Laura Hedli

It’s like a gift within a gift that just keeps on giving, the matryoshka doll of the theater if you will. [title of show], or [tos] for short, is a musical about two average Joes writing a musical.

Like it or not, there’s only one month left until school. But before you get ready to hit the books, enjoy cheap summer theater during the height the festival season.

Dear CBS: please don’t vote Tillman off the island. The skateboarding English Bulldog is practically the only thing that’ll salvage ratings for Greatest American Dog.

Columbia Spectator writer Laura Hedli and photographer Ian Kwok give a unique look into this year's Tony Awards.

With an exceedingly talented and committed cast, Saved is born again—this time in musical form on the main stage of off-Broadway company Playwrights Horizons. Based on the popular indie flick staring Jena Malone and Mandy Moore, the basic story stays fairly true to form, focusing on the plights of senior-year students at an evangelical Christian high school.

On Nov. 10, 2007, the lights on Broadway went dark, and all but eight houses on the Great White Way bowed out before the Thanksgiving holiday. The 19-day stagehands’ strike cost the industry tens of millions of dollars each day, and even provoked a Supreme Court hearing led by the lawyer for Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical.

In the wake of nooses and blasphemous writings on the wall, Liz Flahive’s newest show, From Up Here, resonates with a sense of urgency. Playing at the Manhattan Theatre Club, the story deals expertly with contemporary issues, hitting a viable nerve in our 21st century mentality.

When I met Bob Saget, I said, more or less, what everyone else says: “Wow. Full House. I’m such a fan—such a memorable part of my childhood. Thank you for that.” He nodded politely, agreeing to take a picture and mumbling a few words between sips of his martini.

On Feb. 4, there were no flamboyant, bit parts to be had on a Broadway stage, and the timeless classics written for star-crossed lovers were turned on their heads and completely re-imagined. At Broadway Backwards 3, homosexual and transgender roles took center stage.

Taking the temperature of a city in the early days of this election year, Paul Scott Goodman is bringing his production, Alive in the World, to the New York stage.

With Danny Tanner’s paternal wisdom on Nick at Nite, Zach Morris’s Bueller-esque schemes on TBS, and a host of DVD box sets to fill in the gaps, channeling our 8-year-old selves is now easier than ever before.

The marquees may be dark, but Broadway has never had more drama.

Just steps away from the marquee for the big budget, big hype Young Frankenstein that opens Nov. 8, members and patrons mixed with exuberant producers at The New York Musical Theatre Festival’s (NYMF) closing night party.

Amid the chaos of Roy Arias Studios’ open casting call, Kimmy Gatewood is standing near a broken elevator swapping stories with an old friend, laughing about the latest picture in her pin-up calendar. As the two friends catch up, costume designers hand Gatewood a ’70s woolen number with gaudy plastic buttons down its length.

Two days ago, Spectator interviewed Barnard alum Lauren Graham, who stars as Lorelai Gilmore on Gilmore Girls, currently in its seventh season.

Substitute the bar for a gazebo, transform the restaurant into a New England hamlet, and maybe even switch out Sam Malone for Luke Danes, and welcome to the Gilmore Girls' fictitious town of Stars Hollow-a modern-day Cheers.

While the big-budget Kander and Ebb musical Curtains prepares for its debut on Broadway this Thursday, another one of the collaborative team's long-forgotten classics showed for a two-week run as part of the Musicals Tonight! series.

"Yes, you. Down in front. Put your hand in a fist," Dr. Anil Patel (Amir Arison) said encouragingly to a rather reluctant audience during A Very Common Procedure.

Duncan Sheik is not a name typically tossed around in casual conversation. In fact, the average Columbia student would probably say, "Wait, Duncan who?" But hum a few bars of the chorus and say the magic words, "Barely Breathing," and you're in.

"Oh yeah, that guy!"

Lately, this master of alliteration, who put "Breathing" on the Billboard charts for 55 straight weeks back in 1996 and '97, is turning heads in an entirely different sector of the arts, as he is responsible for the score for Broadway's Spring Awakening.

Being the second-oldest house on Broadway, the Hudson Theater has certainly seen its fair share of stardom and after-parties. But on Nov. 12 it hosted a very special party-a party that celebrated not one, but 99 new full-length pieces of musical theater.

The New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) gala was held at the Hudson in honor of the writers, performers and collaborative team that worked to put together the 2006 NYMF season.

By LAURA HEDLI

Columbia Daily Spectator

Audience members typically return to their front-row seats after intermission with a refreshment, perhaps the occasional candy bar in hand. But at the New World Stages they carry another essential theater-going condiment-a poncho.

Maybe the small suburb Chittenango, N.Y. is the site of the L. Frank Baum OZ Museum, as well as the three-day OZFest where you can spot one of the Lollipop Guild kids from the 1939 original, but when it comes down to celebrating the darker side of the Emerald City, midtown Manhattan is the place to be.

"It's a hard song to take out of context, and it gets a little pitchy at the end," said the Idol judge. Is that Randy Jackson? Nope, it's Marin Mazzie, future Lady of the Lake in Spamalot, and one of the three judges of Broadway Idol Friday night at the New World Stages.