Casting is complete for the Barrington Stage Company’s upcoming production of the classic musical West Side Story, which will play the Massachusetts venue August 3–September 1 with an official opening August 8.
Addie Morales
Choreographed by Robert La Fosse, and helmed by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, West Side Story will be presented in celebration of the 100th birthdays of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins.
The cast will be headed by Addie Morales (West Side Story, Casa Mañana Theatre) as Maria, Will Branner (OctoberSky, The Old Globe Theatre) as Tony, Skyler Volpe (Rent national tour) as Anita, Sean Ewing (Broadway’s Amazing Grace) as Bernardo, Tyler Hanes (Broadway’s Cats) as Riff, Alex Swift (The Wizard of Oz national tour) as Chino, Juan Caballer (Evita, Asolo Rep Theatre) as Action, Douglas Rees (BSC’s The Cake) as Schrank/Gladhand, Gordon Stanley (Broadway’s Ragtime) as Doc, and Christopher Tucci (Lincoln Speaks, Chesterwood) as Krupke.
Rounding out the cast are Julio Catano (The Addams Family national tour) as Pepe, Jerusha Cavazos (Atlanta) as Consuela, Linedy Genao (Broadway’s On Your Feet!) as Rosalia, Hannah Balagot (West Side Story international tour) as Anybodys, Michael Pesko (Guys and Dolls, Fulton Theatre) as Diesel, Dylan Gabriel Hoffinger (Soul Doctor, Lyceum Theatre) as Baby John, Kyle Coffman (Broadway’s Newsies) as A-Rab, Raynor Rubel (Saturday Night Fever, Westchester Broadway) as Snowboy/Big Deal, Kelly Loughran (Fame – The Musical national tour) as Graziella, Jennifer Gruener (Trip of Love) as Pauline, Tamrin Goldberg (Oklahoma!, Goodspeed Musicals) as Francisca, Magdalena Rodriguez (In the Heights, The Engeman Theater) as Teresita, Sarah Crane (Saturday Night Fever, The Walnut Street Playhouse) as Minnie/Margarita, Danny Bevins (The New World, Bucks County Playhouse) as Indio, Antony Sanchez (Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Norwegian Cruise Line) as Nibbles, and Brandon Keith Rogers (42nd Street, The Palace Theatre) as a swing.
West Side Story is based on a concept by Robbins, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Robbins directed and choreographed the original production.
Barrington has also announced casting for two other productions: the world premieres of The Chinese Lady and Well Intentioned White People.
The Chinese Lady, which will begin performances July 20, will include Shannon Tyo (BSC’s Broadway Bounty Hunter) as Afong Moy and Daniel K. Isaac (Billions) as Atung. Written by Lloyd Suh (Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery), directed by Ralph Peña (Microcrisis, Ma-Yi Theater Company), and presented in a co-production with the Ma-Yi Theater Company, the limited engagement will continue through August 11.
Written by Rachel Lynett and directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene (A Raisin in the Sun, Triad Stage), Well Intentioned White People begins previews August 16 prior to an official opening August 22. The cast will include Myxolydia Tyler (The Mountaintop, Vermont Stage) as Cass, Victoria Frings (Tales of Red Vienna, Manhattan Theatre Club) as Viv, Samy El Noury (Transparent) as Parker, Andrea Cirie (Nora, Cherry Lane Theatre) as Dean West, and Cathryn Wake (Broadway’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) as Mara. Performances continue through September 8.
The season will conclude with Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, directed by Julianne Boyd. Casting for the production, which begins October 3, will be announced at a later date.
This summer, the Tony Award-winning Avenue Q is celebrating its 15th anniversary with 15 special performances that will welcome back members of the musical’s original Broadway company and other alumni. To help celebrate, Playbill ClubSeats is offering theatregoers the chance to win two tickets to one of the special performances (July 8–29).
The special anniversary performances will feature a number of surprise guests including the original Christmas Eve Ann Harada; Stephanie D’Abruzzo, who originated the roles of Kate Monster and Lucy; original Rod John Tartaglia; and Trekkie Monster Rick Lyon. Other performers include Carmen Ruby Floyd, Barrett Foa, Maggie Lakis, Anika Larsen, Rick Lyon, Rob McClure, Brynn O’Malley, and Sharon Wheatley.
