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Sarah Jones & Friends Is a Theatrical Antidote for a Divided America

by | Nov 9, 2020 | New Musical News Feed

Who is Sarah Jones? Depending on where you’ve encountered her, the answer will differ. She’s the British professor teaching a class on gender and sexuality. She’s an older Jewish woman from Queens. She’s a Dominican-American college student and mother. She’s a cop. She’s a 20-something Black man. She’s a TED Talker. She’s a Tony Award winner. She’s an actor and a writer driven by the concept of self-invention and connection.

Jones has brought a global cornucopia of personalities to the stage for the past 20 years, and the truth is she doesn’t just play all of these characters; she is all of these people. Her roles, inspired by her family and friends, swirl with her DNA and point-of-view, emerging out of her. The height of turmoil of this past summer (the brew of COVID-19 and the second Civil Rights movement) brought her and her personas to a different platform: IGTV. Jones decided to “greenlight myself,” and her eight-episode series Sarah Jones & Friends digs into her carpetbag of characters to help us understand one another even when it seems like we have nothing in common.

Just as she did with her Tony-winning Bridge & Tunnel and Off-Broadway’s Sell/Buy/Date, Jones converts what could just be another solo show—playing dozens of characters, taking on accents and physicalities—into a nuanced lesson about the current yet reparable dysfunction of our human family. “This has been a new abnormal, and we get to learn what our resilience looks like in the face of it,” says Jones.

Jones impresses with her transformative skills, but she is a marvel because of how she does it and why.

“As a Black person of mixed-race experience in America, the pandemic was one kind of layer of unraveling for me,” she says. And even as a woman, even as a Black mixed-race person, Jones examines her privilege on camera and interacts with her viewers as she opens to real-time epiphanies. “White supremacist, cis, hetero, patriarchal culture is such a factor in all of our lives to one extent or another. Stepping into [these characters’] shoes, in a way, prevents me from ignoring other people’s reality.”

By proxy, it helps audiences do the same.

Thanks to IGTV, that audience grew exponentially, which, in turn, deepened Jones’ experience and impacted her work—each episode in the series building and evolving on the feedback from the one before.

“I have learned that people just getting access for free—as long as they’re subscribed to Instagram—has given me exchanges with audiences,” she says. “Audiences saying, ‘I can’t believe what you can do. I can’t believe you are reminding me of my Jewish grandma.’ It’s wonderful for people to discover our connection as human beings while, hopefully, being entertained.”

Self-producing also led Jones to a deeper level of authenticity. “We have always had this sense of, ‘We need producers.’ We need access to the kind of privilege that a lot of us inherently don’t have,” she explains. “To not have to wait for someone else to vet my work, judge, and criticize it, end up in development hell for a year—which is something I went through—and then have it come out as unrecognizable…. This is the opposite. This is an experience of really getting to have a trust exercise with me and the audience and no one interfering, and it’s been so gratifying.”

Gratifying and financially fruitful in a time when most artists are unemployed. Jones offered her Venmo handle thinking people might want to donate a couple bucks, pay-what-you-can style. “I’ve done two six-week runs of work at MTC. In all of that time, I made less money than I do on Venmo doing these shows,” Jones shares. “I’m grateful for institutions, making it possible for audiences to find our work a lot of the time, but Instagram eliminates that.”

Which begs the question (particularly in an age where our stages are closed): How should we make theatre? Would IGTV work for other projects?

IGTV is ideal for Jones because of her mission: to reach a wide audience in an intimate and casual setting for hard conversations. Jones says, “For me, watching my heroes be multiple characters, not just opine as they think those characters would, but being those people [creates the question], ‘What does it mean to be someone else?’ That hopefully starts to shrink the gap a little bit between us.”

She’s already encountered evidence that it’s working. “I’ve gotten to watch people who’ve started with none of this in their vocabulary be able to talk about, ‘What does it mean to be an ally?’” she says. “To watch them go from, ‘I know something awful happened and I don’t have language around it’ to ‘I do understand that when I hear defund the police, all people are saying is, can we divert some of the funding?’”

In this era of fixing the American family dysfunction, of a reckoning with systemic racism, of battling a health crisis, Jones ascribes four phases to our process to progress: awareness, awkwardness, acceptance, and actions.

For phase one, Sarah Jones & Friends is the safe place. “You can get a European-American rights advocate, a sex-positive feminist college student in the same body,” Jones laughs. “There’s no reason that you can’t have a 20-minute experience at your desk, a lunch break with a Wednesday matinee on Instagram that really does try to link all of us as human beings alongside the incredible divide that we’re experiencing.”

Watch all eight episodes on Jones’ IGTV. Follow her @yesimsarahjones.

See Sarah Jones in Buy/Sell/Date

Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: November 8

by | Nov 7, 2020 | New Musical News Feed

1913 Birthday of June Hovik, better known as June Havoc, even better known as namesake of Baby June, the character based on her in the musical Gypsy. The show pretty accurately sums up her childhood with a hard-driving mom in the dying years of vaudeville, and a sister who later becomes Gypsy Rose Lee. Havoc has a busy Broadway career of her own, appearing in Pal Joey, Mexican Hayride, Affairs of State, and her own play, Marathon ’33. She’s present to advise the cast of the original 1959 Gypsy, as well as the 2003 revival.

