Things better left unsaid

March 20, 2009
THEATER REVIEW | 'WEST SIDE STORY'
Our Gangs
By BEN BRANTLEY

Even when they’re flashing switchblades and kicking people in the ribs, the teenage hoodlums who maraud through Arthur Laurents’s startlingly sweet new revival of “West Side Story” seem like really nice kids. When a pure-voiced boy soprano (Nicholas Barasch) shows up to perform the musical’s banner anthem, the aching “Somewhere,” it feels like the manifestation of some inner angel who always lurks beneath the surface of the angry adolescents onstage.

Youth has always been the engine of this epochal musical from 1957, created by one of the most talented teams in showbiz history: Mr. Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (score), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Jerome Robbins (director and choreographer). But usually it’s the scary, adrenaline-stoked energy of youth that sets the tone and rhythms of the show.

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:: massed flailing :: NOooooooooo. :(

GYPSY to Close Early on January 11, 2009
by BWW News Desk

The award winning, critically acclaimed smash hit production of GYPSY, originally announced to close on Sunday, March 1, 2009, will now play its final performance at the St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street) on Sunday, January 11, 2009.

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West Side Story Revival, Directed by Laurents, Sets Broadway Opening Date

By Andrew Gans
August 8, 2008

As previously announced, the new Broadway production of the landmark musical West Side Story, directed by librettist Arthur Laurents, will begin previews Feb. 23, 2009, at a Nederlander theatre to be announced.

The revival — produced by Kevin McCollum, James L. Nederlander and Jeffrey Seller — will officially open on Broadway March 19, 2009, according to an Aug. 8 press announcement.

A pre-Broadway engagement will play Dec. 16, 2008-Jan. 17, 2009, at Washington, DC's National Theatre, where the musical made its world premiere in 1957.

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2007-2008 Tony Nominations Announced; In the Heights Earns 13 Noms.

By Andrew Gans
May 13, 2008

The 2007-2008 Tony Award nominations were announced May 13 by Tony Award winners Sara Ramirez and David Hyde Pierce at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Nominees for Best Musical include Cry-Baby, In the Heights, Passing Strange and Xanadu.

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THEATER REVIEW | 'GYPSY'
Curtain Up! It’s Patti’s Turn
By BEN BRANTLEY

Watch out, New York. Patti LuPone has found her focus. And when Ms. LuPone is truly focused, she’s a laser, she incinerates. Especially when she’s playing someone as dangerously obsessed as Momma Rose in the wallop-packing revival of the musical “Gypsy,” which opened on Thursday night at the St. James Theater.

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