Latest news with #Urinetown
Perth Now
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn keep their money separate
Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn keep their money in separate bank accounts. The couple - who have been married since 2007 and have twin daughters Dolly and Charlie together - lifted the lid on their finances during a joint appearance on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen show, revealing they keep the money they earn but pay into a "community pot" for parenting expenses. Host Cohen turned the conversation towards money by describing Rebecca as the breadwinner in the household since Jerry's run co-hosting The Talk TV show ended last year, and the actress, 52, said: "We keep our money completely separate ... There's, like, a community pot." The X-Men star went on to explain the couple made the decision to keep their money separate right at the start of their marriage, saying: "That's like one of the first conversations you have when you decide to enter into a legal agreement together." Jerry also pointed out how much money they put into their "community pot" varies and depends on how much work is coming in. He said: "I have to say, we actually throttle how much money we put into that account sometimes," and his wife added: "The one who's not working gets a little bit of a break and the one who is working puts in a little more. And we really tag-team with work." Rebecca revealed the couple's work also depends on childcare because they promised to always make sure one of them was home to care for their daughters, who are now 17 years old. She said: "We also decided when our girls were born that one of us would always stay home with our daughters. So, no one else was ever going to raise them besides the parents." Jerry previously admitted he hopes his girls follow him into showbusiness after he started his career at the age of 11 with a role in Stand By Me. He told UsWeekly: "I have one daughter who's auditioning for the school musical. They're doing Urinetown, so we went to [dinner] last night and we went over her lines in the diner, so that was really funny. I'm going to have a couple nepo babies! "I'm throwing it out there. It's the family business!"
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: Long-Lost ‘Love Life' Still Has a Lot to Say About America
In recent years, Encores! has presented productions of musicals with good name recognition, including 'Into the Woods,' 'Titanic' and 'Urinetown.' With its latest offering, 'Love Life,' the series returns to its original mission statement by presenting an obscure show, one devoid of standards at that — nothing in it would start a singalong at even the most hard-core piano bar. Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner's musical opened on Broadway in 1948, ran for 252 performances and over the years has developed a cult following largely thanks to its daring storytelling. It touched on what constitutes the fabric of American life and integrated vaudevillian interludes, thus paving the way for the likes of 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago.' Yet the show has been absent from New York stages in the intervening decades. There wasn't even an original cast recording to help popularize the score. There is grainy footage of one of its original stars, Nanette Fabray, performing 'Green-Up Time' on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' and some numbers have popped up on various albums, like Bryn Terfel's cover of 'Here I'll Stay.' But for the most part, 'Love Life' is fairly unknown these days. Naturally, this made it a desirable target for Encores!, which is presenting a semi-staged production through Sunday at New York City Center. As directed by Victoria Clark, this 'Love Life' gives us only glimpses of the musical's potential. The vocals are top-shelf, with particularly thrilling ensemble singing and harmonies, especially on 'Susan's Dream,' which almost gets within reach of the Encores! high-water mark of 'Sing for Your Supper' in its 1997 production of 'The Boys From Syracuse.' (Rob Berman conducts the onstage orchestra.) Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Boston Globe
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Looking for romance? Check your local bookstore.
