This Week on Broadway for May 9, 2021: Kathleen Chalfant

BROADWAYRADIO

05/9/21

James Marino,Kathleen Chalfant,Michael Portantiere,Peter Filichia

This Week on Broadway for May 9, 2021: Kathleen Chalfant

Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere talk with Kathleen Chalfant.

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Panel:

Peter Filichia | [email protected] | Facebook
PETER FILICHIA is a playwright, journalist, and historian with a number of books. His columns appear at Encore Magazine, Masterworks Broadway, Broadway Select and many other places.

James Marino | [email protected] | Twitter | Facebook
BroadwayStars

Michael Portantiere | [email protected] | Facebook
MICHAEL PORTANTIERE is a theater reviewer and essayist. He is the founder and editor of CastAlbumReviews.com. He is also a theatrical photographer whose photos have appeared in The New York Times and other major publications. You can see his photography work at FollowSpotPhoto.com.

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Guest: Kathleen Chalfant

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
by Joan Didion
Starring Kathleen Chalfant
Directed by Jonathan Silverstein
Available Thursday May 13th at 9am EST
to Sunday May 16th at midnight EST

Join Keen Company for a benefit broadcast of The Year of Magical Thinking starring Obie and Drama Desk Award winner Kathleen Chalfant in a one-woman tour de force performance.

In a career spanning more than five decades, Kathleen Chalfant’s performances on stage, screen and television have garnered her praise and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Perhaps best known for her shattering portrayal of Vivian Bearing, a scholar battling cancer, in WIT, she received the Obie, the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, the Outer Critics Circle, the Ovation, Connecticut Critics Circle, the Garland and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for her work. BROADWAY: Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk nom.), Racing Demon, Dance With Me. OFF-BROADWAY: A Woman of the World, Wit (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle, Obie Awards), For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, A Walk in the Woods (Drama Desk nom.), Tales from Red Vienna, Miss Ovington & Dr. Dubois, Talking Heads (Obie Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination), Henry V (Callaway Award). OTHER NY CREDITS: The Vagina Monologues, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Endgame, Sister Mary Ignatius…, The Investigation of the Murder in El Salvador. FILM: Isn’t it Delicious?, R.I.P.D., The Bath, In Bed With Ulysses, Lillian, Duplicity, The People Speak, Lackawanna Blues, Perfect Stranger, Dark Water, Kinsey, Laramie Project, Random Hearts, A Price Below Rubies, Murder and Murder. SELECT TELEVISION Recurring on “The Affair,” “The Strain,” “The Americans,” “House of Cards,” “Rescue Me,” “The Book of Daniel,” “The Guardian,” “Law and Order” “One Life to Live”; “Madam Secretary,” “High Maintenance,” “Elementary,” “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” (HBO), “Georgia O’Keeffe” (Lifetime), “Voices from the White House” (PBS). AWARDS: 1996 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence, 2004 Lortel Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance, 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the League of Professional Women. 2018 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement. She has received the Drama League and Sidney Kingsley Awards for her body of work and hold an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Cooper Union.

Adapted from Joan Didion’s best-selling memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking explores the author’s poignant journey of grief following tragic personal events. Written with Didion’s trademark style of cool wit and clever observation, The Year of Magical Thinking is an intimate look at the resilience of the human heart.

Fundraiser tickets are just $25 and include access to a pre-recorded talkback with Kathleen Chalfant.

Back by popular demand! This presentation of Year of Magical Thinking is a video on demand revival of the original live stream which aired on March 13th, 2021.

Tickets to this fundraiser event supports Keen Company’s Hear/Now audio theater season, as well as Keen’s Playwrights Lab for mid-career writers, and Keen Teens which serves students in all five boroughs of NYC.

Novenas for a Lost Hospital — Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

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Wynn Handman

“Pass Over” to Open at August Wilson Theatre, “Wicked” to Hit the Road in August

Tim Black to Panelists (10:37 AM)
I saw Pass Over here in Denver in 2019 and it’s a very powerful play.

The Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 production of Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s acclaimed, award-winning play PASS OVER, directed by Obie Award winner Danya Taymor (“Daddy”, Heroes of the Fourth Turning) will reopen Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre (245 W 52nd Street, New York, NY) for a limited engagement, with exact dates to be announced shortly. This will mark the Broadway debut of both Nwandu and Taymor. PASS OVER will be produced on Broadway by Matt Ross, Jujamcyn Theaters, Lincoln Center Theater, Concord Theatricals, Renee Montgomery, Blair Underwood, Madeleine Foster Bersin and Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu.

Playwright and producer Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu said “In the summer of 2017, soon after our nation had elected Donald Trump as president, my creative team and I opened a production of Pass Over that shocked the conscience of our audiences. It premiered in Chicago at Steppenwolf and was captured by Spike Lee for Amazon Prime.

“In the summer of 2018, wanting to prick the conscience of liberal Americans who remain tentative in their condemnation of violence against Black people, I changed the ending of the play, and my team and I opened Pass Over at LCT3 in New York. That version of the play was then produced throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, London, and South Africa.

