Latest news with #musicalrevival
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Sunset Boulevard' Starring Nicole Scherzinger Wins the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival
A radically reimagined production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Sunset Boulevard,' with no turban and lots of technology, won the Tony Award for best musical revival on Sunday night. The production, which began performances at Broadway's St. James Theater last September and is scheduled to run only until July 13, is the brainchild of its director, Jamie Lloyd, a 45-year-old British auteur who prioritizes dialogue and psychological depth over furniture and props. Lloyd's production first ran in London's West End, where it won last year's Olivier Award for best musical revival. The show proved to be a star vehicle for its leading lady, Nicole Scherzinger, who in her 20s achieved fame as the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, and then spent years as a judge on television talent shows before landing this role, which has reintroduced her, at age 46, as a powerhouse performer. In the musical, Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, a onetime star of silent films who has vanished from the limelight but delusionally dreams of returning to the big screen. The show, set in Los Angeles in 1949 and 1950, is based on a 1950 Billy Wilder film; Lloyd Webber wrote the stage production's music, while the book and lyrics are by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. The original Broadway production won seven Tony Awards, including best musical, in 1995. That production starred Glenn Close, who returned to play the role again in 2017 in the only previous Broadway revival of the show. The current production is characterized by its heavy use of technology adapted from filmmaking and its minimalist, modern aesthetic. The actors are dressed mostly in black and white; Scherzinger performs much of the show barefoot, and she and her co-star, Tom Francis, end the show drenched in blood. Because the story is about, and set in, Hollywood, Lloyd opted to integrate and interrogate cinematic devices — much of the onstage action is filmed by performers holding movie cameras and is projected onto a huge screen behind the actors. One of the production's highlights is a coup de théâtre at the top of the second act, when Francis, playing a writer named Joe Gillis, performs the title number while walking through Shubert Alley and along 44th Street, with the action visible to audience members onscreen. The revival is being produced on Broadway by companies controlled by Lloyd (the Jamie Lloyd Company) and Lloyd Webber (Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals), and by ATG Productions, which operates the theater where the show is playing, and by Gavin Kalin Productions. The show was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; it has been selling more than $1 million worth of tickets most weeks, but it is not yet clear whether it will recoup its capitalization costs.
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Tonys 2025 Live Updates: ‘Sunset Boulevard' Named Best Musical Revival, While Cole Escola Wins for ‘Oh, Mary!'
A radically reimagined production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Sunset Boulevard,' with no turban and lots of technology, won the Tony Award for best musical revival on Sunday night. The production, which began performances at Broadway's St. James Theater last September and is scheduled to run only until July 13, is the brainchild of its director, Jamie Lloyd, a 45-year-old British auteur who prioritizes dialogue and psychological depth over furniture and props. Lloyd's production first ran in London's West End, where it won last year's Olivier Award for best musical revival. The show proved to be a star vehicle for its leading lady, Nicole Scherzinger, who in her 20s achieved fame as the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, and then spent years as a judge on television talent shows before landing this role, which has reintroduced her, at age 46, as a powerhouse performer. In the musical, Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, a onetime star of silent films who has vanished from the limelight but delusionally dreams of returning to the big screen. The show, set in Los Angeles in 1949 and 1950, is based on a 1950 Billy Wilder film; Lloyd Webber wrote the stage production's music, while the book and lyrics are by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. The original Broadway production won seven Tony Awards, including best musical, in 1995. That production starred Glenn Close, who returned to play the role again in 2017 in the only previous Broadway revival of the show. The current production is characterized by its heavy use of technology adapted from filmmaking and its minimalist, modern aesthetic. The actors are dressed mostly in black and white; Scherzinger performs much of the show barefoot, and she and her co-star, Tom Francis, end the show drenched in blood. Because the story is about, and set in, Hollywood, Lloyd opted to integrate and interrogate cinematic devices — much of the onstage action is filmed by performers holding movie cameras and is projected onto a huge screen behind the actors. One of the production's highlights is a coup de théâtre at the top of the second act, when Francis, playing a writer named Joe Gillis, performs the title number while walking through Shubert Alley and along 44th Street, with the action visible to audience members onscreen. The revival is being produced on Broadway by companies controlled by Lloyd (the Jamie Lloyd Company) and Lloyd Webber (Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals), and by ATG Productions, which operates the theater where the show is playing, and by Gavin Kalin Productions. The show was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; it has been selling more than $1 million worth of tickets most weeks, but it is not yet clear whether it will recoup its capitalization costs.
