All Entries Tagged With: "Marshall Brickman"
Rick Elice Takes A Trip Down Memory Lane
A trip down memory lane for ‘Jersey Boys’ co-author
Posted by Don Aucoin, January 5, 2011 03:18 PM, Boston.com
The Colonial Theatre, Boston
When ”Jersey Boys” coauthor Rick Elice read in the Globe yesterday that his show had broken a weekly box-office record at the Colonial Theatre, pulling in $1.1 million for the week that ended Sunday, he got very excited - and not just for the financial reasons you’d expect.
It turns out that the Colonial has occupied a rather substantial place in Elice’s heart for decades.
“The Colonial is a theater that, for me, is one of the great places in the world,” Elice said today in a telephone interview. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful theater. I never dreamed that ‘Jersey Boys’ would play there, so I was very happy to hear that it broke the record.”
In the early 1970s, when he was a stage-struck teenager and Boston was still a significant tryout town for productions on their way to Broadway, Elice used to take the train from New York to catch shows at the Colonial. He remembers seeing Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” there in 1971, and Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” a couple of years later.
By 1980, Elice had become an actor, joining Robert Brustein’s brand-new American Repertory Theatre. He played Lysander in the ART’s inaugural production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Alvin Epstein, with a cast that included Cherry Jones and Tony Shalhoub.
After its ART run, Elice says, the “Dream” production moved to the Wilbur Theater, which gave him a chance to walk up to Boylston Street and take frequent peeks at the Colonial. He recalls a production of “Sugar Babies,” starring Carol Channing, at the Colonial at the time.
He left the ART in 1981 to embark on a career in advertising, serving as creative director at a New York ad agency until 1999, then spent a decade as a creative consultant at Walt Disney Studios. One of his poker buddies was Marshall Brickman, a renowned comedy writer (Brickman co-wrote “Annie Hall,” “Sleeper,” and “Manhattan” with Woody Allen). Eventually, Elice and Brickman teamed up to write “Jersey Boys.”
Next month, “Peter and the Starcatcher,” Elice’s adaptation of an adventure novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, will open in New York.
But today, Elice had Boston on his mind. He noted that “Jersey Boys” also enjoyed a solid run last year at the Shubert Theatre, saying “Boston has been very good to us.” He added: “Whatever show is in the Colonial is somehow better because it’s at the Colonial. The show seems like the icing on a very beautiful cake that’s there all the time.”
It’s been two decades since he was last inside the Colonial (for a production of the musical adaptation of “Grand Hotel.”). But he plans to rectify that soon. “I’m going to Boston before the end of the month to see my ‘Boys,’ ” said Elice.
Congratulations to Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman
Some of you may not realize that the co-authors of The Addams Family musical, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, also penned Jersey Boys, which just celebrated its 5th Anniversary on Broadway. I had the pleasure of attending the “Fan Party” hosted by Rick, and the Saturday evening performance. Oh what a day and night it was! Congratulations, Rick and Marshall, on your well-deserved honors over the event-filled weekend. And thank you for bringing such wonderful entertainment to Broadway!
“The Addams Family” Visits Borders at Columbus Circle
On Friday, May 14th, Borders Columbus Circle will present “The Addams Family: From Page to Stage”. At the event, Sarah Henry, curator of the Charles Addams Exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, will lead a discussion with The Addams Family creative team members Andrew Lippa (Composery/Lyricist), Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman (Book Writers). Joining them will be Kevin Miserochhi, author of the new collection of Charles Addams drawings entitled “An Evilution”.
The event will begin at 5pm with a discussion of the show’s development, as well as a performance by Tony nominee Kevin Chamberlin, and members of The Addams Family cast.
The Addams Family Nominated for Drama League Awards
Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth announced Drama League Award nominees, live at Sardi's
On April 20, 2010, Bebe Neuwirth (The Addams Family) and Kelsey Grammer (La Cage aux Folles) announced nominations for the 76th Annual Drama League Awards, to be presented at a ceremony and luncheon May 21 in the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square.
