“Enron” is coming soon to Broadway, and so is “Looped,” with Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead. Al Pacino will do Shylock in Central Park. Laurie Metcalf is going from Neil Simon to Sam Shepard. Corbin Bleu from the High School Musical movies has been cast as the lead Usnavi in “In The Heights,” news that sparked some frighteningly hostile reaction from Twitterers.

As we are nearing the end of both the year and the decade, there are an overwhelming number of top 10 lists to sort through. There are also some surprising new statistics about Broadway theatergoers and people who attend arts performances in general, not all of it bad (though most of it.)

These highlights were mixed in with other theater news, digressions (a sad anniversary; a few epigrams, etc.) and links to my own reviews and articles, in last week’s tweets from New York Theater.

Monday, December 7, 2009
A day that has lived in infamy.

The first of my three articles on “The Great Recession” six short plays by Adam Rapp, Itamar Moses, etc. from the Flea Theater. The theater calls itself The Flea because “we’re tiny and get under your skin.”

More negative reviews of Mamet’s “Race” – Elizabeth Vincentelli: it’s like “flailing acrimony from a 15-year-old with a Twitter account” Review roundup

Al Pacino is going to be playing Shylock in Merchant of Venice in Central Park this summer, in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of “Merchant of Venice.” Pacino previously played the role in a 2004 film.

Broadway and Off-Broadway shows that are closing in January: 1/3: Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, Shrek, Superior Donuts, Toxic Avenger; 1/10: Altar Boyz, Burn The Floor, In The Next Room, The 39 Steps; 1/17: Wishful Drinking; 1/24: Bye Bye Birdie

Henry Miller Theater, “Bye, Bye, Birdie” home, getting Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein’s “All About Me” Here’s my story on the brand new, and slightly bizarre, Miller theater

My “So Help Me God!” review — a diva-thon, a barbed backstage comedy, “42nd Street” meets “The Producers”…if u fall sleep occasionally

Tuesday, December 8
John Lennon was killed 29 years ago today.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” — Albert Einstein

TDF’s new TKTS Booth with the red staircase in Times Square was named “Building of the Decade” by New York Magazine, which calls it “a work of exuberant uselessness” — apparently a good thing

Carrie Underwood, Kristin Chenoweth, and Christina Applegate sing a medley “Leader of the Pack” etc via YouTube(skip to 2:47 mark)

Edward Albee’s “Me, Myself & I” will have its NY premiere at Playwrights Horizon, August 2010 with Elizabeth Ashley and Brian Murray!

“The Miracle Worker” has cast a vision-impaired 10-year-old as the understudy for the role of Helen Keller.

Time Magazine’s list of top ten plays and musicals of 2009: 1. Ruined. 2. A Steady Rain 3. Norman Conquests 4.Heart Is a Lonely Hunter 5. Ragtime 6. Mary Stuart 7. Finian’s Rainbow 8. Hamlet 9. Fela! 10. After Miss Julie
“Ruined” by Lynn Nottage is “both illuminating journalism and enormously moving human drama.”
WhoaItsJonathan’s reaction (this is a different Jonathan, not me): “What about Next to Normal?”

Corbin Bleu of the High School Musical movies cast as the lead in “In The Heights”

Danniep22: Corbin Bleu as Usnavi in In The Heights?? Ashlee Simpson as Roxie Hart in CHICAGO??? What is thus world coming 2????????

ladyxboheme: I CAN TOLERATE YOU CORBIN BLEU BUT STAY AWAY FROM IN THE HEIGHTS. YOU’RE GOING TO BE A TERRIBLE USNAVI. YOU’RE TOO YOUNG AND THE WRONG RACE.

ashajayy: I really don’t think I am okay with Corbin Bleu playing Usnavi in In The Heights. HE’S NOT EVEN HISPANIC. D: D: D: *Angry face*

kdelrossi … Corbin Bleu as Usnavi looks like the crappiest move since having a Glee hiatus.

JulesAEvans: Wait, Corbin Bleu is playing USNAVI? Oh, dear. If LMM’s ‘ok’ [Lin-Manuel Miranda, the original Usnavi and the creator of “In The Heights”) then I guess I should be too..

Wednesday, December 9
All three parts of my Great Recession series, about the plays on the topic at the Flea Theater, opening December 10th:
Chapter 1: Is This A Stroke?

Chapter 11: Too Young To Be Bankrupt?

Chapter 111: Did You Hear The One About...

Revival of "Search and Destroy" by Howard Korder, about moral degradation of the Reagan era, Jan 14 to 23, at Kraine Theater, 85 E. 4th St.

For all the negative word about Mamet's "Race", its $1 million in advance sales means it won't shut down in December, says Post

Lisa D'Amour (whose "Terrible Things" is coming to P.S. 122): one line by Mac Wellman made me a playwright ”My husband was of ordinary size and so was the house”

The New Yorker's high-brow list of 2009's 10 top cultural events of the year, e.g. Goldoni’s “Trilogia della Villeggiatura” at Lincoln Center.

Gypsy of the Year Award went to spoof by the cast of “Chicago”: older gypsy from West Side Story lusts after younger dancer from Bye Bye Birdie

Laurie Metcalf, abruptly out of a job when Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" shut down, will join cast of the Sam Shepard revival, ‘A Lie of the Mind."

Thursday, December 10
Idina Menzel, formerly of Wicked, heading to 'Glee'

My review of God of Carnage with the new cast -- Jimmy Smits, Christine Lahti, Annie Potts, Ken Stott -- a replay of “Lord of the Flies” as a comedy of manners, the savagery emerging not among schoolchildren on a deserted island but two middle-aged couples in a NYC condo.