You can enter to win tickets to the show, as well as see the terms and conditions, here.
The Tony-winning musical Avenue Q features music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, a book by Jeff Whitty, and direction by Jason Moore.
Currently being performed at New World Stages, Avenue Q tells the timeless story of a bright-eyed college grad named Princeton, who arrives in the city with big dreams and a tiny bank account, and has to move into a shabby apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. There, he meets Kate (the girl next door), Lucy (the slut), Rod (the Republican), Trekkie (the internet entrepreneur), superintendent Gary Coleman and other new friends. Together, they struggle to find jobs, dates, and their purpose in life.
Playbill ClubSeats is a part of the Playbill Discount Club, which is Broadway’s #1 source for discount tickets and is also completely free to join. Members enjoy access to exclusive discount tickets for Broadway and Off-Broadway, exclusive daily discounts sent directly to your inbox, and a weekly roundup of discounts every Monday.
It’s “Happy” Bacharach! What a surprise. I hadn’t connected the name though I had known him 20 years before. Teenagers we were then, learning about jazz at the same time, playing jam sessions together around Forest Hills where we both lived. And now it turns out that “Happy” from the old days is today’s Burt Bacharach, the composer of so many hit songs (“Alfie,” “Walk on By,” “Message to Michael,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”) and of the new Broadway musical Promises, Promises.
Twenty years later, my old friend “Happy” is hot—so hot, in fact, that “We need a Burt Bacharach-type tune” has become a refrain in the music business. His sound is as contemporary as the Beatles, though more restrained and traditional in form, without the electronics and freneticism of hard rock. His melodies are “pretty” but upon repetition so much more than that.
But as he relaxes in his Washington hotel suite before a tryout performance of Promises, Promises, he looks very much as I remember him—boyish despite crags in a sensitive face and a good deal of gray in his thick brown hair, which falls over his forehead. (As he talks he rubs his hair or scratches his head and during the frequent pauses between words, which do not always come easily, he lowers his eyes, which are light blue and rather shy.)
He tells me first of old friends in common—Eddie Shaughnessy, the drummer, for one. One of Burt’s first jobs was in the Catskills and Eddie played drums. The pay was $200 a week plus room and board…for the entire quintet. Business was bad that summer and the pay kept dropping. It went down to $60 a week and $32 of that went to Eddie because he was supporting his mother. But because they were young and having fun, they stayed on, until finally they were forced to leave when the hotel burned down. He laughed hard when he finished the story.
After Forest Hills High School, Burt went to McGill University in Montreal, and from there to the army. After his discharge, he played piano around New York in places like Nino’s Continental on 53rd Street and The Bayview on Fire Island. “Sometimes, especially lately, I get these fantasies,” he said. “You know….I just bought a restaurant called Dover House in Westbury, Long Island and…” Burt laughed a bit sheepishly “… and I think what I really ought to do is go there, drink with the people every night, play a tune or two on the piano. Go back to that ‘give the piano player a drink’ scene.” He laughed again, a little weary this time.
Burt studied music with composer Darius Milhaud, who once told him to “never be afraid of writing music that people can whistle.” The young student took the famous composer’s advice and nine years ago he produced his first hit, “Magic Moments,” which was sung by Perry Como. Then for five years he was Marlene Dietrich’s conductor and musical director, a job that took him all over the world. Musically, Marlene felt enormously dependant on Burt and literally wouldn’t work unless he worked with her. “She’s better about it now,” Burt said. “We got her over that. It was a necessity because, since I started this show, I’ve had no time.” Burt had been working full-blast on Promises, Promises for over two months by the time we talked—rehearsing in New York, previewing in Boston and Washington, then more rehearsing, rewriting, coaching, previewing and conferring. “How do you like doing a Broadway show?” I asked him.
“Well, it’s a very good show. The book is sensational—with Neil Simon you can’t go wrong. It’s happy, man. People feel good coming out of the theatre. But the whole process is so stretched out….I wrote some of the songs a year ago last summer. That’s a long time to retain any perspective. I get tired of them.