Rosen, the former bookselling editor at Publishers Weekly, says romance and bookstores seem to go hand-in-hand lately; some have even gone exclusive. According to a July article in The New York Times, the number of US bookstores dedicated to romance novels has steadily climbed from just two into double digits in the last two years. Local additions include Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'I think during the [COVID-19 pandemic], people just wanted something to make them happy,' Rosen said. Related : Advertisement But now, it's not just the love stories on the shelves stealing the spotlight — IRL romance, happening inside bookstores, is having a moment of its own. In 'Bookstore Romance,' Rosen explores the ways booksellers and the betrothed have come together in unlikely and surprising ways, from one bride's 'Beauty and the Beast' dream come true to a surprise proposal between the Psychology and Self-Help sections. While most pairs share a love for literature, others — on and off the pages of Rosen's book — have sought out booksellers who also align with core values, such as building and rebuilding community. 'People are becoming more socially aware of their place in the world. They want to give back, they want to do something unique, they don't want to go the traditional route anymore,' said Liz Saul, associate director of events at booksellers and literary nonprofit More Than Words. Advertisement Saul said the bookstore wedding movement is the 'new bread and butter' of multi-location, youth-run stores. Their South End location reemerged from the lull of the pandemic as a popular spot for gatherings, hosting more than 20 weddings since 'coming back to life as an event space' in 2023. Many couples who were drawn to the space value the organization's mission of supporting and empowering youth, but for some, 'their first date was in a bookstore, or they have some sort of special connection to [bookstores] to begin with,' Saul explained. For Kaylah Dixon and Nick Hammes, it was both. The couple met as undergrad students living on the North Shore, and began dating during a production of 'Urinetown,' bonding over their love of the arts. In 2020, they postponed their wedding, eventually marrying in 2022 at More Than Words, after Kaylah's job in community theater connected her with the organization. The couple resonated with the nonprofit's youth program and advocacy efforts and the literary element it would bring to their celebration. 'I love looking at a bookshelf and just picking something off of it and getting lost somewhere … and you think, 'I can't wait to share this with the people around me,'' Hammes said. A setup for a potential wedding at More Than Words in Boston's South End. @warrenlanephotography On their big day, the two wanted to encapsulate their love of all kinds of media — film, books, musicals, and plays — and created a display dedicated to the favorites that shaped them through the years. Titles included 'The Color Purple,' 'Twelfth Night,' 'Homegoing,' 'Mamma Mia!,' the 'Avatar' DVDs, and 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.' Authors and playwrights the couple admired dictated the seating arrangements. Advertisement For Melissa Fetter, owner, and Serena Hanlin, private events coordinator, of The Beacon Hill Books + Cafe. Beacon Hill Books + Cafe ? Those who want more personalized experiences can pay $250 per hour for exclusive use of the space for the proposal and a photo shoot after the store's regular closing hours, Fetter said. The location itself can also be reserved and rented for wedding celebrations, including rehearsal dinners, bridal showers, and receptions. These private events include staffing (such as a sommelier and servers), table settings, andfloral arrangements, often made by Hanlin herself. A wedding celebration will typically cost around $10,000, according to Fetter. 'The experience of having the whole bookstore as your private space — it feels like you're at someone's family home,' Hanlin said. 'One of my favorite compliments that we get at the dinners is 'It's even more beautiful than I could have imagined.' That's my gold standard, I always want to hear that.' Advertisement In the case of Morgan Brewton-Johnson and Sam Hall, the couple was looking for something 'quintessentially Boston' for their small local wedding. Brewton-Johnson had learned about Beacon Hill Books from one of her graduate school professors, and it became a go-to spot for the couple. Beacon Hill Books + Cafe. Beacon Hill Books + Cafe? For their November wedding, the two spent the morning together — exchanging vows and rings on the couch at home — before taking an Uber to the bookstore to greet their 20-so guests. '[The wedding day] is the way I would have wanted to spend every single day anyway, so it was nice that we got to do that on the day we committed ourselves to each other with our friends and family,' said Brewton-Johnson. Guests were each given a book, handpicked by the couple, as a wedding favor. So, are bookstore weddings the start of a happily ever after? Rosen thinks so. 'To be surrounded by stories, it's kind of a lovely way to begin the story of your life together,' said Rosen. 'Combining the stories, the beauty of the bookstore, I think it's just so nice. I know I'm biased … but the people in bookstores are so lovely.' Judith Rosen will discuss 'Bookstore Romance: Love Speaks Volumes' with author Laura Zigman at , 44 Brattle St., Cambridge, on Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. Haley Clough can be reached at
Washington Post
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Sarah Silverman's musical proves the affirming power of pee
Pee has proved to be an adaptable metaphor onstage, and it's bubbling up to meet the times. A revival of the grimy musical comedy 'Urinetown,' at New York City Center earlier this month, imagined a municipal price for the 'privilege to pee' to preserve a dwindling water supply. Meanwhile, the incontinence of a 10-year-old Sarah Silverman in 'The Bedwetter' posits the lone puddle as an emblem for coming of age.
