Tag Archives: Broadway

Drawing: Dame Eileen Atkins

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Eileen Atkins

One of my favourite plays is THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE by British writer Frank Marcus. It premiered at the Bristol Old Vic in 1965 with Eileen Atkins and Beryl Reid in the lead roles. The production transferred to the West End, before its run at the Belasco Theatre in New York.where Eileen made her Broadway debut. She  played the dimwitted ‘Childie’ alongside Beryl’s sadistic, gin-guzzling radio star June Buckridge and her alter ego ‘Sister George’.

Dame Eileen has been treading the boards and appearing on the big and small screen since 1953. She has won a BAFTA, Emmy and three Olivier Awards and has been nominated for four Tony’s, the  first of which was for her role in SISTER GEORGE. She also created the iconic British TV series UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS.

Her films include EQUUS, THE DRESSER and GOSFORD PARK-once again all favourites of mine and she can be seen recently on the small screen in DOC MARTIN as Martin Clune’s Aunty, Dr Ruth Ellingham, another favourite of mine.

It’ s no wonder I had to draw her. This montage, which I dropped off at her London agent’s office for signing a couple of weeks ago, includes her as Childie and images from ALL THAT FALL at the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2012 and her solo show ELLEN TERRY WITH EILEEN ATKINS at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe earlier this year in which she portrays over ten parts including Juliet, Beatrice and Viola.

Drawing: Jesse Eisenberg in The Spoils

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Jesse Eisenberg

Eight hours. 8 long hours. Written in words or numerically, either way it still spells out a l-o-n-g  time to wait for an autograph. Actually it was 8 hours and a few minutes, waiting to get my sketch of the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar nominated Hollywood star Jesse  Eisenberg signed. But I did. It’s not my usual practice and not one I hope to make a habit of. Jesse is in London to make his West End debut as the dope-smoking, entitled, living of his wealthy parents, narcissistic bully Ben in the tragicomedy THE SPOILS, which he wrote and had its world premiere at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre in New York’s Pershing Square Signature Center last summer.

“Engrossingly acted, impeccably staged,” wrote the New York Times.

The off Broadway transfer to London’s Trafalgar Studios starts on 27 May for a three month run. It’s Jesse’s third play, all of which have stated life on the off-Broadway boards.

We – a handful of fellow collectors – found out where he was rehearsing and duly waited nearby. But Jesse had to interrupt his rehearsals to fly to Cannes to do press for his latest film CAFE SOCIETY directed by Woody Allen. Then zap back to London. We thought he was already in the building and would finish at the customary time. That plan disappeared when he actually arrived at five and quickly slipped in without us having time to catch him.

One gets to a point in this business when one has invested time that one does not want to waste by ditching the mission. In other words it would be a waste of time if you didn’t stay to get the graph. But eight hours is a long investment. Thankfully it was a nice sunny day  even though the pollen count was eight times higher than normal. It’s a recurring theme. SPOILS Sketch, sneezing and sharpie at the ready.

All was forgotten, well nearly all when we finally met meet Jesse. He thanked us for turning up and waiting. Truly one of the nicest in the business and he really liked the drawing, which is always a bonus.

Drawing: Bette Midler in I’ll Eat You Last

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Bette Midler

Showbiz icon Bette Midler returned to Broadway in 2013 to play her late friend, the legendary super-agent who ruled Hollywood during the 1970’s Sue Mengers, in John Logan’s I’LL EAT YOU LAST at the Booth Theatre.

I drew this drawing of Bette in the role and managed to get it to ‘The Divine Miss M’ when she toured the UK last July. Nothing came back, so I assumed it was assigned to the round file or left unopened along with zillions of other fan mail. When it arrived through the post last month I was very happy… for a brief moment, until I realised it was probably a ‘secretarial’.