1926 Opening night at the Imperial Theatre for the George and Ira Gershwin musical Oh, Kay!, about hijinks involving rumrunners at a Long Island estate. Gertrude Lawrence and Victor Moore are featured in the show, which runs 256 performances and introduces the standards “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “Do Do Do,” and “Clap Yo’ Hands.” In 2012, a reworked version of the musical opens on Broadway under the title Nice Work If You Can Get It.

1932 Opening night for Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II‘s operetta Music in the Air at the Alvin Theatre, beginning a run of 342 performances. The score includes “I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star” and “The Song Is You.” The cast includes Walter Slezak, Al Shean, Natalie Hall, and a pre-I Love Lucy Vivian Vance.

1939 Life With Father, a family comedy based on Clarence Day’s stories that was written by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, opens at the Empire Theatre. The cast includes Lindsay himself taking over a role that was turned down by Alfred Lunt. He appears on stage with his offstage wife, Dorothy Stickney. Lindsay had hoped that the play would run for at least six months. He gets his wish; the play runs for over eight years, setting a new record for a non-musical play, racking up 3,224 performances.

1950 John Gielgud and a young Richard Burton appear together in Christopher Fry‘s The Lady’s Not for Burning at the Royale Theatre for 151 performances. Gielgud also directs the romantic comedy set in the 15th century.

1973 Boom Boom Room by David Rabe opens at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, marking the first time that Joseph Papp has a show at Lincoln Center. Madeline Kahn stars as a middle-aged woman realizing that her adult life is, in reality, not that much better than her abusive childhood. Charles Durning and Robert Loggia co-star in the show that wins mixed reviews and a short run of only 37 performances.

1979 Romantic Comedy opens at the Barrymore Theatre with stars Mia Farrow and Anthony Perkins. The Bernard Slade play gets mixed reviews and runs 396 performances.

1990 Six Degrees of Separation opens at Lincoln Center after a successful Off-Broadway run. Directed by Jerry Zaks and starring Stockard Channing, Courtney B. Vance, and John Cunningham, the show about a Black impostor posing as a college friend of a White family’s son runs for 485 performances at its new home.

2001 Roundabout Theatre Company‘s revival of Clare Booth Luce‘s not altogether affectionate comic treatise on her sex, The Women, features a constellation of contemporary stars, including Kristen Johnston, Rue McClanahan, Cynthia Nixon, Mary Louise Wilson, and Jennifer Tilly.

2006 After numerous stage adaptations of movies, Broadway gets a musical based on a TV special. Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas opens at the Hilton Theatre and proves to be so popular, it returns the following year. Patrick Page stars as the greedy green title character, with John Cullum as his faithful pooch.

2007 He grunts, he shuffles, he stomps—he sings! Mary Shelley’s 19th-century creature is reinvented for Broadway in Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan‘s musical based on Brooks’ 1974 film comedy, opening at the Hilton Theatre. The production stars Roger Bart as Dr. Frankenstein, Megan Mullally as the doctor’s love interest Elizabeth, Sutton Foster as comely assistant Inga, Shuler Hensley as The Monster, Andrea Martin as castle matron Frau Blucher, and Christopher Fitzgerald as hunchback Igor. Reviews are less enthusiastic than for Brooks’ previous Broadway effort, the smash hit The Producers, but the production still runs 485 performances.

2011 Venus in Fur, David Ives‘ two-character play about the relationship between a hungry actor and a controlling writer-director, opens on Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club‘s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Nina Arianda, who created the role of Vanda in the production’s 2010 Off-Broadway premiere, stars opposite Hugh Dancy. Arianda wins a 2012 Tony Award for her performance.

2012 Annie, the 1977 show that introduced generations of children to the tuneful optimism of traditional Broadway musicals, opens in a new production on Broadway at the Palace Theatre. The 35th anniversary revival of the tale of a red-headed orphan in the care of a billionaire Republican during the Great Depression stars Lilla Crawford in the title role, Katie Finneran as Miss Hannigan, and Anthony Warlow as Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks.

2015 Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione‘s musical Allegiance, inspired by the childhood of veteran actor George Takei, opens on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre. Takei stars alongside Lea Salonga and Telly Leung. The production runs 111 performances.

2018 King Kong, a Broadway musical based on Merian C. Cooper’s 1932 adventure novel that inspired the 1933 Hollywood classic—and a subsequent film franchise—opens at the Broadway Theatre. The centerpiece of the production is its titular star: a 20-foot-high, 2,000-pound puppeteer-operated gorilla whose lifelike face is capable of expressing a breathtaking range of emotion. The puppet’s creators, Sonny Tilders and Creature Technology Company, receive a Special Tony Award.

More of Today’s Birthdays: Bram Stoker (1847–1912). Peter Weiss (1916–1982). Gene Saks (1921–2015). Nicholas Kepros (b. 1932). Alfre Woodard (b. 1952). Chuck Cooper (b. 1954). Parker Posey (b. 1968). Gretchen Mol (b. 1972). David Turner (b. 1974).

