The Lion King at the New Amsterdam Theatre, 2003

Broadway theatre,^[1] commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City.^[2] Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.

The Broadway theatre district is a popular tourist attraction in New York. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately $1.081 billion worth of tickets in calendar year 2011, compared with $1.037 billion for 2010. Attendance in 2011 was 12.13 million.^[3]

18th and 19th centuries[link]

Interior of the Park Theatre, built in 1798

Early theatre in New York[link]

New York did not have a significant theatre presence until about 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street, which held about 280 people. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera.^[4] In 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the year the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street (now called Park Row).^[4] The Bowery Theatre opened in 1826,^[5] followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, and especially so with the arrival of the Virginia Minstrels in the 1840s.^[6]

By the 1840s, P.T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblo's Garden opened and soon became one of New York's premiere nightspots. The 3,000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. The Astor Place Theatre opened in 1847. A riot broke out in 1849 when the lower-class patrons of the Bowery objected to what they perceived as snobbery by the upper class audiences at Astor Place: "After the Astor Place Riot of 1849, entertainment in New York City was divided along class lines: opera was chiefly for the upper middle and upper classes, minstrel shows and melodramas for the middle class, variety shows in concert saloons for men of the working class and the slumming middle class.^[7]

The plays of William Shakespeare were frequently performed on the Broadway stage during the period, most notably by American actor Edwin Booth who was internationally known for his performance as Hamlet. Booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865 (with the run ending just a few months before Booth's brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln), and would later revive the role at his own Booth's Theatre (which was managed for a time by his brother Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.). Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, and Charles Fechter.

1868 programme for Ixion

Lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompson's troupe, called the "British Blondes", was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season. "The eccentricities of pantomime and burlesque—with their curious combination of comedy, parody, satire, improvisation, song and dance, variety acts, cross-dressing, extravagant stage effects, risqué jokes and saucy costumes—while familiar enough to British audiences, took New York by storm."^[8] The six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years.^[9]

Birth of the musical and post-Civil War[link]

Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, seeking less expensive real estate prices. In 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Theatres did not arrive in the Times Square area until the early 1900s, and the Broadway theatres did not consolidate there until a large number of theatres were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s. Broadway's first "long-run" musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857. New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London,^[10] but Laura Keene's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keene's troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, D.C. that Abraham Lincoln was shot.

The Black Crook (1866), considered by some historians to be the first musical^[11]

The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and original music that helped to tell the story, is considered to be The Black Crook, which premiered in New York on September 12, 1866. The production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy."^[11]

Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 (The Mulligan Guard Picnic) and 1885, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from the everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward from vaudeville and burlesque, towards a more literate form. They starred high quality singers (Lillian Russell, Vivienne Segal, and Fay Templeton), instead of the women of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms.

As transportation improved, poverty in New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of potential patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. As in England, during the latter half of the century the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women. Gilbert and Sullivan's family-friendly comic opera hits, beginning with H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878, were imported to New York (by the authors and also in numerous pirated productions). They were imitated in New York by American productions such as Reginald Dekoven's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa's El Capitan (1896), along with operas, ballets and other British and European hits.

1890s and later[link]

Charles Hoyt's A Trip to Chinatown (1891) became Broadway's long-run champion, holding the stage for 657 performances. This would not be surpassed until Irene in 1919. In 1896, theatre owners Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger formed the Theatrical Syndicate, which controlled almost every legitimate theatre in the U.S. for the next sixteen years.^[12] However, smaller vaudeville and variety houses proliferated, and Off-Broadway was well established by the end of the 19th century.

A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans in a Broadway theatre (largely inspired by the routines of the minstrel shows), followed by the ragtime-tinged Clorindy the Origin of the Cakewalk (1898), and the highly successful In Dahomey (1902). Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 1900s made up of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley involving composers such as Gus Edwards, John Walter Bratton, and George M. Cohan (Little Johnny Jones (1904), 45 Minutes From Broadway (1906), and George Washington Jr. (1906)). Still, New York runs continued to be relatively short, with a few exceptions, compared with London runs, until World War I.^[10] A few very successful British musicals continued to achieve great success in New York, including Florodora in 1900–01.

