That's a good dealDaniel_Craig wrote:Ok.Vesper Lynd 007 wrote:That's nothing to feel ashamed ofDaniel_Craig wrote:
You´re welcome, ladies.. We just build a group and have fun
.
. So you're the "Hahn im Korb". 
.A Steady Rain reviews - member and critics
Moderator: Germangirl
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Vesper Lynd 007
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Germangirl
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steveonbroadway Sold-out A STEADY RAIN was last week's top Broadway play earning $1,167,954 also highest average tix priced $136.28 http://bit.ly/19n59X
By David Gewirtzman
21 Sep 2009
Broadway Grosses: Sept. 14-20
Production
(Theatre) Gross Gross Attendance Prev. Perf. Seats Avg. Paid Admission % Cap.
A Steady Rain
(Schoenfeld) $1,167,954 8,570 8 0 1,071 $136.28 100.0%
After Miss Julie
(American Airlines) $98,091 3,512 5 0 740 $27.93 94.9%
Billy Elliot
(Imperial) $1,342,233 11,370 0 8 1,421 $118.05 100.0%
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/13 ... ept._14-20
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
Small venue?
Iclemt38,
Could you please tell me about the venue where this play is being performed? I live in Washington D.C. and I will be trvaelling to N.Y. in October with my sister. I'm more than willing to pay for a ticket to see the show, but my sister is concerned about the price. I did find reasonbly priced tickets in mezzanine, but not up front. If the venue is not too large I might consider purchasing these. Of course I'd rather be up close, but can't afford to be...
What do you think ?
Thank you.
Could you please tell me about the venue where this play is being performed? I live in Washington D.C. and I will be trvaelling to N.Y. in October with my sister. I'm more than willing to pay for a ticket to see the show, but my sister is concerned about the price. I did find reasonbly priced tickets in mezzanine, but not up front. If the venue is not too large I might consider purchasing these. Of course I'd rather be up close, but can't afford to be...
What do you think ?
Thank you.
-
Germangirl
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- Posts: 47073
- Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2007 5:05 pm
- Location: Germany
Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman Are Not Alone: Stars On Broadway This Season
“A Steady Rain” starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman hasn’t even opened yet and it is already being proclaimed not just a hit but a phenomenon.
http://thefastertimes.com/newyorktheate ... not-alone/
Broadway box office blooming
Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman play makes top 3
By GORDON COX
Stop the presses: A straight play was one of the top three earners on Broadway last week.
Of course, that play was Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman topliner "A Steady Rain." It grossed a whopping $1,167,954 for eight perfs in the production's first full week on the boards.
Still, it's a relatively rare feat for a non-musical to crack the top 10, much less the top three. "Rain" muscled "Jersey Boys" ($1,126,009) out of the No. 3 slot, landing behind "Wicked" ($1,441,683) and "Billy Elliot" ($1,342,233). Average ticket price paid for the play was $136 -- which means a lot of people paid more than that, with sky-high demand driving sales of premium tickets. (The week's "Rain" total, obviously, reps a new house record at the Schoenfeld Theater.)
Daniel Craig’s A Steady Rain boosts Broadway box office
http://commanderbond.net/7189/daniel-cr ... ffice.html
“A Steady Rain” starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman hasn’t even opened yet and it is already being proclaimed not just a hit but a phenomenon.
http://thefastertimes.com/newyorktheate ... not-alone/
Broadway box office blooming
Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman play makes top 3
By GORDON COX
Stop the presses: A straight play was one of the top three earners on Broadway last week.
Of course, that play was Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman topliner "A Steady Rain." It grossed a whopping $1,167,954 for eight perfs in the production's first full week on the boards.
Still, it's a relatively rare feat for a non-musical to crack the top 10, much less the top three. "Rain" muscled "Jersey Boys" ($1,126,009) out of the No. 3 slot, landing behind "Wicked" ($1,441,683) and "Billy Elliot" ($1,342,233). Average ticket price paid for the play was $136 -- which means a lot of people paid more than that, with sky-high demand driving sales of premium tickets. (The week's "Rain" total, obviously, reps a new house record at the Schoenfeld Theater.)