This day in Broadway history: Spring Awakening opened, 2006, won 8 Tonys, led directly to "Glee" on TV and Green Day's "American Idiot" on stage.
How Spring Awakening led to Glee: Lea Michele was the star of the one, then hired to star in the other as Rachel.
How Spring Awakening led to Green Day's American Idiot: Nearly all the creators, including producer and director, are common to both.
Another Glee connection to Spring Awakening: Jonathan Groff of Spring Awakening will join the Glee cast in the Spring, up against Lea Michele

In linking to a news story about an extortion plot against John Stamos, bloggerer/Twitterer SteveOnBroadway wrote: "No, he was NOT blackmailed into doing BYE BYE BIRDIE."

Broadway Theatergoer: Average Age 42.2; 63% Tourists; 21% Foreign; 40% Get Tickets Online etc. according to a Broadway League report

35% of U.S. adults attended an arts performance during 2008, down from roughly 40% in previous National Endowment for the Arts surveys.

All Tennessee Williams season at Target Theater on St. Mark's Place including a new play about the Tennessee Williams/Elia Kazan collaboration

"Looped" with Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead coming to Broadway previews begin Feb. 19, 2010 at the Lyceum Theater.

100 "essential websites" include Twitter, Metacritic (aggregates reviews), Pitchfork (music), Art Daily, Hulu

Actor Francis Jue, from the original production of "Yellow Face" is in the Drama Book Shop to read from the play along with playwright David Henry Hwang and Edward Albee.
Edward Albee at Drama Book Shop: "I'm old, intelligent, a writer, gay--i belong to a number of minorities and none of them creates my identity."

Enron,” a play about the financial scandal, to open on Broadway in April at the Broadhurst Theater

Friday, December 11
Tony Awards Committee in another controversy -- placed both "Oleanna" and "After Miss Julie" in category of "revival"

COIL, Dangerous Theater At P.S. 122 Jan 6 to 17, 2010

The Top 10 of The Top 10 of the Decades -- Top 10 films, top 10 albums, top 10 "Internet moments," top 10 most-watched TV shows of the decade, 2000 to 2009. In other words, the best Top 10 Lists

Saturday, December 12, 2009
Out-of-town arts stats: 1. Monaco's orchestra is bigger than its army. 2. Nevada has more out-of-work dancers than any other state.

Today in Off Broadway history: 1985, Nunsense opens at the Cherry Lane, launching nun-fun franchise.1994, Tony Kushner's Slavs opens at New York Theater Workshop.

Oscar Wilde: "Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." New Year's Eve in NYC

The critic's pocket guide -- some 60 synonyms for "interesting" (e.g. engaging) or "boring" (dull), courtesy Roger Ebert

andrewkober (a cast member of "Hair"): Every night after two shows, I look back and think, "How on earth did we do that TWICE?"

Sunday, December 13
Today's Broadway birthdays: Dick Van Dyke (star of the original Bye, Bye Birdie), 1925, Christopher Plummer (Barrymore, many more), 1927

Broadway closing today: "The Royal Family." Broadway opening tonight: "A Little Night Music"

HarveyFierstein: 5 days of rehearsal, 7 previews and today the critics arrive to see FIDDLER. Well, it's Channukkah - miracles abound.

Hallie Foote on her father Horton Foote and the Orphans' Home Cycle, feature in the NY Times.

Obama has marshaled the largest infusion of cultural funding in decades — despite a few stumbles, from the Associated Press.

Two reactions to the Shakespeare Globe Theatre of London’s production of Love's Labour's Lost at Pace University, now playing through December 21st:
1. Actor Michael Urie (he plays Marc St. James in “Ugly Betty”): Such fun, great play and great production! Go if you like the bard!
2. Critic Leonard Jacobs: Why did Love's Labour's Lost performance start so late? @clydefitch

Times of London's list of top 20 theater of the decade in London includes eight seen (or soon to be seen) in New York, and several that originated in New York/the United States.
The full list (for descriptions clink on the link): 1. Warhorse. 2. Jerusalem. 3. The Norman Conquests. 4. Royal Shakespeare Company Histories. 5. Hamlet [not the one with Jude Law]. 6. Black Watch. 7. Mary Stuart. 8. The Far Side of the Moon. 9. That Face. 10. Stovepipe. 11. Much Ado About Nothing. 12. A Streetcar Named Desire (with Rachel Weisz as Blanche, not the one with Cate Blanchett). 13. God of Carnage. 14. The Pillowman. 15. Avenue Q. 16. The Voysey Inheritance/Waste. 17. August: Osage County. 18. Frost/Nixon. 19. La Cage Aux Folles (the one that’s coming to Broadway in a few months). 20. The Seafarer.

Bureaucrats act as cultural arbiters, deciding which performers are talented enough (”culturally unique”) to enter the United States. Article from the Wall Street Journal.

Can Jeff Bridges sing? Daniel Day-Lewis? We’ll see soon enough. Movie stars in new movie musicals (e.g. “Nine”). Article in the Los Angeles Times.

Paris is suddenly Broadway musical-crazy: Grease, West Side Story, Sound of Music. Will there soon be a Jerry Lewis musical? (The Jerry Lewis musical was my joke. The story is from the Times of London; they don’t make jokes like that. I’ve never met a French person — including hip French people like director Mathieu Kassovitz — who didn’t adore Jerry Lewis.)

American Film Institute Awards top 10 in TV and film for 2009.
TV:Big Bang Theory,Big Love,Friday Night Lights,Glee,Mad Men,Modern Family,The #1 Ladies Detective Agency,Nurse Jackie,Party Down,True Blood
Films: Coraline, the Hangover, The Hurt Locker, The Messenger, Precious (etc.), A Serious Man, A Single Man, Sugar, Up, Up in the Air

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