Show-Biz Notes

Just a show-biz related word or two here about a couple of plays I’ve seen recently. I hadn’t planned on besmirching the blog-waves about them but the awards season is upon us and both plays have gotten some press because of it. Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire is a Tony nominee for Best Play and Frances McDormand as Best Actress and, although I think McDormand could win, the play might not. Frankly, the play is just this side of wonderful and I am sure it will be extensively remounted at regional theaters for years to come. One thought I’ve had is that I wonder if another, equally boffo, actress without any name recognition would have been nominated. I’d like to think so but it’s a futile speculation since McDormand does have the name recognition and she does deserve the nomination and I hope she wins.
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Update June 12, 2011: Frances McDormand did indeed win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and it was well deserved despite her getting the freak on in both her choice of what she wore and in her acceptance speech.

Peter and the Starcatcher (now closed after several extensions) was an off-Broadway success at New York Theatre Workshop and some poop on the street has seeped my way that it is being retooled for Broadway. This might be a mistake because it seemed, when I saw it, a perfect small musical that belongs in a small theater downtown. One never knows, or particularly understands, the urge to reach Broadway heights (at the cost of many $millions) with a stage production that might not belong in that rarified air but, again, my perception has proved wrong before, e.g., Avenue Q, which went on to win the Tony for Best Musical (but has since, sensibly, returned to off-Broadway). The directors of Starcatcher, Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, won a 2011 Obie and Christian Borle won a Lucille Lortel award as Best Actor. If the original excellent reviews and this new ready-made publicity is grounds for expanding the show into Big-Buckville, well who am I to say nay?