Rolling with Detroit 1-8-7

One of the (many) things I love about going to the theatre in New York is a chance to see actors whose work I've enjoyed in movies and on TV. It's a thrill to see them up close and personal.

But tonight, I'm excited for the opposite reason. I'll be watching Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC, 10 p.m.) to see Jon Michael Hill, who made an impressive Broadway debut last fall in Tracy Letts' play Superior Donuts.

I loved the play and Hill's engaging portrayal of a streetwise teenager with literary aspirations, which garnered him a Tony nomination. So I'm looking forward to the TV debut of a fine young stage actor and Steppenwolf Theatre Company member.

And even better, he's paired in this cop drama with Michael Imperioli, who was terrific as mobster Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos, one of my favorite TV series.

Imperioli's character is on the right side of the law this time, as Detective Louis Fitch, a veteran of the homicide squad. Hill is his new-to-homicide partner, Detective Damon Washington.

It'll be interesting to watch both of these actors tackle roles very different from the ones I've seen them in before. I'm hoping they'll make a great team solving crimes and bringing bad guys to justice in the Motor City.

I don't know if a theatre saying is appropriate but break a leg, Jon!

My 2009-2010 Broadway season

Even though the Tony Awards were two months ago, I didn't wrap up my 2009-2010 Broadway season until the middle of July.

Sadly, I couldn't get to New York City in the spring, so I missed A View from the Bridge, Red and Fences. (Curse you, limited runs!)

But I made it to the short-lived revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs, I heard Angela Lansbury sing in A Little Night Music and I finally saw Wicked in all its Broadway glory, with Rondi Reed as Madame Morrible.

Looking back, the shows that made the biggest impact were ones with strong personal stories: Brighton Beach Memoirs and Superior Donuts, La Cage aux Folles and Fela!

Laurie Metcalf in Brighton Beach Memoirs, Douglas Hodge in La Cage aux Folles and Jon Michael Hill in Superior Donuts could easily have descended into stereotypes: overprotective Jewish mother, flamboyant drag performer, wisecracking young black male. But they imbued those characters with such depth and humanity that they rose above caricature and captured my heart.

La Cage aux Folles entered my pantheon of favorite musicals. I loved Jerry Herman's songs so much that I got the original Broadway cast recording, which I've been listening to nonstop. The revival CD will be released Sept. 28 and I can't wait to have both of them on my iPod.

I noticed more audience participation on Broadway this season - batting beach balls at La Cage, swiveling my hips during Fela! and missing the waxed fruit that came flying into the audience during Lend Me A Tenor. While the trend could become overdone, so far I've enjoyed it!

I also crossed five theatres off my list, making my first visits to the Gershwin, Longacre, Lunt-Fontanne, Nederlander and Schoenfeld. Only seven more to go before I've seen a show in every Broadway house.

Among the theatres I've yet to enter is the Majestic, home to The Phantom of the Opera, which I've never seen. If the sequel, Love Never Dies, comes to New York next spring perhaps I'll make it a double feature.

It's Tony night 2010!

The 64th annual Tony Awards, recognizing the best of Broadway, are tonight!

Despite the exclamation mark, my anticipation level is a little lower this year since I haven't seen any of the shows that opened on Broadway in 2010.

Still, I'll be looking forward to a glimpse of the ones I haven't seen and rooting for the nominees from the first half of the 2009-2010 season.

I enjoyed them all but I'd be especially delighted if Jon Michael Hill wins for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Superior Donuts and Montego Glover for Best Actress in a Musical for Memphis.

And hearing Angela Lansbury sing in A Little Night Music was such a thrill, I'll be cheering if she raises one of those new taller, heavier Tonys over her head in triumph.

What's amazed me in the run-up to the Tonys this year is the coverage - in print and from online sites, in blogs and on Twitter.

While it's been tough to keep up with all of the interviews and predictions and looks back at the Broadway season, what a great feast from which to pick and choose.

Among the absolute best pieces I've read is today's New York Times interview with Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Marian Seldes. I had the great honor of seeing her and Angela Lansbury on Broadway in Deuce in 2007.

