50 Kristins for Kristin's 50th

by Jorge Molina

Today, Tony, Emmy and Grammy-winner (that’s right, she only needs an Oscar to EGOT; get on it, Hollywood) and human ray of sunshine Kristin Chenoweth turns 50 years old. To honor her career, her legacy, and that impossibly high pitch matched only by her charisma, let’s take a look at 50 roles and appearances that she has gifted the world in almost three decades of work, in no particular order:

1) Her Broadway debut in an adaptation of Moliére’s Scapin as Hyacinth in 1996. 

2 & 3) Her two most iconic Broadway roles: A featured Tony-winning turn as Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1999, and the Best Actress Tony-nominated performance as Glinda, the Good Witch in the world phenomenon that was Wicked in 2003.

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Moulin Rouge!'s Stage Life Begins

by Chris Feil

We've long been awaiting Baz Luhrman's masterpiece Moulin Rouge! to fulfill the seemingly ancient prophecy to make its way onto the stage. Well, that day has finally arrived as the musical's pre-Broadway tryout begins tonight at Boston's Emerson Colonial Theatre.

We have already been teased by Aaron Tveit singing the epic love song "Come What May" in a foggy theatre, but now we have the real goods we've been dying to see: Karen Olivo stepping into the large shoes of Nicole Kidman as the sparkling diamond Satine and a theatre completely transformed to Luhrman excess. While Olivo's costume (designed by this year's My Fair Lady Tony winner Catherine Zuber) might be somewhat understated from what we might have been hoping to see, we're confident there is further opulence coming once we see what the rest of the show has in store. As for the set, hold on to your hats...

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Blueprints: "Rent"

To celebrate Pride Month, every week of June Jorge has been highlighting the script of a movie that focuses on a different letter of the LGBT acronym. For “B”, he goes back to the film adaptation of one of the most seminal modern musicals, and dissects a number about our favorite bi heartbreaker.

It’s no surprise that it was astoundingly hard to find a movie to discuss that had an openly bisexual lead or prominently supporting character. Bisexuals have had the most lackluster representation in movies among the LGBT community. Usually bisexuality onscreen is only implied and never openly identified as such. To find a strong bi character, I had to go back to something that wasn’t initially a film, but a theater piece; the theater has always been ahead of films when it comes to LGBT representation.

Even though Jonathan Larson’s Rent has not aged particularly well, it did feature an incredibly diverse cast in race and sexuality; from a trans woman of color to a black lesbian, and from your token white guys to, of course, the bi lady to end all bi ladies: Maureen Johnson...

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Months of Meryl: Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

#25 — Kate Mundy, the elder head of a matriarchal clan in Ireland’s County Donegal circa 1936.

MATTHEW: Dancing at Lughnasa continues the sporadic but prestigious practice, begun by Plenty and leading up to August: Osage County, of Meryl Streep headlining big-ticket Broadway plays in screen adaptations that tend to do a disservice to the often truncated works whose very suitability for such stage-to-cineplex transfers feels rather strained. (Angels in America, made for HBO, is obviously a highly distinguished exception.) These films are greenlit as glorified acting showcases in the hopes of magnetizing a similar haul of trophies as their acclaimed theatrical predecessors. They may feature some fine, forceful performances (from Streep and several others), but their claims as cinema remain dubious at best.

I’m always curious about why Streep seldom returns to her first love, the stage, especially when one considers that the actress’ greatest role in the last decade was not Susan Orlean, Clarissa Vaughan, or Miranda Priestley, but Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, whose wagon of wares Streep took up for a 2006 Shakespeare in the Park production, four years after playing Irina in The Seagull for the same summer series...

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Stage Door: Anika Noni Rose Brings Raw Sensuality to "Carmen Jones" Off Broadwa

Stage Door is our intermittent theater column in which we often feature plays and musicals with film connections. Please welcome guest contributor Erica Mann...

The moment Carmen Jones walks onto the stage of Classic Stage Company, it’s like time completely stops. It’s not just because the character is played by the incomparable Anika Noni Rose whose illustrious career has spanned stage (a Tony win for Caroline or Change), TV (Bates Motel, The Good Wife), and film (Dreamgirls, For Colored Girls, The Princess and the Frog). Her presence as the namesake is that powerful from the moment she sets foot into the spotlight.

Oscar Hammerstein II's adaptation of Bizet's opera Carmen became a classic screen musical in 1954 starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte but has rarely been seen on the NY stage. CSC's production is the first major New York revival since the 1940s. Carmen Jones is the story of love, lust, betrayal and tragedy with the action moved to the 1940s in the American south. Corporal Joe, stationed at an army reserve and working in a parachute factory, falls in love with the stunning Carmen Jones. Aware of his feelings, Carmen convinces him to change his life trajectory in pursuit for a life in Chicago with her. Things change when those initial feelings become blurry and passion turns into jealousy...

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