The Complete Book of 2010s Broadway Musicals

The Complete Book of 2010s
Broadway Musicals
The Complete Book of
2010s Broadway Musicals
Dan Dietz
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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6 Tinworth Street, London, SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dietz, Dan, 1945– author.

Title: The complete book of 2010s Broadway musicals / Dan Dietz.
Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This volume contains
detailed information about every musical that opened on Broadway
from 2010 through the end of 2019. This book discusses the decade’s
major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during
their pre-Broadway tryouts”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020004837 (print) | LCCN 2020004838 (ebook) | ISBN
9781538126325 (cloth) | ISBN 9781538126332 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Musicals—New York (State)—New York—21st century
—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML1711.8.N3 D536 2020 (print) | LCC ML1711.8.N3
(ebook) | DDC 792.6/45097471—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020004837
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020004838
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements

of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
To the memory of my Great-Aunt Rose, whose dictum “Anything’s good if
you like it” applied to food—and can equally apply to Broadway musicals.
Contents
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgment
Introduction
Alphabetical List of Shows
BROADWAY MUSICALS, 2010–2019

2010 Season
2010–2011 Season
2011–2012 Season
2012–2013 Season
2013–2014 Season
2014–2015 Season
2015–2016 Season
2016–2017 Season
2017–2018 Season
2018–2019 Season
2019 Season
APPENDIXES
A Chronology (by Season)
B Shows by Classification
C Discography
D Filmography
E Published Scripts
F Black-Themed Shows
G LGBT-Themed Shows
H Theatres
Bibliography
About the Author
Acknowledgment
A special thanks to Mike Baskin for his invaluable help and support in the
writing of this book.
Introduction
The Complete Book of 2010s Broadway Musicals examines in detail all 240
musicals that opened on Broadway between January 1, 2010, and December
31, 2019, including comedy and magic revues (most of which contained
incidental music), new operas that made their New York premieres, and
selected musicals that closed prior to Broadway.
The productions discussed in this book include sixty-one book musicals
with new music; twenty-nine book musicals with mostly preexisting music;
seven operas; two plays with incidental music; four dance musicals; thirty-
six shows that fall under such categories as revues, concerts, comedy
stands, and the always helpful “miscellaneous” category (such as the In
Residence on Broadway series); eight magic shows; eighteen imports; fifty-
two revivals and return engagements; and twenty-three pre-Broadway
closings.
Like the other books in my series, the goal is to provide a convenient
reference source that gives both technical information (such as cast and
song lists) and commentary.
There was one heartening trend during the decade, and that was the
return of the traditional book musical with new music. The decade of the
2000s offered only thirty-seven such shows, but the 2010s found a
significant increase in this number for a total of sixty-one. There was even a
welcome downward trend in the number of revivals and return
engagements, with a total of fifty-two shows in this category, as opposed to
fifty-eight in the 2000s. For all this good news, there was one unhappy
comparison: the 2000s included fifteen musicals with mostly preexisting
music, and for the 2010s this number almost doubled to twenty-nine, no
thanks to jukebox musicals of one sort or another, including singer-
biography musical tributes. Because the number of singers, singing groups,
and pop composers are probably limitless, one fears a future Broadway
where every available theatre boasts self-serving tribute musicals with
warmed-over familiar songs. But that gratifying number of sixty-one book
musicals with new music gives hope for the future of the American musical.
Even though many of these sixty-one new musicals were lyric retreads of
1980s and 1990s movies, and even if many were both trendy and gimmicky,
we’ll give credit where credit is due, and we’re thankful for every new
score we can get.
As for the technical information in this book, each entry includes: name
of theatre; opening and closing dates; number of performances (taken from
Theatre World or the Internet Broadway Database [IBDB]); the show’s
advertising tag (if any, and including variations used in advertisements);
names of book writers, lyricists, composers, directors, choreographers,
musical directors (conductors), producers, and scenic, costume, and lighting
designers. The names of the cast members are included, and each
performer’s name is followed by the name of the character portrayed
(names in italics reflect those performers whose names were billed above
the title). This book doesn’t include the names of every individual
associated with a particular production; accordingly, swings, understudies,
and technical personnel are generally not referenced.
Technical information also includes the number of acts for each show,
the time and locale of the action (if applicable), and the titles of musical
numbers by act (each song title is followed by the name of the performer—
not the character—who sang the number). If a song is known by a variant
title, the alternate one is also given. If a musical is based on source material,
such information is cited.
The commentary for each musical includes a brief plot summary; brief
quotes from the critics; informative trivia; details about London and other
major international productions; data about recordings and published
scripts; and information about film, television, and home video adaptations.
In some cases, the commentary includes information regarding a show’s
gestation and pre-Broadway tryout history.
When applicable, Tony Award winners and nominees are listed at the
end of each entry (the names of winners are bolded), and the winners of the
New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for drama are
also cited. Throughout the text, bolded titles refer to productions that are
represented with an entry in the book.
The book includes a bibliography and eight appendixes: chronology by
season, shows by classification, discography, filmography, published
scripts, black-themed shows, LGBT-themed shows, and a list of theatres
where the musicals were presented (including transfers). Directly following
this introduction is an alphabetical list of all the shows represented by
entries in this book.
Virtually all the technical information in this book is drawn from
original source material, including programs, souvenir programs, flyers,
window cards (posters), recordings, scripts, newspaper advertisements, and
contemporary reviews.
I want to thank Dave Henson and Chanel Cook of the Old Globe
Theatre (San Diego, California) for providing background information on
one of the Old Globe’s productions.
ADDENDUM
Eleven musicals were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They
didn’t officially close but went on hiatus March 15, 2020, when the
Broadway shutdown began. The number of performances up to that point
are included below.
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations: 407
Aladdin: 2,506
The Book of Mormon: 3,748
Come from Away: 1,251
Dear Evan Hansen: 1,363
Hadestown: 376
Hamilton: 1,919
Jagged Little Pill: 112
Mean Girls: 804
Moulin Rouge!: 262
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical: 143
Alphabetical List of Shows
The following is an alphabetical list of all 240 shows discussed in this book.
There are multiple listings for those musicals produced more than once
during the decade, and those titles are followed by the year of presentation.
The Addams Family

After Midnight
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations
Akhnaten
Aladdin
All about Me
Allegiance
Alton Brown Live: Eat Your Science
Amazing Grace
Amelie
American Idiot
An American in Paris
American Psycho
American Utopia
Anastasia
Angels in America
Annie
Anything Goes
Baby It’s You!
Bandstand
The Band’s Visit
Bat Out of Hell
Beaches
Beautiful
Beetlejuice
Be More Chill
Big Fish
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Bonnie & Clyde
The Book of Mormon
The Boy Detective Fails
The Bridges of Madison County
Bright Star
Bring It On
Brokeback Mountain
A Bronx Tale
Brother Russia
Bullets over Broadway
Cabaret
Cake Off
Candide
Carousel
Catch Me If You Can
Cats
Celebrity Autobiography on Broadway
Chaplin
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Cher Show
Choir Boy
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Story (2012)
Cinderella
Cloak and Dagger
The Color Purple
Come Fly Away
Come from Away
Criss Angel Raw: The Mindfreak Unplugged (see entry for In Residence on
Broadway)
Dames at Sea
Dave
Dave Chappelle (see entry for In Residence on Broadway)
Dear Evan Hansen
Derren Brown: Secret
Diner
Disaster!
Doctor Zhivago
Donny & Marie: A Broadway Christmas
Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Elf (2010)
Elf (2012)
Elf (2015)
Elf (2017)
End of the Rainbow
Enron
Escape to Margaritaville
An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patink
Everyday Rapture
Evita
The Exterminating Angel
Falsettos
Farinelli and the King
Fela!
The Ferryman
Fiddler on the Roof
Finding Neverland
First Date
Follies
Forever Tango
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (2012)
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on Broadwa! [2016]
Freaky Friday
Freestyle Love Supreme
Frozen
Fun Home
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder
Gettin’ the Band Back Together
Ghost
Gigi
Girlstar
Godspell
Groundhog Day
Hadestown
Hair
Hamilton
Hands on a Hard Body
Harry Connick Jr. in Concert on Broadway
Harry Connick Jr: A Celebration of Cole Porter
Head over Heels
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Hello, Dolly!
Holiday Inn
Holler If Ya Hear Me
The Hollow
Home for the Holidays
The Honeymooners
Honeymoon in Vegas
How to Succeed in Business without Really Tryin
Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway
If/Then
Il Divo: A Musical Affair
The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible (2014)
The Illusionists: Live on Broadway (2015)
The Illusionists: Turn of the Century (2016)
The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays (2018)
In Transit
It Shoulda Been You
Jagged Little Pill
Jekyll & Hyde
Jesus Christ Superstar
Kid Victory
The King and I
King Kong
Kinky Boots
Kiss Me, Kate
Kristin Chenoweth: For the Girls
Kristin Chenoweth: My Love Letter to Broadway
La Cage aux Folles
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill
The Last Ship
Leap of Faith
Les Miserables
Let It Be
Lewis Black: Running on Empty (2012)
Lewis Black: Black to the Future (2016)
The Lightning Thief
Little Dancer
Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games
Lysistrata Jones
Manilow on Broadway (2013)
Manilow Broadway (2019) (see entry for In Residence on Broadway)
Marnie
Matilda
Mean Girls
Mel Brooks on Broadway (see entry for In Residence on Broadway)
Million Dollar Quartet
Miss Saigon
Morrissey (part of the In Residence on Broadway series; for more
information, see specific entry for Morrissey)
Motown (2013)
Motown (2016)
Moulin Rouge!
My Fair Lady
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
Newsies
Nice Work If You Can Get It
Nightmare Alley
A Night with Janis Joplin
Oh, Hello on Broadway
Oklahoma!
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Once
Once on This Island
101 Dalmatians
One Man, Two Guvnors
On the Town
On the Twentieth Century
On Your Feet!
Paramour
The Pee-wee Herman Show
The People in the Picture
Penn & Teller on Broadway
Peter and the Starcatcher
Pippin
Porgy and Bess (2012)
Pretty Woman
Prince of Broadway
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The Prom
Promises, Promises
Pure Yanni (see entry for In Residence on Broadway)
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway (2010)
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles (2018)
The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream
Regina Spektor on Broadway (see entry for In Residence on Broadway)
Robin and the 7 Hoods
Rocktopia
Rocky
Roman Holiday (2012)
The Royal Family of Broadway
Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant
Spectacular Reunion Show
Scandalous
School of Rock
The Scottsboro Boys
Seance on a Wet Afternoon
She Loves Me
Shuffle Along; or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All
That Followed
Side Show
Sister Act
Slava’s Snowshow
Soft Power
Something Rotten!
Sondheim on Sondheim
Soon
Soul Doctor
Sousatzka
Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark
SpongeBob SquarePants
Spring Awakening
Springsteen on Broadway
The Sting
Stonewall
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunset Boulevard
Sycamore Trees
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Tootsie
Tuck Everlasting
’Twas the Night Before . . .
Two Boys
Violet
The Visit
Waitress
War Paint
We Will Rock You
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Wonderland
2010 Season
ALL ABOUT ME
“A SHOWBIZ ENTERTAINMENT”
Theatre: Henry Miller’s Theatre

Opening Date: March 18, 2010; Closing Date: April 4, 2010
Performances: 20
Text: Christopher Durang and Barry Humphries; production conceived by
Barry Humphries with Lizzie Spender and Terrence Flannery
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers, below.
Direction: Casey Nicholaw; Producers: Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel,
Eagle Productions LLC, Jamie deRoy/Remmel T. Dickinson, Richard
Winkler/Don Frishwasser, Mallory Factor, Cheryl Lachowicz, Chris
Yegen, Judith Resnick, Jon Bierman, Christopher Hart Productions,
CTM Media Group, Stewart F. Lane/Bonnie Comley, Michael Filerman,
Barry and Carole Kaye/Irv Welzer, Terry Allen Kramer, Terrie J. Loo-
tens, Stein & Gunderson Productions, WenSheJack Productions, Mickey
Conlon (Jeremy Scott Blaustein and Rae Rothfield); Scenery and
Costumes: Anna Louizos (Dame Edna’s Gowns by Stephen Adnitt);
Video Design: Chris Cronin; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical
Direction: Rob Bowman
Cast: Dame Edna (Barry Humphries), Michael Feinstein; Jodi Capeless
(Stage Manager), Gregory Butler (Bruno), Jon-Paul Mateo (Benito)
The production was presented in one act.
Musical Numbers
The following original songs were performed by Dame Edna and Michael
Feinstein: “Make That Piano Sing” (lyric by Chad Beguelin, music by
Matthew Sklar); “Niceness” (lyric by Barry Humphries, music by Nick
Rowley); “We Get Along Amazingly Well” (lyric by Glen Kelly and
Barry Humphries, music by Michael Feinstein); “I’m Forcing Myself”
(lyric by Barry Humphries, music by Wayne Barker); “The Dingo Ate
My Baby” (lyric by Barry Humphries, music by Michael Feinstein);
“The Koala Song” (lyric and music by Michael Feinstein); “Medley
Song” (lyric and music by Michael Feinstein); “All about Me” (lyric by
Chad Beguelin, music by Matthew Sklar); “The Gladdy Song” (lyric by
Barry Humphries and Michael Feinstein, music by Michael Feinstein).
The following songs are representative of some of the standards performed
by Michael Feinstein: “Strike Up the Band” (Strike Up the Band, 1930;
lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin); “My Romance”
(Jumbo, 1935; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); and a
medley from Oklahoma! (1943; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, music
by Richard Rodgers).
Dame Edna sang “The Ladies Who Lunch” (Company, 1970; lyric and
music by Stephen Sondheim) and with dancers Gregory Butler and Jon-
Paul Mateo performed “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (lyric and
music by Thaddis Harrell, Christopher Stewart, Beyoncé Knowles, and
Terius Nash); Jodi Capeless sang “But the World Goes ’Round” (1977
film New York, New York; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander);
and the show’s overture consisted of a medley of some one-dozen show
tunes.
The decade’s lyric works began with the personality revue All about
Me, which starred the irrepressible Australian housewife-cum-superstar
Dame Edna Everage (aka Barry Humphries) and saloon singer Michael
Feinstein. Their distinct personalities didn’t mesh, and General Consensus
deemed that Feinstein didn’t quite hold his own against that driving force of
Nature known as Dame Edna.
During the months preceding the premiere, a mock feud between Dame
Edna and Feinstein set the groundwork for the production’s conceit.
Supposedly Dame Edna was set to appear in her very own show It’s All
about Me, and Feinstein was to appear in his show All about Me, but
eventually the two divas agreed to appear together in All about Me.
However, their egos decreed that there must be separate programs for each,
and so at every performance (including the opening night) two programs
were dispensed, one indicating the production starred Dame Edna and the
other touting Feinstein. For her program, Dame Edna’s photo appeared on
the cover, she was the only star listed on the program’s title page, and the
only mention of Feinstein was in the song credits. Similarly, only
Feinstein’s photo appeared on his cover, he was the only star listed on the
title page, and Humphries’s name appeared only in the song credits.
In a New York Times interview with Erik Piepenburg the day before the
opening night, the two stars chatted about the production and their
professional relationship. Feinstein said Dame Edna was “kind and
collaborative,” and the lady also added she was “disciplined” (she
emphasized that it was “good for me to be disciplined”). She also admitted
to “moments of loneliness and isolation” because “fame does that to you,”
and she generously shared these words of wisdom with Feinstein, noting
this would happen to him if by chance he ever became famous.
The impossibly smug, self-righteous, and condescending Dame Edna
had a bouffant of violently violet hair, her trademark curlicued and
rhinestone-studded oversized glasses (“face furniture,” of course), and outré
dresses (often designed by her son Kenny, a shop-window and dress
designer who just never seems to find “Miss Right”). For All about Me, her
gowns were created by Stephen Adnitt, and one with its layers of wing-like
attachments rising above her shoulders looked like the blueprint for a
distressingly trendy airport (and also brought to mind film critic Pauline
Kael’s comment that in the 1954 film musical There’s No Business Like
Show Business one of Ethel Merman’s dresses looked like it was going to
“attack” her).
But Dame Edna was incredibly honest about herself, and in earlier New
York appearances she informed her audience (otherwise known as
“possums”) that she’d never pay good money to see them, and she assured
them she was just like their “neighbor” (but “with a home bigger and nicer
than yours”). One time she tried to describe the outfit of one of her possum
victims, and decided the word affordable would do. She acknowledged the
poor souls up there in the balcony, and when they responded to her cry of
“Hello, paupers!” she told those sitting downstairs to “listen to their wistful
cries.” Dame Edna also wanted it known that among her charitable
activities she’s the founder and governor of “Friends of the Prostate” and
the creator of the World Prostate Olympics. And her many hobbies include
the counseling of royalty.
As for Feinstein, he appeared in a dark business suit, went about the
business of singing Broadway standards on the order of “Strike Up the
Band” and “My Romance,” and his program bio said he was dubbed “The
Ambassador of the Great American Songbook.”
Ben Brantley in the Times said All about Me resembled “a desperately
assembled television variety show from the 1970s” with two stars who
clashed “like polka dots paired with plaid” because Feinstein’s persona was
that of “an eternally romantic boy” whose main interest is “in the service of
the Great American Songbook” while Dame Edna was interested only “in
the cause of her own greater glory.” But the evening had its pleasures:
Dame Edna’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” was “terrific”; the overture of
Broadway songs was the “wittiest” in town; and Dame Edna didn’t
disappoint with her trademark parade of “resplendently tacky gowns” and
her take-no-prisoners chats with innocent possum-victims culled from the
audience.
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said those possums were “sitting ducks” when
Dame Edna proceeded to “flay these innocents alive for the values they
hold dear.” And once she finished “The Ladies Who Lunch,” she declared
the theatre “a Sondheim-free zone” where she would sing a number from
the “Great Australian Pamphlet” (including “The Dingo Ate My Baby”).
Feinstein offered a “simple and heart-melting” interpretation of “My
Romance,” and he was the “consummate interpreter of our musical
language.” As a result, the evening was sometimes “funny and cruel” but
otherwise “hardly seems worth all the effort.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post was glad Dame Edna was
back, but noted that part of the package included Feinstein, “and that’s no
deal.” Feinstein floundered when he was up against Dame Edna and was
“blissfully free from the shackles of charisma” as “he stares and grins
blankly while Edna hams it up as only she can.” But an unsigned review in
the New Yorker praised Feinstein’s “custard-smooth” interpretations of
Gershwin, Rodgers, et al.; said Dame Edna’s outfits “would embarrass even
her fellow-aristocrat Lady Gaga”; and concluded that the production was
“all in good, slightly forced fun.”
During preproduction, Jerry Zaks was the director, but was succeeded
by Casey Nicholaw. In previews, the show was presented in two acts, and
by the time of the opening was given in one part. During the preview
period, three songs were dropped: “Nurture a Star” (lyric and music by
Feinstein) and two versions of “The Great American Songbook” (one with
lyric and music by Feinstein, and the other with lyric by Humphries and
Feinstein, with music by Feinstein).
At twenty performances, All about Me was the shortest-running musical
of the 2009–2010 season (not counting limited-engagement productions);
technically, the play-with-music Enron had the shortest run, with sixteen
performances, but of course it wasn’t a full-fledged musical. The season’s
longest-running lyric work was Memphis, which opened on October 19,
2009, and played for 1,165 showings.
Feinstein had previously appeared in three Broadway concerts: Michael
Feinstein in Concert (April 1988), Michael Feinstein in Concert: “Isn’t It
Romantic” (October 1988), and Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and
Voice (1990).
Dame Edna made her New York debut in Humphries’s 1977 Off-
Broadway comedy Housewife! Superstar!, and later starred on Broadway in
Dame Edna: The Royal Tour (1999) and Dame Edna: Back with a
Vengeance! (2004). As for her alter ego, Barry Humphries, he created the
role of Mr. Sowerberry in the original 1960 London production of Oliver!,
and can be heard on the show’s original cast album in the trio “That’s Your
Funeral.” He wasn’t part of the musical’s lengthy pre-Broadway tour, but
joined the company for the 1963 New York opening, where he reprised the
role of Sowerberry. “That’s Your Funeral” was performed in the Broadway
production, but wasn’t included on the Broadway cast album.
COME FLY AWAY

“A NEW MUSICAL”
Theatre: Marquis Theatre

Opening Date: March 25, 2010; Closing Date: September 5, 2010
Performances: 188
Concept and Book: Twyla Tharp
Direction and Choreography: Twyla Tharp; Producers: James L.
Nederlander, Nicholas Howey, W.A.T., Ltd., Terry Allen Kramer,
Patrick Catullo/Jon B. Platt, Jerry Frankel, Ronald Frankel/Marc
Frankel, Roy Furman, Allan S. Gordon/Elan McAllister, Jam
Theatricals, Stewart F. Lane/Bonnie Comley, Margo Lion/Daryl Roth,
Hal Luftig/Yasuhiro Kawana, Pittsburgh CLO/GSFD, Spark
Productions, The Weinstein Company, Barry and Fran Weissler;
Scenery: James Youmans; Costumes: Katherine Roth; Lighting: Donald
Holder; Musical Direction: Russ Kassoff
Cast: (Note that the first name given denotes the opening night performer,
who appeared at all evening performances; the second name denotes the
performer who played Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Pre-recorded
vocals by Frank Sinatra were taken from his recordings and were
accompanied by the onstage band with arrangements based on the
original orchestrations; sometimes his solo vocals were joined by a
vocalist from the cast.)
Laura Mead/Ashley Tuttle (Betsy), Charlie Neshyba-Hodges/Jeremy Cox
(Marty), Alexander Brady/Alexander Brady (Vico), John Selya/Cody
Green (Sid), Karine Plantadit aka Karine Plantadit-Bageot/Marielys
Molina (Kate), Rika Okamoto/Kristine Bendul (Slim), Keith
Roberts/Joel Prouty (Hank), Matthew Stockwell Dibble/Ron
Todorowski (Chanos), Holley Farmer/Laurie Kanyok (Babe), Hilary
Gardner/Rosena M. Hill (Featured Vocalist); Ensemble: Todd Burnsed,
Carolyn Doherty, Heather Hamilton, Meredith Miles, Eric Michael
Otto, Justin Peck
The dance musical was presented in two acts.
The action takes place in a nightclub.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Moonlight Becomes You” (1942 film Road to Morocco; lyric by
Johnny Burke, music by James aka Jimmy Van Heusen) (Charlie
Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead); “Come Fly with Me” (lyric by Sammy
Cahn, music by James Van Heusen) (Company); “I’ve Got the World on
a String” (twenty-first edition of Cotton Club Parade, 1932; lyric by
Ted Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) (Company); “Let’s Fall in Love”
(1934 film Let’s Fall in Love; lyric by Ted Koehler, music by Harold
Arlen) (Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead); “I’ve Got You under
My Skin” (1936 film Born to Dance; lyric and music by Cole Porter)
(Alexander Brady, Company); “Summer Wind” (original German lyric
by Hans Bradtke, English lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Heinz
Meier aka Henry Mayer) (Keith Roberts, Karine Plantadit); “Fly Me to
the Moon (In Other Words)” (lyric and music by Bart Howard) (Keith
Roberts, Karine Plantadit, Ensemble Men); “I’ve Got a Crush on You”
(Treasure Girl, 1928; later used in the 1930 version of Strike Up the
Band; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin) (John Selya,
Holley Farmer); “Body and Soul” (Three’s a Crowd, 1930; lyric by
Frank Eyton, Edward Heyman, and Robert B. Sour, music by John aka
Johnny Green) (Matthew Stockwell Dibble, John Selya, Holley Farmer,
Ensemble); “It’s Alright with Me” (Can-Can, 1953; lyric and music by
Cole Porter) (Company); “You Make Me Feel So Young” (1946 film
Three Little Girls in Blue; lyric by Mack Gordon, music by Josef aka
Joe Myrow) (Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead); “(The) September
of My Years” (lyric by Sammy Cahn, music by James Van Heusen)
(John Selya); “Witchcraft” (lyric by Carolyn Leigh, music by Cy
Coleman) (John Selya, Holley Farmer, Ensemble Men); “Yes, Sir,
That’s My Baby” (lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Walter Donaldson)
(Matthew Stockwell Dibble, Rika Okamoto, Ensemble); “Learnin’ the
Blues” (lyric and music by Dolores “Vicki” Silvers) (Keith Roberts,
Karine Plantadit, Rika Okamoto, Ensemble Women); “That’s Life”
(lyric and music by Dean Kay and Kelly L. Gordon) (Keith Roberts,
Karine Plantadit); “Nice ’n’ Easy” (lyric and music by Lew Spence,
Alan Bergman, and Marilyn Bergman) (Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, Laura
Mead, Alexander Brady, Ensemble Women);”Makin’ Whoopee”
(Whoopee, 1928; lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Walter Donaldson)
(Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead, Alexander Brady, Ensemble);
“Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (lyric and music by Count Basie and Jon
Hendricks) (Company)
Act Two: “Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night in the Week” (lyric by
Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne) (Company); “I’m Gonna Live ’Til
(Till) I Die” (lyric and music by Al Hoffman, Walter Kent, and Manny
Kurtz) (John Selya, Matthew Stockwell Dibble, Charlie Neshyba-
Hodges, Company); “Pick Yourself Up” (1936 film Swing Time; lyric
by Dorothy Fields, music by Jerome Kern) (Charlie Neshyba-Hodges,
Laura Mead, Matthew Stockwell Dibble, Rika Okamoto); “Wave” (lyric
and music by Antonio Carlos Jobim) (Matthew Stockwell Dibble, Rika
Okamoto); “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (1936 film Follow the
Fleet; lyric and music by Irving Berlin) (Keith Roberts, Karine
Plantadit, Ensemble); “Teach Me Tonight” (lyric by Sammy Cahn,
music by Gene De Paul) (John Selya, Holley Farmer); “Take Five”
(lyric and music by Paul Desmond) (John Selya, Holley Farmer, Charlie
Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead, Ensemble); “Just Friends” (lyric by
John Klenner and Sam M. Lewis) (Keith Roberts, Karine Plantadit);
“Lean Baby” (lyric and music by Roy Alfred and Billy May) (Karine
Plantadit, Male Ensemble); “Makin’ Whoopee” (reprise) (Karine
Plantadit, Matthew Stockwell Dibble, Rika Okamoto, Charlie Neshyba-
Hodges, Laura Mead, Ensemble); “One for My Baby” (1943 film The
Sky’s the Limit; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Harold Arlen) (Keith
Roberts, Karine Plantadit); “My Funny Valentine” (Babes in Arms,
1937; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers) (Charlie
Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead); “Air Mail Special” (lyric and music by
Benny Goodman, Jimmy Mundy, and Charles Christian) (Alexander
Brady, John Selya); “My Way” (lyric and music by Paul Anka, Claude
Francois, Jacques Revaux, and Gilles Thibault) (Company); “New York,
New York” (1977 film New York, New York; lyric by Fred Ebb, music
by John Kander) (Company)
Twyla Tharp’s dance musical Come Fly Away was the fourth of her
dance tributes to Frank Sinatra (1915–1998), and it followed Once More,
Frank (1976), Nine Sinatra Songs (1982), and Sinatra Suite (1983). For
Come Fly Away, Tharp was credited with the book, and the lead dancers
were given character names, but the evening was for all purposes a series of
dance sequences featuring four main couples who occasionally interact with
one another in a few of the dance episodes. There was no real story and no
character development (but note that Richard Zoglin in Time reported that
the title character of the 1955 film Marty was the “model” for the dance
character Marty in Come Fly Away), and so the evening was probably best
enjoyed for Tharp’s choreography and Sinatra’s singing. There had been
complaints that Susan Stroman’s brilliant three-part dance musical Contact
(Off Broadway, 1999; Broadway, 2000) was no more than a series of wispy
stories told through dances set to prerecorded music, but compared to the
action in Come Fly Away, the book for Contact was like a combination of
War and Peace and The Forsyte Saga.
All the dances in Come Fly Away were set to songs recorded by Sinatra.
His vocals were taken from various recordings, and the music played by the
original musicians was omitted so that Sinatra’s voice was now
accompanied by an onstage band in the theatre (sometimes an onstage
vocalist and Sinatra’s prerecorded voice joined together in order to create an
occasional duet).
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times praised the “dazzling”
production with Tharp’s “fast, flashing, remarkably intricate dances,” and
singled out “That’s Life,” a “tempestuous tug of war to the shrugging
anthem of survival.” As danced by Keith Roberts and Karine Plantadit, this
was an “electrifying encounter” in which the dancers “drop the blithe
familiarity of their friendly initial encounter to reveal the grittier truth of
their undeniable attraction.” But in the same newspaper, Alastair Macaulay
said the evening was “overwrought” with dances “less sensational than
sensationalist,” and sometimes the dance duets seemed “something closer to
pornography” because the “intimacy” of the choreography was “perverted
into exhibitionism.” He further noted the dance characters were “people
who need people,” most often with members of the “opposite sex” (but he
mentioned there was “a sprinkling of lesbianism and a brief ménage a
trios”).
The New Yorker decided the evening was “a series of fidgets, small
things that go nowhere,” but Time chose the production as one of the year’s
ten best evenings in the theatre and said the “irresistible” show was
presented with “exuberance and panache.”
Tharp had enjoyed a successful Broadway outing with Movin’ On, a
2002 dance musical set to the songs of Billy Joel; the coming-of-age story
took place mostly in Long Island and looked at the relationships of two
couples and one man (because the action took place in the 1960s, there was
a brief sojourn to Vietnam). The production played for 1,303 performances
and won Tharp the Tony Award for Best Choreography. But her The Times
They Are A-Changin’ (2006), which was set to songs by Bob Dylan,
faltered after twenty-eight performances. The pretentious fable took place
in a dreamscape “somewhere between awake and asleep,” and was
specifically set in Coyote Circus, which is run by the tyrannical Captain
Ahrab. Prior to these two productions, Tharp had directed and
choreographed a 1985 stage version of MGM’s classic 1952 film musical
Singin’ in the Rain, which played on Broadway for 367 performances but
failed to match the iconic film in popularity.
Come Fly Away managed little more than five months on Broadway, but
a revised version later toured for almost ten months. This eighty-minute
version was presented in one act, with some songs omitted and others
added. Dropped were: “Moonlight Becomes You,” “Come Fly with Me,”
“”I’ve Got the World on a String,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,”
“Summer Wind,” “It’s Alright with Me,” “September of My Years,” “Nice
’n’ Easy,” “Wave,” “Just Friends,” and “Air Mail Special.” Added to the
production were: “Stardust” (lyric by Mitchell Parish, music by Hoagy
Carmichael); “Luck Be a Lady” (Guys and Dolls, 1950; lyric and music by
Frank Loesser); “Here’s to the Losers” (lyric and music by Jack Segal and
Robert Wells); “I Like to Lead When I Dance” (1964 film Robin and the 7
Hoods; lyric by Sammy Cahn, music by James Van Heusen); and “The Way
You Look Tonight” (1936 film Swing Time; lyric by Dorothy Fields, music
by Jerome Kern). In 2010, Tharp also revisited Sinatra with Sinatra: Dance
with Me, and in 2013 she adapted Come Fly Away into a ballet.
As Come Fly with Me, Come Fly Away was first presented at the
Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 15, 2009. Note that
Theatre World indicates “All the Way” (1957 film The Joker Is Wild; lyric
by Sammy Cahn, music by James Van Heusen, and Oscar winner for Best
Song) was heard in the Broadway production, but the song isn’t cited in the
opening night program (it might have been dropped late during the preview
period, or perhaps was added during the run).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Karine
Plantadit); Best Choreography (Twyla Tharp)
101 DALMATIANS
Theatre: The Theatre at Madison Square Garden
Opening Date: April 7, 2010; Closing Date: April 18, 2010
Performances: 16
Book: B. T. McNicholl
Lyrics: Dennis DeYoung and B. T. McNicholl
Music: Dennis DeYoung; dance music by Mark Hummel
Based on the 1956 novel The One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie
Smith.
Direction: Jerry Zaks (Steve Bebout, Associate Director); Producers: A
Magic Arts & Entertainment/Tix Corporation, Trokia Entertainment and
Luis Alvarez Production in association with Allen Spivak and Brad
Krassner, and Purina Dog Chow; Randall A. Buck, On-Line Producer;
Choreography: Warren Carlyle (Parker Esse, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery: Heidi Ettinger; Costumes: Robert Morgan; Lighting: Paul
Gallo; Musical Direction: Don York
Cast: Joel Blum (Prince, Bloodhound Miner), James Ludwig (Pongo), Catia
Ojeda (Missus), Mike Masters (Mr.Dearly), Erin Mosher (Mrs. Dearly,
Tabby Cat), Erin Maguire (Nanny Cook, Collie Inn Keeper), Madeleine
Doherty (Nanny Butler), Joseph Dellger (Splendid Vet, Tipsy St.
Bernard), Sara Gettelfinger (Cruella De Vil), Michael Thomas Holmes
(Jasper, Gruff Yorkie), Robert Anthony Jones (Jinx), Sammy Borla
(Lucky), Ah-Niyah Yonay Neal (Patch), Lydia Rose Clemente (Cadpig),
Piper Curda (Roly-Poly), Gwen Hollander (Perdita), Jeff Scot Carey
(Puli), Jose Luaces (Beagle), Kevin C. Loomis (Sheepdog); Ensemble:
Chip Abbott, Lakisha Anne Bowen, Jeff Scott Carey, Kristy Cavanaugh,
Joseph Dellger, Kevin C. Loomis, Jose Luaces, Clark Kelley Oliver,
Paige Simunovich, Kendra Tate, Lynette Toomey, Austin Zambito-
Valente
The musical was presented in two acts.
The action takes place during 1957 in London.
Musical Numbers
(Note: * = Lyrics by B. T. McNicholl; ** = Lyrics by Dennis DeYoung; ***
= Lyrics by B. T. McNicholl and Dennis DeYoung.)
Act One: “Overture—Koncerto #K-9” (Orchestra); “Man Is a Dog’s Best
Friend” (***) (Dogs and Pets); “A Perfect Family” (*) (James Ludwig,
Catia Ojeda); “Hot Like Me” (***) (Sara Gettelfinger, Company);
“There’s Always Room for One More” (*) (Mike Masters, Erin Mosher,
Erin Maguire, Madeleine Doherty, James Ludwig); “World’s Greatest
Dad” (**) (James Ludwig); “Hail to the Chef” (**) (Sara Gettelfinger,
Erin Maguire); “Twilight Barking” (***) (James Ludwig, Catia Ojeda,
Dogs); “Be a Little Braver” (**) (Dogs, James Ludwig, Catia Ojeda)
Act Two: “Break Out” (***) (Puppies); “Having the Crime of Our Lives”
(*) (Michael Thomas Holmes, Robert Anthony Jones); “A Perfect
Family” (reprise) (Kevin C. Loomis, Erin Mosher, Dalmatian Family);
“Be a Little Bit Braver” (reprise) (Dalmatian Family); “My Sweet
Child” (**) (Catia Ojeda); “Cruella Always Gets Her Way” (**) and
“Hot Like Me” (reprise) (Sara Gettelfinger); “101 Dalmatians” (**)
(Company)
101 Dalmatians (or, to be precise, The 101 Dalmatians Musical) played

at The Theatre at Madison Square Garden for a limited engagement of two
weeks and marked the end of the show’s national tour, which began in
October 2009 at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with
Rachel York as Cruella De Vil. During the tour, York was succeeded by
Sara Gettelfinger, who played the role during its final engagements,
including the current one in New York. Note that the production included a
number of major Broadway names, such as director Jerry Zaks,
choreographer Warren Carlyle, and orchestrator Danny Troob.
The musical wasn’t based on the popular 1961 Walt Disney animated
film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (aka 101 Dalmatians) and was
instead credited to the film’s source, Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel The One
Hundred and One Dalmatians. The familiar story centered on the search by
the Dalmatian parents Pongo (James Ludwig) and Missus (Catia Ojeda) for
their litter, which, along with other Dalmatian puppies, have been
kidnapped by the evil if not cruel Cruella De Vil (Gettelfinger), who plans
to turn the puppies’ fur into fur coats. Of course, good wins the day: all the
pups are rescued and Cruella is left coatless.
David Rooney in the New York Times said the “mirthless” evening was a
“charm-challenged mutt of a musical” and the songs (by composer and co-
lyricist Dennis DeYoung, one of the founding members of the rock band
Styx) were a combination of 1970s power ballads, television theme music,
and “Lerner and Loewelite” numbers. The dog characters were played by
human actors who wore white costumes daubed with bits of black spots,
and Rooney noted the performers looked “less like canines than a cricket
team that had a brush with Jackson Pollock.” The actors who portrayed the
human characters wore stilts in order to give the impression of height from
a dog’s perspective, but this conceit didn’t quite work and Rooney
mentioned that the actors moved around “precariously” and were forced to
use their arms for balance.
And then there were actual Dalmatians on stage, and these adorables
stole the show. One of them slid on some stage snowflakes and ruined his
trick, but then he successfully did it over again. Raven Snook in Time Out
mentioned that these dogs weren’t all that well trained, and this actually
added to the “enjoyment” of watching them. Moreover, Gettelfinger was in
“high-camp mode” as the villainess; songs on the order of “Hot Like Me”
and “Be a Little Bit Braver” were “catchy”; and the décor and costumes
were “colorful.” But those stilts just didn’t work, and the actors had to
“lumber about gracelessly.” As for the humor, it was “lame” (upon meeting
a mother and her litter, someone says “I didn’t realize you were Catholic”).
During the course of the tour, two songs were dropped, “One True
Love” and “Spot-On.”
For the 1961 Disney film, Betty Lou Gerson was the voice of Cruella
De Vil; Disney’s 1996 live-action remake starred Glenn Close as Cruella; in
2000 Disney released the sequel 102 Dalmatians with Close again as
Cruella; and in 2003, Disney issued the direct-to-video animated movie
101Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure with Susan Blakeslee (who is
also known under variations of this name) as Cruella. Disney also created
the 1997 and 1998 animated television series 101 Dalmatians: The Series
(for most of the episodes, April Winchell was Cruella, but sometimes Tress
Macneille voiced the role).
THE ADDAMS FAMILY