King Kong Takes Over the Broadway Theatre in the Latest Photos

The Theatre Community Reacts to Election Day(s)

by | Nov 6, 2020 | New Musical News Feed

November 3 marked Election Day, by now a misnomer as ballots continue to be counted in battleground states with no clear timeline as to when a victory might be called. In the meantime, the theatre community has taken to social media to share their thoughts, experiences, and comparisons between the election and theatre life.

Audra McDonald

Rachel Brosnahan

Kyle Jarrow

Gideon Glick

Diep Tran

Stephanie J. Block

Jason Robert Brown

Keala Settle

Patti Murin

Michael Park

Alex Brightman

Jennifer Ashley Tepper

Rory O’Malley

Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: November 5

by | Nov 4, 2020 | New Musical News Feed

1895 Birthday of Charles MacArthur, newsman-turned-playwright, whose wisecracking oeuvre includes The Front Page, Twentieth Century (the play on which the musical On the Twentieth Century is based), Johnny on a Spot, Lulu Belle, Ladies and Gentlemen, and the libretto to the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Jumbo. He was also married to Helen Hayes.

1918 Miss 1917 opens at the Century Theatre featuring comedian Lew Fields performing a score by Victor Herbert, Guy Bolton, and P.G. Wodehouse. It runs 48 performances.

1931 Raymond Massey stars as Hamlet for 28 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre.

1941 Summoned by a medium, the spirit of a wife returns in ghost form to flirt with her still-living husband, and bedevil his new wife in Noël Coward‘s sparkling comedy, Blithe Spirit, which opens at the Morosco Theatre, and brightens wartime Broadway for 650 performances.

1943 Birthday of playwright Sam Shepard, one of the cornerstones of the Off-Off-Broadway movement in the 1960s, with plays like The Unseen Hand and The Tooth of Crime, who goes slightly more mainstream with works including True West, All for Love, and Pulitzer-winner Buried Child. He also contributes a sketch to the long-running revue Oh! Calcutta!

1951 Ginger Rogers appears on the cover of Life, “Back On Broadway” in Love and Let Love. However, the show, plagued by feuding in its tryout period, plays only 51 performances, losing about $30,000.

1952 Margaret Sullavan stars in Terrence Rattigan‘s play The Deep Blue Sea, which opens at the Morosco Theatre and stays for 132 performances.

1959 Paddy Chayefsky‘s supernatural thriller The Tenth Man, opens at the Booth Theatre, beginning a 623-performance run.

1963 Birthday of Andrea McArdle, who creates the title role in the musical Annie, and goes on to play roles in musicals including Starlight Express, State Fair, and Beauty and the Beast.

1973 Peter Hall succeeds Laurence Olivier as director of the English National Theatre, leading the company through many successful years and a Queen-appointed change of name to the Royal National Theatre.

1980 Christopher Reeve, Swoosie Kurtz, and Amy Wright are the stars in Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson, which opens at the New Apollo Theatre. The show was a success Off-Broadway as a Circle Rep production in 1978, and repeats its success on Broadway, running for 511 performances and winning Kurtz a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award.

1987 Stephen Sondheim‘s elaborate interweaving of many fairy tales, Into the Woods, opens on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre. The famous score includes the hits “No One Is Alone” and “Children Will Listen,” along with the title song. James Lapine, who also wrote the book, directs a cast that includes Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien, and Bernadette Peters. It runs 765 performances.

1995 Master Class, Terrence McNally‘s play about opera diva Maria Callas, opens on Broadway at the Golden Theatre. Zoe Caldwell stars as Callas, with Audra McDonald playing one of her students. It goes on to win Tony Awards for Caldwell, McDonald, and Best Play. Dixie Carter and Patti LuPone take on the role of Callas later in the 598 performance run.

2003 The Landmark Conservancy names actor Elaine Stritch and composing duo John Kander and Fred Ebb “Living Landmarks.”

2012 The New York City premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, a harrowing character study of the roots of dysfunction in the life of a morbidly-obese 600-pound man, opens Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons‘ Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Shuler Hensley stars as Charlie, the mentally vibrant but emotionally (and mostly couch-bound) lost soul.

2015 On Your Feet!, the musical based on the lives of Gloria and Emilio Estefan, opens on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre, where it runs for 746 performances. Ana Villafañe and Josh Segarra star as Gloria and Emilio.

2018 Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son opens at Broadway’s Booth Theatre. Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, and Eugene Lee star in the drama, about a separated, interracial couple reuniting in a police station and grappling with the disappearance of their teenage son. Director Kenny Leon later helms a filmed version for Netflix as well, with the four reprising their performances.

More of Today’s Birthdays: Natalie Schafer (1900–1991). Vivien Leigh (1913–1967). Donald Madden (1928–1983). Harris Yulin (b. 1937). Howard McGillin (b. 1953). Sam Rockwell (b. 1968). Keala Settle (b. 1975). Sebastian Arcelus (b. 1976).

PHOTO ARCHIVE: Zoe Caldwell, Patti LuPone, Dixie Carter, Faye Dunaway and Tyne Daly in Terrence McNally’s Master Class