NEW YORK - The New York Drama Critics weighed in late Monday with their seasonal awards, for their 73rd year, picking the drama "August: Osage County" as Best Play and "Passing Strange" as Best Musical. "August" also has won already the Pulitzer Prize, and both shows are figuring prominently in the Tonys and other races. For more on the critics' picks, go to the website here.

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NEW YORK - The nominations for the 62nd Annual Tony Award nominations will be announced early Tuesday, setting in motion the final rounds of awards for the season. If you're catching up late, the official results will be on the Tony website here. But as for Monday night, the Theater District wasn't entirely hushed in anticipation.

Two of the neighborhood's favorite programs, Encores! and Broadway By The Year were in action with shows carrying plenty of buzz.

At City Center on the north side of the Broadway main stem, the latest Encores! concert version of a classic musical is "No No Nanette" with Rosie O'Donnell and Sandy Duncan. The show got mostly glowing reviews at the start of its five-night stand, which wrapped up Monday.

At Town Hall to the south on 43rd Street was the latest Broadway By The Year: 1965, a songbook of tunes from shows ranging from the hit "Man of La Mancha" to the flop, one of many, "Flora, The Red Menace." As creator-host Scott Siegel intoned, '65 produced a number of hit tunes better known and remembered than the shows they came from.

Among the hits of the Town Hall evening was former Plantation resident Marc Kudisch, in a top-flight company including fellow crooners Gregg Edelman, Brian d'Arcy James and Brandon Cutrell.

Kudisch parlayed the heavy hitters and comic highlights, showing off the varied traits that've made him one Broadway's most reliable top guns. He closed the concert leading the entire company on "La Mancha's" "The Impossible Dream."

Often described as one of the hardest working Broadway personalities, Kudisch had just finished a short run of a concert-ized "Camelot" with the New York Philharmonic (broadcast on PBS last week), and will be back at Town Hall in July for a tribute to operettas. He also won a Helen Hayes Award in Washington just weeks ago, per our previous blog entry

On Monday, Edelman delivered what South Florida entertainer Doug Williford aptly called the "sweet songs" - Williford, in town for just a day, happened to be two seats away from me.

Though the series is in its eighth season, it still bears the look of show folk getting together to jam. Yes, there were rehearsals, but the Town Hall event has that kind of ragged edge that scars both vocals and movement with broken moments, but also heightens the intensity of the experience when things go right, which was mostly the case.

Postscript: The marquee at the Broadway Theatre, 52nd and Broadway, now carries the artwork and promotions for Pompano Beach-based Cirque Dreams, scheduled to open there in June per the recent announcement posted here.

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The Theatre League of South Florida wraps up its third annual spring Theatre Festival this weekend, then celebrates Monday (May 12) in Fort Lauderdale with a new awards fete that salutes the best of the fest.

The league is introducing the Silver Palm Awards, a dozen citations for top shows and performances among the fest's 26 participating productions, and to thank the program's major sponsors. The event is party style at 7:30 p.m. at Stork's Bakery Cafe on E. Las Olas Blvd., free to League members and $20 for non-members.

The festival Silver Palm performance honorees are:

The Naked Stage Company - As Outstanding New Emerging Theatre Company.

Playwright Jules Tasca - Outstanding New Work for "The Mission" at the New Theatre in Coral Gables.

"Some Girls" - Outstanding Ensemble, at the Mad Cat Theatre Company, Miami.

"From the Mississippi Delta" - Outstanding Ensemble, at the M Ensemble Company, North Miami.

Nanique Gheridian - Outstanding Performance in "Benefactors" at Palm Beach Dramaworks, West Palm Beach.

Bruce Adler - Outstanding Performance in "I'm Not Rappaport" at New Vista Theatre Company, Boca Raton.

Eric Fabregat - Outstanding Performance in "Dirty Story" at Mosaic Theatre, Plantation.

Ricky Waugh - Outstanding Performances in "The Mission" at the New Theatre and "Two Sisters and a Piano" at The Promethean Theatre, Davie.

The Silver Palm sponsor citations go to:

Jim Stork of Stork's Backery and Cafe Las Olas, WLRN radio-TV, the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Dept. and Doug Jones of Sixth Star Entertainment and Marketing, all for Outstanding Contributions to the South Florida Theatre Festival.

Also previously announced, Jay Harris of Boca Raton will receive the League's oldest and highest honor, the Remy Pioneer Award. Freelance journalist Ron Levitt, the league's current VP and a former Florida Assistant Secretary of State, will receive the Remy Service Award. Yours truly Jack Zink will be tapped for a Lifetime Achievement Award. Gush.

