Dear Mr. President and Madam Vice President

The Dramatists Guild today delivered to the incoming President and Vice President of the United States letters written by playwrights, lyricists, and composers from across the country.

Our message is clear. The arts are vital to our country, both economically and spiritually. With the country facing so many challenges, the arts have got to be part of the solution, and we are asking the new administration to think big.

You can read a selection of letters here, including my own. Other dramatists who contributed letters include David Ives, Ken Ludwig, Theresa Rebeck, and John Weidman, to name just a few.

In the wake of COVID-19 and the economic devastation it has caused, some dramatists have suggested that we could revive the Federal Theatre Project, which in the 1930s paved the way for the golden ages of both Broadway and Hollywood. This could potentially help to knit back together our frayed body politic, as well as provide relief to arts workers who have been made unemployed through no fault of their own.

Alternatively, we could do what the great American playwright Arthur Miller urged us to do, and create a national theatre. While the Kennedy Center provides a home for arts organizations, our nation still has no official national theatre with funding from the government, a situation lamented not just by Democrats like President Kennedy, but by Republicans like President Eisenhower as well. We could at long last rectify that situation, perhaps naming the new national theatre for Arthur Miller.

Whatever we do, however, we must do it now. America does not have a moment to lose.

Cyrano, My Love

I just saw Cyrano, My Love, a wonderful new movie written and directed by Alexis Michalik that imagines how Edmond Rostand might have come to write his classic play Cyrano de Bergerac.

Theresa Rebeck gave her own account of Cyrano's creation in Bernhardt/Hamlet, one of my favorite plays to open in New York last year. Michalik's take is not as psychologically believable, but it's not supposed to be. Instead, it is a wild, theatrical romp through the backstage shenanigans of what was predicted to be a disaster, but ended up becoming one of the most beloved plays of the French theatre.

Thomas Solivérès plays Rostand, a neo-romantic poet whose recent play La Princesse Lointaine was a flop in spite of starring the divine actress Sarah Bernhardt. He sets out to write a play for the comic actor Constant Coquelin (played by Olivier Gourmet), who has his own troubles with the Comédie-Française. While Coquelin tries to sell the play to backers, there's only one problem: it isn't written yet.

In scenes reminiscent of Shakespeare in Love, Rostand stumbles upon the inspiration he needs. This is largely with help from a young costumer who becomes his muse, even though (as in Cyrano) she thinks she is in love with a handsome actor whose letters to her are all penned by Rostand. Sometimes we get scenes right out of the play, only performed by Rostand and his contemporaries in the film. And speaking of film, a short by the Méliès brothers even makes an appearance, leading Rostand to despair that the theatre itself might soon become obsolete.

Much of the fun of Cyrano, My Love comes from brief appearances of historical figures of the era, including a consumptive Anton Chekov, waiting patiently downstairs at a Paris brothel while a certain Constantin is indulging with one of the hostesses. The movie also makes Rostand frenemies with the farce writer Georges Feydeau, who is shown getting ready to open another crowd pleaser as Cyrano is also in rehearsals. Indeed, the movie at times seems more like a crazy Feydeau farce than the love-sick heroic comedy that made Rostand famous.

None of that really matters, though, since the film is so delightful. When Cyrano first opened at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in 1897, the audience called the actors back for curtain call after curtain call, and when I saw the movie at the Angelika Film Center, the audience likewise burst into applause. If you get a chance to see it, you won't be disappointed.

Top Plays of 2018

Each December, I compile a list of the top plays I saw that opened that year in New York City. Last year, Sweeney Todd, HOME/SICK, and Julius Caesar topped the list.

This year both Roundabout Theatre Company and the Public Theater have multiple shows on my list. Playwrights William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw get multiple nods as well.

So without further ado, here’s my list:

10. Romeo and Juliet – Each year, New York Classical Theatre Company puts on free productions in the city’s parks. This summer’s production of Shakespeare’s classic tale about star-crossed lovers used innovative doubling to tell a familiar story in a memorable new way.

9. Heartbreak House – Gingold Theatrical Group makes the list this year with another innovative adaptation of a classic. This re-imagining of Shaw’s chestnut about Europe during World War I was reset as a play-within-a-play during the London Blitz, which worked quite well.