Finally, I want to send my congratulations to David Hyde Pierce, recipient of the Isabelle Stevenson Award in recognition of his work with the Alzheimers Association.

One of my favorite Tony moments was jumping up from the couch and cheering three years ago when he won for Best Actor in a Musical for Curtains, the very first musical I saw on Broadway.

The non-televised portion of the Tonys - where awards for design, book of a musical, score and choreography are handed out - will be at 7 p.m. You can watch online at Broadway.com. The prime-time portion, hosted by Promises, Promises nominee Sean Hayes, begins at 8 p.m. on CBS.

Detroit 1-8-7 makes ABC's fall lineup

It's official! Newly minted Theatre World and Outer Critics Circle award winner and Tony nominee Jon Michael Hill will be on television this fall. Set the DVR for Tuesdays at 10 p.m.

The police drama Detroit 1-8-7, featuring Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos and Hill of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, has been picked up by ABC.

While I'm not a big fan of police shows, I was a big fan of The Sopranos and I thought Hill was terrific in his Broadway debut last fall in Superior Donuts. I'm excited about seeing the two of them together in very different roles.

Here's ABC's description:

"What does it take to be a detective on America's most dangerous streets? Get ready to be part of the action when a documentary crew rolls with some of Detroit's finest."

As I wrote last month, Imperioli plays Detective Louis Fitch, a hot-tempered veteran with an impeccable record for closing cases. And Hill is his new partner, Detective Damon Washington who, in addition to the pressure of his first day working in homicide, is also about to become a father for the first time.

Here's a clip:

Drama League nominee Jon Michael Hill

Even though Superior Donuts closed on Broadway in January it's great to see one of the play's stars, Jon Michael Hill, get some recognition. He was nominated today for The Drama League's Distinguished Performance Award.

It seems Hill's next role will be on the small screen. He's filming a pilot for ABC called Detroit 1-8-7. And adding to my excitement, it stars another one of my favorite actors, Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Molitsanti on The Sopranos.

Here's ABC's description:

"What does it take to be a detective on America's most dangerous streets? Get ready to be part of the action when a documentary crew rolls with some of Detroit's finest. The cameras give us an inside view of the homicide unit, capturing the professional crises, as well as the raw personal heartbreak and heroism of these inner-city cops."

Imperioli plays Detective Louis Fitch, a hot-tempered veteran with an impeccable record for closing cases. Hill is his new partner, Detective Damon Washington who, in addition to the pressure of his first day working in homicide, is also about to become a father for the first time.

The cast also includes James McDaniel of NYPD Blue and Aisha Hinds of True Blood.

And for some reason, the pilot was filmed not in Detroit but in Atlanta. (If you're wondering about the title, 187 is the police code for murder.)

Truthfully, I'm not a big fan of cop dramas. But I am a big fan of Imperioli from The Sopranos. I think his presence will draw some viewers, at least in the beginning. And I absolutely loved Hill in his Broadway debut in Superior Donuts.

I'm happy that Hill has this chance and more people will get to see this talented young actor. He joins a distinguished list of Steppenwolf Theatre Company members who move among theatre, television and movies.

Like them, hopefully he'll be back on stage soon. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing him on TV.

Update: It's official! The series is on ABC's fall schedule and will air Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Here's a picture of the cast:

Saying goodbye to Superior Donuts

I wish I could be in New York this afternoon for the final performance of Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts. The play, which opened Oct. 1 at Broadway's Music Box Theatre, is closing after 108 performances. It's one of my favorites and it deserved a longer run.

Theatergoing is a communal experience but whether or not a play grabs you is such a personal thing. When I think about all of the plays I've seen over the past three years what it comes down to is this: Don't lecture, tell me a story. And if you can surprise me, that's a plus.

Superior Donuts, the story of a rundown donut shop in a changing Chicago neighborhood, did both of those things for me. I laughed, I got choked up and there was a moment when I truly gasped. Most of all, I was entertained.

I thought Michael McKean as the worn-out shop owner and Jon Michael Hill as the eager young man who comes to work for him had terrific chemistry. They were so much fun to watch together and Hill especially was amazing in his Broadway debut.

