The Play Is The Thing - August 13, 2010
Judy Sleed, host, with guest Ward Morehouse III
 Read more of the review...  www.nydailynews.com  INSIDE INK By John Rowell WALK THE WALK In a former Timemagazine reporter’s vintage cabin, which has been turned into a ramshackle nightclub and hotel moored on Lake Ontario, we encounter a half-soused, but witty and articulate man and his piano-virtuoso daughter, on the brink of suicide, suddenly joined by a woman he was once involved with after 22 years of silence. What kind of strange brew is this? It’s the premise of Gangplank, a new comedy-drama written by longtime New York theater critic Ward Morehouse III and Mark Druck, which begins performances on April 19 at Chernuchin Theatre on West 54th Street. Mr. Druck directs, and Angela Bernhard Thomas and J. Everett Sherman co-star. www.showbusinessweekly.com/ East Hampton's favorite Broadway producing duo, the husband-and-wife team of Stewart Lane and Bonnie Comley, hosted their annual holiday party at the historic Harmonie Club in New York. Among the festive crowd raising champagne glasses were Jimmy Nederlander, Randi Levine Miller, Kate Mueth, Liz Derringer, Robert Zimmerman, Dylan Page, Mary Ellen Winston, Tony Vargas, Emanuel Sylvano, Julie Budd, David and Sylvia Steiner, Edward Callaghan, John Wegorzewski, Roger Webster, Ward Morehouse III, Jason Grant, Caroline Winston and Sherry Eaker. Dan's Hamptons... 
Last updated: 6:36 am AFTER this year, the Grinch grouch is bagging Citicorp's annual Christmastime toy train exhibit that goes choo-choo at the 53rd and Lex atrium. No money . . . Ward Morehouse III is behind "Mother Russia," a B'way-bound musical, which tests Dec. 19 at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. He's busy. Same night he's at National Arts Club trying out his one-man show, "Beloved Broadway" . . . Joan Collins needs money? She told someone: "I have to keep working." Oh, please. For Joan and Kate Winslet maybe we could take up a collection? GREENWICH Village antique shop sign: "Going out of business. Everything for sale including framed photo of my mother." Only in New York, kids, only in New York. |
| On December 12 at 6:00 PM, The Roundtable and Theatre/Drama Committee of the National Arts Club are presenting a reading of the new play "Beloved Broadway" by author, columnist, playwright, and NAC member Ward Morehouse III. Directed by Broadway luminary and NAC member Joel Vig, Beloved Broadway tells the story of the love affair that the playwright’s legendary late father, drama critic Ward Morehouse, had with the theater and its stars during Broadway’s golden age. Based on the writings and love letters of the senior Mr.Morehouse, the play is itself a love letter to the Broadway of yore. Expect a surprise appearance in the role of the critic as he conjures up nearly fifty characters in this endearing personal chronicle. A reception will follow. |
Photo Coverage: Guild Hall and Playwrights Theatre Present 'If It Was Easy'
 If It Was Easy… was presented by Guild Hall ( Josh Gladstone, Artistic Director) in Association with The Playwrights Theatre of East Hampton as a staged reading on Saturday July 26th at 8:00PM . The production was directed by David Brandenburg, co-founder and Artistic Director of The Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. The Playwrights Theatre of East Hampton was founded by Mitzi Pazer in 1981.
More...
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Guild Hall presented "If It Was Easy..." by Stewart F. Lane & Ward Morehouse III in association with
The Playwrights' Theatre of East Hampton, Saturday, July 26, 2008.
CLICK HERE for more photos of the event
photo by Rob Rich © 2008 516-676-3939 robwayne1@aol.com
"Memories of the Plaza" by Ward Morehouse III, The Plaza magazine (commemorative issue)
Click here to view a PDF
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The Columbia University Club of Fairfield County Cordially Invites Invites You To Attend AN EXPANDED
SECOND WEDNESDAY EVENT Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 - 6:30P.M – 8:30P.M. at the SILVERMINE TAVERN, Norwalk, Ct.* WithWARD MOREHOUSE III, Who will speak on his new book about New York's Hudson Theatre: “Discovering the Hudson” R.S.V.P. RESERVATIONS AND PAYMENT IN ADVANCE ONLY Event Fee includes Appetizers, Program +
Cash Bar Event Fee: $22.00 plus Cash Bar for paid CUCFC members and
their guests |
Just In (April 10, 2008): Nomination for the
Theatre Museum's Award for Excellence in Theatre History Preservation
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"For many years, Ward Morehouse III has been a chronicler of New York Theater History. In his many capacities in the theater as a reporter, theater critic, promoter, book author, lecturer, advisor, observer and even an audience member, Mr. Morehouse, a second generation theater-historian has educated and preserved theatrical history through his writing. I think he would be very deserving of the Theater Museum's Award for excellence in the Theater History Preservation category."