“A NEW MUSICAL”
Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

Opening Date: April 8, 2010; Closing Date: December 31, 2011
Performances: 722
Book: Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Lyrics and Music: Andrew Lippa
Based on the cartoon characters created by Charles Addams.
Direction: Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (Jerry Zaks, Creative
Consultant); Producers: Stuart Oken, Roy Furman, Michael Leavitt,
Five Cent Productions, Stephen Schuler, Decca Theatricals, Scott M.
Delman, Stuart Ditsky, Terry Allen Kramer, Stephanie P. McClelland,
James L. Nederlander, Eva Price, Jam Theatricals/Mary Lu Roffe,
Pittsburgh CLO/Gutterman-Swinsky, Vivek Tiwary/Gary Kaplan, The
Weinstein Company/Clarence, LLC, and Adam Zotovich/Tribe
Theatricals by special arrangement with Elephant Eye Theatrical;
Choreography: Sergio Trujillo; Scenery and Costumes: Plemin
McDermott and Julian Crouch; Special Effects: Gregory Meeh;
Puppetry: Basil Twist; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction:
Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Cast: The Addams Family—Nathan Lane (Gomez Addams), Bebe
Neuwirth (Morticia Addams), Kevin Cham-berlin (Uncle Fester), Jackie
Hoffman (Grandma), Krysta Rodriguez (Wednesday Addams), Adam
Riegler (Pugsley Addams), Zachary James (Lurch); The Beineke
Family—Terrence Mann (Mal Beineke), Carolee Carmello (Alice
Beineke), Wesley Taylor (Lucas Beineke); The Addams Ancestors—
Erick Buckley, Rachel De Benedet, Matthew Gumley, Fred Inkley,
Morgan James, Clark Johnsen, Barrett Martin, Jessica Lea Patty, Liz
Ramos, Charlie Sutton, Alena Watters
The action takes place during the present time in Central Park.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “When You’re an Addams” (The Addams
Family, The Addams Ancestors); “Pulled” (Krysta Rodriguez, Adam
Riegler); “Where Did We Go Wrong?” (Bebe Neuwirth, Nathan Lane);
“One Normal Night” (Company); “Morticia” (Nathan Lane, Male
Ancestors); “What If” (Adam Riegler); “Full Disclosure” (Company);
“Waiting” (Carolee Carmello); “Full Disclosure—Part 2” (Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Just around the Corner” (Bebe Neuwirth,
The Addams Ancestors); “The Moon and Me” (Kevin Chamberlin,
Female Ancestors); “Happy/Sad” (Nathan Lane); “Crazier Than You”
(Krysta Rodriguez, Wesley Taylor); “Let’s Not Talk about Anything
Else but Love” (Terrence Mann, Nathan Lane, Kevin Chamberlin,
Jackie Hoffman); “In the Arms” (Terrence Mann, Carolee Carmello);
“Live before We Die” (Nathan Lane, Bebe Neuwirth); “Tango de
Amor” (Bebe Neuwirth, Nathan Lane, Company); “Move toward the
Darkness” (Company)
With its built-in recognition factor from Charles Addams’s cartoons and
the later television series and movie adaptations as well as its cast of
Broadway favorites Nathan Lane (Gomez Addams) and Bebe Neuwirth
(Morticia Addams), The Addams Family seemed destined for a marathon
run. And audiences went into thrill-overload when Vic Mizzy’s opening
theme music from the original 1964 television series was played at the
beginning of the overture. But the critics were cool, and when the $15
million production closed after 722 performances it had recouped only 70
percent of its investment.
Instead of the mordant wit associated with the Addams clan, the musical
embraced a sitcom plot in which Gomez and Morticia’s daughter,
Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez), falls in love with an average, everyday sort
of boy, Lucas Beineke (Wesley Taylor), and insists that her family members
act normal when Lucas brings his conventional father (Terrence Mann) and
mother (Carolee Carmelo) to dinner at the Addams’s mansion located in
Central Park. We’d seen a variation of this situation before in La Cage aux
Folles, and we’d see it again ten nights later when the Jerry Herman
musical was revived on Broadway.
John Lahr in the New Yorker noted that the show’s creators “got the
wrong end of Addams’s shtick” because on the page the Addams family
members truly “believed that they were normal” and yet were “agents of
anarchy.” But their onstage personas “know that they’re not” normal, and
instead find themselves “engineering harmony.” Marshall Brickman and
Rick Elice’s book stayed “safely on the outside” of Addams’s comic
universe, Andrew Lippa’s score was “undistinguished,” and “fifteen
minutes into the palaver the audience can feel the show flatlining.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the musical “genuinely
ghastly” with its “tepid goulash of vaudeville song-and-dance routines,”
“stingless sitcom zingers,” and “homey romantic platitudes.” The “ragtag”
script was unable “to hold on to a consistent tone or an internal logic,”
Lippa’s score was “blandly generic,” Sergio Trujillo’s choreography was
“perfunctory,” and Lane and Neuwirth were “shamefully squandered.”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said The Addams Family was the
answer to the question “How many talented people does it take to screw up
a concept?” The script for the “desperate vehicle” was “stitched together
without a hint of drollery” and Lippa’s songs were “desultory” and “full of
instantly forgettable tunes,” but the mansion’s red curtains were “in
constant motion” and the manner in which they were “manipulated for
scene changes” was “far more inventive” than Trujillo’s dances. But you
knew things weren’t “going particularly well” when you attended a show
and found yourself “admiring the drapes.”
Brantley noted that puppeteer Basil Twist concocted a giant iguana, a
huge squid, a Venus fly trap, and (from those drapes) “a charming animated
curtain tassel.” Further, from the television series Thing and Cousin Itt
made brief appearances, and the Addams’ fan base gave them “thunderous”
applause. Lahr also praised the “delightfully surreal moments” when the
tassel, squid, and iguana took the stage, and, as mentioned, Marks singled
out the drapes. And Marks had the last word: the show wasn’t for “purists,”
it was “strictly for the tourists.”
During the chaotic tryout, the musical was radically revised and Jerry
Zaks was brought in as the show’s “creative consultant.” Eight numbers
were dropped: “Clandango,” “Passionate and True,” “At Seven,” “Opening
Act II” (for the Addams Ancestors), “Second Banana,” “Teach Me How to
Tango,” and “The Sword-fight/Tango!” The tryout also included three
versions of “Let’s Not Talk about Anything Else but Love” (the first two
were sung in the first act, the third in the second).
In June 2008, Michael Riedel in the New York Post had reported that the
producers had signed Neuwirth (“Is this perfect casting or what?”), and it
looked as if Lane would soon sign on (Riedel mentioned that Lane had been
set to appear in Catch Me If You Can, but a source noted that The Addams
Family was “probably too good to pass up”). Things went downhill once
the tryout began, and a few weeks before the Broadway premiere the
headline of Riedel’s column proclaimed “Bebe B’way House of Horror.”
Riedel stated the star wasn’t pleased with her material; sources said she
wasn’t “happy” that Lane was “running away with the show, aided and
abetted by his friend” Zaks. And another source lamented that the talented
Neuwirth was “completely wasted in the show” (but Riedel noted she’d
been given a new number, “Just around the Corner,” which she performed
with “flair”).
The cast album was released on CD by Decca Broadway.
The musical was heavily revised for its national tour, which starred
Douglas Sills and Sara Gettelfinger. Three songs were dropped (“Morticia,”
“Let’s Not Talk about Anything Else but Love,” and “In the Arms”) and
nine were added (“Fester’s Manifesto,” “Two Things,” “Wednesday’s
Growing Up,” “Trapped,” “Honor Roll,” “Four Things,” “But Love,”
“Secrets,” and “Not Today”).
The Addams Family characters first appeared in 1938 in a series of
cartoons for the New Yorker. In 1964, a live-action television series was
aired by ABC; in 1973, an animated series was presented by NBC; a 1977
live-action television movie was aired by NBC; in 1992, ABC produced
another animated series; and in 1998 a live-action series was presented on
the Fox Family Channel. The theatrical film The Addams Family was
released in 1991 by Paramount, and was followed by Paramount’s Addams
Family Values in 1993. In 1998, the direct-to-video film Addams Family
Reunion was released by Warner Home Video.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Original Score (Andrew Lippa); Best
Featured Actor in a Musical (Kevin Chamberlin)
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET

Theatre: Nederlander Theatre
Opening Date: April 11, 2010; Closing Date: June 12, 2011
Performances: 489
Book: Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux
Direction: Eric Schaeffer; Producers: Relevant Theatricals, John Cossette
Productions, American Pop Anthology, Broadway Across America,
James L. Nederlander; Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes: Jane Green-
wood; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Supervision: Chuck Mead
Cast: Robert Britton Lyons (Carl Perkins), Lance Guest (Johnny Cash),
Levi Kreis (Jerry Lee Lewis), Eddie Clendening (Elvis Presley), Hunter
Foster (Sam Phillips), Elizabeth Stanley (Dyanne)
The musical was presented in one act.
The action takes place at Sun Records recording studio in Memphis,
Tennessee, on December 4, 1956.
Musical Numbers
“Blue Suede Shoes” (lyric and music by Carl Perkins) (Company); “Real
Wild Child” (lyric and music by John Greenan, John O’Keefe, and
David Owens) (Levi Kreis); “Matchbox” (lyric and music by Carl
Perkins) (Robert Britton Lyons); “Who Do You Love?” (lyric and music
by Ellas McDaniel) (Robert Britton Lyons); “Folsom Prison Blues”
(lyric and music by John aka Johnny R. Cash) (Lance Guest); “Fever”
(lyric and music by John Davenport and Eddie Cooley) (Elizabeth
Stanley); “Memories Are Made of This” (lyric and music by Richard
Dehr, Terry Gilkyson, and Frank Miller) (Eddie Clendening); “That’s
All Right” (lyric and music by Arthur Crudup) (Eddie Clendening);
“Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” (lyric and music by Chuck Berry)
(Company); “Down by the Riverside” (traditional) (Company); “Sixteen
Tons” (lyric and music by Merle Travis) (Lance Guest); “My Babe”
(lyric and music by Willie Dixon) (Robert Britton Lyons); “Long Tall
Sally” (lyric and music by Robert Blackwell, Enotris Johnson, and
Richard Penniman) (Eddie Clendening); “(There Will Be) Peace in the
Valley (for Me)” (lyric and music by Thomas A. Dorsey) (Company); “I
Walk the Line” (lyric and music by John aka Johnny R. Cash) (Lance
Guest); “I Hear You Knocking” (lyric and music by Dave Bartholomew
and Pearl King) (Elizabeth Stanley); “Party” (lyric and music by Jessie
Mae Robinson) (Robert Britton Lyons, Company); “Great Balls of Fire”
(lyric and music by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer) (Levi Kreis);
“Down by the Riverside” (reprise) (Company); “Hound Dog” (lyric and
music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) (Eddie Clendening); “Riders in
the Sky” (lyric and music by Stan Jones) (Lance Guest); “See You Later
Alligator” (lyric and music by Robert Guidry) (Robert Britton Lyons);
“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” (lyric and music by Curly Williams)
(Levi Kreis)
An ominous trend emerged as Broadway’s new decade got under way.

No, it wasn’t director Jerry Zaks (who in one way or another was associated
with three of the decade’s first four musicals, All about Me, 101
Dalmatians, and The Addams Family). The spectre was the dreadful
jukebox musical. The scores for Million Dollar Quartet, Come Fly Away,
American Idiot, and Sondheim on Sondheim were recycled from pop
recordings and from stage and film productions. And then there were the
revivals, with old familiar music: La Cage aux Folles and Promises,
Promises. And about half the scores for All about Me and Everyday Rapture
were evergreens of the Gershwin, Porter, and Rodgers variety. Of all the
shows that opened during the second half of the 2009–2010 season, only
101 Dalmatians and The Addams Family introduced new scores to
Broadway.
Million Dollar Quartet was a semi-factual story of what occurred on
December 4, 1956, at the Sun Records studio in Memphis. On that day,
Elvis Presley (Eddie Clendening), Johnny Cash (Lance Guest), Jerry Lee
Lewis (Levi Kreis, who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a
Musical for his performance), and Carl Perkins (Robert Britton Lyons)
happened to be at the studio at the same time. Sun Records was founded by
Sam Phillips (Hunter Foster), who played an important role at the beginning
of each of the four men’s careers, but now Presley had moved on to RCA
Records, and Cash would eventually sign with Columbia. Presley had made
his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show some five weeks earlier on
October 28, and his first film Love Me Tender had opened nationwide on
November 15, Lewis was on the cusp of celebrityhood (with two eventual
hits, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire”), and
Perkins had written one of Presley’s biggest successes (“Blue Suede
Shoes”).
The four men joined together in an impromptu song session, and
Million Dollar Quartet purported to be a look at that hallowed day in rock
’n’ roll history (Phillips took on the role of narrator and discussed how he
discovered the singers and how he was now trying to keep Sun Records
from going under). The musical wasn’t a facsimile of the session (which
was taped at the time and much later was commercially released), and in
fact retained just three songs from that legendary afternoon, “(There Will
Be) Peace in the Valley (for Me),” “Down by the Riverside,” and “Brown
Eyed Handsome Man.” Otherwise, the song list was a compilation of the
stars’ Greatest (or Future Greatest) Hits (“Hound Dog” for Presley, “I Walk
the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” for Cash, and “Whole Lotta Shakin’
Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire” for Lewis).
The musical aimed for the same crowd that turned Smokey Joe’s Café
(1995) and Jersey Boys (2005) into long-running megahits, but for some
reason the show didn’t go stratospheric and closed after a relatively modest
489 performances.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times liked the “buoyant” evening and
praised the singers, who were also “gifted” musicians. But the evening had
its “artificial” and “formulaic” aspects, and the device of Phillips-as-
narrator was a “square device that recalls PBS documentaries” (Brantley
wondered if the ninety-minute intermissionless production would “break for
a pledge drive”). Kreis had a “brash goofball charm” and his “thrashing
keyboard style” was an “impressive approximation” of Lewis’s “febrile
dexterity,” and Guest gave the “most nuanced and developed performance
as the laid-back Cash, gentle spirited and troubled at having to break” with
Phillips. The evening ended with a “splashy encore” that found the quartet
in “glittery suits” as they whipped the audience “into a predictable frenzy.”
The cast album was released on CD by Caroline Records.
The musical was first presented by the Seaside Music Theatre in
Seaside, Florida, and was later developed and produced at the Village
Theatre in Issaquah, Washington. The musical then opened at Chicago’s
Goodman Theatre on September 27, 2008, and a month later transferred to
the Apollo Theatre. This version was codirected by Floyd Mutrux (who
cowrote the book with Colin Escott) and Eric Schaeffer, and it played in
Chicago six years, closing on September 20, 2014. By the time of the
Broadway opening, only Schaeffer was credited for the direction, but the
program’s title page gave Mutrux credit for “the original concept and
direction” and of course cited him as the cowriter of the book.
After the Broadway closing, the musical transferred to Off-Broadway’s
New Stages Theatre, where it played a year. A London production opened
at the Noel Coward Theatre on February 28, 2011, and ran for almost a
year.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Million Dollar Quartet); Best
Book (Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux); Best Featured Actor in a
Musical (Levi Kreis)
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

Theatre: Longacre Theatre
Opening Date: April 18, 2010; Closing Date: May 1, 2011
Performances: 433
Book: Harvey Fierstein
Lyrics and Music: Jerry Herman
Based on the 1973 play La Cage aux Folles by Jean Poiret. Because of legal
issues, the musical was based solely on Poiret’s play and not on the
popular 1978 film adaptation of the play.
Direction: Terry Johnson; Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions, David
Babani, Barry and Fran Weissler and Edwin W. Schloss, Bob
Bartner/Norman Tulchin, Broadway Across America, Matthew
Mitchell, Raise the Roof 4, Richard Winkler/Bensinger
Taylor/Laudenslager Bergere, Arlene Scanlan/John O’Boyle,
Independent Presenters Network, Olympus Theatricals, Allen Spivak,
Jerry Frankel/Bat-Barry Productions, Nederlander Presentations, Inc.,
and Harvey Weinstein (A Menier Chocolate Factory Production); Carlos
Arana and Robert Driemeyer, Associate Producers; Alecia Parker,
Executive Producer; Choreography: Lynne Page (Nicholas
Cunningham, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Tim Shortall;
Costumes: Matthew Wright; Lighting: Nick Richards; Musical
Direction: Todd Ellison
Cast: Kelsey Grammer (Georges); Les Cagelles: Nick Adams (Angelique),
Logan Keslar (Bitelle), Sean Patric Doyle (Chantal), Nicholas
Cunningham (Hanna), Terry Lavell (Mercedes), and Sean A. Carmon
(Phaedra); Chris Hoch (Francis), Cheryl Stern (Babette), Robin de Jesus
(Jacob), Douglas Hodge (Albin aka Zaza), A. J. Shively (Jean-Michel),
Elena Shaddow (Anne), Heather Lindell (Colette), David Nathan
Perlow (Etienne), Bill Nolte (Tabarro), Christine Andreas (Jacqueline),
Fred Applegate (M. Renaud, M. Dindon), Veanne Cox (Mme. Renaud,
Mme. Dindon), Dale Hensley (Waiter)
The action takes place during the summer in St. Tropez, France.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “We Are What We Are” (Les Cagelles, Kelsey Grammer); “A
Little More Mascara” (Douglas Hodge, Kelsey Grammer); “With Anne
on My Arm” (Kelsey Grammer, A. J. Shively); “With You on My Arm”
(Douglas Hodge, Kelsey Grammer); “Song on the Sand” (Kelsey
Grammer); “La Cage aux Folles” (Company); “I Am What I Am”
(Douglas Hodge)
Act Two: “Song on the Sand” (reprise) (Douglas Hodge, Kelsey Grammer);
“Masculinity” (Douglas Hodge, Kelsey Grammer, Fred Applegate,
Veanne Cox, Bill Nolte); “Look over There” (Kelsey Grammer);
“Cocktail Counterpoint” (Elena Shaddow, Fred Applegate, Veanne Cox,
Kelsey Grammer, Robin de Jesus, A. J. Shively); “The Best of Times”
(Company); “Look over There” (reprise) (Kelsey Grammer, A. J.
Shively); Finale (Company)
The current revival of Jerry Herman’s La Cage aux Folles may have
seemed redundant considering that the previous New York visit had opened
some five years earlier, had been nominated for four Tony Awards, and won
two (for Best Revival of a Musical and for Best Choreography). But the
current production had been well-received in London, the New York critics
praised it, and the show garnered ten Tony nominations including another
award for Best Revival (it also won a Best Actor Tony for Douglas Hodge,
and Terry Johnson won for Best Direction). The original 1983 production
won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and it seems the show is
fated to always win the top Tony prize, first for Best Musical and now for
Best Revival of a Musical.
Broadway audiences supported the new revival for a year, and the
production tallied up 433 performances, a run that probably didn’t allow the
production to return a profit.
For all its awards over the years (eleven Tonys spread over three
productions), Harvey Fierstein’s book is somewhat jerry-built with a
predictable structure, a sitcom-like story and situations, straw-man villains,
and one over-the-top characterization that bordered on the offensive.
Herman’s score offered two outstanding character songs (“A Little More
Mascara” and “I Am What I Am”), a haunting ballad (“Song on the Sand”),
a touching piece of advice (“Look over There”), and a terrific vamp of an
opening number (“We Are What We Are”), but the score also had its supply
of weak numbers, including the vapid “With Anne on My Arm,” the
embarrassingly clichéd “Masculinity,” the time-waster “Cocktail
Counterpoint,” and the somewhat tired “The Best of Times,” which offered
its seize-the-day philosophy without much in the way of wit and pizzazz.
The work was nonetheless groundbreaking because it was the first
Broadway musical to depict an openly gay leading couple. Georges (Gene
Barry in the original production, Kelsey Grammer in the current one) and
Albin (George Hearn/Douglas Hodge) live in St. Tropez and own a drag
nightclub. The straight-acting Georges runs the business and acts as master
of ceremonies for the floor show, and Albin in the drag persona of Zaza is
the club’s main attraction along with a chorus line of the “notorious”
Cagelles, most of whom are men in drag (in the first two Broadway
productions, Les Cagelles included a woman or two to fool the customers).
Twenty-five years earlier, Georges’s first and only one-night stand with
a woman resulted in the birth of his son, Jean-Michel, whom he and Albin
have raised since birth. When Jean-Michel comes home and announces his
impending marriage to a girl whose father is an anti-gay politician, the boy
expects Albin to stay away from the family party when the conventional
future in-laws come to visit. Albin agrees to play the role of a heterosexual
uncle, but instead dresses in matron drag as Jean-Michel’s mother. Soon
comic chaos erupts, but all ends well after a frantic sequence when the
prospective in-laws, fearful of being spotted in a gay club, are forced to don
drag as part of the club’s floorshow in order to escape detection by
photographers.
The revival originated at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory on
November 23, 2007, and later played at the Playhouse Theatre on October
30, 2008. The production was directed by Johnson and the cast included
Hodge, both of whom re-created their work for the Broadway transfer.
The production was a leaner version of the original, with just six
Cagelles (instead of the usual dozen), and only eight musicians. For most
stripped-down productions, critics seem to go into gush-overload, as if
smaller means better and more revelatory (one day someone will revive
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies with six performers and no songs and scenery,
and no doubt there will be hosannas that at last one can truly appreciate the
genius of James Goldman’s book without all those pesky songs).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that Fierstein’s book was
“by-the-numbers” and Herman’s score sometimes included “saccharine-
crusted” songs. But for the “inspired” revival, the mise-en-scène was
“cramped,” “decrepit,” “shabby,” and in need of “a coat of paint and
perhaps delousing.” Moreover, the Cagelles were “scrappy,” Grammer’s
Georges looked “worn-down” and “worn-out,” and Hodge’s Albin would
“never resemble the screen siren of his mind’s eye.”
To be sure, neither was Hearn’s Albin, who was a hammy and brassy
over-the-top drag queen with the heart of a country mouse. This was a
complex and touching performance of a vulnerable soul who could rise to
the occasion and summon up the necessary grit to get through the day. And
Barry was a wry and understated Georges who elevated “Look over There”
into an art song of power and potency.
For Time, the revival possessed “intensity, humor and heart” that
brought the show “to a new level,” and the magazine chose the production
as one of the year’s ten best theatre events. Hilton Als in the New Yorker
said the original 1983 production offered “shallow characterizations,” but
now Johnson “strips the Broadway” from the musical to give the text and
the actors “new dimension.”
The revival’s cast album was released on CD by PS Classics.
The original production opened at the Palace Theatre on August 21,
1983, for 1,716 performances, and besides Best Musical won Tony Awards
for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Hearn), Best Score (Herman), Best
Book (Fierstein), Best Direction of a Musical (Arthur Laurents), and Best
Costume Design (Theoni V. Aldredge). The script was published in
paperback by Samuel French in 1987, the cast album was released by RCA
Victor on vinyl and CD, and the latter was later reissued by Arkiv/Sony
BMG Masterworks Broadway and included a bonus track of Herman at the
piano, during which he discusses the song “I Am What I Am.” There are
numerous foreign cast recordings, including a 1991 Rome production
released on CD by Nuova Carish and an Australian version released on
vinyl by RCA which opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney on March
1, 1985, with Keith Mitchell (Georges) and Jon Ewing (Albin). The London
premiere was presented at the London Palladium on May 7, 1986, for 301
showings (Hearn reprised his role of Albin, and Denis Quilley was
Georges).
As noted, the first revival won a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical
(and also won for Jerry Mitchell’s choreography). It opened at the Marquis
Theatre on December 9, 2004, and played for 229 performances. During the
run, the grapevine dripped with stories about backstage friction between
Daniel Davis (Georges) and Gary Beach (Albin), and between Davis and
other members of the company. According to Michael Riedel in the New
York Post, Davis was asked to withdraw from the production, and he was
succeeded by Robert Goulet, who played the role for the remaining nine
weeks of the run. There was no cast album of this revival.
During the 1981–1982 season, an earlier adaptation of the material titled
The Queen of Basin Street was scheduled to open in New York with lyrics
and music by Maury Yeston in what would have been his Broadway debut.
The work was capitalized at $2.5 million, Allan Carr was set to produce, the
book was by Jay Presson Allen, the choreography by Tommy Tune, and the
direction by Mike Nichols and Tune. The show was to have premiered at
the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on December 19, 1981, for a ten-week
engagement prior to a Broadway opening in the spring. But Carr told
Variety that Nichols and Tune were no longer associated with the
production because of “artistic, creative and financial differences.”
This proposed version completely collapsed, but Carr and other
producers brought Herman and Fierstein’s adaptation to Broadway a little
more than a year after Yeston’s version had been set to open. However,
Yeston still made his Broadway debut in Spring 1982 with his stunning
score for Nine, which was directed and choreographed by Tune. Nichols
went on to film the birdcage (aka The Birdcage) in 1996, yet another
adaptation of the original La Cage material (this one took place in Miami
and included a song by Stephen Sondheim).
Nothing from Yeston’s Basin Street score seems to have surfaced, and
it’s a tantalizing “lost” score that theatre buffs would love to hear. Yeston’s
score is perhaps second only to lyricist Arnold B. Horwitt and composer
Leroy Anderson’s “lost” score for Wonderful Town (1953). Their songs
were tossed aside at almost the last minute and were replaced with lyrics by
Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (La Cage aux
Folles); Best Actor in a Musical (Douglas Hodge); Best Actor in a
Musical (Kelsey Grammer); Best Choreography (Lynne Page); Best
Direction of a Musical (Terry Johnson); Best Orchestrations (Jason
Carr); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Tim Shortall); Best Costume
Design of a Musical (Matthew Wright); Best Lighting Design of a
Musical (Nick Richings); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Jonathan
Deans)
AMERICAN IDIOT
Theatre: St. James Theatre
Performances: 422
Book: Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer
Lyrics: Billie Joe Armstrong
Music: Green Day (Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool)
Based on Green Day’s 2004 recording American Idiot.
Direction: Michael Mayer (Johanna McKeon, Associate Director);
Producers: Tom Hulce and Ira Pittelman, Ruth and Stephen Hendel,
Vivek J. Tiwary and Gary Kaplan, Aged in Wood and Burnt Umber,
Scott M. Delman, Latitude Link, HOP Theatricals and Jeffrey Finn,
Larry Welk, Bensinger Filerman and Moellenberg Taylor, Allan S.
Gordon and Elan V. McAllister, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre in
association with Awaken Entertainment and John Pinckard and John
Domo; SenovvA, Tix Productions, Tracy Straus and Barney Straus,
Lorenzo Thione and Jay Kuo, Pat Magnarella, and Christopher Maring,
Associate Producers; Choreography: Steven Hoggett (Lorin Latarro,
Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Christine Jones; Video and
Projection Design: Darrel Maloney; Costumes: Andrea Lauer; Lighting:
Kevin Adams; Musical Direction: Carmel Dean
Cast: John Gallagher Jr. (Johnny), Michael Esper (Will), Stark Sands
(Tunny), Mary Faber (Heather), Rebecca Naomi Jones (Whatsername),
Tony Vincent (St. Jimmy), Christina Sajous (The Extraordinary Girl);
Ensemble: Declan Bennett, Andrew Call, Gerard Canonico, Miguel
Cervantes, Joshua Henry, Brian Charles Johnson, Leslie McDonel,
Chase Peacock, Theo Stockman, Ben Thompson, Alysha Umphress,
Libby Winters
The action takes place during the recent past in Jingletown, USA.
Musical Numbers
“American Idiot” (Company); “Jesus of Suburbia”: (a) “Jesus of Suburbia”
(John Gallagher Jr., Michael Esper); (b) “City of the Damned” (Stark
Sands, John Gallagher Jr., Michael Esper, Company); (c) “I Don’t Care”
(John Gallagher Jr., Michael Esper, Stark Sands, Company); (d) “Dearly
Beloved” (Mary Faber, Men); and (e) “Tales of Another Broken Home”
(John Gallagher Jr., Michael Esper, Stark Sands, Mary Faber,
Company); “Holiday” (John Gallagher Jr., Stark Sands, Theo Stockman,
Company); “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (John Gallagher Jr.,
Rebecca Naomi Jones, Stark Sands, Men); “Favorite Son” (Joshua
Henry, Women); “Are We the Waiting” (Stark Sands, Joshua Henry,
Company); “St. Jimmy” (John Gallagher, Tony Vincent, Company);
“Give Me Novacaine” (Michael Esper, Stark Sands, Company); “Last of
the American Girls” and “She’s a Rebel” (John Gallagher Jr., Rebecca
Naomi Jones, Michael Esper, Chase Peacock, Tony Vincent, Company);
“Last Night on Earth” (Tony Vincent, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Mary
Faber, Company); “Too Much Too Soon” (Theo Stockman, Alysha
Umphress, Michael Esper, Mary Faber); “Before the Lobotomy” (Stark
Sands, Chase Peacock, Joshua Henry, Ben Thompson); “Extraordinary
Girl” (Christina Sajous, Stark Sands, Company); “Before the
Lobotomy” (reprise) (Stark Sands, Chase Peacock, Joshua Henry, Ben
Thompson, Company); “When It’s Time” (John Gallagher Jr.); “Know
Your Enemy” (Tony Vincent, Michael Esper, John Gallagher Jr.,
Company); “21 Guns” (Rebecca Naomi Jones, Christina Sajous, Mary
Faber, Stark Sands, John Gallagher Jr., Michael Esper, Company);
“Letterbomb” (Rebecca Naomi Jones, Women); “Wake Me Up When
September Ends” (John Gallagher Jr., Michael Esper, Stark Sands,
Company); “Homecoming”: (a) “The Death of St. Jimmy”(Tony
Vincent, John Gallagher Jr.); (b) “East 12th Street” (John Gallagher Jr.,
Gerard Canonico, Theo Stockman, Company); (c) “Nobody Likes You”
(lyric by Mike Dirnt) (Michael Esper, Company); (d) “Rock and Roll
Girlfriend” (lyric by Tre Cool) (Miguel Cervantes, Mary Faber, Michael
Esper, Company); and (e) “We’re Coming Home Again” (John
Gallagher Jr., Stark Sands, Michael Esper, Company); “Whatsername”
(John Gallagher Jr., Company)
American Idiot was a stage adaptation of the best-selling album of the

same name by the three-man punk band and songwriters Green Day (Billie
Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool); the stage score included all the
songs from the album as well as a few numbers from the band’s 2009 album
21st Century Breakdown. The musical was first produced by the Berkeley
Repertory Theatre on September 4, 2009, and headed to Broadway the
following spring. But despite favorable reviews and the attendant publicity
when the Green Day band made an occasional surprise appearance after the
show’s curtain calls and when Armstrong sometimes played the role of the
drug-dealer St. Jimmy, the $8 million show managed just one year on
Broadway and failed to return its initial capitalization.
The story centered on three aimless youths from Jingletown, USA.
Johnny (John Gallagher Jr.), Will (Michael Esper), and Tunny (Stark
Sands), all in a futile search for life’s meaning. Johnny temporarily goes to
the big city and gets hooked on drugs, Will watches television and never
leaves home (but finds time to get a girl pregnant, although he’s soon
abandoned by her when she takes the baby and leaves him), and Tunny
joins the military and ends up an amputee. At the end of the show, Johnny
and Tunny are back in Jingletown. The three friends realize time has
already passed them by, and wistfully believe that out there in the world
everyone else is having fun.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times found the evening “thrillingly
raucous and gorgeously wrought,” and for him the production was “as
invigorating and ultimately as moving as anything I’ve seen on Broadway
this season” (“or maybe for a few seasons past”). Richard Zoglin in Time
said that “despite its earnest huffing and puffing” the show was “little more
than an annotated rock concert,” but it offered “irresistible musical energy”
and opened “fresh vistas” for both rock music and Broadway. John Lahr in
the New Yorker praised the “rip-roaring and original musical event,” but
noted it provided a “dramatic experience that is akin to channel surfing.”
Although the work itself had a distinct “personality,” the characters didn’t,
but nonetheless the evening was an “attempt” by director Michael Mayer
“to drag the musical into the twenty-first century.”
One of the outstanding features of the production was Christine Jones’s
set design, which won her a Tony. Brantley said the “spectacular” set
resembled an “epically scaled dive club” with walls covered in punk rock
posters and endless television monitors (almost four dozen in all) upon
which “frenzied video collages” flickered (Darrel Maloney was the show’s
video and projection designer). Lahr said the visuals created “a dynamic,
brutalist playpen for the slacker heroes,” and Zoglin praised Jones’s
“striking, sky-high backdrop” of posters and video monitors.
In 2006, Mayer had directed Spring Awakening, another rock musical
about teenage angst, and four years earlier Twyla Tharp’s 2002 dance
musical Movin’ Out (which was set to songs by Billy Joel) looked at young-
adult angst on Long Island during the Vietnam War era. Spring Awakening
played for 859 performances and Movin’ Out for 1,303, and perhaps
American Idiot’s surprisingly short run was because once Green Day’s fan
base had seen the show there weren’t enough traditional Broadway
theatergoers interested in attending a musical with yet another familiar saga
about growing or not growing up.
The cast album was released on CD and on a two-record vinyl set by
Reprise Records (the latter includes a bonus track of Green Day’s version of
“When It’s Time”). Broadway Idiot was a 2013 documentary about the
musical directed by Doug Hamilton; the film was shown at a film festival or
two, had a limited theatrical release, and was issued on DVD by Virgil Film
and Entertainment.
Note that the Broadway production’s musical supervision,
arrangements, and orchestrations were by Tom Kitt, the composer of the
Pulitzer Prize–winning Next to Normal (2009). Both Kitt and Mayer would
be back on Broadway a week later in the respective roles of director and
orchestrator/arranger for Sherie Rene Scott’s Everyday Rapture.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (American Idiot); Best Scenic
Design for a Musical (Christine Jones); Best Lighting Design for a
Musical (Kevin Adams)
SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM
Theatre: Studio 54
Performances: 76
Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim
Direction: Conception and direction by James Lapine (inspired by a concept
by David Kernan); Producers: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd
Haimes, Artistic Director); Sydney Beers, Executive Producer;
Choreography: Musical staging by San Knechtges; Scenery: Beowulf
Boritt; Video and Projection Designs: Peter Flaherty; Costumes: Susan
Hilferty; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Andy Einhorn
Cast: Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat, Leslie Kritzer, Norm
Lewis, Euan Morton, Erin Mackey, Matthew Scott
The revue was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Note: Directly below is the program’s musical chronology (the program
didn’t include a sequential list of songs with names of performers). The
chronology is followed by the order of the songs (with performers) as
given on the cast album (not all songs in the chronology were listed on
the cast album). * = songs dropped in preproduction, rehearsal, or pre-
Broadway tryout):
Musical Chronology
From By George (George School musical, 1946): “I’ll Meet You at the
Donut”; Saturday Night (unproduced 1954 musical; first produced in
London in 1997; Chicago, 1999; Off Broadway, 2000): “So Many
People”; West Side Story (1957; music by Leonard Bernstein):
“Something’s Coming”; Gypsy (1959; music by Jule Styne): “Smile,
Girls” (*); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962):
“Invocation” (*), “Forget War” (*), “Love Is in the Air” (*), “Comedy
Tonight”; Anyone Can Whistle (1964): “Anyone Can Whistle”; Do I
Hear a Waltz? (1965; music by Richard Rodgers): “Do I Hear a
Waltz?”; Evening Primrose (1966 television production): “Take Me to
the World”; Company (1970): “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” “The
Wedding Is Off” (*), “Multitudes of Amys” (*), “Happily Ever After”
(*), “Being Alive,” “Company”; Follies (1971): “Ah, but Underneath”
(1987 London production), “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs,” “Losing
My Mind,” “In Buddy’s Eyes”; A Little Night Music (1973): “Send in
the Clowns,” “A Weekend in the Country”; Pacific Overtures (1976):
“Entr’acte”; Sweeney Todd (1979): “Epiphany”; Merrily We Roll Along
(1981): “Now You Know,” “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” “Good Thing
Going,” “Opening Doors,” “Not a Day Goes By,” “Old Friends”;
Sunday in the Park with George (1984): “Finishing the Hat,” “Sunday,”
“Beautiful”; Into the Woods (1987): “Children Will Listen,” “Ever
After”; Assassins (Off Broadway, 1991; Broadway, 2004): “Something
Just Broke” (1993 London production), “Gun Song”; Passion (1994):
“Fosca’s Entrance” aka “I Read,” “Is This What You Call Love?,”
“Loving You,” “Happiness”; Bounce (Chicago and Washington, D.C.,
2003), later revised as Road Show (Off Broadway, 2008): “The Best
Thing That Has Ever Happened”; Note that Sondheim on Sondheim also
included the new song “God,” which was especially written for the
production.
Musical Numbers as Listed on the Original Cast Album