Victor Herbert

In the early years of the 20th century, translations of popular late-19th century continental operettas were joined by the "Princess Theatre" shows of the 1910s by writers such as P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and Harry B. Smith. Victor Herbert, whose work included some intimate musical plays with modern settings as well as his string of famous operettas (The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906), and Naughty Marietta (1910)).^[13]

Beginning with The Red Mill, Broadway shows installed electric signs outside the theatres. Since colored bulbs burned out too quickly, white lights were used, and Broadway was nicknamed "The Great White Way." In August 1919, the Actors Equity Association demanded a standard contract for all professional productions. After a strike shut down all the theatres, the producers were forced to agree. By the 1920s, the Shubert Brothers had risen to take over the majority of the theatres from the Erlanger syndicate.^[14]

The Winter Garden, Maxine Elliott's, Casino, and Knickerbocker Theatres on Broadway in 1920.

The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. At first, films were silent and presented only limited competition. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound, and critics wondered if the cinema would replace live theatre altogether. The musicals of the Roaring Twenties, borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs. Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together. Typical of the 1920s were lighthearted productions like Sally; Lady Be Good; Sunny; No, No, Nanette; Harlem; Oh, Kay!; and Funny Face. Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, and Rodgers and Hart, among others, and Noël Coward, Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml continued in the vein of Victor Herbert. Clearly, the live theatre survived the invention of cinema.

Leaving these comparatively frivolous entertainments behind, and taking the drama a giant step forward, Show Boat, premiered on December 27, 1927 at the Ziegfeld Theatre, representing a complete integration of book and score, with dramatic themes, as told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement, woven together more seamlessly than in previous musicals. It ran for 572 performances.

The 1920s also spawned a new age of American playwright with the emergence of Eugene O'Neill, whose plays Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, The Hairy Ape, Strange Interlude and Mourning Becomes Electra proved that there was an audience for serious drama on Broadway, and O'Neill's success paved the way for major dramatists like Elmer Rice, Maxwell Anderson, Robert E. Sherwood, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, as well as writers of comedy like George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Classical revivals also proved popular with Broadway theatre-goers, notably John Barrymore in Hamlet and Richard III, John Gielgud in Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest and Much Ado About Nothing, Walter Hampden and Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac, Paul Robeson and Ferrer in Othello, Maurice Evans in Richard II and the plays of George Bernard Shaw, and Katharine Cornell in such plays as Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, and Candida

After the lean years of the Great Depression, Broadway theatre entered a golden age with the blockbuster hit Oklahoma!, in 1943, which ran for 2,212 performances. Hit after hit followed on Broadway, and the Broadway theatre attained the highest level of international prestige in theatre.

The Tony Awards were established in 1947 to recognize achievement in live American theatre, especially Broadway theatre.

Broadway today[link]

Schedule[link]

Although there are now more exceptions than previously, generally shows with open-ended runs have evening performances Tuesday through Saturday with a 7pm or 8pm "curtain" and afternoon "matinée" performances on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, at 2pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays and 3pm on Sundays, making an eight performance week. On this schedule, shows do not play on Monday, and the shows and theatres are said to be "dark" on that day.^[15][16] Actors and the crew in these shows tend to regard Sunday evening through Tuesday evening as their "weekend". The Tony award presentation ceremony is usually held on a Sunday evening in June to fit into this schedule.

In recent years, some shows have moved their Tuesday show time an hour earlier to 7 pm.^[15] The rationale for the move was that fewer tourists took in shows midweek, so the Tuesday attendance in particular depends on local audience members. The earlier curtain therefore allows suburban patrons time after a show to get home by a reasonable hour. Some shows, especially those produced by Disney, change their performance schedules fairly frequently, depending on the season, in order to maximize access to their targeted audience.

