The Sanitation Chronicles, a new play by and about New York’s Strongest, premiered on Wednesday. Actor/playwright Paul Brno, who’s been moonlighting for the Department of Sanitation for the past 17 years, says “every day is still a great day to be on a garbage truck.” The “slice of life” play explores the daily prejudices, anger and violence faced by “Sanmen”, all of which is exacerbated when one of the guys shows up for work dressed as a lady. [Tickets.]
The Pulitzer Board trashed the three obscure, artsy plays nominated by its five member jury and pulled Rabbit Hole out of its hat. (This is the play that gave Time Out NY’s David Cote theatrical food-poisoning: “Sitting through yet another living-room drama about the endlessly fascinating troubles of suburbanites, you find yourself longing for pirates to crash through the kitchen window or zombies to shamble through the front door and chew the protagonist's face off.”) The Playgoer points out that the Pulitzer Board does not have a single artist or art critic on it; our overall impression is that the Pulitzer Prize for Drama has become something of a joke – last year the board didn’t even award a prize to any of the nominees.
It was also disclosed this week that the Virginia Tech shooter wrote plays; aspiring playwrights can probably start looking forward to much nicer rejection letters.
Someday soon, Broadway producers promise to sling a musical adaptation of Spiderman at the masses, with the help of director Julie Taymor and U2’s Bono and the Edge. Will this project go the way of the stillborn Batman musical? Or, ala Legally Blonde, are we living in the golden age of pop-culture musical adaptations? Can Archie: The Musical be far behind? (Sigh.) N.P.H. is the obvious choice for Jughead, and since U2's taken, we only have one band in mind for the score. (Any thoughts on Veronica?) And it was just confirmed that Harry Potter will be coming to Broadway, too.