Act One: “Invocation” and ”Forget War” (Company); “Love Is in the Air”
(Barbara Cook, Leslie Kritzer, Erin Mackey, Vanessa Williams);
“Comedy Tonight” (Company); “Take Me to the World” (Barbara
Cook); “Talent” and “When I Get Famous” (not listed in the above
chronology; the former from Bounce/Road Show, the latter an
independent song from 1951) (Matthew Scott, Euan Morton);
“Something’s Coming” (Matthew Scott, Euan Morton, Leslie Kritzer,
Erin Mackey); “So Many People” (Vanessa Williams, Norm Lewis);
“You Could Drive a Person Crazy” (Tom Wopat, Barbara Cook); “The
Wedding Is Off” (Erin Mackey, Vanessa Williams); “Now You Know”
(Leslie Kritzer, Erin Mackey, Vanessa Williams, Barbara Cook);
“Franklin Shepard, Inc.” (Euan Morton, Vanessa Williams, Matthew
Scott); “Good Thing Going” (Vanessa Williams); “Waiting for the Girls
Upstairs” (Company); “The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened” (Tom
Wopat, Vanessa Williams, Matthew Scott, Norm Lewis); “Happiness”
(Erin Mackey, Matthew Scott); “Fosca’s Entrance” aka “I Read”
(Barbara Cook, Norm Lewis); “Is This What You Call Love?” (Norm
Lewis); “Loving You” (Barbara Cook)
Act Two: “God” (Company); “Losing My Mind” and “Not a Day Goes By”
(Vanessa Williams, Barbara Cook); “Opening Doors” (Matthew Scott,
Euan Morton, Leslie Kritzer, Tom Wopat, Barbara Cook, Erin Mackey);
“Multitudes of Amys” (Matthew Scott); “Happily Ever After” (Tom
Wopat); “Being Alive” (Norm Lewis, Euan Morton, Matthew Scott,
Tom Wopat, Leslie Kritzer, Erin Mackey); “Something Just Broke”
(Erin Mackey, Euan Morton, Leslie Kritzer, Matthew Scott, Norm
Lewis); “Gun Song” (Tom Wopat, Matthew Scott, Euan Morton, Leslie
Kritzer); “Smile, Girls” (Vanessa Williams, Leslie Kritzer, Norm Lewis,
Euan Morton); “Finishing the Hat” (Tom Wopat); “Beautiful” (Barbara
Cook, Euan Morton); “Children Will Listen” (Erin Mackey, Euan
Morton, Leslie Kritzer, Matthew Scott, Tom Wopat, Vanessa Williams);
“Send in the Clowns” (Barbara Cook); “Company” and “Old Friends”
(Company); “Anyone Can Whistle” (Company)
The Roundabout Theatre Company’s limited run of Sondheim on

Sondheim was another of the numerous revues and concerts that paid tribute
to lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim. The first was New York’s
Sondheim Evening: A Musical Tribute in 1973, and over the decades there
were: Side by Side by Sondheim (London, 1976; Broadway, 1977),
Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall (1992), Putting It Together
(Oxford, England, 1992; Off Broadway, 1993; Broadway, 1999), Mostly
Sondheim (Broadway, January 2002), and Celebrating Sondheim
(Broadway, December 2002). The current production differed from the
others because Sondheim served as the revue’s narrator, offered personal
comments about his life and shows, and even narrated archival footage that
was sometimes shown during the evening. To be sure, he didn’t appear live!
in person! on stage! Instead, he was present on video and his presence
hovered above the stage and dominated the action.
Sondheim spoke of his childhood, his relationship with his mother, his
friendship with his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II, and the creation of many
of his musicals. For the most part, the songs were the expected ones, and of
course his most famous one was featured: “Send in the Clowns” was sung
by Barbara Cook, but there was also a YouTube montage of the song
performed by fourteen singers, some professional and some not. The
evening was especially generous with six selections from his impressive
score for Merrily We Roll Along and offered three discarded numbers from
Company (“The Wedding Is Off,” “Multitudes of Amys,” and “Happily
Ever After”). The production also included a new song, “God,” in which
Sondheim spoofed his deification among his followers.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “chipper” and “haphazard”
evening was sometimes “jittery” and lacked a “sustained tone, a natural
rhythm or even a logical sense of sequence.” But the cast was “polished and
likable” and the physical production was “crisp,” thanks to Peter Flaherty’s
video and projection designs and Beowulf Boritt’s décor. And Brantley had
the final word on whether or not Sondheim was God: in his songs,
Sondheim “sees inside us,” and “there is something kind of Godlike about
that.”
In a later Times review, Stephen Holden singled out two particularly
memorable songs from Merrily We Roll Along. The “taunting” “Now You
Know” was the revue’s “highlight” and summed up Sondheim’s “skeptical
worldview as tartly as anything” he’d ever written, and “Old Friends” was
Sondheim’s “most eloquent expression” about friendship.
The cast album was released on a two-CD set by PS Classics.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Barbara
Cook); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Dan Moses Schreier)
PROMISES, PROMISES
Theatre: Broadway Theatre
Opening Date: April 25, 2010; Closing Date: January 2, 2011
Performances: 289
Book: Neil Simon
Lyrics: Hal David
Music: Burt Bacharach
Based on the United Artists 1960 film The Apartment (directed by Billy
Wilder; screenplay by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond).
Direction and Choreography: Rob Ashford (Christopher Bailey, Associate
Director and Choreographer); Producers: Broadway Across America,
Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, The Weinstein Company/Terry Allen Kramer,
Candy Spelling, Pat Addiss, Bernie Abrams/Michael Speyer, Takonkiet
Viravan/Scenario Thailand, Norton Herrick/Barry & Fran Weissler/TBS
Service/Laurel Oztemel; Beth Williams, Executive Producer; Michael
McCabe/Joseph Smith and Stage Ventures 2009 No. 2 Limited
Partnership, Associate Producers; Scenery: Scott Pask; Costumes: Bruce
Pask; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Phil Reno
Cast: Sean Hayes (C. C. “Bud” aka Chuck Baxter), Tony Goldwyn (J. D.
Sheldrake), Kristin Chenoweth (Fran Kubelik), Keith Kuhl (Eddie
Roth), Brooks Ashmanskas (Mr. Dobitch), Megan Sikora (Sylvia
Gilhooey, Miss Polansky), Peter Benson (Mike Kirkeby), Cameron
Adams (Ginger, Miss Della Hoya, Lum Ding Hostess), Sean Martin
Hingston (Mr. Eichelberger), Mayumi Miguel (Vivien, Miss Wong),
Dick Latessa (Doctor Dreyfuss), Ken Land (Jesse Vanderhof), Ashley
Amber (Miss Kreplinski, Helen Sheldrake), Brian O’Brien (Company
Doctor, Karl Kubelik), Helen Anker (Miss Olson), Sarah Jane Everman
(Kathy, Orchestra Voice), Kristen Beth Williams (Patsy, Orchestra
Voice), Nikki Renee Daniels (Barbara, Orchestra Voice), Chelsea
Krombach (Sharon, Orchestra Voice), Ryan Watkinson (Night
Watchman, New Young Executive), Matt Loehr (Lum Ding Waiter),
Adam Perry (Eugene), Katie Finneran (Marge MacDougall)
The action takes place in New York City in 1962.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Half as Big as Life” (Sean Hayes); “Grapes of Roth” (Sean
Hayes, Bar Patrons); “Upstairs” (Sean Hayes); “You’ll Think of
Someone” (Kristin Chenoweth, Sean Hayes); “Our Little Secret” (Sean
Hayes, Tony Goldwyn); “I Say a Little Prayer” (Kristin Chenoweth,
Girls); “She Likes Basketball” (Sean Hayes); “Knowing When to
Leave” (Kristin Chenoweth); “Where Can You Take a Girl?” (Brooks
Ashmanskas, Peter Benson, Sean Martin Hingston, Ken Land);
“Wanting Things” (Tony Goldwyn); “Turkey Lurkey Time” (Megan
Sikora, Mayumi Miguel, Cameron Adams, Employees of Consolidated
Life); “A House Is Not a Home” (Kristin Chenoweth)
Act Two: “A Fact Can Be a Beautiful Thing” (Sean Hayes, Katie Finneran,
Bar Patrons); “Whoever You Are” (Kristin Chenoweth); “Christmas
Day” (Tony Goldwyn, Ashley Amber, Party Guests); “A House Is Not a
Home” (reprise) (Sean Hayes); “A Young Pretty Girl Like You” (Sean
Hayes, Dick Latessa); “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” (Kristin
Chenoweth, Sean Hayes); “Promises, Promises” (Sean Hayes); “I’ll
Never Fall in Love Again” (reprise) (Kristin Chenoweth, Sean Hayes)
Burt Bacharach’s Promises, Promises was a groundbreaking musical for

its time, but time seems to have passed it by and the current revival wasn’t
all that well received (unfortunately, a critic or two judged the story from
the current perspective of political correctness and refused to accept the
musical on its own terms).
Many who hadn’t been around for the original production failed to
understand why the show is an important milestone in the history of the
American musical. In 1968, the sound of Promises, Promises was radically
different from the era’s standard Broadway fare. Yes, Hair had opened
earlier that year and quickly took its place as Broadway’s first rock musical.
Traditional theatre audiences probably didn’t care all that much for rock,
but from the radio and from television variety specials they knew the sound
of mainstream, middle-ofthe-road pop, and in Promises, Promises they
heard that kind of music for the first time within the context of a Broadway
show. In his first and only Broadway score, Bacharach melded Broadway
music with the style and arrangements of pop, including offstage singing
voices that mirrored backup vocalists on popular recordings.
In his original review for the 1968 production, Martin Gottfried in
Women’s Wear Daily wrote that the show offered “the first music I’ve heard
on Broadway since I don’t know when (I’ve heard songs, I haven’t heard
music).” He reported that Bacharach and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick
“shattered” the “archaic system” of traditional Broadway sound by utilizing
an amplified orchestra as well as such eclectic instruments as the organ,
bass fiddle, and guitar. Further, there were loud speakers running up the
walls of the Shubert Theatre (“right up to the second balcony”) and there
was an “honest-to-God recording engineer” in the house. (Of course, all this
was new in 1968, and no one could have foreseen how such cutting-edge
technology would eventually dominate the sound of Broadway musicals to
the point where all stage voices blend together and make it almost
impossible for an audience member to identify the source of a specific
voice.)
Bacharach and his lyricist partner Hal David enjoyed a string of pop
successes during the middle and late 1960s, and their songs for Promises,
Promises reflected their hits with Bacharach’s itchy and jittery music and
David’s conversational lyrics. Sometimes their score was a bit too perky,
and once or twice it missed the mark (“Where Can You Take a Girl?” and
“A Young Pretty Girl Like You”), but for the most part the songs were the
quintessence of how pop songs sounded on the radio, and so here the
sounds of contemporary music and traditional Broadway merged. The score
even yielded two pop hits for the radio (the haunting “I’ll Never Fall in
Love Again” and the jubilant title song).
The original production opened at the Shubert Theatre on December 1,
1968, for 1,281 performances and was nominated for eight Tony Awards,
winning for Best Actor in a Musical (Orbach) and Best Featured Actress in
a Musical (Marian Mercer). In those days, there were no specific Tony
Awards for Best Book and Best Score, as these were incorporated into the
overall award for Best Musical (that year, Promises, Promises, Hair, and
Zorba lost the Best Musical prize to 1776).
The show’s source was Billy Wilder’s 1960 cynical comedy-drama The
Apartment, a touching and brooding film that looked at the dark side of the
holiday season (the film begins on November 1 and ends on December 31,
and a Christmas Eve suicide attempt is juxtaposed with what is undoubtedly
the most politically incorrect Christmas office party in movie history). The
film won five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Direction, Best
Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration), and Jack
Lemmon (as Bud Baxter) and Shirley MacLaine (Fran Kubelik) gave their
finest performances as two lost souls adrift in the impersonal Manhattan
cityscape.
Bud (Jerry Orbach in the 1968 production, Sean Hayes in the current
revival) is a likeable nebbish who hopes to climb the corporate ladder by
lending his apartment to his married office managers for their extramarital
affairs and one-night stands. He’s attracted to office worker Fran (Jill
O’Hara/Kristin Chenoweth), but doesn’t know she’s sleeping with his boss,
J. D. Sheldrake (Edward Winter/Tony Goldwyn) in his very own bed.
Neil Simon’s book captured the humor and pathos of the film and
ingeniously developed a device briefly used only during the movie’s
opening scenes when in voiceover Bud talks to the movie audience and
provides expository information. Simon expanded this notion, and for the
stage version Bud chats to the audience in occasional asides throughout the
evening, a conceit that worked well because it softened his sleazy and off-
putting machinations and placed each audience member in the role of his
confidant.
Fran is essentially a dark and unhappy person, and O’Hara’s brooding
performance and smoky singing voice matched the lump-in-the-throat
intensity of her character. The revival beefed up the role for Chenoweth
with two Bacharach and David interpolations that had been song hits during
the 1960s (“I Say a Little Prayer” and “A House Is Not a Home,” the latter
the title song from the 1964 film). The casting of Chenoweth raised
eyebrows because her plucky take-charge persona didn’t seem a good fit for
the vulnerable Fran. Sheldrake’s role in the musical was somewhat
shortchanged, but his powerful “Wanting Things” humanized him in a way
the film never did. In the almost cameo role of the bimbo Marge
MacDougall, Mercer in all her owl-coat glory was magnificent; as noted,
she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, as did
Katie Finneran for the revival.
Bud’s establishing number “Half as Big as Life,” his quirky “Upstairs,”
his joyous “She Likes Basketball,” and his pulsating, break-through title
song as well as Fran’s hard-edged and driving “Knowing When to Leave”
gave the theatre a contemporary pop-sound intensity completely alien to
other musicals of the era. And there were other musical surprises. Bud and
Fran’s “You’ll Think of Someone” and Bud and Sheldrake’s “Our Little
Secret” were notable for their shifting harmonies and unexpected key
changes, and there was even time for a Kingston Trio–like folk number,
Fran and Bud’s sweetly haunting “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” which
was the score’s finest song and one of the best ballads of the era.
The evening also served up two holiday songs. The loopy “Turkey
Lurkey Time” with its almost surreal lyric had a go-go boots beat (note its
especially “1960s” rendition by Debbie Shapiro Gravitte for the collection
A Broadway Christmas, released on CD by Varese Sarabande Records). On
stage and on the cast album, “Christmas Day” seemed like a throwaway
number (like the dance “Grapes of Roth,” it wasn’t even listed in the
program of the original production). But Johnny Mathis’s lovely
interpretation reveals a solid Christmas ballad that sadly has never quite
reached the status of a holiday standard.
The revival switched the story from 1968 to 1962, no doubt a nod to the
successful television series Mad Men, which took place in the office jungles
of New York City in the early 1960s. As mentioned, Tunick created the
orchestrations for the original production, and he also created new ones for
the revival, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.
In his review of the revival, Ben Brantley in the New York Times said a
“prevailing lassitude” hovered over the evening and “the white-hot charms
this musical is said to have once possessed are left sleeping.” The score had
“taken on the synthetic whiff of elevator music,” Chenoweth wasn’t “meant
to play Fran, and you sense that she knows it,” and often Hayes seemed
“pale to the point of colorlessness.” But Finneran was a “comic volcano”
who brought “molten hilarity” to her brief role. The New Yorker also
praised Finneran and said she stole the show, but otherwise the musical
wasn’t “exactly a turkey, just turkeyesque.”
Brantley told his readers that “believe it or not,” Jerry Orbach created
the role of Bud in the original production. Perhaps the actor was best known
for his television appearances, and so younger audiences were unaware that
he was the original Broadway Bud and also created the role of the narrator
(El Gallo) in the original 1960 Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks
and introduced the evergreen “Try to Remember.” Among his many
Broadway musical appearances: the bitter puppeteer Paul in the long-
running hit Carnival! (1961), where he introduced “Her Face”; the
duplicitous lawyer Billy Flynn in the original 1975 production of Chicago,
where he introduced “Razzle Dazzle” and “All I Care about Is Love”; and
the weary but determined director Julian Marsh in the original 1980
Broadway production of 42nd Street, where he sang “Lullaby of
Broadway.”
The script of Promises, Promises was published in hardback by Random
House in 1969. The original cast album was released on vinyl by United
Artists Records, and later issued on CD by RYKO/MGM, Varese Sara-
bande, and Kritzerland. The latter is a two-CD set that includes the cast
album as it was originally released as well as a remixed version of the score
in performance order. Other recordings include two Italian cast albums, a
vinyl released by C.G.D. Records (with Johnny Dorelli and Catherine
Spaak) and a CD issued by Carosello Records. There was also a British
studio cast album released by Fontana Records.
The London production opened on October 2, 1969, at the Prince of
Wales Theatre for 560 performances with Anthony (later, Tony) Roberts
(Bud), Betty Buckley (Fran), James Congdon (Sheldrake), Kelly Britt
(Marge), Ronn Carroll (Mr. Dobitch), and Donna McKecknie (in a reprise
of her Broadway role as Vivien Della Hoya). Also in the cast was Jack
Kruschen as Doctor Dreyfuss, the role he created for the 1960 film and for
which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting
Actor. The London cast album was released by United Artists Records on
vinyl and was later issued by Kritzerland on CD.
The movie rights were bought by Twentieth Century-Fox (at one point,
Barry Manilow was mentioned for the lead), but the film was never made.
The musical was revived by Encores! at City Center on February 10,
1997, for five performances with Martin Short (Bud), Kerry O’Malley
(Fran), Christine Baranski (Marge), Terrence Mann (Sheldrake), and Dick
Latessa (Dreyfuss), and the production was directed and choreographed by
Rob Marshall. The score included “You’ve Got It All Wrong,” a new song
written especially for the concert by Bacharach and David.
The current revival’s cast album was released on CD by
Sony/Masterworks Broadway Records, and the special Barnes & Noble
edition of the recording includes three sing-along bonus tracks (of “I Say a
Little Prayer,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” and the title song).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Actor in a Musical (Sean Hayes); Best
Featured Actress in a Musical (Katie Finneran); Best Choreography
(Rob Ashford); Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick)
ENRON
Theatre: Broadhurst Theatre
Performances: 16
Play and Lyrics: Lucy Prebble
Music: Adam Cork
Direction: Rupert Goold (Sophie Hunter, Associate Director); Producers:
Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Matthew Byam Shaw, ACT
Productions, Neal Street, Beverly Bartner and Norman Tulchin, Lee
Menzies, Bob Boyette, Scott M. Delman, INFINITY Stages, JK
Productions, The Araca Group, Jamie deRoy, Mallory Factor, Michael
Filerman, Ian Flooks, Ronald Frankel, James Fuld Jr., Dena
Hammerstein, Jam Theatricals, Rodger H. Hess, Sharon Karmazin,
Cheryl Lachowicz, OSTAR, Parnassus Enterprise, Jon B. Platt, Judith
Resnick, Daryl Roth, Stein and Gunderson Company, Anita Waxman,
The Weinstein Company, Barry and Carole Kaye, Stewart F. Lane and
Bonnie Comley, Fran and Barry Weissler, The Shubert Organization;
Jeremy Scott Blaustein, Associate Producer (Originally produced by
The Headlong Theatre/Chichester Festival Theatre and Royal Court
Theatre Production); Choreography: Scott Ambler (Ben Hartley,
Assistant Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Anthony Ward; Video
and Projection Design: Jon Driscoll; Lighting: Mark Henderson;
Musical Direction: Not credited in program.
Cast: Norbert Leo Butz (Jeffrey Skilling), Gregory Itzin (Kenneth Lay),
Marin Mazzie (Claudia Roe), Stephen Kunken (Andy Fastow), Jordan
Ballard (Employee, News Reporter, Analyst), Brandon J. Dirden
(Security Guard, Trader), Rightor Doyle (Lehman Brother, Trader,
Employee, Board Member), Anthony Holds (Lehman Brother, Trader,
Arthur Andersen, Police Officer), Ty Jones (Lawyer, Trader), Ian Kahn
(Lawyer, Trader), January LaVoy (Employee, News Reporter, Hewitt),
Tom Nelis (Senator, Trader, Analyst, Judge), Madisyn Shipman and
Mary Stewart Sullivan (Daughter at alternating performances), Jeff
Skowron (Trader, Analyst, Court Officer), Lusia Strus (Sheryl Sloman,
Congresswoman, Irene Grant), Noah Weisberg (Trader, Analyst,
Ramsay)
The play with music was presented in two acts.
The action takes place in Houston, Texas, between 1992 “and the present
day.”
Lucy Prebble’s Enron was an import from Great Britain that was first
produced at the Minerva Theatre for the Chichester Festival on July 11,
2009. It then opened at London’s Royal Court Theatre on September 15,
and then transferred to the West End on January 16, 2010, at the Noel
Coward Theatre. The New York premiere took place three months after the
West End opening. The Broadway capitalization was $5 million, and
despite some enthusiastic notices the production closed after just two weeks
on Broadway and became the season’s shortest-running musical (albeit a
play with music).
The production utilized various methods to tell its story, including
songs, dances, and video projections (there was even a representation of the
New York Stock Exchange’s Big Board replete with its flashing electronic
ticker). And with traditional musical comedy performers Norbert Leo Butz
and Marin Mazzie in the cast, the evening seemed in some respects like a
play that was ready to morph into a full-fledged musical if given the
chance. The stage was awash in multicolored lights, sound effects, video
projections, line dancers, a dancing chorus waving neon batons, a little girl
amid floating bubbles (could those possibly be floating symbols?),
accountants with ventriloquist dummies, lawyers whose eyes were
blindfolded, board members depicted as the Three Blind Mice with dark
glasses who tap dance with their canes, and cast members with huge raptor-
like heads who represented debt-eaters.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that choreographer Scott
Ambler had created “several trader ballets,” Charles McNulty in the Los
Angeles Times praised the “antic” choreography and Adam Cork’s
“twinkling” score, and Marilyn Stasio in Variety reported that in one
sequence the entire company marched to the music of “The Star-Spangled
Banner.”
The story was set in Houston, Texas, during 1992 and the following
years, and focused on the financial crisis of the Enron company when the
energy corporation was forced to file for bankruptcy due to its creative
accounting practices (David Cote in Time Out New York noted that “hard
assets or products” weren’t necessary for a company’s success as long as
the company cultivated the “aura of profitability”). Butz played Jeffrey
Skilling, the company’s CEO, and Mazzie was Claudia Roe, another
executive and one of his business rivals.
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal said the “ultraflashy”
production did nothing “to conceal the thinness and triviality” of Prebble’s
“surprisingly unamusing script” and “uninteresting” characters. He
wondered why the play had been so well received in London, and decided
British theatergoers were inclined to accept the evening’s “sole animating
premise” that “American capitalists with Texas accents are by definition
both evil and funny.”
Brantley noted the show was a “flashy but labored economics lesson”
that was “all show (or show and tell) and little substance” and made its
points “so arduously and repeatedly” that there wasn’t “much room for
discussion.” Ultimately, the play about a corporation’s “smoke-and-mirror
financial practices” wasn’t “much more than smoke and mirrors itself.”
Stasio said the production had “more brains in its head than any tuner
since Assassins”; John Lahr in the New Yorker found the play “smart” and
“inventive” and noted that Rupert Goold had directed with “gleeful
panache”; and McNulty exclaimed that Enron was one of the season’s
“most vibrant” productions and that Butz played Skilling “in a campy Hugh
Jackman mood.”
The script was published in paperback by Methuen Drama in 2009.
Neither the script nor the program listed musical sequences, but the text
referenced a few numbers: “Why” (described in the script as an “eerie,
mechanical” sound of the word why, and taken from Enron commercials);
“Gold” (best-guess title; the script indicated there was “the sound of
singing” as each trader sang his or her “own different song” while the
number built “to an atonal babble” which was “a musical cacophony of the
trading floor”); “E-N-R-O-N,” a barbershop quartet; “Traders Dance”;
“Why” (reprise); and “E-N-R-O-N” (reprise).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Score (lyrics by Lucy Prebble, music by
Adam Cork); Best Featured Actor in a Play (Stephen Kunken); Best
Lighting Design of a Play (Mark Henderson); Best Sound Design of a
Play (Adam Cork)
EVERYDAY RAPTURE
Theatre: American Airlines Theatre
Opening Date: April 29, 2010; Closing Date: July 11, 2010
Performances: 85
Book: Dick Scanlon and Sherie Rene Scott
Direction: Michael Mayer; Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd
Haimes, Artistic Director) (A Second Stage Theatre Production);
Choreography: Michele Lynch; Scenery: Christine Jones; Projection
Design: Darrel Maloney; Costumes: Tom Broecker; Lighting: Kevin
Adams; Musical Direction: Marco Paguia
Cast: Sherie Rene Scott, Eamon Foley, Lindsay Mendez, Betsy Wolfe
The revue was presented in one act.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program included a list of music credits, but didn’t list songs in
performance order; the following list is taken from the cast album. All
songs in the production were sung by Scott, who was backed by three
singers. * = song wasn’t included in the list of music credits but was on
the cast album.
Overture: “The Other Side of This Life” (lyric and music by David Byrne);
“Got a Thing on My Mind” (lyric and music by Gabriel Alexander
Roth); “Elevation” (lyric and music by Adam Clayton, David Evans,
Paul David Hewson, and Laurence Mullen); “On the Atchison, Topeka,
and the Santa Fe” (1945 film The Harvey Girls; lyric by Johnny Mercer,
music by Harry Warren); “Get Happy” (Nine Fifteen Revue, 1930; lyric
by Ted Koehler, music by Harold Arlen); “You Made Me Love You (I
Didn’t Want to Do It)” (lyric by Joe McCarthy, music by James V.
Monaco); Mr. Rogers’ Medley (lyrics and music by Fred Rogers): “It’s
Such a Good Feeling (to Know You’re Alive)”; “Everybody’s Fancy”;
and “I Like to Be Told”; “It’s You I Like” (lyric and music by Fred
Rogers); “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” (lyric and music
by Harry Nilsson); “Life Line” (lyric and music by Harry Nilsson);
“The Weight” (lyric and music by Robbie Robertson); “Rainbow
Sleeves” (lyric and music by Tom Waits); “Why” (lyric and music by
David Byrne); “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” (lyric and music by Fred
Rogers); “Up the Ladder to the Roof” (lyric and music by Vincent
Dimirco and Frank Edward Wilson); “November” (*) (lyricist and
composer unknown); “Gimme Love” (*) (lyricist and composer
unknown); “Give Me Peace on Earth” (*) (lyricist and composer
unknown).
Note: The program’s list of music credits also included the following songs
(which weren’t on the cast album): “Killing Me Softly (with His Song)”
(lyric by Norman Gimbel, music by Charles Fox); “Over the Rainbow”
(1939 film The Wizard of Oz; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Harold
Arlen); and “My Strongest Suit” (Aida, 2000; lyric by Tim Rice, music
by Elton John [song introduced by Sherie Rene Scott in Aida])
Sherie Rene Scott’s semi-autobiographical Everyday Rapture was a

limited-engagement one-woman revue (with three back-up singers), and
was a last-minute booking by the Roundabout Theatre Company to fill out
its subscription series when a revival of Terrence McNally’s 1991 Off-
Broadway play Lips Together, Teeth Apart was abruptly canceled.
The show was put together by Dick Scanlon and Scott as You May
Worship Me Now when it was presented for one performance on March 31,
2008, for a charity fund-raiser. The production was then developed and
given its present title when it opened on May 3, 2008, at the Second Stage
Theatre for forty-three showings.
Through mostly well-known standard pop, Broadway, television, and
film songs, Scott chatted about her trek from Kansas to New York City,
where, in her own words, she became a “semi-semi-semi” star. She had
appeared in the original Broadway production of Tommy (1993), and later
had leading roles in Tim Rice and Elton John’s Aida (2000), David
Yazbek’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), The Little Mermaid (2008), and
Yazbek’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In regional theatre,
she was in Randy Newman’s Faust (1995) and John Kander and Fred Ebb’s
Over & Over (1999), and with Norbert Leo Butz appeared in the premiere
of Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years
(2002).
Scott was a refreshing breath of life in the leaden Aida and sparked the
proceedings with the haunting “Every Story Is a Love Story” and the campy
show-stopper “My Strongest Suit,” and likewise in Over & Over she jazzed
up the chaotic production with her memorable “Someday, Pasadena” when
she succeeded Bebe Neuwirth (who left the show during rehearsals) in the
role of Sabina (Tallulah Bankhead was the first Sabina in the original
production of Thornton Wilder’s 1942 play The Skin of Our Teeth, which
served as the source material for Over & Over).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Everyday Rapture was
“smashing,” and it allowed Scott to be both “sentimental and sardonic” as
she weaved a “beautiful, funny fiction” of her life that was “both utterly
removed from and utterly true to real life.” In terms of traditional
“blockbuster” Broadway shows, Everyday Rapture was a “speck,” but Scott
and her production team created the necessary “alchemy” that “infuses
every great Broadway performance” and turns “human specks of dust” into
“starlight.” And Scott “never shined brighter or more illuminatingly.” The
New Yorker said the “pseudo-memoir” ensured that Scott’s “self-effacing
charisma is evident,” but such charisma couldn’t “sustain an evening”
because her “halfhearted irony obscures as much as it endears.”
Director Michael Mayer had taken American Idiot to Broadway a week
earlier, and for that production Tom Kitt was orchestrator, arranger, and
musical supervisor. Here they were back in the roles of director and
orchestrator/arranger. Mayer had directed the hit Spring Awakening (2006),
and Kitt was the composer of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal
(2009).
The cast album was released on CD by Ghostlight Records.
Note that for the Second Stage production, the show was divided in six
parts: “Both Sides Now,” “The Name of My Star,” “Beautiful Day,” “Like
Magic,” “Reach Out and Touch,” and “Four-Leaf Clover.”
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Book (Dick Scanlon and Sherie Rene
Scott); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Sherie Rene Scott)
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
“A NEW MUSICAL”
Nightmare Alley began previews on April 13, 2010, at the Geffen Playhouse
in Los Angeles, California. The opening night was on April 21, and the
production closed on May 23. The musical had been previously
produced by the Primary Stages Company (see below). As of this
writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Jonathan Brielle
Based on the 1946 novel Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham.
Direction: Gilbert Cates; Producer: The Geffen Playhouse (Randall Arney,
Artistic Director); Choreography: Kay Cole; Scenery: John Arnone;
Costumes: Christina Haatainen-Jones; Lighting: Daniel Ionazzi; Musical
Direction: Gerald Sternbach
Cast: James Barbour (Stan), Melody Butiu (Tarot Lady), Larry Cedar (Pete,
Sheriff, Addie Peabody), Sarah Glen-dening (Molly), Travis Leland
(Roustabout), Michael McCarty (Clem, Ezra Grimble), Mary Gordon
Murray (Zeena, Doctor Lilith Ritter), Anise E. Ritchie (Tarot Lady),
Leslie Stevens (Tarot Lady), Alet Taylor (Tarot Lady), Burke Walton
(Roustabout)
The action takes place in various parts of the Dust Bowl during the years
1932, 1934, and 1937.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Nightmare Alley—A Ten in One” (Company); “I Get By”
(Larry Cedar, Mary Gordon Murray); “Lucky Heart” (Sarah
Glendening); “Human Nature” (Larry Cedar, James Barbour); “This Is
Not What I Had Planned” (Mary Gordon Murray, James Barbour);
“Science” (Sarah Glendening, James Barbour, Melody Butiu, Anise E.
Ritchie, Leslie Stevens, Alet Taylor); “I Don’t Like What I See” (Larry
Cedar); “All Will Come to You” (James Barbour, Larry Cedar, Melody
Butiu, Anise E. Ritchie, Leslie Stevens, Alet Taylor); “I Surrender”
(James Barbour); “You’ve Gotta Believe” (Company)
Act Two: “What Do Ya’ Think?” (Mary Gordon Murray, Michael
McCarty); “Cross That River” (James Barbour, Sarah Glendening,
Choir, Michael McCarty, Larry Cedar); “Why Don’t You Hear
Me”/“Nobody Home”/“I Still Hear It All” (Sarah Glendening, James
Barbour); “Don’t You Love to Watch What People Do?”(Mary Gordon
Murray, Larry Cedar, Michael McCarty, Chorus); “Your Last Second
Chance” (Larry Cedar, James Barbour, Mary Gordon Murray, Chorus);
“I Surrender” (reprise) (James Barbour); “One Last Time to
Pretend”/“The Séance” (Company); “Nightmare Alley” (Company)
Nightmare Alley was based on William Lindsay Gresham’s dark 1946

novel of the same name about Stan (James Barbour), a Depression-era con
man who finds temporary success as a mind reader who preys on the
gullible in a carnival. He eventually succumbs to alcohol and ends up as a
pathetic geek in a seedy sideshow.
The musical played out its scheduled run at the Geffen Playhouse in Los
Angeles without risking Broadway. Charlotte Stoudt in the Los Angeles
Times said the “tepid” musical was “promising” but “unfocused” and never
quite found “a stirring dramatic through line.” The work was “stranded”
between a “conventional” musical and one that was “more offbeat and
conceptual.” Stoudt praised John Arnone’s décor, which transformed the
stage into a circus tent, and from the stage to the back of the theatre
multicolored lights shone and posters depicted various sideshow freaks. As
for Jonathan Brielle’s score, it was at its “best” during sung-through
sections “where dialogue and music weave together in restless ways.”
The musical had previously been produced Off-Off-Broadway by the
Primary Stages Company at Theatre 3 for fifteen performances beginning
on November 16, 1996, and the cast members included Willy Falk as Stan.
Songs heard in this production that weren’t used in the current version were
“Someday Sometime,” “Tough Cookies,” “Questions,” “Kid,” “Molly,”
“Interlude,” “Shuffle the Cards,” “Whatever It Takes,” “The Code,”
“Indecent Exposure,” “Caroline,” “Hit ’Em Where It Hurts,”
“Unpredictable You,” “Get Her to Do It,” and “Song of the Road.”
Gresham’s novel was reprinted in 2013 in a limited-edition by
Centipede Press that includes color reproductions of various editions of the
novel and posters from the film version as well as short articles written by
Gresham for such publications as Esquire (one article titled “My Ten
Favorite American Monsters” discusses sideshow freaks). The film version
of Nightmare Alley was released in 1947 by Twentieth Century-Fox and
directed by Edmund Goulding; Tyrone Power gave one of his finest
performances as the doomed Stan, and other cast members were Joan
Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, and Mike Mazurki (the film was
released on DVD by Fox as part of its film noir series).
2010–2011 Season
HARRY CONNICK JR. IN CONCERT ON BROADWAY
Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre

Opening Date: July 15, 2010; Closing Date: July 29, 2010
Performances: 15
Producers: James L. Nederlander and Broadway Across America; Lighting:
Ted Wells; Concertmaster: Sylvia D’Avanzo
Cast: Harry Connick Jr.
The concert was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers; the following
program of songs heard in the concert is taken from Theatre World and
from the original cast album. This list is immediately followed by other
songs presented in the concert that were referenced in newspaper
reviews.
“We Are in Love” (lyric and music by Harry Connick Jr.); “The Way You
Look Tonight” (1936 film Swing Time; lyric by Dorothy Fields, music
by Jerome Kern); “Besame mucho” (lyric and music by Consuelo
Velazquez, English lyric by Sunny Skylar); “The Other Hours” (Thou
Shalt Not, 2001; lyric and music by Harry Connick Jr.); “Nowhere with
Love” (lyric and music by Harry Connick Jr.); “How Insensitive”
(Portuguese lyric by Vinicius de Moraes, English lyric by Norman
Gimbel, music by Antonio Carlos Jobim); “Come by Me” (lyric and
music by Harry Connick Jr.); Medley: “My Time of Day” and “I’ve
Never Been in Love Before” (Guys and Dolls, 1950; lyrics and music
by Frank Loesser); “All the Way” (1957 film The Joker Is Wild; lyric by
Sammy Cahn, music by Jimmy Van Heusen); “Bayou Maharajah” (lyric
and music by Harry Connick Jr.); “Hear Me in the Harmony” (lyric and
music by Harry Connick Jr.); “Light the Way” (Thou Shalt Not, 2001;
lyric and music by Harry Connick Jr.); “St. James Infirmary Blues”
(traditional); “Take Her to the Mardi Gras” (Thou Shalt Not, 2001; lyric
and music by Harry Connick Jr.); “Bourbon Street Parade” (lyric and
music by Paul Barbarin); “Mardi Gras in New Orleans” (lyric and music
by Professor Longhair aka Henry Roeland “Roy” Byrd)
Newspaper reviews also referenced the following songs heard in the
concert: “It Had to Be You” (lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Isham Jones);
“You Don’t Know Me” (lyric by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold, music
by Cindy Walker); “Sweet Georgia Brown” (lyric by Kenneth Casey,
music by Maceo Pinkard and Ben Bernie); and “Hey, There” (The
Pajama Game, 1954; lyric and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross).
Harry Connick Jr.’s concert was his first on Broadway in twenty years
when An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra was presented
in November 1990. In the interim, he wrote the lyrics and music for the
Broadway musical Thou Shalt Not (2001) and appeared in the 2006 revival
of The Pajama Game. He later starred in the 2011 revival of On a Clear
Day You Can See Forever, a regional production of The Sting, and the
2019 concert Harry Connick, Jr.: A Celebration of Cole Porter. The
current concert featured three songs from Thou Shalt Not (“The Other
Hours,” “Light the Way,” and “Take Her to the Mardi Gras”) and one
(“Hey, There”) from The Pajama Game.
The limited engagement kicked off a thirteen-city tour for Connick, who
was backed by twenty-one musicians. Stephen Holden in the New York
Times said Connick was a musical “fusion” of Frank Sinatra, Nelson
Riddle, Elvis Presley, Peter Allen (via Professor Longhair aka Henry
Roeland “Roy” Byrd), and Frank Loesser, and also said Connick brought to
mind Erroll Garner, Brook Benton, and Dick Haymes. Although vocally
Connick was closer to Presley than Sinatra, Connick was nonetheless “a
Sinatra acolyte.” As an arranger, Connick favored “broad musical strokes—
sudden roaring fanfares and blasts of noise,” but when all was said and
done he was “ultimately grounded in New Orleans ragtime” and “blues and
boogie-woogie traditions.”
The cast recording was released by Sony Legacy Records, and the
concert itself was filmed in high definition (the film was taken from two
Broadway performances on July 30 and 31, 2010). The concert is available
on four formats (CD, DVD, a CD and DVD set, and Blu-ray).
With the exception of “Light My Way” (which is included on the
Broadway cast recording of Thou Shalt Not and is sung by the ensemble),
many of the songs in the concert had been previously recorded by Connick
(including the collection Harry on Broadway, Act I, which offers the 2006
cast recording of The Pajama Game and a selection of songs from Thou
Shalt Not performed by Connick and Kelli O’Hara).
The presentation marked Connick’s first of two Broadway concerts
during the decade, and it was later followed by Harry Connick, Jr.: A
Celebration of Cole Porter.
BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

