It would be ridiculous for a conservative to enter a production or university theater expecting it be a politically edifying experience on level with, say, a National Review cruise. The university has been a well-guarded outpost of the left since 1951 or 1964 or somewhere ‘round those parts; the theater, likewise, has generally cheered left-wing causes.

It is not ridiculous to expect that theater departments (especially at publicly-funded institutions) prioritize storytelling and, well, drama ahead of the strident promotion of pet political causes and the vilification of those causes’ detractors.

From my experience, this basic expectation is often given the Vaudeville hook at the University of Georgia. This past semester, I signed up for a Theater Appreciation course to “develop a working vocabulary … of the theater” (from the syllabus) and, much more importantly, earn my degree’s requisite credit in the fine arts. The class itself was well taught and politically benign, as any introductory theater class should be. Our professor was impartial and, where his opinions shone through, he encouraged students to think for themselves on the issues. If only the rest of the department was so tolerant.

I attended four plays as part of the course. My only exposure to drama coming into college was a handful of high school plays—wholly uncontroversial musicals like “Anything Goes” and “Seussical.” College productions, I thought, would follow that formula.

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Actress Evy Ortiz went from recreating scenes from the film version of “West Side Story” as a young girl to belting out classic songs like “Tonight” to audiences across the country.

The native New Yorker is currently in Denver playing Maria in the traveling Broadway version of “West Side Story,” playing through Jan. 1, 2012 at The Buell Theatre. The new “Story” doesn’t jettison the timeless bond between Maria (Ortiz) and Tony (R0ss Lekites), but a few language tweaks and number shuffles give it a more modern interpretation.

Ortiz checked in with Big Hollywood to share her thoughts on the role and why “West Side Story” still matters, both to theater lovers and the culture at large.

BH: Do you recall your first exposure to “West Side Story,” and what are the most vibrant memories from it?

Ortiz: My first exposure to “West Side Story” was the film. I remember wanting to be Natalie Wood and dancing around to the music. My family used to sing the music all the time and act out some of the scenes. Imagine my aunt and Mom bursting out into “A Boy Like that”….pretty hilarious.

BH: Do you try to incorporate aspects of past Marias into your performance, or do you try to wipe the slate clean and make her wholly your own creation?

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While most movie fans are satisfied building a collection of their favorite DVDs, Shane Scheel has gone miles beyond in his devotion to his favorite cinematic treasures.

As the co-creator and producer with Christopher Lloyd Bratten of the “For The Record” series of live events held at the Barre VT bar in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, he has paid tribute to the films of the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. The series features performers re-enacting the most iconic dialogue exchanges of those filmmakers’ features, as well as singing and dancing their way through the greatest tunes of their oeuvre.

But Scheel has topped himself big-time with his current show, “John Hughes: Holiday Road,” which plays Wednesday through Sunday nights before closing Dec. 30.

The two-hour extravaganza features an amazingly talented six-person cast and a five-piece rock band bringing the best of Hughes’ scenes and songs to life from his ‘80s films through “Home Alone.” Whether you’re a fan of Hughes’ high school movies (“Pretty in Pink” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”) or the “Vacation” series and “Planes Trains and Automobiles,” the interactive cabaret-style show is one of the most entertaining nights of music and comedy you’ll ever experience.

Scheel spoke with Big Hollywood recently about how the “For The Record” series – which next takes on Baz Luhrmann’s films including “Moulin Rouge” – came about, and why he thinks Hughes’ films continue to resonate with American film fans.

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Shelly Maxwell understands those who think people won’t want to spend their hard-earned cash watching ballet or opera at their local cineplex.

“Will people schlep to a movie theater to see the Metropolitan Opera? That was a question we had internally six years ago,” says Maxwell, , executive vice president for NCM Fathom Events. Maxwell long ago stopped asking those questions.

Fathom’s entertainment lineup, including the Bolshoi Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, draws a sizable audience when beamed into theaters nationwide.

“People dress up … it’s a date night for them,” Maxwell says of how patrons treat the company’s programming lineup.

