Shrek the Musical using discounts to build their audience

It isn't easy being green.

It's a sweet, big and lovable show. They just recorded the original cast album a few days ago - it is due out in March - and Shrek should be a sure thing on Broadway as word of mouth spreads among families. So for the next few weeks, through March 15 and the end of winter, you can get steeply discounted tickets. So while Shrek saves the Princess, you will save the money.

They are offering the $110 Orchestra and Front Mezzanine tickets at $68 for Tuesday-Thursday evenings and Wednesday matinee, and $45 for Rear Mezzanine. For Weekend evenings and matinees, the discount is less, $80 for the better seats, $55 for the Rear Mezzanine. ( usually $120-65). Shrek is playing at the Broadway Theatre at 53rd Street.

One of Shrek's big production numbers.

This discount has expired.

Broadway's Phantom of the Opera at Half Price

Broadway Ticket Deal of the Week

Can it be more than two decades since the legendary Phantom of the Opera first opened on Broadway? I wonder how many different people have played the key roles since the first performances with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman.

A phalanx of Phantoms

POTO is likely the most spectacular show on Broadway, and if you haven't seen it yet, have I found a deal for you. Half price tickets you can order by phone for performances between now and March 13, 2009. Tickets for orchestra and front mezzanine seats are just $60 for Monday to Friday evenings and Wednesday matinees. There are even some Saturday matinee tickets at $70. The only blackout dates I know of - so far - are February 14 and 16. Other dates will no doubt be added after this post appears and tickets continue to be gobbled up.

For the Broadway production, the roles of Christine and the Phantom are currently being performed by Jennifer Hope Willis and John Cadia.

So here is the deal. Just call 212-947-8844 and use code PHNYTW9. You can also go to BroadwayOffers.com and enter the same code number.


Tim Martin Gleason as Raoul has spent most of his adult life with Phantom.

Guthrie Planning for Beckett's "Happy Days"

"Wait for the happy day to come when flesh melts at so many degrees and the night of the moon has so many hundred hours." - Winnie, Happy Days

Sally Wingert will take on the character of Winnie while Richard Ooms transforms himself into Willie. Photos by Mike Habermann.

From Minneapolis comes news of a fresh production of Samuel Beckett's two-character drama Happy Days to be directed by Rob Melrose. Undertaking the complex roles of Winnie and Willie are Guthrie veterans Sally Wingert and Richard Ooms.

Preview performances begin February 14; Opening February 18 and slated to run through March 8, 2009 at the Dowling Studio of the Guthrie.



Productions of Happy Days always create a lot of buzz, and this print interview with Fiona Shaw is enormously insightful as is the video (above) which I discovered through Douglas McLennan and his Arts Journal video feature.

Beckett's intense and concentrated two-character drama features an eternally optimistic Winnie inexplicably buried waist-deep in a mound of earth, clinging to her life of arbitrary routines and rituals. Her husband, Willie, appears from time to time and replies only occasionally to her cheerful chatter, a source of comfort as she remains ever hopeful that "this is going to be a happy day." With its vivid sense of the bizarre and a blend of humor and compassion, Happy Days represents one of the Nobel Prize-winning writer's finest works.

The Guthrie's Dowling Studio is a state of the art black box theatre, seen here before it is configured for "Happy Days". Michal Daniel photo.

As with most of Samuel Beckett's works, the play is minimalist, concentrated to the bare elements needed to make Winnie's resilience apparent in the stream of her thoughts and emotions, allowing the Irish playwright, poet and novelist an opportunity to offer a penetrating and uncompromising exploration of the human condition. As is the case with all of Beckett's work for the stage, Happy Days is an utterly spare and precise play, with every detail carrying the exact weight and degree of importance determined by the author.

Sally Wingert in the 2008 Guthrie Theater production of Wendy Wasserstein’s THIRD. Seen here with Tony Clarno. Directed by Casey Stangl, set design by John Arnone, costume design by David Kay Mickelsen, lighting design by Marcus Dilliard. Photo by Michal Daniel.

Another view of Sally Wingert in the Guthrie's THIRD, Photo by Michal Daniel.

Co-founder and artistic director of San Francisco's The Cutting Ball Theater, Melrose previously directed Pen (2007) in the Dowling Studio, and served as assistant director for the Guthrie's 2003 production of Othello. He leads an artistic team that includes Michael Locher (Set Designer), Christine Richardson (Costume Designer), Frank Butler (Lighting Designer), Michael Lupu (Dramaturgy), Martha Kulig (Stage Manager) and Meaghan Rosenberger (Assistant Stage Manager).