Theatre: Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
Opening Date: October 13, 2010; Closing Date: January 2, 2011
Performances: 94
Book: Alex Timbers
Lyrics and Music: Michael Friedman
Direction: Alex Timbers; Producers: The Public Theatre (Oskar Eustis,
Artistic Director), Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Norton Herrick and
Herrick Entertainment, Stewart Lane and Bonnie Comley, Susan Quint
Gallin/Mary Lu Roffe/Jennifer Manocherian, Nancy C. Paduano/Harold
Thau, and Center Theatre Group; Mandy Hackett, Jeremy Scott
Blaustein, Michael Crea, S. D. Wagner, and John Johnson, Associate
Producers; Joey Parnes, Executive Producer; Choreography: Danny
Mefford; Scenery: Donyale Werle; Costumes: Emily Rebholz; Lighting:
Justin Townsend; Musical Direction: Justin Levine
Cast: Benjamin Walker (Andrew Jackson), Kristine Nielsen (The
Storyteller), Kate Cullen Roberts (Elizabeth, Erica), Darren Goldstein
(Andrew Sr., Calhoun), Jeff Hiller (Cobbler, Messenger, John Quincy
Adams, Tour Guide, Florida Man), Nadia Quinn (Toula, Female
Ensemble), Emily Young (Female Soloist, Announcer, Naomi), Ben
Steinfeld (Monroe), Maria Elena Ramirez (Rachel, Florida Woman),
Bryce Pinkham (Black Fox, Clay), James Barry (Male Soloist, Citizen,
Phil), Greg Hildreth (Red Eagle, University President), Lucas Near-
Verbrugghe (Keokuk, Van Buren), Cameron Ocasio (Lyncoya); Justin
Levine (Piano, Guitar, Conductor), Charlie Rosen (Bass, Associate
Conductor), Kevin Garcia (Drums)
The action takes place mostly in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries in the Wild West, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and other
locales.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The following
list is taken from the Off-Broadway cast album (released by Ghostlight
Records), and the names of the singers reflect those from the Broadway
production.
“Populism Yea Yea” (Company); “I’m Not That Guy” (Benjamin Walker);
“Illness as Metaphor” (Benjamin Walker, Maria Elena Ramirez, Ben
Steinfeld, Justin Levine); “I’m So That Guy” (Benjamin Walker,
Company); “Ten Little Indians” (Emily Young, Maria Elena Ramirez,
Nadia Quinn, Kristine Nielsen); “The Corrupt Bargain” (Kate Cullen
Roberts, Kristine Nielsen, Emily Young, Darren Goldstein, Jeff Hiller,
Bryce Pinkham); “Rock Star” (James Barry, Benjamin Walker,
Company); “The Great Compromise” (Maria Elena Ramirez, Justin
Levine, Ben Steinfeld); “Public Life” (Benjamin Walker, Company);
“Crisis Averted” (James Barry, Justin Levine, Company); “The Saddest
Song” (Benjamin Walker, Ben Steinfeld, Greg Hildreth, Justin Levine);
“Second Nature” (Justin Levine); “The Hunters of Kentucky” (lyric by
Samuel Wordsworth, music anonymous) (Company)
The musical was a sensation at the Public Theatre, and the Broadway
transfer was inevitable. Here was a musical about one of the seminal figures
in the early history of the United States, a poor boy from nowhere who
dominated American politics and was later honored with his likeness on the
nation’s paper currency. Moreover, the telling of his story was iconoclastic:
this hero was also an antihero you might mistake for a rock star, the score
gave him X-rated lyrics and anachronistic pop music to sing, and the finely
honed story was cleverly disguised as a seemingly unstructured biography.
The evening was saturated with cool irony in its presentation of the life and
times of this historical figure, and through the prism of detached
observation the production wryly commented on the United States of the
past and the present, and also raised a querulous eyebrow at the time-worn
conventions of Broadway theatre.
No, the musical wasn’t Hamilton, which came along five years later.
The show was Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, written and directed by
Alex Timbers, with lyrics and music by Michael Friedman. Theirs was
perhaps the most innovative and groundbreaking musical of the era, for
here was a seminal work that tore the seams from the typical Broadway
cloth and drenched the fabric in the blood of its title character. The clichés
of traditional theatre were stripped away as the musical took an unflinching
look at Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), the man who may well be the most
misunderstood, most controversial, and most complicated politician in the
history of the United States, one who is either the best or the worst, the
most visionary or the most myopic.
But the pre-Broadway buzz somehow fizzled on Broadway, and the
show was gone in less than three months at a loss of $4.5 million. The
reviews were generally good, but not particularly ecstatic, and the subject
matter didn’t interest would-be ticket-buyers. The theatrical gods were there
for Hamilton, but they overlooked the musical about Andrew Jackson, the
seventh president of the United States who stares at us from his twenty-
dollar-bill portrait without yielding a clue about his colorful and
labyrinthine life.
And who got to tell the story about the nation’s seventh president? It
was a narrator confined to an electric wheelchair who midway through the
evening is shot in the face by Jackson when he decides it’s time to tell his
own damn story. It was Jackson who reinvented the Democratic Party, it
was Jackson who became the face of populism and put the “man” in
“manifest destiny,” and it was Jackson who made the tough choices for
which history now damns him.
The book’s unconventional structure introduced us to a stage full of
cowboys and prostitutes in a Wild West saloon, among them the sneering
Jackson (Benjamin Walker) who tells the audience he likes to wear “tight,
tight” jeans and is raring to “let’s go!” with the story of his life, which
begins in the Tennessee hills. Jackson’s world dealt with the White House,
Indian relocation, and war, but it told its story with references to Susan
Sontag, douche bags, stimulus packages, swimming pools, and mornings in
America.
Jackson faces rebellious Indians and predatory British and Spanish
troops, and also meets his lifetime love Rachel (Maria Elena Ramirez), who
joins him in the supposedly healthful ritual of blood-letting. Later, our
General Jackson pushes the Indians westward to California and after the
Battle of New Orleans the British eastward to England, and ultimately is
elected president as a populist, antiestablishment candidate who at first
wants to bring the electorate into the decision-making process by the
methodology of polling. But the reluctant public decides it doesn’t want to
make difficult and unpopular choices, and so Jackson takes his destiny in
hand by assuming full responsibility for his potentially controversial
actions, including the forced relocation of Indians to the American West.
The rock-infused score included “Rock Star,” in which Jackson
announces he’ll fill the public with “popularjism,” and suggests if there’s no
real place for a first-rank celebrity rock star in American life, then just go
ahead and shoot him; in “Public Life,” he promises to take back the country
but notes “the irony is killing me”; and in the explosive “Second Nature”
(which makes an interesting companion piece to Stephen Sondheim’s
equally explosive and ironic “Next” in Pacific Overtures), the chorus
celebrates the American Idea of taking what we want and transforming it
into our image by turning prairies into parking lots.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the “invigorating” and
“devastatingly insightful” musical, a “rowdy political carnival” that was
“vertiginously” directed by Timbers, played with “omnisexual swagger” by
Walker, and designed by Donyale Werle as a “loopy” Wild West show that
“extends and heightens the show’s jumble-sale aesthetic without
overpackaging.” Friedman’s “post-ironic” score was “achingly sincere”
even as it thumbed its nose at “aching sincerity, hot and cool in one breath,”
Danny Mefford’s choreography ensured that the “rambunctious” cast
boogied “like demented Las Vegas showgirls,” and the performance style
might actually “register as sloppy to audiences used to mechanically
synchronized chorus lines and voices ironed smooth by amplification.”
Richard Zoglin in Time found the “overwrought and simpleminded”
evening “a trial to sit through, and something of an insult.” It lacked
“dramatic fluidity” and its “revisionism just looks like a lame high school
prank.” But in her review in Variety of the Off-Broadway production,
Marilyn Stasio commented that the “representational humor” had “hilarious
disregard for nuance” and the narration came off as “a scrupulously
researched but not too intellectually taxing history special by PBS.” The
show’s “smart subtext” had to do “with narrative itself” because the action
was “refracted through multiple information sources,” and the musical’s
creators were “nothing if not democratic in their contempt for how we
make, market and destroy our heroes.”
John Lahr in the New Yorker asked some pertinent questions. For all the
show’s “impertinent high jinks,” just “What do we sing about? How do we
survive? How can we find new ways of telling a relevant story?”
The musical premiered at the Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas
Theatre on January 13, 2008; was later produced at the Public Theatre’s
LAB series at the Shiva Theatre on May 5, 2009, for twenty-four
performances; and then played at the Public’s Newman Theatre on March
23, 2010, for ninety-six performances. Benjamin Walker played the title
role in all three productions. Prior to the Broadway production, the song
“Oh, Andrew Jackson” was cut. As noted, the cast recording of the Public
Theatre production was released by Ghostlight Records.
Walker later appeared in the title role of American Psycho, another
controversial (and short-running) musical.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Book (Alex Timbers); Best Scenic Design
of a Musical (Donyale Werle)
RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES ON BROADWAY

(2010)
Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre (during run, the musical transferred to the
Brooks Atkinson Theatre)
Opening Date: October 26, 2010; Closing Date: July 31, 2011
Performances: 300
Direction: Not credited in program; Producers: Annerin Productions, Magic
Arts & Entertainment/New Space/Tix Productions, Nederlander
Presentations, Inc., and RAIN; Scenic Design: Scott Christensen and
Todd Skinner; Video Design: Darren McCaulley and Mathieu St-
Arnaud; Lighting: Stephan Gotschel
Cast: Steve Landes (Vocals [John Lennon], Rhythm Guitar, Piano,
Harmonica), Joey Curatolo (Vocals [Paul McCartney], Bass, Piano,
Guitar), Joe Bithorn (Vocals [George Harrison], Lead Guitar, Guitar
Synth, Sitar), Ralph Castelli (Vocals [Ringo Starr], Drums, Percussion),
Mark Beyer (Keyboard, Percussion); the program noted that “at certain
performances” the following performers would appear: Graham
Alexander (Vocals, Bass, Piano, Guitar), Joe Bologna (Drums,
Percussion, Vocals), Douglas Cox (Drums, Percussion, Vocals), Jim
Irizarry (Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Piano, Harmonia), David Leon
(Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Piano Harmonica), Mark Lewis (Keyboard,
Percussion), Jimmy Pou (Vocals, Lead Guitar, Guitar Synth), Mac
Ruffing (Vocals, Bass, Piano, Guitar), Chris Smallwood (Keyboard,
Percussion), Tom Teeley (Vocals, Lead Guitar, Guitar Synth, Sitar)
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers, but a credits
notation at the end of the program provided a list of the following
songs:
Lyrics and music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney: “All My Lovin,”
“This Boy,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “I Saw Her Standing There,”
“A Hard Day’s Night,” “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You,”
“Yesterday,” “Help!,” “Day Tripper,” “Sgt. Pepper,” “With a Little Help
from My Friends,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Strawberry Fields,” “When I’m
64,” “A Day in the Life,” “Hello Goodbye,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Girl,”
“Norwegian Wood,” “We Can Work It Out,” “Blackbird,” “Mother
Nature’s Son,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “And I Love Her,” “Rocky
Raccoon,” “Come Together,” “Get Back,” “Revolution,” “The End,”
“Let It Be,” “Hey Jude,” and “All You Need Is Love”; lyric and music
by Bert Berns and Phil Medley: “Twist and Shout”; lyric and music by
George Harrison: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
Did New York really need another Beatles’ tribute? Apparently so, and
audiences kept Rain falling for 300 performances (as Rain: A Tribute to the
Beatles, the show was remounted at Madison Square Garden for a limited
run of six showings in 2018; see entry). And for those unlucky audience
members who missed the original production of Rain and were too
impatient to wait eight years for the return engagement, there was no need
to panic because in 2013 there was another Beatles tribute revue with Let It
Be.
The granddaddy of them all was Beatlemania, which opened on May
31, 1977, at the Winter Garden Theatre and played for 920 performances.
Like Rain, it was a concert with four singers in Beatles drag who performed
what was in effect an evening of the foursome’s Greatest Hits.
There were also two different tributes to John Lennon, both titled
Lennon. The first was a British import that opened Off-Broadway at the
Entermedia Theater on October 5, 1982, for twenty-five performances, and
the second was a $10 million lemon that premiered at the Broadhurst
Theatre on August 14, 2005, for forty-nine showings. New York also saw
Tom O’Horgan’s flashy stage production Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band on the Road, which was based on the popular Beatles album and
opened at the Beacon Theatre on November 17, 1974 for sixty-six
performances.
There were European tributes as well. London had John, Paul, George,
Ringo . . . and Bert which opened at the Lyric Theatre on August 17, 1974,
for 418 showings, and in 2005 Germany was blessed with Elvis & John, an
evening of two one-act musicals (the first about Presley, the second about
Lennon).
Theatre World reported that Rain offered “historical” film footage as
well as period television commercials (of the Prell shampoo and Winston
cigarette variety). Moreover, there were truly groovy moments when live
cameras stationed throughout the theatre actually zoomed in with close-ups
of the Beatles’ impersonators. The New Yorker warned you’d “feel like
you’ve wandered into a lavish theme bar mitzvah planned by an
overenthusiastic mom.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times described the “tricked-up
cover band concert” and “new Beatles video game” as “another boomer
theme park ride” on Broadway. He admitted he was no expert in all-things-
Beatles, and had asked a Beatles “devotee” to attend the show with him, but
said devotee “reacted as if I’d asked her to come along for two weeks of
jury duty.” Although the evening was devoid of “anything resembling
spontaneity or authenticity,” the four leads were “fine” musicians and
“capable” voice impersonators. The “enraptured” audience members were
given “regular invitations to sing along,” but many didn’t require formal
requests and had already begun doing so, invitation or no. Meanwhile, the
audience was asked to clap their hands “on cue” and stand and dance to the
evening’s “perkier” songs.
The concert was originally scheduled for a limited three-month
engagement, but was extended and racked up a total of eight months in
New York. Meanwhile, another company toured the country. The program
noted that Mark Lewis was the founder and manager of the troupe Rain,
and “as the managerial and creative mind,” he transformed the musicians
from “a 1970’s southern California bar band doing Beatles’ covers into an
ultra-professional group.”
Rain Corps released the three-CD set Rain—Live One and Live Two &
The Show That Never Was.
THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS

Theatre: Lyceum Theatre
Opening Date: October 31, 2010; Closing Date: December 12, 2010
Performances: 49
Book: David Thompson
Lyrics: Fred Ebb
Music: John Kander
Direction and Choreography: Susan Stroman (Jeff Whiting, Associate
Director and Choreographer); Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler, Jacki
Barlia Florin, Janet Pailet/Sharon A. Carr/Patricia R. Klausner,
Nederlander Presentations, Inc./The Shubert Organization,
Inc./Beechwood Entertainment, Broadway Across America, Mark
Zimmerman, Adam Blanshay/R2D2 Productions, Rick
Danzansky/Barry Tatelman, Bruce Robert Harris/Jack W. Batman,
Allen Spivak/Jerry Frankel, Bard Theatricals/Probo Productions/Randy
Donaldson, Catherine Schreiber/Michael Palitz/Patti Laskawy, Vineyard
Theatre (Carlos Arana, Ruth Eckerd Hall, Inc., Brett England, Associate
Producers) (Alecia Parker, Executive Producer); Scenery: Beowulf
Boritt; Costumes: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical
Direction: Paul Masse
Cast: John Cullum (Interlocutor), Colman Domingo (Mr. Bones), Forrest
McClendon (Mr. Tambo), Sharon Washington (The Lady); The
Scottsboro Boys: Josh Breckenridge (Olen Montgomery), Derrick
Cobey (Andy Wright), Jeremy Gumbs (Eugene Williams), Joshua
Henry (Haywood Patterson), Rodney Hicks (Clarence Norris), Kendrick
Jones (Willie Roberson), James T. Lane (Ozie Powell), Julius Thomas
III (Roy Wright), Christian Dante White (Charles Weems); Other
Characters: Colman Domingo (Sheriff Bones, Lawyer Bones, Guard
Bones, Attorney General, Clerk), Forrest McClendon (Deputy Tambo,
Lawyer Tambo, Guard Tambo, Samuel Leibowitz), Christian Dante
White (Victoria Price), James T. Lane (Ruby Bates), John Cullum
(Judge, Governor of Alabama), Kendrick Jones (Electrified Charley),
Julius Thomas III (Electrified Isaac, Billy), Rodney Hicks (Preacher),
Jeremy Gumbs (Little George)
The action takes place in Alabama during the period 1931–1937.
Musical Numbers
“Minstrel March” (Orchestra); “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” (Company);
“Commencing in Chattanooga” (Joshua Henry, The Scottsboro Boys);
“Alabama Ladies” (Christian Dante Wright, James T. Lane); “Nothin’”
(Joshua Henry); “Electric Chair” (Colman Domingo, Forrest
McClendon, Jeremy Gumbs, Kendrick Jones, Julius Thomas III); “Go
Back Home” (Joshua Henry, Jeremy Gumby, The Scottsboro Boys);
“Shout!” (The Scottsboro Boys); “Make Friends with the Truth”
(Joshua Henry, The Scottsboro Boys); “That’s Not the Way We Do
Things” (Forrest McClendon); “Never Too Late” (James T. Lane, The
Scottsboro Boys); “Financial Advice” (Colman Domingo); “Southern
Days” (The Scottsboro Boys); “Chain Gang” (The Scottsboro Boys);
“Alabama Ladies” (reprise) (Christian Dante White); “Zat So?” (John
Cullum, Forrest McClendon, Joshua Henry); “You Can’t Do Me”
(Joshua Henry, The Scottsboro Boys); “The Scottsboro Boys” (The
Scottsboro Boys); “Minstrel March” (reprise) (Orchestra)
Like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The
Scottsboro Boys was a look at American history that failed to find its public,
and the $4 million production managed just six weeks on Broadway.
Perhaps the musical made the fatal mistake of presenting the story in the
framework of the traditional minstrel show, because the minstrel mix of
cakewalk and comedy didn’t work well with the stark racism surrounding
an actual incident when nine black youths were falsely accused of rape.
Kander and Ebb’s Chicago (1975) had gone a similar route with its use of
familiar vaudeville-styled turns to tell the story of merry murderesses in the
cell block, but virtually all the characters in Chicago were selfish and venal,
and so the gaudy show-business trimmings worked just fine. Even Kander
and Ebb’s third “prison” musical, the empty Kiss of the Spider Woman
(1993), impressed many with the contrast of its sour and dismal story and
the colorful and campy scenes of the leading character’s movie fantasies.
The Scottsboro Boys looked at the true story of what happened on
March 25, 1931, when nine young black males ranging in age from thirteen
to nineteen were accused by two white women of rape. They were brought
to trial and found guilty, and despite the admission by one of the women
that the rape story was a fabrication, the case became a Niagara of national
protests, new trials, dropped charges, denials for pardons, and eventual
paroles for most of the men. Only Haywood Patterson (Joshua Henry)
remained in jail, because the provisions of his release demanded he plead
guilty to rape, something he refused to do, and in 1952 he died of cancer
while still in prison. The last of the Scottsboro Boys was Clarence Norris,
who died on January 23, 1989.
The musical premiered at the Vineyard Theatre’s Gertrude and Irving
Dimson Theatre on February 12, 2010, for forty-one performances.
Brandon Victor Dixon, Sean Bradford, and Cody Ryan Wise created the
respective roles of Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, and Eugene Williams,
and for Broadway were succeeded by Joshua Henry, James T. Lane, and
Jeremy Gumbs.
In his review of the Off-Broadway production, Ben Brantley in the New
York Times noted that the historical events portrayed in the musical were
still “too raw and upsetting to be treated with too much panache,” and so
the production gave “the impression of always treading carefully” and the
songs lacked the “sharp” and “savvy” touch of Kander and Ebb’s earlier
work. In reviewing the Broadway production for the same newspaper,
Charles Isherwood found the score “zesty if not top-tier,” and said both
“jaunty” music and a “clever” lyric were “hard to savor when they are
presented in such an unavoidably grim context.” Further, the production
was conflicted with its desire to both “entertain” and “render the harsh
morals of its story with earnest insistence,” and he wasn’t certain it was
possible to “honor” what the Scottsboro Boys had to endure by “turning
their suffering into a colorful sideshow.”
Hilton Als in the New Yorker said the evening was “unsettling, often
brilliant,” and “sometimes mechanical-seeming.” Unfortunately, the
musical pulled away “from the ugliness of the material by stressing” its
“entertainment” values. He remarked that in the 1972 film version of
Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret (1966), director and choreographer Bob Fosse
focused on the “ominous horror” of the story, but here director and
choreographer Susan Stroman brought “too many moments of razzmatazz
sparkle and likeability.” Richard Zoglin in Time indicated the “grim” story
was turned into a “sprightly” musical without “reducing it to trivia,” and the
“wrenching human drama” nonetheless kicked “up a storm in a series of
jaunty, ragtimeflavored” numbers. As a result, you left the theatre both
“disturbed” and “entertained.”
The Off-Broadway cast recording, released by Jay Records, includes a
bonus track of Kander performing “Go Back Home,” and of course includes
Dixon, Bradford, and Wise.
The Scottsboro Boys brought to mind a similarly tragic story that was
adapted into the affecting musical Parade (1998). It took place in Georgia
during the period 1913–1915, and told the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish
factory manager who was falsely accused of the rape and murder of a
teenage girl. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, but he
was kidnapped from jail by a mob who lynched him. Despite Jason Robert
Brown’s masterful score, Alfred Uhry’s serious and compelling book, and
heartfelt performances by Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello, the musical
(which won belated Tony Awards for Best Score and Book and won the
New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical), the production
didn’t attract audiences and closed after eighty-five performances. The
Scottsboro Boys tried a different tack to tell its story, but irony and the use
of the minstrel show format was of no help, just as the straightforward
dramatic approach didn’t save Parade.
The Scottsboro Boys also recalled the plight of The Last Minstrel Show,
an ambitious 1978 musical that closed in Philadelphia during its pre-
Broadway tryout. Set in 1926 (and starring Della Reese and Gregory
Hines), the concept musical depicted the final performance of an all-black
minstrel show (with black performers in blackface), which is shut down
because of protests that it’s racist and demeaning to blacks. Ironically, there
were some who found The Last Minstrel Show racially offensive.
Kander and Ebb had all but finished their score for The Scottsboro Boys
at the time of the latter’s death in 2004, and reportedly Kander later
completed some of the lyrics. After The Scottsboro Boys, Broadway saw
one more new Kander and Ebb musical, the powerful The Visit, which
despite its strong score, intriguing story, and star performance by Chita
Rivera was unable to sustain a run on Broadway.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (The Scottsboro Boys); Best Book
(David Thompson); Best Original Score (John Kander and Fred Ebb);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Joshua
Henry); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Colman Domingo); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role
in a Musical (Forrest McClendon); Best Choreography (Susan
Stroman); Best Direction of a Musical (Susan Stroman); Best
Orchestrations (Larry Hochman); Best Scenic Design of a Musical
(Beowulf Boritt); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Ken Billington);
Best Sound Design of a Musical (Peter Hylenski)
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

“A NEW MUSICAL”
Theatre: Belasco Theatre

Opening Date: November 4, 2010; Closing Date: January 2, 2011
Performances: 69
Book: Jeffrey Lane
Lyrics and Music: David Yazbek
Based on the 1988 El Deseo/Laurenfilm Mujeres al borde de un ataque de
nervios (direction and screenplay by Pedro Almodóvar).
Direction: Bartlett Sher; Producer: Lincoln Center Producer (under the
direction of Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten in association with Bob
Boyett); Choreography: Christopher Gattelli; Scenery: Michael
Yeargan; Projections: Sven Ortel; Aerial Design: The Sky Box; Special
Effects: Gregory Meeh; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Brian
MacDevitt; Musical Direction: Jim Abbott
Cast: Sherie Rene Scott (Pepa), Brian Stokes Mitchell (Ivan), Patti LuPone
(Lucia), Laura Benanti (Candela), Mary Beth Peil (Pepa’s Concierge,
TV and Radio Announcer), de’Adre Aziza (Paulina), Nikka Graff
Lanzarone (Marisa), Jennifer Sanchez (Cristina), Murphy Guyer
(Hector, TV Husband, Magistrate), Charlie Sutton (Man in Film,
Telephone Repairman), Nina Lafarga (Woman in Film, Ana), Sean
McCourt (Doctor, Detective), Luis Salgado (Malik), Justin Guarini
(Carlos), Alma Cuervo (Ivan’s Concierge, Magistrate 2), Danny
Burstein (Taxi Driver), Julio Agustin (Ambite); Ensemble: Julio
Agustin, Alma Cuervo, Murphy Guyer, Nina Lafarga, Yanira Marin,
Sean McCourt, Vivian Nixon, Luis Salgado, Jennifer Sanchez, Phillip
Spaeth, Matthew Steffens, Charlie Sutton
The action takes place during 1987 in Madrid.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “My Crazy Heart” (The Women); “Lie to Me” (Sherie Rene
Scott, Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Lovesick” (Sherie Rene Scott,
Ensemble); “Time Stood Still” (Patti LuPone); “My Crazy Heart”
(reprise) (Danny Burstein, Justin Guarini, Nikka Graff Lanzarone,
Ensemble); “Model Behavior” (Laura Benanti); “Island” (Sherie Rene
Scott); “The Microphone” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Justin Guarini); “On
the Verge” (Patti LuPone, Sherie Rene Scott, Laura Benanti, Nikka
Graff Lanzarone, The Women)
Act Two: “Madrid” (Danny Burstein); “Mother’s Day” (Sherie Rene
Scott); “Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today” (Brian Stokes Mitchell);
“Tangled” (Danny Burstein, Justin Guarini, Laura Benanti, Brian Stokes
Mitchell, Sherie Rene Scott, de’Adre Aziza, Nina Lafarga, Julio
Agustin); “Invisible” (Patti LuPone); “Island” (reprise) (Sherie Rene
Scott, Laura Benanti, Justin Guarini); “Marisa”/“The Chase” (Nikka
Graff Lanzarone, Ensemble)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown boasted one of the

decade’s most impressive casts (Patti LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Sherie
Rene Scott, Laura Benanti, Danny Burstein, and Mary Beth Peil) and its
director was Bartlett Sher, who helmed Adam Guettel’s The Light in the
Piazza (2005) and the celebrated 2008 revival of South Pacific. After
Women on the Verge, he directed Jason Robert Brown’s The Bridges of
Madison County (2014) and revivals of The King and I (2015), Fiddler on
the Roof (2015), and My Fair Lady (2018). The lyrics and music were by
David Yazbek, who had written the enjoyable and often intriguing scores
for The Full Monty (2000) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005) (he later
wrote the scores for The Band’s Visit and Tootsie). Moreover, the musical
was based on the popular Spanish film Mujeres al borde de un ataque de
nervios. Despite praise for the stars, the score, and the décor, most of the
notices weren’t overly enthusiastic and the show managed only two months
on Broadway.
Was the title off-putting to potential ticket buyers, who may have
thought the evening was a feminist diatribe? Or was it the plot, which
sounded like a soap opera? Indeed, the story was almost as convoluted as
any afternoon or evening television soap. Pregnant Pepa (Scott) has been
dumped by her lover Ivan (Mitchell) for Paulina (de’Adre Aziza), who is
the lawyer representing Ivan’s former wife Lucia (Patti LuPone), who is
suing him for desertion. His action resulted in Lucia’s commitment to an
insane asylum for almost twenty years, but now she’s both discharged and
charged up for sweet revenge. Meanwhile, the young lovers Marisa (Nikka
Graff Lazarone) and Lucia and Ivan’s son Carlos (Justin Guarini) are
quickly learning that love can be rather terrifying, and Pepa’s friend and
fashion model Candela (Benanti) is perhaps just terrified, because she’s
learned that her lover Malik (Luis Salgado) is a terrorist. And weaving in
and out of all this traffic is Taxi Driver (Burstein) who serves as a narrator
of sorts and a musical guide to the glories of Greater Downtown Madrid.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the musical was “a sad
casualty of its own wandering mind” and was “hopelessly distracted from
beginning to end.” The evening constantly switched gears, soon everything
blurred “into one pretty, jittery gaze,” and even the finish of LuPone’s first
solo (“Time Stood Still”) lacked an applause button (“and woe unto ye who
deprive La LuPone of applause”). The production itself was “chocka-block
with visual novelties,” including projections which depicted a taxi ride
throughout Madrid, props (such as telephones and answering machines) that
appeared “in giant multiple images,” a bed that catches fire, and swings
made of rope for the actresses to mount during the first-act finale, “On the
Verge.” Yazbek’s score offered “various catchy Latin rhythms” which were
nonetheless “oddly listless,” but LuPone’s “Invisible” had a “soulful
wistfulness to which she gives her all.”
John Lahr in the New Yorker noted that “farce is about momentum,
which is hard to sustain in musicals,” but Michael Yeargan’s “ingenious
abstract” set and Sven Ortel’s “garish” projections provided a “madcap
external” space to match the “frenetic internal” space of the characters.
John Lane’s book was “witty,” Yazbek’s music was “appealing” and his
lyrics “clever,” Benanti’s “Model Behavior” was “manic” and
“sensational,” and “Invisible” was the “best and most moving” song and
was “superbly” sung by LuPone. Richard Zoglin in Time liked the “deft”
book, said the stars were “a murderer’s row of Broadway musical talent,”
and noted that Yazbek’s “melodic” Latin-flavored score was “more than just
good—it’s on the verge of being memorable.”
During previews, “Shoes from Heaven” was dropped, but is included on
the original cast album released by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records. The
CD also includes an early version of “My Crazy Heart” that was cut in
previews and omits the finale sequence (“Marisa”/“The Chase”). The
revised London production was directed by Sher and opened at the
Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 2015, for a run of almost five months.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Original Score (David Yazbek); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Laura
Benanti); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a
Musical (Patti LuPone)
THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW

Theatre: Stephen Sondheim Theatre
Performances: 62
Script: Paul Reubens and Bill Steinkellner; additional material by John
Paragon
Music: Jay Cotton
Direction: Alex Timbers (Ian Unterman and Jeremy Bloom, respective
Associate Director and Assistant Director); Producers: Scott Sanders
Productions (Adam S. Gordon, Allan S. Gordon, Elan V. McAllister,
Roy Miller, Carol Fineman), Scott Zeilinger Productions/Radio Mouse
Entertainment/StylesFour Productions/Randy Donaldson/Tim
Laczynski (Kelly Bush, Jared Geller, David J. Foster, and Anne Caruso,
Associate Producers); Choreography: Wendy Seyb; Scenery: David
Korins; Projection Design: Jake Pinholster; Design Consultant: Jimmy
Cuomo; Cartoon and Film Consultant: Prudence Fenton; Costumes:
Ann Closs-Farley; Puppetry: Basil Twist; Lighting: Jeff Croiter;
Musical Direction: Uncredited
Cast: Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman), John Moody (Mailman Mike),
Drew Powell (Bear), John Paragon (Jambi), Jesse Garcia (Sergio), Phil
LaMarr (Cowboy Curtis), Lynne Marie Stewart (Miss Yvonne), Lance
Roberts (King of Cartoons), Josh Meyers (Firefighter); Voices: Lexy
Fridell, Josh Meyers, John Paragon, Drew Powell, Lance Roberts;
Puppeteers: Oliver Dalzell, Haley Jenkins, Matt Leabo, Eric Novak,
Adam Pagdon, Jessica Scott, Amanda Villalobos, Chris de Ville, Lute
Ramblin Breuer
The revue was presented in one act.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers, but the credits
noted that “Tequila” (lyric and music by Chuck Rio) was included in the
production.
Never let it be said that The Pee-wee Herman Show wasn’t the first
production to play at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre (previously known as
Henry Miller’s Theatre, where All about Me was the final show to play
there prior to the name change). Pee-wee and Sondheim might make an
interesting combination, and if someone wants to produce a radically new
interpretation of Sweeney Todd, our Pee-wee would no doubt make a perfect
cut-up.
Pee-wee was the alter-ego of Paul Reubens, or maybe it was the other
way around. The irrepressible Pee-wee was one of the era’s most
memorable comic creations, a retro if not subversive variation of the 1950s
kiddie-TV persona Pinky Lee (played by Pincus Leff), and it was Pee-wee,
not Reubens, who gave interviews and made appearances on television talk
shows.
Pee-wee was passively aggressive and aggressively passive, and lived in
a world of oversized chairs and quirky friends and nerdy clothing (in high
school he probably thought a pocket-protector was the ne plus ultra of
fashion accessories), and he viewed life through the prism of high camp,
not that Pee-wee and his young fans would have understood the term. In
fact, a masturbation joke or two, a quip about gay marriage, and a reference
that Pee-wee has a pen pal named Lou who’s serving time in the slammer,
no doubt went over the heads of the kiddies in the audience (but Terry
Teachout in the Wall Street Journal cautioned that the show wasn’t really
for children, and if you brought your child you should be “prepared to do a
fair amount of heavy-duty explaining”).
But adults could enjoy the double-edged sting of Pee-wee’s life and
adventures, a saga that began when Pee-wee was introduced at midnight on
February 7, 1981, at the Groundlings Theatre in Los Angeles. From there, a
cable television special was shown on HBO, and then the series Pee-wee’s
Playhouse became a staple on CBS for five seasons. There were also three
movies, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Big Top Pee-wee (1988), and the
Netflix film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday (2016).The current production
originated at L.A. Live’s Club Nokia on January 12, 2010, and included
three of Pee-wee’s very best friends, Mailman Mike (John Moody), Jambi
the Genie (John Paragon), and Miss Yvonne (Lynne Marie Stewart), all of
whom joined our boy for the Broadway limited engagement.
John Lahr in the New Yorker reported that Pee-wee’s fans whooped it up
long before the star made his first entrance. But soon “doom” set in because
the evening offered “non-characters wandering in a non-plot, speaking non-
dialogue,” and the show became the “comic equivalent of lint.” But
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the show was “essentially a
nostalgic trip” that “evokes a kinder, gentler era—though not necessarily a
more innocent one,” and David Cote in Timeout noted the production was
“an excellent showcase for the star’s campy, giddy Peter Pan antics” and the
evening was “a highly original Pop-derived kitsch, executed with relish and
just enough showbiz polish to keep us engaged.”
Linda Winer in Newsday said the “90-minute weirdness” began with the
Pledge of Allegiance, and when Pee-wee told the audience that tonight’s
secret word was fun, the faithful “roared approval after anyone said fun.”
Pee-wee was “a goofy-hip trendsetter and symbol of cheerful gender
politics,” and his stage home designed by David Korins was “a fabulous
kitsch-fest of purples and reds, plush and shag, with dizzying angles.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the production was
“nothing more and nothing less than a bubble bath of nostalgia” for Pee-
wee’s public and it provided a “merry jumble of beloved bits designed to
push the audience’s buttons with their familiarity.” There were vestiges of
plot that dealt with the rewiring of Pee-wee’s house as he prepares for an
adventure into “computerland,” and Pee-wee’s “restless imagination and
childish mood swings” were “as extravagant as ever.” But those “Pee-wee-
ignorant” or “Pee-wee-averse” were “definitely not invited to the party.”
The production was filmed for showing on HBO as The Pee-wee
Herman Show on Broadway and was later released on DVD by Image
Entertainment.
ELF (2010)
“THE BROADWAY MUSICAL”
Theatre: Al Hirschfeld Theatre
Performances: 57
Book: Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin
Lyrics: Chad Beguelin
Music: Matthew Sklar
Based on the 2003 New Line Cinema film Elf (direction by Jon Favreau and
screenplay by David Berenbaum).
Direction and Choreography: Casey Nicholaw (Casey Hushion, Associate
Director); Producers: Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Inc. in association
with Unique Features (Mark Kaufman, Executive Producer); Scenery:
David Rockwell; Projection Design: Zachary Borovay; Costumes:
Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Phil Reno
Cast: George Wendt (Santa), Nancy Johnston (Mrs. Claus), Sebastian
Arcelus (Buddy), Noah Weisberg (Charlie, Sam, Policeman), Asmeret
Ghebremichael (Shawanda), Mark Jacoby (Walter Hobbs), Matt Loehr
(Matthews), Blake Hammond (Chadwick), Beth Leavel (Emily),
Matthew Gumley (Michael), Valerie Wright (Deb), Michael Mandell
(Macy’s Manager), Amy Spangler (Jovie), Timothy J. Alex (Fake
Santa), Lee Wilkins (Policeman), Michael McCormick (Mr. Greenway),
Emily Hsu (Charlotte Dennon); Ensemble: Timothy J. Alex, Lisa Gajda,
Asmeret Ghebremichael, Blake Hammond, Jenny Hill, Emily Hsu,
Nancy Johnston, Matt Loehr, Michael James Scott, Noah Weisberg, Lee
Wilkins, Kirsten Wyatt
The action takes place during the present time in the North Pole and New
York City.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Christmastown” (George Wendt,
Sebastian Arcelus, Company); “World’s Greatest Dad” (Sebastian
Arcelus); “In the Way” (Valerie Wright, Mark Jacoby, Beth Leavel,
Matthew Gumley, Company); “Sparklejollytwinklejingley” (Sebastian
Arcelus, Michael Mandell, Company); “I’ll Believe in You” (Matthew
Gumley, Beth Leavel); “In the Way” (reprise) (Beth Leavel, Mark
Jacoby); “Just Like Him” (Sebastian Arcelus, Valerie Wright,
Company); “A Christmas Song” (Sebastian Arcelus, Amy Spangler);
“I’ll Believe in You” (reprise) (Sebastian Arcelus, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); Prologue: “The Streets of New York”
(Sebastian Arcelus, George Wendt); “Nobody Cares about Santa” (Fake
Santas, Michael Mandell, Sebastian Arcelus); “Never Fall in Love”
(Amy Spangler); “There Is a Santa Claus” (Matthew Gumley, Beth
Leavel); “The Story of Buddy the Elf” (Sebastian Arcelus, Matthew
Gumley, Mark Jacoby, Michael McCormick, Beth Leavel, Valerie
Wright, Company); “Nobody Cares about Santa” (reprise) (George
Wendt); “A Christmas Song” (reprise) (Amy Spangler, Sebastian
Arcelus, Beth Leavel, Matthew Gumley, Mark Jacoby, Company);
Finale (Company)
Elf and Donny & Marie—A Broadway Christmas were the season’s
holiday shows. Broadway generally ignored seasonal offerings, and for
decades Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas spectacular was the only
holiday show in town. But in 1994 Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens’s A
Christmas Carol played for ten consecutive holiday seasons at the Madison
Square Garden Theatre. Irving Berlin’s White Christmas showed up in 2008
and 2009, A Christmas Story visited in 2012 and 2013, and Dr. Seuss’ How
the Grinch Stole Christmas! played in 2006, 2007, and 2018. But some
Christmas visits were one-offs, such as Holiday Inn (2016) and the concert-
styled Home for the Holidays (2017). Elf was lucky, and after the current
New York premiere the show returned three more times in 2012, 2015, and
2017. All these Christmas shows were booked for limited runs, including
Elf, which for its current production played nine weeks, the first of which
was a series of preview performances.
Based on the popular 2003 film of the same name, Elf dealt with Buddy
(Sebastian Arcelus), an elf who works in Santa’s toyshop in the North Pole.
But certain clues lead Buddy to suspect he’s not really elfin: he’s twice the
size of his fellow elves, and he has absolutely no talent for making toys.
This leads to his discovery that he’s indeed not an elf, and it seems when he
was a baby and Santa delivered toys to his home one Christmas, he crawled
into Santa’s gift bag and was later discovered there when Santa returned to
the North Pole.
Buddy eventually travels to New York City to find his family, and
discovers his father Walter Hobbs (Mark Jacoby) is a grouch who could
give Scrooge a run for his money. But this is a Christmas story, and Buddy
teaches everyone the true meaning of Christmas and brings happiness and
fellowship to all his family and friends.
The New Yorker said the score was “zestful” and “candy colors”
dominated the stage, but “aggressive Christmas cheer” was everywhere, and
the cast members “blended into a happy haze.” Charles Isherwood in the
New York Times noted that Broadway’s “seasonal stocking stuffer” musicals
were “tinseled in synthetic sentiment, performed with a cheer that borders
on mania,” and were “instantly forgettable.” But if Elf’s score was
“generic,” it was also “polished” and “professional” with “hummable
tunes.” The lyrics had “bright comic zest,” the music was “gently
swinging,” and the boogie-woogie “Nobody Cares about Santa” was a
highlight. The cast was committed, there were some “decent” jokes
(“Christmas is all about fighting with your family”), and while David
Rockwell’s decor was lavish and re-created Rockefeller Center (replete with
an ice-skating rink) and Central Park, there was perhaps a bit too much of
“digital holiday imagery all over the place.” As for Buddy, when he arrives
in New York adorned with green fur and wearing colorful elf tights, it
seems likely that he’d be “hustled into the nearest drag bar and thrown
onstage to lip-sync a few numbers from Mariah Carey’s holiday album.”
The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records. A claymation film
version was presented by NBC on December 16, 2014, and included a new
song (“Freezy the Snowman”), and was released by Warner Home Video on
a two-DVD set as Elf: Buddy’s Christmas Musical. For the second
Broadway revival in 2012, “Christ-mastown” and “The Streets of New
York” were dropped, and a new song (“Happy All the Time”) was added.
The London production opened at the Dominion Theatre on October 24,
2015, for a limited run of ten weeks, and later a performance was filmed
live during a 2017 revival at the Lowry Theatre in Salford that was
produced by Nine Lives Media and was broadcast twice (on December 23
and 25). The December 23 telecast reportedly included a backstage
featurette.
DONNY & MARIE: A BROADWAY CHRISTMAS

