PLAYBILL.COM'S THEATRE WEEK IN REVIEW, Sept. 19-25: Next Fall Next Spring

By Robert Simonson
September 25, 2009

One could easily have accused actor Geoffrey Nauffts of executing a vanity trip last spring, when, as artistic director of Off-Broadway's Naked Angels, he decided the best thing to do was produce that great new play by that rising playwright named, uh, Geoffrey Nauffts.

But, no, it turned out the thesp/scribe knew what he was doing. The show, Next Fall, an exploration of faith in a modern gay relationship, got wonderful reviews, some of the best ever received by the longstanding company, which has always been noteworthy for its fancy and talented members, but produces sporadically. The show closed in August, after several extensions, with some vague promises of a future. That future has come and, surprise, it's on Broadway. The show will arrive at the Helen Hayes Theatre in 2010, making nascent playwright Nauffts suddenly a Broadway playwright and Naked Angels a company with Broadway credits after more than 20 years in the business.

Barbara Manocherian, Richard Willis and Anthony Barrile will produce, in association with Naked Angels. Off-Broadway director Sheryl Kaller will return to stage the comedy-drama. Casting has not been determined. (I smell a star.)

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Librettist Jeff Whitty spoke to Playbill.com a few weeks back and teasingly talked of the great, as-yet-named team he was going to work with on the upcoming musicalization of the cheerleading movie Bring It On. Well, now they've been named. Andy Blankenbuehler (Tony Award-winning choreographer of In the Heights) will direct and choreograph the new musical, which will boast music by In the Heights Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda and Next to Normal Tony winner Tom Kitt and lyrics by High Fidelity's Amanda Green. (Two composers? Howzat work?)

A developmental regional production is expected in early 2011, with a national tour to follow.

Among the producers are the fine corporate fellows at Universal Pictures Stage Productions (Universal has had a hot film franchise with "Bring It On" and its sequels, but the stage story is being called wholly new) along with Charlie Lyons and Armyan Bernstein of Beacon Communications.

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Geoffrey Rush, the Oscar winner who made a splash in two hemispheres with his Tony Award-winning performance in Ionesco's seldom-seen Exit the King, has been rebitten by the theatre bug. (He did quite a lot of stage work before Hollywood discovered him in "Shine.")

Variety reports that Rush will star in Sydney's Belvoir St. Theater production of Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman. (Rush likes him a tough sell, doesn't he?) Neil Armfield, the artistic director of the Australian theatre company, will direct the 2010 production.

But that's not all! Rush will be taking on the role of the Man in Chair in the Australian premiere of the Tony-winning The Drowsy Chaperone. That show will be at the Melbourne Theatre Company and will open in January 2010. Simon Philips will direct.

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	Barbara Roberston in Yeast Nation
	photo by Michael Brosilow

It's been a long, long time since we've heard from the Urinetown team of Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis. (The career patterns of the newer Broadway composing teams these days seems to be: Win a Tony, disappear for a decade.) But now they're back, and with a musical even more absurd than their first. Yeast Nation (The Triumph of Life) is, as Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones quipped, "the ultimate prequel." It is set in "The Primordial Soup. 3,000,458,000 B.C." and its characters are a colony of salt-eating yeasts. Nobody ever said these boys didn't set up challenges for themselves.

The show, which had a previous production in, um, Alaska, opened this week in Chicago, and the reception was as surprising as the one that greeted Urinetown almost ten years ago. The Sun-Times was encouraging, if skeptical, encouraging some cutting. But Variety was better, saying "While it's an easily recognizable sibling to Urinetown, show possesses enough uniqueness and consistent cleverness to forge its own path." And the Tribune's notice was an unqualified rave, saying "When you've stopped laughing from this yeast infection, you can tap your toes and clap your hands to a wholly lovable score from Hollmann far superior in range, wit, style and melody to the tunes that make up Urinetown." And everyone had to admit that the thing was funny, the score strong and the cast nailed the material. That should be enough to convince New York producers that the team of Hollmann and Kotis may, er, rise again.

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The costumes for Broadway's The Lion King are officially historic.

Disney Theatrical Productions said it will donate several costume pieces from the Tony Award-winning Best Musical to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History at a special ceremony Sept. 24.

Costume elements from the show's protagonist Simba and the tribal shaman Rafiki will be donated to the collection, which also features iconic objects from Broadway's Cats, Rent and The King and I. (Cats? American history?)

Among the items to be viewed: the stylized lion mask and headdress of Simba and the costume, custom shoes and hat designed for Rafiki.

Julie Taymor designed the costume and the masks (with Michael Curry) for the original Broadway production of The Lion King, which opened on Nov. 13, 1997. The hit musical moved to the Minskoff Theatre, where it continues.