| Hollywood Arms | |
|---|---|
 Original poster | |
| Written by | Carrie Hamilton Carol Burnett |
| Date premiered | April 9, 2002 |
| Place premiered | Goodman Theatre, Chicago |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Dramedy |
| Setting | A dilapidated apartment building in Hollywood, 1941 and 1951 |
Hollywood Arms is a play by Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett. It ran at the Goodman Theatre and on Broadway in 2002. The play is adapted from Carol Burnett's memoir One More Time .
The dramedy is set in Hollywood, California in 1941 and 1951, and centers on the heartbreak and laughter shared by three generations of women living on welfare in a dingy apartment house. The cast of characters, based on Carol Burnett and her real-life relatives, includes no-nonsense grandmother Nanny; Louise, a beautiful, alcoholic mother determined to be a writer for movie magazines; Jody, an absent father who is struggling with his own demons; and Helen, a young girl whose only escape is the rooftop of their rundown building, where she creates her own magical world and dreams of a successful show business career.
The first workshop, still titled One More Time, was supported by the Sundance Theatre Lab at the Sundance Resort in Utah during a two-week span in the summer of 1998. [1] Carrie Hamilton never saw her work reach the stage. On January 20, 2002, she died of brain and lung cancer. Burnett, determined that the play serve as a tribute to her late daughter's memory, brought it to the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, where it opened on April 9, 2002. Directed by Hal Prince, the cast included Linda Lavin as Nanny, Michele Pawk as Louise, Frank Wood as Jody, and Sara Niemietz and Donna Lynne Champlin as the younger and older Helen, with Barbara E. Robertson, Nicolas King, Patrick Clear, and Emily Graham-Handley in supporting roles.
The Broadway production, also directed by Prince, opened on October 31, 2002 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 76 performances and 28 previews. Most of the Chicago cast remained with the play, with Leslie Hendrix replacing Barbara E. Robertson. [2] Michele Pawk won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Composer Robert Lindsey-Nassif provided the original score. Judith Dolan designed costumes for the production. [3]
Burnett, Pawk, Tyne Daly, Emily Skeggs, Sydney Lucas, Anthony Edwards, Cotter Smith, Jenny Jules, Caleb McLaughlin, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Will Pullen, Izzy Hanson-Johnston, Erik Liberman and Ben Wexler, directed by Mark Brokaw, participated in a one-time reading of the play on September 21, 2015 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. [4] [5]
Reviewing the play at the Goodman Theatre for The New York Times , Bruce Weber wrote,
"Borrowing from the likes of Herb Gardner and Neil Simon, the play has the tone (if not the professionally honed structure) of A Thousand Clowns West or maybe Venice Beach Memoirs.... [T]he narrative conforms more to the contours of biography than invented drama. That is, there's a lot that seems to be here because it was actually so, not because it suits a well-crafted tale.... [T]he play doesn't persuasively argue that it is compelling in itself. Much of its interest has to do with the celebrity of its subject.... It's a story of haplessness and waste and the inexorable narrowing of lives to nothing. But because this is a star's tale, and it has a happy ending, there is something sanitized, if not gilded, about it all. Circumstances never seem oppressive or as entirely unpleasant and depressing as they must, in truth, have been." [6]
Reviewing the Broadway production for The New York Times, Bruce Weber observed,
"In its Broadway incarnation...the show...has made strides from the version that appeared in the spring at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Strains of seriousness and ambition are more clearly evident.... But like the kind of teenage girl that Ms. Burnett suggests she never was, the play still suffers through a million identity crises. It reaches for the organic independence of inventive fiction but stays with the training wheels of the biographical format.... So a play that can't make up its mind whether to be a potent family saga or an episodic comedy worthy of a laugh track ends up ignoring what it has: a potentially bruising and affecting drama about the tough life of a woman in Hollywood in the 1940s and '50s. Instead, I found myself thinking more than once that Hollywood Arms is what would have resulted if television executives had gotten their hands on a script by O'Neill." [7]
Lawrence Frascella of Entertainment Weekly graded it B and commented,
"[W]hile it's not the most trenchant piece of writing you'll ever experience, under Harold Prince's expert direction some very harsh material takes on a warm, appealingly nostalgic glow . . . This moving production may kick off a new media subgenre: the Broadway-bound star autobiography." [8]
Writing for the website Talkin' Broadway, Matthew Murray wrote it
"has a tendency to play as little more than a series of skits, such as might have been found on Burnett's variety show. Some are comic, some are serious, but nearly all feel incomplete, different pieces of a puzzle that never come together to form a complete picture. More than once, when a scene appears ready to explode into powerful drama, the lights fade out, preventing the show from establishing a real dramatic connection with the audience. Still, a number of the elements are interesting; the show may be disconnected, but it's never boring." [9]
Reviewing the play for New York Magazine , John Simon wrote,
Plays about passion are profuse and easy: heterosexual or homosexual, interracial or senescent, kinky or chaste. What is difficult and rare is a play about affection, which is what Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett's Hollywood Arms is. Authentic affection: not syrupy or sentimental, posturing or feel-good-ish, gussied up for theatrical effect. Hollywood Arms is about real people who fight or let one another down, jab and jeer, needle and explode, but also, when need be, help people who are sarcastic or pathetic failures, impoverished and disappointed.