Among this year’s nominees:
DISTINGUISHED PRODUCTION OF A MUSICAL
The Addams Family
Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice; Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre)
DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE AWARD
Nathan Lane, The Addams Family
In addition to this year’s nominees, nine past recipients of the Distinguished Performance Award will be honored for their work this season. However, because an individual can only receive the Distinguished Performance Award once in his/her lifetime, they are ineligible for award consideration this year. Among those past honorees will be Bebe Neuwirth of The Addams Family.
The Drama League announced earlier this Spring that among it’s special recognitions, Nathan Lane will receive the Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theatre Award.
Great honors, indeed. Congratulations to The Addams Family!
Click here to view a list of all nominees.
“The Addams Family” – WORD OF MOUTH
The Addams Family can’t rely on the critics, so it’s up to the fans of the show to show their support through WORD OF MOUTH.
CLICK HERE to visit the WORD OF MOUTH post. Scroll to the bottom and click “Comments” to share your thoughts or experiences of “The Addams Family” on Broadway, and to read others’ experiences.
Opening Night of “The Addams Family” Musical
Opening Night … in pictures, courtesy of broadwayworld.com
Critics Aren’t Raving, but Audiences Love The Addams Family!
Yes, it is every producer’s goal to win the approval of the critics, but ultimately it’s up to the “real” people, the audiences, the ticket purchasing public to make or break a show. And from what I’ve read, audiences are LOVING the kooky Addams Family musical. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what makes a successful show - audiences that walk out of the theatre smiling and humming and happy? So if the creative team of the Addams Family musical can’t rely on the critics, then it’s up to the fans to show their support through WORD OF MOUTH.
Below is the “Word of Mouth” Review from Broadway.com, where REAL people review the show.
If you’ve seen the show, or just want to offer your support of the show, please leave a comment here and let the world know how you feel about The Addams Family on Broadway. And if you have pictures you’d like to share, please e-mail them to afblog@comcast.net, and I’ll get them put up here.
(Comments are threaded, so you can leave a “stand alone” comment, or reply to someone else’s comment.)
Wanna Know How Nathan Lane Refers to Michael Riedel?
New York magazine chats with Bebe Neuwirth about her thoughts on The Addams Family experience; and reveals co-star Nathan Lane’s “pet” name for Post theatre columnist Michael Riedel:
Her Kooky Destiny
As Morticia Addams, Bebe Neuwirth is hoping for a perfect fit
I gave a lousy show last night,” Bebe Neuwirth says about fifteen minutes into a chat in her dressing room at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It seems she fell victim to the storied theater curse that is the “second show,” in which, as Neuwirth explains it, the relief of nailing a part in the first performance before a paying audience leads to a deceptively difficult following night. “It’s a trade secret,” she says. When I note that the cheering audience didn’t seem to notice, Neuwirth immediately regrets her candor: Leaning into the digital recorder at her knee, and with a pointed look in my direction, she says, “I don’t want anyone to tell them I had a bad show!”
Sorry, but what might in another context serve as a cheap gotcha provides a humanizing moment for Neuwirth, who, in her 25 years in show business, has excelled at the stylized and remote. As shrink Lilith Sternin on Cheers, she etched pop culture’s platonic ideal of an ice queen. Her 1996 Tony-winning turn in Chicago as Velma—little black minidress, big red lips, blinding white skin—was an equally iconic take on a brassy Broadway siren. Her current role, as Morticia, in the new, $16.5 million musical adaptation of The Addams Family (opening April 8), finds Neuwirth back in signature pallor and basic black. Although the production is based on Charles Addams’s macabre drawings for The New Yorker, the 51-year-old Neuwirth took the part because of a childhood infatuation. “Marshall Brickman called me up to say he’d written this musical, The Addams Family, and I just about screamed because I loved Carolyn Jones. Her Morticia [on the mid-sixties ABC sitcom] was really an archetypal character. As a child, I wanted to embody her qualities.” Wry, stoic, and smarter than her hot-blooded mate (John Astin’s Gomez), TV’s Morticia was a dark prefeminist outlier in a TV landscape known more for the va-va-voom vacuity of Ginger, Mary Ann, and Jeannie. “She wasn’t even part of that competition,” says Neuwirth. “She was doing her own thing. Who knows what that inner life of hers was, but she was hip. You know, I think Rhea Perlman’s character on Cheers once referred to me as Morticia.”
