Show Stoppers: Beautiful People 2011
By WHITNEY SPANER
"I have a complicated relationship with theater," says 32-year-old director Alex Timbers. "I love it but I'm bummed by so much of what's considered popular entertainment. So the best thing to do is make the kind of thing you feel like makes the theater more relevant." And Timbers, along with actor Santino Fontana and playwright Rajiv Joseph are doing just that.
As the founder of the downtown theater troupe Les Freres Corbusier, Timbers shook things up on Broadway last fall with off-kilter, and quippy shows like Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Pee-wee Herman Show. Hoping to keep his feet planted in both the uptown and downtown theater worlds, Timbers recently helmed a reading of The Philadelphia Story with Scarlett Johansson and John Krasinski for the Roundabout, and is workshopping a "club music show" by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim at the Public Theater.
Fontana is busy uptown giving the classics a pop-culture twist, as the dandy Algernon Moncrieff, in the highly-acclaimed Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. He likens Wilde's ornery British aristocrats to the cast of Jersey Shore. "They have no responsibilities and are just enjoying themselves. It's all about the one-liner and insulting others, but with love." And like the GTL crew he's a commitment-phobe -- at least when it comes to his career. "Playing one person for a long period of time is antithetical to why I got into acting. Jumping around is what I get excited about."
Joseph's had plenty of excitement these days. After having little success as a screenwriter, ("I kept writing weird stuff that wasn't very 'Hollywoody.'") his new play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opened on Broadway last month to all sorts of buzz. First staged in L.A., the show, set in Iraq during the first days of the U.S. invasion, was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, and now, Robin Williams is making his Broadway debut as the wry, philosophical tiger of the title. "I didn't know what the life of a playwright was going to be," says Joseph, "and this is beyond my wildest dreams."
(L-R) ALEX WEARS JACKET, SHIRT AND PANTS BY BILLY REID. SANTINO WEARS
SWEATER BY DKNY AND PANTS BY CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION. RAJIV WEARS JACKET AND SHIRT BY CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION AND PANTS BY BILLY REID.
GO BACK TO SEE MORE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE OF 2011
As the founder of the downtown theater troupe Les Freres Corbusier, Timbers shook things up on Broadway last fall with off-kilter, and quippy shows like Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Pee-wee Herman Show. Hoping to keep his feet planted in both the uptown and downtown theater worlds, Timbers recently helmed a reading of The Philadelphia Story with Scarlett Johansson and John Krasinski for the Roundabout, and is workshopping a "club music show" by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim at the Public Theater.
Fontana is busy uptown giving the classics a pop-culture twist, as the dandy Algernon Moncrieff, in the highly-acclaimed Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. He likens Wilde's ornery British aristocrats to the cast of Jersey Shore. "They have no responsibilities and are just enjoying themselves. It's all about the one-liner and insulting others, but with love." And like the GTL crew he's a commitment-phobe -- at least when it comes to his career. "Playing one person for a long period of time is antithetical to why I got into acting. Jumping around is what I get excited about."
Joseph's had plenty of excitement these days. After having little success as a screenwriter, ("I kept writing weird stuff that wasn't very 'Hollywoody.'") his new play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opened on Broadway last month to all sorts of buzz. First staged in L.A., the show, set in Iraq during the first days of the U.S. invasion, was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, and now, Robin Williams is making his Broadway debut as the wry, philosophical tiger of the title. "I didn't know what the life of a playwright was going to be," says Joseph, "and this is beyond my wildest dreams."
(L-R) ALEX WEARS JACKET, SHIRT AND PANTS BY BILLY REID. SANTINO WEARS
SWEATER BY DKNY AND PANTS BY CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION. RAJIV WEARS JACKET AND SHIRT BY CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION AND PANTS BY BILLY REID.
GO BACK TO SEE MORE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE OF 2011
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