I was in NY week before last to cast The Chosen.  This was just before the big snows hit, and while I only saw a few flakes, it was cold as the dickens.  I’ve grown fond of The Belvedere Hotel, which is on W. 48th between 8th and 9th Avenues.  It’s close enough to the theater district, but just far enough off the beaten track to be quiet.  And most important:  they have good mattresses.  You’d be surprised how hard that is to find on our budget!

We saw many beautiful actors for each of the roles.  Harriett, our casting director, was nervous that she wouldn’t be in the room for the callbacks (as she and her husband had a long-planned trip to the Galapogos Islands scheduled), and so brought in more choices than she might ordinarily.

I saw Fela! the new musical created by legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones from the music and life of the African singer and political agitator.  As one might expect, the dancing was extraordinary, and the energy of the cast was awe inspiring (it’s basically non stop movement for two hours).  The music is energized and rousing, and at times it’s hard to wipe the smile off your face.  That said, I confess that I found it hard to connect to the story.  The African accents made it nearly impossible to understand the lyrics (they had subtitles projected on a screen at the rear of the stage), and thus trying to piece the story together was tough.  Even so – the audience in the room seemed to have a wonderful time. 

Also saw Richard Greenspan’s new piece The Myopia, produced by the Foundry Theater.  He is a brilliant performer, but I found the play baffling.  Ah well.

The most satisfying evening for me was Donald Margulies’ new play Time Stands Still at Manhattan Theatre Club (well actually at their Broadway theater the Friedman on 47th).  For a Broadway house the theater is remarkably intimate.  Margulies won the Pulitzer for Dinner with Friends, which I liked but didn’t love.  Time Stands Still was equally well crafted in naturalistic tones, but the stakes and politics were so keenly observed that I thought it made for a riveting evening.  Didn’t hurt to have Laura Linney, Eric Bogosian, Brian Darcy James and Alicia Silverstone in the cast.  They were all fantastic, and at times the tension seemed palpable.  A gorgeous new play.

Just back from several days in NYC casting for Grey Gardens.   One of the best groups of talent we’ve seen.  Lots of excitement from actors about getting to work on such rich material.

Harriett Bass, our wonderful casting director (pictured here with Marv – Rick Lewis, our wonderful musical director’s partner) assembled a great group.  Among the highlights for me were meeting Rita Gardner, the original Luisa from The Fantasticks, and Jane Summerhays, the original Sheila from A Chorus Line.

Eileen, our other wonderful casting director, was still glowing from her recent marriage in November.  She is now Mrs. Eileen McCabe – and surely will have the most Irish children on the planet.

Scored a seat to Billy Elliott which is one of the hottest tickets in town.  I highly recommend it.  While I didn’t love every single thing about the production (the set felt a little clunky to me, and some of the music was a bit pedestrian), it is incredibly well performed and very moving.  The kid playing Billy Elliott just blew me out of the water, as did the kid playing his friend Michael.

I also had a wonderful meeting with Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich – the songwriting team we are working with on The Best So Far for next season.  They were, as I had been warned, completely delightful.  Smart, funny, incisive.  We had a wide ranging conversation about the possibilities we can create from their existing canon of music (and some new work as well) – and they can’t wait to get to Portland!

Also had a chance to see the new musical Happiness with music by Scott Frankel (composer of Grey Gardens).  It is playing at Lincoln Center.

This is a photo of Alice Tully Hall, home of the the New York City Opera, which just completed a long awaited renovation.  The reviews of the new hall have been heavenly, and the exterior was pretty breathtaking.

Lincoln Center Theater is still covered in scaffolding, as the campus of the rest of the Center is still under renovation.  South Pacific remains the hottest ticket in town.

I saw Happiness in the 400 seat Mitzi Newhouse Theater.  It was directed by Susan Strohman (Contact, The Producers).It was beautifully staged, and designed (by Thomas Lynch) – but when I realized the premise (9 people stuck in a subway car) – I thought “How in the heck are they going to keep this alive for 2 hours?”.  But they did. The 9 discover that they aren’t living anymore, and have to choose a perfect moment from their life in which to spend eternity.  So each of them end up morphing out into a fantasy sequence from their past.  It was magical, and gorgeously sung and acted.   And just wonderful. Scott’s music was both very idiosyncratic, and unabashedly melodic – while always serving the dramatic moment.  I think he’s the best of our generation.  Go see it.

more posts about Grey Gardens|| Get the Details about the Show || Buy Tickets

Charlie Frasier (our Development Director) and I just returned from a week in NY touring with PCS patrons.   I hadn’t done alot of the ‘touristy’ sites in NY, so it was fun to learn about the city from guides who understand the history in depth.

