Jeff Lunden

In The Rush To The Tonys, A Late Glut For Theatergoers

Jeff Lunden — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:41:00 +0000

This spring, more than in any recent year, the 2012-2013 Broadway season accelerated toward its conclusion: Nineteen productions opened between the beginning of March and April 25, the cut-off date for Tony eligibility. And many of those shows raised their curtains in the final two weeks of the season.

The Tony Awards are ostensibly given for excellence over the course of an entire year, but all the late openings make me wonder whether producers haven't taken to scheduling their shows strategically to garner Tony nominations and Tony votes for marketing purposes.

Clothes Make The Man (And The Woman, And The Show) On Broadway

Jeff Lunden — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 09:05:00 +0000

Part of what makes a Broadway show a Broadway show — read "splashy," especially if we're talking musicals — is the costumes.

Equity At 100: More Than Just A Broadway Baby

Jeff Lunden — Sat, 25 May 2013 09:55:00 +0000

"Don't put your daughter on the stage," Noel Coward famously cautioned his imaginary Mrs. Worthington, and no wonder: Stage acting is one of the toughest professions imaginable.

Audra McDonald, A Broadway Star Gone Roaming, Comes Home

Jeff Lunden — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:03:00 +0000

In the seven years since her last album, Audra McDonald has kept busy. She spent several years in Hollywood, filming the television series Private Practice. She's gotten divorced and remarried, absorbed the shock of losing her father in a plane crash and watched her daughter, Zoe, grow up from a kindergartener to a middle-schooler.

Last year, McDonald returned to New York, starred in Porgy and Bess and won a fifth Tony Award.

'Pippin' Revival Is A Circus Of A Show

Jeff Lunden — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:23:00 +0000

When Pippin opened in 1972, it was a sensation. Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, who was coming off his Academy Award-winning film version of Cabaret, it was a showbiz triumph of jazz hands, sexy dancing and theatrical magic.

It was also the Broadway debut of 24-year-old songwriter Stephen Schwartz, who's better known these days for the global megahit Wicked. He had written a version of Pippin — about the son of medieval emperor Charlemagne — as a college musical.