This is a term used in the ‘graph business for signatures by authorised personnel but not the authentic autograph of the celebrity. It’s one of the disappointing aspects of collecting, one which I have experienced on a few occasions. All the more reason to try and get a graph in person. Bette does sign in person and did so at the stage door, but through the mail is a different matter. Bette’s original graph is more ‘energetic’ and her ‘M’ is more divine, without a loop as it darts across from crossing the ‘t’s’. I checked exemplars of her authentic graph and the secretarial versions and this one, sadly, looks like the latter. I’ll just have to catch her in person next year when she takes the lead role in the Broadway revival of HELLO DOLLY or pops back to Britain.

Drawing: Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in A Steady Rain

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Hugh Jackman Daniel Craig

Last October I posted this sketch of Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in A STEADY RAIN which Daniel signed at the SPECTRE World  Premiere at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Then I had to wait for an opportunity to get Hugh to do the same. That happened last week at the Premiere of EDDIE THE EAGLE at the Odeon in Leicester Square.

A STEADY RAIN had it’s Broadway debut at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in late 2009. Michael Huff’s crackerjack two-handler is an incisive character study of the stressed relationship between two Chicago cops, boyhood buddies and professional partners. Steven Spielberg has earmarked it for a film adaption.

Daniel played Joey and Hugh was Denny. The former is introverted, single and lonely and in love with Denny’s wife, who by contrast is the married, angry, racist tough-guy who cheats on his wife. With the two A-listers from the super-heroic franchise film roles – James Bond and X-Men mutant Wolverine, It became the hottest ticket in town, selling out the 12 week season in no time.

The New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley praised both performances in the ‘gripping noir tale’, but did slip in the notion that if “they had chosen to recite the alphabet in counterpoint, their joint appearance would still generate the same ticket sales.”

As mentioned Hugh was in town last week and steady rain threatened to stymy the sketch signing moment, but he inscribed his distinctive monogram ‘HJ’ moniker on the drawing before any weather intervened.

Drawing: Clive Owen, Eve Best and Kelly Reilly in Old Times

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Old Times

Packages arriving, addressed in my handwriting always exit me, especially in the plural. Yesterday it was the singular, but I was excited none-the-less.  It had a US stamp, meaning one of my drawings sent to Broadway had come back….hopefully signed. Indeed it was and a real doozy-my Old Times sketch signs by all three British cast members, Clive Owen, Eve Best and Kelly Reilly. I’m not sure of the etymology of ‘doozy’. I think it can be ‘good’ and ‘bad’. This sums up autograph collecting via the mail. Somedays are great and somedays, not so great. The main meaning is it’s ‘big’ and ‘memorable.’

The Harold Pinter three-hander about the battle for sexual dominance is having it’s Broadway revival at the American Airlines Theatre, directed by fellow Brit and Tony-winner Douglas Hodge to both critical and commercial acclaim. Clive and Kelly were making their debuts on ‘The Great White Way’ and now, also on my theatre sketches. I have had the privilege of seeing Eve on the London stage and  she has signed for me, so the Olivier Award-winner was my point of contact. Like her performances her thoughtfulness is top drawer.

Drawing: Daniel Craig in A Steady Rain

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Daniel craig

Becoming the sixth actor to play Ian Fleming’s fictional British secret agent James Bond has made him a household name, but Daniel Craig actually started his career ‘treading the boards’, after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1991. His first film role was in fact 007 in the 2006 instalment, Casino Royale.He returned to the stage in 2009, debuting on Broadway in A Steady Rain alongside fellow A-Lister Hugh Jackman at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre or Theater as they like to spell it. The 12 week engagement  about two Chicago policemen who inadvertently return a Vietnamese boy to a cannibalistic serial killer believing him to be his uncle was a critical and commercial success. TIME magazine placed the production in it’s Top 10 plays of that year, ranking it second. He is due to play Iago in Othello next year.