Washington Post
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
DEI in Broadway theaters is beyond Trump's reach
Richard Zoglin is a New York-based writer and critic. The announcement of Tony Awards nominees last week included one for 'Pirates! The Penzance Musical' as best musical revival. For me, that antic update of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, with its jazzy New Orleans vibe, featured the signature moment of the Broadway season. All the cast members — a rainbow mixture of races, ethnicities, body shapes and sizes — face the audience and (cribbing a song from 'HMS Pinafore,' with rewritten lyrics) deliver a rousing closing anthem: 'We're All From Someplace Else.' The message is impossible to miss. As the Trump administration wages war against diversity, equity and inclusion programs, everywhere from federal agencies and universities to law firms and even the Kennedy Center, the Broadway theater world may well be the last place in America where DEI is not under fire. Indeed, it is still being celebrated, loud and proud. Look at the chorus line for almost any new Broadway musical and you'll see a carefully assembled mix of Black, White and Asian faces. Interracial couples are no longer the exception onstage, but seem more like the norm. Rare is the revival of a classic play, whether by Shakespeare or Arthur Miller, that doesn't feature 'nontraditional' casting in at least one of the major roles. This season we've had a Black Mama Rose (in the revival of 'Gypsy'); a Black Betty Boop (in a new musical based on the vintage cartoon character); and a Black 'shiksa goddess' in Jason Robert Brown's musical two-hander about a failed marriage, 'The Last Five Years.' Broadway's answer to Trump's crackdown on immigrants? 'Real Women Have Curves,' a spirited musical about Latina seamstresses in Los Angeles, circa 1987, trying to stay one step ahead of the immigration cops. Never mind 'drag queen story hour': In 'Oh, Mary!,' a raucous comedy hit, drag performer Cole Escola plays Mary Todd Lincoln as a foulmouthed alcoholic who cares less about the Civil War (or her husband, Abe, who's having sex with his footman) than becoming a cabaret star. Little chance that one will wind up at the Kennedy Center. Follow Trump's second term Follow As anyone who has watched a Tony Awards telecast in recent years can attest, Broadway is in many respects another country. Acceptance speeches celebrating diversity, LGBTQ pride and 'body positivity' abound. Luckily for Broadway, Donald Trump isn't much of a theatergoer. (He claims he 'never liked 'Hamilton' very much' — though there's no evidence he has actually seen the show.) Nor is Broadway nearly as vulnerable to a vengeful president as, say, a TV network subject to FCC oversight, or a local arts institution dependent on federal grants. It still can largely march to its own drummer. But you don't have to be a MAGA crusader against 'woke' culture to be just a little uneasy at the way the theater world now seems encased in a bubble of like-minded creators, critics and fans: a self-feeding loop of virtue signaling and moral certitude. Good intentions don't necessarily make good drama. (See — or rather, don't see — 'Good Night and Good Luck,' George Clooney's lumbering play about Ed Murrow's takedown of Red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy.) Diversity casting can often be confusing for an audience. Worse, it's a topic seemingly too sensitive to even be discussed by most critics and others who cover theater. Audra McDonald, for instance, won rave reviews (and is favored to win a Tony — her seventh) as the first Black actress on Broadway to play the domineering stage mother in 'Gypsy.' But the casting (her daughters are also played by Black actresses) creates an odd disconnect: the unlikely prospect that a Black entertainment family would have any realistic hope of making it big in the segregated vaudeville world of the 1920s and '30s. Similarly, in this season's revival of Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town,' the casting of Black actors as one of the two central families introduced a nagging ambiguity. Was this simply color-blind casting, or are we to assume that Black and White neighbors (soon linked by marriage) would not have raised an eyebrow in a small New England town circa 1900? Diversity casting, of course, is to be welcomed; it has given talented Black and other minority actors a shot at major roles that have been denied them for decades, often introducing new perspectives and interpretations. The real problem is the cone of silence that seems to prevent any discussion of how such choices can affect an audience's reaction — or, in many cases, to even acknowledge the nontraditional casting at all. In shows like these, Broadway is presenting an idealistic, aspirational view of America, where racial differences are miraculously ignored or overcome. It's not all that different, I fear, from the complacent insularity that allowed Democrats to ignore the rise of Trumpism, or what now seem like the excesses of the cancel-culture era that helped enable its return.