Daniel Craig’s A Steady Rain boosts Broadway box office
http://commanderbond.net/7189/daniel-cr ... ffice.html
Last edited by Germangirl on Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
Re: Small venue?
The Venue is really small, you will be able to see wherever you sit. From what I saw, both Hugh and Daniel weren't miked but you still hear them really clearly. I think I've read that from the back of the Mezz you still see really well. I sat in row B so I was closer than I'd ever thought I'd be but for sure anywhere you sit would be fine. You might not be able to see the little things like Hugh's lip quiver and things like that, but yea, it'll be fine wherever. You should go!! I highly recommend it!susan lee wrote:Iclemt38,
Could you please tell me about the venue where this play is being performed? I live in Washington D.C. and I will be trvaelling to N.Y. in October with my sister. I'm more than willing to pay for a ticket to see the show, but my sister is concerned about the price. I did find reasonbly priced tickets in mezzanine, but not up front. If the venue is not too large I might consider purchasing these. Of course I'd rather be up close, but can't afford to be...
What do you think ?
Thank you.
A steady Rain venue
Thank you icelemt38. You are the second person I've spoken to, who has said that. I really should just do it. If I can only convince my sister...
And thank you for all your postings on the show.
And thank you for all your postings on the show.
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Germangirl
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Broadway's New Million-Dollar Baby
'A Steady Rain,' the New York debut of a moonlighting Chicago playwright, is set to open big
Keith Huff, managing editor of a medical Web site, typically watches videos of orthopedic surgical procedures at lunch. He doesn't usually field phone calls from James Bond.
But when the phone rang in his suburban Chicago office last spring, it was Daniel Craig, the A-list movie actor (and the latest to portray 007), on the line. Mr. Craig told Mr. Huff he wanted a part in his play about two Chicago policemen.
View Full Image
Erica Beckman
Playwright Keith Huff’s ‘A Steady Rain’ broke a house record for weekly box-office receipts at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway earlier this month.
"It was surreal," says Mr. Huff, who wrote the drama over a couple of weeks in 2005 in the predawn hours before heading out to his day job at Orthopaedic Knowledge Online, a Web site for medical professionals. When the play, "A Steady Rain," opens in New York Tuesday, it will be Mr. Huff's Broadway debut. In a season featuring such marquee-name playwrights as Neil Simon and David Mamet, he'll be a rare newcomer.
So far, ticket sales are huge, and the play is raking in the kind of money normally reserved for splashy musicals. In the week that ended last Sunday, its first full week of previews, "Rain" grossed nearly $1.2 million—a bit more than "The Lion King" grossed in the same week. The hit play "God of Carnage," which cleaned up at this year's Tony Awards, cracked the weekly $1 million mark just once to date in the nearly five months since its first performance.
After writing more than 50 one-act and full-length plays over the past 25 years and serving as an unpaid resident playwright at the Chicago Dramatists theater, Mr. Huff has been waiting for his breakout moment. He never expected it would come in the form of a drama about the conflicted friendship of two cops, a brutal crime and a botched police investigation. "Rain" is somewhat experimental, he says, because it shifts perspectives, jumps back and forth in time and requires both actors to describe the action in detail while directly addressing the audience.
"The cardinal rule of playwriting is 'show it, don't tell it,' and these guys break that rule from the beginning of the play to the very end of it," Mr. Huff says. "They're in our face. They break the fourth wall."
It doesn’t hurt that the actors are action heroes. Mr. Craig, who sports a moustache for "Rain," chose the more introspective of the two roles. Broadway veteran Hugh Jackman, best known as Wolverine from the "X-Men" films, is physically bigger than Mr. Craig and was cast as the alpha-male counterpart.
Mr. Huff says he spent two years putting "Rain" together in his head, then wrote it down quickly. "Once I heard the guys talking, I just let them talk and got out of their way," he says. "Rain" had two runs in Chicago, and the script found its way to Frederick Zollo, a producer and friend of Mr. Craig's. It caught the actor's interest.
