David Mamet, the often cantankerous playwright and director, has been playing the book circuit while promoting his new page turner, Theatre. He made an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central show last night, telling the comedian that theatre is dead. Dead because Broadway is basically producing nothing but revivals of plays that weren’t funny [...]
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Update per Engadget.com: We’re told this isn’t actually the Sam Mendes video calling ad, but rather an Apple promo video produced internally. We’ll just have to wait and see if Mendes can top these heartwrenching images of American beauty with his ad. Steve Jobs, the visionary behind Apple’s magic gadgets, descended on San Francisco today to introduce [...]
It is nearly impossible to dismiss the fact that Broadway experienced a rather lackluster year, star-studded shows or not, as can easily be seen by the list of Tony nominations. When musicals like “Memphis” and “Million Dollar Quartet” are able to snag nods for best musical, and the dreaded “Addams Family” can be listed as having one of the best original scores, it’s certain that the creative juices flowing around Times Square were strained this past season. Perhaps this season is slightly a result of the recession bounce-back effect. In late 2008, as the realities of a recession were preparing to strike Broadway, the New York Post’s Michael Riedel reported that “backers who regularly used to cut checks for $200,000 have all but vanished.” There were, of course, Broadway cheerleaders during those hard times, claiming that art would endure and the show would go on, but what turned out to be more accurate was that the full effect of scared theatre funders and opportunistic producers would not be completely realized for years to come. Just look at the celebrity-filled stages over the past few seasons, culminating in a string of Hollywood productions this time around. From Catherine Zeta-Jones in “A Little Night Music” — audiences would never eat their musical vegetables like this show without a celebrity endorsement — Jude Law in “Hamlet,” Christopher Walken in “A Behanding in Spokane,” Denzel Washington in “Fences,” and so on. Production costs on Broadway are through the roof, as it costs upwards of $3 million to put on a play while musicals can run between $7 million and $11 million, according to FoxBusiness.com. It’s no wonder that producers felt squemish about relying on actual art to sustain a production. After all, “A Steady Rain” proved that a complete bore could become a hit merely because it featured Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, while a worthy revival like “Ragtime” couldn’t find an audience as it had no Hollywood-linked names. Continue reading Tony Awards Reflect a Boring Broadway Season While U2′s charismatic leader Bono hasn’t made his official splash on Broadway — both he and guitarist the Edge have written the music for the upcoming “Spider Man: Turn off the Dark” — the Irish singer joins dancers from Broadway’s “Fela!” in the music video for Angelique Kidjo‘s spin on the classic “Move On Up.” Kidjo’s version [...] I recently had the chance to produce/shoot a Tony Awards-related video for BroadwayWorld.com featuring the characters of Banana Shpeel, a new show written and directed by David Shiner currently playing at New York’s Beacon Theatre. What a hoot it was sitting down with “Marty Schmelky” and his assistant “Margaret” backstage at the Beacon to talk all [...] With the sudden and tragic death of former child star Gary Coleman, who entertained television audiences as the bite-sized half of “Diff’rent Strokes,” an unlikely tribute came by way of Broadway, or at least Off-Broadway, thanks for the puppet musical “Avenue Q.” “Avenue Q,” a musical that won a Tony Award for best musical, includes a fictionalized [...] Hollywood has been dabbling in the New York theatre scene since the early days of movie making, although in the beginning it was Broadway shows that ended up being adapted to the screen rather than the current trend of rushing blockbuster films to the stage. As the past few seasons on Broadway can attest, Hollywood’s [...]
So many friendly recommendations. But, wait a minute. I’m a theatre reporter. Why haven’t I seen an alert telling me someone is seeing La Cage aux Folles or Hair? After all, Broadway has just experienced an onslaught of show openings and the Tony Awards are coming up. Yet, none of my Foursquare friends are checking in to a show tonight, which is the case mostly every night. Since this year’s South By Southwest festival, it seems like every news outlet, both broadcast and print, has been latching onto Foursquare, a social networking tool that hipsters in New York City have been playing with their friends since it debuted in March of last year. A person could hardly consider themselves digital insiders, up until now, unless they were checking in to a location around town that was swarming with other in-the-know individuals. There are Foursquare badges for checking in to a venue with photo booths (“photogenic”), being a frequent gym user (“gym rat”), and eating at 20 different pizza places (“pizzaiolo”). Bravo, Zagat, and the New York Times have all joined forces with the social networking company, awarding their own special badges to select users. Yet, at the time of writing this article, there is no Broadway badge. Broadway marketers have finally harnessed the power of Facebook. A Twitter campaign for last season’s musical Next to Normal was so successful that it earned a Webby Award nomination. Now, with Foursquare gaining so much buzz, it is time or Broadway’s 21st century Mad Men to boldly go where the internet’s trendsetters are now playing, location-based applications. Continue reading Broadway Marketing Ready to Play Foursquare |
   
  
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With the Tony Awards only a few days away (June 13) and nearly every theatre-oriented website extolling 
It’s Friday night. 8 p.m. After scanning Facebook for last minute status updates from friends and scrolling through a nearly endless number of tweets, it’s time to figure out what to do around New York City. My iPhone lights up with an alert message. A friend has just checked in on Foursquare at the rooftop bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another alert. Someone else is at a Sara Silverman book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square. Alert. Party at the Hotel on Rivington. Alert. Drinks at Mason Dixon.
