All Entries in the "Nathan Lane" Category
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Hits The Century Mark
Today, January 10, 2010, The Addams Family Musical will play its final show in Chicago. And while the Chicago theater community laments that fact, the Broadway community celebrates. More specifically, the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre celebrates. And what a celebration it is. For not only is it a celebration of the anticipated arrival of Addams Family, but a celebration of a century of Broadway Theater.
Lunt-Fontanne current marquee, photo by Matthew Blank
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Turns 100
by Robert Viaga, playbill.com
Happy 100th birthday Jan. 10 to a grand old lady of Broadway, the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
According to Louis Botto’s “At This Theatre,” “This beautiful theatre opened on January 10, 1910, as the Globe, named after Shakespeare’s theatre in England. It was built by the illustrious producer Charles B. Dillingham and originally had its entrance on Broadway between Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh streets. Dillingham, who spared no expense on his projects, hired the famed architects Carrère and Hastings to design his theatre. According to a report in the New York Dramatic Mirror on January 22, 1910, the new theatre had a large stage, a compact auditorium, Italian Renaissance decor with draperies of Rose du Barry and walls of old gold, blue, and ivory white. One feature of the theatre that attracted much attention was a large oval panel in the ceiling that could be opened when the weather permitted. The Mirror called this ‘a complete novelty in American theatrical design.’”
The inaugural production was the musical The Old Town, starring Dave Montgomery and Fred Stone (who had played the Tin Man and the Scarecrow in the original 1903 The Wizard of Oz).
Among the great stars and shows that followed: Montgomery and Stone in Chin-Chin (1914), George White’s Scandals (1920 and 1921) with a score by George Gershwin that introduced “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise,” the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 with Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields, No, No, Nanette (1925) and Jerome Kern’s The Cat and the Fiddle (1931).
The Globe spent the years 1932 to 1957 as a cinema, but it was refurbished as a legitimate house and reopened May 5, 1958 as the Lunt-Fontanne, named after the acting couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The ceiling opening was sealed and the entrance relocated to 46th Street. Lunt and Fontanne rechristened the stage with the original Broadway production of Friedrich Duerrenmatt’s The Visit.
Among hits that played at the theatre after its renaming: the original The Sound of Music with Mary Martin (1959), Sid Caesar in Little Me (1962), the Duke Ellington musical revue, Sophisticated Ladies(1981), Maury Yeston and Peter Stone’s Titanic (1997) and the theatre’s record-holder, Beauty and the Beast, which moved from the Palace in 1999 and ran here for eight years. Disney’s Little Mermaid played more than a year, and the Lunt-Fontanne is currently being prepared for its next big musical, The Addams Family with Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia.
Addams Family In Its Final Days In Chicago
Only a few days left to see The Addams Family Musical in Chicago! The Broadway-bound show, starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, will blow OUT of the windy city on January 10th. Visit the show’s official website for ticket information.
Broadway previews begin on Monday, March 8th at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with opening night scheduled for Thursday, April 8th. Tickets are on sale now.
Rachel de Benedet Takes The Stage as Morticia
Rachel de Benedet, understudy for Morticia
Some Broadway shows go an entire run without ever having to make use of the understudies. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case for the Addams Family Musical in Chicago. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Nathan Lane took ill and was replaced (superbly, I hear) by his understudy Merwin Foard (Nathan Lane Out Sick Thanksgiving Weekend). On the weekend of the new year, Bebe Neuwirth apparently suffered from tendonitis, giving her understudy, Rachel de Benedet, the chance to show off her Morticia. And show off she did … a few comments I’ve seen floating around …
…”Rachel de Benedet was a terrific Morticia. (She) and Nathan Lane had really good chemistry, for her being an understudy…”
…”(de Benedet) was absolutely stunning as Morticia and her voice was clear and gorgeous…”
…”I can’t believe Bebe Neuwirth was sick. The understudy was great though.”
Ms. de Benedet is no stranger to Chicago. In September of ‘08 she could be seen performing with Rachel York and Jeff Daniels in the Goodman Theatre’s world premiere musical Turn of the Century, which was directed by Tommy Tune, with the book penned by none other than Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.
Most recently, Rachel co-starred with Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron Tveit, Tom Wopat, Kerry Butler and many more in the world premiere of Catch Me If You Can in Seattle last summer. It will be interesting to see what happens when/if that show comes to Broadway in the Fall.