Fathom doesn’t just offer the finer arts. The Colo-based company beams rock concerts, classic movies and sporting events into more than 600 theaters nationwide. The cultural slate dispels the notion that consumers only care about the Kardashian, movie sequels and Lady Gaga.

The folks at Fathom are proving there’s an appetite for more than just popular culture.

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Michael Reilly will always remember the sight of a headless Big Bird.

Reilly grew up in a theatrical family, and one day his mother invited him to the set of “Sesame Street” where he met the actor playing the yellow-feathered character up close.

“He removed the head, and that kind of sealed my fate. I was in love with puppets,” Reilly says.

But it took some time, and more than a few mechanical courses under his belt, before he embraced puppetry as a profession.

Reilly, Puppet Supervisor for the traveling Broadway version of “The Lion King,” makes sure the gaggle of puppets which bring the story to life remain in perfect working order. He’s also there to help the actors, even those who may have never gotten within 10 yards of a puppet, handle the mechanical wonders with care.

The Toronto native studied to be a technician in college, learning how to rewire houses and fix cars along the way. He eventually fell into the family business where he worked on the wardrobe side of theater for 10 years. When the opportunity came along to be the puppet wrangler for “The Lion King’s” Canadian-based production, his unique skill set made him the right person for the job.

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Disney’s animated wonder “The Lion King” proved it could survive the transition to 3D earlier this year. The celebrated musical of the same name is equally nimble in bringing its magical puppetry to stages across the country.

“The Lion King,” winner of six 1998 Tony Awards, follows the by-now familiar story of a lion cub named Simba (Niles Fitch) who endures the loss of his father (Dionne Randolph) at the hands of his wicked uncle Scar (J. Anthony Crane).

A guilt-ridden Simba leaves his home and grows into a hearty young lion. When he bumps into a pair of life-affirming creatures named Timon and Pumbaa, he decides to reclaim his rightful place as king of his jungle and revenge his father’s death.

The tale may feel a tad musty after too many viewings of the 1994 animated film, but the stage presentation crackles with a combination of visual majesty and earnest performances.

Yes, Randolph and Crane are mimicking the stellar vocal work of the animated film’s actors, James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons, respectively. But the stage actors aren’t content with bland impersonations. They bring a vitality to the production mirrored by the outstanding artistry around them. (more…)

It’s not hard to suss out where playwright Richard Montoya stands on the immigration issue.

His 2010 play ‘American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose’ features a Mexican man cramming for his U.S. citizenship test who dreams of how immigrants have been mistreated over the years.

But Montoya isn’t letting Mexicans – or illegal immigrants – off the hook through his art.

“’American Night’ doesn’t cheerlead for illegal immigration. It’s a problem. I’m not supporting open immigration,” says Montoya, whose celebrated play details how Mexicans often live under the thumb of powerful drug cartels.

Montoya, an actor/playwright and founding member of the satirical comedy trio Culture Clash, includes several Tea Party characters in ‘Night’ during a faux Town Hall meeting. The situation brims with humor, but he thinks the vitriol on both sides of the immigration debate is no laughing matter.

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Ed. Note: Please welcome Douglas Miller to Big Hollywood and encourage him to return. — JN

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is lashed to the mast so that he can hear for himself the Siren’s song, which lures men to their deaths on the rocks. I had to be lashed to my chair to watch the 65th Tony awards and, as I feared, despite the ginned up hoopla, Broadway is on the rocks! 

The Broadway Musical is America’s gift to the world. In its Golden Age – the 1940s to the early 1960s – the creation of the Musical was raised to a fine art; from Oklahoma to My Fair Lady, the Musical reached its zenith. But then the Sixties took hold, along with its Progressive agenda, and the downward spiral began. The always prescient Ayn Rand foresaw the enshrining of mediocrity as a means to control the hearts and minds of the public in the person of arts critic Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, who aimed to create a society that would be “an average drawn upon zeroes.” This is Broadway today: the sum total of zeroes. 

