Dear Theater Fans, Nicholas Sparks's best-selling 1996 novel, "The Notebook," became a popular movie in 2004, starring Ryan Gosling (perhaps you've heard of him?) and Rachel McAdams (who'll make her Broadway debut next month in "Mary Jane"). Now a stage adaptation is opening tomorrow on Broadway, with music by the singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. As she began working on the show, she told Rob Tannenbaum, Michaelson found herself incorporating thoughts about her mother, who died in 2014, and father, who died three years later. "There's a lot of them wrapped up in these songs," Michaelson said. The French actress Dominique Blanc is making a rare appearance onstage in Manhattan in the one-woman play that helped her reclaim her artistic agency after the phone stopped ringing when she became an actress of a certain age. "I had so much fear," Blanc told Laura Cappelle of tackling the difficult play. "But it saved me." In "La Douleur," at the French Institute Alliance Française tonight and tomorrow, Blanc's character awaits her husband's return from a concentration camp in a piece inspired by a book by the French author Marguerite Duras. One show, two perspectives: "Illinoise," Justin Peck's narrative dance musical inspired by Sufjan Stevens's concept album "Illinois," opened last Thursday at the Park Avenue Armory. In making it a Critic's Pick, Jesse Green called the production — with a story (without dialogue) by Jackie Sibblies Drury and Peck — "deeply moving." It's full of big emotions, which is part of its "glory," he added. In a critic's notebook, Gia Kourlas, our dance critic, felt that it was "hard to pin down what 'Illinoise' wants to be" and that because the performers "act out the dancing and dance out the acting," they ultimately struggle to convincingly convey both. Also a Critic's Pick: The "handsome" Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt: A Parable," starring Liev Schreiber and Amy Ryan. Jesse described it as "a sturdy melodrama, an infallible crowd-pleaser, a detective yarn, a character study and an inquest into the unknowable." It certainly had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. For a taste of "The Notebook," here is Michaelson singing one of her songs from the show, "If This Is Love." And if you're curious about "Illinoise," start with "Chicago," one of the songs from the show and Stevens's original album. Please reach out to me at theaterfeedback@nytimes.com with suggestions for stories or to offer your thoughts on what you've read. I'll make note of them in an upcoming newsletter. And urge your friends to subscribe to this newsletter by clicking here. Have a wonderful week, Nicole Herrington Theater Editor Continue reading the main storyLike this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story |
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