A soft-spoken Illinois native, Mr. Huff writes characters who speak with more edge than he does. In "Rain," one character calls the other an "Irish tampon" and refers to a woman's breasts as her "upper frontal superstructure" or, singly, as "gazunga number two." In a note at the start of the play, Mr. Huff specifies that the men should speak with Chicago accents, and he points out that the script has them repeating themselves and making up words. "Sometimes a typo is not a typo," he writes. "Please, trust the script as written."
Mr. Huff married into a police family; his late father-in-law was a commander and his brother-in-law is a retired detective. He based the play partly on stories he heard his relatives tell. He was intrigued by what he calls "that moral gray area that cops get pushed into on a daily basis."
He says he recently sold the film rights to "Rain" for a potential $1 million, and another paycheck is pending if he writes the screenplay. While on leave from his job at the Web site, he's had meetings in Los Angeles to mine film and television prospects, including a possible series, loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov," about a Chicago family that owns a commercial construction company. He's also working on a new play, "Nine Toes," about a Los Angeles actor whose plane crashes in the Canadian Rockies in a small town called Nine Toes.
In the summer, Mr. Huff worked with Mr. Craig and Mr. Jackman in rehearsals, where they began and ended each day by giving each other hugs. "I'm not like a real hugging person," Mr. Huff says, "so that's a little odd."
Well, he´s never had Daniel on set
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj
'A Steady Rain,' the New York debut of a moonlighting Chicago playwright, is set to open big
Keith Huff, managing editor of a medical Web site, typically watches videos of orthopedic surgical procedures at lunch. He doesn't usually field phone calls from James Bond.
But when the phone rang in his suburban Chicago office last spring, it was Daniel Craig, the A-list movie actor (and the latest to portray 007), on the line. Mr. Craig told Mr. Huff he wanted a part in his play about two Chicago policemen.
View Full Image
Erica Beckman
Playwright Keith Huff’s ‘A Steady Rain’ broke a house record for weekly box-office receipts at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway earlier this month.
"It was surreal," says Mr. Huff, who wrote the drama over a couple of weeks in 2005 in the predawn hours before heading out to his day job at Orthopaedic Knowledge Online, a Web site for medical professionals. When the play, "A Steady Rain," opens in New York Tuesday, it will be Mr. Huff's Broadway debut. In a season featuring such marquee-name playwrights as Neil Simon and David Mamet, he'll be a rare newcomer.
So far, ticket sales are huge, and the play is raking in the kind of money normally reserved for splashy musicals. In the week that ended last Sunday, its first full week of previews, "Rain" grossed nearly $1.2 million—a bit more than "The Lion King" grossed in the same week. The hit play "God of Carnage," which cleaned up at this year's Tony Awards, cracked the weekly $1 million mark just once to date in the nearly five months since its first performance.
After writing more than 50 one-act and full-length plays over the past 25 years and serving as an unpaid resident playwright at the Chicago Dramatists theater, Mr. Huff has been waiting for his breakout moment. He never expected it would come in the form of a drama about the conflicted friendship of two cops, a brutal crime and a botched police investigation. "Rain" is somewhat experimental, he says, because it shifts perspectives, jumps back and forth in time and requires both actors to describe the action in detail while directly addressing the audience.
"The cardinal rule of playwriting is 'show it, don't tell it,' and these guys break that rule from the beginning of the play to the very end of it," Mr. Huff says. "They're in our face. They break the fourth wall."
It doesn’t hurt that the actors are action heroes. Mr. Craig, who sports a moustache for "Rain," chose the more introspective of the two roles. Broadway veteran Hugh Jackman, best known as Wolverine from the "X-Men" films, is physically bigger than Mr. Craig and was cast as the alpha-male counterpart.
Mr. Huff says he spent two years putting "Rain" together in his head, then wrote it down quickly. "Once I heard the guys talking, I just let them talk and got out of their way," he says. "Rain" had two runs in Chicago, and the script found its way to Frederick Zollo, a producer and friend of Mr. Craig's. It caught the actor's interest.
A soft-spoken Illinois native, Mr. Huff writes characters who speak with more edge than he does. In "Rain," one character calls the other an "Irish tampon" and refers to a woman's breasts as her "upper frontal superstructure" or, singly, as "gazunga number two." In a note at the start of the play, Mr. Huff specifies that the men should speak with Chicago accents, and he points out that the script has them repeating themselves and making up words. "Sometimes a typo is not a typo," he writes. "Please, trust the script as written."