New York Times
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Urinetown' Review: More Than Toilet Humor
About halfway through the first act of 'Urinetown,' the characters Hope Cladwell and Bobby Strong reveal their emotions and desires in 'Follow Your Heart.' Their names could have been lifted from a Depression-era musical, and the song itself evokes such romantic classics of that time as 'I Only Have Eyes for You.' 'We all want a world / Filled with peace and with joy,' Hope (the comic revelation Stephanie Styles) and Bobby (an effortlessly charismatic Jordan Fisher, fresh from a stint as Orpheus in 'Hadestown') sing in the Encores! revival that opened Wednesday night at New York City Center. 'With plenty of water for each girl and boy,' they continue. You see, our lovebirds, whom Fisher and Styles portray with a precisely calibrated mix of earnestness and goofiness, live in a dystopian world where water is scarce. Exacting payment for the privilege of peeing has become a profitable business for Hope's tycoon father, Caldwell B. Cladwell (Rainn Wilson, not quite villainous enough), the head of the Urine Good Company corporation. Bobby, on the other hand, is very much from the downtrodden side of the tracks. More specifically he's the assistant custodian at the public toilet known as Amenity No. 9, run by the imperious Penelope Pennywise (Keala Settle, amped up to 11 as if rehearsing for Norma Desmond). The jarring reference to a commodity perhaps more essential than peace and joy in such a lovely number confirms that the 'Urinetown' team of Mark Hollmann (music and lyrics) and Greg Kotis (book and lyrics) was not just a new version of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, the bards of 1930s Warner Bros. musicals. A bespoke pastiche of a specific vintage style, 'Follow Your Heart' also contains a streak of modern sarcasm and political commentary that helps explain why 'Urinetown' has aged so remarkably well since its premiere a little more than a quarter of a century ago. The show, which started life at the International New York Fringe Festival in 1999, had an Off Broadway run in the spring of 2001 and reopened on Broadway on Sept. 20 that same year. It won the Tony Awards for best book, original score and direction of a musical, and ran for two and a half years. The inclusion of 'Urinetown' — an unlikely hit but nevertheless a hit — in Encores! underlines the mission drift of a series that used to be dedicated to flops and obscurities but nowadays simply 'revisits the archives of American musical theater.' In this particular case, the revisiting rehabilitates a musical that did meet an audience at the time, but still felt undervalued as a bit of a lightweight, silly lark. (That Hollmann and Kotis never had another Broadway show probably helped undermine the reputation of their one success.) I confess to not liking 'Urinetown' when I saw it way back when. Most particularly, I felt that the stream of fourth-wall-breaking jokes about musical-theater conventions — mostly courtesy of the narrator, Officer Lockstock (Greg Hildreth), and the urchin Little Sally (Pearl Scarlett Gold, an actual kid as opposed to the original Sally, Spencer Kayden, who was 33 when the show opened on Broadway) — betrayed a disdain for that form. Last night, however, that conceit did not bother me at all. Perhaps Teddy Bergman's exuberant production somehow softened the approach, or perhaps I felt less defensive about it. Most important, I was struck by the craftsmanship that holds 'Urinetown' together. When the score does not nod toward the Hollywood of the 1930s, it winks at the Berlin of the 1920s musicalized by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, or glances at the Paris of the 1830s as immortalized by 'Les Misérables.' And of course the title brings to mind Steeltown, the setting of Marc Blitzstein's agitprop play with music 'The Cradle Will Rock,' from 1937. Like that city, 'Urinetown isn't so much a place as it is a metaphysical place,' as Little Sally puts it. Yet musically this never feels like a patchwork showing its seams. Rather, 'Urinetown' now comes across as a sui generis oddity that is more than the sum of its parts. Contributing to this re-evaluation is the Encores! orchestra, under Mary-Mitchell Campbell's direction, as it is slightly bigger than the Broadway one (nine players as opposed to five) and beautifully fills up Bruce Coughlin's expanded orchestrations. But what really has changed, of course, is the context in which we watch 'Urinetown.' 'Gosh, I never realized large, monopolizing corporations could be such a force for good in the world,' Hope says early on, before she falls for Bobby and they both become radicalized by the injustice that surrounds them. The show anticipated a society in which our movements, including the most intimate ones, are nickeled and dimed for profit. The humiliation — or worse — awaiting those who lack the cash to use a shared bathroom hits harder. Too bad for those who are not winners in a cutthroat world. 'Don't be the bunny,' Cladwell sings, explaining his worldview. 'Don't be the dope. Don't be the loser.' Admittedly, Act 2 does not have the nerve to follow through on the story's darkest turns, even if the show does kill off a major character. Still, the return of 'Urinetown' proves that the show was more than a flush in the pan.