“It’s particularly hard when you are attuned, like I am, to fast results. When I write a tune for Dionne [Dionne Warwick] a few months later it’s already on record and released. It’s the same with movie scores.” [He’s done What’s New Pussycat and Casino Royale, among others.] “But doing a Broadway show—putting everything and all the people together—it’s a long process. Awful long…stretched out.
“I don’t know about doing another Broadway show. I won’t say never but…not so soon. Whether this is a smash or not has nothing to do with it. No, no. I put in a lot of time, a lot of time away from my baby, my wife…my family. A lot of time away, lost, not watching my baby grow up.” (Burt is married to actress Angie Dickinson and their daughter Lea Nikki is two. They had visited him in Washington only the week before and there was still a highchair in the room. A chambermaid knocked, explaining she had come to remove it. “I really enjoyed your show,” she said shyly. “Thank you,” he answered just as shyly.)
“Promises,” said Burt, “is more or less in the mainstream of Broadway musicals. Hal [Hal David, his lyricist] and I haven’t tried to shift gears though, because we are writing for Broadway. I hope it just sounds like something Hal David and Burt Bacharach wrote. We haven’t done anything particularly revolutionary. It’s a light, airy play with a more or less traditional structure and I don’t think revolutionary music would have worked with it….Do you?”
He looked at me for, it seemed, reassurance; as if he had thought hard about really tackling something big, had discarded the idea but was still not quite sure whether it was a cop-out.
“Some nights some songs work better than others. The human element is so large in the theatre. If you are making a record, as soon as you have it right it’s on tape—preserved. In the theatre, it’s right tonight but tomorrow is another story. The lead trumpet player’s lip may be bad, the tempos could be off, the singer may have a cold…it’s just nerve-wracking, but you have to adjust.
“For instance, the rhythm patterns on my tunes are basically controlled to begin with. They are essential and they grow right out of the tune. On Dionne’s record of ‘Promises’ there are three guitars and two percussion players all playing different rhythm patterns. I wouldn’t even try to do that for the theatre. That’s too intricate to be sure of every single performance.
“How about our rhythm section, though? They are really steaming, aren’t they?” Burt’s face brightened and with good reason—his rhythm section is very important to him and does steam. Bobby Thomas, the drummer, and Chuck Israels, bass, are two of the best around, and since we were all old friends I was doubly happy to find them in Washington. That night the three of us and Harold Wheeler, the conductor, drove over to Silver Springs, Maryland, where Woody Herman’s band was working. (Burt couldn’t come—a conference.)
Harold Wheeler is a young black musician, no more than 25. He has a great deal of poise for his age and a quiet, refined manner. It became obvious very soon that he thinks highly of Burt Bacharach. (I knew his respect and affection were returned for I remembered Burt’s pleased look when he told me about his new conductor. “He’s just a kid. He went to school here—to Howard….” He watched for a reaction. “Yeah! That’ll break a few barriers, huh? He’s got the guts of a lion, he was hired originally as the dance arranger and rehearsal pianist and the only conducting he’d ever done before was in college. But he has the feel for the contemporary pop scene and particularly for my music, and this is, above all, a ‘feel’ show.”)
“I really love that guy,” Harold said of Burt. “He’s so sweet and shy, it’s like he’s embarrassed about being a star. A few nights ago I took him to hear a singer I used to work with here in Washington. When we came in she started singing some of Burt’s songs. He kept looking down and although it was pretty dark in there, I think he blushed. Finally, he said something like, “I wish she’s sing somebody else’s songs. I’d rather hear something else.’
“His songs are so personal. They have a texture to them—you can almost touch them. He’s very musical and there is a reason for everything he does. For example, if he puts in a 2/4 bar in a song, you may be sure it only requires two beats at that spot.”
There was a rehearsal of Promises, Promises the following morning. Burt had been ambiguous in responding to my formal request to attend. He reminded me of David Merrick’s (Promises’ producer) attitude towards the press and said that Lillian Ross, who was researching a profile of him for The New Yorker, had been thrown out of a rehearsal in Boston. We compromised on a 12:30 appointment for lunch. I showed up an hour early; nobody threw me out.
