Kevin Kline in PRESENT LAUGHTER Tonight on Great Performances

The Great Performances series on PBS is giving us a sparkling set of choices this fall, with a lighter-than-air musical She Loves Me last month, a look behind the curtain at Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights and Hamilton, Paula Vogel's fierce new play Indecent later this month, the stage version of an old Fred Astaire/Bing Crosby movie Holiday Inn closer to Thanksgiving,and tonight's Present Laughter, with Kevin Kline in a revival of the Noel Coward comedy.

Coward wrote Present Laughter (that's the adjectival "present" in the sense of  "occurring right now," not the verb or offering laughter up on a platter) just before World War II, directing and starring in the original production a few years later. It's hard not to see the character of Garry Essendine, a charmingly egocentric actor with a grand manner and a life full of overly dramatic complications and hijinks, as Coward himself, even though a host of great actors, from Simon Callow to Albert Finney, Frank Langella, Ian McKellen, Peter O'Toole, George C. Scott and even John Gielgud in a radio version, have tried to make Mr. Essendine their own.

Moritz von Stuelpnagel directed the latest Broadway revival with Kevin Kline, whose supporting cast includes Kate Burton, Kristine Nielsen, Reg Rogers and Cobie Smulders. This Present Laughter played at the St. James Theater from April to July of this year, and the role of Garry earned Kline his third Tony Award. Trivia note: Burton, who plays Garry's wife in this production, was the ingenue back in 1982 opposite George C. Scott.

As with She Loves Me, Present Laughter will air in the Friday evening Great Performances slot on most PBS stations. You can find it locally on either WTVP or WILL at 8 pm tonight (that's Central time) and if you can't get to a television, it's also streaming online. You'll also find a video preview, a scene demonstrating Garry's way with a dressing gown, Cobie Smulders acting slinky, and the director, producer and several cast members talking about the play and Kevin Kline.

PBS Fall Schedule Starts in September

PBS has announced its upcoming season, offering new and returning series, miniseries, special events and performances. And that season includes some of my favorite things.

One of the biggest new stories about the new season is the ten-part documentary miniseries from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Episodes of The Vietnam War are set for September 17 to 21 and 24 to 28 on WTVP in Peoria or WILL in Urbana. These episodes will include "testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both sides."

If you're a genealogy buff -- or even if you aren't -- you'll find the October 3 season premiere of Finding Your Roots of interest. Henry Louis Gates Jr. hosts this fascinating search into the family history of an intriguing group of people that includes actors Aziz Ansari, Lupita Nyong’o, Paul Rudd and Scarlett Johanssen, writers Ta-Nehisi Coates, Garrison Keillor and Janet Mock, musicians Carly Simon and Questlove, TV hosts Dr. Phil and Bryant Gumbel, director Ava DuVernay, athlete Carmelo Anthony, and a host of other celebrities.

Great Performances comes back in October, as well, with the effervescent Broadway musical She Loves Me, starring Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi, up first on October 20, followed by Noël Coward's classic comedy Present Laughter, which won Kevin Kline his third Tony, on November 3. They'll bring Indecent, a new play from Paula Vogel about a real incident in theater history, to our TV screens on November 17, with Holiday Inn, the stage version of the Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire movie musical, on November 24. Two Lin-Manuel Miranda-related encores -- performances mixed with behind-the-scenes documentary info for In the Heights -- Chasing Broadway Dreams and Hamilton's America -- finish up the Great Performances schedule, broadcast on November 10 and December 1.

For all the details on these programs as well as more Great Performances, American Masters, Frontline, Live from Lincoln Center, Masterpiece, Nature, Nova, Space and special events like David Letterman receiving the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize on November 20, click here to see the whole line-up.

See How HAMILTON Came Alive in HAMILTON'S AMERICA on PBS Friday

If you'd love to see Hamilton -- the must-see Broadway show that has dazzled presidents and critics and audiences alike, the one that won 11 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer -- but haven't been able to score tickets for the show in New York or Chicago and the 2017 stop in LA isn't looking good, either, PBS is here to help. No, they won't get you in the door and no, they aren't bringing the show itself to the small screen. But they are offering a documentary called Hamilton's America on Great Performances to kick off their 2016 PBS Arts Fall Festival. This documentary goes behind the scenes to bring "history to vivid life through the lens of Lin-Manuel Miranda's pop culture Broadway phenomenon Hamilton."
 

In addition to the teaser video above, PBS has described their program in enthusiastic detail:

"Produced by Academy Award® and Emmy Award®-winning producers RadicalMedia (What Happened, Miss Simone?, Keith Richards: Under The Influence, In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams for PBS) and directed by Alex Horwitz, Hamilton's America delves even deeper into the creation of the show, revealing Miranda's process of absorbing and then adapting Hamilton's epic story into groundbreaking musical theater. Further fleshing out the story is newly shot footage of the New York production with its original cast, trips to historic locations, such as Mt. Vernon and Valley Forge with Miranda and other cast members, and a surprising range of interviews with prominent personalities, experts, politicians, and musicians including President Barack Obama, President George W. Bush. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Secretary Hank Paulson, Secretary Timothy Geithner, Questlove, Black Thought, Jimmy Fallon, John Weidman, Nas and Stephen Sondheim.