Single tickets are priced from $18 to $30, with opening night priced at $34. Tickets are now on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, and online at at the Guthrie website.

Matthew Modine for Hartford Stage's To Kill a Mockingbird

Matthew Modine

Matthew Modine will make his Hartford Stage debut as Atticus Finch in the eagerly anticipated stage adaptation of Harper Lee's classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Drama Desk Winner Hallie Foote will also be featured. Michael Wilson will direct the production, which will play at the Tony Award-winning Hartford Stage, February 19 - April 4.

Hallie Foote photo by Jim Cooper.

Matthew Modine has worked with many of the most highly regarded film and stage directors, including Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Alan J. Pakula, Spike Lee, Tom Mike Figgis, Jonathan Demme and John Sayles. 

A partial list of his films include Birdy, Married to the Mob, Vision Quest, Full Metal Jacket, Gross Anatomy, and Shortcuts. 

Matthew Modine on stage at the Old Vic

Modine last appeared on stage in Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues, directed by Robert Altman at The Old Vic in London.  He also worked with Arthur Miller in Finishing the Picture, directed by Robert Falls at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a tender portrait of a southern town, brimming with powerful lessons of tolerance, justice and quiet heroism.  Scout and Jem are growing up in the Deep South during the 1930s depression.  Their idyllic childhood is jolted with the realization that prejudice and bigotry rule in their small town when their father, a lawyer of principle and integrity, is asked to defend a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman.

Also announced today in the cast for Mockingbird are Devon Abner, James DeMarse, Hallie Foote, Jennifer Harmon, Nafe Katter, Doug Lyons, and Olivia Scott.

Matthew Modine on the red carpet.

Tickets for To Kill a Mockingbird are currently on sale at the Hartford Stage box office at 860-527-5151 or visit Hartford Stage online.

Heather Woodbury returns to Steppenwolf to give a Stripper's HIstory of the World

Heather Woodbury, Photo by Scott Groller

The mind of Heather Woodbury is a wonder to behold and Chicago audiences last saw it at work in the 1998 Steppenwolf production of What Ever: An American Odyssey In 8 Acts, a challenging 10 hour, 100 character play and performance novel presented over four evenings.

What Ever was last seen at Steppenwolf in Chicago in 1998

Woodbury the plawright, historian, actor, whatever, returns to Chicago and Steppenwolf for one night only on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 to perform her newest work, The Last Days of Desmond "Nani" Reese, 
A Stripper's History of the World
 which will be Directed by Abigail Deser
and is written and performed by Woodbury.

Here is the concept: In the year 2014, a young "ethno-femino-dance anthropologist" travels to post-quake, post-drought Los Angeles to research her 10,000 page dissertation on "The History of the World, as Told by Loose Women." Her final subject: the half-mad, 108 year-old legendary stripper Desmond "Nani" Reese, who is holed up in a bramble-covered shack with 27 cats. Woodbury channels the voices of these two unlikely heroines, illuminating the lives of outlaw women through the ages.

The story is about a 108 year old fallen woman who is still falling. Her story is told in snippets and pieces, combining into a collage of the American experience. Fiction becomes reality.

Heather Woodbury

The Austin Chronicle summarized it this way: "The Last Days compares strippers and storytellers, whores and academics, sex workers and artists, all of which has been done before. This time, the play humanizes them and leaves them all at the end without much cover."

This is clearly not light fare for general audiences, but for theatre-goers with a taste for the wild, wicked and complex. Laurie Anderson has called Woodbury a one-woman Dickens.

But the best thought of all is from the Irish Times: "What if the great American novel turned out to be a piece of theatre?"

Last Days of Desmond "Nani" Reese: A Stripper's History of the World (90 minute length) debuted May, 2007 as part of City of L.A. Individual Artist Fellowship program.

Heather Woodbury in action.

To date it has received the following productions :
2008 February
Bang Theatre, L.A. Producer: Fomenting ARTS & Bang
2008 April
Women's Center Stage Festival, Culture Project, NYC
2008 May
Vortex Theatre in Austin, Texas Producer: Vortex

For more information on Steppenwolf and all their upcoming productions.

Visit the home of Heather Woodbury.

Next to Normal at Arena Stage. Washington, D.C.