Congratulations to Rachel on her most successful “fill-in”. And we wish Ms. Neuwirth a very speedy recovery!
Lane and Elice react to Riedel’s Comments
In a recent New York Post article entitled “‘Addams Family’ Vacation,” columnist Michael Riedel … accused Nathan Lane of gossiping about the show at the Four Seasons Spa … made sarcastic comments about the creative team’s holiday travel plans … and referred to the show as “troubled.” Now, I’ve never been a fan of Riedel’s style of “journalism” (using gossip gathered by his so-called “spies” for his “reporting”), but this was particularly irritating to me, especially since he hasn’t even seen the show himself.
Imagine my delight when I saw this article posted the very next day – “Lane’s World – excellent!” – in which Riedel shares Lane’s and Rick Elice’s reactions to his article.
In a letter to Riedel, Lane writes:
Dear Michael,
Just for the record, I am not a fixture at the Four Seasons spa, nor would I discuss the show in public in the manner you described . . .
Everyone on the creative team is working very hard to bring the best possible show into New York. I don’t have to tell you, but I’m going to anyway: Birthing a new musical is no day at the beach. As Larry Gelbart said, “If Hitler’s alive, I hope he’s out of town with a new musical.”
After your column today, I feel [Hitler] might be working for the New York Post.
‘Tis the season of giving, so give us a break! …
The article goes on to share Rick Elice’s reaction to the article:
… “We are not casually lounging in the tropics, nor even visiting tanning salons on the Upper West Side…We’re at work every day, amidst the snow and the shoppers, which is precisely where we want to be. It’s not easy work, but it’s a glorious challenge [and] I wouldn’t trade anything for it. Certainly not the beach, a tan or a mai-tai. Yes, it means we must share your pasty complexion, but we wear ours as a badge of honor.
Hope your holidays are filled with the leisure time about which you seem to enjoy writing. As for me, back to work.’”
I am SO glad to see Rick and Nathan taking up for themselves and the show, and tactfully letting Riedel know that they don’t appreciate being the butt of his “jokes.” Seeing that article yesterday made it a merry Christmas, indeed.
The Addams Family Musical Review “Recap”
Broadway In Chicago’s pre-Broadway world premiere presentation of The Addams Family, a new musical based on the bizarre family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, opened Wednesday, December 9 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts’ Oriental Theater. The production continues in Chicago through January 10, and will play Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre beginning March 4, with an anticipated opening date of April 8.
The musical stars Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth as Gomez and Morticia Adams, with Kevin Chamberlin (Uncle Fester), Jackie Hoffman (Grandmama), Zachary James (Lurch), Adam Riegler (Pugsley), and Krysta Rodriguez (Wednesday) rounding out the “Family”. Playing the “family who comes to dinner” are Terrence Mann and Carolee Carmello as Mal and Alice Beineke, and Wesley Taylor as Lucas Beineke, Wednesday’s love interest.
The production features direction and design by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, and choreography by Sergio Trujillo.
Wednesday night’s performance was attended by many critics whose reactions are mixed, but the consensus is decidedly positive. Excerpts of some of those reviews follow:
By Hedy Weiss, Theater Critic, The Chicago Sun Times
“…there is rarely a dull moment as each grand shock of the new, each adjustment to change, each recognition of aging and each surprising rebirth wraps its arms itself around the characters of “The Addams Family.”
By Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Share Your Experience
If you’ve seen The Addams Family Musical, please share your experience with others! Just post a comment to this article, and others can join in the ”conversation”. If you have pictures you would like to share, just e-mail them to afblog@comcast.net, and I will post them here.
Nathan Lane talks “Addams Family”
This article appeard in the November 15 issue of The Chicago Tribune:
Nathan Lane in “The Addams Family” embraces an emotional Gomez
Stage musical opening in Chicago
By Chris Jones Tribune critic
For Nathan Lane, the fall of 2003 in Chicago was the happiest of times. The out-of-town tryout of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” which starred Lane and Matthew Broderick as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, was greeted by cheering Chicagoans right from the first public performance. “In Chicago, they were even laughing at the bad stuff,” Lane recalled over dinner at Petterino’s, his favorite theater-district haunt. “When we got off stage that first time, Matthew and I said to each other, well, it won’t be like that every night. But it was.”