Last year, some of the performances I enjoyed on Broadway in November were overlooked by the Tony nominators. So I hope they remember McKean and Hill when spring rolls around. (And James Schuette's set design also deserves a nomination. It was so detailed, down to the gum stuck underneath the tables.)

The cast is made up of mainly Chicago-based actors, all of whom transferred with the play from its premiere at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In addition to McKean and Hill, they are Jane Alderman, Kate Buddeke, Cliff Chamberlain, Michael Garvey, Robert Maffia, James Vincent Meredith and Yasen Peyankov. I hope I get to see them on stage again.

It's a shame that there isn't room on Broadway for a play like Superior Donuts, a slice of life that's well-acted, with witty dialogue, memorable characters and a story that draws you in. This was a play of sweet, small moments, poignancy and humor from a terrific ensemble.

It's so different from Letts' previous work, the Tony and Pulitzer-winning August: Osage County, an acerbic, multigenerational family story. I love them both and I love the fact that they're so different.

(Although they share Letts' memorable characters and sharp dialogue and like August: Osage County, I think Superior Donuts would make a great movie. Spike Lee would be the perfect director for this gritty urban story.)

In an interview with the American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center program, Letts noted that Superior Donuts was his first play set in his adopted hometown of Chicago. While he didn't start out to write a work that would be smaller in scope, he does like to stretch himself.

"I have an impulse to mix it up. When I finish one thing, the next thing I work on I want to be different. I want to challenge myself in different ways. I want to explore different things, whether it's writing or acting."

I'm so glad Letts did challenge himself and I'm looking forward to his next play.

Superior Donuts needs a boost

I'm worried about Superior Donuts.

Yes, I know tickets are on sale through March but last week it played to 49 percent capacity at the 991-seat Music Box Theatre, the lowest of any Broadway show. And it's down 12 percent from the previous week. The average ticket price was $66.35.

Needless to say those numbers don't inspire confidence, which is a shame.

Of the six shows I saw on my last trip to New York, this play about a rundown little donut shop in a changing Chicago neighborhood is the one that moved me the most. Superior Donuts has heart and humor and it deserves a much bigger audience. (Discounted tickets are available at Playbill and Broadway Box.)

I hope the poster isn't tripping people up. One woman I talked to said she wasn't sure at first whether it was a play or an advertisement for an actual donut shop! Also, I've never been able to get the video on the show's Web site to play properly. But maybe that's just my computer.

Anyway, I thought that Michael McKean as shop owner Arthur Przybyszewski and Jon Michael Hill as Franco Wicks, the young man who comes to work for him, had better chemistry than any other pair I saw on stage. That includes Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in A Steady Rain.

I had a brief conversation with McKean as he walked up 45th Street after the show, and one thing he mentioned was how playwright Tracy Letts creates such memorable characters. I definitely agree.

(When I saw This is Spinal Tap at a movie theater in Hartford, Connecticut in 1984, I never imagined that 25 years later I'd be walking up 45th Street in New York City with McKean after seeing him on Broadway!)

The New York Times has story today about Hill, the 24-year-old who's simply amazing in his Broadway debut. He and director Tina Landau both talk about how hard they worked to strike a balance with his character so that Franco wouldn't come across as too jokey.

“Arthur is a man who has given up on hope," Landau said, "while Franco is built around the idea of a better America yet to come. For me it was key to get those two almost primordial forces opposing each other.”

Coincidentally, last night someone left a comment on my review of Superior Donuts and it pretty much sums up how I feel, too:

"After seeing August: Osage County last season and Superior Donuts yesterday afternoon, I'm telling everybody that it was our favorite this trip. The Absolute-Must-See Play. No gimmicks or tricks. Just amazing writing and acting that truly exhausted us. This is what theater is supposed to be. An experience you can't get at the movies, etc. We would love to see it again as well."

Update: Sadly, Superior Donuts will close on Jan. 3. But you've still got another month to see it.

Superior Donuts

Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

If August: Osage County examined the tangled relationships among family members then Tracy Letts' new Broadway play, Superior Donuts, tackles an equally complex subject - how we relate to each other as a community, as individuals, as Americans.

