The Abominable Showman, April 22, 2012

(photo credit: Joan Marcus)

Broadway rocker

Beauty and the Beast’s Tony-nominated director Rob Roth dishes about Elton John, Anne Rice, Jackie Collins and Alice Cooper, as well as his critically-hailed book The Art of Classic Rock and the Tony Awards, as the new slimmed-down Beauty and the Beast touring production headlines Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa

By Richard Burnett

Famed Broadway director Rob Roth remembers the day he first met Elton John back in the mid 1990s before Roth developed and directed the inaugural production of Elton John and Tim Rice’s AÏDA, which debuted at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. 

Roth was then the toast of Broadway, even got a Tony Award nomination for Best Director after Beauty and the Beast premiered on the Great White Way in 1994. 

The Sunday Read: Arden Ryshpan on Non-Equity Shows

(photo by Michael Cooper)

So what’s the problem with reviewing that non-Equity show anyway?

by Arden Ryshpan, Executive Director, Canadian Actors' Equity Association

A couple of weeks ago, Canadian Actors’ Equity Association (Equity) sent a letter to the newspapers in Toronto, asking them not to review two up-coming shows being presented by Dancap Productions Inc; “In the Heights” and “Shrek”. 

The request followed on an article, printed at the time Aubrey Dan announced his season, which not only pointed out that several shows would be non-Equity but quoted Dan as saying that he didn’t believe that audiences could tell the difference. 

These non-Equity shows are not just not Canadian Equity, they aren’t American Equity either. These shows advertise themselves as being “direct from Broadway” but may in fact be several generations removed from Broadway. In some cases, the original producer has already mined all the major markets with a full blown touring production and has now licensed a non-union producer to take a version of the show out on the road. In other cases, the original producer has no interest in sending out a tour themselves and immediately licenses it to a non-union producer – that’s the real meaning of “direct from Broadway” in the case of some of the productions that make their way over the border. Unfortunately, no one tells the audience that.

Review: (Toronto) In The Heights

Nicole Cline and Perry Young (photo credit: John Daughtry)

Failing to Reach the Heights

Dancap brings a tour to TO

by Stuart Munro

I first saw In The Heights on Broadway in the spring of 2009. Less than a year had passed since it won its multiple Tony awards (including the 2008 Tony for Best New Musical), and much of the original cast was still with the production. Tickets were still in such demand that I had to buy mine a week in advance, and even then it was in the last row of the balcony. Pre-show, the audience was charged, and I was excited to experience a show with which I was completely unfamiliar. By the time the curtain came down at the end of the show, I was confused. The plot was haphazard, the music seemed bland and repetitive, and the staging and choreography had been cumbersome. Nevertheless, the audience had loved it, and I blamed my lacklustre experience on my terrible seat, and possibly a bad sound design.

Review: (Toronto) American Idiot

Scott J. Campbell (photo credit: Doug Hamilton)

Bells and Whistles signifying...

Is there any there there in American Idiot?

by Axel Van Chee

With more bells and whistles than the biggest Santa’s sled imaginable, American Idiot by Green Day arrives at Toronto Centre for the Arts just in time to ring in the new year. It dazzles with psychedelic colours, exudes an abundance of energy and is unapologetically loud (unlike the Berkeley premiere, ear plugs are not provided). It is also chock-full of the best selling songs from the same-name album to satisfy the most rabid of fans, all superbly orchestrated by Tom Kitt, and performed admirably by the band under Jared Stein. It is also deep down, at the risk of irking all the Green Day fans out there, much ado about nothing.