Disney is turning its animated film “Frozen” into a Broadway musical, and NBC has chosen “Peter Pan” as the successor to “The Sound of Music” for its December holiday “live theater” broadcast. Both Daniel Radcliffe and Hugh Jackman are returning to Broadway (scroll to 16) as is Titanic. They’re soon to rename Broadway, Super Bowl Boulevard.And the first universally praised play of 2014 has opened on Broadway — written in 1928.

Week in New York Theater, Jan 13-19, 2014

13

Frozen is heading to Broadway

Disney is planning to turn the movie Frozen, a HUGE hit (almost $700 million in earnings and counting), winner last night of a Golden Globe, into a Broadway musical.

Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses will open April 6 (no theater yet.) The play about two couples named Jones stars Toni Collette, Marisa Tomei,Michael C. Hall, and Tracy Letts

Michael Urie is leaving Buyer and Cellar March 16 to tour the show in Chicago and LA. It’ll continue Off-Bway with someone else until August 31.

Larry David: “I’ve written a play.”

Showbiz411: A play? For, like, Broadway?

Larry David: “Yes.”

SB: And Jerry would star in it?

Larry David: “Maybe. We’re talking about it.

Valisia LeKae has left the cast of Motown to focus on her battle against ovarian cancer, but the cast hasn’t left her. They composed a song for her, and sang it en masse: “I Am Here”

14

One show Terry Teachout won’t be reviewing. His “Satchmo at the Waldorf,” starring John Douglas Thompson as Louis Armstrong, opens March 4 at the Westside Theater.

Missed Romeo and Juliet on Broadway with Orlando Bloom & Condola Rashad? A tape of it will be broadcast in 2,000 movie theaters in U.S. February 13-19.

Lincoln Center’s Act One looking even better: Andrea Martin and Chuck Cooper join Santino Fontana and Tony Shalhoub in the cast.

Although it’s not open yet, Hedwig and the Angry Inch has been extended four weeks. This doesn’t surprise me, since it’s one of the two front-runners in the poll of most anticipated shows on Broadway in Spring 2014.



15

Can Edward Albee save Brooklyn’s Interfaith hospital? (Can theater change the world?)

Legendary theater director Peter Brook in conversation w/ his son Simon, and sneak preview of documentary by the son about his father. at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, January 29.

Broadway Musicals 1915-1939 sung by Tonya Pinkins, Julia Murney, Stephanie J Block, Beth Leavel, Carolee Carmello, among other Broadway stars, on February 24 at Town Hall.

Christian Borle, Jay Johnson, Erin Mackay and others to join Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel in the cast of Sweeney Todd at the New York Philharmonic, March 5-8

16

Complete list of 2014 Oscar nominations includes both Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts for A:OC

Daniel Radcliffe returns to Broadway, in Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan, which is slated to open April 20 at the Cort.

Hugh Jackman is returning to Broadway in “The River,” a play by Jez Butterworth (a playwright whose “Jerusalem” was on Broadway starring Mark Rylance). Dates and theater not yet determined. The River is a spiritually searching drama about a trout-loving loner in a remote cabin and two of the women in his life.

Titanic the musical revived: 1-night concert Avery Fisher Hall on Feb. 17, AND different production on Bway sometime Fall 2014

Yet another Broadway revival of “Noises Off,” Michael Frayn’s backstage farce, slated by the Roundabout for January, 2015.

My review of Machinal

Machinal, now opened in a stunning production at the American Airlines Theater, is the first Broadway revival of Sophie Treadwell’s haunting 1928 play, inspired by the murder trial of housewife Ruth Snyder, who enlisted a corset salesman to do in her husband….Machinal means machine-like, and director Lyndsey Turner has taken the title to heart, with startling effect. This may be the best-staged play of the season, certainly one of the most aptly designed.

Complete review of Machinal

17

My review of Frank Langella in King Lear

Terrific stab at explaining Pinter’s No Man’s Land, by Newsweek (Ignore the pandering lead)



Efforts to lure football fans here for the Super Bowl (Feb 2 in New Jersey) include turning Broadway into “Super Bowl Boulevard” theme park. The cast of Jersey Boys, for example, will perform for free on Broadway on January 29th.

18

Green Porno

“Why does sex exist?” asks Isabella Rossellini, the Parisian-bred actress, model and director, the glamorous daughter of the Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman and the European filmmaker Roberto Rossellini.

Her answer is a 75 minute lecture, both erudite and hilarious, animated by a series of short films familiar to fans of the Sundance Channel online, in which she acts out the reproductive habits of marine animals and insects.

19

My review of Year of the Rooster

Has there ever before been such a touching love scene between poultry? … Such fowl doings make up for the frequently foul-mouthed brutality of the human characters.

NBC has chosen follow-up to Sound of Music. Next December’s live “theater” broadcast: Peter Pan. (Will it star Kelly Clarkson?)

Can’t WAIT to play Nana the dog in Peter Pan for @nbc #DogActing — Laura Benanti (@LauraBenanti) January 19, 2014

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