Now in its fifth season Gayfest NYC 2013 presents “new plays for our times,” offering playwrights a unique opportunity to submit LGBT-themed plays for full production in New York City. Presented by veteran Broadway producers Bruce Robert Harris and Jack Batman, this year’s festival opened last night and runs through June 16.

The three productions on the docket for this year include:

Moonlight & Love Songs by Scott C. Sickles — A 45-year-old man’s romantic dreams come true when he falls in love with a young college student. Their romance seems motion picture-perfect until a staggering revelation causes it to implode.

The Loves of Mr. Lincoln — A historically inspired piece by Pulitzer Prize nominated poet David Brendan Hopes that explores the many facets of one of our most famous presidents.

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde — The critically acclaimed BASiC Theatre Project production of Moisés Kaufman’s play.

The Broadway Blog had a chance to chat with Bruce and Jack about their inspiration for the festival and their special connection to its beneficiary, The Harvey Milk High School.

What was your inspiration for creating Gayfest NYC?
Bruce: It was a real creation of both Jack’s and mine. I was producing a gay pride series but it had really become too much. Jack was on my literary board. He called me one day and said why aren’t you doing this anymore?

It took us about 18 months to find an identity, create a logo, etc. Seven years ago there weren’t festivals calling attention these issues. It’s not always easy. We know it’s become very mainstream now. But it wasn’t 7 years ago. We give the plays lots of love and raise a lot of money – but we want the audiences to know everything we do goes toward our beneficiary, the Harvey Milk High School. These kids don’t have much. We’re helping them get a dorm room, a meal card, and provide funding for scholarships and educational programming.

Given how LGBT roles have become more prominent in both theater and mainstream media, why do you feel Gayfest NYC is still relevant?

Jack: Even though playwrights like Terrence McNally, Charles Bush and Douglas Carter Beane can get their plays produced, there is still a huge pool of untapped talent where their plays aren’t even looked at. I feel like Gayfest is almost like a playwright’s festival. At least these authors have a place to send their play and know that somebody is reading it.

Our first year we received more than 200 submissions – plays from around the world. They all address our issues. I also think that as far along as we are, there is still a big fight to be fought for equal rights and civil rights. These are our causes, our issues and our history.

There is also a difference in how we approach the festival. Others festivals may provide theater space, some marketing, a bit of help for the playwrights, but the shows have to come in with a producer – production needs to be brought to them whole. We start from scratch. It’s as if we’re producing a mini-Broadway show with a high production value.

How did the relationship with the Harvey Milk School come to fruition?

Bruce: We read an article about the school in the newspaper and were intrigued by what was going on there and investigated further. What the school truly was – was a safe haven – this was way before bullying was in the media. Here were these kids – gay, transgender, thrown out of their families – they need an education – and Harvey Milk was creating a safe haven. We gravitated toward that and the principals care so much for those kids.

Upon visiting the school – we looked at each other and said ‘We have to do this – this message has to get out.’ It’s the same feeling we had as commercial Broadway theater producers when we’d see a show that we knew we wanted to be a part of. That’s how we roll – we’re very passionate, Jack and I, and this is what propels me.

Jack: The school didn’t have a library or gym and we saw the passion that those teachers had as well as a lack of resources. It was going on love alone, and that we could add some. We thought there might be a way to support them in some way.

As a partner of the Hetrik-Martin Institute, they have programming everyday and we stepped in to help the school directly. At first we offered acting classes as a way for the kids to have an outlet but we found they were hesitant to get on their feet and tell their story. But they were willing to put their stories on paper. It became the most successful elective class and was put into the curriculum. We hire professional actors and present a reading of the students’ work. It’s a wonderful occasion to see what has been accomplished by making this class available to them. We can also offer students school credit by interning with us at the festival as well as a mentoring program and scholarship fund.

We get back a hundredfold in love – to go to graduation and see these kids who a few years ago were down and out. And now they are graduating at a rate of approximately 95%.

Gayfest NYC runs through June 16.
Click Here for tickets.