8. Love’s Labour’s Lost – This Shake & Bake production combines the Bard’s romantic comedy with a five-course tasting menu. The actors do a wonderful job creating magical moments in a pared-down production in the Meatpacking District. The food is tasty, but it’s the acting that is truly delicious.

7. Stories by Heart – So, what is this thing? That’s what John Lithgow quipped at the beginning of his one-man show about the stories his father read to him as a child. Ordinarily, I don’t go in for one person plays, but Lithgow’s mixture of personal memoir with classic storytelling won me over in the end.

6. Othello – Not everyone loved the Public Theatre’s production of Othello this summer at the Delacorte, but I found Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s direction to be superb. The relationship between Iago and Rodrigo was particularly fascinating to me, and Chukwudi Iwuji did a great job playing the title role.

5. Mother of the Maid – The Public Theatre scored another hit with Jane Anderson’s new play Mother of the Maid about the family of Joan of Arc. The piece was marketed as a vehicle for Glenn Close, who played Isabelle Arc, but Anderson’s play tells the story from an interesting perspective, and would be worth seeing even without Close’s star power.

4. Bernhardt/Hamlet – As a fan of both Sarah Bernhardt and William Shakespeare, I knew I had to see this show. This is probably Theresa Rebeck’s best play to date, and the cast was superb. Janet McTeer was deservedly praised as Bernhardt, but Dylan Baker was also wonderful as the legendary French actor Constant Coquelin, and Jason Butler gave a memorable portrayal of the playwright Edmond Rostand.

3. Pygmalion – Bedlam theatre company’s productions are sometimes hit-or-miss, but they are generally memorable even when they don’t entirely succeed. This year’s re-imagining of Shaw’s most popular play definitely qualifies as a hit, though. The immersive first act led into an exploration of not just class, but also race, ethnicity, and assimilation, all in the frantic Bedlam style in which performers play multiple characters to hilarious effect.

2. Twelfth Night – What happened to musicals this year? All of my top ten picks were straight plays this year, with the exception of Shaina Taub’s musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which she co-created with director Kwame Kwei-Armah as part of the Public Works program, but came back in a new production this summer as a part of the regular Shakespeare in the Park season. Taub’s songs are inspired by Shakespeare’s text, but not usually direct settings of his poetry, in spite of the fact that Twelfth Night already contains multiple songs. Her lyrics fit in with the Bard’s play beautifully, and her performance as Feste was equally delightful.

1. Travesties – To me, the most delightful production this year, however, was Roundabout’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s play Travesties. As a playwright, I’ve always admired Stoppard’s skill in weaving together the stories of James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin, and Tristan Tzara into a rollicking farce that also makes us think and feel in new ways. Perhaps because this production was directed by a fellow playwright, Patrick Marber, it was able to encompass both the profundity and goofiness of Stoppard’s writing. A cast that included Tom Hollander, Scarlett Strallen, and Sara Topham also seemed exceptionally sympathetic to Stoppard’s ambitious vision.

So that’s my list. Here’s to an even better year of New York theatre in 2019!

Not One-Woman Shows

I recently saw back-to-back two plays whose marketing makes them look like one-woman shows. Fortunately, both actually provide a diverse cast telling a story far more interesting than the one I had originally anticipated.

Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Theresa Rebeck's new play Bernhardt/Hamlet plays up the star power of actress Janet McTeer, who portrays the divine Sarah Bernhardt. See one of the great actors living play one of the greatest performers ever in what is probably the greatest role of all time! What more could you need?

Well, whether the play needs anything more, it gives us so very, very much more than that. For one thing, the supporting cast of Bernhardt's production of Hamlet is led by the great actor Constant Coquelin, played by Dylan Baker. Coquelin is more than willing to allow Berhardt to take center stage, despite the fact that he himself has played the role of Hamlet numerous times in the provinces.

