Zorba! begins on Broadway tonight!

6 May 2015 15:37

It's almost here! Following yesterday's dress rehearsal (watched by an audience of specially invited guests), New York City Center's revival of the life-affirming musical Zorba!, starring Zoë as mysterious innkeeper Hortense, will have its first public performance tonight. BroadwayWorld.com has several great photos from the show.

The return of Zorba! to the stage (it was last seen on Broadway during the 1980s) has been enthusiastically heralded by Playbill today. The final production in City Center's 2015 Encores! season, the musical runs from 6-10 May. It marks the first time Zoë has appeared on-stage in a musical since 1975, and so is sure to be a treat for fans in the US.

Let's wish Zoë and everyone else involved with the production – co-stars John Turturro, Santino Fontana, Elizabeth A. Davis, Marin Mazzie, director Walter Bobbie, and many more – all the very best!

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Update: The Esther Benjamins Trust's Nepal Earthquake Appeal in action - please donate, if you can

4 May 2015 23:23

As recently reported on this website, The Esther Benjamins Trust, a charity working in Nepal and supported by Zoë, has launched the Nepal Earthquake Appeal, for which it urgently needs donations.

You can donate to the charity online, by cheque or text to help fund its vital relief work in Nepal – which includes supporting children and impoverished families, as well as carrying out search and rescue work.

The Esther Benjamins Trust has recently updated its appeal page with videos and photos of Nepal (one of which is shown above), showing how the charity is using existing donations to support earthquake survivors, and drawing attention to the devastation and its impact.

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'This is the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life': Zoë interviewed about Zorba!

4 May 2015 22:34

The day after tomorrow, Zoë will take to the stage as mysterious innkeeper Hortense in New York City Center's highly anticipated revival of Zorba!, her first musical since the mid-1970s.

'This is the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life,' Zoë says of the production in a fascinating new interview from The Clyde Fitch Report, an art and politics publication. Scary, but undoubtedly a great deal of fun too: 'I'm excited by the idea of doing it,' she adds.

Zorba! will begin its seven-performance run – part of the Encores! season – exactly two months after Zoë's opening night as poet Stevie Smith, in Stevie, on the other side of the Atlantic. As she makes clear to the interviewer, David Finkle (clearly a long-standing admirer, who has 'seen Wanamaker in almost every production she's done'), her schedule has been extremely busy recently, to say the least.

Zoë explains: 'We closed [in Stevie] on Saturday, I packed on Sunday, flew [to New York] on Monday and had dinner with [the director of Zorba!] Walter Bobbie on Tuesday'!

Zorba! runs from 6-10 May. Tickets are available now.

Thanks to Janet for the link to the interview.

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Video: Zoë and her colleagues discuss what makes Zorba! unique

3 May 2015 00:36

New York City Center's Zorba! is almost here – and in a brand new video from TheaterMania Zoë and her fellow cast and crew members discuss the musical's appeal and what makes it unique.

As Zoë explains, the 'narrative is very strong' in John Kander (who has discussed the musical's history in a recent interview) and Fred Ebb's works, which makes Zorba! very compelling.

She points out that City Center's Encores!, of which the production is a part, is 'bringing back musicals that have been neglected'. The revival of Zorba! – the first on Broadway since the 1980s – will help this musical delight find a new audience and surely wow them!

Zorba! runs from 6-10 May. Tickets are available now.

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Zoë to honour Bob Crowley, His Girl Friday designer, at NYTW Spring Gala

30 April 2015 19:15

Zoë will join Helen Mirren, Zachary Quinto, John Lithgow and other well-known figures from the theatre industry at the New York Theatre Workshop 2015 Spring Gala, on 11 May, to celebrate the achievements of hugely successful theatre designer Bob Crowley.

Zoë has appeared in a number of productions designed by Crowley, most recently His Girl Friday (2003) at the National Theatre, for which the designer created a very memorable set-within-a-set. The press room, in which Zoe's Hildy sparred with old flame Walter (Alex Jennings), was framed by a film sound stage. The show's director, Jack O’Brien, will also pay tribute to Crowley at the NYTW gala.

Crowley discussed the inspiration for His Girl Friday's set design with the Independent, which named it as one of his top five, in a feature about his work. 'We wanted to reference the fact that the roots of this play were in the cinema,' he explained. 'We created a set that looked like a sound stage so that when the audience walked in, they would feel like they were on the back lot of a film studio in Los Angeles.'

Crowley also designed the RSC's Othello (1989), in which Zoë played Emilia opposite Ian McKellen's Iago, and The Time of Your Life (1983), featuring Zoë and John Thaw.

Tickets to the NYTW gala are available now. For more details about the planned tribute to Crowley, see BroadwayWorld.com's article.

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