Since the onset of the Obama regime, the Great White Way has become the Great White-Guilt Way, with racism redux and the red nail polished talons of the GLAAD-iators bared reflexively at the imagined ignorant and the homophobic. J’accuse! Come to the theatre and pay $195 to feel bad about being an American. When John Kander was asked about the relevance of his latest musical, The Scottsboro Boys, a minstrel-style retelling of the 1931 trial of nine teenaged blacks accused falsely of rape, he snapped, “Of course it’s relevant. America is still a racist country!” He said this despite the fact that America had just voted in a black president. 

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If you want to see how rude and inconsiderate people are capable of being, chances are going to the movies is a sure-fire way to find out.  Bad behavior is something that is practically expected when you attend a multiplex frequented by the mall crowd, texting and talking during the movie are the norm.  Recently though, I’ve even seen this kind of behavior at the theaters that cater to the art-house crowd.

When I went to see Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life at the Ridgeway Four here in Memphis, there was an insufferable hipster couple sitting behind me that chatted in a loud whisper during the duration of the movie; sadly, my harsh glances were unable to silence them.  Once the end credits began to roll, one of them sarcastically quipped, “Well, that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”  This prompted me to angrily whisper “Then leave!”  I have no idea if they heard me or not.

I expect (but do not excuse) this kind of behavior from teenagers watching the latest Michael Bay bonanza.  However, when I’m going to see something decidedly outside the mainstream like this, I expect to be in a theater with like-minded folks who are there to see the movie, not to socialize during it.  I also expect to be in a theater with people who are more interested in the movie than their cell phones, which create a lovely light-show distraction for everyone unfortunate enough to be sitting behind them.

A couple of days later I was talking with my buddy Andy, who hosts the fantastic Hollywood Saloon podcast, and I brought my Tree of Life-related incident up.  Movie fans love to bitch about their bad experiences in the theater, it always leads to a good bit of catharsis.  But Andy said something that gave me pause.  He said: “Do you remember movie ushers?  What happened to them?” (more…)

Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

In many popular narratives of the period, it was the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) who “ruined” the movies. Here’s the pretentious film snob summary of the death of Hollywood’s alleged second Golden Age, as popularized by Peter Biskind. The seventies were filled with bold, dark art and transgressive intellectualism. Then the greedy Baby Boomers – like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – made “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” All of a sudden Hollywood did not want to make serious, grown-up pictures. Now it was the age of blockbusters so simple that 3-year-olds can summarize them.

It was the 1980s when Boomer Blockbuster filmmaking would arrive in the event pictures of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. We see this tendency further in the films of arch-Boomers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. For a definition of Boomer cinema just look at the output of their company Imagine Entertainment. These aren’t the New Wave-influenced pictures of Roger L. Simon’s generation.

It was the Boomers who also gave us our most strident and simpleminded cinematic leftists: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore. Think about these three careers. Over the past 30 years have any of them shifted an inch in their political thinking? Of course not and neither have most Boomers who are still arguing over sex, race, and the Vietnam War as though it were still 1975. (more…)

“This is a loving, caring Jesus,” is how the director of a play involving abortion described a leading man to the New York Times.

The play, written by a Notre Dame grad, recently took to stage at the University of Delaware. The dialogue includes a gal asking Christ: “Did you ever say, ‘I’m Jesus, and I say that stupid girls who let guys talk them into going to the back seat of their cars have to have babies?’ Did you say that ever?”

“No,” Jesus replies.

“All you talk about is, be nice to each other!” the teenager continues. “You never said nobody’s allowed to have an abortion.”

The fictional Jesus confirms her assertion.

“So can I? Can I? Can I?” she asks.

“Honestly, I — I don’t really have an issue with it,” Jesus tells her.

Honestly?

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Neil LaBute’s work is often concerned with the morals and ethics of selfish people, characters that all-too-often resemble ourselves.  It’s precisely why the writer-director’s work is always engaging and challenging.

