I haven't always posted the Tony nominations on here, but as I'm even more interested in them this year - for reasons that may be explained later! - I thought I'd share them here. Very exciting!
BEST PLAY
Act One
All the Way
Casa Valentina
Mothers and Sons
Outside Mullinger
BEST MUSICAL
After Midnight
Aladdin
Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL
Aladdin - Chad Beguelin
Beautiful - The Carole King Musical - Douglas McGrath
Bullets Over Broadway - Woody Allen
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - Robert L. Freedman
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (MUSIC AND/OR LYRICS) WRITTEN FOR THE THEATRE
Aladdin - Music: Alan Menken; Lyrics: Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, Chad Beguelin
The Bridges of Madison County - Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - Music: Steven Lutvak; Lyrics: Robert L. Freedman & Steven Lutvak
If/Then - Music: Tom Kitt; Lyrics: Brian Yorkey
BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY
The Cripple of Inishmaan
The Glass Menagerie
A Raisin in the Sun
Twelfth Night
BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Les Miserables
Violet
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY
Samuel Barnett - Twelfth Night
Bryan Cranston - All the Way
Chris O'Dowd - Of Mice and Men
Mark Rylance - Richard III
Tony Shalhoub - Act One
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY
Tyne Daly - Mothers and Sons
LaTanya Richardson Jackson - A Raisin in the Sun
Cherry Jones - The Glass Menagerie
Audra MacDonald - Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill
Estelle Parsons - The Velocity of Autumn
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Neil Patrick Harris - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Ramin Karimloo - Les Miserables
Andy Karl - Rocky
Jefferson Mays - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Bryce Pinkham - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Mary Bridget Davies - A Night with Janis Joplin
Sutton Foster - Violet
Idina Menzel - If/Then
Jessie Mueller - Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
Kelli O'Hara - The Bridges of Madison County
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY
Reed Birney - Casa Valentina
Paul Chahidi - Twelfth Night
Stephen Fry - Twelfth Night
Mark Rylance - Twelfth Night
Brian J. Smith - The Glass Menagerie
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY
Sarah Greene - The Cripple of Inishmaan
Celia Keenan-Bolger - The Glass Menagerie
Sophie Okonedo - A Raisin in the Sun
Anika Noni Rose - A Raisin in the Sun
Mare Winningham - Casa Valentina
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Danny Burstein - Cabaret
Nick Cordero - Bullets Over Broadway
Joshua Henry - Violet
James Monroe Inglehart - Aladdin
Jarrod Spector - Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Linda Emond - Cabaret
Lena Hall - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Anika Larsen - Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
Adriane Lenox - After Midnight
Lauren Worsham - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
BEST DIRECTION OF A PLAY
Tim Carroll - Twelfth Night
Michael Grandage - The Cripple of Inishmaan
Kenny Leon - A Raisin in the Sun
John Tiffany - The Glass Menagerie
BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL
Warren Carlyle - After Midnight
Michael Mayer - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Leigh Silverman - Violet
Darko Tresnjak - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
Warren Carlyle - After Midnight
Steven Hoggett & Kelly Devine - Rocky
Casey Nicholaw - Aladdin
Susan Stroman - Bullets Over Broadway
BEST ORCHESTRATIONS
Doug Besterman - Bullets Over Broadway
Jason Robert Brown - The Bridges of Madison County
Steve Sidwell - Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
Jonathan Tunick - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY
Beowulf Boritt - Act One
Bob Crowley - The Glass Menagerie
Es Devlin - Machinal
Christopher Oram - The Cripple of Inishmaan
BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Christopher Barreca - Rocky
Julian Crouch - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Alexander Dodge - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Santo Loquasto - Bullets Over Broadway
BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY
Jane Greenwood - Act One
Michael Krass - Machinal
Rita Ryack - Casa Valentina
Jenny Tiramani - Twelfth Night
BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Linda Cho - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
William Ivey Long - Bullets Over Broadway
Arianne Phillips - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Isabel Toledo - After Midnight
BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY
Paule Constable - The Cripple of Inishmaan
Jane Cox - Machinal
Natasha Katz - The Glass Menagerie
Japhy Weideman - Of Mice and Men
BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Kevin Adams - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Christopher Akerlind - Rocky
Howell Binkley - After Midnight
Donald Holder - The Bridges of Madison County
BEST SOUND DESIGN OF A PLAY
Alex Baranowski - The Cripple of Inishmaan
Steve Canyon Kennedy - Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill
Dan Moses Schreier - Act One
Matt Tierney - Machinal
BEST SOUND DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Peter Hylenski - After Midnight
Tim O'Heir - Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Mick Potter - Les Miserables
Brian Ronan - Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
SPECIAL TONY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN THE THEATRE
Jane Greenwood: Costume designer for more than 125 Broadway productions
REGIONAL THEATRE AWARD
Signature Theatre: The Signature Theatre Company exists to honor and celebrate the playwright
ISABELLE STEVENSON AWARD
Rosie O'Donnell: Emmy-award winning performer, producer, writer, three-time past host of the Tony Awards ceremony, and founder of Rosie's Theatre Kids
TONY HONORS FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE THEATRE
Joseph P. Benincasa: President and CEO of The Actors Fund
Joan Marcus: Broadway photographer who has created production shots for over 300 shows on the Great White Way since 1986
Charlotte Wilcox: Founder of The Charlotte Wilcox Company and one of the leading general managers in the Broadway industry
Check back here in June for the updates! There may not be a live blog this time.
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label play. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Lizzie Borden
On August 4, 1892, the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, was shocked by a double murder that remains unsolved to this day...
Okay. I am not going to give you a history of the murders of Robert Borden and Abigail Borden, nee Gray. (I mean, if you want me to, please leave a comment to that because I have read extensively on the subject and love to discuss it.) (I also just found a listing for Abigail Borden on Facebook and MySpace and was very worried for a second, before I realised that both those names are pretty common.) While very interesting, I'm pretty sure you don't want to read it. You probably think you'll get a more accurate depiction on Wikipedia. (Which you won't. Because Wikipedia is largely a crock. But that's just my opinion. I'm sorry, if your site allows anyone off the street to edit any entry, I'm not going to use that site as a reference very seriously.)
You probably wonder why I've read at least three books on the grisly subject of these murders. Reason One: I get weirdly interested in murders and school shootings; they interest me as a student of history. Reason Two (and the one that's relevant to this post): When I was in grade ten, I appeared in a play called BLOOD RELATIONS, by Sharon Pollack, which we entered in the Sears Drama Festival that year. (We didn't do the whole play, just the first act, so we didn't actually do the murders onstage or anything, not that that happens in the play anyway.) Next year, the Queen's Drama Department is performing this same play. (That can be seen in my previous THEATRE TIMES post.)
I adore this play. Every time I read it, it fascinates me a little more. This is probably because every time I read it, it makes both a little more sense and a little less sense to me. It is a very intricate, complicated piece, with hundreds of different interpretations to it. Being a memory play (at least, that's what I always, always call it, because it's the easiest way to say it, even though it's definitely not what it is, since the various moments aren't true memories, but that is a really long thing to say), there are so many ways in which to think about who Miss Lizzie and the Actress are, and who's being portrayed, and how they're being portrayed. It seems very complicated at first - I'm pretty sure this explanation is not helping anyone - but Sharon Pollack is a genius at getting you to understand quickly on the surface so you're able to slide into the many worlds of the play. (I'm not kidding; there are about four very different worlds. World A - that's the one with the actors and the audience, where you're seeing/reading the play; World B - Lizzie and the Actress in present day Fall River; World C - The Actress playing Lizzie and Lizzie being in her own memories as Bridget; World D - this weird limbo the Actress and Lizzie are in. I consider World D separate from World B because they do seem to be in limbo to me. META.) This play is just brilliant to me, and I own a copy - although I need another copy, like in a book, just to keep track of more easily, not my script with notes everywhere - and I read it every year at least. (Wah, it's in storage now, along with all my other yearly re-read books.) But it is so interesting and great.