Mr. Huff married into a police family; his late father-in-law was a commander and his brother-in-law is a retired detective. He based the play partly on stories he heard his relatives tell. He was intrigued by what he calls "that moral gray area that cops get pushed into on a daily basis."
He says he recently sold the film rights to "Rain" for a potential $1 million, and another paycheck is pending if he writes the screenplay. While on leave from his job at the Web site, he's had meetings in Los Angeles to mine film and television prospects, including a possible series, loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov," about a Chicago family that owns a commercial construction company. He's also working on a new play, "Nine Toes," about a Los Angeles actor whose plane crashes in the Canadian Rockies in a small town called Nine Toes.
In the summer, Mr. Huff worked with Mr. Craig and Mr. Jackman in rehearsals, where they began and ended each day by giving each other hugs. "I'm not like a real hugging person," Mr. Huff says, "so that's a little odd."
Well, he´s never had Daniel on set
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
Poor man....no-one warned him that he was working with the two biggest "huggers" in the business??Germangirl wrote:In the summer, Mr. Huff worked with Mr. Craig and Mr. Jackman in rehearsals, where they began and ended each day by giving each other hugs. "I'm not like a real hugging person," Mr. Huff says, "so that's a little odd."
Well, he´s never had Daniel on set
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj
Must have been a bit of a shock to be embraced daily like that by two legends. ...........I think I could cope though . Just.....
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Germangirl
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A Steady Rain Tickets New York Broadway's Savior?
Steady Rain Tickets are in Demand
A Steady Rain tickets in New York are bucking the trend.
Broadway Sales are in need of help.
Well we have now been dragging along in this recession for what three years now, four?? Sure they say a year, but lets all it the way it is, it has been the better part of this decade for most of us. Broadway shows, and the theatres that house them have been no different. While most articles you read will tell you Broadway is bucking the trend, tell me how closing Hairspray, Little Mermaid, 9 to 5 and Young Frankenstein just to name a few is bucking the recession trend??
The fact of the matter is Broadway is doing better to a point because they have done what say Ford has done, they have streamlined the production and giving the consumer less to chose from, hense making the bottom line look better. It is just way you run a business in tough times and Broadway, like it or not is a business.
One of those, "fewer to chose from" shows is the MONSTER hit in the making, "A steady Rain" featuring Dainel Craig and Hugh Jackman. Known anymore for their monster hit movies, James Bond and X men, these two silver screen legends are now on the stage at Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Although Daniel Craig did work in London and was nominated for London Evening Standard Theatre award, this will be his first time on Broadway.
Hugh Jackman, on the other hand, earned a Tony Award for his work in the Broadway musical The Boy From Oz. He is also known for his film roles in the "X-Men" trilogy, "Someone Like You," "Swordfish," "Kate and Leopold," "Van Helsing" and the recent "The Fountain" and "Happy Feet" (in voice). His stage credits also include Trevor Nunn's staging of Oklahoma! at Britian's National Theatre and award-winning work in productions of Sunset Boulevard and Beauty and the Beast in his homeland.
A steady rain is is a new American play that tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends and their differing accounts of a few harrowing days that changed their lives forever.
The play will run September 29th to December 6th and they are saying it will be a, "strictly limited run."
Tickets for this show are in demand to say the least! By our accounts this is one of the better selling short run shows in the last couple of years on broadway. If broadway is to turn the not so go times around it will take quite a few short run shows like this, featuring major stage and screen hitter starring in it.
Accoring to early reviews, this is just the show to get Broadway season rolling in the right direction.
http://hubpages.com/hub/A-Steady-Rain-T ... ign=author
Steady Rain Tickets are in Demand
A Steady Rain tickets in New York are bucking the trend.
Broadway Sales are in need of help.
Well we have now been dragging along in this recession for what three years now, four?? Sure they say a year, but lets all it the way it is, it has been the better part of this decade for most of us. Broadway shows, and the theatres that house them have been no different. While most articles you read will tell you Broadway is bucking the trend, tell me how closing Hairspray, Little Mermaid, 9 to 5 and Young Frankenstein just to name a few is bucking the recession trend??