His 2002 play, “Mercy Seat,” offers yet another provocative scenario for audiences.  Ben, a husband and father to two children, is holed up in his mistress’ apartment.  His cell phone is incessantly ringing.  It’s his wife.  She’s trying to get in touch with him, because he works in the World Trade Center and it’s the morning of September 12th.  Ben stopped off to see his mistress, Abby (who also happens to be his boss), on the way to work on 9/11.   Ben sees this as an opportunity to be among the missing, to race off with Abby into a new life, avoiding the ugliness of divorce.

The play itself is challenging given its structure.  It’s a 90-minute two-hander, set in one place, with no intermission.   One can imagine that the original cast, Liev Schrieber and Sigourney Weaver on Broadway, were able to find enough in the writing to make it more explosive than the revival cast has.  I don’t fault these actors, however.  The writing isn’t Mr. LaBute’s stinging best, and the text of the play focuses on Ben’s selfishness and Abby’s assessment of their relationship — stuff we’ve seen before.  As a matter of fact, actors Johnny Clark and Michelle Clunie do very strong work amidst rather plodding direction.  When you’ve got a piece this confined and claustrophobic, it requires inspired work on everyone’s part.

Still, Mr. Clark, and Ms. Clunie are believable every step of the way.  There are painful revelations, guilt, anger and resentment that infuse their situation.  These two people make it perfectly clear why affairs ultimately never can work out.  They are living a fantasy life that is repeatedly, and in this case catastrophically, punctured by reality.  Indeed, the backdrop of 9/11 mirrors the state of this couple.  America was shocked out of its fantasy of being untouchable in a particularly spectacular way.  We were all in the rubble at Ground Zero, psychologically and emotionally.  So, too, this relationship.

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Playwright Neil LaBute’s exploration of relatable people struggling with themselves, as well as society’s expectations of them, finds another outlet in his latest play, The Break of Noon.  It is Mr. LaBute’s ability to generate sympathy and head-shaking pity for even the most unlikable of characters that makes his work so intriguing.  Although this latest piece falls short of his stronger works, The Break of Noon does provoke a great deal of thought on difficult search for redemption.

The play centers on John Smith, sole survivor of an office-shooting rampage.  He’s a typical LaBute male — self-centered, inconsiderate, even cruel.  Yet he is also the universal American male — an office manager stuck in a dead-end job, who cheats on his wife and amuses himself with nasty workplace pranks.  He even exploits the tragedy with a photo taken from beneath a desk during the rampage, which earns him wealth and notoriety.  He’s the kind of guy you’d care to know, although perhaps he’s not too far removed from any of us, either.

Following the shooting, John claims to have found Christ.  Told to spread a message of goodness to the world, he vainly attempts to mend fences with his estranged wife and his mistress (his wife’s trashy sister), while defending himself against skepticism in the form of an irritating talk-show host, a lawyer who brokers the sale of his photo, and a police detective in search of a motive for the shooting. (more…)

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Remember the mid 70’s, during the first ever season of “SNL” when breakout star Chevy Chase did his bumbling Gerald Ford impersonation? One of the big, unspoken jokes of that routine was that Chase intentionally did absolutely nothing to either look or sound like Ford. There was really nothing more to those skits than watching Chevy Chase bumble around. Dan Akroyd might have sported a mustache while playing Jimmy Carter, but at least he got the rest right. In the meantime, Chase was doing the worst impersonation in the history of show business and bringing down the house (and maybe a president). Chase was criticized for being lazy but I thought it was genius, though it would be impossible for me to articulate why.

What’s sad about the Obama/O’Reilly routine above is that these guys don’t even seem to know they’re not trying. Obviously no one at “SNL” wants to land any kind of serious satirical blow on Obama (election year coming donchaknow) — so there’s no comedy there, but the guy playing O’Reilly is so sure that a simple amplification of “The Factor” host’s qualities will do the job for him that this long, laborious skit depends on only that and runs out of steam within seconds. I like O’Reilly, but I’m also willing to admit that, like most nationally known, larger-than-life personalities, he’s pretty ripe for satire. When it comes to hitting the comedic mark, those people are as hard to miss as the side of a barn and … ”SNL” missed the side of a barn.