The story of Lizzie Borden attracted me from the first moment I read the play. (I think I did know who Lizzie Borden was before that, but grade 10 was the first time I really thought about it.) As I said, I have a weird penchant for murder stories, especially unsolved cases. This happened 120 years ago this year, almost 121 years ago, and no one has ever actually ascertained what happened that summer day. No one knows if Lizzie did it - of course, that is the most popular theory, and really makes the most sense if you read an account of the case - or if someone came in off the street, or if Abby's brother did it. There are many theories, but no solid evidence was ever found. (This was obviously well before the days of DNA testing.) Obviously I know a lot about the case, but I still can't tell you who did it, because I can't really decide.
Now before this turns into a history lesson...Back to the merits of the play!
The brilliant part of Sharon Pollack's play is that she doesn't tell you who did it either. You can take whatever you want; you can decide Lizzie did it, or you can decide Lizzie didn't do it, but she gives you the option, in a dramatic way. She doesn't say, "Lizzie did murder her parents." She gives you the motive Lizzie may have had, but she also hands you some motives for some other people. She doesn't give you all the facts. Obviously it's a dramatic interpretation, so some facts got changed or left out, but overall, she's accurate - accurate to the terms of the information we have. (Again, 1892 - not the best at records either.) And she leaves the choice up to you. Can I emphasize that enough?
I played Miss Lizzie in the play. (I did not play Bridget; it being high school, we split that character off to open more parts and I still can't decide what I would do in that situation.) It was a great experience, and though we didn't move up to the next round, we should have. (Yes. I'm still bitter.) I worked with great people and it went really well, and I just fell in love.
Now my alma mater is doing it, and while I'm a tiny bit annoyed (come on! I would have begged to work on that show!), I'm so excited they are finally doing it. I directed an excerpt from it in my fourth year, and it made me think about it even more. (I also did a full directors' workbook on it with a classmate in third year, and if you want to talk about that - well, it was huge and super, super fun because I am a huge nerd and I still have it.) I can't wait to see what they do with it - Greg Wanless is directing, and after seeing his interpretation of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, I am excited and uber curious to see what he does with it. It's definitely a show I'll be making a trip to Kingston to see, without a doubt. I'd love to direct it as well; it'd be interesting, and really, really difficult, since I would have to actually make up my mind about some things - most important of which being, "Did you do it, Lizzie? Lizzie, did you?"
And seriously, would YOU stay here if you knew exactly what happened that day? https://www.lizzie-borden.com/about-the-house/history - I'd be TERRIFIED. I want to tour it, but if I stayed there, I would certainly not sleep.
Okay. I am not going to give you a history of the murders of Robert Borden and Abigail Borden, nee Gray. (I mean, if you want me to, please leave a comment to that because I have read extensively on the subject and love to discuss it.) (I also just found a listing for Abigail Borden on Facebook and MySpace and was very worried for a second, before I realised that both those names are pretty common.) While very interesting, I'm pretty sure you don't want to read it. You probably think you'll get a more accurate depiction on Wikipedia. (Which you won't. Because Wikipedia is largely a crock. But that's just my opinion. I'm sorry, if your site allows anyone off the street to edit any entry, I'm not going to use that site as a reference very seriously.)
You probably wonder why I've read at least three books on the grisly subject of these murders. Reason One: I get weirdly interested in murders and school shootings; they interest me as a student of history. Reason Two (and the one that's relevant to this post): When I was in grade ten, I appeared in a play called BLOOD RELATIONS, by Sharon Pollack, which we entered in the Sears Drama Festival that year. (We didn't do the whole play, just the first act, so we didn't actually do the murders onstage or anything, not that that happens in the play anyway.) Next year, the Queen's Drama Department is performing this same play. (That can be seen in my previous THEATRE TIMES post.)