Opening Date: December 9, 2010; Closing Date: January 2, 2011
Performances: 20
Direction and Choreography: Barry Lather; Producers: Gregory Young,
The Production Office, Atanas Ilitch, Jon B. Platt, On the Line
Company, Magic Arts & Entertainment, and Newspace Entertainment
in association with Greg Sperry and Eric Gardner; Production Design:
Perry “Butch” Allen and Peter Morse; Set and Video Design: Perry
“Butch” Allen; Costumes: Kristin Gallo; Lighting: Peter Morse; Musical
Direction: Jerry Williams
Cast: Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond; Dancers: Matthew Fish, Karl
Hendrickson, Jermaine Johnson, Kelene Johnson, Makinzee Love,
Richard Mcamish, Jessie Thacker, Jaymz Tuaileva, Ashley Williams,
Ivy Michelle Williams
The concert was presented in one act.
Musical Numbers
alphabetical list is taken from newspaper reviews.
“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” (1941 film Buck Privates; lyric and music by
Don Raye and Hughie Prince) (Marie Osmond); “Dance at the Gym”
(West Side Story, 1957; music by Leonard Bernstein) (danced by Donny
Osmond and Marie Osmond); “Go Away Little Girl” (lyric and music
by Gerry Goffin and Carole King) (Donny Osmond); “My Favorite
Things”: (The Sound of Music, 1959; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II,
music by Richard Rodgers) (Marie Osmond); “One Bad Apple” (lyric
and music by George Jackson) (Donny Osmond); “Paper Roses” (lyric
and music by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre) (Marie Osmond); “Pie
Jesu” (Requiem, 1985; traditional text, music by Andrew Lloyd
Webber) (Marie Osmond); “Puppy Love” (lyric and music by Paul
Anka) (Donny Osmond); “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” (lyric by
Haven Gillespie, music by J. Fred Coots) (Donny Osmond, Marie
Osmond); “Soldier of Love” (lyric and music by Carl Sturken and Evan
Rogers) (Donny Osmond); “We Need a Little Christmas” (Mame, 1966;
lyric and music by Jerry Herman) (Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond);
“Would I Lie to You?” (lyric and music by Annie Lennox and David A.
Stewart) (Marie Osmond)
Donny Osmond sang a medley of songs by Stevie Wonder as well as a

medley from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat (London, 1973; Broadway, 1982; Osmond had appeared in a
tour of the production that was eventually released on home video); and
Marie Osmond sang a Broadway medley that included: “All I Ask of You”
(Phantom of the Opera, London, 1986; New York, 1988; lyric by Charles
Hart, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber); “All That Jazz” (Chicago, 1975;
lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “Don’t Rain on My Parade”
(Funny Girl, 1964; lyric by Bob Merrill, music by Jule Styne); “Ease on
Down the Road” (The Wiz, 1975; lyric and music by Charlie Smalls); and
“Some People” (Gypsy, 1959; lyric by Stephen Sondheim, music by Jule
Styne).
The concert Donny & Marie—A Broadway Christmas followed Elf as
Broadway’s salute to the holiday season, and it played out its limited
engagement of twenty performances. But it seems the evening was more in
the nature of A Las Vegas Christmas.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times reported that the costumes
were “sleek and sexy,” and Marie Osmond wore a “form-fitting” outfit with
black patent leather boots and sometimes sported fishnet stockings.
Meanwhile, “rock-concert-style” video monitors provided close-ups of the
brother and sister, and there was an “eight-man rock band and [an] ear-
stinging sound system.” There was a medley of songs from Broadway
musicals, and another one offered songs by Stevie Wonder. A “Boogie
Woogie Bugle Boy” sequence found the ten back-up dancers dressed in
1940s outfits, and a campy moment occurred when Marie Osmond sang
“Pie Jesu” dressed in “a gauzy white feathered cape and sequined sheath”
while enshrouded in fog. And, oh, yes, there was a Christmas song or two,
notably “We Need a Little Christmas” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to
Town.”
Isherwood noted that the Osmonds were in “solid vocal estate” and
“great physical shape,” and were “skilled, old-fashioned troupers” who
seemed “wholesome to the core” and exuded “a cozy warmth that never
feels forced or artificial.”
PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT

“THE MUSICAL”
Theatre: Palace Theatre

Opening Date: March 20, 2011; Closing Date: June 24,
Performances: 526
Book: Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers below.
Based on the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,
released by Latent Image/Specific Films and distributed by Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (direction and screenplay by Stephan Elliott).
Direction: Simon Phillips (Dean Bryant, Associate Director) (production
“supervised” by Jerry Mitchell); Producers: Bette Midler, James L.
Nederlander, Garry McQuinn, Liz Koops, Michael Hamlyn, Allan Scott,
Roy Furman/Richard Willis, Terry Allen Kramer, Terri and Timothy
Childs, Ken Greiner and Ruth Hendel, Chugg Entertainment, Michael
Buckley, Stewart F. Lane/Bonnie Comley, Bruce Davey, Thierry
Suc/TS3, Bartner/Jenkins, Broadway Across America/H. Koenigsberg,
M. Lerner/D. Bisno/K. Seidel/R. Gold, Paul Baskind and Martian
Entertainment/Spirtas-Mauro Productions/MAS Music Arts & Show,
and David Mirvish in association with MGM on Stage (Darcie Denkert
and Dean Stolber); Ken Sunshine, Associate Producer; Alecia Parker,
Executive Producer; Choreography: Ross Coleman (Andrew
Hallsworth, Associate Choreographer); Bus Concept and Scenery: Brian
Thomson; Costumes: Tim Chappell and Lizzy Gardiner; Lighting: Nick
Schlieper; Musical Direction: Jeffrey Klitz
Cast: Jacqueline B. Arnold, Anastacia McCleskey, and Ashley Spencer
(The Divas), Will Swenson (Tick aka Mitzi), Nathan Lee Graham (Miss
Understanding), Jessica Phillips (Marion), Luke Mannikus and Ashton
Woerz (both actors alternated in the role of Benji), Steve Schepis
(Farrah, Young Bernadette), Tony Sheldon (Bernadette), Nick Adams
(Adam aka Felicia), Keala Settle (Shirley), James Brown III (Jimmy),
C. David Johnson (Bob), J. Elaine Marcos (Cynthia), Mike McGowan
(Frank); Ensemble: Thom Allison, Jacqueline B. Arnold, James Brown
III, Kyle Brown, Nathan Lee Graham, Gavin Lodge, J. Elaine Marcos,
Anastacia McCleskey, Mike McGowan, Jeff Metzler, Jessica Phillips,
Steve Schepis, Keala Settle, Ashley Spencer, Bryan West, Tad Wilson;
Note: Luke Mannikus and Ashton Woerz alternated in the role of Benji,
and both their names were given in the opening night program without
specifying who played the role at that performance; the Internet
Broadway Database and Theatre World give the names of both actors as
alternates in the role of Benji, and like the program, they don’t specify
who played the role for the opening night performance.
The action takes place during the present time in Australia.
Musical Numbers
Note: The opening night program didn’t provide the names of the lyricists
and composers.
Act One: The Overture: “It’s Raining Men” (lyric and music by Paul Jabara
and Paul Shaffer) (The Divas, Will Swenson, Company); “What’s Love
Got to Do with It?” (lyric and music by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle)
(Nathan Lee Graham); “I Say a Little Prayer” (lyric by Hal David,
music by Burt Bacharach) (Will Swenson); “Don’t Leave Me This
Way” (lyric and music by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Cary
Gilbert; or perhaps this is another song of the same title with lyric and
music by Paul Barry, Mark Taylor, and Brian Rawling) (Tony Sheldon,
Will Swenson, Company); “Material Girl” (lyric and music by Peter
Brown and Robert Rans) (Nick Adams, Boys) and “Go West” (lyric and
music by Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo, and Victor Willis) (Tony
Sheldon, Will Swenson, Nick Adams, Company); “Holiday” (lyric and
music by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens) and “Like a Virgin” (lyric
and music by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg) (Nick Adams, Will
Swenson, Tony Sheldon); “I Say a Little Prayer” (reprise) (Will
Swenson, The Divas); “I Love the Nightlife” (lyric and music by Susan
Hutcheson and Alicia Bridges) (Keala Settle, Tony Sheldon, Will
Swenson, Nick Adams, Company); “True Colors” (lyric and music by
Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly) (Tony Sheldon, Will Swenson, Nick
Adams); “Sempre Libre” (lyricist and composer unknown; possibly the
aria “Sempre libera” from Giuseppe Verdi’s 1853 opera La traviata)
(Nick Adams, The Divas); “Color My World” (lyric and music by Tony
Hatch and Jackie Trent; or perhaps this is another song of the same title
with lyric and music by James Pankow) (Nick Adams, Will Swenson,
Tony Sheldon, Company); “I Will Survive” (lyric and music by Dino
Fekaris and Freddie Perren) (Tony Sheldon, Nick Adams, Will
Swenson, James Brown III, Company)
Act Two: “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” (lyric and music by John Martin
Somers) (Company); “A Fine Romance” (1936 film Swing Time; lyric
by Dorothy Fields, music by Jerome Kern) (Steve Schepis, Les Girls);
“Thank God I’m a Country Boy” (reprise) (Company); “Shake Your
Groove Thing” (lyric and music by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren)
(Will Swenson, Tony Sheldon, Nick Adams, The Divas); “Pop Muzik”
(lyric and music by M aka Robin Scott) (J. Elaine Marcos, Company);
“A Fine Romance” (reprise) (C. David Johnson); “Girls Just Wanna
Have Fun” (lyric and music by Robert Hazard) (Nick Adams, The
Divas); “Hot Stuff” (lyric and music by Pete Bellotte, Harold
Faltermeyer, and Keith Forsey) (Nick Adams, The Divas, Tony
Sheldon); “MacArthur Park” (lyric and music by Jimmy Webb) (Tony
Sheldon, Will Swenson, The Divas, Company); “Boogie Wonderland”
(lyric and music by Allee Willis and Jon Lind) (Company); “The Floor
Show” (Will Swenson, Tony Sheldon, Nick Adams, Company); “(You
Were) Always on My Mind” (lyric and music by Johnny Christopher,
Mark James, and Wayne Carson) (Will Swenson, Luke Mannikus or
Ashton Woerz); “Like a Prayer” (lyric and music by Madonna and
Patrick Leonard) (Nick Adams, Company); “We Belong” (lyric and
music by Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro) (Nick Adams, Will Swenson,
Tony Sheldon, Company); “Finally Medley” (lyric and music of
“Finally” by Rodney K. Jackson, Ce Ce Peniston, Felipe Delgado, and
E. L. Linnear) (Company)
The Australian-via-London import Priscilla Queen of the Desert was

based on the 1994 Australian cult film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen
of the Desert about two drag queens, Tick aka Mitzi (Will Swenson) and
Adam aka Felicia (Nick Adams) and the transsexual Bernadette (Tony
Sheldon, who created the role for the world premiere in Australia and also
starred in the London production) who embark on a journey through the
Australian Outback in their blinged-out motorbus, which they call Priscilla.
Their ostensible mission is to reach Alice Springs, where they’ll put on a
glittery floor show at a casino managed by Tick’s estranged wife Marion
(Jessica Phillips). But the real reason for the journey is due to Marion’s
determination that Tick and their son Benji finally meet.
The evening’s message seemed to be about tolerance, love, and self-
empowerment, and hadn’t we all learned these lessons in other musicals on
the order of La Cage aux Folles? Priscilla didn’t have anything new to say
on the subject, and in some respects was just an over-the-top variation of
the Jerry Herman musical. In fact, Charles Isherwood in the New York
Times noted that Priscilla lacked the “narrative complexity” of La Cage,
and then exclaimed, “Egad, did I just write those words?”
At its glitzy heart, Priscilla was just a drag-show fashion parade, and
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said that without the
costumes “there’d be no show.” The outfits continually topped themselves
as they were paraded up and down the runway (that is, the stage), and while
men in drag were hardly new to Broadway, the audience was apparently
expected to swoon in astonishment at the sight of men in extravagant drag
outfits. Moreover, the audience members could exult in hearing old disco
favorites and could even participate in the action by dancing right up there
on the stage. As a result, Priscilla was right in step with the zeitgeist
because it was a feel-good musical with a drag-show formula topped off
with dollops of audience participation. In some respects, the show
institutionalized Drag on Broadway, and soon every season seemed to offer
a drag musical of one kind or another, including Bring It On, Kinky Boots,
Matilda, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Head over Heels, and Tootsie.
The New Yorker said Priscilla was “only for the demented or the brain-
dead,” and was little more than “a floor show disguised as a musical” that
reached “new heights of vulgarity” (including the “never to be forgotten
spectacle” of one cast member who somehow was able to fire Ping-Pong
balls from her crotch into the audience). Besides those Ping-Pong balls, the
audience was treated to a blizzard of confetti and the sight of oversized
dancing cupcakes (to the music of “MacArthur Park”). And when all else
failed, the divas occasionally materialized atop the bus and pounded out
those old disco favorites.
Brantley said the “monotonous and mechanical” show was “oddly
enervating,” and he found it strange that the three leads often lip-synced, “a
busy and bizarre effect for a live musical.” The “karaoke-inspired” evening
evoked a disco with a “D.J. on autopilot” where only “the really hardened
club crawlers are still churning away.” The dances were “mostly uninspired
music video-style calisthenics,” the continuous onslaught of “outlandish”
costumes began to feel “stale and overworked,” and it all seemed as if
“you’d been conked on the head with a disco ball.”
Dziemianowicz said the musical was just “another movie plopped onto
the stage without developing the plot or relationships” and a “glossy
costume party masquerading as a musical,” and while David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter noted the production offered “crassness, clunky
storytelling and undue slavishness to its source material,” the musical was
nonetheless “a joyous crowd-pleasing entertainment.” Elisabeth Vincentelli
in the New York Post said there was nothing the “shamelessly feel-good
show won’t do to entertain,” and Peter Marks in the Washington Post
decided the “neon rainbow of loopiness is far more worthy of accolades
than the manufactured colorfulness of the business-world musical [How to
Succeed . . . .] a block or two away.”
The musical premiered at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney, Australia, on
October 7, 2006, and later at the Palace Theatre in London where it opened
on March 23, 2009. The Australian cast recording was released on Import
Records, the London cast album was issued on 101 Distribution Records,
and Music from “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” performed by Union of
Sound, was released on the White Parrott label. The soundtrack of the 1994
film was released by Mother/Polydor/PolyGram.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading
Role in a Musical (Tony Sheldon); Best Costume Design of a Musical
(Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner).
THE BOOK OF MORMON

Theatre: Eugene O’Neill Theatre
Opening Date: March 24, 2011; Closing Date: Still playing as of December
31, 2019
Performances: Still playing as of December 31, 2019
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone
Direction: Casey Nicholaw and Trey Parker; Producers: Anne Garefino,
Scott Rudin, Roger Berlind, Scott M. Delman, Jean Doumanian, Roy
Furman, Important Musicals LLC, Stephanie P. McClelland, Kevin
Morris, Jon B. Platt, Sonia Friedman Productions (Stuart Thompson,
Executive Producer); Choreography: Casey Nicholaw; Scenery: Scott
Pask; Costumes: Ann Roth; Lighting: Brian MacDevitt; Musical
Direction: Stephen Oremus
Cast: Jason Michael Snow (Mormon), Rory O’Malley (Moroni, Elder
McKinley), Andrew Rannells (Elder Price), Josh Gad (Elder
Cunningham), Lewis Cleale (Price’s Dad, Mission President, Joseph
Smith), Kevin Duda (Cunningham’s Dad), Rema Webb (Mrs. Brown),
John Eric Parker (Guard), Tommar Wilson (Guard), Michael Potts
(Mafala Hatimbi), Nikki M. James (Nabulungi), Brian Tyree Henry
(General), Michael James Scott (Doctor); Ensemble: Scott Barnhardt,
Justin Bohon, Darlesia Cearcy, Kevin Duda, Asmeret Ghebremichael,
Brian Tyree Henry, Clark Johnsen, John Eric Parker, Benjamin
Schrader, Michael James Scott, Brian Sears, Jason Michael Snow,
Lawrence Stallings, Rema Webb, Maia Nkenge Wilson, Tommar
Wilson
The action takes place during the present time in Salt Lake City, Utah, and
in Uganda.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers; the following is
taken from the published script.
Act One: “Hello!” (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, Mormon Boys); “Two by
Two” (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, Mormon Boys); “You and Me (but
Mostly Me)” (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad); “Hasa Diga Eebowai”
(Michael Potts, Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, Ugandans); “Turn It Off”
(Rory O’Malley, Missionaries); “I Am Here for You” (Josh Gad,
Andrew Rannells); “All-American Prophet” (Andrew Rannells, Josh
Gad, Lewis Cleale, Rory O’Malley, Company); “Sal Tlay Ka Sitt”
(Nikki M. James); “Man Up” (Josh Gad, Nikki M. James, Andrew
Rannells, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Making Things Up Again” (Josh Gad,
Company); “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” (Andrew Rannells,
Company); “I Believe” (Andrew Rannells); “Baptize Me” (Josh Gad,
Nikki M. James); “I Am Africa” (Rory O’Malley, Missionaries,
Ugandans); “Joseph Smith American Moses” (Nikki M. James,
Ugandans); “Tomorrow Is a Latter Day” (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad,
Nikki M. James, Company); “Hello!” (reprise) (Company); Finale
(Company)
The Book of Mormon was the first bona fide blockbuster of the decade,
and perhaps the ultimate college spring show, but one you’d never see on
any campus, not in today’s politically correct climate. The show was
sophomoric and laden with four-letter expletives in its irreverent look at the
collision between two young and clueless Mormon missionaries and
Ugandan natives. That the sometimes surreal and always in-your-face
smutty proceedings mocked a major religion didn’t seem to bother most
audiences and critics, and as of this writing the musical has been playing on
Broadway for almost nine full years and shows no signs of slowing down.
The story was a hip take on the old odd-couple theme, in this case the
odd couple being the naive missionaries from Utah (or “Ootah,” according
to one of the African natives) and a villageful of Ugandans. In fact, the two
missionaries were an odd couple unto themselves, the good-looking Elder
Price (Andrew Rannells) with his Broadway chorus-boy perkiness (who at
one point breaks out into a dance homage to Donny Osmond) and the portly
Elder Cunningham (Josh Gad) with a sky-high nerd factor. They’re not
even sure where Uganda is, but when they realize it’s in Africa they can
relate to it because they’ve seen The Lion King.
Price and Cunningham have never really bothered to read The Book of
Mormon and thus have no idea how to deal with an AIDS-ravaged country
beset not just by disease but also by famine, internal warfare, female
circumcision, and local superstition (having sex with a baby will cure your
AIDS). Meanwhile, Price’s idea of real missionary work is to spread the
word in Orlando, Florida; another elder is constantly trying to suppress his
gay inclinations; a Ugandan village lass is absorbed with what she thinks is
texting but is actually typewriting; and another villager wisely notes that
religious metaphors aren’t to be taken literally, and so it’s “fucking stupid”
to believe that Mormon founder Joseph Smith “actually” fucked a frog.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the “old-fashioned” musical
“blasphemous, scurrilous and more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a
blue streak,” and yet with a heart “as pure as that of a Rodgers and
Hammerstein show”; Richard Zoglin in Time said the musical was “a
masterpiece of Broadway marketing” that wasn’t “exactly a gift from
heaven” but was “bright and enjoyable”; and David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter said that despite “blissful profanity, sacrilege, and
politically incorrect mischief,” the “defining quality of this hugely
entertaining show is its sweetness.” On the other hand, Terry Teachout in
the Wall Street Journal observed that the “junior-varsity college”–styled
show was “slick and smutty” with “jingly-jangly” music and
“embarrassingly-crafted” lyrics, and overall it was “flabby” and
“amateurish” in its desire to play it “very, very safe” (the review’s headline
noted that “Everybody but Muhammad” was targeted in the musical).
The script was published in paperback by Newmarket Press in 2011,
and the cast album was released by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records (the
album was also issued in a vinyl edition). To be sure, no one will confuse
the cast album with the Vanguard recording of Oratorio from The Book of
Mormon, which Leroy J. Robertson adapted from the original text from
Heleman and Nephi III and set to music (the Utah Symphony Orchestra is
conducted by Maurice Abravanel and includes soloists and the University
of Utah Chorus and Chorale).
The London production opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on
February 25, 2013, where it’s still running as of December 31, 2019.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Book of Mormon); Best
Book (Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone); Best Score
(lyrics and music by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Josh
Gad); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Andrew Rannells); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Rory O’Malley); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Nikki M. James); Best Choreography
(Casey Nicholaw); Best Direction of a Musical (Casey Nicholaw and
Trey Parker); Best Orchestrations (Larry Hochman and Stephen
Oremus); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Scott Pask); Best Costume
Design of a Musical (Ann Roth); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Brian MacDevitt); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Brian Ronan)
HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY

TRYING
“THE MUSICAL COMEDY”
Opening Date: March 27, 2011; Closing Date: May 20, 2012
Performances: 473
Book: Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert
Lyrics and Music: Frank Loesser
Based on the 1952 book How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
by Shepherd Mead.
Direction and Choreography: Rob Ashford (Stephen Sposito, Associate
Director; Christopher Bailey, Associate Choreographer; Sarah O’Gleby
and Charlie Williams, Assistant Choreographers); Producers: Broadway
Across America, Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, Joseph Smith, Michael
McCabe, Candy Spelling, Takonkiet Viravan/Scenario Thailand, Hilary
A. Williams, Jen Namoff/Fakston Productions, Two Left Feet
Productions/Power Arts, Hop Theatricals, LLC/Paul Chau/Daniel
Frishwasser/Michael Jackowitz, and Michael Speyer-Bernie
Adams/Jacki Barlia Florin-Adam Blanshay/Arlene Scanlan/TBS
Service; Stage Ventures 2010 and 2010 Limited Partnership, Associate
Producers; Beth Williams, Executive Producer); Scenery: Derek
McLane; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Howell Binkley;
Musical Direction: David Chase
Cast: Anderson Cooper (The Voice of the Narrator), Daniel Radcliffe (J.
Pierrepont Finch), Nick Mayo (Mr. Gatch), Charlie Williams (Mr.
Jenkins), Kevin Covert (Mr. Johnson, TV Announcer), Ryan Watkinson
(Mr. Matthews), Marty Lawson (Mr. Peterson), Joey Sorge (Mr.
Tackaberry), David Hull (Mr. Toynbee), Barrett Martin (Mr. Andrews),
John Larroquette (J. B. Biggley), Rose Hemingway (Rosemary
Pillkington), Michael Park (Mr. Bratt), Mary Faber (Smitty), Ellen
Harvey (Miss Jones), Megan Sikora (Miss Krumholtz), Christopher J.
Hanke (Bud Frump), Rob Bartlett (Mr. Twimble, Wally Womper),
Tammy Blanchard (Hedy La Rue), Justin Keyes (Mr. Davis), Stephanie
Rothenberg (Meredith), Cameron Adams (Kathy, Scrub Woman), Paige
Faure (Miss Grabowski, Scrub Woman), Tanya Birl (Nancy), Samantha
Zack (Lily), Cleve Asbury (Mr. Ovington)
The action takes place during 1961 in New York City.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “How to Succeed” (Daniel Radcliffe,
Company); “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” (Rose Hemingway);
“Coffee Break” (Christopher J. Hanke, Mary Faber, Company); “The
Company Way” (Daniel Radcliffe, Rob Bartlett); “The Company Way”
(reprise) (Christopher J. Hanke, Company); “Rosemary’s Philosophy”
(Rose Hemingway); “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” (Michael Park, Mary
Faber, Christopher J. Hanke, Company); “Been a Long Day” (Mary
Faber, Daniel Radcliffe, Rose Hemingway, Company); “Been a Long
Day” (reprise) (John Larroquette, Christopher J. Hanke, Tammy
Blanchard); “Grand Old Ivy” (Daniel Radcliffe, John Larroquette);
“Paris Original” (Rose Hemingway, Mary Faber, Megan Sikora, Ellen
Harvey, Secretaries); “Rosemary” (Daniel Radcliffe, Rose Hemingway);
Act One Finale (Daniel Radcliffe, Rose Hemingway, Christopher J.
Hanke)
Act Two: “Cinderella, Darling” (Mary Faber, Secretaries); “Happy to Keep
His Dinner Warm” (reprise) (Rose Hemingway); “Love from a Heart of
Gold” (John Larroquette, Tammy Blanchard); “I Believe in You”
(Daniel Radcliffe, Men); “Pirate Dance” (Company); “I Believe in You”
(reprise) (Rose Hemingway); “Brotherhood of Man” (Daniel Radcliffe,
Ellen Harvey, Rob Bartlett, Men); Finale (Company)
During the previous season, the revival of Promises, Promises altered