Information on his most recent book appear below: "Delightful book" - Stephen Silverman, People.com "No one is more qualified to write a history of Broadway's landmark Hudson Theatre than Ward Morehouse III, a member of a family identified with the New York theater for generations and a theater columnist and historian in his own right. The story of how the Hudson has survived for more than a century of ups and downs as home to great plays and players, to big bands and radio dramas, rock and cabaret stars, is fascinatingly told and a very good read indeed. It burnishes Morehouse's reputation as a researcher and witty, anecdotal writer earned by several books on New York's grand hotels." - Frederick M. Winship, United Press International cultural critic-at-large "Ward Morehouse III, like his well-known father before him, is a natural storyteller, with countless stories to tell. His good-natured affection for New York--its characters, its cultures, its history-makers and its history--shines through his prose. He knows this city well,. and likes to share what he knows. For a couple of decades I've enjoyed his newspaper writings. And a new book from him is always welcome!" - Chip Defaa, author of "Blue Rhythms" and "Voices of the Jazz Age" |
The Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs has just announced the nominees for the 2008 MAC awards and Jenna has received a nomination for best female vocalist! To celebrate, she changed her April 6th peformance at the Metropolitan Room from Takin' A Chance On Love to a special encore performance of her acclaimed show, 13 Men...and Me!, which was one of the shows for which she was nominated. A montage of her other nominated show, SMOOCH!, is now available on YouTube - click here to check it out!
(Jenna is a client of Ward Morehouse III)
"Discovering the Hudson" reviewed by Tom Gates on TravelSmartNewsletter.com
"If you love the theatre, actors, TV stars and great architecture, you'll love this social and historic presentation, written in the lively Morehouse style."
11/30/07 Cindy Adams column, NY Post
GETTING relit is one of Broadway's oldest, the Hudson on West 44th. With its Tiffany glass mosaics and Roman friezes, the theater opened in 1903. Played the Cohans, the Barrymores, the Lunts. Went mod temporarily as Jack Paar and Steve Allen's TV studio, and is being immortalized currently in the book "Discovering the Hudson," by Ward Morehouse III, whose theater family predates the stagehands' union.
HSH Prince Albert II and reporter Ward Morehouse III at the exhibit "A Celebration of Grace" benefiting the Princess Grace Foundation-USA
Click here for more photos of the event
Discovering the Hudson!
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I left the party to a whisper of rain that hugged me closely, as I went, on my way home, to have a quick late night snack with former New York Post Broadway columnist, author and playwright Ward Morehouse III. Ward has written several books on Broadway theater and some very grand old Hotels including the Waldorf Astoria. He is lining up to do his next book on London hotels. Ward's book "Discovering the Hudson" was published in paperback by Bear Manor Media this year. It traces the legendary history of the famed Hudson Theater, a New York City landmark.
Read more BubblegumPop!... |
The Plaza Shops Around
Historic hotel fails to draw major retailers
Oct 24, 2007 (By Matthew Lysiak, Special to amNew York)
"In an odd sense, more affordable shopping is in keeping with what the Plaza was intended to be," said Morehouse, author of Inside the Plaza. "It came into existence to serve the average family, not the Trumps."
The Plaza hotel celebrates 100 years
Oct 2, 2007 - New York (AP)
"It's synonymous with celebrity," said Ward Morehouse III, author of "Inside The Plaza." The Beatles took a whole wing in 1964, and Truman Capote hosted his Black and White Ball, hyped as the party of the century, there in 1966. Author Kay Thompson enchanted readers with Eloise, a little girl who lived at The Plaza. Not that living there was restricted to fiction; in that sense, The Plaza's new identity as a condo-hotel hybrid is true to its past. Morehouse said his father, theater critic Ward Morehouse, lived at The Plaza for about a dozen years in the 1950s and '60s and half the rooms were occupied by full-time residents then. "Marlene Dietrich lived there," Morehouse said. "Frank Lloyd Wright lived there during the construction of the Guggenheim."