With his beloved (and now deceased) wife Anne Bancroft at his side in Chicago, Brooks was in a similarly ebullient mood. “We had a birthday party for Anne right in this restaurant,” Lane recalled, scanning the crowded room as a wistful expression crossed his face. “And Mel got up on a table and sang ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ ”
Lane was in a strikingly emotional mood a few days before his first public performance as Gomez Addams of “The Addams Family,” which he said will be his 17th Broadway show (”that must be more than Marian Seldes”).
He had been coaxed into the project — and away from another more tenuous Broadway project — when writer Marshall Brickman called him and said the very thing that torpedoes the defenses of every actor: “We wrote this part with you in mind.”
Of course, because Lane happens to be the biggest living star of American musical comedy, that statement doubtless also had the rare, additional virtue of being true.
Lane’s accessible emotions are, of course, the root of his comic brilliance. But he said they had also been sparked by Gomez,
Please, Don’t “Review” the “Preview”
Previews began on Friday, November 13 for the new Addams Family musical at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Chicago. And if we refer back to Rick Elice’s statement from our article ”Rick Elice Chats With AFB About “The Addams Family” Musical“, we can assume that he, Marshall (Brickman) and Andrew (Lippa) “listen(ed) very, very carefully (to the audiences)” and will sit down today, November 16, and “figure out what (we) need to do, in terms of the writing of the show, …” After all, this IS a try-out, and every performance is a learning experience.
Theater etiquette requires that we not review a preview, and with good reason. But I don’t think there is any harm in sharing some of the comments I’ve seen floating around the internet…
Just saw it today and it was awesome! The entire cast was amazing!!!! Nathan – you are the ultimate entertainer! You are just wonderful! And Bebe you are beautiful! And everyone in the cast was superb! I will definitely see this again hopefully very soon!
Saw the afternoon matinee…What a HOOT!!…loved Uncle Fester’s song “The Moon and Me”…Great fencing & tango by Bebe & Nathan!
Bebe Neuwirth signing autograph for my mom. She was so sweet.
Kudo’s to the casting director – what a terrific ensemble!
…the special effects … were just amazing…
The score was amazing, not what I expected and I think the set design was so clever and very well used.
Andrew Lippa has provided some quite traditional Broadway-style songs that hearken to a much earlier era. They are tuneful and easy to take in.
Well, from the sound of these comments, I think we can assume that Rick, Marshall and Andrew’s meeting will be full of positive energy!
If you have seen the show, or plan to see it soon, we would love to hear YOUR comments!
Sneak-Peek Video of Vanity Fair Shoot
Great behind-the-scenes footage from the recent photo shoot of The Addams Family portrait for Vanity Fair’s December issue.
Addams Family Portrait
The Addams Family Portrait, photo by Mark Seliger, "Vanity Fair" (Dec. '09)
From the December, 2009 issue of Vanity Fair: These Goulish Things. The Addams Family cast, from left: Adam Riegler as Pugsly; Krysta Rodriguez as Wednesday; Zachary James as Lurch; Kevin Chamberlin as Uncle Fester; Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia; Nathan Lane as Gomez; and Jackie Hoffman as Grandma.
Rick Elice Chats With AFB About “The Addams Family” Musical
Rick Elice, famed co-author of Jersey Boys, has a new project to get excited about – The Addams Family Musical, set to begin previews in Chicago on November 13. I had the privilege of chatting with Rick recently about his Addams Family experience.
Addams Family Blog: Rick, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk with me about The Addams Family musical. Previews start ….Friday the 13th …that’s very convenient that the date fell on Friday the 13th…
Rick Elice: Well, originally there was some idea of starting it on Halloween, and I guess that the schedule just didn’t work out, so Friday the 13th became the next obvious day – the next luckiest day for us to begin.
AFB: And I bet it will be lucky for you. How are rehearsals going?
RE: Really great. We have an amazing cast – we just have the most wonderful cast of people that’s ever been, I think. It’s such a gream droup…..a gream droup I just said … a dream group. (See, everything’s inverted with the Addams Family.) It’s a pleasure to be in the same room with them. And the audience is in for a real treat.
AFB: Do you expect to have to make a lot of changes during the Chicago “try-out?”
