Event Venues: March Madness leads to summer rooftop "Mad"ness

If you are sweating out your brackets, take a minute to chill out and think about rooftop "Madness" at your next corporate meeting.  It will be 63 degrees in Manhattan on Saturday - that's not a typo - and it's not too early or late to think about planning a corporate event on one of the newest and trendiest rooftop venues in New York.

In fact, there is one we are particularly "mad" about and it has nothing to do with the word being in its name.  It's part of a rooftop trend that has moved away from obsession over views and toward luxury and thematic experiences.  In 2014, we are also expecting more rooftop venues to expand menu choices, which in-turn creates opportunities for meeting planners to book full evening galas versus cocktail hours.

Broadway moves to the suburbs to "keep up with the Joneses"

Did you hear that Broadway is moving to the suburbs?  It has to or it won't keep up with the Joneses. The Realistic Joneses, that is.  Ok, we are kidding about the move.  It's still in Manhattan!

After a critically acclaimed run at the Yale Repertory Theatre, The Realistic Joneses comes to New York with an All-Star cast featuring Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei.  The play is based on what many think is "suburban hell", which is often defined as being jealous of what your neighbors have and competing like crazy to be socially superior.

The two couples, both names Jones, fantasize and project about everything, but in the end, the play gets the audience thinking whether it's really better to be in someone else's shoes.  And, of course, a production about suburbia would not be complete without that obligatory awkward grocery store scene that includes inappropriate touching!

The Realistic Joneses is a great show for many reasons and one of them might be the short, intermission-free run-time of only 90 minutes. 

Meeting planners: you can schedule dinner for your attendees after the show.  How often does that happen?

Shackman Associates New York provides corporate meeting, association convention, and destination incentive groups with unique Broadway experiences than regularly include backstage tours and interaction with key performers.

Check out footage from The Realistic Joneses press event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sl5T107GRB0

"Bullets over Broadway" opens as Woody Allen tries to dodge one

Woody Allen's personal life might be more complicated than any of the characters he has created, but it isn't stopping Bullets Over Broadway from opening on April 10 with lots of anticipation on Broadway.

Based on his 1994 movie, Bullets Over Broadway is directed by 5-time Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman instead of Allen and is produced by Allen's longtime movie producer (and sister) Letty Aronson, along with Julian Schlossberg.  In Bullets Over Broadway, an aspiring young playwright arrives on Broadway in 1920's New York and is forced to cast a mobster's talentless girlfriend in his latest drama in order to get it produced.

Shackman Associates New York provides corporate meeting, association convention, and destination incentive groups with unique Broadway experiences that regularly include backstage passes and interaction with key performers.
 

Broadway: Tyne Daly spectacular as a stubborn post-AIDS mother-in-law

Tyne Daly, both on-screen and on-Broadway, might be one of America's most treasured actresses.  She has returned to the stage this Spring as the lead in Mothers and Sons, which opens on March 24.

The production is based on Andre's Mother, a play originally written by Terrance McNally that was turned into a drama film and picked up in 1990 as part of the "American Playhouse" series on PBS.

Set at the Manhattan memorial service for Andre Gerard, who died of AIDS, Andre's Mother focuses on the inability to come to terms with this kind of death.  Andre's mother, "Katherine", refuses to share her grief with "Cal", the young man's lover. Her rage is directed not only at the man she never accepted and her own mother, who was less judgmental of her grandson's life, but at Andre himself as well.

The mother, alone at the end, kisses her balloon and lets go.  But we really don’t hear her vocally because McNally keeps her silent.

In Mothers and Sons, Andre's mother is back and has a lot to say. Played by Tony Award-winning actress Tyne Daly, "Katherine" returns to New York to seek out "Cal" (Frederick Weller) for the first time since Andre’s memorial, and finds that he has a husband, "Will" (Bobby Steggert), and that they are raising a 6-year-old son, "Bud" (Grayson Taylor).  "Katherine" is about as politically incorrect as they come, which sets the scene for a lot of family drama around an issue that has significantly transformed public opinion over the last 10 years.

Shackman Associates New York provides corporate meeting, association convention, and destination incentive groups with unique Broadway experiences that regularly include backstage tours and interaction with key performers.