(Shorter version available on YouTube, click here
New York's Plaza turns 100 with luxury facelift
Sep 28, 2007 (By Belinda Goldsmith for Reuters Life!)
The Plaza Hotel, one of New York's most beloved buildings, is celebrating its 100th birthday after a major face-lift that has shaped it for the next century -- but also made it even harder to book a room. The Plaza, a 19-story French Renaissance building overlooking Central Park, closed two years ago for a $400 million renovation in which many rooms were converted into luxury apartments and public areas restored to former glory. The hotel, which first opened its doors to the public on October 1, 1907, is now set to reopen in November with a quarter of the number of hotel rooms but with New Yorkers eager to return to one of the city's most loved buildings.
(When you visit, click the Free Issue button and enter promotion code "Ward Morehouse" to receive a free issue with an article by Ward Morehouse.)
Now Available!
"Discovering the Hudson: New York's Landmark Theatre From Broadway's Beginnings to Live Television, Jack Paar and Elvis."By Ward Morehouse III
Review on TimesSquare.com
Ward Morehouse III's "Discovering the Hudson" published September 16th by
BearManor Media.
The Hudson Theatre (pictured above), which opened in 1903, is much more than a beautiful facade, much more than a landmark Broadway playhouse with Tiffany glass mosaics and Roman friezes -- complete with verde-antique in Greco-Roman marble -- all of which were recently and painstakingly restored by Millennium Hotels. With as much drama going on off-stage as beneath its historic proscenium arch, The Hudson has been the theater home for such titanic 20th century actors as George M. Cohan, Ethyl Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Alfred Lunt, and Jason Robards Jr. As if that weren't enough of a resume, the storied Broadway palace has also played the big time as the studio where Jack Paar and Steve Allen did their nationally broadcasted TV shows. Elvis, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr. and many others not instantly associated with Broadway have been celebrated Hudson guests too. Ward Morehouse III, whose family has been identified with theater for generations, uses the Hudson as a launching pad to write about the golden age of Broadway, live TV and beyond into the new, international age of corporate-theatre synergy.
ISBN is 1-59393-113-1. Price is $19.95. Pub date September 16, 2007
"Ward Morehouse III, like his well-known father before him, is a natural storyteller, with countless stories to tell. His good-natured affection for New York--its characters, its cultures, its history-makers and its history--shines through his prose. He knows this city well, and likes to share what he knows. For a couple of decades I've enjoyed his newspaper writings. And a new book from him is always welcome!"
--Chip Deffaa, author of "Blue Rhythms" and "Voices of the Jazz Age"
"No one is more qualified to write a history of Broadway's landmark Hudson Theatre than Ward Morehouse III, a member of a family identified with the New York theater for generations and a theater columnist and historian in his own right. The story of how the Hudson has survived for more than a century of ups and downs as home to great plays and players, to big bands and radio dramas, rock and cabaret stars, is fascinatingly told and a very good read indeed. It burnishes Morehouse's reputation as a researcher and witty, anecdotal writer earned by several books on New York's grand hotels."
-- Frederick M. Winship, United Press International cultural critic-at-large
"Discovering the Hudson" Press Release
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Harvard Club, New York City Thursday, January 10 at 7 p.m. Ward Morehouse III: The Secret Life of Grand Hotels Times may change, but the mystique of the Grand Hotel endures. These legendary hotels -- The Waldorf-Astoria, The Carlyle, The Plaza, The Algonquin, and more -- were the glamorous settings for the lives and loves of a gallery of colorful inhabitants. Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra, James Thurber, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Di, and a glittering parade of movie stars, Presidents, and other celebrities all held court in the suites of Manhattan's grand hotels. And it wasn't necessary to be "grand" to be a great hotel: take, for instance, The Chelsea, with a literary cast including Brendan Behan, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur Miller, and on and on. Author, playwright, critic, columnist, and raconteur Ward Morehouse III is the ideal guide into the special world of the grand hotels. As a child and later he lived in some of the grandest and the greatest, gaining a unique insight into the inner life of these unique institutions. |
Ward Morehouse III spoke at the National Arts Club on April 19th on his recently-released book "Broadway After Dark."