(top)  Aaron Tveit as Gabe, (second row - behind the scrim - L-R) Alice Ripley as Diana, Louis Hobson as Dr. Madden, (front row, L-R) J. Robert Spencer as Dan, Jennifer Damiano as Natalie and Adam Chanler-Berat as Henry. Photo by Joan Marcus

Around the beltway, even the pols are talking about the big musical hit at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, but there are only two more weeks in which to see it. Pre-inauguration visitors are gobbling the tickets up, so get your ducats asap. The show, if you haven't heard by now, is Next to Normal which arrived at Arena Stage shortly after its premiere production at Second Stage Theatre in New York City.

“This is a musical that gets under your skin,” comments Arena's Artistic Director Molly Smith.

Next to Normal is a contemporary musical that explores how one suburban household copes with crisis. With provocative lyrics and an electrifying score of more than 30 original songs, Next to Normal shows how far two parents will go to keep themselves sane and their family’s world intact.

(L-R) Aaron Tveit as Gabe, Alice Ripley as Diana and J. Robert Spencer as Dan at Arena Stage in Crystal City through January 18, 2009. Photo by Joan Marcus

The music is by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and direction by two-time Tony nominee Michael Greif (Broadway’s Rent, Grey Gardens), The cast includes Alice Ripley (Side Show), Aaron Tveit (Wicked, Hairspray), Adam Chanler-Berat and Jennifer Damiano (Spring Awakening) reprise their roles from the Second Stage production and are joined by J. Robert Spencer (Jersey Boys) and Louis Hobson.

Aaron Tveit (R) will be familiar to Berkshire audiences who saw him at Barrington Stage as Matt in Calvin Berger, seen here with David Perlman (L) as Calvin. Kevin Sprague Photo.

For those who haven't been to DC in a while, the company is currently rebuilding its 47-year-old Southwest DC theater campus which includes the Fichandler Stage and the Kreeger Theatre. Its reopening is slated for the 2010/2011 season. It currently operates out of Arena Stage in Crystal City and the historic Lincoln Theatre.

Visit their website for excerpts of Next to Normal and news of their next production, Irving Berlin's I Love A Piano, to run January 29 to February 15 at the Lincoln Theatre.

Aaron Tveit as Gabe, J. Robert Spencer as Dan, Alice Ripley as Diana, Jennifer Damiano as Natalie, Adam Chanler-Berat as Henry and Louis Hobson as Dr. Madden at Arena Stage in Crystal City through January 18, 2009. Photo by Joan Marcus. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Innovation is not only on the stage

Arena Stage is well known for its theatrical creativity, but this company goes the extra step. Its Board and administration have undertaken some pretty remarkable initiatives.

For example, when the investment banks failed and Washington was consumed with the economic rescue, Arena held a "Bail Out" ticket sale. Knowing that uncertain economic times creates uncertain ticket sales, they offered a one-day only "bail out" ticket sale. During these 24 hours, all tickets were $25 each for the first week of performances to all remaining seven shows at Arena Stage. This represented a savings of up to 60% off regular ticket prices for more than 25,000 tickets. According to Laura Bloom, Arena's media relations associate, the total number of tickets sold during this sale was 6,661 for an income of nearly $200,000. Pretty incredible, folks.

(L-R) J. Robert Spencer as Dan and Alice Ripley as Diana in Next to Normal at Arena Stage in Crystal City through January 18, 2009. Photo by Joan Marcus

The other program I find impressive is called "Send a young person to the theater" and it is both an educational and audience development initiative. These programs are largely sponsored by contributions both from individuals and grant givers. Arena Stage gives thousands of free and heavily discounted tickets to local students, forfeiting over $100,000 of revenue in the process, but insuring the growth of future audiences for theatre. Thank you!

Fun and humor in 2009 - Meet Ji Lee

Ji Lee's scale for the New Year.

Some people may promise themselves that they will eat more wisely, or to invest more sanely in 2009, but not me.

I am on the prowl for people and ideas that are hip, happy and hopeful. And so -drumroll please - here's the first, Ji Lee. And what a resumé he has. Born in Seoul, raised in São Paulo and educated in New York, this graduate of the Parson's School of Design clearly has an innovative mind that just won't stop.

JI Lee's illlustration for Condé Nast Portfolio, illustrating the Sidney award-winning essay "After the Fall"

Having earned his spurs in the once creative world of advertising, then on to art and design for a number of publications, he is now at the Google Creative Lab. After five, he works on his own pet projects, many of which are available for your enjoyment on his website, "please enjoy". You really should see all the fabulous creations that he has created there. I hope the two I have posted will temp you to visit his site.

Ji Lee

While many satirists are as acidic as raw vinegar, Ji Lee has the depth and richness of a fine Balsamic. He work is clearly neither rushed nor mass produced. It is thought made visible.