Harold Wheeler was rehearsing a new song, “It’s Our Little Secret.” It would be performed that night for the first time. “After this change, we’ll freeze the show,” Burt told me. There were bags under his eyes and he seemed really tired. “This song is a replacement for one I supremely disliked, so that makes me feel better. I wish a couple of other things might be different but there’s no way to make them different because of the structure of the story… it takes a little time to get going, for instance. But I’m told that’s often the case with musicals.”
There was some trouble with the tempo of the new song and Burt went to the pit. Harold started from the top again as Burt paced the aisle, the collar of his black jacket turned up, his sunglasses on top of his head. He shook his head often and shrugged trying to loosen up the tension in his shoulders.
The new song was beautiful, but not so beautiful as “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” which was rehearsed next. Jill O’Hara sang it alone accompanying herself on guitar. Technically speaking, the song wasn’t much and a student of Darius Milhaud could “analize” it in about two minutes; but artistic simplicity is not so simply arrived at. And as Jill sang everybody connected with this big Broadway musical—actors, dancers, musicians, stagehands, production people, writers—stopped what they were doing, hypnotized by what they were hearing. As I watched, I was reminded of something Mies Van Der Rohe once said: “I do not want to be interesting, i want to be good.”
Throwback Thursday: Celebrate the Holiday Season With a Look Back at Promises, Promises on Broadway
1981 After years of touring, stripper Ann Corio brings her This Was Burlesque revue to Broadway’s Princess Theatre, where it stays just 28 performances.
1982 An outcry is heard as a group of prominent theatre writers, Arthur Miller and Stephen Sondheim among them, place an open letter advertisement in Variety to protest the minimal attention playwrights have received on the Tony Awards telecasts up to that time. An excerpt from that complaint follows: “No sane person would possibly believe that authors are less important to the theatre than are actors, directors, and producers. Nevertheless, from the onset of the televised Tony Awards, authors have either been entirely ignored or denied their proper recognition. This situation will no longer be tolerated.”
2000Mario Cantone is one of a group of gay friends facing life changes during the holiday season in the New York premiere of The Crumple Zone. The new comedy by Buddy Thomas begins previews Off-Broadway at the Rattlestick Theatre and undergoes three extensions before closing October 29.
2015 The world premiere musical Bend It Like Beckham, based on the 2002 film of the same name, opens at the Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End. Directed by Gurinder Chadha, who also directed the original film, it features a book by Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges, music by Howard Goodall, and lyrics by Charles Hart.
Producers of Broadway’s Gettin’ the Band Back Together are inviting 100 members of the public the opportunity to sit in on rehearsals for the new musical comedy June 29 and June 30 at 3 PM at a secret location in midtown. For a chance to be a part of the action, fans need to first share the show’s new music video.
Entries will be collecting through June 27, with winners announced the following day. Click here for more details.
Gettin’ the Band Back Together follows Mitch (played by Mitchell Jarvis), a 40-year-old, out-of-work banker who moves back in with his mother and decides to reunite his old high school band, Juggernaut.
The musical, directed by Tony winner John Rando and choreographed by Chris Bailey, will begin performances July 19 prior to an official opening August 13 at the Belasco Theatre.
The principal cast also features Marilu Henner as his mother, Sharon, Jay Klaitz as Bart Vickers, Manu Narayan as Dr. Rummesh “Robbie” Patel, Paul Whitty as Michael “Sully” Sullivan, Sawyer Nunes as Ricky “Bling” Goldstein, Kelli Barrett as Dani, Becca Kötte as Tawney, Garth Kravits as Ritchie, Tamika Lawrence as Roxanne Velasco, Noa Solorio as Billie, and Brandon Williams as Tygen Billows.
The ensemble will include Ryan Duncan, Nehal Joshi, J. Elaine Marcos, Rob Marnell, Jasmin Richardson, and Tad Wilson.
Gettin’ the Band Back Together features a book by Ken Davenport (who also produces) and the performance group Grundleshotz, who helped develop the show. Mark Allen penned the score, and Sarah Saltzberg (a member of Grundleshotz) provided additional material. The musical received its world premiere in 2013 at George Street Playhouse, also directed by Rando.