Now Available!
"Broadway After Dark" (pictured below) was published byBearManor Media on March 19, 2007.
(Click image below to buy it at Amazon.com)
Also available at Barnes and Noble
See Ward Morehouse III on "The New Yorkers" discussing
his book "Broadway After Dark."
Stewart F. Lane, Laura Belle Bundy, Ward Morehouse III -- Book party in the Martinelli Suite of New York's Buckingham Hotel (March 19)
(photo credit: Rose Billings)
REVIEW OF "BROADWAY AFTER DARK" BY WILLIAM WOLF:
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The name Ward Morehouse carries a special cachet. For years he was a renowned Broadway columnist. He is now gone, but his son, Ward Morehouse III, has been carrying on the family tradition. Now he has a book out that is the kind of memory lane journey his dad probably would have liked, a compilation of his father's writing combined with his own. Called "Broadway after Dark" (Bear Mountain Media), it has a joint byline and is subtitled "A Father & Son Cover 100 Years of Broadway."
The big names are swimming in the volume -- Katharine Cornell, Gloria Swanson, Ruth Gordon, Helen Hayes, Eugene O'Neill, Katharine Hepburn. It's a veritable treasure trove of who's who, with interviews galore. The material might be better organized, but it is generously all there. Notes Ward III in his preface:
"You'll find a vast difference between my father's columns and mine. To his immense credit, his are basically the coverage of an insider, someone who sometimes - but not always - was a personal friend of those he was writing about, like the Lunts and Katharine Hepburn...My columns are largely an outsider's view of the New York theater, where today Off Broadway has become sometimes even brighter than the Great White Way - but will never shine as brightly as it did when a Broadway show was the pinnacle of the American theater." - William Wolf |
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR "BROADWAY AFTER DARK":
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"I doff my lustrous black-silk topper to Ward Morehouse III for his never-dull, always sprightly 'Broadway After Dark'óa bubbling conflation of his and his late father's best celebrity reportage from 1926 to the present day. In no other book will you meet both Gloria Swanson, lounging in red pajamas, and Hugh Jackman, sharpening his claws. As Oscar Hammerstein (also profiled here) might have rhymed: When Morehouse fils joins Morehouse pere, the catch is rich beyond compare." - Alan Farnham, Senior editor, Forbes "'Broadway After Dark' is a beautiful love letter to the Great White Way. Ward Morehouse III and dad spin some of the most entertaining tales I've ever heard about New York's glorious theater district." - Bill Hoffmann, Page Six, New York Post |
Wikipedia Profile of Ward Morehouse III
Wikipedia Profile of Ward Morehouse
SNEAK PEEKS! Read unpublished excerpts from "Broadway After Dark" -- Gloria Swanson and Mike Todd
CLICK HERE TO VIEW PRESS RELEASE FOR "BROADWAY AFTER DARK".
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Cristina Fontanelli, client of Ward Morehouse III, appeared on "The Joey Reynolds Show" on WOR Radio on December 2, 2006. Cristina is singing at Feinstein's at the Regency on February 26 at 8:30PM.
8/8/06 Cindy Adams column, NY Post
"...Author Ward Morehouse and rocker EJ's musical "Skye Is Falling..."
Ward Morehouse III spoke at The National Arts Club on June 21, 2006, on his new book Life at the Top, Inside New York's Grand Hotels. In a National Arts Club Bulletin story entitled "The Suite Life," Linda Zagaria, Roundtable Chair, wrote:
| "On June 21, playwright, columnist, and bon vivant Ward Morehouse III presented a peek at the luxe life via an illustrated presentation based on his popular book 'Life at the Top: Inside New York's Grand Hotels.' Mr. Morehouse, who grew up in two of the city's grandest hotels, took us into the suites of the rich and famous, from the literary Algonquin to the celebrity-studded Wadorf-Astoria. Drawing on his own experiences, he captivated the audience with anecdotes about J.D. Salinger, Fidel Castro, Salvadore Dali, Princess Diana, and a score of others. This Roundtable-sponsored event drew a maximum crowd, at once curious about and fascinated with hotel life, judging from the questions posed and the number of books purchased. Many thanks to Constance Brock for arranging another enlightening and entertaining evening." |
Ward Morehouse III's Broadway After Dark column will now be available at The Epoch Times and TimesSquare.com.
