Spamalot
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the cult flick that introduced that clown car of British zanies, is enjoying a second coming—this time as a Broadway musical—and one of the troupe’s original members is responsible: Impish Eric Idle wrote the book and lyrics, and some of the music. Director Mike Nichols has recruited some silly, stateside Python facsimiles starting with David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry, and Hank Azaria. The Chicago tryout reviews screamed “Tony ahead!” (Shubert, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
This, too, is a musical with a preformed cult-film following. John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz reprise—with songs—the roles of rival Riviera roués originated by Michael Caine and Steve Martin in the 1988 movie comedy. The team who did The Full Monty—songwriter David Yazbek, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, and director Jack O’Brien—are in charge and also look likely for Tony consideration. (Imperial, 212.239.8383, www.telecharge.com)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Phantom of the Opera has its falling chandelier—still—and this new London import has its flying automobile. If clients are old enough to remember the original movie musical, they’re old enough to have children who might enjoy the same family-styled experience. Raul Esparza, in the driver’s seat and Dick Van Dyke’s 1968 role, heads the freshly Americanized cast, and most of the movie songs by the Sherman brothers are included. (Opens April 28, Hilton, 212.307.4100, www.ticketmaster.com)
The Light in the Piazza
In a more romantic and sentimental mood is this movie-based musical about a North Carolina mother who, visiting Florence, has a very real and medical reason for worrying about her daughter’s pending marriage with a handsome young Italian. Much is expected of this show, if only because of the pedigree of composer Adam Guettel (whose mother is Mary Rodgers, and granddad was Richard Rodgers). (Vivian Beaumont, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Sweet Charity
Big spenders might check out Broadway’s favorite heart-of-gold trollop, Charity Hope Valentine, who is back in town and back in business, this time in the shapely form of Christina Applegate, following the stiletto heels of Gwen Verdon and Debbie Allen. Neil Simon brushed up his original script, but the songs by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields are the evergreens they always were. (Opens April 21, Al Hirschfeld, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche, Stanley, Stella, and Mitch queue up for another Broadway run of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a wrung-out Southern belle who mistakenly thinks she has at last found a safe harbor in her married sister’s New Orleans home. This time out, they’re played by Natasha Richardson, John C. Reilly, Amy Ryan, and Chris Bauer. The late, great critic Walter Kerr counted this the greatest American play. (Studio 54, 212.719.1300,
www.roundabouttheatre.org)
The Glass Menagerie
Many of those not in the Kerr camp consider this melancholic and autobiographical Williams piece to be the greatest American play. Its four characters are a husbandless matriarch, her “dreamer” son and daughter, and the gentleman caller on whom they all pin too much hope. It’s not exactly a night at Spice Market, but you don’t get the chance to see Jessica Lange onstage that often. (Barrymore, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Not that Williams cornered the market on four-character conflicts. Edward Albee had his famous say, too, and this new revival vents it fully. Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Harbour, and Mireille Enos play faculty husbands and their wives who bicker and abuse and drink their way through a long night’s journey into self-awareness. (Longacre, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
The Pillowman
In a season fraught with dramatic revivals—Julius Caesar, On Golden Pond, Glengarry Glen Ross, Steel Magnolias, Twelve Angry Men—a new play arrives from London. Michael McDonagh’s opus concerns a fiction writer whose gruesome short stories are echoed by a number of bizarre incidents in the totalitarian state in which he lives. Billy Crudup and Jeff Goldblum star. (Opens April 10, Booth, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Doubt
Arriving on Broadway from Off Broadway is a new one from John Patrick Shanley (his first, officially, for Broadway). Set in a Bronx Catholic school of the 1960’s, the play comes down to a standoff between a nun and a priest because she suspects the worst of his devotion to his male students. It was greeted with rhapsodic reviews last year at Manhattan Theater Club. (Opens March 31, Walter Kerr, 212. 239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
—Harry Haun
