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The Return of the One-Man Show

Robin Williams

There were some big announcements this week in the realm of one-man shows. First, Playbill reports that actor/comedian Robin Williams will return to Broadway this spring for a very limited engagement of his one-man show, Weapons of Self-Destruction.

Williams said in a statement:

I'm excited to be back on Broadway. It's been a blast working on new material for this tour. The current state of the country's political and economic climate, while so hard on so many people, has been like gold for a comedian. There’s just so much that's ripe for the picking.

Following an 80-city U.S. tour, Williams will play the Neil Simon Theatre April 28-May 3, 2009. Tickets will go on sale March 1. The comedian was last on Broadway in 2002 with Robin Williams: Live on Broadway.

Williams isn't the only funny guy getting back on stage. John Leguizamo begins exploring Work in Progress, his new in-development one-man show, tonight at the Barrow Street Theatre in NYC. Leguizamo will test his new material through March 11 at the downtown venue.

From the Barrow Street Theatre website:

Yo, wat up? Wat's crackin? Me that's what. I'm retooling, reworking, redoing a brand new show. Help, me help you get some anti recession. And anti depression hilarity. Come on down and be a part of history in the making. Watch me trip up and mess up and you can twitter it to your friends, 'I saw john f*&#k up. Ha! ha!' I'm not mad atcha. No haters allowed. Nor hating allowed. Help me come up with a title for my new show. Come on down and represent. Watch me put down. Cause you know I can.

Leguizamo was recently seen on Broadway in the short-lived revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo. The actor's previous one-man shows include Mambo Mouth and the Tony-nominated Sexaholix and Freak: A Semi Demi Quasi Pseudo Autobiography.

And in still more one-man show news: Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk with Me, a comic play that centers on the performer’s efforts to stop sleepwalking, has been extended once more. The show will will continue its run at the Bleecker Street Theater through June 7.

Variety notes that since opening Nov. 11, the show "has shown unusual longevity in an Off Broadway climate deemed gloomy by many legiters." The show was originally supposed to close at the end of January, but was extended through late March before this recent additional extension.

So is the one-man show making a comeback after falling out of fashion? Or are people just trying to call an hour and a half of stand-up a one-man show, instead? Also, what else can we call a one-man show so that I can stop writing "one-man show" over and over?

-- Daniel Lehman

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