There is a certain Shelley Duvall–playing–Olive Oyl inevitability to Neuwirth’s latest role. “From the very top of the show, the audience sees Bebe and they go, ‘That’s Morticia,’ ” notes composer Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party). “It’s like that feeling you get watching Barry Bonds at the plate; this fantastic moment where it looks like it’s going to be great … and then it is great. And boy is that satisfying.”
This being Broadway, there’s the usual tabloid gossip of backstage bickering between Neuwirth and her Gomez, Nathan Lane. “I was told Cindy Adams reported that we had a frosty relationship,” says Lane. “And then [Post theater columnist] Michael Riedel—or as I like to call him, Rosemary’s Baby—picked up on that. The most shocking thing about that is that Cindy Adams is still alive. God bless her, still trying to stir it up, and I wish her well. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.” As Neuwirth puts it, “I think we both have a nice, healthy dose of diva. But we also do really go together. You’ve got the little clown running around, and you have a very still, dry person. That’s a fun pairing.”
Neuwirth’s last extended appearance on Broadway was a second go-round with Chicago in 2006, that time as Roxie. Since then, she’s mostly been offered TV roles. But she finds regular series work, like her two short-lived Dick Wolf dramas Deadline (2000) and Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005), too ponderous. “It’s the waiting around and the long hours on set,” says Neuwirth. “I’m a dancer first, and a very physical person. Even Cheers was difficult for me, and that’s one of the best shows ever.” On the other hand, scripts were not “piling up outside my door … and being middle-aged makes it exponentially harder to find a role. I don’t fit into the wives, mothers, and housewives stereotype.”
Unless it’s the sort of wife and mother who wears black gowns slit to here and dominatrix boots up to there. (The boots were Neuwirth’s contribution to Morticia’s costume, revealed to thunderous audience approval.) It’s been nearly two years since the actress did her first Addams Family table read. After a commercially boffo but critically so-so holiday-season tryout on the road, the production has been, depending on whom you ask or read, tweaked, reshaped, or overhauled. And that’s especially true of Morticia. The show’s plot has a smitten Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez) rejecting her parents’ eccentricity in the hope of marrying a milquetoast small-town boy, spurring a conflict that leaves Morticia feeling old and irrelevant. In the harshest of the out-of-town reviews, the Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones noted that Neuwirth “looks like she’s not having much fun.” Neuwirth was stung by the comment but doesn’t necessarily disagree: “In that production, Morticia was deeply, deeply unhappy from the middle of the first act through the end of the show.”
“That’s not a fun thing to play,” says Lane, “and it kind of undermined the character.” The creative team, he adds, “had to find a wittier way of dealing with it and not make it her main story line.” That, presumably, is part of the job of multi-Tony-winning director Jerry Zaks, who was brought in at the end of last year to consult with the show’s designer-director team, Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott (Shockheaded Peter). Songs have been cut, others are still coming; Neuwirth is getting an upbeat number that will help tip Morticia away from concerned mom and back toward vamp. “My forte is restrained sarcasm and a certain kind of bearing, which is what Morticia has also, so it’s a good match. But the character wasn’t served as well as she could have been—the part stressed panic,” says Neuwirth, pointing out that Morticia doesn’t do panic. “The show’s getting better all the time, but I don’t think it’s quite right yet. I’m awaiting more wisecracks.”
Addams Family Musical Stars Chat with USA Today
by Todd Plitt, USA Today
‘Addams Family’ stars: Kooky, spooky, in no way spoofy
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth may be dressed in black — a color also favored by Gomez and Morticia Addams, whom they play in the new Broadway musical The Addams Family— but there’s not a whiff of the macabre in the stars’ relaxed conversation.
And perhaps that’s fitting. Based on the Charles Addams cartoons that inspired the hit TV series of the 1960s, this new adaptation — with a book by Jersey Boys librettists Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice and a score by Andrew Lippa— presents a happy, loving family. “It’s just that everything they like happens to be the opposite of what ‘normal’ people like,” Lane says.
