Broadway.tv wants to wish everyone a Happy Halloweem, have fun and be safe tonight!
Checkout some of these fun photos from Heidi Klum’s 9th Annual Halloween Party at 1 Oak in New York City today!
Photos: J. Kohen
Abigail Breslin has had a very successful career as a young actress starring in movies such as Signs, Little Miss Sunshine, Mim’s Island and her newest movie Zombieland.
The announcement that Abigail Breslin would play Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker drew a lot of attention recently. We caught up with Breslin on the Finian’s Rainbow red carpet this week to see what she had to say about starring in the show. Watch the video above to see what Breslin had to say.
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BROADWAY MAGAZINE – Sad news that the new revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs is closing on Sunday. The production is excellent with strong performances from the cast, a brilliant design, and an amusing script. David Cromer’s direction maintains the humor without sacrificing the humanity of the characters. The planned production of Broadway Bound will also be cancelled. Very sad news.
BROADWAY MAGAZINE – This week, we’ve been celebrating Monster themed Broadway flops on our blog. Now, we offer our look at the 8 great monsters on Broadway. Dare to join us as we look at the ghouls and beasts that have had made us scream or smile on the “Great Fright Way” (as Eric Grundhauser calls it). Did we miss anyone?
By Eric Grundhauser, Broadway Magazine
While Young Frankenstein has been successfully song-and-dancing recent Broadway audiences, it’s not the first ghoulish production to haunt the Great Fright Way. There’s another classic monster that has tried time and again to hypnotize Broadway audiences, and with Halloween here lets take a look at some of the productions that focused on that fanged creature of the night, the vampire.
Dracula and his ilk may have been featured in a number of plays and musicals, but two major projects stand out: German import Dance of the Vampires, and the Ann Rice and Elton John mash-up, Lestat. Neither of the shows were smash hits, but they managed to bring the sensual theatricality of the vampire mythology to the stage.
Dance of the Vampires came to Broadway after successful stagings in various European countries. Originally based on a Roman Polanski film of the same name, the musical followed the misadventures of a vampire hunter and his assistant as they try to stop a vampire from consuming a comely lass. With a fairly serious tone in the foreign productions, the show was changed to give it a campier, silly feel when it came to American shores. Unfortunately, this retooling turned out to be a disaster and the play received criticism so devastating that not even an immortal could survive it. The show ran for just 56 performances before closing down, leading it to be one of the most expensive flops in Broadway’s history reportedly losing a shocking $12 million dollars. Now that’s a story that could cause nightmares.
However, a few year later collaborators Elton John and Bernie Taupin decided to resurrect the monster’s popularity on the theater circuit with their musical, Lestat. Based loosely on Ann Rice’s popular Vampire Chronicles series of books, the play followed the titular bloodsucker across the first many years of his vampire career, showing his complicated relationship with fellow vampire, Armand. Despite less elaborate effects and production values than the original San Francisco run and the eventual phasing out of much of Rice’s mythology, the play was fairly well received and was even nominated for two Tony’s. Following Dance of the Vampire’s abysmal showing, Lestat seemed to give vampires a more respectable image on the stage.
Its been a few years since Lestat graced the stage and no other major production has replaced it to give vamps more Broadway presence, but with the fanatical popularity of sanguine properties such as HBO’s True Blood and the Twilight franchise, how long can it be before more vampires step out of the shadows and into the bright lights of Broadway?
By Leora Kanner, Broadway Magazine
Although the recent Mel Brook’s musical Young Frankenstein cannot really be called a Broadway success, it was not the most disastrous Broadway adaptation of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein to date. An earlier attempt at transforming the popular monster story into a stage production occurred when “Frankenstein” opened at the Nederlander Theater on January 4, 1981. The production starred some famous actors such as John Carradine, David Dukes, Diane West, and John Glover (currently on Broadway in The Royal Family) and ran for 29 previews. ‘Scarily’ enough, the show was only to play one official performance, closing on its opening night after a huge critical panning.
Considered at the time the most expensive flop ever produced, “Frankenstein” lost over $2 million dollars. The disastrous fate of the show was particularly astounding because of its big-budget nature: the show utilized huge sets and special effects that were meant to enhance the production and make it a hit. However, it seems these characteristics only detracted from the story line. Frank Rich wrote in his New York Times review that: “This show’s magic tricks were actually pointless from both an artistic and commercial standpoint.”
Despite the fact that the show flopped, it has since become almost legendary. Frank Rich described the production in a famous NY Times Review as “January’s most talked-about Broadway phenomena…” Perhaps it was unfortunate that the production closed because “theatergoers who didn’t see “Frankenstein” are envious of those who did. This flop may be the hottest posthumous ticket since the David Merrick-Edward Albee-Mary Tyler Moore-Richard Chamberlain musical of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” folded in previews in the mid 1960’s.”
The notoriety of the show has persisted even until today, making the production a sort of ironic success. Happy Haunting.
If you saw the production, we’d love to hear about it. Join us on Twitter for more and check out the haunted Broadway issue of Broadway Magazine available now.
Variety magazine has reported Hugh Jackman will not be hosting the 2010 Oscars.
Jackman is currently starring opposite Daniel Craig in A Steady Rain.
Jackman apparently didn’t want to host the venerable awards show 2 years in a row, and we can’t blame him.
After Hugh’s Broadway run he will begin filming The Real Steel next spring.
Photo: Spellman
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Today was the press meet-and-greet for A Little Night Music starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury and here a few photos to wet your appetites…
Photos: Steven A Henry
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Everyone wants to know, are Jude Law(HAMLET) and Sienna Miller(After Miss Julie) off or on?
Well, just today Jude Law’s rep confirmed with Glamour.com that the acting pair are NOT on, the rep had this to say, “Jude and Sienna are just friends and are seeing each other socially occasionally as they are both on Broadway, performing just one block apart.”
Photos: Tom Wargacki /A.H. Walker
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Tonight David Hasselhoff took some time to attend tonight’s opening of Finian’s Rainbow on Broadway. We all remember Hasselhoff during his rise during the 80’s in Knight Rider and in our personal favorite Baywatch.
Hasselhoff said he wanted to attend Finian’s Rainbow to have a great retro night at the theatre. Hasselhoff is working in New York City right now on a new pop opera album. Watch the video above to see our interview.
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