Like its Tony and Pulitzer-winning predecessor, Superior Donuts arrives in New York from the Steppenwolf Theatre Company with a superb Chicago cast. It has Letts' clever, razor-sharp dialogue along with a great deal of tenderness and wit and some very insightful social commentary.

Yes, this is a small-scale character study but oh, what characters!

There's a scene near the beginning of the play when Franco Wicks, who's just been hired to work at a downscale Chicago coffee shop, pulls out of his knapsack a stack of notebooks and legal pads that comprise his Great American Novel.

Until that point, I'd been laughing hard at the banter between Jon Michael Hill's Franco and Michael McKean's Arthur Przbyszewski, the ponytailed Vietnam-era draft evader who owns Superior Donuts, the shop started by his Polish immigrant parents.

But when this earnest young black man shows Arthur his novel and quotes the African-American poet Langston Hughes, my eyes got moist and Superior Donuts grabbed ahold of my heart. As long as I can remember I've loved putting words to paper, so I've got a big soft spot for stories about aspiring writers.

Of course, I've been watching McKean for years, starting with Laverne & Shirley and This is Spinal Tap. Sometimes it's hard to lose myself in a performance by an actor I know from movie or TV roles but he's terrific as a weary, cynical man who's been beaten down by life.

Hill, in his Broadway debut, is a revelation. He's amazing as Franco - sweet, eager, a bit brash and totally engaging.

And these two actors have such great chemistry. The way their relationship evolves as Franco's irrepressible enthusiasm meets Arthur's seemingly incurable pessimism is a treat to watch. This is a story that could easily have turned into a cliche but under Tina Landau's direction, it maintains an edge.

Arthur's donut shop is located in a Chicago neighborhood that city planners might call "in transition." A Starbucks has opened nearby. The local video store owner and entrepreneur, a Russian immigrant named Max Tarasov, played by the hilarious Yasen Peyankov, is preparing to take on a Best Buy.

As James Schuette's set design perfectly conveys, Superior Donuts is one small business that's hardly prepared to compete with the gigantic chains. The paint on the radiator is peeling, the linoleum floor is worn, there's gum stuck under the tables and the ceiling tiles are filthy. The place looks greasy and unappetizing.

Once Franco comes along well, he has plenty of ideas - healthier food, bran muffins maybe, and poetry nights to attract a younger crowd. There's a hilarious scene where he tries his hand at making donuts. Arthur is skeptical, to say the least, about Franco's big plans.

While Arthur doesn't have many customers his regulars do make up a little community. There are the two beat cops - Kate Buddeke's Randy Osteen is a little flirtatious with Arthur and James Vincent Meredith's James Hailey is a delightfully nerdy Star Trek fan. Jane Alderman is great as a bewildered, slightly daffy bag lady.

One of the things I loved about August: Osage County was the way Letts illuminated the lives of women, demonstrating all of the pressures of being a wife, mother and daughter in a way that seemed so true to life.

With Superior Donuts, he does something else that I appreciate: he creates a young African-American male who's not a wisecracking character from a TV sitcom or a wanna-be rapper or professional athlete. It's tragic that we don't take as much care with smart, ambitious young men like Franco as we do with the teenagers who have a great jump shot.

Ironically, Franco urges Arthur to take off his Grateful Dead T-shirt and cut off his ponytail. (The only people who should wear ponytails are girls and ponies, he advises him.) Because sadly Franco, with his heavy winter coat, knit cap, baggy pants and unlaced boots, is just as likely to be judged.

But both Arthur and Franco defy expectations.

Franco's not someone you should be crossing the street to avoid out of fear. And Arthur, whose father called him a coward for going to Canada instead of Vietnam, isn't a man to run from a fight. He proves that by tangling with the mobster, played by Robert Maffia, who's trying to collect a debt Franco owes.

At one point, Superior Donuts brings out the biggest collective gasp I've ever heard from an audience. That's because the more you know about Arthur and Franco, the more you care about them and the more you root for them.

If it's not too much to ask, I wish Tracy Letts would return to Superior Donuts for a sequel in a decade or so. Because I really want to find out how they're doing, how America is doing.