A Sneak Peek at the Broadway-bound Gettin’ the Band Back Together
1906See-See, described by its authors as a “comic Chinese opera,” opens at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre in London. The musical boasts a book by Charles Brookfield and a score by Sidney Jones and Adrian Ross. Denise Osme performs the title role. The production runs 152 performances.
1910 In a strike against racial prejudice, Florenz Ziegfeld opens the Ziegfeld Follies of 1910 with actor Bert Williams as co-star, marking the first time white and black entertainers have appeared on stage together in a major Broadway production.
1929 The musical revue Hot Chocolates opens a 219-performance run at the Hudson Theatre, featuring some of the great stars of Harlem nightclubs, including the Broadway debut of Louis Armstrong, and a score by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks, and Andy Razaf.
1989 A musical version of Death of a Salesman? That’s what the Jewish boy in The Loman Family Picnic dreams of writing while his family stresses about his bar mitzvah. The play by Donald Margulies opens at Manhattan Theatre Club‘s City Center Stage 2.
2000 Composer-lyricist-librettist Kirsten Childs‘ musical about Viceca “Bubbly” Stanton, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, gets its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons. Wilfredo Medina directs and A.C. Ciulla choreographs the musical memoir starring LaChanze.
2003Bounce, the first musical collaboration between composer Stephen Sondheim and director Hal Prince in more than two decades, opens a tryout at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. It moves on to Washington D.C. and plays out a limited run without moving to New York. In 2008, John Doyle directs a revised version of the musical at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater under the title Road Show.
2004 The Tony-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie closes after 903 performances at the Marquis Theatre.
2012The York Theatre Company presents the first New York City revival of the 1989 Off-Broadway revue Closer Than Ever—featuring the lyrics of Richard Maltby Jr. and the music of David Shire—at The York Theatre at Saint Peter’s. Directed by Maltby, the production stars Jenn Colella, George Dvorsky, Christiane Noll, and Sal Viviano. Originally announced for a limited run through July 14, the critically acclaimed production extends three times and runs 150 performances.
A new staging of Verdi’s Macbeth, starring Anna Netrebko and Plácido Domingo, opened at the Berlin State Opera June 17. The production, directed by Harry Kupfer, continues performances through July 2.
Domingo stars in the title role opposite Netrebko as Lady Macbeth, with Kwangchul Youn as Banquo and Fabio Sartori as Macduff. Daniel Barenboim conducts.
Flip through photos of the production below:
First Look at Anna Netrebko and Plácido Domingo in Macbeth
By the time Hamilton’s Amber White takes her perch in the stage manager’s booth at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, an entire theatrical engine has been hard at work, ready to cross its final hurdle: show time. Following her through her daily workload, we see what it takes to raise the curtain on Broadway each night.
Hamilton production stage manager Amber White Marc J. Franklin
After a long day of preparation, the company stands in the wings. Patrons shuffle into their seats. White sits before her script. With her call, the lights on the stage fade as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical comes to life for yet another performance.
Hamilton‘s stage management office Marc J. Franklin
Bringing a show to the stage nightly requires a complex ecosystem of cast and crew, all led by stage managers. Becoming a show’s organizational backbone is a demanding position, but for White, it was a coincidental work-study job in college that led to her becoming the production stage manager for one of Broadway’s biggest hits—the finance major was hired as the assistant technical director to her university’s theatre. The proximity to the theatre’s creative side led her to stage management offers in college, and after accepting gig after gig, she realized her passion. White dropped her finance major and shifted her education to theatre instead.
While university theatre is very different than theatre in New York, it was White’s eagerness to learn that took her far. “In my 20’s, my goal was to never be comfortable. That meant trying things constantly. You learn so much by trying new things. You make mistakes, you watch other people make mistakes, you watch other people solve mistakes. And in that, you build your tool bag of knowledge.” Through her theatrical exploration, White found herself working as an assistant stage manager on Avenue Q, a job that would yield her second fortuitous opportunity: Through the show’s producers and creative team, she was offered the chance to stage manage a workshop of a new work, a musical that would go on to become Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. It’s through those relationships that White was offered the job at Hamilton.