I adore this play. Every time I read it, it fascinates me a little more. This is probably because every time I read it, it makes both a little more sense and a little less sense to me. It is a very intricate, complicated piece, with hundreds of different interpretations to it. Being a memory play (at least, that's what I always, always call it, because it's the easiest way to say it, even though it's definitely not what it is, since the various moments aren't true memories, but that is a really long thing to say), there are so many ways in which to think about who Miss Lizzie and the Actress are, and who's being portrayed, and how they're being portrayed. It seems very complicated at first - I'm pretty sure this explanation is not helping anyone - but Sharon Pollack is a genius at getting you to understand quickly on the surface so you're able to slide into the many worlds of the play. (I'm not kidding; there are about four very different worlds. World A - that's the one with the actors and the audience, where you're seeing/reading the play; World B - Lizzie and the Actress in present day Fall River; World C - The Actress playing Lizzie and Lizzie being in her own memories as Bridget; World D - this weird limbo the Actress and Lizzie are in. I consider World D separate from World B because they do seem to be in limbo to me. META.) This play is just brilliant to me, and I own a copy - although I need another copy, like in a book, just to keep track of more easily, not my script with notes everywhere - and I read it every year at least. (Wah, it's in storage now, along with all my other yearly re-read books.) But it is so interesting and great.
The story of Lizzie Borden attracted me from the first moment I read the play. (I think I did know who Lizzie Borden was before that, but grade 10 was the first time I really thought about it.) As I said, I have a weird penchant for murder stories, especially unsolved cases. This happened 120 years ago this year, almost 121 years ago, and no one has ever actually ascertained what happened that summer day. No one knows if Lizzie did it - of course, that is the most popular theory, and really makes the most sense if you read an account of the case - or if someone came in off the street, or if Abby's brother did it. There are many theories, but no solid evidence was ever found. (This was obviously well before the days of DNA testing.) Obviously I know a lot about the case, but I still can't tell you who did it, because I can't really decide.
Now before this turns into a history lesson...Back to the merits of the play!
The brilliant part of Sharon Pollack's play is that she doesn't tell you who did it either. You can take whatever you want; you can decide Lizzie did it, or you can decide Lizzie didn't do it, but she gives you the option, in a dramatic way. She doesn't say, "Lizzie did murder her parents." She gives you the motive Lizzie may have had, but she also hands you some motives for some other people. She doesn't give you all the facts. Obviously it's a dramatic interpretation, so some facts got changed or left out, but overall, she's accurate - accurate to the terms of the information we have. (Again, 1892 - not the best at records either.) And she leaves the choice up to you. Can I emphasize that enough?
I played Miss Lizzie in the play. (I did not play Bridget; it being high school, we split that character off to open more parts and I still can't decide what I would do in that situation.) It was a great experience, and though we didn't move up to the next round, we should have. (Yes. I'm still bitter.) I worked with great people and it went really well, and I just fell in love.
Now my alma mater is doing it, and while I'm a tiny bit annoyed (come on! I would have begged to work on that show!), I'm so excited they are finally doing it. I directed an excerpt from it in my fourth year, and it made me think about it even more. (I also did a full directors' workbook on it with a classmate in third year, and if you want to talk about that - well, it was huge and super, super fun because I am a huge nerd and I still have it.) I can't wait to see what they do with it - Greg Wanless is directing, and after seeing his interpretation of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, I am excited and uber curious to see what he does with it. It's definitely a show I'll be making a trip to Kingston to see, without a doubt. I'd love to direct it as well; it'd be interesting, and really, really difficult, since I would have to actually make up my mind about some things - most important of which being, "Did you do it, Lizzie? Lizzie, did you?"
And seriously, would YOU stay here if you knew exactly what happened that day? https://www.lizzie-borden.com/about-the-house/history - I'd be TERRIFIED. I want to tour it, but if I stayed there, I would certainly not sleep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)