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Everything
on Broadway. Online.
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Welcome to the latest edition of the
Broadway Fan Club newsletter, the official source for Broadway
information. We
hope you enjoy receiving this newsletter and will encourage your
friends and family members to
join the Fan Club. A link to our privacy policy and your subscription
settings can be found below. See
you on Broadway!
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| BROADWAY
ON BROADWAY® 2005 |
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| It's
the quintessential New York City event: 50,000
spectators at the Crossroads of the World,
live numbers from Broadway shows performed
on a giant outdoor stage, a galaxy of celebrity
performers, and a big finale with showers
of confetti. |
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Broadway
on Broadway, a free outdoor concert, will be
held in Times Square on Sunday, September 18, 2005
at 11:30am. This year's production of Broadway on
Broadway is the 14th annual concert, offering musical
numbers and appearances from almost every play and musical
on Broadway, as well as sneak peeks at several upcoming
shows scheduled for the 2005-06 theatre season.
The
event will be hosted by Christina Applegate and
John Lithgow.
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| A
CHAT WITH SWEET CHARITY'S DENIS O'HARE |
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Denis
O'Hare is currently starring as Oscar Lindquist
in the hit revival of Sweet Charity at
the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Mr. O'Hare won the
2003 Tony Award® as Best Featured Actor in
a Play for his performance in Take Me Out,
and also received a 2004 Tony nomination for Assassins.
Our correspondent Ben Pesner caught up with him
on a Friday morning in late August.
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Denis
O'Hare in Sweet Charity.
Photo
© Paul Kolnik.
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| Ben
Pesner: You've become a Broadway regular. Is this where
you envisioned yourself a decade ago?
Denis
O'Hare: I've never tried to predict the future because
the future is so capricious. In 1995, I would have been
very happy to be gainfully employed in the regional
theatre circuit. My goal was to work in all the regional
theatres.
Much
of your Broadway work has been in productions that are
quite political and even intellectual in nature, beginning
with Racing Demon and Major Barbara, as
well as your more recent work. Is that a coincidence?
I
definitely gravitate towards that. It's where my tastes
lie. I haven't been as involved in musicals in the past
partly because the material hasn't appealed to me, but
I felt lucky to be involved with Cabaret and
Assassins because they are dark. I was drawn
to Sweet Charity because it's not a simple story.
It's not just a fairy tale.
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Sweet
Charity certainly has its dark side.
It's based on a Fellini film, so you're asking
to have a more complicated view about humanity.
When Charity [first] meets Oscar, she lies.
Their relationship is based on a lie. When
he finds out who she is, he tries to overcome
his own fears and prejudices and he finds
out he can't. That's really human. I love
Charity because it's a play about a
lot of people failing. |
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| Denis
O'Hare and Christina Applegate in Sweet
Charity. Photo © Paul Kolnik. |
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You have been outspoken politically. To what extent
do your own politics factor into your work as an actor?
I
definitely have mixed feelings about that. I've been
against the war from the beginning. I marched in all
the anti-war rallies. That being said, when I come out
from the stage door after the show, I take off my political
buttons. People are coming to see me personally; they're
not there to engage with me politically. I try never
to mix the two. After Take Me Out, I used to
wear my buttons a lot, but I stopped. It's sort of like
being trapped in the subway with somebody who's preaching
at you. I don't ever want my politics to be coercive.
As a citizen, as a human being, as someone who is educated
on political matters, I think I have a right and a duty
to speak out. When I choose to do that is the struggle
I have.
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You've
spoken quite eloquently on what makes live
theatre so special, yet you've also embraced
film as an actor and a filmmaker.
I'm
more of a documentarian. There are all sorts
of different levels of truth, and artistic
truth certainly is a many-faceted item.
Theatre is live. You can't hold onto it.
It's ephemeral, so part of me wants to capture
it and to record it for posterity. Theatre
only lives in the memory and I find that
a little bit terrifying. If you didn't
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| The
cast of Sweet Charity performs
"Rich Man's Frug." Photo ©
Paul Kolnik. |
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see Zero Mostel, you're never going to. You have no
idea what it was like to be in that room with him. Or
Ethel Merman or Mary Martin. You will never be able
to actually get that experience without having it live.
It won't work when you look at it on archival tape.
Film is unable to communicate what that experience is.
You
seem to have plenty of live theatre in your immediate
future, as Sweet Charity looks to be settling
in for a nice run.
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| Yeah.
It's very nice. It's a crowd-pleaser. I always
ask people where they're from when I'm talking
to them after the show. People are from everywhere.
I always feel a certain obligation, as a representative
of Broadway and New York, to make sure that
they had a good time and that they'll come
back and see other shows. It's always gratifying
to me that they do. |
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| Christina
Applegate and Denis O'Hare in Sweet
Charity. Photo © Paul Kolnik. |
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View
a full list of Denis O'Hare's Broadway credits.
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| KIDS'
NIGHT IS COMING! |
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Kids'
Night on Broadway is fast approaching. On Kids' Night,
children age 6-18 attend participating Broadway shows for
free when accompanied by a full-paying adult. Keep your eye
on your inbox next month for special notifications of ticket
sale dates and availability!
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| In
the meantime, be sure to visit GenerationBroadway.com,
the official Broadway site for kids! |
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SPOTLIGHT ON...CASA
MAÑANA
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| Casa
Mañana Theatre was born of a city rivalry. After Dallas
was selected to be the site of the official Texas 1936 Centennial
Celebration, Amon G. Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
began making his own plans for a celebration in Fort Worth.
Carter hired famed Broadway Producer Billy Rose for $1,000 a
day to build a spectacular outdoor cabaret theatre. In a few
weeks, a cow pasture was transformed into 40 magical acres of
entertainment and Casa Mañana was born, including a large
moat surrounding the stage and fountains that projected a wall
of water as the curtain. |
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| Aerial
view of the Fort Worth Centennial Exposition. Casa Mañana
is at the upper left. |
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Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen entertains the crowd with his
wooden sidekick Charlie McCarthy at Casa Mañana
in 1938. |
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| "The
house of tomorrow," was almost "the house of the devil."
Billy Rose had originally planned to call the venue Casa Diablo,
but the name was changed to better represent the atmosphere
of the celebration. Only a few years later though, the music
died and Casa Mañana was dismantled so the steel and
other materials could be used in the war effort. |
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| In
1958, the Casa Mañana Theatre that stands today
was resurrected in the location of the 1936 original.
The new Casa Mañana was a magnificent fully-enclosed,
air-conditioned in-the-round theatre with a geodesic aluminum
dome |
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design pioneered by architect Buckminster Fuller.
Casa was the country's first theatre designed for
permanent production of musicals in-the-round. Among
the many big stars who have graced the Casa Mañana
stage is Fort Worth native and Broadway legend Betty
Lynn Buckley, who got her start in live theatre
at Casa. |
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| The
new Casa Mañana on opening night, 1958. |
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| In
order to better accommodate a broad range of theatrical
productions, Casa Mañana Theatre was renovated
in 2003 and transformed into a modified thrust proscenium
theatre that is much more versatile. Casa Mañana
also presents and produces Broadway musicals year-round
at the stunning Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort
Worth. |
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Casa
Mañana at dusk. |
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| Visit
www.casamanana.org for more information and a list of upcoming
shows. |
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