Jeff Lunden

Clothes Make The Man (And The Woman, And The Show) On Broadway

Jeff Lunden — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:08:16 +0000

Part of what makes a Broadway show a Broadway show — read "splashy," especially if we're talking musicals — is the costumes.

Equity At 100: More Than Just A Broadway Baby

Jeff Lunden — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:58:08 +0000

"Don't put your daughter on the stage," Noel Coward famously cautioned his imaginary Mrs. Worthington, and no wonder: Stage acting is one of the toughest professions imaginable.

Audra McDonald, A Broadway Star Gone Roaming, Comes Home

Jeff Lunden — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:03:00 +0000

In the seven years since her last album, Audra McDonald has kept busy. She spent several years in Hollywood, filming the television series Private Practice. She's gotten divorced and remarried, absorbed the shock of losing her father in a plane crash and watched her daughter, Zoe, grow up from a kindergartener to a middle-schooler.

Last year, McDonald returned to New York, starred in Porgy and Bess and won a fifth Tony Award.

'Pippin' Revival Is A Circus Of A Show

Jeff Lunden — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:23:00 +0000

When Pippin opened in 1972, it was a sensation. Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, who was coming off his Academy Award-winning film version of Cabaret, it was a showbiz triumph of jazz hands, sexy dancing and theatrical magic.

It was also the Broadway debut of 24-year-old songwriter Stephen Schwartz, who's better known these days for the global megahit Wicked. He had written a version of Pippin — about the son of medieval emperor Charlemagne — as a college musical.

A 'Caesar' With An African Accent

Jeff Lunden — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:41:14 +0000

The 400-year-old plays of William Shakespeare are constantly being reinterpreted and re-envisioned for new generations. Recently, England's Royal Shakespeare Company produced a Julius Caesar set in contemporary Africa that was a hit at the World Shakespeare Festival, presented in conjunction with the London Olympics. Now the RSC has brought it to America.

Gregory Doran, the artistic director of the RSC, first got the idea of doing an African Julius Caesar when he met Nelson Mandela several years ago.

'Matilda' Brings Beloved Book To Broadway

Jeff Lunden — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:40:00 +0000

Matilda is a well-loved book by Roald Dahl, who's been called the greatest children's storyteller of the 20th century. It's about a much-put-upon little girl with tremendous gifts.

'Kinky Boots' Walk Cyndi Lauper To Broadway

Jeff Lunden — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:54:08 +0000

If you ask Billy Porter, one of the lead actors in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, what the show's about, he's got a succinct answer:

"It's about two people who have daddy issues," Porter says. "And one of them just happens to wear a dress."

Porter would be that guy: He plays Lola, a fabulous drag queen who inadvertently helps save a failing shoe factory in the English Midlands. And he gets to sing fabulous songs — by Cyndi Lauper.

More than four years ago, Lauper was asked by her good friend Harvey Fierstein if she'd like to write a musical with him.

On Broadway, Old Shows And New Tricks

Jeff Lunden — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:33:00 +0000

When I was a teenager falling in love with the theater, I picked up a book called Broadway's Greatest Musicals. The sole criterion for inclusion was that a show run for at least 500 performances, which translates to about a year and a quarter.

How quaint.

I was thinking about that when I attended the 25th-anniversary performance of The Phantom of the Opera, now ranked as Broadway's longest-running musical ever.

Singing The Praises Of Pre-Dawn Walks

Jeff Lunden — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:02:42 +0000

Minnesota-born composer Maria Schneider has called New York home for more than 30 years, and she knows how to find nature in the middle of the city. Because her new album is called Winter Morning Walks, we walked to her favorite bird-watching spot in Central Park on a chilly February morning.

"This part right here in the Ramble and this Azalea Pond area is just teeming with warblers," Schneider says. "On a good day, you can see 18 warbler species in the morning, maybe even more.

Tom Hanks And Nora Ephron's 'Lucky Guy' Make Their Broadway Debuts

Jeff Lunden — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:17:00 +0000

Several years ago, when Nora Ephron handed Tom Hanks an early draft of Lucky Guy, her play about tabloid journalist Mike McAlary, he had a pretty strong reaction.

"I said, 'Well, that guy's sure a jerk!' I used another word besides jerk — I know what you can say on NPR," he says. "And she laughed and she said, 'Well, he kinda was.