RE: Sure. Well, because you just said it, didn’t you, it’s a try-out. This is a brand new show, it’s not based on anything. It’s never been performed before. Soon we’re going to have an audience for the very first time ever. The last big piece of the puzzle is always when the audience arrives. And so we’re going to listen very, very carefully. And then we’re going to come back the next night, and we’re going to listen very carefully again. And we’re going to come back the next night and listen very carefully again. And after the first weekend, Marshall and Andrew and I will sit down on November 16th, and we will figure out what we need to do, in terms of the writing of the show, and then we’ll sit down with the Directors and the Designers and figure out how we can effect that. The audience will tell you things you would never, ever learn without them. I can’t wait.
AFB: Yes, and I imagine that each audience will be different throughout that weekend…..
RE: Every night, it’s brand new, and every night is learning. Neil Simon once said something very, very smart [about this] which is, “You get to take the test every single night, and watching the performance is doing your homework, and then the next day you go in, and you try to get a better grade.” And that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing. We’re shooting for an A++ on this show because why would you ever shoot for less? We’re trying to make something really, really special here which is a musical comedy – a musical comedy with heart. And there’s probably nothing harder to do. Except solving healthcare.
AFB: There’s been so much media attention already…
RE: Has there been? I’m not particularly aware of it. I haven’t been paying much attention to anything other than rehearsals. Has there been a lot of stuff?
AFB: Well, it seems that I’ve been reading about it for so long, and there are such high expectations. And with it all set to open on Broadway already, and selling tickets already.…..does that add pressure to the creative team, with all the hype, or is it maybe a relief, that it’s all set – where you’re going to go?
RE: Of course, it’s a big responsibility when people start putting their money down on the barrel head. But it’s also thrilling to know that people actually have a desire to see something. And it does help to take the pressure off because, you know, with Jersey Boys we weren’t exactly in the same situation. It was very, very hard to get people interested before the show came to town because nobody really believed it would be anything more than a (gulp) jukebox musical…….
AFB: And now people can’t even get tickets!
RE: Yeah! But before we came to Broadway, people really had kind of a wait-and-see attitude, which I understand. I would have had it too. But with Addams Family, I guess on the strength of the cast, there are people who are willing to take a risk in advance. And I’m humbled by the responsibility of knowing people are buying tickets in advance because those are the people who are really taking the flyer with you, and those are the people I really want to satisfy.
AFB: How did you and Marshall [Brickman] get linked with this project?
RE: Well, as it turns out, the gentleman who got the rights to do it, Stuart Oken, the Producer, was a colleague of mine from Disney. And Julian Crouch, one of the Directors, had talked about a project with Marshall. So when Stuart got the rights to it and went to Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch and said, “I’d like you to direct this,” they said, “Okay.” And Stuart said, “We need to think about who will write the show.” And Julian said, “There’s only one writer I know in America, and that’s Marshall Brickman.” And Stuart said, “Well, that’s funny because his writing partner is a friend of mine named Rick Elice. So why don’t we go to them?” So that’s how we were first approached. And of course, the minute Stuart said, “The Addams Family,” we said “Yes!” It did not take more than 30 seconds to convince us to do it. And then the next person to join the team was Andrew Lippa, the Composer/Lyricist, who is very, very talented. This is going to be big for Andrew. He’s written a terrific score.
AFB: There is certainly a lot of talent in that creative team.
So you were pretty familiar with the Addams family, but did you have to do a lot of research?
RE: Well, I remembered the TV show from when I was a kid. But I hadn’t seen it in 40 years, I suppose. I had actually never seen the films, but Stuart didn’t want it to be based on anything that had been done previously. All he gave us to look at were the original Charles Addams cartoons from the New Yorker. And those cartoons refreshed our memories and raised the sorts of questions about the story and character that writers try to answer. Of course, they’re not three dimensional in a cartoon. They’re just two dimensional. You have a single frame on a page in a magazine, and it’s designed to show you a visual and give you a caption that will give you a chuckle. And that’s all it’s designed to do. There’s nothing that comes before, there’s nothing that comes after.
