Welcome to today’s edition of ShentonSTAGE Daily that is e-mailed to subscribers every morning, and is also available online here.
UPCOMING AND RETURNING THEATRE IN LONDON AND BEYOND
My weekly updated listing of new and returning shows to the West End and beyond to the regions and Broadway is here:
https://shentonstage.com/september-27-update-latest-scheduled-new-returning-shows/
New entries in the West End include the delayed transfer of LIFE OF PI from Sheffield (to Wyndham’s. from November 15), a West End run for Mike Bartlett’s COCK with Taron Egerton (who played Elton John in the film Rocketman), Jonathan Bailey, Jade Anouka and Phil Daniels (at the Ambassadors from March 5), and THE GLASS MENAGERIE with Amy Adams (at the Duke of York’s from May 23, pictured below).
There’s also a separate listing of this week’s opening nights, and shows now previewing.
THIS YEAR’S (LONG-DELAYED) TONY AWARDS….
Sunday night’s (long-delayed) the Tony Awards, held at the Winter Garden Theatre, saw MOULIN ROUGE take home 10 awards, including for Best Musical, Director, Choreographer and Aaron Tveit in his uncontested leading musical actor category, plus Danny Burstein as featured actor (pictured below, his first win after seven prior nominations).
Matthew Lopez’s THE INHERITANCE — which originated at London’s Young Vic — wasnamed Best Play, with awards also for Andrew Burnip (Leading Actor), Lois Smith (Featured Actress) and Director (Stephen Daldry).Another London-originated transfer, for Matthew Warchus’s Old Vic production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, won five Tonys — including all four design awards for plays — set & costumes (both Rob Howell), sound (Sim Baker), lighting (Hugh Vanstone), plus best original score written for the theatre (Christopher Nightingale).
Also originating in London: Adrienne Warren added a Tony win for her title role performance in TINA to the Olivier she won in London (pictured below).
Completing the awards were Mary-Louise Parker (Leading Actress in a Play for THE SOUND INSIDE),Lauren Patten(featured actress in a musical for JAGGED LITTLE EDGE, which also won Best Book), and A SOLDIER’S TALE (named Best Revival of a Play, with David Alan Girer winning the award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in it).
Jeremiah O. Harris’s SLAVE PLAY — which had been nominated for a record 12 Tony Awards — went home empty-handed; but it announced its Broadway return, to the August Wilson Theatre from November 23, officially opening December 2, for run to January 23, then transferring to LA’s Center Group Theatre.
In a press statement, O. Harris commented, “Slave Play’s return engagement marks for me a chance for New York and the world to re-meet a play that many met at New York Theatre Workshop and Broadway in 2018 and 2019, and that thousands of others met in its published edition in a year when theaters around the world were dark. To be doing it in 2021 with the Kaneisha who originated the role at Yale and members of the original cast fills me with the same joy I had watching the play for the very first time in a classroom five years ago.”
There will also be “Black Out” invitation-only performances, where black identifying audiences can see the play “free from the white gaze”.
ARTS (UN)PROFESSIONAL
Arts Professional, or Arts Pro for short, is a subscription website that, as it puts it, covers “news stories that are too specialist for the national newspapers, but are important to those working in the arts.”
I assume that one of these is the importance of arts professionals being paid for their labours. But in a further sign of how quickly arts journalism has been compromised and destroyed, its commissioning editor is asking contributors to write for free, as “a platform to promote your views.”
MY view is that arts journalists should be paid for their views! As I tweeted yesterday,
INDUSTRY NEWS
- Talent agency CAA is buying ICM. (This is like a live episode of CALL MY AGENT…..) Full story in New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/business/caa-icm-agents.html
A BLAST FROM THE PAST….
Remember this place, adjoining the Piccadilly Theatre? Like the late and beloved Valoti’s on Shaftesbury Avenue, and the Stockpot outlets on Old Compton Street and in Panton Street, it was beloved of theatregoers, casts and crews alike for their inexpensive meals and informality.
TODAY’S THEATRE BIRTHDAYS