Stage Door: Audra's Toes, "Sweeney Peron", Busch's Hepburn and "Big Fish"

Audra McDonald rehearsing for "Porgy & Bess"Theater geeks who read The Film Experience (there be crossover!) might have been wondering what happened to the stage door column. The truth is we just haven't been seeing much. This is never a question of "nothing to see" but always a matter of finances and for one quarter of each year the the not-so-small matter of Oscar Mania keeping us busy with pre-recorded actors instead of live ones. But when I'm not seeing it I enjoy it vicariously through avid theatergoing friends and through blogs. My favorite is The Broadway Blog so if you're into theater, check it out. Here's four quick film / theater crossover tidbits I wanted to share. 

AUDRA in Rampart
I practically shrieked with surprised delight when Broadway baby Audra McDonald showed up in Oren Moverman's Rampart. She just kills her one scene role as Woody Harrelson's latest conquest. Woody's bad cop gets good love from multiple ladies and as Woody was sucking on her toes (no, really) I kept thinking, 'Audra is a star on any platform: small screen, big screen, stage, boudoir... (ahem. in this movie).' I'd love to see her in the current revival of Porgy & Bess and am hoping the opportunity presents itself.

CHARLES BUSCH does Katharine Hepburn. 
Late this month, legendary drag artist Charles Busch is doing a one night only reading of Matthew Lombardo'snplay about Katharine Hepburn, Tea at Five. The tickets are too steep for me but Busch is always wonderful when he's channelling the classic divas... and Lombardo has an actressexual's taste for them too having written the Kathleen Turner vehicle "High" and the Tallulah Bankhead play Looped. I'm curious how Charles Busch will be as Kate the Great (pictured left) given that my favorite Busch channeling is Greer Garson -- that voice! Old Hollywood and Theater History aficionados might also enjoy Mr. Busch's name droppings in this New York Times article about his apartment renovation.

BIG FISH
Were you aware that Tim Burton's 2003 movie is becoming a stage musical? The story, or to put it more accurately stories, does seem like a natural fit for musicalization. It's already heightened and fantastical which musical theater can really feed on. The score will be by Andrew Lippa but the best part of the news is that Michael C. Hall, though not officially announced, is intended for the lead role in 2013. He's got a wonderful singing voice and he's needed to do something other than Dexter for a few years now. Not that he hasn't found a surprising amount of ways to keep that particular performance lively despite the death-dealing but enough's enough -- love the show but I really think they'd be wise to wrap up; time for a little song and dance break!

EVITA Again
One more thing... Papermag amusingly wonders what Ricky Martin is thinking in this promotional still for the upcoming spring revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. 

I don't know what he's thinking but what I'm thinking every time I see Michael Cerveris (the bald one, playing Juan Peron) is that time in early 2008 when I listened to my Broadway revival cast recording of Sweeney Todd  (in which he starred) after having recently seen Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd and just tearing up. The amount of nuance and drama and acting notes and beauty a singer/actor can put in to a musical performance as opposed to an actor who learns to sing a few bars.... I tell you the difference is astronomical. Hollywood is tone deaf.

Oh, and uh, Elena Rogers plays Eva Peron... will Madonna send her hydranges?

EXIT MUSIC

Audra McDonald singing Jason Robert Brown's "Stars and The Moon"... love this song. 

I met a man without a dollar to his name 

Who had no traits of any value but his smile 

I met a man who had no yearn or claim to fame 

Who was content to let life pass him for a while 

And I was sure that all I ever wanted 

Was a life like the movie stars led 

And he kissed me right here, and he said,

`I`ll give you stars and the moon and a soul to guide you 

And a promise I`ll never go 

I`ll give you hope to bring out all the life inside you 

And the strength that will help you grow.

I`ll give you truth and a future that`s twenty times better 

Than any Hollywood plot.`

And I thought, `You know, I`d rather have a yacht.`

Stage and Screen: "Facing East" and "Priscilla"

I'm still trying to work up to a weekly Theater series (as related to cinema as it can be) as I know that many readers are interested in Broadway, too... but we'll see. It's difficult to branch out onto those invite lists.

To most people the news that Broadway star Will Swenson, who was so sensational as "Berger" in Hair  is going to direct a film called "Facing East" about a Mormon family dealing with their gay son's suicide is just regular pre-production movie news. To me it's college nostalgia gone wild. The universe is just refusing to let me live in the present this past month or so. So many things keep throwing me backwards in time. See, Swenson went to BYU in the 90s when I was there and he's the second alum to make me feel completely unproductive. What have I been doing with my life? First there was Aaron Eckhart, who preceded us, becoming a movie star and now Swenson, directing on top of being an amazing musical theater performer? 

I have to thank Towleroad for sharing the news but it's more than news to me; it's personal.

The writer of the play Carol Lynn Pearson was kind of a heroine for me and my friends in college because she was a (controversial) Mormon celebrity who was speaking out within the Mormon community about the LGBT struggle when people just didn't talk about it. Or talked about it in horrific ways. (I could tell you horror stories.) We all read her memoir "Goodbye I Love You" (her ex-husband, a closeted gay man, died of AIDS) and went to see her one woman monologue show "Mother Wove the Morning." I haven't seen this play "Facing East" but if anyone is familiar do share.

While it seems odd for a Broadway star to get a movie directing gig, it's not an entirely random decision. Swenson was a headline star of that brief media-blip wave of Mormon cinema in the early Aughts. He knows the subject matter and he has one directorial feature under his belt already: Sons of Provo, 2004. I only ever saw one of those "Mollywood" (teehee) features, a murder mystery called Brigham City (2001) which was okay.

Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving in PRISCILLA (1994)

Currently Swenson is headlining Priscilla on Broadway. Yes, it's based on the 1994 Oscar winner. Swenson has the Hugo Weaving role of "Mitzi", who drives the narrative with her performing gig in the outback, taken for secretive personal reasons. Nick Adams is playing the showy Guy Pearce "Felicia" part and Tony Sheldon has the best role "Bernadette" previously played by Terence Stamp to Oscar nomination worthy effect. Damn you AMPAS.

(It's weird that Broadway is colliding with Mormonism right now, huh? The Book of Mormon is all anybody wants to talk about.)

OFFSCREEN 
For what it's worth Swenson is dating the one & only Audra McDonald. McDonald has been wasting her musical talents for some years now on television in Private Practice (unless that show has become a musical against my knowledge). Then again if she's not on TV she's not going to win the EGOT and she's only an Emmy and an Oscar away. She's already got two Grammys and four Tonys!

While I'm sure her bank account thanks her for the series regular decision, voices like hers (straight up magnificent) don't come around very often. If you are anywhere near the Boston area, try to get a ticket to the reimagining of Porgy and Bess that's coming in August with McDonald headlining. It'll most likely be a true event.