Chatting hours before a recent preview at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where The Addams Family opens April 8, Lane and Neuwirth discuss the pressures and pleasures of bringing their iconic characters to the stage.
Q: When did you first become familiar with the Addams Family?
Neuwirth: I watched the show on television as a little girl, then discovered the cartoons when I got a bit older.
Lane: I watched the show first, too, and loved it.
Neuwirth: Did you want to be Gomez?
Lane: Nah, I didn’t project myself into it. I just thought it was really fun and different. It only ran for a couple of seasons, but they were obviously memorable.
Q: How about Morticia, Bebe? She’s the first character you’re creating for a new Broadway musical.
Neuwirth: I loved Morticia so much as a girl. I think many women love her; she’s really archetypal. So it’s very important to me that she’s represented properly — that she doesn’t have anything dopey to do or say, or anything that isn’t honest. I feel I have to take care of her.
Q: Word is that this show takes its spirit from Charles Addams’ cartoons. Is there anything that will surprise people who are only familiar with the TV series?
Neuwirth: Its depth.
Lane: Yes, I think we win them over with humor and then …
Neuwirth: Then we sock ‘em in the solar plexus!
Lane: People will expect to laugh and have a good time, but maybe not to be moved by it. But there are some very touching moments.
Neuwirth: The big musical theater moments are there, but they happen in a way that’s true to the Addams Family. There are no sequins on this stage. Nobody wears anything shiny.
Q: Gomez and Morticia are a pretty hot couple. How do you get that chemistry across?
Neuwirth (coyly): You’ll see. Look, these people love each other, they love their family. They love their pets. The boy (the Addams’ son, Pugsley, played by Adam Riegler) has a big lizard, but he loves it like a puppy dog.
Lane: It’s just great fun to be them, you know? For me, it’s been joyous to play someone who is so positive about everything. That’s the opposite of me.
Q: After the show’s run in Chicago last year, (veteran director) Jerry Zaks was brought in as a creative consultant. There was speculation that the darker, more sophisticated humor of the cartoons didn’t translate for audiences expecting to see the TV show replicated. Any truth to that?
Neuwirth: That had nothing to do with it. The show was very good in Chicago; we packed the house every night, and they stood up and cheered. But a good show can get better.
Lane: The producers felt we needed a fresh pair of eyes, and fortunately, Jerry agreed to work with us. And he’s been able to come in like a Jewish Ty Pennington and give us an extreme makeover. But that’s how shows have been created for years — friends give advice, people help.
Neuwirth: You go out of town, you make changes and it keeps evolving.
Lane: Of course, this is a high-profile show, so everyone’s got an opinion. People say (affects a lofty tone), “It’s the most highly anticipated musical of the season.” It’s like you’re being set up for a fall. We’ve done a tremendous amount of work, and there’s more to come. A lot of fun, but a lot of work, too.
New And Improved Addams Family Musical Hits Broadway Running
photo by Matt Hoyle
Brickman and Elice’s Jersey Boys Chicago Run Comes To An End
Sunday was a sad day for the Chicago theater community, not to mention to Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman. Not only did they say goodbye to The Addams Family Musical, which finished up its eight week pre-Broadway try-out, but they also bid farewell to the Chicago run of Jersey Boys at the Bank of America Theatre. At its closing, the show had played 27 months – a total of 951 performances – and been seen by 1.3 million patrons.
Chris Jones, of the Chicago Tribune, Theater Loop Blog had this to say about the Jersey Boys closing: “…while all closings are emotional, there’s no question that Jersey Boys, which has been kept in top form and looked as good Sunday as on its opening night, exceeded all reasonable expectations in Chicago and proved that shows other than Wicked could sit down here and thrive.
Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, the authors of (conveniently) both Jersey Boys and The Addams Family, took the stage at the Jersey Boyscurtain call, with Elice noting that ‘what we thought was going to be a 10-week stint’ had, in fact, turned into a run seen by 1.3 million people. ‘This has to be the most spectacular opening night I have ever experienced,’ Brickman joked, clearly moved by the emotion of the occasion.”
Congratulations to Rick and Marshall on the successful run of Jersey Boys in Chicago. May all their endeavors be so blessed!
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
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,