Personnel[link]

Both musicals and stage plays on Broadway often rely on casting well-known performers in leading roles to draw larger audiences or bring in new audience members to the theatre. Actors from movies and television are frequently cast for the revivals of Broadway shows or are used to replace actors leaving a cast. There are still, however, performers who are primarily stage actors, spending most of their time "on the boards", and appearing in television and in screen roles only secondarily. As Patrick Healy of the New York Times noted, "Broadway once had many homegrown stars who committed to working on a show for a year, as Nathan Lane has for The Addams Family. In 2010, some theater heavyweights like Mr. Lane were not even nominated; instead, several Tony Awards were given for productions that were always intended to be short-timers on Broadway, given that many of their film-star performers had to move on to other commitments."^[17] According to an article by Mark Shenton, "One of the biggest changes to the commercial theatrical landscape—on both sides of the Atlantic—over the past decade or so is that sightings of big star names turning out to do plays has gone up; but the runs they are prepared to commit to has gone down. Time was that a producer would require a minimum commitment from his star of six months, and perhaps a year; now, the 13-week run is the norm."^[18]

The minimum size of the Broadway orchestra is governed by an agreement with the musicians union (Local 802, American Federation of Musicians) and The Broadway League. For example, the agreement specifies the minimum size of the orchestra at the Minskoff Theatre to be 18, at the Music Box Theatre to be 9.^[19]

Producers and theatre owners[link]

Most Broadway producers and theatre owners are members of The Broadway League (formerly "The League of American Theatres and Producers"), a trade organization that promotes Broadway theatre as a whole, negotiates contracts with the various theatrical unions and agreements with the guilds, and co-administers the Tony Awards with the American Theatre Wing, a service organization. While the League and the theatrical unions are sometimes at loggerheads during those periods when new contracts are being negotiated, they also cooperate on many projects and events designed to promote professional theatre in New York.

The three non-profit theatre companies with Broadway theatres (Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Roundabout Theatre Company) belong to the League of Resident Theatres and have contracts with the theatrical unions which are negotiated separately from the other Broadway theatre and producers. (Disney also negotiates apart from the League, as did Livent before it closed down its operations.) However, generally, shows that play in any of the Broadway houses are eligible for Tony Awards (see below).

The majority of Broadway theatres are owned or managed by three organizations: the Shubert Organization, a for-profit arm of the non-profit Shubert Foundation, which owns seventeen theatres (it recently retained full ownership of the Music Box from the Irving Berlin Estate); The Nederlander Organization, which controls nine theatres; and Jujamcyn, which owns five Broadway houses.

Runs[link]

Most Broadway shows are commercial productions intended to make a profit for the producers and investors ("backers" or "angels"), and therefore have open-ended runs (duration that the production plays), meaning that the length of their presentation is not set beforehand, but depends on critical response, word of mouth, and the effectiveness of the show's advertising, all of which determine ticket sales. Investing in a commercial production carries a varied degree of financial risk. Shows do not necessarily have to make a profit immediately. If they are making their "nut" (weekly operating expenses), or are losing money at a rate which the producers consider acceptable, they may continue to run in the expectation that, eventually, they will pay back their initial costs and become profitable. In some borderline situations, producers may ask that royalties be temporarily reduced or waived, or even that performers — with the permission of their unions — take reduced salaries, in order to prevent a show from closing. Theatre owners, who are not generally profit participants in most productions, may waive or reduce rents, or even lend a show money in order to keep it running.

Some Broadway shows are produced by non-commercial organizations as part of a regular subscription season—Lincoln Center Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, and Manhattan Theatre Club are the three non-profit theatre companies that currently have permanent Broadway venues. Some other productions are produced on Broadway with "limited engagement runs" for a number of reasons, including financial issues, prior engagements of the performers or temporary availability of a theatre between the end of one production and the beginning of another. However, some shows with planned limited engagement runs may, after critical acclaim or box office success, extend their engagements or convert to open-ended runs. This was the case with 2007's August: Osage County and 2009's God of Carnage.