I also enjoyed spending some quality time with one of my favorite patrons (and friends), Teri Rowan – who managed to keep me giggling through most of our bus tour.

Our first evening in town, we caught Nathan Lane in David Mamet’s new comedy, November.  Nathan played a meaner and funnier version of a dim-witted President (you can decide who it was modeled after).  The play was pretty hilarious in stretches, but also thin for a Mamet piece.  And ultimately not particularly satisfying.

We started our first day with breakfast at Tavern on the Green in Central Park (which I learned is the highest grossing restaurant in America).

The restaurant features windows and chandeliers of cut glass that are pretty spectacular.

Our tour included the newly refashioned World Trade Center Atrium.

And a glimpse of ground zero, which is still under reconstruction.

While in town, I was also casting for Guys and Dolls.  

Rick (left), our Musical Director and Joel (in the white shirt), our choreographer were in tow.  Since this is our third musical to work on together – we were pretty comfortable in figuring out how to speak each other’s language and how to look out for what the others concerns might be.  During auditions for West Side I was curious when Joel would say, “He moves well, but his technique is iffy.”  I didn’t understand.  So he elaborated, that if a dancer’s training isn’t solid, they may still be able to learn and deliver the combination – but the likelihood that they will injure themselves doing the show 8 times a week multiplies exponentially.

I also got to see the new musical, In the Heights, which has been nominated for 14 Tony Awards.  Written by a 28 year old kid who also stars in the show – it features a cast of 25 hot, young actor/dancer/singers – telling the story of a young girl trying to make it out of the ‘hood’ in Washington Heights (upper, upper Manhattan).  The book was pretty weak – but the music and the singing were amazing.  And the choreography (by Andy Blakenbuhler, who choreographed Gypsy for us in 2001) was sensational.

It was also fun to hear that Anderson Davis (Tony in our West Side Story) is now in the Broadway company of Les Mis; Sarah Marie Hicks (Kit Kat Girl from Cabaret) is in the revival of Gypsy; Tommy Berkland (Baby John in West Side) is Gregory in A Chorus Line on Broadway; and Gretchen Burkhalter (Helga in Cabaret) was just cast in the National Tour of Legally Blonde.

On a more somber note, I was stunned to read in the NY Times that Adrian Bailey (El Gallo in our The Fantasticks) fell through a trap door of The Little Mermaid set – falling 30 feet to the floor below.  He was hospitalized with two broken wrists, a broken back, crushed pelvis, and broken sternum.  Horrifying. 

The last show I saw was Bart Scherr’s (Artistic Director of Intiman Theater in Seattle) production of South Pacific at Lincoln Center.  It was one of the most satisfying evenings I’ve ever spent in the theater.  From Michael Yeargan’s stunning and three dimensional sets, to the exquisite singing, gorgeous and athletic staging, to the nuanced and simple acting – it was joyous and revelatory in a completely honest way.  I happily lept to my feet at the end – and could have sat down and watched the entire thing again.  If you are in New York:  go, go, go.  (Oh, and I forgot:  Sean Cullen – who played Tupolski in our Pillowman has a nice featured role in the production).

more posts about Guys and Dolls || More Posts from Chris || tickets to Guys and Dolls

Portland Center Stage will be holding Equity and Non-Equity General Auditions for the 2008-2009 season on April 14, 15, and 16, 2008.

Please prepare two contrasting monologues and an/or optional 16 bars of a song, (accompanist will be provided on April 14th only). Equity Actor’s auditions should be no longer than 4 minutes in length. Non-Equity Actor’s audition should be no longer than 3 minutes (we may only have time to see one monologue for Non-Equity Actor’s).

Please bring two headshots/resumes. Equity appointments can be made by leaving a message on our audition hotline at 503.445.3849. Someone will return your call to set up an appointment for you. Equity Actors will be required to show your Equity card at the time of audition. For Non-Equity Actors, please show up the day of auditions for an appointment. We will be begin making appointments at 9:00am in the lobby of the theater.

