Stage Door: Steve Martin & Edie Brickell's "Bright Star"

In Stage Door we talk theater, usually making some form of movie connection because that's how we do things...

I don't know anything about Bluegrass music but I wouldn't have connected it to the Melodrama form. If I tried to tell you the plot of Steve Martin's Broadway show "Bright Star," you wouldn't even believe it, so I shan't. Let's just say that if the plot were a movie it would be a silent film with wild eyed pantomiming it's so BIG with oversized emotional rug-pulling. I was just crazy about the music but the book not so much. (On the night I attended it was all worth it because Steve Martin made a surprise appearance. There he was as the curtain raised for Act 2, playing on his banjo. He was loving it and so was the very very appreciative crowd. How lucky that he picked our night to show up!)

Aside from the Original Score which just won the Drama Desk Award, the show's MVP is its Tony nominated lead actress Carmen Cusack who plays her character, beautifully, at two separate ages as a gangly uninhibited teenager and a much stiffer heartbroken woman in her 30s; when she fuses their temperaments at the end into the same woman, it's divine. Her voice can soar gorgeously and crash down to earth with equal potency. The Original Cast Recording is now available which might be the best way to experience the otherwise uneven night of theater. The highlight of this particular lucky night out on Broadway was the surprise appearance of Steve Martin playing his banjo as Act 2 began. He was loving it and so were his appreciative surprised fans in the theater that night. I was lucky enough to be among them. 

Bright Star is up for 5 Tonys: Musical, Book of a Musical, Score, Actress, and Orchestrations. 

More Theater
54 Below Molly Pope is doing a one night show in July based on A Star is Born. She's a stunning live performer -it's pricey but I have to be there
NY Times An ode to Broadway replacements Heather Headley & Marin Mazzie
NY Post Michael Riedel predicts a mini Hamilton backlash at the Tonys. It will lose in at least a few categories 
Theater Mania Once frequent Oscar nominee Marsha Mason is directing a production of Steel Magnolias in Pennsylvania (now running through June 18th). Jessica Walter is playing Ouiser which is great casting, don't you think? 
Broadway Blog Cheyenne Jackson has a new album out "Renaissance"

SEEING @APtheMusical AND THIS LOVELY LADY CAME PRE-SPLATTERED @dorsia_BATeMAN pic.twitter.com/5NULUdeJ4w

— Bryan Fuller (@BryanFuller) June 4, 2016

P.S. Jason and I also caught American Psycho again the day before it closed and during intermission, while chatting with Pushing Daisies / Hannibal TV genius Bryan Fuller (who also enjoyed the show) we all met a crazy fan who was wearing an American Psycho dress . A second time through I'm even more convinced of its brilliance. The Tonys really stiffed it but at least it picked up 3 well deserved Drama Desk Awards (Lighting, Projections, Design) 

Cast This: "Ocean's Ocho"

Remember that time when everyone was excited about the prospect of a female Expendables even though that action series wasn't any good in the first place? We were guilty, too. But the prospect of an all female version of another Oceans 11, not THAT sounds worthy of premature fandom.

There's one in the works right now with Sandra Bullock & Cate Blanchett headlining a la Clooney & Pitt.

The film is currently being referred to as Oceans Ocho suggesting the team of thieves is only 8 women wide this time and maybe it's taking place in some Spanish-friendly locale? We wish it were using the working title of Oceans Veinticuatro because more actresses hollaaaaa.

There are already rumors zooming around about other possible co-stars like Jennifer Lawrence (because that one needs more franchise. smh) and Gillian Anderson (a far more intriguing proposition) but nothing is set in stone since we're still talking casting and pre-production. 

1960s Cast 2000s cast

We need six more actresses to work with Bullock and Blanchett. Who would you have them be and why?

Remember that the first two iterations of this franchise had a wide range of stardom-levels, ages, and personalities so follow suit with your suggestions. Let's make it extra enticing! 

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Beauty vs Beast: The Sun Also Sets

Jason from MNPP here with this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" - I think I must have had fever of the brain (to the lay-person that's called Kopfgeschlagen) last week because somehow I didn't take advantage of the 25th anniversary of one of my most favorite comedies of ever, Michael Hoffmann's Soapdish, the fizzy slapstick tale of backstage shenanigans at a daytime soap opera full of narcissistic psychopaths. Somewhere in the late 90s I wore out my VHS I watched this movie so many times - Soapdish is one you could stand me in front of a crowd, tell me to go, and I could perform the entire thing from start to finish, from crawdad butts to Tawny the Tweety-Bird Couturie.

The cast is to a tee in top form - even semi-cameos like Carrie Fisher's classic bitch Betsy Faye Sharon leave impressions so sharp I can summon up their character-names on command. But it's the poisonous rivalry between show queen Celeste Talbert (Sally Field) and "Nurse Nan" Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarty) that gives this Soap its eternal dishiness...

PREVIOUSLY With what could turn out to be her final X-Men movie we took the opportunity to say goodbye to Jennifer Lawrence's two blockbuster turns, and Katniss carried the day to the tune of about 80% of your vote - said Tom:

"I thought she was quite good in First Class (and looked great in that mod costuming). But it seems that her heart was always more focused on Katniss than Mystique. She openly expressed that she doesn't really wish to return to the role. She never seemed bored as Katniss, a complaint often lodged at her in regards to her X-Men performance."

The Furniture: Decorating Madness in A Streetcar Named Desire

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

The 70th Tony Awards are in just a few days. I certainly can't be trusted with predictions, but I’ll make one guess. The award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play probably won’t be split three ways. That sort of near-impossible result has only occurred once, all the way back in 1948. The 2nd Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play was shared by Judith Anderson, Katharine Cornell, and Jessica Tandy. Tandy won for the original broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Of course, she didn’t get to be in the movie and so we will leave her behind. Elia Kazan’s film of Tennessee Williams’s masterpiece premiered less than two years after its Broadway run ended. Its success was that instant. It won four Oscars, though all but one was for acting. That fourth prize, of course, was for production design. [More...]

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