Martin Moran in "All the Rage". Photo by Joan Marcus.

A person telling a story. Whether around a fire, perched on the edge of a child’s bed or striding on a stage, it is an elemental human experience. Some would say that the act of storytelling itself is what makes us human. So it is movingly appropriate that Martin Moran, in his new one person play All the Rage, attempts to get to the heart of what, if anything, connects us by standing alone in the light and telling us “what happened next.” Nothing more. Nothing less.

Though it requires no previous familiarity with Moran’s work, the play is a continuation of sorts of Moran’s acclaimed memoir and play The Tricky Part, in which he revealed his sexual relationship at 12 years old with a 30 year old man and his later attempt to confront his abuser.

This deeply searching yet surprisingly funny new work finds Moran struggling to answer a question he hears again and again after performing the earlier play: “Why aren’t you angry?” The journey to access his rage or explain its absence takes him (and his rapt audience) to a Vegas confrontation with his step-mother, a Colorado hike with his seething yet poetic brother and across the world to the cradle of human life itself. At the play’s tender heart lies his burgeoning friendship with an African refuge, whose story of torture and escape binds them together—and leads the way to understanding.

As anyone who has heard the same joke from two people to very different results knows, it’s all in the telling. And with Moran (whose Broadway credits include Spamalot and Titanic), you have a storyteller of such ease, humor and open heartedness that, even when a particular episode feels less organic and more meandering, you go with him. You want to spend the evening with him. Heck, you want to go for a long walk with him after the show and just see where life takes the two of you as you chat and listen. That kind of warmth and spontaneity is not easily captured on stage and, in fact, requires the skill of a seasoned performer and the encouragement of a delicate director—here the unfussy, sure-handed Seth Barrish.

In the end, this soft-spoken, involving and worthwhile play arrives at flashes of insight, moments of loving clarity about our interconnectedness. The lessons learned may not be fresh, but they are freshly felt—freshly, deeply, humanely felt.

Read more…

“The Other Place,” Sharr White’s brainy drama that opened last night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, begins before the house lights go dim with Laurie Metcalf sitting center stage. She is texting.

Like many of us caught in the fast paced world of technology and innovation, she is consumed by her device—oblivious to the audience filling the theater. Then something happens. Some kind of distraction washes over her. It’s a subtle change. A shift in her chair. An awkward glance… the beginning of what is about to unravel in the next 80 minutes.

As Juliana, a sarcastic neurologist who has developed and now hawks a fictional drug called Identymal, Metcalf whizzes through playwright Sharr White’s acerbic dialogue, slicing through the fourth wall like an esteemed surgeon.

Yet, once again, something is not quite right. Juliana is flushed, distracted. So begins the descent to the other place where Juliana must face the demons of her past and an uncertain future. Along for the ride is Daniel Stern as husband Ian and Zoe Perry and John Schiappa who portray a variety of characters.

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Get caught up with what’s on stage with our review round-up. And that vaguely hollow, clinking sound you hear at the end of each segment? That’s me tossing in my two cents.

This week, by chance, I saw two off-broadway plays back-to-back that similarly stray beyond traditional dramatic language and provide interesting challenges for both the performers and the audience. While they might not be for everyone (as the divisive reviews attest), they certainly might be right for those looking for adventures beyond traditional Broadway fare…

Karen Allen in "A Summer Day". Photo by Sandra Coudert.

A SUMMER DAY

Sarah Cameron Sunde translates and directs a new play by acclaimed Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, about a woman–played by Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s Karen Allen–trapped in memories of one tragic day.