So you can see a cartoon, for example, where the mother says to the little daughter, with the little boy in the background holding a jar with a skull and crossbones on it, “Well, don’t come whining to me. You go poison him right back.” And it’s funny, and you chuckle as you just did, and you think, “Well, what does that mean? Does that mean that the mother is encouraging one kid to kill the other one? Does that mean she doesn’t love her kids? Does that mean she does love her kids but they can’t die? Can they die? Are they human? Are they aliens?…” And you’re asking all these logic questions…(laughter from AFB)… and your head begins to implode like an old grapefruit…..And you think, “Uh-oh, this is gonna be harder than we thought…”
We had to take the characteristics from the cartoons and kind of breathe a third dimension into them, humanize them, if you will, invent a story and situation, and deliver something that the audience will find very funny, and also, hopefully very, very touching. And that was the modest assignment we gave ourselves.
AFB: How long did that take? It sounds like it must have been a long process…
RE: At least three or four hours… but maybe that long only because we stopped for lunch in the middle.
AFB: (laughing) Well, I know you’re good, but no one can be THAT good…
RE: I can’t really remember because I blocked it out. I remember being much, much younger when I started. At home I’ve learned to turn all the mirrors to the wall, and I walked into our digs in Chicago, and there was a mirror, and I thought, “Who is that strange bald man?” And realized that it was me! And I thought, “I guess we’ve been working on this show for a long time.”
AFB: (laughing, again) Maybe it’s a good thing that you didn’t have preconceptions from the movies because a lot of people will have the TV show in mind, or have the movie in mind. They may come to the show thinking that Gomez should act like Raul Julia, or …
RE: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he should act like Raul Julia, maybe he should act like Nathan Lane. I think the character is going to act like whomever you cast. We went in the direction of Nathan because Nathan agreed to read the script for us at a very early stage. And he was so spectacularly brilliant that we had to write it for him, and so we wrote it with his voice in mind. And so it really is sort of based on him. But that was a decision we made, not because we decided that Gomez should be funny but because Nathan suddenly seemed to bring a whole pallet of colors to playing this role that people have never seen him do. In addition to being screamingly funny. And I think he sensed that too – that this was a real opportunity for him – that this was something that he should do.
What we did was create our own situation and tried to play it out…“What would happen if…?” And we came up with an archetypical situation that we thought a lot of people could identify with. Because I think identifying with the characters is really important, especially when they’re strange. And over the course of the evening I think people will come to realize that the Addams family is really just sort of like any other family living on the upper west side of Manhattan. Maybe just somewhat more peculiar. But really pretty much like everyone else.
AFB: Well, you’ve already answered my last three questions…
RE: With my blabbering on and on and on??
AFB: Certainly not blabbering! But apparently we were on the same wavelength. I do want to ask, though, if you have a favorite character? Was there one that was particularly fun for you to write for?
RE: (hesitantly) Well… that’s like asking me who my favorite child is. That’s a tough question because even if I had an answer, I could never tell you what it was because that would be wildly indiscreet. But I must say that I’ve fallen in love with this family. I find it to be, even when the show is at it’s silliest, I find it to be very, very touching. Because what our little story is about, what the theme (and I don’t mean the plot), but what the theme of our story is about is very moving to me – very moving. Because it’s a theme of acceptance. And accepting not just the people around you for all of their quirks, but accepting that a little mystery in life is a very, very good thing. And that’s what I really loved writing about. I loved writing about the idea that I – who have lived all my life trying to shed light on every situation so that I would always know what was waiting for me around every corner – in order to rule out life’s many unpleasant surprises, also sometimes would rule out life’s pleasant surprises. And that if you, shall we say, embrace the darkness of what lies ahead, you can actually enjoy your life a lot more. So to me, my life has actually changed by having written this show. I’ve learned a big life lesson by writing about it that I never would have been able to have absorbed simply by being told about it by a well-meaning friend or (chuckle) psychoanalyst.
AFB: And you get paid for it – you didn’t have to pay an analyst.
RE: Well, in theory – in theory we’ll get paid for it, too. That depends on what the audience thinks of it.
AFB: Well, it sounds like the audience is going to love it. I’m so excited about the show, and I can’t wait to see it. It sounds like it’s going to be wonderful, and definitely live up to the expectations that people have for it.
RE: From your mouth, Catherine. From your mouth…
AFB: Rick, it was an absolute pleasure talking with you. Thank you again for taking the time to chat about The Addams Family.