Historically, musicals on Broadway tend to have longer runs than "straight" (i.e. non-musical) plays. On January 9, 2006, The Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre became the longest running Broadway musical, with 7,486 performances, overtaking Cats.^[20]

Audience[link]

Attending a Broadway show is a common tourist activity in New York. The TKTS booths sell same-day tickets (and in certain cases next-day matinee tickets) for many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows at a discount of 25%, 35%, or 50%. The TKTS booths are located in Duffy Square, in Times Square, in Lower Manhattan, and in Brooklyn. This service run by Theatre Development Fund makes seeing a show in New York more affordable. Many Broadway theatres also offer special student rates, same-day "rush" or "lottery" tickets, or standing-room tickets to help ensure that their theatres are as full, and their "grosses" as high as possible.^[21] According to The Broadway League, total Broadway attendance was 12.13 million in calendar year 2011 compared to 12.11million in 2010.^[3] The Broadway League also reports that approximately 62% of all Broadway tickets were purchased by tourists in the 2010-2011 season.^[22] By way of comparison, London's West End theatre reported total attendance of 14.3 million for major commercial and grant-aided theatres in central London for 2009.^[23]

Off-Broadway and US tours[link]

The classification of theatres is governed by language in Actors' Equity Association contracts. To be eligible for a Tony, a production must be in a house with 500 seats or more and in the Theatre District, which criteria define Broadway theatre. Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows often provide a more experimental, challenging and intimate performance than is possible in the larger Broadway theatres. Some Broadway shows, however, such as the musicals Hair, Little Shop of Horrors, Spring Awakening, Next to Normal, Rent, Avenue Q, and In the Heights, began their runs Off Broadway and later transferred onto Broadway, seeking to replicate their intimate experience in a larger theatre.

After (or even during) successful runs in Broadway theatres, producers often remount their productions with a new cast and crew for the Broadway national tour, which travels to theatres in major cities across the country—the bigger and more successful shows may have several of these touring companies out at a time, some of them "sitting down" in other cities for their own long runs. Smaller cities are eventually serviced by "bus and truck" tours, so-called because the cast generally travels by bus (instead of by air) and the sets and equipment by truck. Tours of this type, which frequently feature a reduced physical production to accommodate smaller venues and tighter schedules, often play "split weeks" (half a week in one town and the second half in another) or "one-nighters", whereas the larger tours will generally play for one or two days per city at a minimum. The Touring Broadway Awards, presented by The Broadway League, honor excellence in touring Broadway.

Awards[link]

Broadway productions and artists are honored by the annual Antoinette Perry Awards (commonly called the "Tony Awards, or "Tony") which are awarded by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, beginning in 1947.^[24] The Tony is Broadway's most prestigious award, even compared to the Academy Awards for Hollywood productions. Their importance has increased since the annual broadcast on television began. In a strategy to improve the television ratings, celebrities are often chosen to host the show, like Rosie O'Donnell, some with little or no connection to the theatre.^[25] The latest Tony Awards ceremony was held on June 12, 2011. Other awards given to Broadway productions include the Drama Desk Award, presented since 1955, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle awards, first given in 1936.

List of Broadway theatres[link]

• If no show is currently running, the play listed is the next show planned (dates marked with an *).
• If the next show planned is not announced, the applicable columns are left blank.
• Capacity is based on the capacity given for the respective theatre at the Internet Broadway Database.^[26]

Upcoming productions[link]

The following have been announced as future Broadway productions. The theatre in which they will run is either not yet known or currently occupied by another show.