The fact of the matter is Broadway is doing better to a point because they have done what say Ford has done, they have streamlined the production and giving the consumer less to chose from, hense making the bottom line look better. It is just way you run a business in tough times and Broadway, like it or not is a business.
One of those, "fewer to chose from" shows is the MONSTER hit in the making, "A steady Rain" featuring Dainel Craig and Hugh Jackman. Known anymore for their monster hit movies, James Bond and X men, these two silver screen legends are now on the stage at Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Although Daniel Craig did work in London and was nominated for London Evening Standard Theatre award, this will be his first time on Broadway.
Hugh Jackman, on the other hand, earned a Tony Award for his work in the Broadway musical The Boy From Oz. He is also known for his film roles in the "X-Men" trilogy, "Someone Like You," "Swordfish," "Kate and Leopold," "Van Helsing" and the recent "The Fountain" and "Happy Feet" (in voice). His stage credits also include Trevor Nunn's staging of Oklahoma! at Britian's National Theatre and award-winning work in productions of Sunset Boulevard and Beauty and the Beast in his homeland.
A steady rain is is a new American play that tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends and their differing accounts of a few harrowing days that changed their lives forever.
The play will run September 29th to December 6th and they are saying it will be a, "strictly limited run."
Tickets for this show are in demand to say the least! By our accounts this is one of the better selling short run shows in the last couple of years on broadway. If broadway is to turn the not so go times around it will take quite a few short run shows like this, featuring major stage and screen hitter starring in it.
Accoring to early reviews, this is just the show to get Broadway season rolling in the right direction.
http://hubpages.com/hub/A-Steady-Rain-T ... ign=author
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
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Germangirl
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- Location: Germany
One that might be in the mood of what some of the real critics might be - but I think WHATEVER judgement the critics will make - the play is a declared a hit by the audiences already and that´s where it counts. Julia Roberts didn´t get praise either and played to a full house.
A Steady Rain (Schoenfeld Theatre)
By Dan
5 POINTS OR LESS
the hot ticket of the season • Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman • pulpy cop drama-not for kids • almost every show will be sold out • don’t feel bad if you miss it
BOTTOM LINE: Contrary to all the hype, you don't need to see this; it is fine, but you’ve probably seen it before.
Every so often there seems to be a Broadway play that quickly becomes “event theatre”- a show that sells out every show, draws huge crowds, and soon becomes the hot ticket of the season. Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain, the pairing of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in The Odd Couple - these shows had no trouble selling tickets, even though the productions themselves weren't really all that great.
And now we have A Steady Rain, with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman. In its first full week of previews, it grossed more money than any straight play in Broadway history. It is likely it's mostly sold out for its entire 12-week run. Seats in the rear orchestra are being sold for premium prices ($276-$376 per ticket) and once it opens on September 29th, tickets may be extremely hard to come by, at any price. At this point, it appears as if spending $125 on a ticket (which is already expensive for most people) won’t even get you a good seat, it will just get you in the theatre. So…is it worth it? Should you pay premium prices to see this play? No. And if your dates are flexible, or you are a student, or you’re willing to stand, you may not need to. More on that in a bit. First, the play.
In A Steady Rain, Craig and Jackman are Chicago beat cops. The play opens with the men sitting in chairs on a bare stage with two lights hanging over them, as if they are in an interrogation room. They tell a story that begins innocuously enough: the two men are partners and best friends. But the tale quickly turns dark and violent. You may have heard that the play is a series of monologues, or that each cop tells their own (different) perspective of what happened. Neither is exactly true; the two men share the storytelling, as if they are both in the same room telling a listener/interrogator what happened. They occasionally interact with each other, but for the most part, each contributes to the joint story.
Throughout the story, the two men deal with various elements of the Chicago underworld. The tone of A Steady Rain recalls movies like Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. As with these movies, in which the turns of plot are so integral to one’s experience, it is best to see the A Steady Rain knowing as little as possible about the story.