“…a quietly brutal little work that turns a romantic cliché into a sentence of existential doom (or freedom, depending on your mind-set).” New York Times

“A Summer Day succeeds in touching the audience without making any effort to seduce it.” New York Post

“Fosse’s abstract technique may be an acquired taste, even in this 90-minute dose, but the welcome return of Karen Allen to the New York stage is a treat not to be missed.” Associated Press

“Like everything else in this slender narrative, the point is simply stated, over and over, in scene after scene, in increasingly melodramatic language. And calling it poetry doesn’t make it any less deadly.” Variety

Mizer’s Two Cents:  With its repetitive, purposefully simplistic dialogue, this play perfectly captures the circling cadences of someone obsessively going over and over a single event…but the question becomes, no matter how poetically achieved and accurate the effect, do you want to spend an hour and a half inside that static, grief-stricken mindset? I, for one, found it moving, though I did have to adjust my tempo and expectations so as not to look for traditional dramatic arcs or conflict driven outbursts. My theater companion for the evening, less impressed, said, “I admired it but I can’t say that I liked it.”

My admiration for Karen Allen’s performance, however, is unqualified. With an achingly open vulnerability, she gently pulls the audience into her confessional and handles the challenge of the language with touching ease–where some of the other actors push to differentiate the intentions behind their repeated, banal phrases. And when, toward the end of the play, Ms. Allen smiles, she is all at once the young woman of hope and the lost older woman–both reaching out for someone to hold.

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Daniel Pearce, Celia Howard, Daniel Everidge, Jacey Powers & Julia Murney in "Falling". Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Mothers often say that they’d give their life for their child–but what happens when the child she loves is truly a danger to her and the rest of the family?

That’s the heartbreaking question at the center of Falling, the intense and emotionally evocative Off-Broadway play which opened last night. Inspired by playwright Deanna Jent’s own experiences, the drama (with some decidedly unexpected and welcome big laughs) follows one family as they try to figure out how best to care for an autistic son who has grown to adulthood–and whose violent outbursts can no longer be completely controlled. Supported by a deeply committed cast, acclaimed singer/actress Julia Murney (Wicked, Wild Party) anchors the play as a woman torn between her desire to escape her life and her duty as a mother; the New York Post raves “superbly staged by Lori Adams and wonderfully acted…Falling soars.”

After a recent performance, the cast, director and playwright sat down to talk to the audience about the inspirations for the show and their preparation for doing this moving work. Here are a few excerpts from the conversation:

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Michael Shannon, Kate Arrington, Paul Rudd & Ed Asner in "Grace". Photo by Joan Marcus.

GRACE

In a suspenseful new play by Craig Wright and starring an award-winning cast, a religious couple is forced to reexamine their beliefs when they encounter their cynical, damaged neighbor.

“But if Grace is remembered in years to come…it will most likely be as the production that brought Mr. Shannon’s electrically anxious acting to Broadway.” New York Times

“Ultimately Grace turns out to have a simple, affecting point: It’s about the stories we tell ourselves to make it through life.” New York Post

“A dream cast (Paul Rudd, Michael Shannon, Kate Arrington and Ed Asner) brings so much humanity to these oddball characters…that even an atheist would send up a prayer that these lost souls will find their faith.” Variety

“…one of those glibly funny but flawed dramas about faith in 21st-century America in which the evangelical Christians are hypocrites, or worse.” Entertainment Weekly

Read more…

Every first Wednesday of the month, get caught up with what’s on stage with our review round-up. And that vaguely hollow, clinking sound you hear at the end of each segment? That’s me tossing in my two cents. This month, we have two shows that comment on current political realities from opposite ends of the time/space continuum…

Kathleen McNenny, Richard Thomas & Boyd Gaines in "An Enemy of the People". Photo by Joan Marcus.

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

A new adaptation of the Ibsen classic steps up onto the Broadway soapbox when the political turns very personal for a small town doctor who reveals that his community’s livelihood is derived from polluted water.

“…high-intensity, high-volume production… Looking beyond the sometimes creaking dramaturgy, it is startling to discover how current the play’s ideas can feel.” New York Times

“…this trimmed-down adaptation moves just as fast, thanks to a new, punchy translation by the British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz.” New York Post

“Purists may flinch at Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s bare-bones adaptation… But when Boyd Gaines and Richard Thomas square off for the Cain-and-Abel power play between brothers, we could be on the hustings.” Variety

“…Henrik Ibsen’s spitting-mad screed against political hypocrisy among polite small-towners, tackles more hot-button election-year issues than an average hour of MSNBC.” Entertainment Weekly

