Almost There: The cast of "A Raisin in the Sun"

by Cláudio Alves

The 1950s and 60s marked a time when the Academy Awards loved few things more than prestigious stage play adaptations. This was particularly true of the acting categories, where dozens of such movies scored multiple nominations. Comparing the Tony nods with the Oscars' is to find many of the same roles, like Tennessee Williams' heroines, Eugene O'Neill's human wrecks, Clifford Odet's tragic characters, and Edward Albee's domestic demons. For a short period, the Tonys were even better precursors for an Oscar victory than the Golden Globes. Still, even these trends have exceptions and one of the saddest was the 1961 movie based on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun…

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Zainab Jah and Jayme Lawson on the Vulnerability of Theater Acting

by Murtada Elfadl

Lupita Nyong'o and Zainab Jah in "Eclipsed"

We continue the conversation between Zainab Jah and Jayme Lawson from the Sundance 2020 film Farewell Amor, that we started yesterday. Both actresses have worked on stage and in film and today they're speaking to what diffrentiates the experiences. Jah also tells us about the time she co-starred on Broadway in 2016 with Lupita Nyong’o in Danai Gurira’s play Eclipsed, about five Liberian women and their tale of survival near the end of the Second Liberian Civil War in the early 2000s.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity...

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Vintage '81

We're having a little 1981 party for the first week of May so let's give the year some overall context before the Supporting Actress Smackdown hits on the weekend of May 8th. 

The year's two biggest blockbusters competed for Best Picture

Great Big Box Office Hits:
Raiders of the Lost Ark was the year's true behemoth, grossing twice as much as its nearest rival On Golden Pond. The Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire was a sleeper hit and that year's James Bond picture  For Your Eyes Only was also hugely popular (though that's no surprise with 007). But otherwise audiences were mostly drawn to comedies in 1981: Arthur (with Dudley Moore), Stripes (with Bill Murray) The Four Seasons (with Carol Burnett) and Cannonball Run (with Burt Reynolds) were all the rage.

Oscar favourites / theories and other cultural touchstones of 1981 after the jump...

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Amazing Sondheim Celebration, 'Take Me to the World'

by Nathaniel R

Meryl will drink to that! (and she did not disappoint for Sondheim's 90th)ICYMI last night (and thousands did since it started over an hour late!) make sure to watch the Sondheim birthday celebration concert benefitting ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty). While it's reductive to cite favourite moments because the concert was chalk full of life-affirming, ear-pleasuring, moving music and delicate or funny performances, we've had to share a few notes after the jump.

But honestly we loved it all. It doubled as not just a tribute to the world's greatest living musical theater composer but as a melancholy collective longing for the return of Broadway which originally housed most of those tremendous songs...

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All-Star Free Virtual Sondheim Concert This Sunday!

by Nathaniel R

Meryl & Bernadette both played "The Witch" in productions of Into the Woods. But which songs will they sing at this concert?

Please place this in the "silver linings" bin of the horrific coronavirus pandemic. There will be a virtual concert this Sunday April 26th at 8 PM EST celebrating Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday. You will NOT believe the performer's list. It's jaw-dropping in its starpower...

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