Photos: Carol Rosegg (Who’s Araid of Virginia Woolf?, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the cult flick that introduced that clown car of British zanies, is enjoying a second coming—this time as a Broadway musical—and one of the troupe’s original members is responsible: Impish Eric Idle wrote the book and lyrics, and some of the music. Director Mike Nichols has recruited some silly, stateside Python facsimiles starting with David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry, and Hank Azaria. The Chicago tryout reviews screamed “Tony ahead!” (Shubert, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
This, too, is a musical with a preformed cult-film following. John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz reprise—with songs—the roles of rival Riviera roués originated by Michael Caine and Steve Martin in the 1988 movie comedy. The team who did The Full Monty—songwriter David Yazbek, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, and director Jack O’Brien—are in charge and also look likely for Tony consideration. (Imperial, 212.239.8383, www.telecharge.com)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Phantom of the Opera has its falling chandelier—still—and this new London import has its flying automobile. If clients are old enough to remember the original movie musical, they’re old enough to have children who might enjoy the same family-styled experience. Raul Esparza, in the driver’s seat and Dick Van Dyke’s 1968 role, heads the freshly Americanized cast, and most of the movie songs by the Sherman brothers are included. (Opens April 28, Hilton, 212.307.4100, www.ticketmaster.com)
The Light in the Piazza
In a more romantic and sentimental mood is this movie-based musical about a North Carolina mother who, visiting Florence, has a very real and medical reason for worrying about her daughter’s pending marriage with a handsome young Italian. Much is expected of this show, if only because of the pedigree of composer Adam Guettel (whose mother is Mary Rodgers, and granddad was Richard Rodgers). (Vivian Beaumont, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Sweet Charity
Big spenders might check out Broadway’s favorite heart-of-gold trollop, Charity Hope Valentine, who is back in town and back in business, this time in the shapely form of Christina Applegate, following the stiletto heels of Gwen Verdon and Debbie Allen. Neil Simon brushed up his original script, but the songs by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields are the evergreens they always were. (Opens April 21, Al Hirschfeld, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche, Stanley, Stella, and Mitch queue up for another Broadway run of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a wrung-out Southern belle who mistakenly thinks she has at last found a safe harbor in her married sister’s New Orleans home. This time out, they’re played by Natasha Richardson, John C. Reilly, Amy Ryan, and Chris Bauer. The late, great critic Walter Kerr counted this the greatest American play. (Studio 54, 212.719.1300,
www.roundabouttheatre.org)
The Glass Menagerie
Many of those not in the Kerr camp consider this melancholic and autobiographical Williams piece to be the greatest American play. Its four characters are a husbandless matriarch, her “dreamer” son and daughter, and the gentleman caller on whom they all pin too much hope. It’s not exactly a night at Spice Market, but you don’t get the chance to see Jessica Lange onstage that often. (Barrymore, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Not that Williams cornered the market on four-character conflicts. Edward Albee had his famous say, too, and this new revival vents it fully. Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Harbour, and Mireille Enos play faculty husbands and their wives who bicker and abuse and drink their way through a long night’s journey into self-awareness. (Longacre, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
The Pillowman
In a season fraught with dramatic revivals—Julius Caesar, On Golden Pond, Glengarry Glen Ross, Steel Magnolias, Twelve Angry Men—a new play arrives from London. Michael McDonagh’s opus concerns a fiction writer whose gruesome short stories are echoed by a number of bizarre incidents in the totalitarian state in which he lives. Billy Crudup and Jeff Goldblum star. (Opens April 10, Booth, 212.239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
Doubt
Arriving on Broadway from Off Broadway is a new one from John Patrick Shanley (his first, officially, for Broadway). Set in a Bronx Catholic school of the 1960’s, the play comes down to a standoff between a nun and a priest because she suspects the worst of his devotion to his male students. It was greeted with rhapsodic reviews last year at Manhattan Theater Club. (Opens March 31, Walter Kerr, 212. 239.6200, www.telecharge.com)
—Harry Haun
Photos: Carol Rosegg (Who’s Araid of Virginia Woolf?, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)
Spamalot
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Sweet Charity
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