1/4/06 Cindy Adams column, NY Post
(Talks about the musical, "Skye Is Falling," which Ward Morehouse co-wrote with pop singer EJ.)
Ward Morehouse in London with pop singer EJ, who sang at a charity fundraiser for Talking Newspapers and Magazines (click for larger images).
![](JavaScript:PopupPic("EJ3-500.jpg"))
The Plaza Checks Out (excerpt)
Article includes Ward Morehouse III in Preservation magazine, November-December 2005 (PDF; 408K)
Drawn to Allure of the Grand Old Hotels
Article featuring Ward Morehouse III in Darien News-Review, September 29, 2005 (PDF; 1.5Mb)
Ward Morehouse III: Life at The Plaza
Article featuring Ward Morehouse III in New York Living, March 2002
Mention in Variety: Ward Morehouse III appearance on the CBS Morning Show
Monday, November 14 at 6:30 pm (Event has passed.) Talk • Signing |
Ward
Morehouse IIINow Available!
SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW SECTION
Ward Morehouse III's
"Life at the Top:
Inside New York's Grand Hotels"
"There is no one more qualified to write about New York's grand hotels than
Ward Morehouse III, having been reared in two of the grandest whose
histories he would later write. An eminent theater critic who has hotels and their lore as a hobby, Morehouse is able to bring the Big Apple's glamorous
( or once glamorous) hostelries to life, mixing history with delicious
gossip and amusing anecdotes that only an insider would be privy to. Luxury
hotels provide a heightened sense of life and fun for the rich and famous as
well as the ordinary guest, and Morehouse catches the excitement of the
hotel as playground perfectly."
"LIFE AT THE TOP: Inside New York's Grand Hotels by celebrity columnist Ward Morehouse III brings to life such legendary Manhattan inns from the gold-plated St. Regis, Plaza, Carlyle, Waldorf-Astoria ("the greatest of them all") to the quaint Algonquin with its famous Roundtable and the quirky Chelsea with its cast of artists, musicians and beats. This a treasure trove of fascinating anecdotes of the famous and infamous who passed through the portals of New Yorks grand hotels." - Tim Boxer, Fifteenminutesmagazine.com (September 2005 issue)
Review by the TravelSmart website
Read a review by William Wolf, former film critic for New York Magazine
Click here to read the Prologue!
Press Release: (html, Word)
"Celebrity of the Day" - Celebrity Bulletin (8/12/05)
7/18/05 Cindy Adams column, NY Post
"The life and times of the fabulous Waldorf"
San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle, June 1991
Mr. Astor's Little Inn
"The grand cities of the world have their grand hotels, the bed-and-breakfasts for the mighty and the moneyed. Ward Morehouse 3rd explores one of New York City's grandest in THE WALDORF-ASTOROIA: America¼s Gilded Dream. Mr. Morehouse, a former reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, is more of a guide than a historian, embellishing his meanderings about the Waldorf with entertaining anecdotes and portraits of those who have been the lifeblood of its fame, such as Elsa Maxwell and Cole Porter. The Waldorf is 60 years old this year, and the author reminds us that it opened during the Great Depression, the descendant of the original Waldorf-Astoria that occupied the site, until 1929, where the Empire State Building now stands. It is a hotel big enough to handle Golda Meir and Yasir Arafat at the same time, without embarrassment to anyone, and vast enough to need computers to sort out the task of housekeeping, with a staff of nearly 400 for the 1,850 rooms to be cleaned. Mr. Morehouse writes of pleasures and scandals, of the hard facts of running a hotel and of its romance. This is not the last word on the Waldorf-Astoria, and the publisher is to be chided for neglecting to provide readers an index. Even so, the hotel comes off well in the hands of its appreciative Boswell and one will find 'The Waldorf-Astoria' to be a pleasant buffet."
--Richard F. Shepard, THE NEW YORK TIMES