Mizer’s Two Cents: This is not your grandfather’s Ibsen. The original five act play has been distilled down to a very brisk production involving two acts/two hours. With this serious trim, you gain a headlong momentum; you lose, perhaps, a depth of motivation for the characters. As the man of principle suddenly under siege, a very entertaining Boyd Gaines makes bold acting choices, at first frisky and then ferocious, to match the careening adaptation. See this solid (if not definitive) revival for his performance, the enjoyable character actors giving brush stroke performances around him and, particularly, for the shockingly prescient dialogue about the “tyranny of the majority”. You will leave the theater talking…and checking your voter registration card.

Read more…

Annie Funke & Jake Gyllenhaal in "If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet". Photo by Joan Marcus.

You’ve heard of friends with benefits? Well, this is a post with benefits so pucker up and get ready for this week’s theater news round-up…

• Part theater geek garage sale and part outdoor fan convention, the annual Broadway Flea Market and Grand Auction takes over Shubert Alley & Times Square this Sunday from 10am – 7pm. In addition to the popular autograph table (this year featuring the likes of Cheyenne Jackson, Bebe Neuwirth, Steve Kazee, Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan and more), the marquee event is an auction of priceless memorabilia and events including lunch with Angela Lansbury…with all proceeds going to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Start bidding now!

• Still jonesing for a big ticket reward? The Drama League is sponsoring an online auction of their own with some amazing items including tickets to see If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet including a VIP backstage photo with star Jake Gyllenhaal. Just keep your hands to yourself when you get that picture taken with my boyfriend.

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  David Schwimmer in "Detroit". Photo by Jeremy Daniel.

  There are lots of benefits (ouch, that transition gave me whiplash) to seeing shows beyond Broadway. Check out the glowing reviews for two big, starry Off-Broadway openings this week. First, David Schwimmer and Amy Ryan headline “the superb” new play about downward mobility Detroit at Playwrights Horizons. Then the transcript-based, wrongly accused prisoners docudrama The Exonerated, returns in a revival that “still has the power to unsettle” with its rotating cast including Stockard Channing and Brian Dennehy.

• Broadway Cares isn’t done yet; they’ve got a benefit — that’s like butter — planned for October 12 titled Hello Gorgeous: A Salute to the Streisand Songbook. Performers scheduled to belt their tuches off include Lorna Luft (Grease 2 again!), Ann Hampton Callaway, Daisy Eagan (The Secret Garden), Nick Adams (Priscilla: Queen of the Desert) and Jim Caruso (“Cast Party” at Birdland).

• The New York Times is reporting that Scarlett Johansson will slip out of her superhero leather and into a slip when she returns to Broadway as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof this winter. Her equally fetching, though perhaps not in a slip, co-stars will be Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson himself Benjamin Walker, Ciaran Hinds and Debra Monk.

• Finally, start planning your Christmas Day trip to movie theaters now because the big budget adaption of Les Miserables has been moved back two weeks to December 25. Not sure if it will be goodies or coal in your stocking? After the jump, check out a juicy behind-the-scenes preview that made the rounds yesterday. Color me very, very impressed with how some of the singing, recorded live on the set, sounds…

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Steppenwolf's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Photo by Michael Brosilow.

If the fall season’s crop of musicals is a sparse and eccentrically planted lot, the roster of plays is lush with big ideas, big stars and must-see events (if a few too many “didn’t we just see that” revivals). So let’s dig into the harvest feast…

"Grace". Image via O+M Co.

An Enemy of the People (September 27): Henrik Ibsen’s sturdy study of personal pressure and politics kicks things off just in time for election season. Class acts Boyd Gaines and Richard Thomas play brothers, a mayor and a doctor, on opposite sides of an environmental disaster in the making. (Yeah, this was written when?)

Grace (October 4): As I’ve said before…Paul Rudd. I lerve him. Toss in the always magnetic Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) and my interest is more than peaked for this surreal comedy-drama about a couple’s plans for religious-themed motels and their less than faithful neighbor.

