VIDEO: Jonathan Groff in action

Here’s a sneaky peak of Jonathan Groff singing Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now at Joe’s Pub in New York this week. Here’s hoping that he decides to pop himself into We Will Rock You in London after he’s finished with his starring role in comedy thriller DEATHTRAP – which starts rehearsals soon for its 20 August opening in London at the Noel Coward Theatre.

We expect to hear about lots of JG sightings around town in the next few months, although will try and suppress an urge to stalk the poor lad!  We also hope that he will keep up his singing practice whilst performing in a play by doing a few nights at the Pigalle Club (we hear Gavin Creel from Hair was fabulous last Sunday at the Pigalle – the same night Jonathan sang in New York).

SIMON RUSSELL BEALE in Deathtrap

Acclaimed actor to lead cast in Deathtrap

Simon Russell Beale has had a long and accomplished career as an actor, performing a range of roles on stage.

His first London appearance was in William Gaskill’s Royal Court production of Women Beware Women, currently playing at the National Theatre. He has had a long association with the National including his current role in London Assurance alongside Fiona Shaw, which will be broadcast live on 28 June in selected cinemas across the UK and around the world as part of  National Theatre Live. Other National Theatre roles include Major Barbara, Much Ado About Nothing, The Life of Galileo, The Alchemist, Jumpers, for which he was nominated for a 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor, Humble Boy, Hamlet, Battle Royal, Candide (2000 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical), Summerfolk, Money, Othello, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Volpone (1996 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor).

For the RSC, he has appeared in The Tempest, King Lear, Ghosts, the title roles in Richard III and Edward II, The Seagull, Troilus and Cressida, The Man of Mode and Restoration.

Other notable performances include Monty Python’s Spamalot, The Philanthropist, Uncle Vanya, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Duchess of Malfi.

In 2003 he was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to the Arts.

He will return to the West End from 29 August in Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre, the 1978 Ira Levin thriller which was made into a film starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Russell Beale will play the Michael Caine character, Sydney Bruhl.

He stars alongside musical theatre and Glee heartthrob Jonathan Groff, Claire Skinner (Outnumbered) and Estelle Parsons.

The play is directed by Matthew Warchus, who won a Tony award last year for his production of God of Carnage, and will direct La Bete at the Comedy Theatre this summer starring Mark Rylance (Jerusalem), David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley.

Book tickets to Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

JONATHAN GROFF in Deathtrap

Glee star joins Simon Russell Beale in Deathtrap

Heartthrob Jonathan Groff, who plays Jesse St John in smash-hit US series Glee, has appeared in a number of Broadway shows including Spring Awakening and an early version of Hair, now playing at the Gielgud Theatre in London.

And now he’s set to make his London theatre debut at the Noel Coward theatre from 20 August in Deathtrap, the 1978 Ira Levin thriller which was made into a film starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Groff will play the Christopher Reeve character, Clifford.

The thriller sees good-looking young author Clifford turn up at celebrated playwright Sydney Bruhl’s Connecticut home with a brilliant new stage thriller, at a time with Bruhl’s career has hit the skids. Much ingenious plot twisting and comic brilliance ensues.

The play is directed by Matthew Warchus, who won a Tony award last year for his production of God of Carnage, and will direct La Bete at the Comedy Theatre this summer starring Mark Rylance (Jerusalem), David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley.

Book tickets to Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

BROADWAY UPDATE: Spiderman

BROADWAY UPDATE: Reeve Carney, Daniel Radcliffe, Christina Ricci, Lee Aaron Rosen, Douglas Hodge, Jonathan Groff and more…

SPIDER-MAN:

The pain of mounting Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark continues apace. Financial problems have dogged pre-production of the enormous project but it seems that rehearsals will finally begin this summer for a November opening at the Hilton Theatre.

Directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King) with music by Bono, Alan Cumming dropped out as the Green Goblin, with rumours that Patrick Page (Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas) will take the role.

The latest name attached to play Spidey himself is Reeve Carney, who’s just finished playing Ferdinand in Taymor’s new film version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, alongside Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming, Chris Cooper and Ben Whishaw.

The investment in mounting Spider-Man is believed to huge, and the show is having to  rip apart the Hilton Theatre to accommodate the lavish and complex sets.

BROADWAY MONEY:

The Broadway League, Broadway’s trade body, released its biannual report this week on the economic impact of spending by Broadway production companies, theatre operators and visitors drawn to New York by Broadway. The figures come close to $10 billion in the 2008-09 season, which is a whole lot of money.

Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of The Broadway League, said that the figures, “remind us of how important Broadway is to tourism.” The majority of the money stemmed from visitors’ spending on hotels, restaurants, shopping and transport. Broadway also supported 84,400 jobs and generated $477.7 million in New York City taxes, according to the report. The increasingly lavish spending by producers on new productions (see above) also boosted the total.

We haven’t yet seen the Society of London Theatre’s recently published West End Theatre Audience Report 2010 to determine if a calculation on the West End Theatre’s economic impact on London has been made, but the last public figure was way back in 1997 in their  Wyndham Report. This tallied the impact at just over £1 billion. Given that box office revenue was over half a billion pounds in 2009 we imagine the economic impact has gone up somewhat since then.

TALENT UPDATE:

Ricci Time: She didn’t have the good sense to get a part in The Addams Family on Broadway (!) so Christina Ricci is making do by joining the Tony nominated play Time Stands Still in September, replacing Alicia Silverstone in the play that also stars Laura Linney. Linney is currently filming her new Showtime TV series The Big C.