the show’s original time period with a Broadway Savings Time that
rewound the clock from 1968 to 1962. With this bold action, the show in
Pied Piper fashion transported audiences to the world of the early 1960s,
and surely the success of television’s Mad Men had nothing to do with this
nostalgic trip to the era of button-downed, slim-suited, and bouffanted chic.
The current season offered no less than five lyric works set during the
period, the revival of Frank Loesser’s 1961 blockbuster How to Succeed in
Business without Really Trying, Catch Me If You Can, Séance on a Wet
Afternoon, Baby It’s You!, and the pre-Broadway run of Robin and the 7
Hoods (which switched the time period of its film source from the late
1920s to the early 1960s). Things leveled off during the next season, and
only Hair offered a journey into the 1960s, albeit the later hippie-period
1960s rather than the earlier conformist 1960s.
How to Succeed had revisited Broadway in 1995 with an
underwhelming production that somehow managed 548 performances but
nonetheless went down as a financial failure in Variety’s annual tabulation
of hits and flops, and so there was probably no urgent reason to mount
another revival so soon. But because Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe was
interested in doing the musical, the show was mounted again, and while it
was a hot ticket during the star’s tenure it lost momentum upon his
departure (despite the savvy replacement choices of Nick Jonas and Darren
Criss) and managed a total of 473 performances. The critics gave Radcliffe
mixed reviews, but the production itself was more faithful in spirit to the
original than was the late but un-lamented 1995 revival.
Loesser’s tongue-in-cheek songs along with Abe Burrows, Jack
Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert’s amusing book and quirky characters created
a delightful spoof of the corporate world of 1961. The script is one of the
funniest in the canon of musical theatre with its hilarious depiction of the
merry albeit cutthroat adventures of World Wide Wicket Company
employee J. Pierrepont Finch aka Ponty (Radcliffe). In his relentless climb
to the top of the corporate ladder, Finch’s workplace odyssey takes him
from the depths of the lowly mailroom to the heady Olympian heights of
the Chairman of the Board’s lofty penthouse.
Finch stampedes over everyone with his ruthless backstabbing and
shameless toadying, and his bible is the self-help book How To, which
advises him in the fine art of business survival, including how to avoid
petty office feuds; how to select whom to lunch with; and, most important
of all, how to deal with gorgeous but incompetent private secretaries (the
“smaller” her office skills means the “bigger” her higher-up protector). In
order to concentrate on his career, Finch is determined to stay single, and he
helpfully explains to the predatory secretary Rosemary (Rose Hemingway)
that an emotional involvement can only lead to becoming involved
emotionally.
The 1995 revival suffered from mostly bland or wrong-headed casting
choices and a desperate attempt to politically correct the musical. And PC is
exactly what this musical doesn’t need. The universe of the World Wide
Wicket Company with its backbiting male executives and its marriage-and
suburbia-obsessed female secretaries captures a specific time and place, and
when fiddled with, the material completely loses its satiric thrust. Loesser’s
mocking score perfectly matched the witty book with its look at office
conformity (“The Company Way”), secretaries (“A Secretary Is Not a
Toy”), and the most important daily event in every office across these
United States (“Coffee Break”). Loesser’s score offered a love ballad (“I
Believe in You”), but Finch sang the number to himself, not to Rosemary,
and the ironic gospel-tinged ode to the “Brotherhood of Man” was a two-
faced delight because Finch and company only practice selfhood.
Loesser created the cynical “Cinderella, Darling,” the secretaries’
sardonic ode to marriage as the be-all and end-all of their existence, but the
sly number was cut for the 1995 revival; the executives’ statement that “A
Secretary Is Not a Toy” (toys of the “erector set” variety) was altered so that
the secretaries got “even” with the men for their views; and the casting of
Lillias White in the role of the corporate director’s executive secretary
made no sense because it was impossible to believe that a stodgy
corporation like World Wide Wicket would be so enlightened in its hiring
practices. It was also discouraging to see yet another black performer
saddled with a gospel-styled number. White’s no-nonsense stage persona
and her powerful voice would have been perfect for the seen-it-all Smitty,
the secretary who knows that coffee breaks are the only way to get through
another dreary day at the office, and that despite a long day’s journey to
rush hour, it’s never too late to play cupid for a clerk with executive
potential and a predatory, marriage-minded secretary.
Happily, the current revival was more in keeping with the sensibility of
the early 1960s, and “Cinderella, Darling” was reinstated into the score. But
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “charm-free” production
lacked “a sensibility to call its own,” Radcliffe was “clearly not to the
musical manner born,” and the supporting players were “passable and
generic” (but Ellen Harvey’s Miss Jones and Tammy Blanchard’s Hedy La
Rue had a “distinctive flair”). Peter Marks in the Washington Post found the
evening “terminally un-magical” and said Radcliffe’s casting was a misfire
(“carrying a tune is not the same as carrying a production”), and it was
“painful to watch” when the star tried to keep up with the Broadway
gypsies in “Grand Old Ivy,” a now “overcaffeinated” number in which the
chorus boys turn the song into an “athletic event” (of course, in the original
production the song was a duet for Finch and Biggley).
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News found Radcliffe
“waxen and not animated enough to make Finch soar,” and David Rooney
in the Hollywood Reporter said the actor didn’t “quite pop as a musical-
theatre performer.” But Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said
Radcliffe was “adorable,” “you just want to pinch his cheeks,” and it was
“giddy fun to watch him shake his little tush in ‘Brotherhood of Man.’”
John Lahr in the New Yorker said that How to Succeed was “a first-rate,
high-stepping American musical,” and “every nanosecond” of the revival
was “eloquent with craft and wit.” The evening’s “laurels” went to
Radcliffe and John Larroquette, who performed “hilariously together,” and
Radcliffe conveyed Finch’s “intelligence” and “desire” with “a sweet,
square-jawed decency that is compelling.”
The original production opened on October 14, 1961, at the 46th Street
Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers) for 1,417 performances. The cast
included Robert Morse (Finch), Rudy Vallee (Biggley), Bonnie Scott
(Rosemary), Charles Nelson Reilly (Frump), Sammy Smith (Twimble and
Womper), and Ruth Kobart (Miss Jones). The musical won the Pulitzer
Prize for drama, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best
Musical, and seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Leading
Actor (Morse). The first of the show’s three New York revivals opened on
April 20, 1966, at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera
Company for twenty-three showings (Len Gochman was Finch, and Billy
De Wolfe was Biggley). The revival was part of the company’s salute to
Loesser, which also included stagings of Where’s Charley?, Guys and
Dolls, and The Most Happy Fella. The aforementioned 1995 revival opened
on March 23 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (as noted, the Rodgers was the
former 46th Street Theatre, the home of the 1961 production) for 548
performances with Matthew Broderick and Ronn Carroll.
The London production opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on March 28,
1963, for 520 performances with Warren Berlinger and Billy De Wolfe (as
noted above, De Wolfe reprised his role for the 1966 Broadway revival).
The cast album was issued by RCA.
The script was published in paperback by Frank Music Co. Ltd.
(London) in 1963, and the lyrics for the used and unused songs are included
in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser.
The original 1961 cast album was released on vinyl by RCA Victor
Records, and the later CD issue includes bonus tracks of Loesser singing
the unused “Organization Man” (which was replaced by “The Company
Way”) and “A Secretary Is Not a Toy.” This release also includes the
narrator’s comments (by Walter Cronkite) for the 1995 revival, as well as
reprise versions of “Been a Long Day” and “How to Succeed,” all of which
had been recorded by the 1995 cast but weren’t included on the cast album.
The CD also had contemporary 1961 jazz versions of “I Believe in You”
and “Brotherhood of Man” and interviews with Morse and Reilly. For the
DRG collection An Evening with Frank Loesser, the lyricist and composer
sings ten selections from the musical: besides “Organization Man,” the
recording includes “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm,” “Coffee Break,” “A
Secretary Is Not a Toy,” “Been a Long Day,” “Grand Old Ivy,” “Paris
Original,” “Rosemary,” “Love from a Heart of Gold,” and “I Believe in
You.”
The current revival was recorded by Decca Records and includes two
tracks of “The Yo Ho Ho” (here called “Pirate Dance”) in short and
extended versions. Songs from “How to Succeed in Business without Really
Trying” is a Broadway Records release containing five numbers by Jonas
and other cast members (“How to Succeed,” “The Company Way,”
“Rosemary,” “I Believe in You,” and “Brotherhood of Man”).
The 1967 film version released by United Artists includes a number of
original cast members, including Morse, Vallee, Smith, and Kobart.
Michelle Lee had played Rosemary during the Broadway run, and here
reprised the role, as did Maureen Arthur, who played Hedy La Rue during
the Broadway run and on tour. The sprightly adaptation sports location
shooting in Manhattan along with cartoon-like decor and colors. The film
retained eight songs (“How to Succeed,” “The Company Way,” “A
Secretary Is Not a Toy,” “Been a Long Day,” “Grand Old Ivy,” “Rosemary,”
“I Believe in You,” and “Brotherhood of Man”) and deleted five (“Happy to
Keep His Dinner Warm,” “Coffee Break,” “Cinderella, Darling,” “Love
from a Heart of Gold,” and “Paris Original”). The latter was heard as
background music, and “I Believe in You” was reprised as a straight ballad
for Rosemary to sing to Finch. “Coffee Break” was filmed but deleted prior
to the film’s release; the lead-in to the song is retained for the final cut, and
those who know the number will surely feel frustrated when the scene
abruptly shifts to the next one. The footage for “Coffee Break” hasn’t
surfaced and hasn’t been included on any of the film’s home video releases,
but it can be heard on the soundtrack album released on vinyl by United
Artists and later issued on CD by Ryko Records. The DVD was issued by
MGM Home Entertainment.
How to Succeed is probably the only Broadway musical to have inspired
a board game. In 1963, Milton Bradley marketed How to Succeed in
Business without Really Trying, and the artwork on the box incorporated
the logo for the original Broadway production. The object of the game is to
work one’s way from window washer to chairman of the board, and players
must bluff their way to the top (if they indulge in a coffee break, they risk
losing their turn). The directions note that the game is “a spoof on big
business and an exaggeration of people found in almost every
organization.”
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (How to Succeed
in Business without Really Trying); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (John Larroquette); Best Performance of
an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Tammy Blanchard); Best
Direction of a Musical (Rob Ashford); Best Choreography (Rob
Ashford); Best Orchestrations (Doug Besterman); Best Costume Design
of a Musical (Catherine Zuber); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Howell Binkley)
ANYTHING GOES
Performances: 521
Book: P. G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton, and Howard Lindsay & Russel
Crouse; adaptation by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman
Lyrics and Music: Cole Porter
Direction and Choreography: Kathleen Marshall (Marc Bruni, Associate
Director) (Vince Pesce, Associate Choreographer); Producers:
Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director)
(Sydney Beers, Executive Producer); Scenery: Derek McLane;
Costumes: Martin Pakledinaz; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical
Direction: James Lowe
Cast: John McMartin (Elisha Whitney), Josh Franklin (Fred, Crew
Member), Colin Donnell (Billy Crocker), Sutton Foster (Reno
Sweeney), Walter Charles (Captain), Robert Creighton (Ship’s Purser),
Clyde Alves (Crew Member, Photographer), Ward Billeisen (Crew
Member), Daniel J. Edwards (Crew Member), Kevin Munhall (Crew
Member, FBI Agent), Adam Perry (Crew Member, FBI Agent), William
Ryall (Crew Member, Henry T. Dobson), Anthony Wayne (Crew
Member, Reporter), Andrew Cao (Luke), Raymond J. Lee (John);
Angels—Shina Ann Morris (Purity), Kimberly Faure (Chastity),
Jennifer Savelli (Charity), and Joyce Chittick (Virtue); Laura Osnes
(Hope Harcourt), Jessica Walter (Mrs. Evangeline Harcourt), Adam
Godley (Lord Evelyn Oakleigh), Jessica Stone (Erma), Joel Grey
(Moonface Martin), Linda Mugleston (Old Lady in Wheelchair);
Quartet: Ward Billeisen, Josh Franklin, Daniel J. Edwards, and William
Ryall; Ship’s Passengers: Clyde Alves, Ward Billeisen, Nikki Renee
Daniels, Daniel J. Edwards, Josh Franklin, Tari Kelly, Linda Mugleston,
Kevin Munhall, Adam Perry, William Ryall, Anthony Wayne, Kristen
Beth Williams
The action takes place in the mid-1930s in Manhattan and at sea on an
ocean liner bound for London from New York.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “I Get a Kick Out of You” (Sutton Foster);
“There’s No Cure Like Travel” (Walter Charles, Robert Creighton,
Sailors); “Bon Voyage” (Sailors and Passengers); “You’re the Top”
(Sutton Foster, Colin Donnell); “Easy to Love” (Colin Donnelly); “Easy
to Love” (reprise) (Laura Osnes); “The Crew Song” (aka “I Want to
Row on the Crew”) (John McMartin); “There’ll Always Be a Lady
Fair” (aka “Sailors’ Chantey”) (Quartet); “Friendship” (Joel Grey,
Sutton Foster); “It’s De-Lovely” (Colin Donnell, Laura Osnes);
“Anything Goes” (Sutton Foster, Sailors and Passengers)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Public Enemy Number One” (Charles
Walters, Robert Creighton, Passengers); “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” (Sutton
Foster, Angels, Passengers); “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye” (Laura
Osnes); “Be Like the Bluebird” (Joel Grey); “All Through the Night”
(Colin Donnell, Laura Osnes, Quartet); “The Gypsy in Me” (Adam
Godley, Sutton Foster); “Buddie, Beware” (Jessica Stone, Sailors);
Finale (Company)
The onslaught of revivals continued, and for some decades there were
almost more revivals than book musicals with new music (for the 1990s,
New Book Musicals, 37; Commercial Revivals, 35; for the 2000s, New
Book Musicals, 37; Commercial Revivals, 31). But the current visit of Cole
Porter’s Anything Goes introduced a new and frightening phenomenon
because it was a revival of a revival. The current Roundabout Theatre
Company production was based on Lincoln Center’s 1987 mounting, and,
understandably, that production was the officially licensed version of the
show. But it would have been interesting had another adaptation been
sanctioned by the Porter estate. Three years later, Roundabout revived its
own radically reinterpreted revival of Cabaret from 1998, but so far this
distressing mini-trend hasn’t resulted in more like-minded revivals.
Anything Goes takes place during the 1930s and most of the action
occurs at sea on a luxurious ocean liner bound from New York to London.
The colorful characters include: Reno Sweeney (Sutton Foster), a nightclub
entertainer and a former evangelist in the Aimee Semple McPherson mode;
her old friend Billy Crocker (Colin Donnell), a stowaway in pursuit of
society girl Hope Harcourt (Laura Osnes); and Moonface Martin (Joel
Grey), a gangster on the lam disguised as a minister. Moonface is Public
Enemy Number 13 on the FBI’s most-wanted list, and his dream is make
the Top Twelve. When the ship’s celebrity-mad passengers realize there’s a
well-known gangster on board they sing a mock-solemn hymn to celebrate
the occasion (“Public Enemy Number One”).
Porter’s score included a dazzling number of evergreens, including “I
Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” “All
Through the Night,” and the title song. And there were lesser-known gems
as well, including the terrific musical warning “Buddie, Beware.” At
virtually the last minute, P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton’s original 1934
book, which included a subplot about a possible bomb aboard the ship, had
to be revised because of the Morro Castle tragedy. Suddenly it was no
longer amusing to include references to danger at sea, and so Howard
Lindsay and Russel Crouse quickly revised the book (Wodehouse and
Bolton were back in London). They kept the basic characters and situations
(but now there was no mention of a bomb aboard, and so the liner sailed
smoothly from New York to London). The 1987 Lincoln Center production
offered a new book by Timothy Crouse (Russel’s son) and John Weidman.
In his review of the current production, Ben Brantley in the New York
Times praised the “deluxe candy box” of Porter’s songs and said Foster
embodied “the essence of escapist entertainment in the 1930s.” The evening
was a “farrago of zinger-stocked dialogue, vaudeville-styled antics and
musical numbers only pretending to co-exist as a coherent plot,” and the
musical was an “alternative for folks who aren’t ready for the foulmouthed
Book of Mormon.”
Richard Zoglin in Time said the revival was an “ideal showcase” for
Foster, who now placed herself “at the top of an impressive new class of
Broadway musical divas.” Hilton Als in the New Yorker liked director and
choreographer Kathleen Marshall’s “stripped-down” and “jazzier” take on
the musical, and as a result Marshall “kept things modest” on a “relatively
small stage” where “everything has to count.” Even Derek McLane’s
“beautifully designed” ocean liner didn’t “overwhelm the actors with too
much architecture.” As for Foster, she never “calls attention to herself, but
her talent does,” and she possessed “something even rarer than talent:
humility.”
The current production ran fifteen months, and won Tony Awards for
Best Revival of a Musical, Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Foster), and
Best Choreography (Marshall). The cast album was released by Ghostlight
Records.
The original production of Anything Goes opened on November 21,
1934, at the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre for 420 performances with
Ethel Merman (Reno), William Gaxton (Billy), and Victor Moore
(Reverend Dr. Moon, who in later revivals was re-named Moonface
Martin). The Prism Leisure recording of the score includes three songs by
Merman (“I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” and “Blow, Gabriel,
Blow”); one by Gaxton (“You’re the Top”); and three with vocals and piano
by Porter (“You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes,” and “Be Like the
Bluebird”).
The archival recordings heard in the Smithsonian Collection’s Anything
Goes sometimes duplicate the ones in the Prism Leisure release: “I Get a
Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” (Merman);
“You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes,” and “Be Like the Blue Bird” (Porter);
“Sailors’ Chantey” aka “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair” and “The Gypsy
in Me” (The Foursome [Marshall Smith, Ray Johnston, Dwight Snyder, and
Del Porter], who were in the original 1934 Broadway production); and four
selections from the 1935 London version (“All Through the Night,” “Blow,
Gabriel, Blow,” “Be Like the Bluebird” [which includes a dialogue scene in
the ship’s brig], and “You’re the Top”).
During the run of the 1934 production, “Buddie, Beware” was dropped
in favor of a reprise of “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and cut in preproduction
or during the tryout were: “What a Joy to Be Young” [also titled “To Be in
Love and Young”], “Kate the Great” (which Merman refused to perform
because she objected to the racy lyric), and “Waltz Down the Aisle” (which
Porter later reworked as “Wunderbar” for Kiss Me, Kate). “There’s No Cure
Like Travel” and “Bon Voyage” were two separate songs performed
together, sometimes under the first title and sometimes under the second (in
the case of the 1962 Off-Broadway revival discussed immediately below,
only “Bon Voyage” was retained).
The musical’s first New York revival opened Off-Broadway on May 15,
1962, at the Orpheum Theatre for 239 performances. The book was revised
by Guy Bolton, the cast included Eileen Rodgers (Reno), Hal Linden
(Billy), and Mickey Deems (Moon), and the choreography was by Ron
Field. This production cut five songs (“There’s No Cure Like Travel,”
“Sailors’ Chantey” aka “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair,” “Where Are the
Men?,” “The Gypsy in Me,” and “Buddie, Beware”) and added six from
other Porter musicals: “It’s De-Lovely” (Red, Hot, and Blue, 1936); “The
Heaven Hop” (Paris, 1928); “Friendship” (DuBarry Was a Lady, 1939);
“Let’s Step Out” (added to the 1929 musical Fifty Million Frenchmen
during its Broadway run); “Let’s Misbehave” (cut from Paris, 1928; in
1927, the song had been heard in a nightclub performance at the
Ambassadeurs Café in Paris [not to be confused with Porter’s 1928 Paris
revue La Revue des Ambassadeurs]); and “Take Me Back to Manhattan”
(The New Yorkers, 1930). The cast album was released by Epic Records.
This version was twice produced Off-Off-Broadway during the 1980–1981
season, first during November 1980 at St. Bart’s Playhouse and then on
March 12, 1981, at the Equity Library’s Master Theatre for thirty
performances.
The 1987 revival opened at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre
on October 19, 1987, for 804 performances with Patti LuPone (Reno),
Howard McGillin (Billy), and Bill McCutcheon (Moonface Martin), and
like the current production won the Tony Award for Best Revival (the cast
album was released by RCA Victor Records). One song was cut from the
original (“Where Are the Men?”), and five were added: “Friendship”
(DuBarry Was a Lady, 1939); “I Want to Row on the Crew” aka “The Crew
Song” (Paranoia, 1914); “It’s De-Lovely” (Red, Hot, and Blue, 1936);
”Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye” (intended for, but not used, in the 1936
film Born to Dance; later cut during the tryout of Red, Hot, and Blue; and
then introduced in late 1936 in the London production O Mistress Mine [not
the 1944 play of the same title by Terence Rattigan]); and “Easy to Love”
(which had been written for, but not used in, the original production of
Anything Goes and was later introduced in Born to Dance, where it was
sung by no less than James Stewart).
The original London production opened on June 14, 1935, at the Palace
Theatre for 261 performances with Jeanne Aubert (Reno), Jack Whiting
(Billy), and Sydney Howard (Moon). They and other cast members
recorded eight songs from the production: “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “All
Through the Night,” “Sailors’ Chantey” aka “There’ll Always Be a Lady
Fair,” “You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” “Be
Like the Bluebird” (including a dialogue scene in the ship’s brig), and “The
Gypsy in Me.” These selections are included on the above-referenced Prism
Leisure recording. The script of the London production was published in
paperback by Samuel French, Limited (London) in 1936.
A London revival at the Saville Theatre on November 18, 1969, was
based on the 1962 Off-Broadway adaptation (which for years was the
official licensed version of the musical) and was recorded by Decca
Records (later issued by That’s Entertainment Records). A July 1989
London revival opened at the Prince Edward Theatre and was based on the
1987 New York production; it starred Elaine Paige (Reno), Bernard
Cribbins (Moonface Martin), and reprising his role of Billy from the New
York revival, Howard McGillin. The cast album was released by First Night
Records. Another mounting of the 1987 version was given in Sydney,
Australia, with Geraldine Turner and was recorded by EMI Records. There
was also a 1984 Mexico City production which was recorded by
Producciones Teatro San Rafael; titled Todo sa vale, the score includes “Tu
era mas,” “Buen viaje,” “Amigo,” “Que delicia,” and “Noche y dia.”
Two film versions of the musical were released by Paramount in 1936
and 1956, both with Bing Crosby. The first was a loose adaptation, but the
cast included Merman (as Reno); Crosby played Billy and Charles Ruggles
was Moon. Four songs were retained from the stage production, “I Get a
Kick Out of You,” “Sailors’ Chanty” aka “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair,”
“You’re the Top,” and a snippet of the title song. The film also included a
number of songs by other writers, including “Moonburn” (lyric by Edward
Heyman and music by Hoagy Carmichael) and “Sailor Beware” and “My
Heart and I,” both with lyrics by Leo Robin and music by Frederick
Hollander. These three non-Porter songs are included as bonus tracks on the
soundtrack album of the 1956 film (issued by Decca Broadway). When the
1936 film was released for television showings, it was re-titled Tops Is the
Limit.
The 1956 in-name-only adaptation used the setting of a passenger liner
and retained five songs from the original production (“Anything Goes,” “I
Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “All Through the Night,” and
“Blow, Gabriel, Blow”) and one interpolation (“It’s De-Lovely”). The
film’s “Dream Ballet” included the music of “All Through the Night” and
“Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love” (Paris, 1928). The score was rounded out
by three new songs with lyrics by Sammy Cahn and music by Jimmy Van
Heusen (“Ya Gotta Give the People Hoke,” “A Second-Hand Turban and a
Crystal Ball,” and “You Can Bounce Right Back”). Besides Crosby, the
film starred Donald O’Connor, Jeanmaire, and Mitzi Gaynor. The DVD was
released by the Warner Brothers Archive Collection.
On February 28, 1954, a television version was aired on NBC’s The
Colgate Comedy Hour with Merman (Reno), Frank Sinatra (Billy), and Bert
Lahr (Moon). Four songs were retained from the original (“I Get a Kick Out
of You,” “You’re the Top,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” and the title number)
and there were three interpolations from other Porter musicals: “You Do
Something to Me” (Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929); “Just One of Those
Things” (Jubilee, 1935); and “Friendship” (DuBarry Was a Lady, 1939).
The latter was originally introduced by Merman and Lahr in DuBarry, and
here they reprised it fifteen years later. The DVD was released by
Entertainment One.
The most complete recording of the score was released by EMI
Records; conducted by John McGlinn, the studio cast includes Kim
Criswell (Reno), Cris Groenendaal (Billy), and Jack Gilford (Moon). The
album includes “Where Are the Men?” as well as three songs cut prior to
the 1934 opening (“What a Joy to Be Young,” “Kate the Great,” and “Waltz
Down the Aisle”).
Another recording of the score includes vocals by Mary Martin (with
chorus and orchestra conducted by Lehman Engel) which was released by
Columbia Records (DRG reissued the recording on CD where it’s paired
with songs from The Band Wagon, sung by Martin).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Anything Goes);
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Sutton
Foster); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Adam Godley); Best Choreography (Kathleen Marshall); Best
Direction of a Musical (Kathleen Marshall); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (Derek McLane); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Martin
Pakledinaz); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Peter Kaczorowski);
Best Sound Design of a Musical (Brian Ronan)
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

“THE MUSICAL”
Opening Date: April 10, 2011; Closing Date: September 4, 2011
Performances: 166
Book: Terrence McNally
Lyrics: Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman
Music: Marc Shaiman
Based on the 2002 DreamWorks film Catch Me If You Can (direction by
Steven Spielberg and screenplay by Jean Nathanson). The story was
inspired by the 1980 autographical book Catch Me If You Can by Frank
W. Abagnale Jr., with Stan Redding.
Direction: Jack O’Brien (Matt Lenz, Associate Director); Producers: Margo
Lion, Hal Luftig, Stacey Mindich, Yasuhiro Kawana, Scott and Brian
Zellinger, The Rialto Group, The Araca Group, Michael Watt, Barbara
and Buddy Freitag, Jay and Cindy Gutterman/Pittsburgh CLO,
Elizabeth Williams, Johnny Roscoe Productions/Van Dean, Fakston
Productions/Solshay Productions, Patty Baker/Richard Winkler,
Nederlander Presentations Inc. and Warren Trepp in association with
Remmel T. Dickinson, Paula Herold/Kate Lear, Stephanie P.
McClelland, Jamie deRoy, Barry Feirstein, Rainerio J. Reves, Rodney
Rigby, Loraine Boyle, Amuse Inc., Joseph and Matthew Deitch/Cathy
Chernoff, Joan Stein/Jon Murray; The Fifth Avenue Theatre (David
Armstrong, Executive Producer and Artistic Director); Brian Smith and
T. Rick Hayashi, Associate Producers; Choreography: Jerry Mitchell
(Joey Pizzi and Nick Kenkel, Associate Choreographers); Scenery:
David Rockwell; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Kenneth
Posner; Musical Direction: John McDaniel
Cast: Aaron Tveit (Frank Abagnale Jr.), Joe Cassidy (Agent Branton),
Brandon Wardell (Agent Dollar), Norbert Leo Butz (Agent Carl
Hanratty), Timothy McCuen Piggee (Agent Cod), Tom Wopat (Frank
Abagnale Sr.), Rachel de Benedet (Paula Abagnale), Rachelle Rak
(Cheryl Ann), Kerry Butler (Brenda Strong),Nick Wyman (Roger
Strong), Linda Hart (Carol Strong); The Frank Abagnale Jr. Players: Joe
Cassidy, Alex Ellis, Jennifer Frankel, Lisa Gajda, Bob Gaynor, Kearran
Giovanni, Grasan Kingsberry, Michael X. Martin, Aleks Pevec,
Timothy McCuen Piggee, Rachelle Rak, Joe Aaron Reid, Angie
Schworer, Sabrina Sloan, Sarrah Strimel, Charlie Sutton, Brandon
Wardell, Katie Webber, Candice Marie Wood
The action takes place in the 1960s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Life in Living Color” (Aaron Tveit,
Company); “The Pinstripes Are All That They See” (Tom Wopat, Aaron
Tveit, Ladies); “Someone Else’s Skin” (Aaron Tveit, Company); “Jet
Set” (Aaron Tveit, Company); “Live in Living Color” (reprise) (Aaron
Tveit); “Don’t Break the Rules” (Norbert Leo Butz, Company); “The
Pinstripes Are All That They See” (reprise) (Ladies); “Butter Outta
Cream” (Tom Wopat, Aaron Tveit); “The Man Inside the Clues”
(Norbert Leo Butz); “Christmas Is My Favorite Time of Year”
(Partygoers); “My Favorite Time of Year” (Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron
Tveit, Tom Wopat, Rachel de Benedet)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Doctor’s Orders” (Nurses); “Life in
Living Color” (reprise) (Aaron Tveit); “Don’t Be a Stranger” (Rachel de
Benedet, Tom Wopat); “Little Boy, Be a Man” (Tom Wopat, Norbert
Leo Butz); “Seven Wonders” (Aaron Tveit, Kerry Butler); “(Our)
Family Tree” (Linda Hart, Nick Wyman, Kerry Butler, Aaron Tveit, The
Strong Family Singers); “Fly, Fly Away” (Kerry Butler); “Good-Bye”
(Aaron Tveit); “Strange but True” (Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz)
Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman had written the songs for the megahit
Hairspray (2002), which Jack O’Brien and Jerry Mitchell had respectively
directed and choreographed, and the creative team reunited for Catch Me If
You Can, another musical set in the 1960s. But this time around the critics
were mostly indifferent and audiences didn’t line up for tickets, thus the
musical managed only five months on Broadway.
The story was inspired by the real-life saga of the ingratiating con man
Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Aaron Tveit), who with Stan Redding authored the
1980 best seller Catch Me if You Can, which chronicled Abagnale’s life,
especially the period when he was fifteen through twenty-one, a time when
he forged millions of dollars in checks and in chameleon fashion adopted a
number of professions, including those of airline pilot, lawyer, and
pediatrician. The book was later adapted into the popular 2002 film of the
same name.
The musical followed the film’s cat-and-mouse relationship between
Abagnale and FBI Agent Carl Hanratty (Norbert Leo Butz) as the latter
pursues his prey for years, during which time the two develop a certain yin
and yang and become a Valjean and Javert of sorts. In some ways, the two
are reverse images of the other, and Ben Brantley in the New York Times
observed that their necessarily adversarial bond grew into a kind of
bromance (and perhaps Hanratty emerged as a father-figure for Abagnale).
Chicago (1975) had used vaudeville turns to tell its story, and The
Scottsboro Boys the framework of old-time minstrel shows. For Catch Me
If You Can, book writer Terrence McNally came up with the inspired
conceit of using television variety shows of the early 1960s as the framing
device, with Abagnale the tooth-some TV host who in flashback and in
variety-show parlance and conventions brings to life his story while backed
by the Frank J. Abagnale Jr. Players.
Elysa Gardner in USA Today found the musical a “dud,” but said it
offered “eye-candy” costumes, “vampish” dances, and Butz, who “walks
away with the show.” The New Yorker said that, as depicted, Abagnale’s
“emotional journey” didn’t “make sense” and was “nonexistent,” and while
Butz was an “amazing” performer, even his skills weren’t “enough to save
this grand but shallow spectacle.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York
Daily News noted that the show was “tasty but buried under empty
calories,” and, referencing the musical’s airplane artwork logo, asked,
“How can you fly with excess baggage?” The plot was “over-stuffed” with
both Abagnale and Hanratty’s stories, as well as the family of Abagnale’s
girlfriend, Brenda (Kerry Butler), and thus it all became “just too much.”
Brantley said the “mildly” entertaining show was more in the nature of
a “blueprint” and seemed “to stand in one place, explaining itself,” while
the songs occasionally had “the chalky flavor of audio-visual aids.” The
production sustained its variety-show conceit, and the sets, costumes, and
lighting conveyed the early 1960s television world of Dean Martin, Mitch
Miller, and Hullabaloo. As for Shaiman and Wittman’s score, it was a
pastiche that came “dangerously close to lounge and elevator music.”
If the critics were cool to the production, they were red-hot for Butz,
who here walked away with his second Tony Award for Best Leading Actor
in a Musical. He’d earlier won for David Yazbek’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
in 2005, in which he portrayed a con artist who explains what he wants in
life in his show-stopping if not show-shopping “Great Big Stuff” (he yearns
to have enough money to buy a ticket for a Broadway musical and to afford
“unnecessary surgery”).
Butz was a terrific Master of Ceremonies in a touring production of
Roundabout’s version of Cabaret, and stopped the show as Camille, a man
who was formerly alive and now assesses the state of affairs between his
cheating wife and the man who murdered him in the sardonic “Oh! Ain’t
That Sweet,” in Harry Connick Jr.’s Thou Shalt Not (2001). In Stephen
Schwartz’s Wicked (2003), he created the role of Fiyero; in Enron, he was
back as another con artist; and for the revival of My Fair Lady, he played
the lovable if slippery Alfred P. Doolittle. For Catch Me If You Can, Butz
wowed everyone with “Don’t Break the Rules,” and Brantley noted that
with this single song the musical came to “ecstatic, surprising life,” and it
was “all the more exciting because—unlike everything else in Catch Me If
You Can—you didn’t see it coming.”
Songs deleted during the tryout were: “Fifty Checks,” “Here Am I (to
Save the Day),” “Needle in a Haystack,” “You Gotta Pay for Love,” “Bury
Me Beside the One I Love,” and “Breaking All the Rules,” which seems to
be an early version of “Don’t Break the Rules.” Songs dropped during
preproduction were: “Good at What I Do,” “Last December in
MontRichard,” “I Don’t Get It,” and “Running Together, Never Apart.”
The original cast album was released by Ghostlight Records, and a
bonus track included the deleted song “Fifty Checks,” sung by Tom Wopat
(who played Abagnale’s father) during the tryout and for the album. A
promotional CD included four songs from the score (“Live in Living
Color,” “Jet Set,” “Butter Outta Cream,” and “Fly, Fly Away”).
A program note brought us up to speed on Abagnale’s life. He later
became a leading authority on secure documents, fraud, and embezzlement,
was associated with the FBI for some thirty-five years, authored several
books on crime, and as a public speaker clocked in more than three
thousand such events during thirty years on the lecture circuit.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Catch Me If You Can); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Norbert Leo
Butz); Best Orchestrations (Larry Blank and Marc Shaiman); Best
Sound Design of a Musical (Steve Canyon Kennedy).
WONDERLAND
“THE NEW MUSICAL”
Performances: 33
Book: Gregory Boyd and Jack Murphy
Lyrics: Jack Murphy
Music: Frank Wildhorn
Based on the novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through
the Looking Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll (Carroll was a pseudonym
for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson).
Direction: Gregory Boyd (Kenneth Ferrone, Associate Director);
Producers: David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts (Judy Lisi,
President and CEO), Franzblau Media Inc., Nederlander Presentations,
Inc., The Knights of Tampa Bay (David Scher and Hinks Shimberg),
Michael Speyer and Bernie Abrams, Jay Harris, Larry and Kay Payton,
June and Tom Simpson, Independent Presenters Network, Sonny
Everett Productions LLC; Judy Joseph and Stageventures 2010 Limited
Partnership, Associate Producers; William Franzblau, Executive
Producer; Choreography: Marguerite Derricks (Michelle Elkin,
Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Neil Patel; Video and Projection
Design: Sven Ortel; Costumes: Susan Hilferty; Lighting: Paul Gallo;
Musical Direction: Jason Howland
Cast: Karen Mason (Edwina, The Queen of Hearts), Carly Rose Sonenclar
(Chloe), Janet Dacal (Alice), Edward Staudenmayer (The White
Rabbit), E. Clayton Cornelious (Caterpillar), Jose Llana (El Gato),
Darren Ritchie (Jack the White Knight, The Victorian Gentleman),
Danny Stiles (Morris the March Hare), Kate Shindle (The Mad Hatter);
Ensemble: April Berry, Joey Calveri, Sae La Chin, Mallauri Esquibel,
Derek Ferguson, Wilkie Ferguson III, Laura Hall, Natalie Hill, Lauren
Lim Jackson, Morgan James, Ryan Link, Kate Loprest, Heather
Parcells, Stefan Raulston, Julius Anthony Rubio, Tanairi Sade Vazquez
The action takes place in New York City during the present time.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Worst Day of My Life” (Carly Rose
Sonenclar, Janet Dacal); “Down the Rabbit Hole” (Janet Dacal,
Unearthly Voice); “Welcome to Wonderland” (Janet Dacal, Company);
“Drink Me” (Unearthly Voices); “Advice from a Caterpillar” (E.
Clayton Cornelious, Janet Dacal, Legs); “Go with the Flow” (Jose
Llana, Janet Dacal, Cats, Kittens); “One Knight” (Darren Ritchie,
Fellow Knights); “The Tea Party” (Company); “The Mad Hatter” (Kate
Shindle, Company); “Hail the Queen” (Karen Mason, Company);
“Home” (Janet Dacal); “A Nice Little Walk” (Kate Shindle, Carly Rose
Sonenclar, Danny Stiles); “Through the Looking Glass” (Janet Dacal,
Darren Ritchie, E. Clayton Cornelious, Jose Llana, Edward
Staudenmayer)
Act Two: “I Will Prevail” (Kate Shindle, Looking Glass Guard); “I Am My
Own Invention” (Darren Ritchie, Janet Dacal); “Off with Their Heads”
(Karen Mason, Ladies-in-Waiting); “Once More I Can See” (Janet
Dacal); “Together” (Darren Ritchie, E. Clayton Cornelious, Jose Llana,
Edward Staudenmayer, Janet Dacal, Carly Rose Sonenclar); “Home”
(reprise) (Carly Rose Sonenclar, Edward Staudenmayer, Jose Llana, E.
Clayton Cornelious); “Finding Wonderland” (Janet Dacal, Company)
Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland was yet another attempt to successfully

musicalize Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. One or two adaptations were
artistic successes, but most were indifferently received and fell by the
wayside (depending on the source, the capitalization for Wonderland was
$14–$16 million, all of which went down the rabbit hole). The 1964 Off-
Broadway Alice with Kisses closed during previews (but found one touch of
immortality when its window card was tacked on the wall of Max
Bialystock’s office in the 1967 film The Producers); Bil Baird’s Off-
Broadway marionette version Alice in Wonderland was popular, and the
children’s show enjoyed two runs during 1975 for a total of 138 showings;
and Off-Off-Broadway’s For the Snark Was a Boojum, You See and The
Passion of Alice had brief runs in 1977 (although Boojum included
characters from the Alice novels, the musical was a look at the events and
people in Carroll’s life).
Elizabeth Swados’s Alice in Concert (a workshop production in 1978
was known as Wonderland in Concert) had a brief run at the Public Theatre
in 1980. T. E. Kalem in Time said Swados and director Joseph Papp didn’t
have the “foggiest notion of Carroll’s substance or sensibility,” and
Swados’s best numbers sounded like what the writers of Hair “threw in the
wastebasket.” But as Alice at the Palace the material was presented on
NBC in 1982. Robert Wilson’s adaptation was first given in Germany in
1992, and premiered in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s
Next Wave Festival in 1995 with music by Tom Waits and Kathleen
Brennan. Stephen Holden in the New York Times praised the
“breathtakingly elegant realization” of Carroll’s stories, and Mel Gussow in
The Best Plays of 1995–1996 said the production began with a “chorus of
Carrolls” and the score was “Weill-tinged.”
Excitingly choreographed by Talley Beatty, imaginatively designed by
Douglas M. Schmidt, and ingratiatingly cast (Debbie Allen, Alice Ghostley,
Jane White, Hamilton Camp, Paula Kelly, and Clinton and Cleavant
Derricks), a Broadway-bound Alice with lyrics and music by Micki Grant
premiered in Philadelphia in 1978 and closed almost as soon as it opened.
Its book and direction were by another Carroll (Vinnette), who had
previously reworked the material in various versions (all known as But
Never Jam Today) as far back as 1962. A year after Alice’s closing, she
again revised the material (without Grant’s score) and as But Never Jam
Today the new version lasted just one week on Broadway. There was even
an “adult” musical (as Alice in Wonderland) that opened Off-Broadway at
Theatre Row’s Kirk Theatre in 2007 (it took place in a trailer park in
Weehawken, New Jersey, and the show’s flyer proclaimed that Alice finds
herself in an “erotic Wonderland”).
Many of these adaptations tried to be hip (part of the 1978 version was
set in a Manhattan disco called the Rabbit Hole), and Wonderland also took
an irreverent look at an Alice in contemporary New York City (she lives in
the “Kingdom of Queens”) in search of the kind of self-empowerment
touted on afternoon television talk shows. To establish its up-to-date
credentials, this version depicted Alice’s fall into Wonderland by means of
an elevator instead of a rabbit hole.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found Wildhorn’s music “generic
Broadway pop” and Jack Murphy’s lyrics “workmanlike,” and while
Murphy and Gregory Boyd’s book was “convoluted” in its messages about
self-help, self-realization, and the importance of embracing your inner
child, there were occasional “flashes of fresh humor” (when Alice drinks
the elixir, the bottle’s label reads “Drink Me. Responsibly”). The New
Yorker complained that in place of Carroll’s “absurdist wordplay” there
were jokes about Starbucks and reality television, and the “life lessons”
taught in the show were “so trite” they could have come from a fortune
cookie.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “misfire” was “fun-
free and charm-challenged,” and the “overproduced” evening was a
“clumsy” update (the Queen’s knights looked “like refugees from a Ralph
Lauren Polo campaign”) with “bland” and “third-rate” songs. Rooney noted
that “what’s curious and curiouser is how this tedious mess ever made it to
Broadway.”
And speaking of curious, one of the bewildering changes for the dreary
1978 film adaptation of The Wiz was the misguided notion of transforming
school girl Dorothy into a grown woman, a teacher who finds life difficult
to deal with, escapes into the fantasy world of Oz, and eventually learns in
song that “Home” is where one really belongs. Wonderland followed this
same yellow brick road by introducing not only an adult Alice, but one who
is also a school teacher. And she too has a musical epiphany with a song
called “Home.”
One searched in vain for even a single reference to Lewis Carroll in the
Wonderland program, but one suspects Carroll would have been grateful for
the oversight. However, he made an appearance in the show, and was
referred to as the Victorian Gentleman.
As Wonderland: Alice’s New Musical Adventure, the musical was
originally presented at the Tampa Bay (Florida) Performing Arts Center’s
Louise Lykes Ferguson Hall on November 24, 2009, and later at the Alley
Theatre in Houston, Texas, on January 20, 2010. Songs cut prior to
Broadway were: “Curiouser and Curiouser,” “Don’t Wanna Fall in Love,”
“Love Begins,” “Nick of Time.” “Misunderstood,” and “Make a Move.”
The Tampa program credited Phoebe Hwang with “additional dialogue,”
and the main credits page noted that the musical was “inspired by the work
of Lewis Carroll.”
A concept recording with many of the Tampa and New York cast
members was released by MWB/Hit Squad recordings and includes such
deleted songs as “Don’t Wanna Fall in Love,” “Love Begins,” “Nick of
Time,” “Misunderstood,” and “Keep on Dancin’” (the latter wasn’t listed in
the Tampa program and may have been cut in rehearsals). The Broadway
cast album was issued by Masterworks Broadway, and a later 2013
Japanese production was recorded.
SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON

Theatre: David H. Koch Theatre
Performances: 7 (estimated)
Libretto and Music: Stephen Schwartz
Based on the 1961 novel Séance on a Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane and
the 1964 Allied Film Maker film of the same name (direction and
screenplay by Bryan Forbes).
Direction: Scott Schwartz; Producer: The New York City Opera Company
(George Steel, Artistic Director); Choreography: Musical staging by
Matt Williams; Scenery: Heidi Ettinger; Costumes: Alejo Vietti;
Lighting: David Lander; Choral Direction: Charles F. Prestinari;
Musical Direction: George Manahan
Cast: Lauren Flanigan (Myra Foster), Jane Shaulis (Mrs. Wintry), Pamela
Jones (Miss Rose), Doug Purcell (Mr. Bennett), Boyd Schlaefer (Mr.
Cole), Kim Josephson (Bill Foster), Michael Marcotte (Irish Tenor),
Michael Kepler Meo (Arthur), Bailey Grey (Adriana Clayton), Todd
Wilander (Charles Clayton), Phillip Boykin (Inspector Watts), Melody
Moore (Rita Clayton), Juan Jose Ibarra (Policeman); The New York
City Opera Chorus
The opera was presented in two acts.
The action takes place in 1964 in San Francisco.
Musical Numbers
Note: The following is a list of the opera’s major musical sequences as
given on MusicalSchwartz.com.
Act One: Prelude (Orchestra); “First Séance” (Lauren Flanigan, Séance
Attendees); “One Little Lie” (Lauren Flanigan, Kim Josephson); “It’s
Always Been True” (Lauren Flanigan, Michael Kepler Meo); “Where Is
Adriana Clayton?” (Reporters); “Adriana” (Todd Wilander, Melody
Moore); “Truth to Tell” (Phillip Boykin, Lauren Flanigan); “New
Developments” (Reporters); “Lucky” (Lauren Flanigan)
Act Two: Prelude (Orchestra); “Brightness Falls” (Lauren Flanigan); “You
Didn’t Know Her” (Kim Josephson); “Wandrous Things” (Melody
Moore); “Stunning New Development” (Reporters); “Before You”
(Lauren Flanigan)
The New York City premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s opera Séance on a