The writing is decent, and certainly evokes the intended atmosphere. Whenever the cops venture out into the seedier areas of the city, a backdrop appears. While these backdrops look great, they aren’t necessary; I couldn’t help thinking that their main purpose was to fill the large stage and justify the high ticket prices. Jackman and Craig are both good. I didn’t love either performance, because I think both characters have the potential to be more complex and layered.
A Steady Rain was produced in Chicago last year, with no stars and in a much smaller theatre. Frankly, I wish I had seen that production. Broadway is a business, and this production of A Steady Rain will make pots of money for everyone involved. But let’s not kid ourselves: Craig and Jackman are both fine, but there are many actors in New York who could play these roles just as well, if not better. To be fair, my seat was in the rear mezzanine, so I missed the more subtle aspects of their performances. So if you can easily afford spending $125 and can find a decent orchestra ticket, it might be worth it. With only two actors on stage, this play is really all about intimate storytelling, something that you won’t get by sitting in the last row of the Schoenfeld Theatre.
But unless money is no object, don’t get swept up by all the hype and feel the need to drop $300 on a ticket. If you’re a student, there are $31.50 student rush tickets available at the box office (see below). I’ve heard that $29.50 standing room tickets will also be available once the show opens (technically, standing room is only sold when the show is sold out, but that won’t be an issue here). Just know that lots of other non-students will also be angling for these standing room tickets, so the competition may be fierce. But at 90 minutes, it isn’t a bad show to stand for. And both student tickets and standing room are sold the day of the show, which means there will always be a few tickets to be had.
Just don’t feel too bad if you miss the show. A Steady Rain is a decent night of theatre, but it isn’t “must see” theatre. While I was never bored, I also wasn’t excited. This is a pretty standard cop drama: pulpy, seedy, dark, and violent. You’ve seen it before. Maybe not with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman live on stage, but trust me, you’ve seen it before.
(A Steady Rain plays a limited engagement at the Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St, through December 6th. Performances are Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Regular price tickets are $66.50- $140, and premium tickets are $276.50- $376.50. $29.50 standing room tickets are available at the box office if the performance is sold out (it will be)- they will probably go on sale a few hours before the performance, but lines will form earlier. Student rush tickets (generally last row of the mezzanine) are $31.50; these are either 1 or 2 per ID (depending on availability), and are available the day of the show when the box office opens. IMPORTANT: the box office will sell you a student ticket, but will hold it until 30 minutes before the show, and you will need to show your student ID to pick it up then. Visit telecharge.com to buy tickets and asteadyrainonbroadway.com for more information.)
A Steady Rain (Schoenfeld Theatre)
By Dan
5 POINTS OR LESS
the hot ticket of the season • Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman • pulpy cop drama-not for kids • almost every show will be sold out • don’t feel bad if you miss it
BOTTOM LINE: Contrary to all the hype, you don't need to see this; it is fine, but you’ve probably seen it before.
Every so often there seems to be a Broadway play that quickly becomes “event theatre”- a show that sells out every show, draws huge crowds, and soon becomes the hot ticket of the season. Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain, the pairing of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in The Odd Couple - these shows had no trouble selling tickets, even though the productions themselves weren't really all that great.
And now we have A Steady Rain, with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman. In its first full week of previews, it grossed more money than any straight play in Broadway history. It is likely it's mostly sold out for its entire 12-week run. Seats in the rear orchestra are being sold for premium prices ($276-$376 per ticket) and once it opens on September 29th, tickets may be extremely hard to come by, at any price. At this point, it appears as if spending $125 on a ticket (which is already expensive for most people) won’t even get you a good seat, it will just get you in the theatre. So…is it worth it? Should you pay premium prices to see this play? No. And if your dates are flexible, or you are a student, or you’re willing to stand, you may not need to. More on that in a bit. First, the play.
In A Steady Rain, Craig and Jackman are Chicago beat cops. The play opens with the men sitting in chairs on a bare stage with two lights hanging over them, as if they are in an interrogation room. They tell a story that begins innocuously enough: the two men are partners and best friends. But the tale quickly turns dark and violent. You may have heard that the play is a series of monologues, or that each cop tells their own (different) perspective of what happened. Neither is exactly true; the two men share the storytelling, as if they are both in the same room telling a listener/interrogator what happened. They occasionally interact with each other, but for the most part, each contributes to the joint story.
