| 'ShowBusiness' details Broadway's backstage drama
NEW YORK -- A sort of cinematic equivalent to William Goldman's classic nonfiction book "The Season," Dori Berinstein's documentary chronicles the stories of four Broadway musicals during the 2003-04 season. Filled with an insider's perspective and access -- the filmmaker is a three-time Tony-winning producer, with "Legally Blonde" her most recent credit -- "ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway" will be necessary viewing to anyone interested in the current state of Broadway theater. The shows in question -- "Wicked," "Avenue Q," "Taboo" and "Caroline, or Change" -- received greatly varying responses on the Great White Way. The filmmaker, who shot footage of these and many other productions of the season, clearly has concentrated on these four because each was nominated for that Holy Grail of theater, the Tony for best musical.
The Light in the Piazza Returns to Chicago, July 10-22
Direct from Broadway, the romantic new musical The Light in the Piazza returns to Chicago for a limited, two-week engagement at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Parkway, July 10 through 22, 2007. Principal casting for the North American Tour of The Light in the Piazza includes Christine Andreas as Margaret Johnson, a protective Southern matron, Katie Rose Clarke as her daughter Clara, a beautiful 26-year-old American traveling abroad, and David Burnham as Fabrizio Naccarelli, a 20-year old Italian suitor who barely speaks English and is the source of the romantic tension central to the story. The cast also features Craig Bennett as Signor Naccarelli, Wendi Bergamini as Franca Naccarelli, Diana DiMarzio as Signora Naccarelli and Jonathan Hammond as Giuseppe Naccarelli.
What Opens in Vegas
Theres nothing quite like a Broadway overture, is there? Steve Wynn whispered at a Vegas preview back in 2005. Well, maybe on Broadway. But the man who upscaled the Strip in the nineties, with fine art and mass-scale high-end dining, aimed to do it for theater, buying Avenue Q and then Spamalot for his new resort. Wynns rarely wrong, and by now, the Strip was to boast five Tony winners, the other three being The Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, and The Producers. But Q closed after nine months; Hairspray after four. By January 2007, Wynn appeared at a Spamalot preview joking that the Monty Python comedy would put a final nail in the coffin of his theater experiment. Since then, hes been filling the house with discounted tickets. Only Phantom and Mamma Mia! appear to have a future. (Executives at a competing casino are said to have made bets on whether Spamalot or The Producers, which opened in February, will close first.) Why is theater an even dicier business in Vegas than in Times Square? .
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