On a somewhat bigger stage was the World Premiere of the latest Bond movie, Spectre, at  London’s Royal Albert Hall, attended by all the cast, creatives and their HRH’s Wills, Kate and Harry. As perms go this is about as big as it gets. Daniel would be attending naturally, so it presented a chance for me to get this sketch of him and Hugh in A Steady Rain graphed. The event was on Sunday evening. I was in the area the day before and found out that they were making a list for the wristbands. I put my name on it in the 34th position…not a good one if you’re a Formula One driver, but excellent for taking front row at a premiere. However…there’s always an ‘however’ at these things, when I returned the next day, an hour before I was told to, the bands had all been dispensed, including my number 34. I won’t go into the ‘discussions’ that followed. In the end I was given number 0500…not a number that filled me with confidence to get 007’s sig on my sketch. As you can imagine the red carpet for this was very long. The situation did eliminate the dilemma of  where to stand. I got told where to go. I managed to secure a place second row on the grid near the paps. Daniel has always thought of his portrayal of Bond as an ‘anti-hero’. “Am I a good guy,or just a bad guy who works for a good side?” he once said. I guess most assassins face this question all the time. However, on a mild Autumnal night he was definitely a good guy and on the right side..the side I was on! Actually he did both sides as you would expect a spy to do. I asked him  if he could dedicate it ‘to Mark’ for me, and he penned,’M’, which as Bond specialists know is the also the code name for his boss in MI16. After Daniel signed he suddenly realised and said, “Oh sorry that’s over Hugh” I assured him it was fine, Hugh will do the same over you, one day. Not a bad outcome in the end for 0500.

Drawing: Andrew Garfield in Death of a Salesman

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Andrew Garfield

Characters in conflict make great drawing subjects and Andrew Garfield was reported to have said, “I’m drawn to conflicted characters,” in the New York Times, while performing the role of Biff Loman in Mike Nichol’s revival of Arthur Miller’s modern classic Death of A Salesman at the Barrymore Theatre on New York’s Great White Way in 2012.

And you don’t get a more tortured soul and role than the character of Biff Loman, the eldest son of the delusional salesman Willy Loman, played by the late, great, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

“It’s a wrenching performance, exquisitely calibrated… and the final confrontation, in which the tarnished golden boy tries with desperate futility to make Willy face reality is so devastating that it’s not uncommon to hear sobs in the theatre,” wrote David Rooney in the New York Times. It was a performance that earned Andrew a Tony Award nomination.

Born in Los Angeles but raised in England, Andrew’s short but already impressive stage and screen career had its international breakthrough in 2010 with David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant chronicle of the birth of Facebook, The Social Network, as Eduardo Saverin the most ethical of the operation who was shut out by his co-founders . It was a role that earned him multiple awards attention including Golden Glboe and BAFTA nomination and it was the performance that persuaded Mike Nicols to cast him as Biff, stating “What you see is Andrew’s enormous emotional equipment.”

Sending stuff for signing to Broadway theatres is always a hit and miss affair, so I planned to get Andrew to sign this sketch of him as Biff at the Gala screening of The Amazing Spiderman at London’s Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square at the end of June 2012, after he completed his Salesman run.

Positioning myself at the drop-off point allowed me to get Andrew early as he got out of the car and came directly over to us before the PAs  tend to lead the talent away to do press.

Andrew usually has a rapid, minimal sig-even more than this one, so I was very pleased he stopped for a chat and to get this dedication and a more ‘extended’ graph, after which the pushy PA reminded him of the time constraints, to which he retorted, “I’m already using my abbreviated autograph!’ but accelerated his walk after that and his along with his sig.

Drawing: Laura Linney in Time Stands Still

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laura linney

American actress Laura Linney featured in Time Stands Still by Pulitzer Prize Winner Donald Margulies at the Samuel Friedman Theater during its three month run on Broadway in early 2010.

She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play. The Manhattan Theatre Club production returned to Broadway at the Court Theatre in September that year until the following January.