“And now, as my team and I prepare to produce this play again, I’ve asked myself: when the state-sanctioned murder of Black people in the United States remains visible and routine, and the world continues to reckon with the loss, trauma, and alienation caused by the global pandemic, how do I meet this moment?

“Though much about Pass Over remains a lament over the lives of Black people stolen too soon, I am happy to confirm that my team and I, along with our producers, are presenting a new version that centers the health, hope and joy of our audiences, especially Black people. We are re-uniting to envision this play again, to tell a version of the story on Broadway where Moses & Kitch both survive their encounter with white oppression.”

PASS OVER is Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “masterful” (Afira Akbar, The Guardian) new play, drawing inspiration from Waiting for Godot and the Exodus story, placed on a city street corner. Moses and Kitch stand around – talking shit, passing the time, and hoping that maybe today will be different. As they dream of their promised land, a stranger wanders into their space and disrupts their plans. Evoking heartbreak, hope, and joy over its 85 minutes, PASS OVER crafts everyday profanities into poetic and humorous riffs, illuminating the unquestionable human spirit of young men looking for a way out. Casting for the Broadway engagement will be announced in the coming weeks.

“As August Wilson did almost 4 decades ago, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu is leading us towards the Broadway of our best imagination,” said Jujamcyn Theaters president Jordan Roth. “Her brilliant vision, her unwavering voice, her galvanizing spirit show us the way forward, and all of us at Jujamcyn are so grateful that Antoinette and her exquisite play Pass Over are coming home to the August Wilson Theatre.”

The Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 (Andre Bishop, Producing Artistic Director/Evan Cabnet, Artistic Director LCT3) New York premiere of PASS OVER opened at the Claire Tow Theater where, where it had an acclaimed, sold-out, and extended run and received the 2019 Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. The world premiere was produced and presented at Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Anna D. Shapiro, Artistic Director and David Schmitz, Managing Director). A filmed version of Taymor’s Jeff Award-winning Steppenwolf production, directed by Spike Lee, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and at SXSW.

The production reunites the full design team from the Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 production, with set design by Wilson Chin (Cost of Living, Wild Goose Dreams), costume design by Sarafina Bush (Plot Points in Our Sexual Development, Heroes of the Fourth Turning), lighting design by Marcus Doshi (Linda Vista) and sound design by Obie and Grammy Award winner Justin Ellington (Pipeline, Heroes of the Fourth Turning). Casting is by Daniel Swee.

Jujamcyn Theaters and the producers are deeply committed to the health and safety of our audiences, performers, and staff. Among many enhancements, Jujamcyn has now upgraded all of its auditorium ventilation systems with MERV 13 filters, created a contactless experience for guests at the box office, entering the theatre and in bathrooms, and established rigorous cleaning and sanitation protocols. Based on CDC and New York state guidelines at the time of performance, protocols may include contact tracing survey, vaccination or negative test verification, limitations on belongings in the theatre, proper mask usage, assigned entry times, contactless temperature check, social distancing, and more. Specific health & safety protocols are subject to change but will be clearly communicated to ticket holders in advance of their performance. Ticket holders who do not comply with venue protocols will not be admitted.

Which Broadway Shows Are Back This Fall?

Peter: “Housewives of Secaucus: What a Drag,” a lip sync musical parody of the “Real Housewives” series of reality programs and their ilk, begins an open-ended off-Broadway run at New York City’s Actors Temple Theatre on Saturday, May 1

Michael: Lilies @ Theater Center

Michael: Joe Iconis & Lauren Marcus @ West Bank Cafe

Peter’s Trivia Section

Michael’s Musical Moment:

“Almost Like Being In Love” from Brigadoon

Get a behind the scenes look of “Almost Like Being In Love” from Brigadoon featuring Kelli O’Hara and Patrick Wilson.

ABOUT BRIGADOON:
Before My Fair Lady and Camelot there was Brigadoon, Lerner & Loewe’s transcendent romantic fantasy about the past, the present, and what it means to (almost) be in love. The classic 1947 musical, celebrating its 70th anniversary, follows Tommy Albright (Patrick Wilson), a jaded New Yorker who gets lost in the Scottish Highlands and stumbles into an idyllic town that only appears for one day every century. He quickly becomes smitten with the headstrong Fiona MacLaren (Kelli O’Hara) and makes an enemy of the rebellious Harry Beaton (Robbie Fairchild), bringing about a chain of events that could spell doom for the entire town.

When this production opened at New York City Center in 2017, it was hailed as “glorious and vehemently alive” by The New York Times, “a tour de force” by Newsday, “exuberant and gorgeously sung” by the New York Daily News and “ravishing and luminous” by Deadline. It was originally presented November 15-19, 2017.

Brigadoon stars Kelli O’Hara, Patrick Wilson and Stephanie J. Block, and features The Encores! Orchestra led by Music Director Rob Berman.

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