After the Night and the Music is a one-act play in three parts, written by Elaine May. It opened in 2005. May derived the name of the play from the Howard Dietz song "You and the Night and the Music".
After the Night and the Music is a one-act play in three parts, written by Elaine May. It opened in 2005. May derived the name of the play from the Howard Dietz song "You and the Night and the Music".
The aptly-titled Curtain Raiser is set in the bar of a dance hall where a grim woman and an overweight former dance instructor connect. The grim woman attempts to deflect any advances by the man, telling him that when dancing she can only lead. In response, he teaches her how to improve her technique as she leads.
Giving Up Smoking introduces us to Joanne, a lonely, middle-aged woman waiting to hear from Mel, her date for that evening. We are also introduced to Joanne's best friend Sherman, a lonely, middle-aged gay man waiting to hear from potential new boyfriend Gavin and Sherman's cancer-ridden but brightly optimistic mother Kathleen. One further introduction includes the guitar-strumming Mel, whose policy is to dump a woman before she becomes emotionally demanding.
The four characters discuss hopes and dreams, reminiscing about happier days in monologues that each character delivers from a separate area of the stage.
In Swing Time, Mitzi and her husband Darryl are preparing for the imminent arrival of old friends Gail and Ron. The nature of the evening is revealed when highly-strung Mitzi bemoans the fact her bra and panties don't match. The two couples are slowly easing themselves into the intended purpose of the evening when the phone rings and Mitzi refers to "the private line". Her friends' indignation at not being given the number, and Mitzi's increasingly complicated reasons why they weren't given said number, disrupt the evening's plans in May's typically comic fashion.
After 39 previews, the Manhattan Theatre Club production, directed by Daniel Sullivan and choreographed by Randy Skinner, opened on June 1, 2005, at the Biltmore Theatre. Being hampered by mostly lukewarm reviews, [1] [2] [3] with the Hollywood Reporter saying that the play "too often smacks of warmed-over humor". [4] The play ran for only 38 performances. The cast included Jeannie Berlin, Jere Burns, Brian Kerwin, J. Smith-Cameron, Joanna Glushak, Eddie Korbich, and Deirdre Madigan. [5]
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman.
Company is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. The original 1970 production was nominated for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards, winning six. Company was among the first book musicals to deal with contemporary dating, marriage, and divorce, and is a notable example of a concept musical lacking a linear plot. In a series of vignettes, Company follows bachelor Bobby interacting with his married friends, who throw a party for his 35th birthday.
June Havoc was an American actress, dancer, stage director and memoirist.
Amy Sherman-Palladino is an American television writer, director, and producer. She is the creator of the comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls (2000-2007), Bunheads (2012-2013), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-2023).
Elaine Jill Paige is an English singer and actress, best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, Hertfordshire, Paige attended the Aida Foster Theatre School, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16. Her appearance in the 1968 production of Hair marked her West End debut.
Elaine Iva May is an American comedian, filmmaker, playwright, and actress. She first gained fame in the 1950s for her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols, before transitioning her career regularly breaking the mold as a writer and director of several critically acclaimed films. She has received numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013, and an Honorary Academy Award in 2022.
The Seven Year Itch is a 1955 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, from a screenplay he co-wrote with George Axelrod from the 1952 three-act play. The film stars Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, who reprised his stage role. It contains one of the most iconic pop-culture images of the 20th century – Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown upwards by a passing train. The titular phrase, which refers to a waning interest in monogamous relationship after seven years of marriage, has been used by psychologists.
Melanie Clare Sophie Giedroyc is an English actress, comedian and television presenter. With Sue Perkins, she has co-hosted series including Light Lunch for Channel 4, The Great British Bake Off for the BBC and chat show Mel and Sue for ITV. In early 2017 Giedroyc co-presented the BBC show Let It Shine. Since 2015 she has held a number of commentating roles for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Elaine Stritch was an American actress, known for her work on Broadway and later, television. She made her professional stage debut in 1944 and appeared in numerous stage plays, musicals, feature films and television series. Stritch was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Mitzi Gaynor is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Her notable films include We're Not Married! (1952), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), The Birds and the Bees (1956), and South Pacific (1958) – for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical at the 1959 awards.
Sally Ann Howes was an English actress and singer. Her career on screen, stage and television spanned six decades. She is best known for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In 1963, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance in Brigadoon.
Gabrielle Mary Antonia Hoffmann is an American actress. She initially found success as a child actress, appearing in Field of Dreams,Uncle Buck, and Sleepless in Seattle, and then later as a teenager with Now and Then,Volcano,All I Wanna Do, and 200 Cigarettes.
Contact is a musical "dance play" that was developed by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, with its "book" by Weidman and both choreography and direction by Stroman. It ran both off-Broadway and on Broadway in 1999–2002. It consists of three separate one-act dance plays.
Street Scene is an American opera by Kurt Weill (music), Langston Hughes (lyrics), and Elmer Rice (book). Written in 1946 and premiered in Philadelphia that year, Street Scene is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1929 play of the same name by Rice.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is a musical with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, with the book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the Manuel Puig novel El Beso de la Mujer Araña. Directed by Harold Prince, the musical had runs in the West End (1992) and Broadway (1993) and won the 1993 Tony Award for Best Musical.
Curtains is a musical mystery comedy with a book by Rupert Holmes, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander, with additional lyrics by Kander and Holmes.
Janel Meilani Parrish Long is an American actress and singer. She starred as Mona Vanderwaal in the mystery-drama television series Pretty Little Liars (2010–2017) and its spinoff Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists (2019), and as Margot Covey in the To All the Boys film series (2018–2021). She also portrayed Young Cosette in the Broadway production of Les Misérables (1996), and Jade in the teen comedy film Bratz (2007).
Waiting for the Moon: An American Love Story, formerly Zelda or Scott & Zelda: The Other Side Of Paradise, is a musical with music by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Jack Murphy. It is the second finished production the two have presented, having previously collaborated on The Civil War. The show had its world premiere at the Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center in Marlton, New Jersey in July 2005. The musical is based on the lives of famed American author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald.
The Forty-Year-Old Version is a 2020 American comedy-drama film written, directed, and produced by Radha Blank, in her feature directorial debut. It stars Blank, Peter Kim, Oswin Benjamin, and Reed Birney.