hall from Father Kenny (Neill Fleming), who inquires whether there's any immodest dancing in the entertainment. 'Not immodest, Father Kenny,' Alfie replies. 'It's art.' For Alfie, art excuses what society finds objectionable. It's the reason he takes refuge in poetry and drama. He recites verse on the bus as much to enrapture his passengers as captivate his handsome young colleague, Robbie (CJ Eldred), the bus driver whom he calls Bosie after Wilde's fatal inamorato, Lord Alfred Douglas. Homosexuality isn't quite as dangerous in 1964 Dublin, when the musical is set. But the threats are real all the same. Sharing an apartment with his unmarried sister, Lily (Juliana Sloan), Alfie prepares exotic meals at home before retreating into his private sanctuary, his bedroom. His sister can't even imagine what he gets up to with all those suspect books he keeps piled up under lock and key. Carney (David Nevell), who owns the butcher shop downstairs from Alfie and Lily, is also mad about the theater. Alfie has cast him in 'Salome,' but Carney can't believe the filth once he reads the script. He voices his concerns to Lily, with whom he enjoys mass in the day and alcoholic refreshments in the evening. Clearly, Alfie's soul is in danger, and Carney has appointed himself the man to save it. He formally complains to the parish authorities to put an end to 'Salome,' but the real crisis comes from the shame and sorrow of Alfie's repressed life. When Alfie flamboyantly staggers out of the closet, he does so in the guise of Wilde, who makes dreamlike appearances in the musical (courtesy of Nevell, in a cleverly constructed dual role). Alfie's liberation doesn't go well for him, but his public disgrace can't undo the goodwill he's established through his championing of art. (The movie's sentimental contours are still apparent, but the musical earns its affectionate ending by keeping the focus communal.) 'A Man of No Importance' is a love letter to the stage, yet another reason McNally was the ideal man for the job. This modest musical, which would no doubt wilt under the glare of Broadway, is at its most touching when chronicling the ways art lifts the spirits of everyday people who are blessed with no spectacular gifts yet nevertheless possess the inner lives of theatrical giants. Mahaffy gives us a much younger version of Alfie than Finney's late-middle-age version in the film. Time is not bearing down on Alfie in quite the same way, but Mahaffy makes us believe that the character is running out of hope. The camaraderie between Mahaffy's Alfie and Eldred's Robbie, both of whom sing beautifully, is sweetly convincing. Robbie is a ladies' lad, but he appreciates the poetic vistas that Alfie opens up to him. (Poetry hath charms to soothe the straight Dubliner's breast.) Alfie may never realize his romantic fantasies, but his Romanticism transcends his straitened horizons. Flaherty and Ahrens' score is tailored to the characters with bespoke exactness. 'A Man of No Importance' feels like a play that's been set to music. If the musical has any ambition to be an extravaganza, it keeps the desire safely in check. Discretion is perhaps the work's most charming asset. But an early number, 'Going Up,' a group number led by Carney about the compensatory joys of putting on a show, injects some Kander and Ebb-style adrenaline into the proceedings. The supporting cast is strong in voice and small-scale portraiture. Nevell, Sloan and Ed F. Martin as Baldy, the troupe's loyal stage manager, all impress in a company that makes a virtue of inconspicuous excellence. Most impressive of all is the way Rodriguez-Elliott conducts her large ensemble through rapid scene changes with gliding finesse. (Kudos to Francois-Pierre Couture's logistically savvy scenic design.) 'A Man of No Importance' not only celebrates simplicity but also depends upon it. What a treat to come across a musical that recognizes just how extraordinary the ordinary can be.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Theater review: Goodspeed Musicals' ‘Ragtime' mixes a peppy beat with high drama
Ragtime music is propulsive and infectious. It is sharp, direct and clear. It has sense, purpose and style. So does the Goodspeed Musicals' production of 'Ragtime.' It's an engrossing, involving and invigorating rendition of a show that's important to revisit right now. E.L. Doctorow's landmark novel was turned into a musical by playwright Terrence McNally, composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens — a trio beloved in Connecticut for selecting Hartford Stage as the venue for tryouts of their 'Anastasia' in 2016. The Goodspeed's 'Ragtime' is happening just as an unrelated New York production of the same musical that played off-Broadway last year has announced it will transfer to Broadway later this year. There's room for many 'Ragtime' musicals — it has had a previous Broadway revival in 2009, a couple of important London productions and some ingenious concert versions and the novel was also adapted for a 1981 film directed by Milos Forman. The Goodspeed 'Ragtime' has the advantage of being staged in a theater building that was built in the 1870s, ideal for a show set at the turn of the 20th century. The show starts calmly with the dapper musician Coalhouse Walker Jr. astride his piano bench, playing a gentle, lilting ragtime melody. As the music gets a bit louder and fiercer — pumped out by a band that lands sensibly between a raw jazz style and a more refined music theater showtune vibe — men in white suits and women in white dresses promenade down the Opera House aisles and onto the stage. We are introduced to the main characters, and there are many of them. The African-American community is represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr. and his followers in the Harlem music clubs. There's a Jewish immigrant named Tateh and his daughter. There's a well-to-do white suburban