Confirmed openings[link]

Musicals[link]

• Rebecca: November 18, 2012 (Broadhurst Theatre)^[41]
• Chaplin: September 10, 2012 (Barrymore Theatre)^[42]
• Golden Boy: December 3, 2012 (theatre unknown)^[43][44]
• Annie: November 8, 2012 (Palace Theatre)^[45]
• A Christmas Story, The Musical!: November 6, 2012 - December 30, 2012 (theatre unknown)^[46]

Plays[link]

• An Enemy of the People: September 27, 2012 (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)^[47]
• The Big Knife: March 22, 2013 (American Airlines Theatre)^[48]
• The Heiress: November 1, 2012 (theatre unknown)^[49]
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: September 27, 2012 (Shubert theatre to be announced)^[50]
• Cyrano de Bergerac: September 14, 2012 (American Airlines Theatre)

To be announced[link]

Musicals, current season[link]

References[link]

See also[link]

• Broadway Bladder

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Broadway theatre

• The Internet Broadway Database
• The Houses of Broadway
• Broadway.com

Coordinates: 40°45′21″N 73°59′11″W / 40.75583°N 73.98639°W / 40.75583; -73.98639

Patina Miller (born November 6, 1984) is an American actress and singer. Miller is best known for originating the role of disco diva wannabe Deloris Van Cartier in the 2009 West End and 2011 Broadway productions of Sister Act the Musical.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Born Patina Renea Miller in Pageland, South Carolina^[1] and raised in a single parent home,^[2] she was introduced to music at an early age and sang with the gospel choir at her local church. She attended South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities^[3] and in 2006 graduated with a degree in musical theatre from Carnegie Mellon University, which she attended on a full scholarship.^[1] She has credited her time at Carnegie Mellon as a big part of her life, saying, "It was there that I studied and really realized that I could make my dream a reality. I'm so thankful to all my teachers who helped me to become the performer I am today. I'm so proud of my school and feel so blessed to have gotten such a wonderful education and made lifelong friends."^[4]

Career[link]

In 2005, Miller was one of three finalists for the role of Effie White in Dreamgirls, which ultimately won Jennifer Hudson the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.^[3] In 2007, she was cast in All My Children and appeared in 30 episodes of the daytime soap opera.^[3][5] She performed in a Central Park production of Hair in the summer of 2008 and was featured in the musical Romantic Poetry at the Manhattan Theatre Club that fall.^[6]

Miller was cast as the lead role of Delores Van Cartier in Sister Act, a role she had understudied for six months during its initial run in the United States,^[2] following a year-long international search.^[6] The London production opened on June 2, 2009 at the London Palladium, and although it received mixed reviews, most critics singled out Miller and praised her performance. Benedict Nightingale of The Times cited her "terrific voice" and continued, "Add warmth, humour, vivacity — and you’ve a star who lacks Whoopi’s wry vulnerability but adds dazzle to the razzle around her,"^[7] while David Benedict of Variety thought her "powerhouse vocals, pitched somewhere between Gloria Gaynor and Whitney Houston, and her thrillingly fast vibrato act as the show's engine."^[8] For this role Miller won the whatsonstage.com Theatregoers Choice Award for Best Actress in a Musical and was also nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.^[9][10] She remained with the production till it closed on October 30, 2010.^[11]

Miller recently reprised the role of Deloris Van Cartier in the Broadway production of Sister Act, which began performances on March 24, 2011, at the Broadway Theatre and officially opened April 20. Miller is also making her Broadway debut in this production.^[12] For this role she won a Theatre World Award^[13] and was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical,^[14] the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical,^[15] the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance,^[16] and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical.^[17] She played her final performance in the Broadway company on March 18, 2012 and will be replaced by Raven Symone on March 27.^[18] Miller also starred as Linda in the City Center Encores! production of Lost in the Stars, which ran from February 3–6, 2011.^[19]

Discography[link]

• Sister Act the Musical London Cast Recording (2009)^[20]
• What I Wanna Be When I Grow Up by Scott Alan, singing the song "Taking Back My Life" (2010)^[21]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Patina Miller at the Internet Movie Database

