JUNE, 1996 ----------------------------In this issue------------------------------------------ Voices in Contemporary Theatre: The Last Word on the Tonys- "I never looked at it that way" Awards CyberTheatre Monthly: Finding hot Cybersites, Headshots Online-The Myths & The Facts Rubin's Corner: Off-West End TRE Trivia, What's New in the Forum/Insider's Tips, Gossip du jour ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Voices in Contemporary Theatre The Last word on the Tony's: One last bit of puffery and we can all get on with our lives. Presenting, the first annual TRE "I never thought of it that way" Awards... The 1996 Missing the Point Award -to Wendy Wasserstein, for whining about how the Tonys had all the front page attention rather than "the loss of NEA funding or the future of Broadway" Excuse me? Reminding peoeple that live theatre still exists and that it actually be something they'd like to seee is a good thing Wendy - It provides that other kind of art funding called ticket-sales. And eh, it wasn't like Julie and Nathan pushed the NEA off the front page, it was Bob Dole on the front page Wendy. Missing the Point Runner Up - to the montage editors for revival and new plays, each and every clip of which had to end with audience laughter - even the quote from the Henry Drummond cross-examination of Matthew Brady from Inherit the Wind "I shudder to think what the state of learning would be in the world if everyone had your driving curiosity" - oh yeah, I chuckle every time I hear it. The 1996 "Spoon full of sacharin award" to Donna Murphy, who began her reign as the Mary Poppins of Broadway with such glutinous commentary on the Julie Andrews broohaha as the following: " I really believe that Julie was acting from her heart and that's not always easy to do and I respect that. At the same time, I'm honored to be acknowledged and I don't really want to stir up anything more negative than may already be out there. It's best to deal with this time as a celebration of theatre....I think probably when all of this is passed I probably will give some thought to all of this and investigate within myself what I might do in a similar situation. Right now it is too subjective and loaded by other things to think clearly about it" The Andrews-Merrick Losing with Grace award - to August Wilson. If you taped the awards, go back and look at him sitting right behind Terrence McNally as the latter arises to accept the award for Best Play. The 1996 Wasted Opportunity Award - to CBS for the time-constraints imposed Nathan Lane as host, and on the show as a whole. Universal opinion is that we didn't see enough of host Nathan Lane, the wildman, who did little with the plethora of pre-awards scandal: Oh sure, he made an appearance in Julie's Victor/Victoria costume and crooned "How to you solve a problem like the Tony's." - as he's been doing all month, made passing reference to David Merrick's attempt to sue over State Fair's treatment, and summed up by announcing Ms. Andrews couldn't be in attendance as she's hosting a telethon for the egregiously overlooked. Somehow I expected a little more given the writing talent at the show's disposal. The "Is it me or is it them?" Medal -to Fun, the production number from Big where they dance on the keyboard in FAO Schwartz. In the film this was a fairly intimate little scene that expressed a childlike savoir vivre otherwise known as "fun" It simply wasn't fun with 30+ dancers - but wait a minute, isn't it supposed to be the Theatre that's lifesize and the movies that are larger than life? The 1996 Bad Idea Ribbon - to the Tony's Website for attempting HTML-based Chat. It's not a matter of bandwidth, processor speed or ram, it's just not meant to be. The Stomp Lookalike award - to the Bring in da Noise/Funk production number Best acceptance speech - to Gerald Gutierrez "I'd like to thank every person I've ever met in my entire life" What's the fuss about? award - The Shall We Dance production number from the King and I which seemed to omit all the romantic undercurrent we've come to expect in this scene, showed off little of the show's substantial visual spectacle, and failed to demonstrate even a hint of why Donna Murphy would have been nominated and ultimately won in the Best Actress in a Musical category. Best packaging of a production number: Rent had the best overall montage, but A Funny Thing Happened was a bit more imaginative, marching its cast from their home at the St. James down to the awards stage at the Majestic, escorting host Nathan Lane, to the strains of Comedy Tonight (easily the snappiest of the music sampled). The NY audience loved it, but some of the folks watching at home had trouble following what was happening and why. Did I miss something Award: Chronicle of a Death Foretold, having closed nearly a year ago, was reduced to a video montage that looked like the" Julio's years as a Secret Agent flamenco dancer" sequence from a B-movie import. This is so embarassing Award - to the band. It happens every year, at least three very good people effervescing with excitement and gratitude are rushed off-stage by the rude grumblings from the orchestra pit after daring to express their joy for more than the alotted 40 seconds. If the Oscars want to behave this way, that's their pereogative. Theatre folks should have more class. Take a Reality Pill Award - to the convoluted sentence structure concocted to avoid saying "And the Winner is" There is nothing wrong with using the word winner when you're handing an award. Failing to do so implies an unhealthy denial of the nature of awards-giving. 