Following ‘Maestro,’ Portoy and Blaemire will play Comden and Green live
In the new Netflix bio film “Maestro” (in which Bradley Cooper portrays Leonard Bernstein), Mallory Portnoy (“Oklahoma!”) and Nick Blaemire (“Glory Days”) make a brief appearance as the legendary musical comedy songwriting team Betty Comden and Adolph Green (“On the Town, “”Wonderful Town,” “Bells Are Ringing”), singing “Carried Away” from “On the Town” around the piano. Portnoy and Blaemire will now take their roles a step further with a revival of “A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green,” the hit two-hander cabaret/revue presented by Comden and Green in the 1950s (which was preserved via cast album). The show will play the Café Carlyle on the Upper East Side on Sun., March 3 and Mon, March 4 as “a prelude to an upcoming full-length theater version.” Suggested attire for the event is “Late 50’s Cocktail Party.”
Bareilles and Ruhl working on stage adaptation of ‘The Interestings’
Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles (who made a very successful transition to musical theater with “Waitress”) and Sarah Ruhl (the Pulitzer-Prize winning, playwright of many proudly whimsical plays) are at work on a stage musical adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s 2013 best-selling novel “The Interestings,” which chronicles a group of teens who meet at summer camp in the 1970s and how they change over the course of the coming decades. In a statement, Bareilles said that she wrote the first song while in the process of reading the book, describing it as “such an immediate and fascinating world of humanity and ache and adolescence and regret.”
Vanessa Williams to play Miranda in ‘The Devil “Wears Prada’ in London
Vanessa Williams will play fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the new musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada” when it plays London in the fall. The musical (which has music by Elton John, lyrics by Shaina Taub, and a book by Kate Weatherhead) received its world premiere in Chicago with Tony Award winner Beth Leavel playing Priestly. Following a round of poor reviews, Jerry Mitchell (“Kinky Boots”) has taken over the project as director and choreographer, replacing director Anna D. Shapiro. How the London production fares could determine whether and when “The Devil Wears Prada” comes to New York.
Screening of ‘Ragtime’ reunion concert called off
Last week, we shared the news that movie websites such as Fandango and AMC were indicating that a film capture of last spring’s one-night-only, sold-out reunion concert of the original cast of the 1998 Broadway musical “Ragtime” would be screened in movie theaters in March. The websites were even selling tickets. However, no official announcement about the screening had actually been made, and the website pages for “Ragtime” have since been pulled. The Entertainment Community, which presented the concert, confirmed to BroadwayWorld.com that the screening will not happen – at least not now. “We had hoped to announce that the film version of the March 2023 25th reunion concert of ‘Ragtime’…Unfortunately, there are many moving parts to turning a live performance into a film and bringing it to theaters and we are unable to do so at this time.” It is true that presenting a screen capture of a professional stage production is no easy task, requiring the involvement and consents of numerous theater unions.