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Though based on a screenplay approved by their parent company A&E Television Networks (AETN), on January 7th the History Channel buckled to the demands of the Kennedy family and unceremoniously pulled the rug out from under the completed $30 million miniseries “The Kennedys.” Today, after weeks of what was likely a bruising scramble to outrun the tentacles of the Kennedys, in an exclusive, the Hollywood Reporter tells us the mini will air in eight parts on the ReelzChannel starting April 3rd. The channel is currently available in 60 million homes across the country and a big advertising blitz is planned to get the word out.

I’m not someone who believes in the magic of controversy to automatically drive people to watch something they normally wouldn’t, but there’s always been public interest in the Kennedy family and at the very least this uproar has upped the profile of the mini. You also have this built-in interest backed by respected talent with successful track records. “24″ co-creator Joel Surnow is the Executive Producer and there’s a number of high-profile, critically acclaimed actors in lead roles, including Greg Kinnear as President Kennedy, Barry Pepper as Bobby and Tom Wilkinson as Joe Sr. Furthermore, some real good can come out this and not just for the miniseries.

The Kennedys | Movie Trailer | Review

The four-year old independent ReelzChannel now has an opportunity with a product they normally wouldn’t have been considered for, to break out and and make a name and brand for themselves. The more entertainment outlets not owned by politically-connected multi-nationals (AETN is owned by NBC-Universal, Disney, etc.), the better it is for our democracy. This is also an opportunity for 60 million people to see the mini. That might be a smaller pool than the History Channel has, but it’s more than double the number of HBO subscribers, a network that passed on the project.

The other good to come out of this is that now we know for certain that the The History Channel really isn’t The History Channel. The same network that said “The Kennedys” didn’t meet their standards is is the same network that attempted to mainstream that degenerate anti-American liar of a historian we call Howard Zinn. No institution with any kind of accuracy standards would do such a thing and so now we know they are The Left-Wing History Channel. (more…)

The politically correct chickens are coming home to roost in the Orwellian world of the organized left’s free-expression-stifling speech codes.

To paraphrase Martin Niemöller’s famous admonition about complacency with totalitarian fascists:  “First they came for Rush Limbaugh and called his satire racist, and I didn’t speak out because Rush Limbaugh is a conservative.  Then they came for Dr. Laura and called her commentary racist, and I didn’t speak out because Dr. Laura is a conservative…”

Well, this time they came after a high school drama program in far-from conservative Westbury, CT.  The Arts Magnet School in that city planned a production of August Wilson’s 20th century classic “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” until the district’s Superintendent, David Snead, tried to pull the plug because the play’s characters use the word “nigger”. (more…)

It’s impossible to work in the theatre industry and not have colleagues, business partners and life-long friends who are gay. I have always viewed this fact as one of the most wonderful and enriching dynamics of the theatre community.  It’s so invigorating being part of a show (which very soon takes on the characteristics of a family) and have people from every walk of life represented, often by “Type A” personalities who bring joy and variety to the daily routine of presenting a show.

After collaborating with gay associates for almost thirty years, I’ve reached the conclusion that most gay men hold a fundamentally center/right view on most economic and national security issues.  The over-riding feeling expressed to me from my gay friends is the deeply held desire to be left alone.  And after watching GOProud Chairman Christopher Barron take this obnoxious attack from non-entity Cenk Uyger for having the temerity to identify himself as a conservative, I’ve reached the greater conclusion that the conservative movement needs articulate and courageous voices like this as part of our team.