Running on Empty (October 9): Comedian and professional ranter Lewis Black brings his stand-up to Broadway for a week of performances.

Cyrano de Bergerac (October 11): The French war horse (no, not that one) gets trotted out for another display of witty banter, actorly showmanship and much-needed rhinoplasty. Tony-winner Douglas Hodge (La Cage aux Folles) takes on the title role in a Roundabout Theatre revival.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (October 13): The revelatory Steppenwolf production starring playwright (and seriously accomplished actor) Tracy Letts and the incomparable Amy Morton finally makes it to Broadway. Check my review from when I saw it at Arena Stage last year and tell me you aren’t a wee bit excited to see the Albee classic again.

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It might be nice if they eased us into a new theater season but, no, it’s full speed ahead! So today’s news roundup is going to be a light speed round the world tour…

• New York: The 20th Broadway on Broadway Concert is this Sunday at 11:30 am in Times Square. A right of passage for all Broadway fans (like your Mandy Patinkin phase), the event is free and set to feature musical performances from Bring It On, Newsies, Once, a sneak peek at Season 2 of Smash and more.

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  Jennifer Coolidge. Image via PlaybillVault.com.

  Los Angeles: What I wouldn’t give to be in the City of Angels this Sunday to see the 25th anniversary reading of Steel Magnolias. A benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the cast includes Alexis Bledel, Frances Conroy, Elizabeth Perkins, Annie Potts and…wait for it…Jennifer Coolidge. Seriously, get me on a Virgin (flight, that is) to LAX stat ’cause Coolidge is divine.

• Chicago: According to Playbill.com, my Tony-winning talent-crush Norbert Leo Butz is officially headlining the musical adaptation of Big Fish in the Windy City spring of 2013. The world premiere based on the 2003 Ewan McGregor (speaking of crushes) fantasy will be directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and a book by the original screenwriter John August.

• Detroit & Pittsburgh: Producers announced impending Broadway runs for two new musicals. Motown: The Musical, written by and based on the life of record label founder Berry Gordy, will jukebox its way into the Lunt-Fontanne on April 14, 2013. A few months later in August, that gritty film expose of steelworkers with ballet dreams Flashdance is hauling its welding tools and leg warmers onto the Great White Way. This follows a separate tour that will begin in its setting, Pittsburgh, January 2013. What a feeling, indeed

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  Richard Roxburgh & Cate Blanchett in "Uncle Vanya". Photo by Lisa Tomasetti.

• Sydney: Speaking of hopping a Virgin, the 2013 season announcement for the Sydney Theater Company contains two flight-worthy productions. First up, an adaptation of Kate Grenville’s beautiful novel The Secret River by playwright Andrew Bovell (of Lincoln Center’s acclaimed When the Rain Stops Falling). And, building on the exquisite Uncle Vanya that came through New York a few weeks back, Cate Blanchett will be starring in Jean Genet’s The Maids opposite French icon Isabelle Huppert. Be still my film goddess-loving heart.

• London-ish: The British smash War Horse posted a closing notice for its stateside run at Lincoln Center following a summer dip in ticket sales. You’ve got plenty of time to cry yourself silly, though; the final performance is scheduled for January 6, 2013

• Heaven: The new Theresa Rebeck (Seminar, Smash) play Dead Accounts revealed its complete cast and I am on cloud nine. Seriously, this just shot to the top of my must see list for fall. Joining the previously announced Norbert Leo Butz (him again) and Katie Holmes (work that divorce) will be the deliriously good Jayne Houdyshell (Follies, Well), the handsome and charming Josh Hamilton (The Coast of Utopia) and, I’m giddy here, the film scene stealer Judy Greer (The Descendants).

Finally, if you’d like to make sure new and original music theater finds its way to the stage, here’s a simple and inexpensive way to play your part. This year’s NAMT Festival of New Musicals is raising money to support demo recordings for the eight new shows being presented (full disclosure: I co-wrote one of them). There’s only a day left to contribute at Rocket Hub but as little as $5 will help artists focus on the writing and allow fresh songs to be heard.