As a production stage manager, White’s job never ends. Schedules have to be coordinated, rehearsals must be held, costumes and props need to prepped. While White balances work and home life, she also is an expert at one of the important skills a stage manager requires: the ability to multitask.
White joined the production in December 2015, just five months after she gave birth to her daughter. “It was important to me that I show my daughter, as she grows older, that I am part of the work force,” White says. “There were a lot of times when I had my baby on my lap and I was practicing calling the show at home. It was important I show that balance: that I spend time with her and that I spend time with my career.”
Inside the stage management office, an unassuming room filled with charts, binders, and notes, White convenes with the two other stage managers who keep the show running. The first step is to create the performance’s “In and Out,” a list of which actors are out of the performance and who will be filling in.
White works with her fellow stage managers to create the day’s “In and Out.” Marc J. Franklin
Once it’s composed, White delivers the roster for the day. Walking through the theatre’s hallways, White greets the co-workers she passes en route. Those interpersonal relationships are vital for White. “Working on a long-running show like Hamilton is knowing that it’s not just about the run of the show, calling the cues at night, and typing up the paperwork. It’s about creating an environment that makes you want to walk through that door eight times a week,” White says. “If [the company] walks into that building and they feel like they are fed, creatively, and embraced as family, then it’s going to make for a better working environment. I love working beside these people.”
Returning to the office, White works to curate the schedule for the future, making sure the show is secure long-term. Effectively managing a Broadway show requires being focused on the day-to-day itinerary while simultaneously looking months ahead, creating a long-term trajectory for the show. White sits in front of a large calendar and cross references her schedule with a company member. “I always know the next two months out, who we are planning on teaching, and what their schedules will be,” White explains. “It’s keeping in communication with those actors, with our wardrobe department to make sure their costumes are ready on time, with our associate to make sure that we all know their teaching past and what their first performance will be.”
Prior to the house opening, White runs notes with an actor. With a production as complex as Hamilton, preserving the show is a team effort. “We have a lot of associates, which is a wonderful thing. We have a resident director, a resident choreographer, as well as a music director. I work with those people very closely, hand in hand, to talk through nuances of the show. It keeps the artistic endeavors up to speed and really tight,” White says.
White and actor Carvens Lissaint run a spacing note prior to show time. Marc J. Franklin
White puts on her headset and calls a light cue, casting the stage in show light. Even though the stage is covered in scuffs and spike tape, White confidently walks over to a specific spot, indicating where the actor should hit his mark. Her knowledge of the production is unmatched, a requirement for running a smooth show. For White, it isn’t just a matter of knowing the nuts and bolts but also having a backup plan in every scenario. “It’s about making sure you understand what you do if something were to go wrong—because you’re running that ship.”
After her notes session, White makes her way back to the stage management office and gives the half-hour call, indicating that it is 30 minutes until the show begins. It’s here that White’s evening can change. The three production stage managers rotate calling the performance, staying in the office to work on the paperwork needed to maintain the production’s infrastructure, and watching the show to take notes from the audience perspective.
White looks out at the stage from her stage management booth Marc J. Franklin
Finally, it’s time for the show. White walks over to the stage-left wing and climbs to her booth, a collection of monitors anchored by the show’s script, where she will spend the next three hours making her way through more than 1,300 light and turntable cues. “Calling the show is when you feel really connected to the show itself and the performances. You are part of the experience that 1,400 people have been waiting to see!” White says.
The cast takes their bows as another long day as a stage manager nears its end. White reunites with her fellow stage managers to compose a post-show report, communicating the events of the performance to the production and management teams. White is constantly evaluating the show and making it the best it can be. “It’s not reinventing the wheel but analyzing. It’s looking at ourselves and saying, ‘Is what we are doing today as purposeful as it was [before]?’” As the lights dim on another evening on Broadway, the work continues. “Our job will never be done.”
Flip through photos of White’s day Below:
Shepherding the Show: A Day in the Life of Hamilton’s Stage Manager