Shia LaBeouf
LaBeouf promoting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, June 2009
Born	Shia Saide LaBeouf (1986-06-11) June 11, 1986 (age 26) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1996–present

Shia Saide LaBeouf^[1] ( /ˈʃaɪ.ə ləˈbʌf/; born June 11, 1986) is an American actor who became known among younger audiences for his part in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens and for his film debut in Holes (2003), based on the novel of the same title by Louis Sachar. In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate and later directed and shot the music video for "I Never Knew You" by rapper Cage. In 2007, LaBeouf starred as the lead in the commercially successful films, Disturbia and Transformers. His other films include Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011).

Early life[link]

LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, the only child of Shayna (née Saide) and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf.^[2] His mother is a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and clothing jewelry designer.^[3] His father is a Vietnam War veteran who had numerous jobs.^[4][5][6][7] LaBeouf's mother is Jewish, and LaBeouf's father, who is of Cajun (French) descent, is Christian. LaBeouf was raised in his mother's Jewish religion and had a Bar Mitzvah; he was also baptized in the Angelus church.^{[8][9][10][11]}

LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", his father as "tough as nails and a different breed of man", and his upbringing as similar to a "hippy lifestyle", stating that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them."^{[5][7][7][12]} The actor also accompanied his father to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.^[4] LaBeouf has also said he was subjected to verbal and mental abuse by his father, who once pointed a gun at his son during a Vietnam War flashback.^[7] LaBeouf says his father was "on drugs" during his childhood and was placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction while LaBeouf's mother was "trying to hold down the fort."^[5] His parents eventually divorced, mainly due to financial problems,^[13] and LaBeouf had what he has described as a "good childhood", growing up poor in Echo Park with his mother, who worked selling fabrics and brooches.^[14][15] LaBeouf's uncle was going to adopt him at one stage because his parents could not afford to have him anymore and "they had too much pride to go on welfare or food stamps."^[16] As a way of dealing with his parents' divorce, he would perform for his family, mimicking his father.^[17] LaBeouf remains close to and financially supports both of his parents.^[4][5][18]

He attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles (LAUSD)^[7] and Alexander Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors.^[15] In an interview, LaBeouf said that, looking back on his childhood, he feels grateful and considers some of those memories scars.^[13]

When LaBeouf was 19, after a neighbor in his Studio City apartment complex had allegedly insulted his mother and rear-ended her car, LaBeouf brought a knife, and a friend for backup, to the neighbor's apartment, which resulted in LaBeouf being assaulted by the neighbor and six of the neighbor's friends.^[19]

Career[link]

1996–2006: Disney career[link]

LaBeouf in November 2006, promoting Bobby.

Prior to acting, LaBeouf practiced comedy around his neighborhood as an "escape" from a hostile environment.^[14] At age 10, he began performing stand-up at comedy clubs, describing his appeal as having "disgustingly dirty" material and a "50-year-old mouth on the 10-year-old kid."^[15][18][20] He subsequently found an agent through the Yellow Pages and was taken on after pretending to be his own manager.^[21] LaBeouf has said that he initially became an actor because his family was broke, not because he wanted to pursue an acting career,^[20][22] having originally gotten the idea from a child actor he met who had things he wanted.^[4] In the early 2000s, LaBeouf became known among young audiences after playing Louis Stevens on the Disney Channel weekly program Even Stevens,^[23] a role that later earned him a Daytime Emmy Award.^[7] He has said that "[he] grew up on that show" and being cast was the "best thing" that happened to him.^[5] In the next several years, he appeared in the well-received^[24][25] film adaption Holes (2003). In 2005 he co-starred in Constantine, playing the role of Chas Kramer, with Keanu Reeves in the starring role. LaBeouf made his directorial debut with the short film Let's Love Hate with Lorenzo Eduardo.^[26] He has played real-life people, including golfer Francis Ouimet^[4][27] and the younger version of Dito Montiel in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006).^[28]