As Mr. Barron puts it: “I have an easier time being openly gay with conservatives than I do being a conservative with other gay people.”  So, if CPAC and the Republican Party can be accepting of gay conservatives who don’t hold exactly to every single position espoused by the party, why can’t Broadway do the same?
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Actor Chris Tierney, dressed in the iconic Spider-Man superhero costume, teetered on the edge of the set piece representing the Brooklyn Bridge.  After a dramatic moment, Tierney leapt out toward the audience, just as Director Julie Taymor had choreographed.  The rope attached to his back was meant to hold the actor in a launch-like position, like a cinematic freeze-frame effect.  But, last night things did not go as rehearsed.  The cable attached to the actor’s back detached and the 31-year-old “aerialist” plunged at rapid speed through the stage floor.  Moments later, Jennifer Damiano, the actress playing Spidey’s love interest, Mary Jane, screamed in horror… real-life horror.  Her fellow cast-member had just seriously injured himself in an accident that could have, and should have been prevented.

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Actors’ Equity Association, the theatrical actors union, has finally stepped in and pulled its members from the production until significant changes are made to the show’s special effects.  The show’s press representative has announced that they plan to re-open Wednesday night, but insiders say it will be difficult to make that deadline.

Broadway professionals who are accustomed to dealing with Actors’ Equity Association on a regular basis have been wondering when the union would finally step in and perform the fundamental role they have always claimed to play: protector of the safety of their members.  In an era where producers are forced to hire full-time massage therapists for chorus dancers and must pay hazard premiums to actors who perform on a raked (slanted) stage, it is an outrage that Mr. Tierney was the fourth actor to sustain an injury in this ill-conceived stage extravaganza. (more…)

This week Barabra Streisand emerged from her self -imposed seclusion to grace Larry King and his viewers with her presence on the TV host’s penultimate broadcast.  As the Los Angeles Times put it, the “interview” resembled more of an infomercial for the product that is Barbra Streisand.

In segment after segment Barbra talked about Barbra.  Barbra talked about Obama.  Barbra talked about Barbra.  Barbra talked about Clinton.  And Barbra talked about Barbra.

Larry King dutifully congratulated her on all of her observations.

Here’s one my favorite moments:  When Larry King asked her about the first two years of Barack Obama’s Presidency she laments that President Obama did not use his “executive powers” to unilaterally repeal DADT.  Then, pricelessly, without any sense of self awareness she goes on to praise President Bill Clinton as one of our greatest Presidents.  It would have been at this moment that an actual journalist would have pointed out to Ms. Streisand that President Clinton was the “great” President that instituted the DADT policy that she now wants President Obama to unconstitutionally and unilaterally revoke.  Instead, Mr. King appeared to sit back and admire the beautiful lighting that Ms. Streisand probably supervised prior to the tape rolling.

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In tonight’s episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska, the family goes whitewater rafting, four-wheeling,  panning for gold, searching for fossils, and dog mushing.  We also see Sarah spending some mom time with Trig and Piper.  And we meet more great Alaskan characters like Mudflap and Bones.  In other words, it’s just another week with the Palins.

In the beginning of the episode the family (sans Todd who stays back to play Mr. Mom to Trig) goes whitewater rafting in a glacial stream with a guide named Mudflap.  We are told this is the largest glacier in the United States that you can drive to.  Sarah’s dad, Chuck Heath (somebody give this man a show please), talks about having lost hunting partners to the cold waters of glacial streams.

Sarah’s mom and dad and brother and sister are along for the trip this week.  Sarah talks about how this reminds her of so many summer adventures they shared as a family. She says they found thrills, adventures and good family time in the wilds of Alaska.

As always, the scenery is breathtaking.  And as in past episodes, we get a deeper look at the Sarah Palin the public knows. Talking about being one of those in the boat responsible for much of the rowing, Sarah says it is more work, but that she doesn’t want an ordinary ride — she wants it to be extraordinary. That could be said about the way she approaches so many other things in her life.

Additional adventures in this episode include four-wheeling to a remote camp to visit their old friend, Bones, a trapper, and panning for gold and searching for fossils.  Sarah’s dad Chuck shares more information about Alaska — she refers to him as the Cliff Clavin of Alaska.  (Seriously, someone needs to give this man his own show.  He is a retired teacher with a passion for Alaskan wildlife and he presents facts in an interesting way.  I’d watch him.) (more…)