Theater

One of their most beloved musicals — Fiddler on the Roof — is back on Broadway. The production, at the Minskoff Theatre, stars Alfred Molina as Tevye and includes a new song they wrote. There's a new cast recording of the show. Bock and Harnick collaborated on Fiorello (which won a Pulitzer Prize), She Loves Me and The Rothschilds.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the new DVD of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. The production was shown on TV in with Angela Lansbury, 25 years ago.

On March 7, the actor and monologist Spalding Gray was found dead in the East River in New York. Gray, 62, had been missing for two months. His family believes he committed suicide. Gray was best known for his autobiographical monologues, including Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box and It's a Slippery Slope. Over the last 19 years he was a frequent guest on Fresh Air. We listen back to excerpts of his performances and interviews: Swimming to Cambodia (rebroadcast from Aug. 20, 1985), Monster in a Box (rebroadcast from Sept.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new series of original Broadway cast albums from shows that didn’t succeed but which contained numbers that shouldn’t be forgotten. (on DECCA).

Kushner adapted his epic Tony-award winning play Angels in America into a screenplay for HBO (broadcast this month in two three-hour parts). The play is set in New York in the mid-1980s during the midst of the AIDS epidemic. The HBO film is directed by Mike Nichols and stars Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson. Kushner also has a new semi-autobiographical musical Caroline, or Change at the Public Theater in New York.

Newman was nominated for a Tony last year for his role in Our Town, in a production that originated at his Connecticut theatre company. The production will soon be shown on PBS.

Performance artist, writer and theater director Rhodessa Jones is co-artistic director of the San Franciso performance company Cultural Odyssey. She is also founder and director of the "Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women," a performance workshop for women in prison in which she helps them develop and stage works based on their own stories. Jones' solo performance works include Hot Flashes, Power Surges, and Private Summers, and Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women.

She starred in the London production of Gypsy. When she was 17 she debuted in Gaslight, and was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ingrid Bergman s Cockney maid. Lansbury also played opposite Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, was Elvis Presley s mother in Blue Hawaii and the manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate. On stage she starred in Mame and was the baker of the worst pies in London in Sweeney Todd. For twelve years she starred in the TV series, Murder, She Wrote. This interview first aired November 28, 2000.

Together they are known as "The Right Size," and are the actor/writers of the Broadway comedy, The Play What I Wrote. One critic described it as "full of music hall tricks, in jokes and surreal goonery." It was a hit in London before coming to New York. The duo's work is heavily influenced by Vaudeville and the sight gags of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. Their plays Stop Calling Me Vernon and Baldy Hopkins were hits at the Edinburgh Festival. Their play Do You Come Here Often? was an Olivier award winning comedy in England.

With his writing partner, Fred Ebb, Kander wrote the music for the original Broadway musical Chicago. The movie version of Chicago is nominated for 13 Academy Awards this year. Kander and Ebb are nominated for their song "I Move On." Kander and Ebb also wrote the music for the shows Cabaret, The Act, Woman of the Year, and Flora the Red Meance, and the Martin Scorsese movie musical New York, New York. Both Chicago and Cabaret have recently been revived on Broadway.