Throughout the story, the two men deal with various elements of the Chicago underworld. The tone of A Steady Rain recalls movies like Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. As with these movies, in which the turns of plot are so integral to one’s experience, it is best to see the A Steady Rain knowing as little as possible about the story.
The writing is decent, and certainly evokes the intended atmosphere. Whenever the cops venture out into the seedier areas of the city, a backdrop appears. While these backdrops look great, they aren’t necessary; I couldn’t help thinking that their main purpose was to fill the large stage and justify the high ticket prices. Jackman and Craig are both good. I didn’t love either performance, because I think both characters have the potential to be more complex and layered.
A Steady Rain was produced in Chicago last year, with no stars and in a much smaller theatre. Frankly, I wish I had seen that production. Broadway is a business, and this production of A Steady Rain will make pots of money for everyone involved. But let’s not kid ourselves: Craig and Jackman are both fine, but there are many actors in New York who could play these roles just as well, if not better. To be fair, my seat was in the rear mezzanine, so I missed the more subtle aspects of their performances. So if you can easily afford spending $125 and can find a decent orchestra ticket, it might be worth it. With only two actors on stage, this play is really all about intimate storytelling, something that you won’t get by sitting in the last row of the Schoenfeld Theatre.
But unless money is no object, don’t get swept up by all the hype and feel the need to drop $300 on a ticket. If you’re a student, there are $31.50 student rush tickets available at the box office (see below). I’ve heard that $29.50 standing room tickets will also be available once the show opens (technically, standing room is only sold when the show is sold out, but that won’t be an issue here). Just know that lots of other non-students will also be angling for these standing room tickets, so the competition may be fierce. But at 90 minutes, it isn’t a bad show to stand for. And both student tickets and standing room are sold the day of the show, which means there will always be a few tickets to be had.
Just don’t feel too bad if you miss the show. A Steady Rain is a decent night of theatre, but it isn’t “must see” theatre. While I was never bored, I also wasn’t excited. This is a pretty standard cop drama: pulpy, seedy, dark, and violent. You’ve seen it before. Maybe not with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman live on stage, but trust me, you’ve seen it before.
(A Steady Rain plays a limited engagement at the Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St, through December 6th. Performances are Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Regular price tickets are $66.50- $140, and premium tickets are $276.50- $376.50. $29.50 standing room tickets are available at the box office if the performance is sold out (it will be)- they will probably go on sale a few hours before the performance, but lines will form earlier. Student rush tickets (generally last row of the mezzanine) are $31.50; these are either 1 or 2 per ID (depending on availability), and are available the day of the show when the box office opens. IMPORTANT: the box office will sell you a student ticket, but will hold it until 30 minutes before the show, and you will need to show your student ID to pick it up then. Visit telecharge.com to buy tickets and asteadyrainonbroadway.com for more information.)
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
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Germangirl
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Good seats are more expensive now, laredo. For 300,- I am sitting row L. Its ridiculous really, I agree...but that´s "Schnuckel" pricesLaredo wrote:Boy , a "Broadway" tour of a show in Tampa where I go to plays rarely cost more then $60 or $80 something for good seats and I never heard of standing at a play . $300 ...thats crazy . I thought they would be more expensive in NY but not that bad and I assume thats not scalping either .
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..
James Bond, Wolverine: Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman Hit Broadway
Movie stars come and go on Broadway, most trying to revive careers or make a point. Some succeed (Jane Fonda), some don’t (Julia Roberts).
On Tuesday, Daniel Craig, best known for playing James Bond, and Hugh Jackman, aka Wolverine, make their official premiere in Keith Huff’s 90-minute two-hander called “A Steady Rain.” They are each at the height of their career, and need to prove nothing to no one. So you wonder, what is going on here?
On Friday night, the press got its first look at these two dipped-in-gold movie stars on stage. The Gerald Schoenfeld Theater was packed with media, as well as film director Joel Schumacher. The New York Times’s Ben Brantley was tenth row on the aisle. Outside on West 45th St., fans and autograph hounds were four deep against metal barriers. It doesn’t help that right next door, “God’s Carnage” has resumed performances with Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, and James Gandolfini.