family (a father, mother and son plus the mother's rebellious brother) who have a fine home in New Rochelle just outside the city. There are other character help creates links among these disparate groups, namely a young mother named Sarah who we learn shares a past and a destiny with Coalhouse Walker Jr. and is befriended by the New Rochelle family. Theatrical window dressing and historical context are provided by some of the greatest celebrities of the early 20th century: Magician Harry Houdini, anarchist Emma Goldman, scandalous vaudeville star Evelyn Nesbit and the great orator/educator Booker T. Washington. These communities rub up against each other constantly and iterally since 'Ragtime' now holds the record for the largest cast ever assembled on the not very large Goodspeed Opera House stage with around 30 energetic performers, including several children. Christopher Betts, who has previously graced Connecticut stages with dynamic productions of Katori Hall's 'Hot Wing King' and Alice Childress' 'Trouble in Mind' at Hartford Stage and Tarell Alvin McCraney's 'Choir Boy' at Yale Repertory Theatre, carefully fits 'Ragtime' into the Goodspeed. The play bursts with a collective energy, but the actors don't get in each other's way. There's clarity and purpose in the movement, building momentum for a complex story of a still-young nation struck with new challenges. There are some false notes. Mia Gerachis doesn't evoke a credible vaudeville style as Nesbit, seeming out of place against the more resonant ragtime and parlor song routines. The other celebrity impersonations fit in better but have their own quirks. Blair Goldberg makes Goldman seem almost sexy while Jonathan Cobrda adds a creepiness to Houdini that brings to mind his Rooster Hannigan in a multi-year tour of 'Annie' around a decade ago. Director finds fresh relevance in 'Ragtime' in CT's Goodspeed Opera House season opener Casting the ensemble members in multiple roles may be necessary but it can also be distracting. The distinctive looking Stephen Tewksbury, for example, plays a goofy grandfather, a racist fireman and a guy enjoying a baseball game and is good at all three yet you can't get that evil fireman out of your head anytime Tewksbury is onstage. Edward Watts (Harold Hill in 'The Music Man' for Goodspeed in 2019) gives a curious portrayal of Father, the patriarch of the New Rochelle family who is also an amateur Arctic explorer. Father is certainly meant to be somewhat clueless and chauvinist and old-fashioned, oblivious to important cultural changes afoot in America, but Watts exaggerates this clean-cut pomposity into something that resembles a 'Dudley Do-Right' cartoon. It gets even more out of hand when Father returns from a North Pole expedition sporting a beard that looks more like he's glued a stiff broom to his face. Yet the size and scope and clarity of this musical overcome any issues you might have with any single performer. Besides, the performances that truly matter here — Michael Wordly as Coalhouse Walker Jr., Brennyn Lark as Sarah and Mamie Parris as Mother — are stellar. Worldly can shift from sweet to severe as needed, depending on whether he's holding a baby or standing up for his civil rights. His extraordinary singing voice is more than matched by Lark in their stirring duets. Betts stages the couple's romantic embrace, an interaction that's as important to 'Ragtime' as the balcony scene is to 'Romeo and Juliet' with suspenseful pacing and grand physicality, a swirling burst of poetry in motion that has the audience cheering and nearly stops the show. This one moment registers so strongly that it feels like the appropriate place to end the first act, though there's still several scenes and songs to come before intermission in this very full three-hour production. Parris expertly builds her character through numerous short exchanges with other characters that collectively show Mother's compassion and moral principles, making her culminating solo number 'Back to Before' that much stronger. Another character we see face adversity which maintaining a confident inner core is the Latvian immigrant Tateh. David R. Gordon gives Tateh a lightness and effervescence that helps balance the more soulful suffering of other characters. There is no lack of comic relief in this 'Ragtime,' including some well-timed quips from 12-year-old Sawyer Delaney in the critical youngest-generation role of Little Boy. Behr Marshall, a Hartt School grad who was a standout performer a few months ago in the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, is one of the more dour characters in 'Ragtime' as the insolent activist Little Brother, but his seriousness actually makes him a little funny. 'Ragtime' has a dramatic intensity and shadowy nuances that are rarely seen on the Goodspeed Opera House stage, though it could be argued that, with recent productions like 'Anne of Green Gables' and 'The 12,' there's a clear desire for the theater to be attempting deeper, more layered work in general. The musical is set over a century ago but speaks directly to contemporary issues without mincing words like 'racism,' 'immigration,' 'deportation,' 'terrorism' and 'revolution.' Characters exclaim 'What is wrong with the country?' and 'You have traveled everywhere and learned nothing.' Several worlds intersect onstage. The show itself covers a lot of artistic ground. It's a 1996 musical based on a 1975 bestselling novel with a singular clipped and crisp literary style, set in a turn-of-the-century time of endless exploration and imagination wrapped in coarse social realities. 'Ragtime' runs through June 15 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. Performances are on Wednesdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 6:30 p.m., plus 2 p.m. Thursday matinees on May 29, June 5 and 12. There are no Sunday evening performances on June 1, 8 and 15. $35-$114.
