New York Theater December 2015 Quiz

Q.1

Which of the following did not happen in 2015?

AT&T ran a commercial depicting somebody watching a football game on their cell phone during a theatrical performance, with the tag line “Catch a winning play at the theater…Don’t let life get between you and football.”
Broadway went completely dark for a day during what turned out to be a relatively mild snow storm, because New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, fearing the snow, shut down the entire subway system for the first time in its 110-year history
In a poll in December, 30 percent of Republican and 19 percent of Democratic voters supported bombing (Aladdin‘s fictional) Agrabah
Anonymous theater tweeters Broadway Girl and Annoying Actor Friend revealed their identities, with Broadway Girl then regularly Tweeting photographs of herself with celebrities.
Playwright Dominique Morisseau wrote an article about “microaggressions and white privilege”‪ in the theater, illustrating it primarily with an anecdote about how a white woman gave her tickets to a play for free, then asked her to quiet down during the performance.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police commissioner suggested the solution to the dozen women who appear in body paint but no clothing around Times Square pedestrian might be to destroy the pedestrian plazas and return Times Square to the way it was before.
None of this happened
All of this happened

Q.2

In Constellations, which opened on Broadway with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson both making their Broadway debuts, what did Gyllenhaal lick? (from January quiz)

His arm
A balloon
Ruth Wilson's cheeck
A guitar
The stage floor

Q.3

Which album won the 2015 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album? (from February quiz)

Aladdin
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Beautiful
Bernstein: West Side Story
Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Q.4

What long-time Broadway veteran got a reality TV series this summer on the Discovery Family Channel? (modified from March quiz)

Fight director Jeff Barry
Scenic designer John Lee Beatty
Animal trainer William Berloni
Choreographer Warren Carlyle

Q.5

Second Stage closed the deal to buy the Helen Hayes in April, the fourth non-profit to own a Broadway theater. Which is NOT one of the other three? (from April quiz)

Lincoln Center
Manhattan Theatre Club
The Public Theater
Roundabout Theater Company

Q.6

All of the following made Commencement speeches to graduates in May. Which is the one who said to graduating arts school students: “You made it. And you’re f---ed….The graduates from the college of nursing? They all have jobs…The accountants? They all have jobs. Where does that leave you?” (from May quiz)

Stephen Colbert
Robert DeNiro
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Natalie Portman
Denzel Washington

Q.7

Which of the following in the 2015 Tony Awards ceremony was shown to TV viewers? (from June quiz)

The acceptance speech of Lisa Kron for winning best book of a musical for Fun Home
The acceptance speeches by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori for winning best original score for Fun Home
Tommy Tune’s Lifetime Achievement Tony acceptance speech
A musical number for the second year in a row from Finding Neverland, which received no Tony nominations.

Q.8

What was NOT true about the musical Hamilton before it even opened on Broadway? (modified from july quiz)

Hundreds of people entered the lottery for ten-dollar tickets
Members of the cast regularly performed for the lottery hopefuls
President Barack Obama attended a performance and later declared the show “fabulous”
Before the performance that the president attended, Lin-Manuel Miranda yelled out to the audience members who were pulling out their cell phones to snap photographs, "Patti LuPone is coming for you all!"
A series of conservative politicians and columnists dismissed Hamilton for its non-traditional casting and other issues.

Q.9

Georgia Engel, who performed in Annie Baker’s “John” Off-Broadway, was the latest of the Mary Tyler Moore show regulars to appear on a New York stage. Only one of the following regulars has never performed on Broadway. Which one? (modified from August quiz)

Ed Asner
Georgia Engel
Valerie Harper
Ted Knight
Cloris Leachman
Gavin MacLeod
Mary Tyler Moore
Betty White

Q.10

Mamma Mia closed on Broadway in September after 14 years and 5,765 performances. What is not true of this musical? (from September quiz)

It was nominated for seven Tony Awards, and won two of them
It has grossed $2 billion worldwide
It has been seen by 54 million people in 400 cities
It’s still playing in the UK

Q.11

“I never write anything good that does not somehow make me blush.” Which playwright, the centennial of whose birth was celebrated in October, liked to say this? (from October quiz)

Horton Foote
Lillian Hellman
Arthur Miller
Eugene O'Neill
Tennessee Williams

Q.12

Which of the following 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners has not been involved in some capacity with the creation of a Broadway show? (from November quiz)

Emilio Estefan and Gloria Estefan
Stephen Sondheim
Steven Spielberg
Barbra Streisand
James Taylor
They all have

Q.13

Who among the people who died in 2015 said: “To stand up on the stage is to say to many people: ‘Look at me.’ How can you do that without speaking the only truth you know? There is no such thing as an uncommitted actor.”

Theodore Bikel
Judith Malina
Anne Meara
Dick Van Patten
Roger Rees

Q.14

Hamilton reportedly generated a million Tweets in 2015. Which were not used as hashtags for Hamilton?

#HamiltonMusical
#Hamiltunes
#Ham4Ham
#Force4Ham
#YayHamlet
None were
They all were

Q.15

Who co-created BroadwayCon, a convention for fans similar to ComicCon, which is scheduled for January, 2016?

Gavin Creel
Darren Criss
Matt Doyle
Jonathan Groff
Anthony Rapp