That Linda Lavin is a fabulous Nanny you don't need me to tell you, but this always remarkable actress manages here to surpass even the stiff competition of her own previous triumphs, squeezing every last drop out of her part without the slightest trace of ham or plea for sympathy. Scarcely less admirable is the Louise of Michele Pawk, who lends great heft to a humdrum character, making her intensely human and profoundly moving. Donna Lynne Champlin is unswervingly straightforward as the grown Helen, and Sara Niemietz makes little Helen lovable with never an iota of cuteness. Amazing, too, is the Malcolm of Nicolas King, a child actor with timing to make old pros envious. Frank Wood is an honestly unembellished Jody, and Patrick Clear a restrainedly sympathetic Bill. Leslie Hendrix and Emily Graham-Handley lend savvy support, as do the impeccable décor of Walt Spangler, Judith Dolan's incisive costumes, and Howell Binkley's empathetic lighting. Robert Lindsey Nassif's accompanying music also adds distinctly to our pleasure.
But Hollywood Arms has yet another form of invaluable affection, that of Harold Prince for the characters and their story. You will never see more feelingful insight, more self-effacing love for their quirks, foibles, and kindnesses, from a director for his stage children, big and small. If only this thoroughly endearing play and production could have been seen by Burnett's daughter and co-author, Carrie Hamilton, dead before even the Goodman Theatre premiere. One fervently hopes that the joy of such a true creation accompanied her on her final journey. [10]
Bernadette Peters is an American actress and singer. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has starred in musical theatre, television and film, performed in solo concerts and released recordings. She is a critically acclaimed Broadway performer, having received seven nominations for Tony Awards, winning two, and nine Drama Desk Award nominations, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards.
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American comedian, actress, and singer. Her comedy-variety series, The Carol Burnett Show, which originally aired on CBS, was one of the first to be hosted by a woman. Burnett has performed on Broadway, on television, and in dramatic and comedic film roles. She has received numerous awards and accolades, including seven Golden Globe Awards, seven Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award. Burnett was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2013, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2015.
Ellen Tyne Daly is an American actress whose six-decade career included many leading roles in movies and theater. She has won six Emmy Awards for her television work, a Tony Award, and is a 2011 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee.
Faith Prince is an American actress and singer, best known for her work on Broadway in musical theatre. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in Guys and Dolls in 1992, and received three other Tony nominations.
Linda Lavin is an American actress and singer. She is known for playing the title character in the sitcom Alice and for her stage performances, both on and off-Broadway.
Once Upon a Mattress is a musical comedy with music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer. It opened off-Broadway in May 1959, and then moved to Broadway. The play was written as a humorous adaptation of the 1835 Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea".
Rabbit Hole is a play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. It was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play premiered on Broadway in 2006, and it has also been produced by regional theatres in cities such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The play had its Spanish language premiere in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the Autumn of 2010.
Craig Lucas is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director.
Victoria Clark is an American actress, musical theatre soprano, and director. Clark has performed in numerous Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television works. Her voice can also be heard on various cast albums and in several animated films. In 2008, she released her first solo album titled Fifteen Seconds of Grace. A five-time Tony Award nominee, Clark won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2005 for The Light in the Piazza. She also won the Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Joseph Jefferson Award for the role. She won a second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2023 for Kimberly Akimbo.
Carrie Louise Hamilton was an American actress, playwright and singer. Hamilton was a daughter of comedian Carol Burnett and producer Joe Hamilton. She was also the older sister of Jody Hamilton, an actress and producer, and singer Erin Hamilton.
Celia Keenan-Bolger is an American actress and singer. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for portraying Scout Finch in the play To Kill a Mockingbird (2018). She has also been Tony-nominated for her roles in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005), Peter and the Starcatcher (2012), The Glass Menagerie (2014), and Mother Play (2024).
Regina Taylor is an American actress and playwright. She has won several awards throughout her career, including a Golden Globe Award and NAACP Image Award. In July 2017, Taylor was announced as the new Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theater at Fordham University.
John Dossett is an American actor and singer.
Michele Pawk is an American actress and singer. She is also an associate theater professor.
Lee Roy Reams is an American musical theatre actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, and director.
Sierra Marjory Boggess is an American theater actress, singer, and figure skater.
Sara Anne Niemietz is an American singer-songwriter and actress based in Los Angeles, California. She has performed on Broadway, at Radio City Music Hall, and the Grand Ole Opry. A substantial portion of her YouTube offerings are live performance music-videos and her channel has surpassed 25 million views. Her regular co-writer and long-time accompanist is W. G. Snuffy Walden, and she has also co-written with Melissa Manchester. Niemietz is a regular cast-member with Postmodern Jukebox, appearing on a dozen albums, a PBS television special, and an MTV music video. She is a featured artist on Richard Marx's A Night Out with Friends (2012) (PBS), Christmas Spirit (2012), and B. J. Thomas's The Living Room Sessions (2013).
John William McDaniel is an American theatre producer, composer, conductor, and pianist. He is known as the lead composer and producer of the daytime television talk show The Rosie O'Donnell Show, for which he received six Daytime Emmy Award nominations, winning two.
Jessica Ruth Mueller is an American actress and singer. She started her acting career in Chicago and won two Joseph Jefferson Awards in 2008 and 2011 for her roles as Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel and Amalia Balash in She Loves Me. In 2011, she moved to New York City to star in a Broadway revival of musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for her performance as Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. She went on to receive two additional Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award nominations for her leading roles in Waitress (2016) and the Broadway revival of Carousel (2018).
Erik Liberman is an American actor, author, and director.