“Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.” -- Horace

PERFECT CRIME, THE LONGEST-RUNNING PLAY IN NYC HISTORY, CELEBRATES 25TH ANNIVERSARY

PERFECT CRIME, Warren Manzi’s long-running funny, romantic thriller, will celebrate its 25th anniversary Off Broadway on Wednesday, April 18, with performance number 10,233. PERFECT CRIME is the longest-running play in the history of New York theater.

The celebration will include a 7 p.m. performance followed by a 9:15 p.m. anniversary party at the Snapple Theater Center, 210 W. 50th St. at Broadway. The entire audience for that evening’s performance is invited to the party, which features dinner and an open bar.
 
“We’ve had such terrific audiences over the past 25 years,” said Catherine Russell (in photo), the play’s leading lady and general manager. “They figure out the clues, laugh along at the jokes and have helped make the show a New York institution.”
 
Russell has starred in the play since its first performance and has never taken a sick day or vacation day, a feat which landed her a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Since PERFECT CRIME opened in 1987, Russell has spent more than two years of her life (nearly 17,000 hours) onstage performing the role of psychiatrist and potential murderer Margaret Thorne Brent.
 
During PERFECT CRIME’s historic run, Russell has shot 89 different men and kissed 57 others. Over 83,000 bullets have been fired onstage and more than 5,000 prop coffee cakes have been eaten, and 237 have performed its 25-year existence.
 
The show has been modernized through the years to keep up with pop culture and technology. An on-set television was upgraded to a flat screen, and references to “The Phil Donahue Show” were changed to “Oprah” and then “the morning shows”. A character’s net worth was increased from $1 million to $50 million, and then increased again to $600 million.
 
PERFECT CRIME, New York’s answer to The Mousetrap, was optioned for Broadway in 1980 while author Warren Manzi was playing Mozart in the Broadway production of Amadeus.  At the time, Manzi was the youngest American to have a play optioned for Broadway.  After he refused prospective producer Morton Gottlieb's request to change the title to Guilty Hands and star Mary Tyler Moore or Elaine Stritch, Manzi went to Hollywood and wrote several screenplays, including two versions of “Clue” for John Landis.
 
The script sat in Manzi's drawer for seven years until he became the artistic director of a theater company that produced the play.  Initially opening as an Equity Showcase on April 18, 1987 for a four-week limited run at The Courtyard Playhouse, PERFECT CRIME has since become what New York Times critic Jason Zinoman called “an urban legend” thanks to its incredible staying power.
 
The cast of PERFECT CRIME also includes John Hillner, George McDaniel, Patrick Robustelli and Richard Shoberg.  Jeffrey Hyatt is the director.
 
For more information, visit WWW.PERFECT-CRIME.COM

Donna Murphy To Play The Witch In INTO THE WOODS

 Tony Award-winner Donna Murphy has been cast as The Witch in the Public Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s beloved musical INTO THE WOODS, directed by Timothy Sheader with co-direction by Liam Steel. Murphy last performed at the Delacorte in the Shakepeare in the Park production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 1985. INTO THE WOODS will begin previews at the Delacorte on Monday, July 23 and continue for five weeks through Saturday, Aug. 25.
 
As previously announced, the cast will also include Amy Adams (The Baker’s Wife), Jack Broderick (Narrator), Gideon Glick (Jack), Cooper Grodin (Rapunzel’s Prince), Ivan Hernandez (Cinderella’s Prince/Wolf), Tina Johnson (Granny), Josh Lamon (Steward), Jessie Mueller (Cinderella), Laura Shoop (Cinderella’s Mother), and Tess Soltau (Rapunzel). 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT, directed by Daniel Sullivan, will kick off the 50th Anniversary season of free Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte in June with a cast that includes MacIntyre Dixon (Adam), David Furr (Orlando), Renee Elise Goldsberry (Celia), Robert Joy (Le Beau, Lord), Omar Metwally (Oliver), Oliver Platt (Touchstone), Lily Rabe (Rosalind), and Stephen Spinella (Jaques).  AS YOU LIKE IT will begin previews on Tuesday, June 5 and continue for four weeks through Saturday, June 30.
 
Grammy® and Emmy winning actor/comedian/musician and bestselling author Steve Martin will compose original music for AS YOU LIKE IT which will feature a live Bluegrass band. AS YOU LIKE IT is Shakespeare's most musical play, containing more songs than any other. Sullivan will set the play's famous Forest of Arden in the rural American South, circa 1840, where folk and roots music perfectly capture the mood of the time.
 
Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers’ latest album “Rare Bi”rd Alert debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Chart and at #43 on the Billboard Top 200.  The album was nominated for a Grammy® for “Best Bluegrass Album” and features 13 new Martin-penned tracks, including a live version of “King Tut,” and special guest vocals by Paul McCartney and the Dixie Chicks.  His debut album “The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo” won “Best Bluegrass Album” in 2009.  Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers were also named ‘Entertainer of the Year’ at the 2011 International Bluegrass Association Awards.
 
AS YOU LIKE IT features scenic design by John Lee Beatty; costume design by Jane Greenwood; lighting design by Natasha Katz; and sound design by Acme Sound Partners.

INTO THE WOODS features scenic design by John Lee Beatty and Soutra Gilmour; costume design by Emily Rebholz; movement direction by Liam Steel; sound design by Acme Sound Partners, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick; and musical direction by Paul Gemignani.
 
In AS YOU LIKE IT, Rosalind, Shakespeare’s most breathtaking heroine, and her boyfriend Orlando find themselves in the enchanted Forest of Arden, where all the world’s a stage, and where sudden infatuation is as confusing as it is beautiful.  Along with other “country copulatives,” they discover that nothing transforms, redeems, or enriches experience quite as powerfully as love.  AS YOU LIKE IT has everything we adore about Shakespearean comedy: mistaken identity, cross-dressing, madness, mayhem, rage, lust, laughter, and of course plenty of romance, both heartbreaking and joyous. 

In INTO THE WOODS, a witch’s curse condemns the Baker and his Wife to a life without children. They embark on a quest to find the four items required to break the spell: the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold. Will they succeed?  And what happens after “happily ever after?” A Tony Award-winning masterpiece by musical theater giants Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, INTO THE WOODS is a witty and irreverent reimagining of beloved classic fairytales: Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Cinderella.
 
INTO THE WOODS opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on Nov. 5, 1987 and played 764 performances. It earned three Tony Awards, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical and a Grammy Award.  Directed by James Lapine, the original Broadway production featured a cast that included Bernadette Peters as The Witch and Joanna Gleason as the Baker’s Wife. James Lapine also directed the Broadway revival that opened on April 30, 2002 at the Broadhurst Theatre and starred Vanessa Williams as The Witch and Laura Benanti as Cinderella.
 
 
Tickets to Shakespeare in the Park are FREE and are distributed, two per person, at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park the day of the show. The Public Theater will again offer free tickets through our Virtual Ticketing lottery at www.shakespeareinthepark.org on the day of the show.
 
In honor of five decades at the Delacorte, The Public Theater launched the 50th Anniversary Fellows Program this year to help support free Shakespeare in the Park for years to come.  For more information on the Fellows Program, please call 212-967-7555 or visit www.shakespeareinthepark.org.

End of the Rainbow

I am left with two dominant thoughts after seeing End of the Rainbow, which opened last night at the Belasco Theatre. One is that British actress/singer Tracie Bennett will win the Tony Award for best actress for her portrayal of Judy Garland at the end of her life. On a less positive note, I couldn’t help but feel that playwright Peter Quilter is just the latest in a long line of people trying to make money off of a woman who was magnificently talented but whose drug and alcohol addictions were far beyond her ability to cope. This is quite often a painful show to watch.

The play, directed by Terry Johnson, comes to Broadway following a successful West End run. It dramatizes the weeks in December 1968 that a financially broke Garland spent at the Ritz Hotel in London while performing her last “comeback” concerts at the Talk of the Town nightclub. It’s definitely powerful theatre, but I wonder what is the purpose of watching such a sick woman spewing obscenities while in constant motion either from her high on drugs or her withdraw from them, twitching her way from one side of the room to the other or rolling on the floor, half dressed, with her makeup smeared.

The pain of witnessing someone disintegrate before your eyes is relieved by interspersed scenes of brilliance as the back wall of the suite (gorgeous sets and costumes by William Dudley) lifts and a six-man onstage orchestra recreates the elegance of Garland’s concerts, with the diva now all glittery, gowned and energized (well, high), dazzling her audience with some of the songs she helped make famous, “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Just in Time,” “You Made Me Love You,” “The Trolley Song.” Bennett amazed me with her ability to capture both sides of Garland’s world, and her singing is breathtaking. We saw her at Saturday’s matinee and she was holding nothing back for the evening performance. I can’t imagine how she does that eight times a week. She even returns post-curtain call to sing “By Myself.” This is her Broadway debut; she earned an Olivier Award nomination for her performance in the London production. I hope we will see much more of her.

