By Harry Haun 6/26/12 8:00am

theater

Tiffany with his Tony.

Breakless at Tiffany’s: The Indefatigable Tony King Talks Yorkshire Pride, and What Drew Him To Once

“I’m always pleasantly surprised when anybody wants to see a production that I’ve directed,” said John Tiffany over the phone from Glasgow two days after the Tony Awards, erasing all traces of false modesty with child-like wonder. “I kinda go, ‘Oh, wow!’ I feel humbled and privileged that people are actually interested. I’ve a strong philosophical belief that works should be accessible and popular—there shouldn’t be obstacles to anybody being able to connect with what you do—but I wouldn’t say I have a mainstream commercial gene in my body at all. All I know how to do is tell the stories in the most accessible way possible.”

That, apparently, is enough: His Once was Tony king at the recent ceremonies, raking in eight awards in all—among them those for Best Musical and Best Director.

Music has always been a key component in Mr. Tiffany’s theatrical pieces, but never before had he attempted a musical per se Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 5/01/12 11:27am

the tonys

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield, both Tony nominees for 'Death of a Salesman.'

Once Leads Tony Nominations

The Tony nominations were released this morning, and the musical film adaptation Once leads the field with 11 nominations; it’s nominated for Best Musical alongside Newsies, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and Leap of Faith. The nominees for Best Play include Clybourne Park (a Pultizer-winning play), Other Desert Cities, Peter and the Starcatcher, Read More

By Jesse Oxfeld 3/20/12 4:50pm

theater

Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti in 'Once.' (Photo by Joan Marcus)

Once Is Not Enough: The Insufficiency of Once

Before reckoning with the new, exceedingly lovely, and disappointingly thin Broadway musical Once, which opened Sunday night at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, let us first discuss what might be called the War Horse Insufficiency.

The symptoms of this malady are stunning stagecraft and a lack of compelling story or emotional richness, a visual display so creative and impressive that the theatergoer wants to believe the play or musical he’s seeing to be great, but with a book insufficient to live up to the production. War Horse, the British story of a boy and his beloved horse at the Vivian Beaumont, is its most prominent current example: gorgeous design, breathtaking puppetry, insipid story. Read More

By Christopher Rosen 7/23/09 1:18pm

Single Person’s Movie: Once

It’s 2 a.m. and you awake with a jerk, alone in your fully lit apartment and still on the couch. On TV, the credits of some movie you’ve already seen a billion times are scrolling by. It feels like rock bottom. And we know, because we’re just like you: single.

Need a Read More

By Christopher Rosen 11/28/08 2:08pm

Clint Eastwood, Once More With Feeling!

Normally, the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards is the bane of our existence: an overloaded mess of badness that extends an already unending night into ass numbing proportions. No matter how the producers try to gussy up the presentation–"let’s have Beyonce sing all the songs!"–the performances invariably stink. Of course the exception Read More

By John S.W. MacDonald 10/20/08 3:25pm

Once Comes to Broadway

The fact that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová managed to perform Once’s winning tune “Falling Slowly” at the Oscars earlier this year was a total coup—akin to seeing Elliott Smith finger-pick his way through “Miss Misery” at the same event ten years ago. Still, we’ve never thought the pair’s music  worked quite as Read More