Diane and I enjoy regional theater productions so we attended the performance of the Buffalo United Artists production at the Alleyway Theater in Buffalo. The play is set after the first performance of a new Broadway play, The Golden Egg. The characters include an leading actress with an ankle monitor, a director who is a kleptomaniac, a producer who knows more about stock options than drama, a Broadway actor who sold out to Hollywood, and a tormented playwright. As you can guess, there are a lot of comic situations with a sarcastic view of Broadway productions. Yet, despite all the mockery, Terrance McNally’s play does celebrate the love of theater and acting. If this funny play shows up in your neighborhood, I recommend you go see it and laugh. GRADE: A-
Love regional theater too. We always try to attend a play when we travel.
Patti, I’m always impressed at the quality of the talent in regional theater productions. These actors love what they do and it shows!
Over the years we’ve seen a number of them. A local private high school right near us does shows every year and we went when they did a favorite musical, Sondheim (& George Furth)’s COMPANY. We once went in the Lake District in England to a tiny community theater where they did Alan Ayckbourn’s CONFUSIONS. We used to go regularly when in England to the bigger, more professional Theater Royal in York (once saw PYGMALION there). We saw Noel Coward’s PRESENT LAUGHTER at The Gate in Dublin. In 2000-01-02 we saw about half a dozen things, one of which had an audience of fewer than ten people, in Edinburgh at the Fringe and its offshoots.
As for the play at hand, when the revival opened on Broadway – it originally played off-Broadway in 1982, apparently – it was tough to get tickets because of the big-name cast: Nathan Lane (later replaced by Martin Short), Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, F. Murray Abraham, etc. We’ve seen a number of McNally’s plays over the years (my favorite was probably LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!) and I don’t doubt we’d see this one if it comes around again.
Jeff, wow! Nathan Lane, Martin Short, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, and F. Murray Abraham. Love them all! I have not seen LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! but if it shows up we’ll go see it.
And speaking of regional theater: the one you need to watch out for is BUFFALO GAL by A. R. Gurney, who is from Buffalo. (We saw it off-Broadway in 2008.) Susan Sullivan played a television actress coming back to Buffalo to play THE CHERRY ORCHARD at a local theater company. We found it very well done, though I’m not usually a huge Gurney fan. I would think the Buffalo references would resonate with you. I’m surprised it hasn’t played there.
Jeff, A. R. Gurney is a local favorite. BUFFALO GAL hasn’t shown up here as I far as I know. But, if it does…
That sounds entertaining. I’ll try to catch it if it comes here.
We’re incredibly lucky in San Diego to have both the Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse. I saw Bright Star at the Globe and enjoyed it. To this day, I can’t believe I missed out on the preview of Jersey Boys.
One thing I really miss is Forbidden Broadway used to “summer” here at a small regional theater. We’ll be getting Hamilton here, but I’m sure it will sell out to season ticket holders, at the Civic theater.
Maggie, we’ve seen JERSEY BOYS twice and loved it each time. The Four Seasons were part of the soundtrack of our teens. Western NY has an active theater community. And, of course, we’re close to the Shaw Festival at Niagara-On-The-Lake and Toronto’s plays.
We got tickets for JERSEY BOYS for Christmas Eve in 2006, figuring – correctly – that we’d be able to get good seats then rather than waiting more months for it. On our last trip (to date) to London, in April 2011, we were lucky enough to discover that all Cameron MacKintosh shows (of which this is one) offered the best available seats in the house to seniors 60 and over for twenty pounds each! For this bargain price we had great seats in the center of the orchestra, and two of the original four stars were in it!
Jeff, being a “Senior Citizen” does give one some nice perks!
Off Topic – anyone heard how Deb is doing, with all the rain and flooding in her area?
Rick, I’ll send Deb and email and see if the flooding in Louisiana is affecting her.
She is north of the Lake so I’m guessing she is OK. But her daughters are at LSU, and there was flooding near Baton Rouge.
Thanks for thinking of me. All is well here so far. I just replied to George’s email about our situation–please feel free to paste it here, George. Right now we’re just hoping for a few days without rain do that everyone had a chance to dry out. Please keep the west and south parts of the state in your thoughts and prayers–they are really hurting right now and I know from experience that clean-up is long and hard.
Hi George–thank you for thinking of us. Our area (St. Tammany Parish) has not been hard hit. School was cancelled on Friday because there are some isolated areas of flooding, but most of the really bad stuff is west of us: Tangapahoa and Washington parishes, all the way to Baton Rouge and beyond–and lots of the areas south of New Orleans. I just found out this morning that my husband’s cousin and her family in Donaldsonville had to be rescued by boat from their house. Right now, the flooding is so severe at LSU they cancelled the scheduled move-in day yesterday. We’re waiting to see how that affects the twins–they’re supposed to move in Wednesday, but only time and the weather will tell.
Thank you again for thinking of us. We’re grateful that as of right now, all is well.
Take care!
Deb
Deb, glad to hear you’re OK. Hope your family continues to be dry and safe. I always enjoy your comments here on George’s blog, and on mine.