2007–08: Career breakthrough[link]

LaBeouf starred in Disturbia, a thriller released on April 13, as a teenager under house arrest who suspects that his neighbor is a serial killer, which he considered a "character-driven" role.^[14] He received positive reviews for the role, with The Buffalo News saying, he "is able to simultaneously pull off [the character's] anger, remorse and intelligence".^[29] He hosted Saturday Night Live on April 14,^[30] and on May 10, 2008.^[31] He next played Sam Witwicky, who becomes involved in the Autobot-Decepticon war on Earth, in Transformers.^[32]

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) he was Indiana Jones' greaser son Mutt Williams. His performance was met with mixed reviews with Todd Gilchrist of IGN commenting "one can't quite help but wonder what Spielberg saw in the young actor that inspired him to cast LaBeouf".^[33] LaBeouf told the L.A. Times that he felt he as an actor "dropped the ball" on Jones' legacy, and "there was a reason" the film wasn't universally accepted.^[34] His next film was Eagle Eye, released on September 26. His performance received mixed reviews, with Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly saying he "makes a credible bid for action-hero status, although his occasional stabs at emotional depth don’t really go anywhere."^[35]

[edit] 2009–present: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and beyond

In February, he directed the music video for "I Never Knew You", a single off rapper Cage's third album, Depart From Me. It was shot in LA and features cameos by other Definitive Jux artists.^[36] The two will also team up to make a biopic about the rapper's life, starring LaBeouf.^[37] Of making the video, LaBeouf said, "I'm 22 and I'm directing my favorite rapper's music video. This shit is better than riding unicorns." In addition to directing the short film, MANIAC for Kid Cudi and Cage's collaborative track he also directed and filmed Kid Cudi's music video for "Marijuana" at the 2010 Cannabis Cup.^[36]

In June 2009 with co-star Megan Fox at the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen press conference in Paris.

LaBeouf reprised the role of Sam Witwicky in the 2009 sequel to Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.^[38] Filming for the movie began in May 2008 and ended in late 2008.^[39] Due to LaBeouf's injury from his car accident, Bay and screen writer Roberto Orci had to rewrite the script to protect his hand throughout filming.^[40] LaBeouf said production was only delayed two days after his accident because Bay made up for it by filming second unit scenes, and LaBeouf recovered a few weeks earlier than expected, allowing him to return to the set.^[41] Near the end of filming, LaBeouf injured his eye when he hit a prop; the injury required seven stitches. He resumed filming two hours later.^[42] The movie grossed $800 million,^[43] but received mostly negative review by critics,^[25] with LaBeouf sharing a nomination for the "Worst Screen Couple of 2009" Razzie Award with "either Megan Fox or any Transformer."^[44]

His only 2010 movie was the Oliver Stone-directed film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to Wall Street (1987), playing an ambitious Wall Street trader.^[45] It became another mixed critical success for him.^[25] He reprised his role in the third Transformers film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which was released on June 28, 2011.^[46] He will play a bootlegger in John Hillcoat's Lawless.^[47]

LaBeouf has created three short graphic novels Stale N Mate, Cyclical, and Let’s Fucking Party, and a webcomic series, Cheek Up's through the publishing company, The Campaign Book. In April 2012, he promoted them at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo.^[48][49]

Personal life[link]

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At 18, he bought his own home.^[50] He has stated that he has a "personal relationship with God that happens to work within the confines of Judaism",^[51] and has described himself as Jewish.^[52] He has also detailed that religion "never made sense" to him.^[8]

LaBeouf has three tattoos, which are: 1986–2004 on his inner right wrist, a dog paw tattoo on his upper left arm, and a hand with a shackle on it on his left upper side torso.^[53][54] He got the tattoo on his wrist as a "precautionary" to not forget his childhood.^[53] LaBeouf described the upper side torso tattoo as "an artist drawing his own prison. Just life. That’s where I’m at".^[53] He completed the 2010 LA Marathon on March 21, 2010 with a time of 4 hours, 35 minutes and 31 seconds.^[55]