Her costars also are in excellent form. Michael Cumpsty (in photo) plays Anthony, Garland’s devoted accompanist, so convincingly that my friend Brenda and I were speculating at intermission over whether he was really playing the piano. I thought he was and Brenda was uncertain, but by the end we were both convinced he was. His hands and feet are in all the right places at the right times, but nope, he’s just a good actor.

In the other major role, Tom Pelphrey is Garland’s young soon-to-be fifth husband, Mickey Deans. Jay Russell plays several lesser roles.

While Anthony seems to genuinely care about Garland, Mickey is more concerned with the money she can make from the concert engagement. It is harrowing to watch him force-feed a hung over Judy Ritalin to ensure she goes on that night.

Which leaves me with the question why. The play offers no new insight into Garland’s life. No transformative ending awaits -- Garland died of a massive overdose six months later at the age of 47, so down and out that Frank Sinatra paid for her funeral. Why do we need to watch her degrading final act on display in such excruciating detail? It’s time to let her be remembered for her gifts rather than her demons. They did far too much damage to her in her lifetime.

"Welcome to My World"

This blog posting by Dr. Michael Brown, senior minister at Marble Collegiate Church, appears on the church's web site.

“Welcome to my world!” It’s a phrase we often use when someone complains about something we live with on a regular basis. “I can’t believe how much it costs to rent one space in a parking garage!,” or “I am so disappointed my alma mater lost in the NCAAs!,” or “It’s incredible how much I pay in taxes!,” or “I have to be so careful about my weight that I’ve given up everything that tastes good!,” or “Sometimes my arthritis is so painful I hardly get any sleep at all!,” and we respond, “Welcome to my world.” It simply means we understand, we know what they’re going through, we’ve lived where they are living.

When the crowds cried out “Hosanna!” on the first Palm Sunday, to an extent they were saying to Jesus, “Welcome to my world!” “Welcome to Jerusalem where we are overworked and underpaid, where we are oppressed by the government and also by the religious hierarchy, where we struggle to make it from one day to the next, and where we live in constant fear that our burdens will increase and our liberties will be all the more restricted.” They did not make a “Welcome” carpet of palm branches to invite Jesus to a party. Instead, they laid down those branches hoping that He would become their Deliverer. “Welcome to my world. I hope you can redeem it.”

It was, of course, a two-edged sword. “Hosanna” has its costs. Whenever we invite Jesus to enter our world, it becomes incumbent on us to create an environment where He will feel at home. If my spiritual house is furnished with anger or bitterness, with negativism or prejudice, with narrow-mindedness or exclusivity, with a denial of hope or a paucity of love, He cannot possibility feel welcome there. If I invite Jesus into my world, it is important to tidy my world up a bit. On Palm Sunday He entered the Temple and began to throw out whatever things dishonored God and demeaned people. If my world contains things that do either, then those things need to be cleaned out to make room for Him.

By the same token, if my world contains pain, fear, loneliness, brokenness, guilt, sickness, self-doubt, despair, or a host of other issues that make life more burden than blessing, then Jesus lovingly follows the palm branches into my own personal Jerusalem. Where human hurt resides, so does He reside – with unfettered love for those in pain, with comfort for those who lean upon Him, and with the power to cleanse our temples of whatever things diminish us. He comes with love for you and me and all. And all we have to do is whisper, “Hosannah! Welcome to my world!,” and He is there.

Carrie

If I had to describe the newly revised Off-Broadway revival of Carrie in one word I’d call it sweet, but not in a condescending way. That’s an odd word for a musical based on a horror novel by Stephen King that ends in so much violence and death, but this MCC Theater production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre has a simple, old-fashioned feel to it that had my friend Maureen and me hooked right from the start.

We had not expected to like it. After all, the original 1988 Broadway production, which I didn’t see, was a laughing stock and one of the biggest flops in musical theatre history. It cost $7 million to mount and ran for only 16 previews and five performances. But here director Stafford Arima handles the story (book by Lawrence D. Cohen) of teen bullying and dramatic revenge with just the right touch of sympathy and gore, toning down the original excesses. It’s a quick, involving two hours.

All of the elements worked for me, but the three standouts are Arima’s creative direction, Molly Ranson’s magnetic performance as Carrie White and Kevin Adams’ transformative lighting.