2008-2009 Season

Guys and Dolls-Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows; Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser (10 men / 8 women)

R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE- by D.W. Jacobs (1 man)

How to Dissappear Completely and Never Be Found-by Fin Kennedy (3 men / 2 women)

The Importance of Being Ernest-by Oscar Wilde (4 men / 4 women)

Frost/Nixon- by Peter Morgan (8 men / 2 women)

Grey Gardens- by Douglas Wright; Music by Scott Frankel; Lyrics by Michael Korie ( 3 women / 4 men/ 2 children)

Present at the auditions will be Rose Riordan-Associate Artistic Director, Megan Ward-Literary and Artistic Assistant, and Dawn Young- Company Manager.

Just back from four days in New York, casting for The Beard of Avon and 12th Night.  Always a gas being in that city.  Though I was looking forward to a respite from our very rainy October, of course, the first two days in Manhattan provided torrential downpours.

When I go to NYC, my hotel of choice is the Edison.  It’s on W. 47th near Broadway in Times Square.  Nothing fancy, pretty decent price, easy to get to the theaters, and their cafe downstairs (fondly donned “The Polish Tearoom”) offers the best Matzoh Ball Soup I’ve ever had.

Casting two shows that are designed to play in rep was trickier than I think any of us expected.  Luckily, I was working with Jane Jones (who will direct 12th Night and many of you will remember as the director of Pride and Prejudice two years ago).  Besides being a really gifted artist, Jane is also enormous fun, and a great collaborator.  By the end of our day and a half together we were both directing each other’s actors.  It was hilarious.  In the picture below, Jane is the blonde facing the camera.  Harriett Bass (our casting director) is deep in conversation with Zan Sawyer-Dailey the Casting Director for Actor’s Theater of Louisville (they were on the 16th Floor casting 12th Night as well).

Whenever I’m in NY I try to take in a couple of shows.  This time out I checked out Gone Missing, Michael Friedman’s new musical at the Barrow Street Theater.  I had met Michael three years ago when I directed Hazard County for the Humana Festival.  He was there working on a piece at the same time.  The review of Gone Missing in the Times was pretty intriguing, so I checked it out.

A really charming small musical that was inspired by interviews with average New Yorkers about things they had lost.  It started out with silly, superficial losses (socks, cats, virginity) – but gradually wove its way to more significant losses (memory, love, life).  By the evening’s end – quite thoughtful.

Harriett and I also had dinner that evening with her wonderful husband, Richard, who is a physician in Brooklyn.  I love arguing politics with Richard.  He worked with Hillary Clinton on her first health care reform effort in 1994 and says he will have to leave the country if she is elected.  I am a Hillary fan, so we had a great time arguing the merits of her latest health care proposal.

On Saturday afternoon, I saw The Misanthrope at New York Theater Workshop.  I was particularly interested in the production, as I had seen Ivo Van Hove’s (the Dutch director) production of Streetcar Named Desire at the workshop a few years ago and found it quite bizarre and inspiring.

I was less taken with Misanthrope, though it did take the notion of actors “chewing the scenery” to an entirely new level.   At one point, Bill Camp (Alceste) literally covered himself in chocolate syrup, catsup, mayonaise and broke half a watermelon over his head.

The Workshop is one of my favorite theaters anywhere, because of the raw, intimate space, and the daring choices they make in terms of material.  You don’t love everything, but you know its going to be interesting.

On the subway heading back uptown, a string quartet was playing Pachelbel’s Canon.  Can we add that to Portland???

That evening  I saw The Glorious Ones, the new Ahrens and Flaherty musical at Lincoln Center Theater.  Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are the author/composer team who created Ragtime, Once on This Island, Seussical: The Musical, and A Man of No Importance.  I love their work.

This piece was inspired by a novella about a Comedia Troup in 17th Century Italy.  You started out thinking it was going to be totally slapstick (which there was a fair share of) but it eventually revealed itself as a story about striving for immortality, and the pain of falling short.  Very gorgeous music, very bittersweet emotional story.  Good evening.  It is in previews in the Mitzi Newhouse Theater (the 350 seater at Lincoln Center) which is a great space in which to see a show.

 Oh:  Dan Ostling (our set designer for Celebrity Row and 36 Views designed the set), and Natalie Belcon (the original Gary Coleman from Avenue Q) played the Courtesan.  Natalie was a student of mine at Carnegie Mellon some 20 years ago, and I loved seeing her blossom under the lights.  Didn’t hurt that she had the most beautiful number of the evening.

OH:  as of 4:00 p.m. today – we have yes’s from 3 of the 4 first choices we were going after for Beard  and 12th Night.  Fingers crossed.