Broadway's youth movement

Tonight was the first preview for a show I'm especially excited about seeing - the Broadway revival of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs. It'll play in repertory with Broadway Bound, which begins previews Nov. 18.

Set in Brooklyn in 1937, the play is the thinly veiled story of Simon's own childhood. It opened on Broadway on March 27, 1983, and featured 21-year-old Matthew Broderick in a Tony-winning performance as Simon's alter ego, Eugene Morris Jerome.

Noah Robbins, a Washington, D.C.-area teenager, steps into Broderick's shoes. He was a senior at Georgetown Day School when his selection was announced in May.

According to Robbins' biography, he got his start at age 11 as a singing, dancing clown at the Kennedy Center and, among his other roles, he's appeared as Max Bialystock in his high school's production of The Producers.

Thinking about Robbins made me realize that there's a trio of actors in their late teens and early 20s making their Broadway debuts this fall: Robbins, Jon Michael Hill, 24, in the play Superior Donuts and later this month, Stephanie Umoh, a 2008 Boston Conservatory graduate, in the revival of the musical Ragtime.

What's amazing about all three is that they're not playing minor characters - they have substantial roles. And none of them comes to New York with an incredible amount of stage experience. It's not like they've been in a lot of movies or tv, either.

(Josh Grisetti, who'll play Eugene in Broadway Bound, is also making his Broadway debut but he has a much longer list of credits.)

Not that any of the three is coming in cold - Hill is a Steppenwolf ensemble member and Umoh has done shows, including Ragtime, with Boston-area theatre companies.

But having to carry a substantial part of a Broadway production is still a pretty major accomplishment - imagine pitching for the Yankees at 18 or 20. It must be incredibly thrilling and nerve-wracking.

Superior Donuts opened on Thursday and Hill received great reviews, like this from The New York Times: "Played with boundless, buoyant charm by Mr. Hill, Franco is the briskly humming generator of the play’s abundant laughs."

We still have to see how Robbins and Umoh do. Brighton Beach Memoirs opens Oct. 25. Ragtime begins previews on Oct. 23 and opens Nov. 15.

But on top of all the other reasons to be excited about this season on Broadway, the fact that I have a chance to see three young performers who may very well be on the cusp of stardom is certainly a big one.

Yes, bragging rights, that's what I'm after!

Julie White, jazz hands and Donuts crumbs

Even though it's 90 degrees outside, it's fall preview inside the pages of New York magazine. I've read over all the theatre previews and these are my favorite parts:

The illustrated Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig Show is clever and definitely makes me even more excited to see them as Chicago police officers in A Steady Rain.

Will Daniel Craig loosen up and shed his James Bond persona? Will Hugh Jackman be able to keep his jazz hands in check? I can't wait to find out. Previews begin Sept. 10 at the Schoenfeld Theatre

However, New York magazine, I was a little disappointed in your Q&A with playwright Tracy Letts. I love August: Osage County, too. But it would have been nice to have a couple of questions about Letts' newest transfer from Steppenwolf to Broadway, Superior Donuts, which begins previews at the Music Box Sept. 16.

The play, about the white owner of a decrepit Chicago doughnut shop (Michael McKean) and the black teenage employee who wants to change it for the better (Jon Michael Hill), is one of the shows I'm most excited about seeing this fall. But all I got were a few Donuts crumbs and more about Letts' previous work.

This is as much as we get:

NYMAG: Superior Donuts sounds a lot less personal than August.
Letts: "It was supposed to be an exercise. I thought, I wonder if I can write about people that don’t have any relation to me. But I can’t! I was writing about myself."

Finally, my first taste of how funny Julie White can be came in her Tony acceptance speech for The Little Dog Laughed.

And White is pretty amusing as as well in this interview about her off-Broadway role in The Understudy, which begins previews Oct. 9 at the Laura Pels Theatre. She makes me want to see a play I was on the fence about:

"It’s deep. Death is all over that play. But you know, I’m in it, it’s a Theresa Rebeck show, it’s gonna be funny. We did a reading of it at the Roundabout, and it just went over like a thousand bastards."

I'm assuming that's a good thing, although I can't be sure. I Googled "went over like a thousand bastards" and apparently Julie White is the first person in human history to ever utter it.