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More important in many cultural circles than the dollars and cents in the arts funding pipeline during the just-ended Florida state legislative session was lawmaking that had the potential to wipe out a minimal requirement for arts education.

It took two decades of argument to convince lawmakers to create a piddling minimum of one credit in fine arts to graduate from high school. Three words might have ended it.

The current law requires “One credit in fine or performing arts, which may include speech and debate,” for graduation. An amendment during the session added the phrase “or a practical arts course,” i.e. shop, auto mechanics, etc. The proposal created an either/or choice in which schools could drop “fine arts” entirely and substitute grease monkeyshining to earn a diploma.

Efforts to stop the move failed. But the final bill as passed, and expected to be signed, is a compromise that restricts the “practical arts” offerings to courses that incorporate “artistic content and techniques of creativity, interpretation, and imagination. Eligible practical arts courses shall be identified through the Course Code Directory.”

By including the language not only that the courses include artistic content etc., but also that specific courses must be identified in the statewide course code, the original intent of the statute is preserved, to a degree.

Florida’s miniscule arts education requirement has been eroded somewhat. But in a year marked with even more frightening battles in a powerful state board over religion, creationism and science in the classroom, the fine/practical arts compromise seems somehow like a victory.

Details, as usual, can be found most easily at the Florida Cutural Alliance website. Click on "advocacy."

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The numbers in the 2008-09 state budget for the arts and culture remained steady as the legislative session reached its close last week. Arts support passed through the Dept. of State's Division of Cultural Affairs totals $6.3 million, with another $1.2 million in grants through the Division of Historical Resources.

These are sharp drops that likely will take years to rebuild to previous levels, perhaps longer than the recovery from slashes in the economic downturn after the 2001 World Trade Center attack. But times are tough and no one's whining over whether or not the share is fair. Most of the money that could be found will be redistributed to organizations throughout the state over the next year.

What's odd, however, is how much legislators were able to carve out for cultural building projects in various districts, many of them tied to magnet schools, colleges and universities: $77 million.

The big chunks go to central and north Florida schools, $20 million for a Univ. of South Florida visual and performing arts facility in Tampa, $10 million to Florida State University in Tallahassee, $7.5 million for a University of Central Florida arts complex.

Here in South Florida top grantees include FIU ($433,000), Florida Holocaust Museum ($300,000), New World School of the Arts ($1 million), and the Miami Circle preservation site ($2.2 million).

The legislature's arts record was tracked by the Florida Cultural Alliance. For complete details and links to bills, etc. visit the FLCA website and click on "advocacy."

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Neil Goldberg's Pompano Beach-based Cirque Productions began mounting Cirque-like shows for sponsored events such as conventions at indoor venues back in 1993, when Cirque du Soleil was exploding into a tour giant with its tent shows. A few years later, Goldberg's nouveau circus shows moved into theaters as ticketed events, and not long ago broke onto Broadway America's national touring circuit, where the latest show "Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy" is now. it played the Kravis Center last winter and is now in the Hawaiian Islands.

On June 16, the show moves to Broadway, at the Broadway Theatre, no less, through at least Aug. 24. There's a possibility for an extension (the tour doesn't resume until December). "Jungle Dreams" claims a cast of 25 and 150 costumes. Goldberg also produces revues of Broadway and Hollywood musicals, which have toured frequently, including stops at the Kravis and Broward Centers last month.

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The company of of "Riverdance" that arrives at the Kravis Center Tuesday for a week is on the show's U.S. farewell tour, wrapping up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June. The Asian and European companies are also shutting down in August and September, with no word on when the show might resume.

One of those winding down in the U.S. company is Fort Lauderdale native Anne Reilly, now 20, taking time off from studying art history at Columbia University. It's not her first professional step-dancing experience; she performed with The Chieftains when the group played the Kravis in 2001.

Whitehead as Sportin' Life

A tip from theater maven Tony Finstrom revealed that actor-dancer-choreographer Reggie Whitehead (left), a three time Carbonell Award-winner, is about to head off on an East European tour of "Porgy and Bess." Intrigued, we caught up with Reggie at his sublease in Manhattan just as he was preparing to return to South Florida for a visit. He'll be here for a week, then dive into rehearsals back into New York. The company leaves May 20 for St. Petersburg, Russia, then on to Warsaw, etc.

Wrote Reggie, "I left New York almost 20 years ago and thought I was finished up here." But a friend urged him back and offered to let the "Porgy and Bess" producers know about him. Whitehead will play the role of Sportin' Life. Other offers are starting to break for him, he says, but he's had to pass - all the offers conflict with the "Porgy and Bess" tour dates.