"Hamilton’s America shows just how timeless the hot-button issues of today's America are: immigration, States' rights, debt, income inequality, and race relations. These were the same fights that defined Hamilton's time, and they are the driving force of Miranda's historic work. The film endeavors to brush the dust off American history, much as the musical does, and provide a unique new way for us to view our national heritage and current political landscape.

"A unique window into the artistry and research involved in making the show, viewers will witness Miranda at the White House in 2009 performing an early version of what would become "Alexander Hamilton," the first number in the musical and they will also be given an inside view of Miranda as he composes songs in Aaron Burr's Manhattan bedroom. They will travel to Virginia with Christopher Jackson – who was Tony®-nominated for his portrayal of George Washington in the musical – as he reveals his personal struggle preparing for the role, while grappling with our Founders' legacy of slavery. Back in New York, Miranda, who originated the Tony®-nominated role of Hamilton in the musical and Leslie Odom, Jr. –  who won a Tony Award® for his portrayal of Aaron Burr – visit the Museum of American Finance to get a deeper understanding of the historical figures they are depicting on stage, including a memorable moment from this research trip, when the two actors brandish authentic 19th-century dueling pistols."

All of which adds up to a Don't Miss for history lovers, Broadway aficionados, Lin-Manuel Miranda fans and pretty much everybody else with a pulse.

Hamilton's America will air at 9 pm Eastern/8 Central on Friday, October 21 on both our local PBS stations. WILL-TV in Urbana will repeat the program immediately after the first showing, with another chance to see it at 1 am.

SHOW BOAT on Live from Lincoln Center Tonight (on Most PBS Stations)

Showboat, the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical about life upon the wicked stage with a stage that's floating down the Mississippi, is often credited as the first musical with a story integrated with its score as well as the first musical with both black and white performers singing together on stage. Showboat was based on a novel by Edna Ferber, a novel that told the story of three generations of the Hawks family. When it begins in the latter part of the 19th century, Captain Andy Hawks owns a river boat called the Cotton Blossom that stops to put on shows at towns along the Mississippi. As Ferber weaves her story through the years, moving from the Cotton Blossom to Chicago and Broadway and back to the boat, she tells a story about show biz ups and downs, the danger of life on the river, faithless men, and friends and lovers torn apart when post-Civil War racism rears its ugly head.

Most of those elements are retained in Hammerstein's book for the musical Show Boat, with an emotional boost from songs like "Ol' Man River," "Make Believe" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man." With the title now two words instead of one, Hammerstein sweetened the ending and tweaked the characters and plot a bit. The show connected with audiences right from the start and has been revived again and again. The original 1927 production was way too early for Tony Awards, but the 1994 revival took home a pile of them.

The NY Philharmonic's concert staging for Show Boat with Norm Lewis at front

If you've so far missed Show Boat in your life, you are in luck. The New York Philharmonic has produced a semi-staged concert version with a powerhouse cast which PBS is offering as part of its Live From Lincoln Center programming. That means you can see a lean, mean Showboat, with Vanessa Williams as Julie, the woman at the center of the miscegenation plot, Fred Willard and Jane Alexander as Cap'n Andy and his wife Parthy, British star Julian Ovenden as gambling leading man Gaylord Ravendal and the amazing Norm Lewis as Joe, the one who sings "Ol' Man River," from the comfort of your living room, as long as your living room has access to a PBS station.

Our local PBS -- WILL in Urbana and WTVP in Peoria -- will both air Show Boat tonight, October 16, at 8 pm. Check your cable or broadcast TV guides for the number that gives you in your household, but they are at 12 (WILL) and 13 (WTVP) on my Comcast listings.

If you would like to see some video to whet your appetite as well as give you an idea what "semi-staged" means in this context, click here to see the Live from Lincoln Center site. You will also notice that "Mis'ry's Comin' Round" is included, sung by NaTasha Yvette Williams as Queenie. The song was cut during previews for the original Broadway production but restored for the 1994 production. And it certainly sounds worth your time in this one.

Thanks, Live from Lincoln Center!

Nathan Lane and THE NANCE Tonight on LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER

Ever heard of antonomasia? It means using a word or epithet in place of a name, like calling David Ortiz "Big Papi" or Elvis "The King," or the opposite, using a proper name to denote a type or characteristic, like calling any run-of-the-mill traitor a "Benedict Arnold."