Jackman, of course, has plenty of stage experience, mostly with musicals. He starred in “The Boy from Oz.” He commanded the Oscars this past year. Craig is more of an unknown quantity. We know him mostly from action films, although he did play poet Ted Hughes in “Sylvia,” and the lead in “Enduring Love.” Both guys are known for stripping off their shirts, not down to emotions.
So I have good news for all involved: Craig and Jackman are just terrific as two Chicago cops recounting their lifelong friendship, partnership, and their tragic undoing. Craig, in particular, is a revelation as Joey, the bachelor who has pined for his friend’s wife and life all these years. A heavy mustache seems to pull Craig’s face down, releasing a look of sorrow and guilt that seems to radiate into his hunched shoulders and through his suit.
Jackman is family man Denny, whose secret life is peeled back like layers of onion skin. Jackman is just as riveting, starting Denny out as a solid, good-time guy and steering him into dangerous territory.
Much more about the specifics of “A Steady Rain” I don’t want to say because the twists and turns of Huff’s plot are just enough to make the audience gasp more than a a few times. You should know that the actors make all this work sitting on padded metal chairs under individual overhead lights, with little of a set and no props to fall back on. It’s all them, with nowhere to hide.
What’s certain is that “Rain” will become a movie, likely with these two men, expanded to include the many characters described by Denny and Joey during the hour and a half. Sidney Lumet should direct it. In the meantime, how nice to have two movie stars so invested in their roles that you almost forget who they are while the curtain is up and the theater is dark. Almost.
http://showbiz411.blogs.thr.com/james-b ... eady-rain/
Movie stars come and go on Broadway, most trying to revive careers or make a point. Some succeed (Jane Fonda), some don’t (Julia Roberts).
On Tuesday, Daniel Craig, best known for playing James Bond, and Hugh Jackman, aka Wolverine, make their official premiere in Keith Huff’s 90-minute two-hander called “A Steady Rain.” They are each at the height of their career, and need to prove nothing to no one. So you wonder, what is going on here?
On Friday night, the press got its first look at these two dipped-in-gold movie stars on stage. The Gerald Schoenfeld Theater was packed with media, as well as film director Joel Schumacher. The New York Times’s Ben Brantley was tenth row on the aisle. Outside on West 45th St., fans and autograph hounds were four deep against metal barriers. It doesn’t help that right next door, “God’s Carnage” has resumed performances with Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, and James Gandolfini.
Jackman, of course, has plenty of stage experience, mostly with musicals. He starred in “The Boy from Oz.” He commanded the Oscars this past year. Craig is more of an unknown quantity. We know him mostly from action films, although he did play poet Ted Hughes in “Sylvia,” and the lead in “Enduring Love.” Both guys are known for stripping off their shirts, not down to emotions.
So I have good news for all involved: Craig and Jackman are just terrific as two Chicago cops recounting their lifelong friendship, partnership, and their tragic undoing. Craig, in particular, is a revelation as Joey, the bachelor who has pined for his friend’s wife and life all these years. A heavy mustache seems to pull Craig’s face down, releasing a look of sorrow and guilt that seems to radiate into his hunched shoulders and through his suit.
Jackman is family man Denny, whose secret life is peeled back like layers of onion skin. Jackman is just as riveting, starting Denny out as a solid, good-time guy and steering him into dangerous territory.
Much more about the specifics of “A Steady Rain” I don’t want to say because the twists and turns of Huff’s plot are just enough to make the audience gasp more than a a few times. You should know that the actors make all this work sitting on padded metal chairs under individual overhead lights, with little of a set and no props to fall back on. It’s all them, with nowhere to hide.
What’s certain is that “Rain” will become a movie, likely with these two men, expanded to include the many characters described by Denny and Joey during the hour and a half. Sidney Lumet should direct it. In the meantime, how nice to have two movie stars so invested in their roles that you almost forget who they are while the curtain is up and the theater is dark. Almost.
http://showbiz411.blogs.thr.com/james-b ... eady-rain/