New York Spotlight: March 2007
The biggest news on Broadway this month may well be the return of Vanessa Redgrave, generally regarded as one of the world’s greatest actresses. She stars in The Year of Magical Thinking (Booth Theatre; previews begin March 6), Joan Didion’s one-woman play based on her memoir of the same title. David Hare directs this true-life tale that begins on the unforgettable night when, even as Didion’s only child lay in a coma, her husband of 40 years — writer John Gregory Dunne — died suddenly of a massive coronary as they sat down to dinner in their New York apartment.
Also debuting on the Main Stem is The Pirate Queen (Hilton Theatre, previews begin March 6); this new musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil details the exploits of Grace O’Malley (played by Stephanie J. Block), who led an extraordinary life as a pirate, chieftain, lover, and mother in 16th-century Ireland. Next up, Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy go head to head in a revival of Inherit the Wind (Lyceum Theatre, previews begin March 19), the 1955 Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee drama based on the notorious Scopes trial of 1925, in which a Tennessee science teacher was tried and convicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution.
As March comes to a close, two transfers from London bow on Broadway. Kevin Spacey, Eve Best, and Colm Meaney star in the Old Vic’s acclaimed production of Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, previews begin March 29). Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, previews begin March 31) is a fascinating recreation of David Frost’s interviews with Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal and the President’s resignation, starring Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost.
Musical theater fans will be spending lots of time outside of the Times Square area this month. At Lincoln Center, the New York City Opera presents Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance (March 3-31), starring Broadway stalwart Marc Kudisch as the Pirate King; and Rob Fisher conducts the New York Philharmonic in concert performances of the Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe classic My Fair Lady (March 7-10), with a cast headed by Kelsey Grammer and Kelli O’Hara. At City Center, the popular Encores! series presents the 1932 Irving Berlin-Moss Hart musical Face The Music (March 29-April 1), with Tony winners Walter Bobbie and Judy Kaye in the leading roles.
The Off-Broadway scene is busier than ever, so here are a just a few of the month’s highlights. My Trip to Al-Qaeda (Culture Project Soho, March 1-April 14) is a stage adaptation of best-selling author Lawrence Wright’s book of the same title. Terrence McNally’s Some Men (Second Stage, March 2-April 15) is set at a gay wedding ceremony and spans the history of 20th-century same-sex relationships. The Keen Company revives Tea and Sympathy (Clurman Theatre, March 6-April 14), Robert Anderson’s 1953 Broadway hit about adolescence, masculinity, and conformity.
Lee Thuna’s new play,
Fugue (Cherry Lane Theatre, March 13-April 22), directed by Judith Ivey, concerns an amnesiac woman and a troubled psychiatrist, played by Deidre O’Connell and Rick Stear. David Harrower’s Olivier-Award winning play Blackbird (Manhattan Theatre Club, beginning March 15) stars Jeff Daniels and Alison Pill as two people revisiting their former relationship.
Adam Rapp’s Essential Self-Defense (Playwrights Horizons, March 15-April 15) concerns a misfit (played by three-time Drama Desk nominee Paul Sparks) who takes a job as an attack dummy in a women’s self-defense class. The New Group presents Bernard Weintraub’s The Accomplices (Acorn Theatre, March 20-May 5), based on the true story of Hillel Kook, who tried to rescue Jews during World War II.
Finally, if there’s a must-go-to destination this month, it’s the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The venue plays host to the national tour of Edward Scissorhands (March 14-31), Matthew Bourne’s dance adaptation of the Tim Burton film; and BAM is importing from England the Propeller productions of two of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night (March 17-April 1). You’d be an April Fool if you miss these shows.