"Isn't that the way it always is? There was no contest as to which show I would be doing," he says.

Lauren Feldman play

Miami actress-playwright Lauren Feldman, currently at the Yale Drama School, will see her latest play premiere Sunday through May 17 as one of three new works in the the school's annual Carlotta Festival of new plays. Feldman says it will be her final and thesis production at Yale.

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There is a pleasant surprise waiting out in West Boca where Glades Road meets the ‘Glades, for those who make the hike through mid-May. It’s the New Vista Theatre Company’s revival of “I’m Not Rappaport.”

The two old codgers still have miles left on them in the funny-sad 1986 Tony Award-winning Broadway play by Herb Gardner. But after two seasons, the New Vista Theatre Company is still trying to define its place, and space, in the too-large West Boca Performing Arts Center, the campus theater at West Boca High School. Could director Amy London pull off the complex humor and pathos in this emotional piece? The answer is yes, mostly.

On paper, “I’m Not Rappaport” seemed a perilous skate for the company and an odd casting vehicle for song-and-dance man Bruce Adler (London’s real-life spouse). His assignment as the crusty old socialist provocateur Nat, a signature (and Tony Award-winning) role for Judd Hirsch, is a bit of a stretch and it shows. Adler’s delivery was peppered with uncertainties on opening night, some but not all caused by technical glitches (and one thankfully short-lived breakdown).

The New Vista is pouring effort and expense into production value to fill the space and offer a big-ticket sense. Ian Almeida’s scenery is a near-perfect simulation of the original Broadway concept, requiring spot-on lighting shades provided by Ginny Adams. Paula Villar delivers just so on costumes, but Traci Almeida’s sound design prompts a few head scratches.

The full review is posted on the Sun-Sentinel's entertainment page here.

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City Theatre's Summer Shorts festival of quickie plays is coming together, as usual, in a last-month flurry. Just out in the last hour is the lineup of plays in not one but four separate programs due May 29-June 29 in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

The main body of the festival is the two-part Signature Shorts package, 17 playlets in two programs, each running 90 minutes or more (and sometimes it's been plenty more). Added this year is a late-night "edgy" package of seven plays for the uncensored crowd called Undershorts - And on the far side of that, four plays in a program called S4K (Shorts for Kids).

"Splat" by Michael McKeever, a snarky sequel to "The Wizard of Oz," was among the comic highlights of the 2007 Summer Shorts fest

This stuff isn't on the City Theatre website yet, so we're adding a page here with the whole rundown, including a brief description of each play.

Still to come are the directors and actors in the 2008 company, and precise schedule. Expect the usual weekend double-headers for Signature Shorts, with both shows and an optional picnic style dinner between. The series runs at Miami's Arsht Center Studio Theatre May 29-June 22, and moves to the Broward Center's Amaturo Theatre June 26-29. The Kids and Undershorts programs are presently set for June 12-22 in Miami.

Details will be added to the City Theatre's website as they become available. Or, call the company at 305-755-9401, or the box offices at the Arsht Center, 305-949-6722 and Broward Center, 954-462-0222.

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Sherron Long is one of my favorite persons of all time in any place. She's the president of the Florida Cultural Alliance and runs the Florida Professional Theatre Assn., and has the singular overview vision that virtually everyone she represents lacks. She's spent the past few months, weeks in particular, in a familiar Alamo-style defense of arts and cultural funding during Florida's legislative session.

The final-final tally is still to be reckoned but it appears budget allocations to the State Department's division of cultural affairs will be a little over $6 million. On a related front, the state's support for film industry incentives will be $5 million. And there are actually tens of millions tucked away in the appropriations budget for college and university arts facility construction and restoration. There have been significant hits, but neither culture nor commercial show business have been zeroed out for next year.

I always have mixed emotions about this. And they're amplified by the supposed conundrum that support for the arts, when rubber meets the road in governmental decision-making, tends to come from (gasp) the Republican side of the aisle. Though I've never been a member (actually a no-party-affiliate since 1968), I've felt that the arts and other benefits of advanced civilization deserve support - but I stop short of entitlement.

So, when Sherron sighs that $6 million in Florida arts appropriations is good this year, I agree. Where we both feel that government support is more important is in the philosophy. And last-minute moves will hopefully be successful in preserving a statewide requirement for arts education. That's Senate Bill 1914, with an amendment that would prevent another amendment from replacing auto mechanics and similar pursuits to music and theater as a grad requirement.

I"m a pretty good wrench myself, devotee of Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and have rebuilt a short block or two in the carport. But shop is shop and it doesn't equate with the school choir, which deserves its special place.

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