1996 Prediction for the Future of the Tony Awards Every year's awards generate a lot of comment on who should win but won't, will win but shouldn't, didn't win and no one knows why, won because they should've won last time, etc. But few years have ever started people talking about the actual awards television broadcast the way they were this year. Of course the fact that CBS had had it with low ratings and plans to axe it may have something to do with it. So let's consider what Tomorrow's Tony's might entail... In two years time Disney Theatrical Productions should have two or three shows already on Broadway or Broadway-bound - and the entrepreneurial mouse has just acquired his very own network. Whatever you may think of the artistic merit of Disney's offerings, whatever you may think of what Variety called "the Beauty and the Beast gift shop that used to be the Palace Theatre lobby" there can be no question that they know how to package commercial fare. They know how to communicate with middle America - with all those people who think live theatre is boring and not for them. In short, they have the ability to make a Tony Awards show that will be celebration of (and advertisement for) Broadway Theatre that it should be. Other possibilities: Public Television, A&E or Bravo will pick up the awards, keeping the awards available to a more limited television audience (who will want to watch it live, hence without the time-delay), but sending the subtle message to the periferal audience that live theatre is a niche intellectual interest far removed from thier tastes & lives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CyberTheatre Monthly Finding the hot Cybersites An interesting sideshow to the new options unfolding for theatre-lovers onstage and online, is the extent local newspapers promote or ignore the latest offerings. The recent Tony Awards, marking as they did the highlight of the Theatre Year were accompanied by a variety of online activity. The Sunday of the awards, the New York Times ran several articles on the awards, yet mentioned no cyber-info at all. The same day, The Boston Globe ran a Summer Preview edition which highlighted upcoming Boston theatrical events but ignored the Tonys, and a box highlighting various weekly chats on Boston.Com involving sports, automotive repair, and parenting, but touching on nothing remotely performance related. The Atlanta Journal had no entertainment or cyber features, while the comparatively smalltime Orlando Sentinel ran two long articles on the awards themselves, with a box highlighting where to "Chat Online About the Tony's" featuring our own simul-chat on Micrsoft, AOL, and lastly, the Tony Awards' own website. The Tonys Site offered Chat during the awards and a real-audio feed of the after-party gala. It represents a giant-step forward from the Noise/Funk Opening Night Party Online, in that the Real Audio download worked and full enjoyment of the site was not dependent on a special browser. However the attempt to offer chat via a HTML page, which required constant and laborious refreshing was ill-advised and should not return next year. This process probably turned a lot of net-newbies off the idea of real-time chat. The site was also fairly limited compared to Noise/Funk, but it's a notable first-year effort. So how do you find these specialty sites, especially if your newspaper doesn't offer promote such events? Well with an Internet presence becoming de rigeur for operations of a certain size & importance (or wishing to appear of wide appeal and importance) it's a good bet the event you're already interested in does have a site and you can just conduct a search via Excite, Yahoo or a number of other search engines. But what about the event you don't know about yet - the Internet is not about doing what you normally do staring at your 'puter monitor instead of in person, it's about exploring new things you might not otherwise get to try. You can find a directory site like Theatre Central that have some kind of designation for new listings, or visit a forum that hosts others all online who share the same special interest - someone there is sure to know and you can have the fun of attending these event-sites with a cyber-buddy. Web sites mentioned in this edition of CyberTheatre Monthly: http://www.tonys.org/hindex.html http://www.publictheater.org/cgi-bin/noifunk.cgi http://www.boston.com http://theatre-central.com Headshots Online, The Myths & The Facts There are probably 30-40 web sites online today that will publish your headshot and resume for a 'small monthly fee'. Prices for a 'basic' package, usually including a single photo and one-page resume, range from $5.95 to about $24.95 per month. Add to that the extra charges for additional photos, promotional video or sound clips and 'marketing services', advertising yourself online can become an expensive prospect. So is it worth it? Well, probably not. There are a few sites which stand out in professionalism (and usually price) from the others. Sites like Actors Online (http://www.actorsonline.com/) and TalentBank International (http://www.talentbank.com/), have the slick look that will attract actors as customers and webgoers in general...but what about the casting directors that these actors are hoping to reach? The unfortunate fact is that very few casting directors are, or plan to be in the near future, online. The casting business is a fast-paced industry where real-life connections and the ability to find actors fast are everything. Casting directors are used to working in a particular way. They have their drawers full of headshots and resumes, filed in their own particular manner. They know just what to do and where to go to get their actors, and they are still diluged with paper-based headshots arriving in their mailbox every day. They have little, if any, incentive to get online and use that as a way to find these actors. Not to