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More (Tony award) Life!

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This blog is going to be about Angels, and why being the most nominated play in Tony history is important. But it's also a little bit personal. The Tony’s have book-ended my Theatre Nerd career, and so my research career. When I was 18 I flew to New York the night the Tony’s were happening. It was my first solo trip to the city, and I was going to see Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz again. I'd seen it by accident the December previously, and fallen in love. Not just with the show, but with theatre, and as every theatre kid does at some point, with Broadway. That show changed me in that it's the first I really connected with, but that show also put me on the path to my PhD. It is, for those who don't know, the story of Peter Allen, Australian Singer-Songwriter who died of AIDS. (Except they never mention the word AIDS in the show, but that's another thesis altogether). And to this day I can't explain it but being a slightly strange kid (evidently) that set...
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“Hello and Good Morning”

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“Hello and Good Morning” When Susan Brown step out, obscured by Rabbi beard and hat, to utter those words and open Angels in America this Saturday, it is a milestone moment. 26 years, 4 months and 2 days (yes, exactly) after opening on Broadway the Angels have finally flown home, via London. There’s a sense that once again in this play’s history, London quietly created something quite special out of this iconic American play. It’s right that it’s Brown who opens the play. The formidable, often overlooked actress Broadway probably has never heard of but should have. Because despite the star line up above the title there’s a quiet, yes quite British confidence, about a production filled with non-Americans taking on this icon of British theatre. Much like the doubling in the play, the original London production was a ‘double’ of the Broadway (and Los Angeles) productions happening simultaneously.   And yet, through quirks of logistics, the National Theatre en...
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More Life- Angels in America on Broadway

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“More Life” Revisiting revival It’s a rare luxury to revisit any theatre production later in its life. More so to see an evolved production. That’s what visiting Angels on Broadway feels like. They are of course the same production…but not. This is a production that has ‘flown home’ and now exists before a home crowd audience. One which knows not only the nuances of the play, but the world in which it lives. Theatre is a living breathing thing, the play we watch on stage is created with the audience. And so, the Broadway production is a unique entity- the same production but different in many respects. “I live in America Louis” on audiences In terms of audiences, this is a critical thing to address- both in terms of the play’s place with Broadway audiences and how they engage with it. But I’ve been going to Broadway for about 15 years, and I’ve never seen a play greeted with such rapture as this one. It was more like watching a musical- applause after every scen...
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