Everything about Ranson’s performance paints of portrait of Carrie’s past as the only child of a mentally ill, fundamentalist Christian single mother (excellently played by Broadway veteran Marin Mazzie, left in photo). She wears a drab ankle-length full skirt and long-sleeved sweater (costumes by Emily Rebnolz), with her hair in a bun and no make-up. Her posture conveys her shyness and fear as she seems absolutely recoiled into herself. I wanted to go onstage and hug her.

David Zinn’s minimalistic set -- only a few straight chairs and tables -- are transformed into the Whites’ house and school gym thanks to Adams’ highly effective lighting, which, with Matt Williams’ choreography and Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s musical direction and arrangements, powerfully create the cataclysmic revenge scene with little in terms of props and much in terms of drama. I was riveted.

Maybe I should stop here to recap the story for anyone who hasn’t read the book (I haven’t) or didn’t see the wildly popular 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek. (I saw it on video years later.) Carrie’s father has abandoned the family long ago and she lives with her unstable mother, who has brought her up with extreme ideas of sin and little knowledge of reality.

One day after gym class Carrie gets her period for the first time -- at 17 -- in the shower and runs out to the other girls, terrified that she is dying. For years they have called her Scary Carrie behind her back, but have otherwise not paid much attention to her. This incident is too much for them, though, and they laugh at her and pummel her with sanitary products.

Seeing how terrified and uninformed Carrie is, one of the students, Sue Snell (nicely played by Christy Altomare), regrets her unkindness and sets forth from then on to make amends. But Chris Hargensen (played with relish by Jeanna De Waal), the meanest of the mean girls, plans a public humiliation for Carrie that will make the shower incident seem mild.

Carrie, however, is no longer defenseless. The trauma of the shower episode unleashed something in her of which she had been unaware -- her telekinetic gift, the ability to move objects though the power of her mind. The Act One closer is a delightful turn when Carrie puts her mother in her place. She will do the same later with her classmates, with much more deadly results.

A word of caution if you saw the movie. Undoubtedly you have never forgotten that final scene because you -- and everyone around you including the guys -- screamed in fright. That scene isn’t in the play. I know I wasn’t the only one expecting it because a woman near me said: “Is that the end?” when the lights dimmed. I was waiting for it and wish they had used it, although it would have been hard to stage.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire production. All of the members of the cast are good, but then this musical has a history of attracting strong actors. Barbara Cook played the mother in the London premiere and Betty Buckley took over the role when the show opened on Broadway. Piper Laurie played Mrs. White in the film.

The songs (Michael Gore’s music and Dean Pitchford’s lyrics) served more to move the plot along than stand out on their own. I liked that. It made for a nice, tight piece of theatre. Maureen was shocked when we came out to learn that two hours had gone by.

Unfortunately a show about bullying is as timely today as ever. But Carrie’s run is not timeless; it will end April 8, two weeks prior its previously announced extension. If you can’t make it to the theatre, though, you may have another chance to see the show.

"MCC, the authors, and the director achieved what we all set out to do – to rescue Carrie from oblivion and to give her new life,” MCC artistic directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler said in a press statement. “Plans are underway to preserve this production for Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, so it may live on in the memories of the thousands of theatergoers who saw and loved it."

A $20 rush ticket is available for theatregoers under 30. Arrive two hours before the performance with valid identification. Visit mcctheater.org for more information.

The Game

This blog post by Dr. Michael Brown, senior minister at Marble Collegiate Church, appears on the church's web site.

Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest: Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400.00 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has specific rules, just as any game has certain rules.

Rules:

1) Everything that you didn't spend during each day would be taken away from you.

2) You may not simply transfer money into some other account.
3) You may only spend it.

4) Each morning upon awakening, the balance in your account would be exactly $86,400.00 for that day only.

5) The bank can end the game without warning; at any time it can say, the game is over! It can close the account and you will not receive a new one.

What would you personally do? You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right? Not only for yourself, but for all the people you love, right? Even for people you don't know, because you couldn't possibly spend it all on yourself, right? You would try to spend every cent, use it all, right?

Actually, THIS GAME IS REALITY!

Each of us is in possession of such a magical bank. We just can't seem to see it. The magical bank is TIME!

Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is not credited to us. What we haven't lived up that day is forever lost. Yesterday is forever gone.

Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time.

So, what will you do with your 86,400 seconds? Those seconds are worth so much more than the same amount in dollars. Therefore, enjoy every second of your life, because time races by so much more quickly than you think.

So take care of yourself, be happy, love deeply, and enjoy life!

Here's wishing you a beautiful day.

Start spending.