Hunk-with-talent Alert: Lee Aaron Rosen has just wowed critics in the Atlantic Theater Company’s new production of English playwright Moira Buffini’s Gabriel at the Linda Gross Theater in New York. The play first premiered at the Soho Theatre in London in 1997. Needless-to-say that Mr Rosen is being pitched as “one to watch” for multiple reasons.

Dan Does Dance: Daniel Radcliffe is putting in the practice for his Broadway role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, working with a vocal and dance coach in London ahead of rehearsals beginning February 2011. Now that’s forward-planning! The show will be directed by Rob Ashford and co-star Rose Hemingway.

The Mask of Zorba: Antonio Banderas has told WENN that he plans to go back to Broadway next year in a revival of the 1968 Kander and Ebb musical Zorba  – based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel Zorba The Greek.

OTHER NEWS:

Hodge Honour: Awards guru Tom O’Neil in the LA Times thinks that Douglas Hodge is a shoo-in for the Best Actor in a Musical Tony award, to be announced in June. Hodge received fabulous notices for his performance as Albin in the Broadway transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of La Cage Aux Folles. 

Glad to be Glee: It seems that the spitting and fury over Newsweek’s recent article by arts critic Ramin Setoodeh, arguing that gay actors can’t be taken seriously in straight roles, has finally subsided. Much of Broadway has been up in arms over the article – in which Setoodeh refers to Sean Hayes’ performance in Broadway’s Promises, Promises as “weird seeing Hayes play straight,” and also references Glee’s Jonathan Groff. Glee creator Ryan Murphy waged in calling for an all-out boycott of the magazine for its homophobic opinion. It now seems that Ramin and Ryan have made up. Groff, who is openly gay, will be winging his way to London in the summer to appear alongside Simon Russell-Beale in Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre.

REVIEWS:

Popular theatre blog West End Whingers made a Broadway sojourn recently and posted a great round-up of what to see – and what not.

AWARDS: Ayckbourn to receive Tony Award

Sir Alan Ayckbourn, one of the UK’s greatest living playwrights, is to be awarded a special Tony award in June to recognise his life’s work.

The Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre will be presented to Alan Ayckbourn at the ceremony in New York on 13 June. Ayckbourn, who is 71, has written 74 full-length plays, and saw a revival of his play The Norman Conquests win a Tony Award last year. His 1975 play Bedroom Farce is currently playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London.

He will collect his honour at a ceremony in New York on 13 June. The nominees for this year’s Tony Awards will be presented on 4 May.

US actress Marian Seldes will also be presented with a Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre award. She performed in all 1,809 New York performances of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap, a show that will come to London in August starring Simon Russell Beale, Anna Massey, Jonathan Groff and Claire Skinner.

Other non-competitive, special awards announced ahead of the ceremony include the Isabelle Stevenson Award to David Hyde Pierce, who will star in La Bete at the Comedy Theatre in June alongside Joanna Lumley and Mark Rylance. Also Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre will be presented to the Alliance of Resident Theatres New York,  B. H. Barry and Tom Viola.

More information from the Tony Awards:

Alan Ayckbourn is the author of more than 74 full-length plays including Absurd Person Singular (1975), Bedroom Farce (1975), Just Between Ourselves (1976), Woman in Mind (1985), A Small Family Business (1987), House & Garden (1999) and Private Fears in Public Places (2004). He has directed more than 300 productions, including the West End premieres of most of his writing. Between 1972 and 2009, he was the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England, where the majority of his work has been and continues to be premiered. Sir Alan, who was knighted in 1987, was most recently represented on Broadway with The Norman Conquests. That production received the Tony Award as Best Revival of a Play in 2009.

Marian Seldes won a Tony Award in 1967 for her performance in Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, the first of five Tony nominations. Her Broadway career spans more than six decades, from her debut in Medea in 1947 through her most recent appearance in Terrence McNally’s Deuce (2007). Among her many Broadway credits was Ira Levin’s long-running Deathtrap, in which she appeared in all 1,809 performances. She is revered as a teacher to several generations of actors, having served on the faculty at Julliard (1967-1991) and Fordham University (2002-present).

David Hyde Pierce: Humanitarian
The recipient of the second Isabelle Stevenson Award will be Tony Award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce. This honor recognizes an individual from the theatre community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations. Mr. Pierce is being honored for his work in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. He began his support for the Alzheimer’s Association in the early 1990s and is currently a National Board Member. He works on both a local and national level advocating congressional leaders for additional funding for Alzheimer’s research and care programs. The Alzheimer’s Association is the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer care, support, and research.

Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre
Established in 1990, Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre recognize institutions, individuals and organizations that have demonstrated extraordinary achievement in theatre, but are not eligible in any of the established Tony Award categories. This year’s Tony Honors will be presented to:

• The Alliance of Resident Theatres New York (A.R.T./New York) – Founded in 1972, A.R.T./New York assists its nearly 300 member theatres in managing their companies effectively so they may realize their rich artistic visions and serve their diverse audiences well. Over the years, A.R.T./New York has earned a reputation as a leader in providing progressive service to its members, making the organization an expert in the needs of the Off and Off Off Broadway community.

• B. H. Barry – A leading theatrical fight director, Mr. Barry pioneered the teaching of stage combat as part of the curriculum in U.S. drama programs, having being been trained in his native England. His numerous Broadway credits range from the 1981 productions of Frankenstein and Macbeth to Dividing the Estate in 2008.

• Tom Viola – Executive Director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the nation’s leading industry-based not-for-profit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization. Mr. Viola is being honored for his personal commitment to the fight against AIDS, which stretches back beyond his service as founding administrative director of Equity Fights AIDS in 1988. He saw the organization through its merger with Broadway Cares in 1992, and became BC/EFA’s executive director five years later. BC/EFA was previously honored with a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre in 1993.

LINKS: Tony Awards

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