Wet Afternoon met with indifferent to negative notices, and neither a video
version nor a complete recording has been released.
The dark and mysterious story was based on Mark McShane’s 1961
novel and the subsequently well-received 1964 British film, both of which
took place in London (the opera takes place in San Francisco, and scenic
designer Heidi Ettinger created a haunted and dilapidated Victorian house
with translucent walls and curtains that evoked constant rain). For his
adaptation, Schwartz altered part of the original story, and his ending is
truly horrific.
Myra (Lauren Flanigan) is a deranged medium who devises a cruel hoax
that she hopes will impress everyone with her alleged psychic powers. She
pressures her weak-willed husband Bill (Kim Josephson) to kidnap Adriana
Clayton (Bailey Grey), the daughter of wealthy parents. By disguising a
room in their house, they trick Adriana into believing she’s temporarily in a
hospital. Myra’s plan is to “find” Adriana and return the ransom money so
that she will be recognized as a celebrated psychic.
Meanwhile, Myra is more and more haunted by the ghost of her son
Arthur (Michael Kepler Meo), who died stillborn, and soon she descends
into complete madness by murdering Adriana so that Arthur can have a
“sister” in the afterlife.
Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times said the opera wasn’t very
good, but he found the three-hour work “thoroughly professional” with a
libretto that told its story “well” and with a text set to vocal lines “that make
the words come through clearly.” But Schwartz’s music was “easygoing”
and “tame,” and it broke “into cloying lyrical flights.” Olivia Giovetti on
NYPR Network and Operavore said the adaptation was “lifeless and dull,”
and “dramatically and musically” there was an “overload of artifice.” James
Jorden in the New York Post found the opera “lifeless and damp,” and said
the score was reminiscent of its 1964 timeframe with echoes of Samuel
Barber, Leonard Bernstein, and “even snippets of early Stephen Sondheim.”
As for the chorus of reporters (with their latest developments on the
kidnapping), they “looked as if they had got lost on the way to How to
Succeed in Business without Really Trying.
Alex Ross in the New Yorker found the opera a “resounding failure”
because the “good, spooky tale” got “swallowed up in endless stretches of
frothy, ersatz-Bernstein lyricism,” and there was “something almost
nauseating about the disparity between the relentless sappiness of the music
and the horror of the events onstage.” Heidi Waleson in the Wall Street
Journal said the “flimsy theatrical evening” was “creepy and unsavory”
with “formulaic tunes,” “generic text with groan-worthy rhymes,” and
“cardboard construction” for many of the characters.
Justin Davidson in New York said Séance brought City Opera’s season
to a “soggy close.” Despite the “gothic psycho-thriller” story, Schwartz
“produced a score that treats murderous lunacy like garden-variety
wistfulness.” Had the composer trusted his “song-writer’s intuition and his
showbiz know-how,” he might have brought “a redemptive jolt of Wicked-
ness” to the “lifeless” proceedings. But Davidson praised Schwarz’s son
Scott, who directed a “taut” and “stark” production.
The world premiere took place on September 26, 2009, at Opera Santa
Barbara’s Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California, with Flanigan and
Josephson in the roles they re-created for New York. For the City Opera
production, Schwartz added the aria “Before You.” As of this writing, the
complete score hasn’t been recorded, but the collection Over the Moon
(released by the Broadway Lullaby Project) includes “Lucky,” sung by
Donna Murphy.
During the production’s run at City Opera, the musical tribute Defying
Gravity: The Music of Stephen Schwartz was presented on April 21, 2011,
at the David H. Koch Theatre for one evening performance. The cast
included Ann Hampton Callaway; Kristin Chenoweth; Raul Esparza; Victor
Garber; and, from Séance, Lauren Flanigan and Todd Wilander. Steven
Osgood conducted the New York City Opera Orchestra.
SISTER ACT
“A DIVINE MUSICAL COMEDY”

Opening Date: April 20, 2011; Closing Date: August 26, 2012
Performances: 561
Book: Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner with additional book material
by Douglas Carter Beane
Lyrics: Glenn Slater
Music: Alan Menken
Based on the 1992 Touchstone Pictures’ film Sister Act (direction by Emile
Ardolino and screenplay by Joseph Howard).
Direction: Jerry Zaks; Producers: Whoopi Goldberg, Stage Entertainment,
Joop Van Den Ende, and Bill Taylor and Rebecca Quigley in association
with The Shubert Organization and Disney Theatrical Productions; Tom
Leonardis, Associate Producer for Whoop Inc.; Beverley D. Mac Keen,
Executive Producer; Choreography: Anthony Van Laast; Scenery: Klara
Zieglerova; Costumes: Lez Brotherson; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical
Direction: Brent-Alan Huffman
Cast: Patina Miller (Deloris Van Cartier), Rashidra Scott (Michelle), Alena
Watters (Tina), Kingsley Leggs (Curtis Jackson), John Treacy Egan
(Joey), Caesar Samayoa (Pablo), Demond Green (TJ), Chester Gregory
(Eddie Souther), Victoria Clark (Mother Superior), Fred Applegate
(Monsignor O’Hara), Marla Mindelle (Mary Robert), Sarah Bolt (Mary
Patrick), Audrie Neenan (Mary Lazarus); Ensemble: Jennifer Allen,
Charl Brown, Holly Davis, Christina DeCicco, Madeleine Doherty,
Alan H. Green, Blake Hammond, Wendy James, Kevin Ligon, Marissa
Perry, Corbin Reid, Rashidra Scott, Jennifer Simard, Lael Van Keuren,
Roberta B. Wall, Alena Watters
The action takes place in Philadelphia in 1978.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Take Me to Heaven” (Patina Miller, Rashidra Scott, Alena
Watters); “Fabulous, Baby!” (Patina Miller, Rashidra Scott, Alena
Watters); “Here within These Walls” (Victoria Clark, Patina Miller);
“It’s Good to Be a Nun” (Patina Miller, Sarah Bolt, Marla Mindelle,
Audrie Neenan); “When I Find My Baby” (Kingsley Leggs, John
Treacy Egan, Caesar Samayoa, Demond Green); “I Could Be That Guy”
(Chester Gregory, Bums); “Raise Your Voice” (Patina Miller, Sarah
Bolt, Marla Mindelle, Audrie Neenan, Nuns); “Take Me to Heaven”
(reprise) (Patina Miller, Sarah Bolt, Marla Mindelle, Audrie Neenan,
Nuns)
Act Two: “Sunday Morning Fever” (Patina Miller, Victoria Clark, Fred
Applegate, Chester Gregory, Sarah Bolt, Marla Mindelle, Audrie
Neenan, Nuns, Workers); “Lady in the Long Black Dress” (John Treacy
Egan, Caesar Samayoa, Demond Green); “(I) Haven’t Got a Prayer”
(Victoria Clark); “Bless Our Show” (Patina Miller, Sarah Bolt, Marla
Mindelle, Audrie Neenan, Nuns); “The Life I Never Led” (Marla
Mindelle); “Fabulous, Baby!” (reprise) (Patina Miller, Chester Gregory,
Nuns, Fantasy Dancers); “Sister Act” (Patina Miller); “When I Find My
Baby” (reprise) (Kingsley Leggs); “The Life I Never Led” (reprise)
(Marla Mindelle); “Sister Act” (reprise) (Patina Miller, Victoria Clark,
Sarah Bolt, Marla Mindelle, Audrie Neenan, Nuns); “Spread the Love
Around” (Company)
Sister Act was based on the popular feel-good 1992 film of the same
name, which utilized the sure-fire odd-couple motif. In this case, the
twosome is the flippant and street smart Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi
Goldberg in the film, Patina Miller in the musical) and the wise and acerbic
Mother Superior (Maggie Smith/Victoria Clark). Deloris has witnessed a
gangland murder and under the Witness Protection Program is placed in
Mother Superior’s convent. The nuns live in semi-seclusion from the
community around them, and through Deloris’s efforts the sisters revitalize
their mission by the use of popular music to reach out to the neighborhood
and its people and to make religion a vital part of their lives.
The musical had enjoyed runs in California and Georgia, and was later
produced in London for a seventeen-month run. The Broadway production
managed to play sixteen months for a total of 561 performances.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said that when the nuns
rocked “to raise the Gothic rafter,” all was “right in the kingdom of musical
comedy.” Otherwise, the musical fell “into bland musical-theatre grooves,”
lacked “the light of invigorating inspiration,” and was “tame, innocuous and
frankly a little dull.” Most of the songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater
were “more serviceable than memorable,” but Van Laast’s choreography
was buoyant. Isherwood noted that in their big routines the nuns were
decked out in “serious bling,” and with Sister Act and Priscilla Queen of
the Desert both playing simultaneously “the amount of glittery costuming
on Broadway has perhaps reached a historic peak.” The New Yorker missed
Goldberg and the Motown sound of the movie, and noted the musical was
“an obscenely expensive Vegas-style spectacle” with nuns in “sequined
habits” and a “gigantic” mirror ball “in the shape of the Virgin Mary.” The
score was “standard” and the book “thin,” but it was “always slightly
thrilling watching nuns rock out.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said “Amen!” The
production was “impeccably cast,” Menken’s music was “catchy,” the
dances could be “habit-forming,” and overall the show moved “at a good
clip.” Elysa Gardner in USA Today noted the evening had “its own distinct
and surprising charms,” and the songs propelled the plot “with a style and
exuberance specific to well-crafted musical theatre.”
The musical’s world premiere took place in 2006 at the Pasadena
Playhouse in Pasadena, California, and later played at the Alliance Theatre
in Atlanta, Georgia. The London edition was produced by Goldberg and
Stage Entertainment and opened on June 2, 2009, for a long run at the
London Palladium with Sheila Hancock (Mother Superior), Patina (Renea)
Miller (Deloris) (for the Pasadena and Atlanta productions, Miller played
various roles and understudied the role of Deloris). For a few performances
during the London run, Goldberg re-created her film role of Deloris.
The London cast album was released by First Night Records, and
included five new songs not heard in the previous U.S. productions (“Here
within These Walls,” “When I Find My Baby,” “Bless Our Show,” “Spread
the Love Around,” and “Do the Sacred Mass”). With the exception of the
latter, all these songs were retained for the Broadway production. Seven
songs from the Pasadena and Atlanta production weren’t included for the
London version (“Light the Way,” “A Simple Life,” “Dress to Kill,” “Goin’
to Hell,” “Would It Kill Me?,” “Mirror Ball,” and “I Haven’t Got a
Prayer”), and except for the latter these were not heard in New York either.
For Broadway, Patina reprised her role of Deloris, Jerry Zaks assumed
direction, and Anthony Van Laast was choreographer (for the original tour,
Peter Schneider and Marguerite Derricks were the respective director and
choreographer). Douglas Carter Beane joined the production and provided
additional book material, and one new song was added (“It’s Good to Be a
Nun”).
In his review of the Pasadena production, Bob Verini in Variety said the
film had been “simplified and distorted to the point of character
incoherence and dubious taste.” The idea that nuns would present a “booty-
shaking” song like “Sunday Morning Fever” in the presence of the pope
was “ludicrous,” the message that “underneath every wimple” is a nun who
wants “to don purple disco boots” was dubious, and the confrontations
between Deloris and the Mother Superior were filled with “sitcomish one-
liners that land with a thud.”
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Sister Act); Best Book (Cheri
Steinkellner, Bill Steinkellner, and Douglas Carter Beane); Best Original
Score (lyrics by Glenn Slater and music by Alan Menken); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Victoria Clark)
BABY IT’S YOU!

Performances: 148
Book: Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott (conceived by Floyd Mutrux)
Direction: Floyd Mutrux and Sheldon Epps; Producers: Warner Bros.
Theatre Ventures & American Pop Anthology in association with
Universal Music Group and Pasadena Playhouse; Choreography:
Birgitte Mutrux; Scenery: Anna Louizos; Projection Design: Jason H.
Thompson; Costumes: Lizz Wolf; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical
Direction: Shelton Becton
Cast: Beth Leavel (Florence Greenberg), Allan Louis (Luther Dixon), Geno
Henderson (Jocko, Chuck Jackson, Ronald Isley, Gene Chandler), Erica
Ash (Micki, Romantic, Dionne Warwick), Kelli Barrett (Mary Jane
Greenberg, Lesley Gore), Kyra Da Costa (Beverly, Ruby), Erica Dorfler
(Millie), Jahi A. Kearse (Street Singer), Crystal Starr (Doris, Romantic),
Barry Pearl (Bernie Greenberg, Milt Gabler), Christina Sajous (Shirley),
Brandon Uranowitz (Stanley Greenberg, Murray Schwartz, Kingsman)
The action takes place in Passaic, New Jersey, and in New York City during
the years 1958–1965.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Mr. Lee” (lyric and music by Reather E. Dixon, Helen Gathers,
Jannie Pought, Laura E. Webb, and Emma Ruth Pought), “Book of
Love” (lyric and music by Warren Davis, George Malone, and Charles
Patrick), “Rockin’ Robin” (uncredited in program; lyric and music by
Leon Rene aka Jimmie Thomas), and “Dance with Me” (lyric and music
by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Lewis Lebish, and George Treadwell)
(Company); “Mama Said” (lyric and music by Luther Dixon and Willie
Denson) (Beth Leavel); “Yakety Yak” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber
and Mike Stoller) (Barry Pearl); “Get a Job” (lyric and music by Earl
Beal, Richard Lewis, Raymond Edwards, and William Horton)
(Brandon Uranowitz); “I Met Him on a Sunday” (lyric and music by the
Shirelles, Shirley Owens, Addie Doris Coley, and Beverly Lee)
(Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Dedicated
to the One I Love” (lyric and music by Ralph Bass and Lowman
Pauling) (Beth Leavel, Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr,
Erica Ash); “Dedicated to the One I Love” (first reprise) (Beth Leavel,
Brandon Uranowitz); “Sixteen Candles” (lyric and music by Luther
Dixon and Allyson Khent) (Beth Leavel); “Tonight’s the Night” (lyric
and music by Luther Dixon and Shirley Owens) (Allan Louis, Christina
Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Dedicated to the One
I Love” (second reprise) (Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal
Starr, Erica Ash); “Dedicated to the One I Love” (third reprise) (Kelli
Barrett); “Since I Don’t Have You” (lyric and music by Jackie Taylor,
James Beaumont, Janet Vogel, Joseph Rock, Joe Verscharen, Lennie
Martin, and Wally Lester) (Geno Henderson); “Big John” (lyric and
music by John Patton and Amiel Sommers) (Christina Sajous, Kyra Da
Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “He’s So Fine” lyric and music by
Ronald Mack) (Christina Sajour, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica
Ash); “Soldier Boy” (lyric and music by Florence Green and Luther
Dixon) (Beth Leavel, Allan Louis, Christina Sajour, Kyra Da Costa,
Crystal Starr, Erica Ash)
Act Two: “Shout” (lyric and music by Ronald Isley, Rudolph Isley, and
O’Kelly Isley) (Geno Henderson, Christina Sajour, Kyra Da Costa,
Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Mama Said” (reprise) (Christina Sajour,
Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash, Allan Louis, Beth Leavel);
“Duke of Earl” (lyric and music by Eugene Dixon, Bernice Williams,
and Earl Edwards) (Geno Henderson, Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa,
Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Foolish Little Girl” (lyric and music by
Howard Greenfield and Helen Miller) (Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa,
Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “It’s My Party” (lyric and music by Wiener
Herb, Gottlieb Seymour, John Gluck Jr., and Wally Gold) (Kelli
Barrett); “Our Day Will Come” (lyric by Bob Hilliard, music by Mort
Garson) (Kyra Da Costa, Erica Ash, Crystal Starr); “The Dark End of
the Street” (lyric and music by Dan Penn and Chips Moman) (Allan
Louis, Beth Leavel, Geno Henderson, Christina Sajous); “Rhythm of
the Rain” (lyric and music by John C. Gummoe) (Brandon Uranowitz,
Kelli Barrett, Beth Leavel); “You’re So Fine” (lyric and music by Lance
Finnie and Willie Schoefield) (Geno Henderson, Christina Sajous, Kyra
Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Hey, Paula” (lyric and music by
Ray Hildebrand) (Geno Henderson, Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa,
Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Louie, Louie” (lyric and music by Richard
Berry) (Brandon Uranowitz, Geno Henderson, Christina Sajous, Kyra
Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “You (You’ve) Really Got a Hold
on Me” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson) (Geno Henderson, Kyra
Da Costa, Christina Sajous, Erica Ash, Crystal Starr, Kelli Barrett, Beth
Leavel); “Baby It’s You” (lyric and music by Barney Williams, Mack
David, and Burt F. Bacharach) (Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa,
Crystal Starr, Erica Ash, Beth Leavel, Allan Louis); “A Thing of the
Past” (lyric and music by Irwin Levin and Robert Brass) (Kyra Da
Costa, Erica Ash, Christina Sajous); “Don’t Make Me Over” (lyric by
Bob Hilliard, music by Burt F. Bacharach) (Erica Ash, Beth Leavel,
Allan Louis); “Walk on By” (lyric by Hal David, music by Burt F.
Bacharach); “Baby It’s You” (reprise) (Christina Sajous, Erica Ash,
Crystal Starr, Kelli Barrett); “Tonight’s the Night” (reprise) (Christina
Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash); “Dedicated to the One
I Love” (fourth reprise) (Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr,
Erica Ash, Beth Leavel); “I Say a Little Prayer” (lyric by Mack David,
music by Burt F. Bacharach) (Company); “Shout” (reprise) and “Twist
and Shout” (lyric and music by Bert Burns and Phil Medley)
(Company)
Those hordes of theatergoers unable to get tickets for Jersey Boys
probably sat around and wondered just when Broadway was going to get
around to telling the story of your ordinary, average, and everyday New
Jersey housewife who discovers a teenage girl group, catapults them into
stardom, and establishes her own record label. Those hoards had to wait no
longer, because Baby It’s You! told the true story of New Jersey housewife
Florence Greenberg (Beth Leavel) who traded home and hearth in suburban
Passaic for the power and prestige of big-time show business as a promoter
of rhythm and blues (and rock ’n’ roll) singers when she discovered the girl
group Jersey Girls (that is, the Shirelles) at a local high school and
magically transformed them into a minor nationwide sensation with their
hits “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” “Mama Said,” and “Tonight’s the
Night.” She also formed two companies, Tiara Records and Scepter
Records, and one line of dialogue helpfully explained that “while sitting on
the throne” she thought up these names.
The musical gave us an inside look at Florence and her life and times.
Was she Jewish? Well, yes, because in her first line of dialogue she uses the
word oy. Was her marriage happy? Well, yes, because when she and hubby
argue, he answers back by singing that immortal rock hit “Yakety Yak.”
Would lucky audiences hear the Shirelles’ biggest hit “Will You Love Me
Tomorrow?” Well, no, because the song was written by Carole King and
Gerry Goffin, and King didn’t give permission for the use of the song
(maybe she had something Beautiful in mind).
But wait. There was a cautionary note in the program that warned that
despite its being “inspired by actual events, some material has been
fictionalized for dramatic purposes.” So maybe Florence didn’t say oy and
instead said schlep or mensch?
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said “the Lawrence
Welk of jukebox musicals” included such songs as “He’s So Fine” and
“Walk on By,” and the title of the latter was his advice to someone thinking
about getting a ticket. The headline of Elisabeth Vincentelli’s review in the
New York Post decided “Baby, It’s Not You!” The show was
“undercooked,” and the songs “deserved a better showcase” because as
presented the evening was just a “glorified revue.” David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter said the “rudimentary” book was a “depressingly
artless construct,” and in one scene when Florence’s husband belittles her
dreams of girl-group glory, she sighed herself into a song cue with the line
“Mama said there’d be days like this.” (Note there were mixed uses of the
songs: some were used as book numbers, others were presentational.)
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times wisely recalled that “mama
said there’ll be shows like this.” The book provided a “superficial and
weirdly frenetic” look at Greenberg’s life and depicted “mechanically
sketched emotional crises.” Like “life preservers,” invitations were “flung
at the audience regularly” to sing along; a “cosmic” disc jockey provided
deep historical perspective “with material cut and pasted from Wikipedia”
(including the valuable facts that Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for
Butterfield 8 and The Apartment won for Best Picture); and Leavel went
“through more costume changes than Marlene Dietrich probably did in her
entire career as a concert performer.” But Isherwood noted that occasionally
the costumes provided deep clues into the story’s progression, and when
someone sported “white go-go boots” that was a sure sign of the “onset of
rebellion.”
The New Yorker said the saga was a “particularly good one in the hands
of” book writers Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott (who had also given the
world Million Dollar Quartet), and so the show was a “bona-fide
Broadway hit” that wasn’t “too gaudy, only slightly cheesy, and a lot of
fun” with “fantastic” and “sometimes heartbreakingly beautiful” musical
performances and “topnotch” acting.
But “bona-fide Broadway hit” didn’t quite define the show’s fate, and
its time at the Broadhurst lasted just four months.
The offstage drama was perhaps more interesting than what transpired
onstage. On the day prior to the opening, a law suit was filed against the
producers alleging that the likenesses of some of the real-life performers
depicted in the show were presented without their consent, and the Times
reported that the complaint sought both a jury trial as well as damages for
the plaintiffs. Roger Friedman in Showbiz4ll noted the production had been
in the works for “at least” four years and the plaintiffs had “waited through
all its performances in different Los Angeles area theatres without saying a
word” (note that the production’s world premiere had taken place on
November 13, 2009, at the Pasadena Playhouse). Ultimately, an out-of-
court settlement was reached and so the matter never went to trial.
Songs listed in the program’s credit pages but not in the list of musical
numbers were: “The Stroll” (lyric and music by Nancy Lee Ericksen and
Clyde Lovern Otis), “Mr. Bassman” (lyric and music by Johnny Cymbal),
“Any Day Now” (lyric by Bob Hilliard, music by Burt F. Bacharach), and
“Stop in the Name of Love” (lyric and music by Brian Holland, Lamont
Herbert Dozier, and Edward Holland Jr.). However, “Rockin’ Robin” (lyric
and music by Leon Rene aka Jimmie Thomas) was listed among the
musical numbers, but not in the credits.
The cast album was released by Verve Records.
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
in a Musical (Beth Leavel)
THE PEOPLE IN THE PICTURE

Theatre: Studio 54
Performances: 60
Book and Lyrics: Iris Rainer Dart
Music: Mike Stoller and Artie Butler
Direction: Leonard Foglia; Producers: Roundabout Theatre Company
(Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) in association with Tracy Aron, Al
Parinello, and Stefany Bergson; Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler;
Scenery: Riccardo Hernandez; Projection Design: Elaine J. McCarthy;
Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward; Lighting: James F. Ingalls; Musical
Direction: Paul Gemignani
Cast: Hal Robinson (Doovie Feldman, Rabbi Velvel), Alexander
Gemignani (Moishe Rosenwald), Joyce Van Patten (Chayesel Fisher),
Chip Zien (Yossie Pinsker), Lewis J. Stadlen (Avram Krinsky),
Christopher Innvar (Chaim Bradovsky), Rachel Resheff (Jenny), Donna
Murphy (Bubbie, Raisel), Nicole Parker (Red), Jeremy Davis
(Hoodlum), Jeffrey Schecter (Hoodlum), Emilee Dupre (Hollywood
Girl), Shannon Lewis (Hollywood Girl), Jessica Lea Patty (Hollywood
Girl), Megan Reinking (Hollywood Girl, Dobrisch), Louis Hobson
(Doctor Goldblum), Andie Mechanic (Young Red), Paul Anthony
Stewart (Jerzy), Maya Goldman (Rachel)
The action takes place in New York City in 1977 and in Warsaw, Poland,
during the years 1935–1946.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = music by Mike Stoller; (**) = music by Artie Butler; (***) =
lyric and music by Mark Warshavsky (1845–1907).
Act One: Prologue (Orchestra); “Bread and Theatre” (*) (Donna Murphy,
The Warsaw Gang, Company); “Matryoshka” (*) (Donna Murphy,
Rachel Resheff); “Matryoshka” (reprise) (Nicole Parker); “Before We
Lose the Light” (*) and “The Dybbuk” (*) (Donna Murphy, The
Warsaw Gang, Company); “Remember Who You Are” (**) (Chip Zien,
Lewis J. Stadlen); “Hollywood Girls” (*) (Christopher Innvar, Donna
Murphy, Company); “Remember Who You Are” (reprise) (Lewis J.
Stadlen, Chip Zien, Donna Murphy, Alexander Gemignani, Christopher
Innvar, Joyce Van Patten); “And God Laughs” (*) (Alexander
Gemignani, Donna Murphy, Hal Robinson); “Oyfen Pripitchik” (***)
(Donna Murphy, Megan Reinking); “Red’s Dilemma” (“Can I Really
Leave You Here”) (*) (Nicole Parker); “For This” (*) (Donna Murphy,
Nicole Parker, Rachel Resheff); “Oyfen Pripitchik” (reprise) (Rachel
Resheff, Lewis J. Stadlen, Joyce Van Patten, Alexander Gemignani,
Company)
Act Two: Prologue (Orchestra); “We Were Here” (**) (Donna Murphy,
Alexander Gemignani, Joyce Van Patten, Lewis J. Stadlen, Company);
“Now and Then” (*) (Nicole Parker); “Ich, Uch, Feh” (**) (Donna
Murphy, Company); “Selective Memory” (*) (Donna Murphy); “Saying
Goodbye” (**) (Donna Murphy, Megan Reinking, Nicole Parker, Andie
Mechanic); “Child of My Child” (*) (Donna Murphy); “Remember
Who You Are” (reprise) (Donna Murphy); Finale: “Bread and Theatre”
(reprise) and “We Were Here” (reprise) (Donna Murphy, The Warsaw
Gang)
The final musical of the season was the Roundabout Theatre Company’s
The People in the Picture, which played a limited engagement of seven
weeks. The book and lyrics were by Iris Rainer Dart, the author of the novel
Beaches, which was made into the popular 1988 film of the same name and
later adapted into the musical Beaches, which premiered in regional theatre
in 2014 (Dart was the lyricist of Beaches, and with Thom Thomas cowrote
the libretto).
The chief composer of The People in the Picture was Mike Stoller, with
additional songs by Artie Butler. With Jerry Leiber, Stoller had written such
popular rock ’n’ roll songs as “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” and “Yakety
Yak,” and in the late 1960s their musical International Wrestling Match was
announced for a Broadway production that never materialized. One song in
that score was recorded by Peggy Lee, and the weary angst of its lyric and
the slow insinuating vamp of its music propelled “Is That All There Is?”
into the top tier of the American Songbook. In 1995, Smokey Joe’s Café, a
retrospective revue of Leiber and Stoller’s pop songs, opened on Broadway
and played for 2,036 performances, and in 2018 was revived Off-Broadway.
The People in the Picture were Jewish entertainers who lived in Warsaw
during the 1930s and early 1940s. All but one perished in the Holocaust,
and so decades later only their photos remain, along with the sole survivor
Raisel (Donna Murphy), now known as Bubbie to her granddaughter Jenny
(Rachel Resheff). Bubbie hopes to give Jenny a sense of the history of those
long-ago days when she and her doomed fellow entertainers gave their
audiences hope and laughter when times were dark and foreboding. As she
shares these memories, the past and the present mingle, and so the New
York City of 1977 merges with Warsaw during the period of 1935–1946.
The story also looked at Bubbie’s unhappy daughter (and Jenny’s mother)
Red (Nicole Parker), and is it necessary to add that Red and Bubbie have, as
they say, issues with one another and that their relationship may be more
complex than it seems?
The headline of Elizabeth Vincentelli’s review for the New York Post
proclaimed that the “Holocaust Musical Brings Oy to the World.” The
musical was a “fiasco” and a “gooey mess” with a “sappy” and “pandering”
book, at best “clumsy” lyrics, and music that faded “into oblivion even as
it’s being played.” Murphy worked “tirelessly to perform CPR on a DOA
show,” and only one song (“Selective Memory”) was even “half-worthy” of
her. The production provided one campy moment for “connoisseurs of
Broadway duds” when Rachel and her Warsaw Gang put on a musical
based on The Dybbuk. The sequence was “so misguided and inane” and “so
dementedly ridiculous” that it became fascinating to watch as it depicted the
dancing dybbuk surrounded by dancing rabbis.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the show was “sincere and
queasy” and “an emotional bulldozer on autopilot.” Without Murphy, the
“well-meaning” production would be “thin treacle” with its “surprisingly
oomph-free klezmer-inflected score” which included songs both “vague and
utterly resistible.” But for the show’s “best” number (“Selective Memory”),
Murphy managed to be the young and the old woman “in one breath” and
the two characters “truly” coexisted in her. The New Yorker noted that for a
musical about “remembrance,” it wasn’t “very memorable” with its “stock
characters” and “weepy deathbed scenes,” but because Murphy was an
“effortlessly original performer” she was “able to craft something specific.”
In preproduction, the musical was known as Laughing Matters. The
original cast album was released by Kritzerland Records.
On April 26, 2018, a revised version of the musical was presented by
Guggenheim Entertainment and 3 Below’s Theatres & Lounge in San Jose,
California, with Susan Gundunas in the leading role.
Awards
in a Musical (Donna Murphy)
ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS

“A NEW MUSICAL”
The musical began previews on July 14, 2010, at the Old Globe Theatre’s
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in San Diego, California, opened on
July 30, 2010, and closed on August 22, 2010. As of this writing, the
musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Rupert Holmes
Lyrics: Sammy Cahn
Music: Jimmy Van Heusen
Based on the 1964 Warner Brothers P-C Production Robin and the 7 Hoods
(direction by Gordon Douglas and screenplay by David R. Schwartz).
Direction and Choreography: Casey Nicholaw (Jennifer Werner, Associate
Director; John MacInnis, Associate Choreographer); Producer: The Old
Globe Theatre (Louis G. Spisto, Executive Producer; Jack O’Brien,
Artistic Director Emeritus) in association with The Seven Hoods
Limited Partnership, and produced with the permission of Warner
Brothers Theatrical Ventures); Scenery: Robert Brill; Costumes: Gregg
Barnes; Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Mark Hummel
Cast: Eric Schneider (Robbo Ortona), Brian Shepard (Shoeshine Guy, Joey,
Terrified Man, Waiter), Clyde Alves (Tommy, Waiter), Tally Sessions
(Doorman, Larry), Stephanie Gibson (Connie, Jet Setter), Beth Johnson
Nicely (Doreen, Jet Setter), Sam Prince (Showbiz Manager, Sonny),
Adam Heller (Lieutenant Nottingham), Timothy J. Alex (Georgie),
Andrew Cao (Stockboy, Huey, Waiter), Aleks Pevec (Mikey, Waiter),
Anthony Wayne (Nunzie), Jeffrey Schecter (Willie Scarlatti), Cara
Cooper (Jet Setter), Paige Faure (Jet Setter), Lisa Gajda (Jet Setter),
Vasthy Mompoint) (Jet Setter), Will Chase (Little John Dante), Amy
Spanger (Alana O’Dell), Rick Holmes (P. J. Sullivan), Kelly Sullivan
(Marian Archer); Ensemble: Timothy J. Alex, Clyde Alves, Andrew
Cao, Cara Cooper, Paige Faure, Lisa Gajda, Stephanie Gibson, Vasthy
Mompoint, Beth Johnson Nicely, Aleks Pevec, Sam Prince, Tally
Sessions, Brian Shepard, Anthony Wayne
The action takes place in Chicago during the early 1960s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)” (1964
film Robin and the 7 Hoods) (Eric Schneider, Company); “Come Dance
with Me” (Girls); “You Can’t Love ’Em All” (1959 film Say One for
Me) (Will Chase, Eric Schneider, Girls); “Call Me Irresponsible” (1963
film Papa’s Delicate Condition) (Will Chase, Amy Spanger); “My Kind
of Town (Chicago Is)” (reprise) (Rick Holmes, Sam Prince, Tally
Sessions); “What Makes It Happen” (Walking Happy, 1966) (Kelly
Sullivan); “I Like to Lead When I Dance” (1964 film Robin and the 7
Hoods) (Eric Schneider, Kelly Sullivan); “I Like to Lead When I
Dance” (reprise) (Eric Schneider, Kelly Sullivan); “Life Is for Livin’”
(Eric Schneider, Will Chase, Girls); “Walkin’ (Walking) Happy”
(Walking Happy, 1966) (Jeffrey Schecter); “More Than Likely” (Eric
Schneider, Kelly Sullivan); “Same Old Song and Dance” (Amy
Spanger); “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (1960 film Ocean’s Eleven)
(Eric Schneider, Kelly Sullivan, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “(Love Is) The Tender Trap” (1955 film
The Tender Trap) (Eric Schneider); “All the Way” (1957 film The Joker
Is Wild) (Eric Schneider, Kelly Sullivan); “Come Fly with Me” (Will
Chase, Amy Spanger, Ensemble); “Come on Strong” (Come on Strong,
1962) (Kelly Sullivan); “High Hopes” (1959 film A Hole in the Head)
(Adam Heller, Eric Schneider); “Love Is a Bore” (Amy Spanger);
“Come Blow Your Horn” (1963 film Come Blow Your Horn) (Will
Chase, Jeffrey Schecter, Hoods); “All the Way” (reprise) (Eric
Schneider, Kelly Sullivan); “Life Is for Livin’” (reprise) (Girls); “Ring-
a-Ding-Ding” (Company)
The Old Globe Theatre’s production of director and choreographer