Laura played Sarah, a photo journalist returned from covering the Iraq war after being injured by a roadside bomb, with her reporter boyfriend James who is overcome by guilt after leaving her alone in the war zone. Both are trying to return to living as civilians, yet the comforts of urban domesticity  – the simple pleasures and small compromises – can be a minefield of its own. She is limping with crutches and scars on her face. He wants to help, but Sarah resists.

The New York Times has called her “an actress of peerless emotional transparency, capable of conveying a multitude of conflicting feelings through minimal means.”

It was Laura’s third Tony nomination to go with three Oscar nominations, three Emmy and two Golden Globe wins. I met the lovely Laura last night at the premiere of her latest film Mr Holmes at the Odeon Kensington in London. “Oh, look at this,” she said, surprised by a sketch amongst all the Love, Actually posters and glossy 8x10s. Her graph used to have a bit more letter definition, but has been streamlined to accommodated demand I guess. However, she did take the time to dedicate it for me, “Mark with a K?” she asked. I nodded ok.

Drawing: Chris O’Dowd in Of Mice and Men

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Chris O'Dowd Of Mice And Men Broadway Theatre

Irish actor Chris O’Dowd made his Broadway debut as the mentally disabled migrant Lennie Small in the dramatisation of John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella Of Mice and Men at the Longacre Theater in March 2014. He teamed up with fellow Great White Way debutant James Franco, who played the distressed George. Both characters are displaced ranch workers during the Great Depession in California.

For the limited 18 week season Chris was nominated for a Tony Award. Tim Wickens four star review in The Telegraph says, “loose-limbed and lumbering, O’Dowd is a revelation as Lennie – a giant of a man left childlike and painfully innocent by a head injury suffered in his youth”.

Sending sketches to Broadway Theatres can be a bit hit and miss, especially if you want multiple cast members to sign it. I did send one of Chris and James and Leighton Meester to the Longacre, but nothing came back so I drew one of Chris as Lennie and hoped to get him to sign it in person in London when he was promoting his latest Moone Boy book at Waterstones. But as the saying goes (and the basis for the play; the best laid plans of mice and men went astray. In the end I sent it to his agent with better success.

Bradley Cooper as The Elephant Man

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bradley cooper

Bradley Cooper returns to the role of disfigured London celebrity Joseph Merrick – better known as The Elephant Man for a three month run on the West End.

Although The Elephant Man is expressionistic in style, it is based on true historical events. Joseph Merrick (referred to as “John” in the play) suffered from a condition that no one had properly recognised. After being toured around the UK and Europe under the not-too-flattering title, he is rescued by surgeon Frederick Treves who studied him at the London Hospital in White Chapel up until Merrick’s death in 1890.

The play, written by Bernard Pomerance, premiered at the Booth Theater on Broadway in April 1979 and returned there for a much-lauded revival last winter. It has garnered 4 Tony Award nominations, including one for Bradley for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. There are also nods for fellow leads, Patricia Clarkson and Alessandro Nivola and for Best Rvival.

As the script instructs, Bradley declines make up and prosthetics. Instead he contorts his body and his face, adding layers of speech as he gulps and gasps to communicate through mishappen lips.

Director Scott Ellis stages an anatomy lesson with Treves addressing his students in front of a full length photograph of the near-naked Merrick and Bradley performs a mimed illustration of the lecture.

In her Variety review, Marilyn Stasio writes : “as Nivola’s Treves dispassionately drones on about his subject’s twisted limbs and misshapen torso, Cooper stands stock still in a cone of light and silently contorts his own perfect body into an approximation of each deformity. The piece de résistance is the depiction of the wide slobbering aperture that is Merrick’s mouth. Shaping his own mouth into a fleshy oval, the thesp gives expressive voice to the sensitive and intelligent human being imprisoned in his own body. It’s a stunning  performance, deeply felt and very moving”.

Bradley returened to normal to greet fans at the stage door barriers on opening night.