Today, Coquelin is most famous for originating the title role in Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, and Rostand himself appears in Bernhardt/Hamlet, played by Jason Butler Harner. Rostand is working on a new play, but Bernhardt's antics keep interrupting his writing. The audience can probably guess that the interrupted masterpiece is Cyrano, and Rebeck gives us a duel between two great artists, Berhardt trying to give a great performance, and Rostand trying to write a great play, both of them in the shadow of the great Shakespeare, who looms in the background like the ghost of Hamlet's father.

As if that weren't enough artists for one play, Rebeck also introduces us to the Czech painter and theatre poster designer Alphonse Mucha, played by Matthew Saldivar. Mucha is deservedly famous for his Art Nouveau posters featuring Bernhardt, and his poster for Hamlet was one of his most iconic creations. Perhaps the most memorable performance in the play, however, is by Ito Aghayere, who plays Rostand's wife Rosamond. The historical Rosemonde Gérard has come to be known as a rather second-rate poet in spite of her fame in her own lifetime, and Rebeck turns her into a portrait of a woman determined to make sure others create great art even if she cannot create it herself.

After being delighted by Bernhardt/Hamlet, I went with a little bit of trepidation to New York Theatre Workshop to see Heidi Schreck's new play What the Constitution Means to Me. I loved Schreck's Creature and There Are No More Big Secrets, but the last play I saw at NYTW was an unimaginative piece of garbage, so I was rather afraid I would be disappointed. Fortunately, I was not. Though Schreck's latest work doesn't have the supernatural elements of some of her earlier pieces, it is filled with a magical theatricality that gives it a similar air of the uncanny.

What the Constitution Means to Me is inspired by Schreck's experience as a teenager traveling to various towns to enter contests by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in which high school students gave speeches about the U.S. Constitution. Schreck's mother was a debate coach, and she created a bit of a racket for her daughter, driving large distances so she could enter what were supposed to be regional competitions for scholarship money. It worked, and Schreck was able to pay for her college education with her winnings.

This all sounds like a set-up for a one-woman show, but again, the play provides us with something much more unexpected, and altogether delightful. Schreck is accompanied onstage by actor Mike Iveson, who plays a VFW moderator giving her warning signs when she approaches her time limit and ringing a bell at the end of sections of her speech. Later, Iveson speaks directly to the audience not as a character, but as himself, as Schreck does throughout the piece. Both speak from the heart about not just the troubled history of our nation, but their own troubled personal histories, emphasizing how the personal and the political intersect.

The third performer in the show is a high-school debater, played on alternate nights by Rosdely Ciprain and Thursday Williams. I saw Williams, who charmingly won over the audience, and not surprisingly beat Schreck hands-down in the debate at the end of the show. Get your tickets now. Both Bernhardt/Hamlet and What the Constitution Means to Me are well worth seeing.

Theater on Cape Cod

Yesterday was our second day of rehearsal for Moby-Dick at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. Before we had rehearsal, however, Gordon Stanley and Lee Seymour, who play Ahab and Ishmael, did a radio interview with our fearless captain, director Christopher Ostrom.

The interview was up in Provincetown. I had never been there before, so I snagged a ride with Gordon and Lee and walked around the place. The architecture is beautiful, and I was particularly struck by an old church that has been converted to a public library.

Apparently, the interview went well, as Lee and Gordon seemed happy afterward. We got some lobster rolls and clam chowder and headed to the theater. It was the second day of rehearsal, but I quickly had a couple of tweaks to make to the script. We mainly just did table work for Act One, but we'll be working on Act II today.

After rehearsal, the cast headed over to Moby-Dick's Restaurant. (Where else would we go?) There was more good seafood, and we got ready to see Seminar at W.H.A.T. Seminar stars Alan Campbell, but also features some of our housemates here in company housing, Satomi Blair, Rachel Casparian, and Jacob Heimer, as well as local actor Ben Berry.

Seminar was great. I missed this Theresa Rebeck play when it was on Broadway, so I was glad to see it here, wonderfully directed by Christine Toy Johnson. The production is only running until June 13th, so if you'll be out on Cape Cod anytime before then, make sure to check it out.

I'm looking forward to rehearsal for Moby-Dick today. Tomorrow, I head down to New York, and I won't be back on the Cape until tech week. Fortunately, the cast is excellent, so I'm sure it will be a great production!