mention the fact that these online filedrawers are nowhere near as complete as one would think...try doing a search for male actors above the age of 40 in the Boston area who are non-union. I did that search once when casting a play I was directing. I received no results from any of the headshot services I searched. Now you may ask, "hey, you used it! won't other directors?" Yes. That is really the major users of these systems: the directors who are already heavily 'plugged in' and are using it to cast a show locally themselves. I'm not saying there aren't ANY casting directors online and plugged in to these services, just not many, and not many more in the near future. So think hard before shelling out that $100+ per year to 'get worldwide exposure to millions of people'. It may be 'one more way to get your name out there', but you are probably going to get better results by spending that $100 on another set of reproductions of your headshots to send through the mail to your local casting directors. --- Andrew Q. Kraft is the creator and maintainer of Theatre Central. He is also the Vice President of Operations for Peekaboo, an online network for music and theater (http://www.i-see-you.com/). Andrew is currently writing a book on the Internet for Actors, which he writes instead of sleeping. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rubin's Corner by Robert Rubin We have all read about and seen productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and West End theater. During the next few months many of us will take our summer vacations. This year transatlantic air fares will be priced at reasonable levels. This could give you a chance to experience theater that few theater lovers have had a chance to see. I am talking about OFF-WEST END theater. These are the theaters and theater companies of London that have devoted themselves to the development of new productions. If you visit the UK this summer, it is worth several evening to see some of these productions. You will find the majority of these companies with very reasonable admission prices. Many stars of London and American theater try out new things during the summer season. Among the companies that you need to check out are: Almedia Almedia Street at the Highburg & Islington tubes BAC 176 Lavender Hill Donmar Warehouse Thomas Neal's Earlham at the Covent Garden tube The Gate 11 Penbridge Road at the Notting Hill Gate tube Hempstead Theatre Avenue Road at the Swiss Cottage tube Yong Vic 66 the Cut at the Waterloo tube All of these companies have sent productions to the West End and Broadway on a regular basis. Among the present productions are: A Doll's Life, Tartuffe, Some Sunny Days (musical), Miss Julie, Definitely Doris (musical), Lady Into Fox, and 1953. This is a part of London theaters missed by most foreigners, but it should not be overlooked by you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRE Trivia: Best of the "Rose by Any Other Name" Game * An Amusing thing happened while I was logging on to msn * AA, BB, CC, DD, EE, FF * Ghost of Madama Butterfly * Less than a nickle, More than an opus * Nonstop Celestial Illuminatin Answers to last month's trivia: Jellicle cat Rum-Tum-Tugger was originally played on Broadway by Terrence Mann. In Sweeney Todd the secret ingredient in Mrs. Lovett's meat pies is human flesh. The musical version of Candide is by Leonard Bernstein adapts the novel by Voltaire. The real life brothers who starred in Blood Brothers are David and Sean Cassidy. False. American Buffalo is not about a scheme to reclaim Indian land ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ W H A T ' S N E W in the Theatre & Performance Forum New Pics ... Download a peek at those musicals that made this years Tonys such an eye-fest: Rent, Noise-Funk, The King and I, Big and More Theatre on Television, on Film and in Books... Remember when Marge Simpson played Blanche Dubois? when Sherlock Holmes investigated Gilbert, Sullivan & Oscar Wilde? when Woody Allen & Mia Farrow talked murder through the overture of Guys & Dolls in Manhattan Murder Mystery ? Visit these popular threads in Related Subjects... The Theatre Forum isn't in a vacuum... Check out the Royal Shakespeare Company and other attractions in "Other Cool Places on msn" Getting to know you... What was your first Broadway Show? What are your thoughts on David Mamet? (And where is New York's other TKTS booth, where you can buy discount matinee tkts the day before the performance?) Become a regular in the Broadway BBS... Forum Insider Tips: * Forum members reply to messages in the bulletin boards where they're posted - requesting E-mail replies is considered impolite and generally doesn't work. * Young Performers may upload pictures, sound or video clips from their school plays in the Scrapbook library in the TYP Mini-Forum. * You don't have to be a forum staff-member to write a review - if you've more to say about a show than will fit into a bulletin board message, write up your own review and upload it to the library. * The New Uploads bulletin board mirrors all new uploads to the library in the past seven days. By checking this bulletin board once every week you can keep up with new files in all the theatre libraries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gossip du jour... An award-winning Broadway & Regional director who should know better is planning a stage musical of Xanadu -- not Charles Foster Kane's house, but the disco-roller-skating movie with Olivia Newton John. Meanwhile Seven Guitars director ,Lloyd Richards, is finally working on a project that's long-interested him: a Cat on the Hot Tin Roof revival with James Earl Jones as Big Daddy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1996, Mersinger Theatrical Services