Relationships[link]

From 2004 to 2007, LaBeouf dated China Brezner, whom he met on the set of The Greatest Game Ever Played.^[56] They broke up because he became too busy with his work to put any time into the relationship,^[57] and he described the break-up as being like "rebuilding after a tornado."^[57] He dated English actress and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps co-star Carey Mulligan from August 2009 to October 2010;^[58] they were introduced by the film's director, Oliver Stone, prior to filming and began dating shortly after.^[59] Of that relationship he said: "I still love her. I think she's a fucking awesome person and an incredible actress. We're still pals. I wouldn't take any of it back, and I don't think she would either. It just ran its course."^[60]

In the August 2011 issue of Details magazine, he also admitted to having been in a relationship with Isabel Lucas while she was still dating Adrian Grenier and Megan Fox while she was still seeing her now husband Brian Austin Green.^[60]

Legal troubles[link]

Early in the morning of November 4, 2007, a security guard asked LaBeouf to leave a Chicago Walgreens; after refusing to do so, LaBeouf was arrested for misdemeanor criminal trespassing.^[61] The criminal charges were dropped on December 12, 2007.^[62]

In March 2008, an arrest warrant was issued for LaBeouf, after he failed to make a court appearance. The hearing was in relation to a ticket he had received for unlawful smoking in Burbank, California, in February 2008. When neither LaBeouf nor a lawyer appeared at the court, at 8:30 a.m., a $1000 bench warrant was issued for his arrest.^[63] However, the court commissioner in California recalled this warrant on March 19, 2008, after the actor’s attorney arrived a day late to plead not guilty on LaBeouf's behalf, and a pre-trial hearing was set for April 24, 2008.^[64] The charge was dismissed, after the actor paid a $500 fine.^[65]

At approximately 3 A.M. on July 27, 2008, LaBeouf was involved in a car crash, at the intersection of La Brea Avenue and Fountain Avenue in Los Angeles. His Ford F-150 was hit from the side by a vehicle running a red light.^[66] LaBeouf had been gripping the top of the windowsill as he drove and, upon impact, the truck rolled onto his exposed left hand, crushing it.^[67] While responding to the accident, police officers smelled alcohol on LaBeouf's breath.^[68] Because he refused a breathalyzer examination, authorities arrested LaBeouf at the scene for misdemeanor drunk driving, and his driver's license was suspended for one year.^[69][70][71] Michael Bay stated that LaBeouf had been drinking hours before the car accident and he had felt that, by the time the accident had occurred, the alcohol had worn off.^[41] LaBeouf had to undergo one of many hand surgeries immediately after the accident.^[66] His passenger, Isabel Lucas, and the driver and passenger in the other car suffered only minor injuries.^[70][72][73] Due to severe damages from the accident, LaBeouf's truck was totaled; his father keeps the vehicle at his home as a memento.^[68] Two days later, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman announced that LaBeouf was not at fault in the accident as the other driver had run a red light.^[69][74] LaBeouf returned to the set of the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, at this time, and shooting resumed.^[75] In September of that year, LaBeouf described the car accident as being "eye-opening and terrifying."^[76] He said that, as a result of the injuries, he had screws and plates put in his left hand; there is also scarring.^[67] A screw was placed in one of his knuckles, and he had a shaved piece of bone from his hip made into a bone for his finger.^[67] In April 2009, he stated he had undergone three hand surgeries. He said that he would regain "probably about 80-something percent" use of his hand and, while he would be able to make a fist again, "there’s a knuckle [I will] never be able to move again."^[67] In May 2010, he said that he has "completely" regained movement in his fingers.^[77] In June 2011, in an interview in Details magazine, he claimed that he and Isabel Lucas were "philandering around" before the accident occurred.^[78]