Throughout history, women's first names have been used in the second way. A lot of them were tossed around to indicate sluttiness or general lack of class. Think "greasy Joan" keeling the pot and "Some men love must love my lady, and some Joan" in Love's Labour's Lost. There's no character named Joan in the play, but for Shakespeare, calling a woman a Joan meant she was the opposite of a lady.

Over the years, pretty much every common female name has had its turn in the hot seat as a synonym for a woman of loose character. And quite a few women's names -- Mary or Mary Ann, Alice, Pansy, Molly, Daisy, Nelly -- have been used as euphemisms for effeminate men. And then there's The Nance. Epithets like "nancy boy" or "Miss Nancy" gave way to "Nance," which became a term for "a flamboyantly effeminate stock character that is all swish, wrist flicks, and double entendres" in burlesque revues.

And that's where Douglas Carter Beane got the title for his play The Nance, about a man named Chauncey Miles who plays that kind of character in burlesque at Lower Manhattan's Irving Place Theatre in 1937. In a New York Times interview, Beane explained, "Gay characters like nances used to be the brightest ones in the burlesque sketch, usually the victor of the sketch — getting the upper hand on everyone else. But in the 1940s the nance character started becoming an object of ridicule, and by the 1960s it was just awful — the nance was usually subjected to offensive jokes and sexually derogatory put-downs that were really ugly."

His play became an examination of the personal and private sides of a gay man in the 1930s. Chauncey is a star because he minces and prances and exaggerates effeminacy on stage, but he has to suppress any hint of his homosexuality in his personal life for fear of being arrested or ruining his career. Or, as the Lincoln Center promotional materials put it, "At a time when it is easy to play gay and dangerous to be gay, Chauncey's uproarious antics on the stage stand out in marked contrast to his offstage life."

Nathan Lane played Chauncey in The Nance on Broadway at the Lyceum, in a production directed by Jack O'Brien. Although reviews were mixed, the play won three of the five Tony Awards it was nominated for, and took home a Drama Desk for its music. Aside from Lane, the cast included Andrea Burns, Cady Huffman, Miranda Hull, Geoffrey Allen Murphy, Lewis J. Stadlen and Jonny Orsini in his Broadway debut as a young love interest for Chauncey.

If you missed The Nance in its Broadway run, never fear. It will run tonight on most PBS stations under the Live at Lincoln Center banner. It will air at 8 pm Central time tonight on WTVP, Peoria's public television station, as well as WILL from Urbana, with repeats on both stations at 1 am.

SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED Takes a Look Behind the Page

A new PBS series called Shakespeare Uncovered began last night, with episodes hosted by Ethan Hawke (on Macbeth) and Joely Richardson (on Twelfth Night and As You Like It). Both hosts talked to actors, directors and scholars to get at a better understanding of the plays, their characters and how they related to Shakespeare's life. I especially enjoyed Richardson taking a look at her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, performing Rosalind in As You Like It. It's lovely.

This is a six-part series, with the next two scheduled for Friday, February 1. Those two will be an examination of Richard II with Derek Jacobi (at 8 pm Central time) and a look at Henry IV and V with Jeremy Irons (at 9 pm).

Jacobi is an odd choice for this kind of show; he's a wonderful actor but he persists in believing that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays, which flies in the face of all the info from parts I and II of Shakespeare Uncovered about Shakespeare's stage twins relating to his owns twins, Judith and Hamnet, and other textual connections drawn within the programs to the actual Will Shakespeare in Stratford. I suppose that's why they didn't give Jacobi Hamlet (it's a biggie for the Oxfordians), but he bring up his Oxfordian beliefs in his discussion of Richard II.

Notes on this program tell us that Jacobi will work with actors on the Globe stage and give them a lesson on the Earl of Essex, a plot to topple Queen Elizabeth, and how Richard II and its author fit into that conspiracy. Better news is that this piece of Shakespeare Uncovered will show clips of Patrick Stewart and Ben Whishaw in an upcoming Great Performances version of Richard II.

Jeremy Irons, host of the 4th slice of Shakespeare Uncovered, has recently created controversy, as well, comparing Downton Abbey to a Ford Fiesta when he was doing press for Shakespeare Uncovered, and thereby incurring the wrath of Downton fans as well as the Ford Fiesta people. Irons's segment includes a visit to Agincourt to learn more about the history behind the events in the plays, and he will go behind the scenes of the new Great Performances adaptation where he plays Henry IV with Tom Hiddleston (Loki in The Avengers) as his son, Prince Hal, who becomes Henry V.

Parts V and VI of Shakespeare Uncovered air February 8, with David Tennant taking on Hamlet (including a visit to the gift shop at the Globe) and Trevor Nunn on The Tempest, a play he directed for the stage last year with Ralph Fiennes as Prospero.

You can find out more about all of these episodes, plus play What Shakespeare Character Are You? on the PBS site for Shakespeare Uncovered. (Psst... I'm Rosaline. Score!)