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Broadway has welcomed a number of one-person shows in recent years, from Elaine Stritch at Liberty to Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays. In most cases, as those examples suggest, the stars have boasted the kind of marquee-worthy names that make risk-averse producers more comfortable.
But a pair of productions set to open at the Helen Hayes Theatre will gamble on lesser-known performers. Granted, Sarah Jones' Bridge & Tunnel and Jay Johnson's The Two and Only! both have celebrity connections of sorts: Actor/writer/ventriloquist Johnson co-starred with Crystal on the '70s TV series Soap; and Meryl Streep is a champion of Jones' project. "If there is one show you should see on Broadway, it's Sarah Jones' gift to New York," the Oscar-winning actress declares in a press release.
Streep isn't the only one gushing about Bridge, which opens tonight and is scheduled to run through March 12. During its off-Broadway run in 2004, the play, in which the 32-year-old Jones channels characters ranging from a Pakistani man to a Chinese matron to a Jewish grandmother, earned wide praise for its blend of hipness, humor and heart.
Jones cites as influences other shape-shifting monologuists such as Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg, an unknown herself before breaking out in her own one-woman Broadway play in 1984. "Sometimes less-established voices have the power to tap into an audience and let them feel that they've made a new discovery."
Such voices also can lure younger and more diverse audiences to Broadway, as outings such as Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam and John Leguizamo's one-man shows have proven. "One of the coolest moments I had performing downtown was having four generations of one family see my show," Jones says.
Johnson, who will hold court at the Helen Hayes starting March 21 (the show opens April 3), also arrives after an acclaimed off-Broadway run. He unveils an equally eclectic assortment of characters, including a chimpanzee and a tennis ball, all through the minimalist art of ventriloquism.
"Big shows on Broadway can be the equivalent of three-ring circuses," Johnson says. "When it's just you, you can communicate directly with the audience, which is what an actor is supposed to do."
Obie Award-winning writer/performer Lisa Kron has found solo work similarly rewarding, though she will perform alongside other actors when her off-Broadway hit Well transfers to Broadway's Longacre Theatre March 10. "The training you get when you're on stage that much doesn't happen much anymore," Kron says. "But the audience really takes notice. There's a hard-wired need to hear people tell stories."
Johnson hopes that a new trend may be developing. "The thrust of Broadway has changed over the years. At one point, you went to hear the new song that someone like Irving Berlin had written. Then you went to see the new Ethel Merman, or for the new director, the new Hal Prince. Now we might be seeing people looking for the new writer-performer. Wouldn't that be something?"
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