Casey Nicholaw’s Robin and the 7 Hoods never got to Broadway, but it
sounds like a terrific evening of lively dances and classic Sammy Cahn and
Jimmy Van Heusen songs. The team had written the score for the show’s
source, the 1964 film musical of the same name, which starred Rat Packers
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. The film was also a
reunion for Sinatra and Bing Crosby, who had teamed up in 1956 for
MGM’s Cole Porter musical High Society, and the film provides the one
and only opportunity to see Peter Falk in a musical (his big number is “All
for One and One for All”).
The film never quite jelled. The spoof of rival gangs during the
Prohibition era was saturated with anachronistic with-it 1960s Rat Pack
nonchalance, and perhaps the stage adaptation, which now took place in
those cool Rat Pack days of the early 1960s but still focused on 1920s-
styled gangsters, never jelled, either. For all that, the underrated film (which
was too long by at least twenty or thirty minutes and at times seemed like a
diversion put together by the Rat Pack as a home movie for their friends)
was an ingratiating candy-colored carnival. A clever visual joke focused on
the cornerstones for new buildings and popped up throughout the story, and
in Groundhog-Day fashion there was a seduction scene which was reprised
with slight variations in its depiction of Marian (Barbara Rush) in her
luxury apartment where unsuspecting males are lured to her spider web
(each seduction scene more or less utilized the same staging, settings, and
dialogue, but with different results).
Cahn and Van Heusen’s score yielded the last classic song Sinatra
would ever introduce on the screen, and so the brassy grandeur of “My
Kind of Town (Chicago Is)” propelled it into one of the singer’s finest
moments. The film’s score also included the insinuating “I Like to Lead
When I Dance” and the old-time shtick of “Style” (for Sinatra, Martin, and
Crosby) which included a running spoof of quick-change artists. Sinatra
sings “I Like to Lead When I Dance” on the film’s soundtrack album
(released on vinyl by Reprise Records, and later issued on CD by Artanis
Records), and the track was later released as a single. But Sinatra didn’t
perform the number in the movie, where it was presented as a throwaway in
an expansive speakeasy sequence which included talk and action in the
forefront of the scene while far off in the background a group of chorus
boys sang the number as part of the speakeasy’s floorshow.
Rupert Holmes’s book used the film’s basic premise but was otherwise
quite different from the screenplay. Moreover, the stage version retained
just two songs from the movie, “My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)” and “I
Like to Lead When I Dance” (see below for a list of the film’s other songs),
and the remainder of the score was cherry-picked from the irresistible songs
in the Cahn and Van Heusen catalog, some their independent songs (such as
“Come Dance With Me” and “Come Fly with Me”) and others their movie
songs. The production also included two numbers from their 1966
Broadway musical Walking Happy, the title song and “What Makes It
Happen,” and note that the Robin and the 7 Hoods film offered a few
seconds of underscoring that was heard throughout the movie and was later
developed into “Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong” for their 1965
Broadway musical Skyscraper. The stage musical also offered a nice bit of
esoterica with the title song from Garson Kanin’s 1962 nonmusical, the
comedy Come On Strong, which starred Van Johnson and Carroll Baker.
In his review of the stage production, James Hebert in the San Diego
Union-Tribune said Nicholaw’s “snazzy, imaginative dance sequences help
drive” the “canny” and “stylish” show, which was “a ton of fun froth.” The
songs were “matchless,” Holmes’s story was “clever” and “streamlined,”
and the jokes were good (“Is there a Romeo in your future?” / “No, but
there’s a Joliet in yours”). However, the evening lacked a “credible sense of
danger” and nothing seemed “seriously at stake,” and so it was “about as
filling as the olive at the bottom of a martini glass.”
Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times noted that the show couldn’t
decide if it was “an honest-to-goodness book musical or a jukebox
jamboree,” and so it was “a cross between a Guys and Dolls rip-off and a
Mamma Mia!-style smorgasbord of hits.” But the “goldmine of tunes” was
“criminally entertaining,” and the songs were “a step-up in originality and
surprise from anything written for today’s cheesy Broadway” and were the
show’s “secret weapon.” Moreover, Nicholaw’s choreography “rouses the
crowd with its tap-dancing and general swing.”
As noted, the musical retained two songs from the original 1964 film.
Those not retained for the stage production were: “All for One and One for
All,” “Don’t Be a Do-Badder,” “Any Man Who Loves His Mother,”
“Style,” “Mister Booze,” “Bang! Bang!,” “Charlotte Couldn’t Charleston,”
and “Give Praise! Give Praise! Give Praise!” The Blu-ray of the film was
released by Warner Brothers Home Video. Incidentally, Time said the film
offered “negligible entertainment” and was “less”—“less exciting than
Little Caesar, less convincing than The Roaring Twenties, and less tuneful
than Guys and Dolls.”
SYCAMORE TREES
The musical began previews at the Signature Theatre Company’s Max
Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, on May 18, 2010, opened on June 1,
2010, and closed on June 13, 2010. As of this writing, the musical
hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Ricky Ian Gordon and Nina Mankin
Lyrics and Music: Ricky Ian Gordon
Direction: Tina Landau; Producer: Signature Theatre Company (Eric
Schaeffer, Artistic Director); Choreography: “Created by Tina Landau
in collaboration with the company”; Scenery: James Schuette;
Costumes: Kathleen Geldard; Lighting: Scott Zielinski; Musical
Direction: Fred Lassen
Cast: Diane Sutherland (Edie Sylvan), Marc Kudisch (Sydney Sylvan),
Jessica Molaskey (Myrna Sylvan), Judy Kuhn (Theresa Sylvan), Farah
Alvin (Ginnie Sylvan), Tony Yazbeck (Andrew Sylvan), Matthew Risch
(The Man, David)
The action takes place in a theatre at the present time as well as in the
memories of the characters from the 1940s until today.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Let There Be Light” (Company); “Ours” (Diane Sutherland,
Marc Kudisch, Company); “The Last Time I Saw Him” (Diane
Sutherland); “Sycamore Trees” (Matthew Risch, Company); “Pigeons”
(Marc Kudisch); “Poem” (Jessica Molaskey, Judy Kuhn, Farah Alvin);
“My Mother Is a Singer” (Tony Yazbeck); “I Gotta Get Out of Here”
(Judy Kuhn, Jessica Molaskey, Farah Alvin, Tony Yazbeck); “Maybe a
Work of Art” (Company)
Act Two: “I Don’t Know What to Write” (Tony Yazbeck); “I Don’t Know
What to Write” (reprise) and “I’ll Get Clean” (Jessica Molaskey); “Two
Men” (Tony Yazbeck, Matthew Risch); “Father’s Song” (Marc
Kudisch); “Self Help” (Company); “There Is Grace” (Tony Yazbeck,
Company); “Watercolor” (Farah Alvin); “Healing” (Judy Kuhn, Jessica
Molaskey); “Far Away” (Diane Sutherland, Company); “My Family”
(Company)
Ricky Ian Gordon’s memory musical Sycamore Trees looked at the

dysfunctional Sylvans, a middle-class Jewish family from the Bronx who
move to the supposedly suburban splendors of Long Island where sycamore
trees flourish.
Edie Sylvan (Diane Sutherland) and her husband Sydney (Marc
Kudisch) have four children, three daughters (Myrna, Theresa, and Ginnie,
played by Jessica Molaskey, Judy Kuhn, and Farah Alvin) and one son
Andrew (Tony Yazbeck). Before her marriage, Edie was a Borscht Belt
singer and comedian, and now she uses quips to defuse tense family
situations and calm down the eternally angry Sydney, who is constantly
disappointed with his life and his neurotic and eccentric children. Andrew is
gay and has taken on a male lover, Myrna’s hooked on drugs, Ginnie drifts
along without motivation, and Theresa is a would-be tree-hugging activist
(Kuhn would soon find herself in another Fun Home later in the decade).
The opening scenes were Pirandellian and found the performers in a theatre
where they argue over who will tell the family story. Andrew quickly takes
on the role of narrator, a device that was dropped once the plot got under
way.
The musical was in effect a look at American life in recent decades: the
post–World War II years, the baby boomer generation, and the problems
faced when drugs, AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and suicide threaten to topple
what little order there is in the generally disorganized world of the Sylvans.
In fact, all the characters in the musical were inspired by Gordon’s own
family (the musical changed the names of the family members, and Andrew
was a stand-in for Gordon). The Gordons themselves were examined in
detail by Gordon’s friend Donald Katz, who chronicled their lives in his
well-received 1992 book Home Fires.
Bob Montello in the Washington City Paper noted the production was
still a work in progress, but its minor problems were “fixable” because the
show’s “unblinking embrace” of the Sylvans and their “flaws, missteps, and
insecurities” were “bracing in an age when musicals rarely take the real
world seriously.” Sophie Gilbert in the Washingtonian also found the
evening a work in progress. The songs were “too long and occasionally
mawkish,” “Watercolors” was “syrupy in the extreme,” and in fact it was
“bewildering” that the family saga was set to music because the “emotions
involved would be better suited to a play” where conversations wouldn’t
“be interrupted by jarring bursts of song.”
Barbara Mackay in the Washington Examiner praised Landau’s
“sensitive” direction and “inventive” choreography, and found Gordon’s
score “full of unconventional tunes and harmonies” (she singled out “Let
There Be Light,” “The Last Time I Saw Him,” “My Mother Is a Singer,” “I
Gotta Get Out of Here,” “I Don’t Know What to Write,” “I’ll Get Clean,”
and “Two Men”). Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the “bracing
mosaic” was “utterly worthwhile” with some “quite lovely” music and
seemingly improvisational dialogue that gave the impression of “being
pulled from the ether and pasted into a scrapbook of the mind.” But Paul
Harris in Variety found the book “predictable” and the music “generally
undistinguished,” and while for Gordon the story was “traumatic and heart-
felt,” the story itself was “a cliché-ridden reprise of the overly chronicled
baby boom generation.”
2011–2012 Season
SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK
Theatre: Foxwoods Theatre

Opening Date: June 14, 2011; Closing Date: January 4, 2014
Performances: 1,066
Book: Julie Taymor, Glen Berger, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Lyrics and Music: Bono (aka Paul David Hewson) and The Edge (aka
David Howell Evans)
Based on the Marvel comic book character Spider-Man, created by Stan
Lee and Steve Ditko and first introduced in the August 1962 issue of
Amazing Fantasy # 15.
Direction: “Original direction” by Julie Taymor; Philip William McKinley,
“Creative Consultant”; Producers: Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris,
Land Line Productions, Hello Entertainment/David Garfinkle/Tony
Adams, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Norton Herrick and Herrick
Entertainment, Billy Rovzar and Fernando Rovzar, Stephen Bronfman,
Jeffrey B. Hecktman, OmneityEntertainment/Richard G. Weinberg,
James L. Nederlander, Terry Allen Kramer, S2BN Entertainment, Jam
Theatricals, The Mayerson/Gould/Hauser/Tysoe Group, Patricia
Lambrecht, and Paul McGuinness by arrangement with Marvel
Entertainment; Anna Tanaka, Associate Producer; Glenn Orsher,
Stephen Howard, Martin McCallum, and Adam Silberman, Executive
Producers; Choreography and Aerial Choreography: Daniel Ezralow;
Additional Choreography: Chase Brock; Scenery: George Tsypin (Rob
Bissinger, Associate Scenic Designer); Projection Design: Kyle Cooper;
Mask Design: Julie Taymor; Aerial Design: Scott Rogers; Aerial
Rigging Design: Jaque Paquin; Prosthetics Design: Louie Zakarian;
Costumes: Eiko Ishioka; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction:
Kimberly Grigsby
Cast: Reeve Carney (Peter Parker, Spider-Man), Matthew James Thomas
(Peter Parker, Spider-man at certain performances), T. V. Carpio
(Arachne), Jennifer Damiano (Mary Jane Watson), Isabel Keating (Mrs.
Gribrock, Aunt May, Maxie), Matt Caplan (Flash, Gangster, Bud),
Luther Creek (Kong, Gangster, Travis, Viper Executive), Christopher
W. Tierney (Meeks, Hero Flyer, Kraven the Hunter), Dwayne Clark
(Boyle, Gangster, Robertson, Viper Executive), Ken Marks (Uncle Ben,
Buttons, Viper Executive), Jeb Brown (MJ’s Father, Stokes, Viper
Executive), Patrick Page (Norman Osborn, Green Goblin), Laura Beth
Wells (Emily Osborn, Marbles), Michael Mulheren (J. Jonah Jameson),
Sean Samuels (Purse Snatcher, Swiss Miss), Collin Baja (Carnage,
Green Goblin Flyer), Emmanuel Brown (Electro), Brandon Rubendall
(The Lizard), Gerald Avery (Swarm), Craig Henningsen (Exterminator
Flyer); Citizens, Weavers, Students, Lab Assistants, Reporters,
Puppeteers, Spider-Men, Secretaries, and Soldiers: Gerald Avery, Collin
Baja, Marcus Bellamy, Emmanuel Brown, Jeb Brown, Matt Caplan,
Dwayne Clark, Luther Creek, Craig Henningsen, Dana Marie Ingraham,
Ayo Jackson, Isabel Keating, Natalie Lomonte, Ken Marks, Kristen
Martin, Jodi McFadden, Bethany Moore, Kristen Faith Oei, Jennifer
Christine Perry, Brandon Rubendall, Sean Samuels, Dollar Tan,
Christopher W. Tierney, Laura Beth Wells; Ensemble Aerialists: Kevin
Aubin, Gerald Avery, Collin Baja, Marcus Bellamy, Jessica Leigh
Brown, Luther Creek, Daniel Curry, Erin Ellicott, Craig Henningsen,
Dana Marie Ingraham, Ayo Jackson, Ari Loeb, Natalie Lomonte,
Kristen Martin, Jodi McFadden, Bethany Moore, Kristen Faith Oei,
Jennifer Christine Perry, Brandon Rubendall, Sean Samuels,
Christopher W. Tierney
The action takes place during the present time in New York City.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “The Myth of Arachne” (Reeve Carney); “Behold and Wonder”
(T.V. Carpio, Ensemble); “Bullying by Numbers” (Reeve Carney,
Bullies, High School Students); “No More” (Reeve Carney, Jennifer
Damiano); “D.I.Y. World” (Patrick Page, Laura Beth Wells, Reeve
Carney, Jennifer Damiano, High School Students, Lab Assistants);
“Venom” (Bullies); “Bouncing off the Walls” (Reeve Carney, High
School Students); “Rise Above” (Reeve Carney, T. V. Carpio,
Ensemble); “Pull the Trigger” (Patrick Page, Laura Beth Wells, Viper
Executives, Soldiers); “Picture This” (Reeve Carney, Jennifer Damiano,
Patrick Page, Laura Beth Wells)
Act Two: “A Freak Like Me Needs Company” (Patrick Page, Ensemble);
“If the World Should End” (Jennifer Damiano, Reeve Carney);
“Sinistereo” (Reporters); “Spider-Man!” (Citizens of New York); “Turn
Off the Dark” (T. V. Carpio, Reeve Carney); “I Just Can’t Walk Away”
(Jennifer Damiano, Reeve Carney); “Boy Falls from Sky” (Reeve
Carney); “I’ll Take Manhattan” (Patrick Page); Finale: “A New Dawn”
(Company)
Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark had a punctuation-challenged title, but

that was the least of its worries and it will always be remembered for what
it probably wants to forget. It holds the record for the longest preview
period in Broadway history (November 2010 to June 2011, with a month’s
time off for bad behavior, for a total of 182 performances), and it was the
most expensive show ever produced on Broadway as well as the biggest
money loser (New York reported that its capitalization was $75 million, and
the magazine projected that the show’s losses would total $60 million). And
then there was the GF (ghoulishness factor). Many of the performers flew
above the audience, and New York reported that five cast members were
seriously injured, so no doubt some ticketholders were there to see if
everyone made it to the final curtain. And then there were the backstage
intrigues. Spider-Man was to be Julie Taymor’s triumphant return to
Broadway musical theatre after her success as the director, co-lyricist, and
costume, mask, and puppet designer of Disney’s The Lion King, which
opened in 1997 (and is still running as of this writing).
With Taymor at the helm, with songs by Bono (aka Paul David Hewson)
and The Edge (aka David Howell Evans) of the rock band U2, and a
gargantuan budget to ensure there were plenty of aerial effects (the quaint
days of Peter Pan and flying were apparently long gone, and now aerial
effects were in), the show began previews on November 28, 2010, with a
boatload of program credits. There was not only a choreographer, but an
aerial choreographer as well, and besides a scenic designer and the de
rigueur projection designer, there were credits for aerial designs, aerial
rigging designs, additional “content” designs, and mask designs.
But previews didn’t go smoothly and the official opening night was
continuously postponed. Finally, in February 2011, the critics went ahead
and bought their own tickets in order to review the show. Previews
continued until April 17, and during the period Taymor was let go (but
retained an “original direction” credit), and Philip William McKinley was
brought in to direct (his official title was “creative consultant”). The
choreography and aerial choreography had originally been designed by
Daniel Ezralow, but Chase Brock joined the production with “additional
choreography.” Moreover, the book had originally been credited to Taymor
and Glen Berger, but the final credits cited Taymor, Berger, and Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa. Natalie Mendoza was originally third-billed as Arachne,
but was succeeded by T. V. Carpio, who had heretofore played Miss Arrow,
a character that was eventually written out of the script. Songs deleted
during previews included: “Splash Page,” “Spider-Man Rising,” “Think
Again,” “Deeply Furious,” and “Love Me or Kill Me.”
After the April 17 preview, the show shut down for a month of
rehearsals and then on May 12 began a second set of previews to be
followed by an official opening night on June 14 (as noted, there were a
total of 182 previews). The reviews were so-so, but audience interest was
high. The recognition factor of the popular comic book and movie hero
helped, as did the publicity over the musical’s widely reported troubles,
including the numerous accidents. As a result, the production temporarily
became an event phenomenon that people wanted to see, no matter its
quality.
New York reported that the show’s weekly break-even costs totaled
$1,300,000 and that for the week of December 25, 2011, the show took in
$2,940,000 (at the time, the highest weekly gross in Broadway history), but
for the last week of September 2013, the weekly gross was down to
$621,960, about half the necessary amount to pay the weekly bills. When
the musical permanently turned off the light and shuttered on January 4,
2014, the number of official Broadway performances tallied 1,066, which
bested the original runs of Cabaret, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me, Kate,
The Pajama Game, and Damn Yankees, not to mention Carousel, Camelot,
West Side Story, and Show Boat.
Patrick Healy in the New York Times kept what virtually amounted to a
daily diary of the show’s travails (which he should really develop into a
book), and he noted that during the long haul to opening night the creators’
main chore was to clarify the story. As a result, the romance between Peter
Parker/Spider-Man (Reeve Carney) and Mary Jane Watson (Jennifer
Damiano) was beefed up; the character of the villainess Arachne (Carpio)
was shortened and softened; and the audience-pleasing character of Norman
Osborn/Green Goblin (Patrick Page) was expanded (and Page knew
something about green: he had played the role of the Grinch in the 2006 and
2007 Broadway productions of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
and received great reviews).
Ben Brantley in the Times said the musical had improved since the
winter and was “no longer the ungodly, indecipherable mess” it had been; it
was now just a “bore.” And the “ascent from jaw-dropping badness to mere
mediocrity” was a “step upward” because if he knew “a less-than-
precocious child of 10 or so” and “had several hundred dollars to throw
away,” he’d consider taking the kid to the show. Otherwise, the puppets and
masked figures seemed “to have wandered in from a theme park,” the visual
projections suggested “vintage MTV videos,” the choreography was
“unimaginative,” and the characters had “one-note personalities.”
Scott Brown in New York found the musical to be an “embarrassing
dud”; Linda Winer in Newsday said the “dumbed-down spectacle” set “the
bar low and reaches it”; Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the
“overall effect is more competent than awe-inspiring, more Six Flags than
magic,” and it was “weird” that the “extravaganza” lacked “a single
genuine showstopper”; Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News
noted the show was “weighed down by so-so songs”; and Robert Feldberg
in the Bergen Record said the production was “the theatrical equivalent of a
meal of cotton candy.”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the musical was a “definite
upgrade” from what he’d seen earlier in the year, and if the show hadn’t
quite found its “voice,” you could at least “understand what it’s saying”;
and Richard Zoglin in Time decided the “salvage job” had been
“successful” with a “more logical narrative” but also with “more dull
stretches.”
When John Lahr in the New Yorker reviewed the musical in February
2011, he said the stagecraft was “about as good as it gets,” but noted the
show needed a new book and new songs. And with all the stage accidents,
he wondered if the production had inadvertently created a “new window of
commercial opportunity” with “the musical of human sacrifice.” Lahr also
noted he’d seen “high-camp vulgarities” during his years of theatergoing
(including the concentration camp ballet in Ari and Liza Minnelli’s stint at
the Palace), and decided Spider-Man was “by no means the gag-me-with-a-
spoon event” that the negative buzz had suggested.
The cast album was recorded by Interscope Records, and co-librettist
Glen Berger’s Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most
Controversial Musical in Broadway History was published by Simon &
Schuster in 2014.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Scenic Design for a Musical (George
Tsypin); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Eiko Ishioka)
HAIR
“THE AMERICAN TRIBAL LOVE-ROCK MUSICAL”

Opening Date: July 13, 2011; Closing Date: September 10, 2011
Performances: 67
Book and Lyrics: Gerome Ragni and James Rado
Music: Galt MacDermot
Direction: Diane Paulus; Producers: The Public Theatre (Oskar Eustis,
Artistic Director), Nederlander Productions Inc., Carl
Moellenberg/Wenlarbar Productions, Rebecca Gold/Myla Lerner, Rick
Costello, Joy Newman and David Schumeister, Paul G. Rice/Paul Bartz,
Debbie Bisno, Christopher Hart Productions, John Pinckard, Terry
Schnuck, and Joey Parnes by special arrangement with Elizabeth
Ireland McCann (Jenny Gersten, S. D. Wagner, and John Johnson,
Associate Producers); Choreography: Karole Armitage; Scenery: Scott
Pask; Costumes: Michael McDonald; Lighting: Kevin Adams; Musical
Direction: David Truskinoff
Cast: Phyre Hawkins (Dionne), Steel Burkhardt (Berger), Matt DeAngelis
(Woof), Darius Nichols (Hud), Paris Remillard (Claude), Caren Lyn
Tackett (Sheila), Kacie Sheik (Jeanie), Kaitlin Kiyan (Crissy), Allison
Gunn (Mother, Buddhadalirama), Josh Lamon (Dad), Lee Zarrett
(Hubert, John Wilkes Booth), Lulu Fall (Abraham Lincoln); Tribe
Members: Shaleah Adkisson, Nicholas Belton, Marshal Kennedy
Carolan, Mike Evariste, Lulu Fall, Nkrumah Gatling, Allison Guinn,
Sara King, Josh Lamon, John Moauro, Christine Nolan, Emmy Raver-
Lampman, Arbender Robinson, Cailan Rose, Jen Sese, Lee Zarrett
The action takes place in the late 1960s in the East Village.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Aquarius” (Phyre Hawkins, Tribe); “Donna” (Steel Burkhardt,
Tribe); “Hashish” (Tribe); “Sodomy” (Matt DeAngelis, Tribe);
“Colored Spade” (Darius Nichols, Tribe); “Manchester, England” (Paris
Remillard, Tribe); “I’m Black” (Darius Nichols, Matt DeAngelis, Steel
Burkhardt, Paris Remillard, Tribe); “Ain’t Got No” (Matt DeAngelis,
Darius Nichols, Phyre Hawkins, Tribe); “Sheila Franklin” (Tribe); “I
Believe in Love” (Caren Lyn Tackett, Cailan Rose, Sara King, Shaleah
Adkisson); “Ain’t Got No” (reprise) (Tribe); “Air” (Kacie Sheik, Kaitlin
Kiyan, Phyre Hawkins); “The Stone Age” (Steel Burkhardt); “I Got
Life” (Paris Remillard, Tribe); “Initials” (Tribe); “Going Down” (Steel
Burkhardt, Tribe); “Hair” (Paris Remillard, Steel Burkhardt, Tribe);
“My Conviction” (“Margaret Mead” [unidentified performer]); “Easy to
Be Hard” (Caren Lyn Tackett); “Don’t Put It Down” (Steel Burkhardt,
Matt DeAngelis, Arbender Robinson); “Frank Mills” (Kaitlin Kiyan);
“Hare Krishna” (Tribe); “Where Do I Go” (Paris Remillard, Tribe)
Act Two: “Electric Blues” (Allison Guinn, Josh Lamon, Nicholas Belton,
Shaleah Adkisson); “Oh Great God of Power” (Tribe); “Black Boys”
(Christine Nolan, Jen Sese, Sara King); “White Boys” (Phyre Hawkins,
Emmy Raver-Lampman, Lulu Fall); “Walking in Space” (Tribe);
“Minuet” (Orchestra); “Yes, I’se Finished on Y’alls Farmlands” (Darius
Nichols, Arbender Robinson, Mike Evariste, Nkrumah Gatling); “Four
Score and Seven Years Ago” and “Abie Baby” (Lulu Fall, Darius
Nichols, Arbender Robinson, Mike Evariste, Nkrumah Gatling); “Give
Up All Desires” (Allison Guinn, Kaitlin Kiyan, Caren Lyn Tackett, Matt
DeAngelis); “Three-Five-Zero-Zero” (Tribe); “What a Piece of Work Is
Man” (Tribe); “Good Morning Starshine” (Caren Lyn Tackett, Tribe);
“Ain’t Got No” (reprise) (Paris Remillard, Tribe); “The Flesh Failures”
(Paris Remillard); “Manchester, England” (reprise) and “Eyes Look
Your Last” (Paris Remillard, Kaitlin Kiyan, Phyre Hawkins, Kacie
Sheik, Matt DeAngelis); “The Flesh Failures” (reprise) and “Let the Sun
Shine In” (Caren Lyn Tackett, Phyre Hawkins, Kacie Sheik, Sara King,
Tribe)
The return engagement of the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair

transported one back in time, but not to the late 1960s when the self-
described “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” first opened. Instead, the
2011–2012 season took you to the Broadway of the early 1970s with no less
than four revivals of musicals that played in New York back then. Besides
Hair, the season offered Follies, Godspell, and Jesus Christ Superstar, and
if you’d been in New York during the last full week of June 1972, you
could have seen all four shows (both Hair and Follies ended their runs on
July 1, 1972). It seems that only revivals of Look to the Lilies, Ari, and Earl
of Ruston were missing in order to make the early 1970s party complete.
The current production was a visit from the post-Broadway touring
company of Hair, which had been revived in New York at the Al Hirschfeld
Theatre on March 31, 2009, and had closed on June 27, 2010, a year before
the limited engagement opened. Hair was the granddaddy of rock musicals,
and the 2009 production managed a respectable run of 519 performances,
which nonetheless seemed surprisingly short considering its rave reviews
and a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. In fact, some critics all but
swooned over the production and seemed determined to find important
nuances and meaning in the show, as if somehow the cardboard story and
characters had suddenly taken on heretofore unsuspected complexities.
In his review of the 2009 production, David Rooney in Variety said the
evening was a “full-immersion happening” in which the audience was
elevated “to such a collective high during the first act’s nonstop exuberance
that the apprehensive turn becomes all the more wrenching” and the
“vaudeville collage” morphed into a “heartbreaking crescendo” for the final
scenes. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “thrilling” and
“emotionally rich” production found “vital elements that were always
waiting to be discovered” in previous versions. But Hilton Als in the New
Yorker noted that all the show’s “issues” (other than those related to the
military draft) were racial ones in which the “overburdened” black
characters had “to do almost everything” except tap dance. The musical’s
writers undoubtedly thought they had handled racial matters “with ‘irony’
and a healthy dose of liberal self-consciousness,” but the black character
Hud was really a “construction meant to validate the white hipness of the
show.”
In his review of the return engagement, Charles Isherwood in the Times
was “happy” that both “fresh-faced newcomers” and veterans from various
productions of the show had brought “plenty of life” to the proceedings. He
praised MacDermot’s “irresistible pop-rock melodies” and said it was “easy
to forgive the careless narrative because there is so much heart, humor and
unquenchable good spirit in the songs.”
In recent years the New Broadway encouraged audience participation,
and the current production didn’t disappoint. Isherwood reported that a
“dance party” onstage allowed “everyone to join in the ecstatic finale.” In
the original Broadway production, many of the cast members shed their
clothes at the end of the performance, and one is grateful to the theatrical
gods that the audience wasn’t invited to strip along. But no doubt a future
Hair revival will correct that oversight.
As for the musical’s thin story, it focused on hippies and drop-outs in
the East Village who rail and rant against the establishment and who
celebrate their counterculture lifestyle of illegal drugs, casual sex, and
unending protest (most specifically against the draft and the Vietnam War).
Like the later Rent (1996) and its sentimental glorification of self-obsessed
Village types, Hair’s juvenile message and its smug, more-sensitive-than-
thou hippies were passé even before the musical opened. But the
combination of MacDermot’s lively and melodic score (with a number of
songs that enjoyed Hit Parade status, including “Aquarius,” “Good Morning
Starshine,” and “Let the Sun Shine In”), the edginess of its non-mainstream
attitudes, and its rather innocent and sometimes tongue-in-cheek vulgarity
(including that celebrated and gratuitous nude scene) made Hair the cultural
landmark of its era.
Despite the generally unimaginative and repetitive lyrics, the almost
non-existent book, and characters who were little more than ciphers and
mouthpieces, Hair is an important benchmark in the history of the
American musical theatre. It was the first successful concept musical, a
genre in which plot and character are subjugated to the mood, atmosphere,
and viewpoint of the production. For the concept musical, a linear storyline
with a defined beginning, middle, and end is less important than the overall
pattern in which book, lyrics, music, direction, choreography, visual design,
and performance style tell an essentially abstract story that avoids
traditional narrative devices and a clear-cut conclusion.
Later concept musicals (such as Stephen Sondheim’s Company and
Follies, Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, Marvin Hamlisch’s A Chorus Line, and
John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Chicago) were more artistically satisfying and
certainly more entertaining, but Hair institutionalized the concept musical
and was the first popular one. Earlier concept musicals were W. H. Auden
and Benjamin Britten’s opera Paul Bunyan (1941), Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II’s Allegro (1947), and Alan Jay Lerner and Kurt
Weill’s Love Life (1948).
Hair was the first production to play at the Public Theatre’s new
complex on Lafayette Street. It began previews at the Anspacher Theatre on
October 17, 1967, and officially opened on October 29 for forty-nine
performances. It transferred to the Cheetah nightclub on December 22 for
forty-five performances, and then in a revised version opened on Broadway
at the Biltmore Theatre on April 29, 1968, for a marathon run of 1,750
showings. For Broadway, Tom O’Horgan succeeded Gerald Freedman as
director, and Walker Daniels (Claude) and Jill O’Hara (Sheila) were
followed by co-lyricist and book cowriter James Rado and by Lynn
Kellogg.
The first Broadway revival was a disappointment; it too played at the
Biltmore, where it opened on October 5, 1977, and managed just forty-three
performances. The headlines for the reviews summed up the critical
consensus that the show was past its prime: “Revived Hair Shows Its Gray”
(Richard Eder in the Times); “Defoliated” (T. E. Kalem in Time); and
“Bald” (Jack Kroll in Newsweek). Eder noted that “nothing ages worse than
graffiti.” Kalem said the work was “lavish in dispraise of things American”
and gave vent to a generation that was “overprivileged, overindulged, and
woefully undisciplined.” Kroll said “the Revelation According to St. Hippie
is both too close chronologically and too distant emotionally to work now.”
Two years later the tiresome 1979 film version was released by United
Artists. When Milos Forman was announced as the film’s director, he
seemed like an inspired choice because his style and sensibility appeared to
be a natural match for the iconoclastic material. But the movie proved to be
as dull and uninteresting as most of the other Broadway film adaptations of
the era, such as John Huston’s Annie, Sidney Lumet’s The Wiz, and Richard
Attenborough’s woeful double-header of Oh! What a Lovely War and A
Chorus Line.
On May 3, 2001, the musical was presented in concert by Encores! at
City Center for five performances. Directed and choreographed by Kathleen
Marshall, the cast included Luther Creek (Claude), Idina Menzel (Sheila),
Gavin Creel, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Dead End” and “Oh Great God of
Power” were added to the score), and on September 20, 2004, a concert
version was produced as a benefit for the Actors’ Fund of America with a
cast that included Creel, Sherie Rene Scott, and Annie Golden.
On September 22, 2007, a concert version was presented at Central
Park’s Delacorte Theatre for three performances, returned on June 18, 2008,
for eleven more performances, and then reopened there a few weeks later
on August 7 for additional showings. The three Delacorte productions were
directed by Diane Paulus, and these three versions were the genesis for her
2009 revival (the productions added a number of songs not heard in the
original Hair, including “Ain’t Got No Grass,” “Hello, There,” “Minuet,”
“Yes, I’s Finished on Y’alls Farmlands,” “Give Up All Desires,” “How
Dare They Try,” “Eyes Look Your Last,” “The Stone Age,” and “Sheila
Franklin”).
The albums of the original 1967 Off-Broadway and 1968 Broadway
productions were released by RCA Victor, and a reissue of the latter
included previously unreleased material that was recorded at the time of the
cast album session (“Going Down” and “Electric Blues,” both of which had
been recorded by the Off-Broadway cast). A later RCA CD release of the
Broadway album included five previously unissued songs (“I Believe in
Love,” “The Bed,” and reprise versions of “Ain’t Got No,” “Manchester,
England,” and “Walking in Space”), and RCA’s “deluxe” two-CD edition
included both the Off-Broadway and Broadway cast albums with previously
unreleased tracks from 1967 (an “Opening” sequence; “Red Blue and
White” [which was reworked as “Don’t Put It Down” for Broadway]; and
“Sentimental Ending” [a finale not listed in the Off-Broadway program but
included in the published script]).
Besides the above, RCA released the collection DisinHAIRited, which
was later issued by RCA/Arkiv Music and included songs written for but
not used in the musical as well as ones written especially for the recording
(“One-Thousand-Year-Old Man,” “So Sing the Children on the Avenue,”
“Manhattan Beggar,” “Mr. Berger,” “I’m Hung,” and “Mess o’ Dirt”)
(among the singers are James Rado, Gerome Ragni, Galt MacDermot,
Melba Moore, Donnie Burks, and Leata Galloway). Other recordings are: a
British studio cast album (Polydor); a Paris cast album (Philips); a Tokyo
cast album (RCA); and even Hair Styles (Atco) by the Terminal
Barbershop. The above-mentioned 2004 benefit was recorded by
Ghostlight, which also issued the 2009 cast album.
The 2009 revival was the subject of the 2009 documentary film ‘Hair’:
Let the Sun Shine In (released on DVD by Kino Lober Films). David
Hinckley in the New York Post reported that the documentary “occasionally
overstates” Hair’s “profundity,” and it was “arguable” that Hair was “hip
and profound cutting-edge political theatre.”
The script was published in paperback by Pocket Books in 1969, and
was also included in the 1979 hard-back collection Great Rock Musicals,
published by Stein and Day and edited by Stanley Richards. In 2003, Let
the Sun Shine In: The Genius of ‘Hair’ by Scott Miller was published in
paperback by Heinemann Press, and in 2010 ‘Hair’: The Story of a Show
That Defined a Generation by Eric Grode (with a forward by James Rado)
was published in hardback by Running Press.
The original London production opened on September 27, 1968, at the
Shaftesbury Theatre for 1,998 performances, which surpassed the run of the
original Broadway production.
There was a sequel of sorts to Hair. James Rado wrote the lyrics and
music and with Ted Rado cowrote the book for Rainbow, which opened
Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre on December 18, 1972, for forty-
eight performances. As The Rainbow Rainbeam Radio Show (subtitled
Heavenzapoppin’), a revised version starred James Rado and toured for
about five minutes in 1973. The confusing concert-styled musical (which
included some pleasant songs) focused on the spirit of a young man who
was killed in the Vietnam War and who now travels throughout the universe
in search of peace (or something). Perhaps he was Hair’s Claude, who was
drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.
FOLLIES
Opening Date: September 12, 2011; Closing Date: January 22, 2012
Performances: 152
Book: James Goldman
Direction: Eric Schaeffer (David Ruttura, Associate Director); Producers:
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Nederlander
Presentations, Inc., Adrienne Arsht, and HRH Foundation; Allan
Williams, Executive Producer; Choreography: Warren Carlyle; Scenery:
Derek McLane; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Natasha Katz;
Musical Direction: James Moore
Cast: Bernadette Peters (Sally Durant Plummer), Lora Lee Gayer (Young
Sally), Florence Lacy (Sandra Crane), Kiira Schmidt (Young Sandra,
Buddy’s Blues “Margie”), Colleen Fitzpatrick (DeeDee West), Leslie
Donna Flesner (Young DeeDee), Mary Beth Peil (Solange LaFitte),
Ashley Yeater (Young Solange), Jayne Houdyshell (Hattie Walker),
Jenifer Foote (Young Hattie, Buddy’s Blues “Sally”), Michael Hayes
(Roscoe), Terri White (Stella Deems), Erin N. Moore (Young Stella),
Frederick Strother (Max Deems), Rosalind Elias (Heidi Schiller), Leah
Horowitz (Young Heidi), Susan Watson (Emily Whitman), Danielle
Jordan (Young Emily), Don Correia (Theodore Whitman), Elaine Paige
(Carlotta Campion), Pamela Otterson (Young Carlotta), Jan Maxwell
(Phyllis Rogers Stone), Kirsten Scott (Young Phyllis), Ron Raines
(Benjamin Stone), Danny Burstein (Buddy Plummer), David Sabin
(Dimitri Weismann), Christian Delcroix (Young Buddy), Nick Verina
(Young Ben), Clifton Samuels (Kevin); Ensemble: Lawrence
Alexander, Brandon Bieber, John Carroll, Leslie Donna Flesner, Jenifer
Foote, Leah Horowitz, Suzanne Hylenski, Danielle Jordan, Amanda
Kloots-Larsen, Brittany Marcin, Erin N. Moore, Pamela Otterson,
Clifton Samuels, Kiira Schmidt, Brian Shepard, Amos Wolff, Ashley
Yeater
The action takes place on the stage of the Weismann Theatre in 1971.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Orchestra); “Beautiful Girls” (Michael Hayes,
Company); “Don’t Look at Me” (Bernadette Peters, Ron Raines);
“Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” (Danny Burstein, Ron Raines, Jan
Maxwell, Bernadette Peters, Christian Delcroix, Nick Verina, Kirsten
Scott, Lora Lee Gayer); “Rain on the Roof” (Susan Watson, Don
Correia); “Ah, Paris!” (Mary Beth Peil); “Broadway Baby” (Jayne
Houdyshell); “The Road You Didn’t Take” (Ron Raines); “In Buddy’s
Eyes” (Bernadette Peters); “Who’s That Woman?” (Terri White, The
Ladies); “I’m Still Here” (Elaine Paige); “Too Many Mornings” (Ron
Raines, Bernadette Peters)
Act Two: “The Right Girl” (Danny Burstein); “One More Kiss” (Rosalind
Elias, Leah Horowitz); “Could I Leave You?” (Jan Maxwell); Loveland:
The Folly of Love—“Loveland” (Ensemble); The Folly of Youth
—“You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow” (Nick Verina, Kirsten Scott,
Christian Delcroix, Lora Lee Gayer); Buddy’s Folly—“The God-Why-
Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues” (Danny Burstein, Kiira Schmidt, Jenifer
Foote); Sally’s Folly—“Losing My Mind” (Bernadette Peters); Phyllis’s
Folly—“The Story of Lucy and Jessie” (Jan Maxwell, The Gentlemen
of the Ensemble); Ben’s Folly—“Live, Laugh, Love” (Ron Raines,
Company)
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is not only his masterwork, it may well be

the greatest of all Broadway musicals. Its original 1971 production was
critically acclaimed and won six Tony Awards, but managed just a little
over a year on Broadway. According to Variety, its combined losses for
Broadway and a brief tour amounted to more than $700,000, an astounding
sum for the era.
The first Broadway revival in 2001 was a mostly embarrassing affair
that was partially salvaged by a few of the supporting players, and the $4.5
million production lasted for just 116 performances. The current revival
also failed to attract audiences and was gone after 152 showings. The New
York Times reported it was capitalized at $5.5 million, and like its two
predecessors failed to recoup its initial investment.
The musical combines heartbreaking despair and show business
razzmatazz that together culminate in an explosive look at life’s follies and
self-deceptions. The story takes place on the stage of producer Dimitri
Weismann’s fabled theatre, which is to be demolished the next day in order
to build a parking garage. But tonight he’s holding a first and last reunion
party for cast members who appeared in his legendary series of Follies
revues, including former chorus girls Phyllis (Jan Maxwell) and Sally
(Bernadette Peters) and their stage-door Johnnies Ben (Ron Raines) and
Buddy (Danny Burstein), whom they respectively married. All are now
middle-aged and unhappy, and for the past thirty years have been caught in
a web of regrets, recriminations, and sour what-might-have-beens.
Weismann’s theatre is haunted not only by the ghosts of former show
girls, but also by the spectral figures of those associated with the old theatre
in one way or another, including the four main characters’ youthful ghosts,
who watch their older selves and see the festering resentments that will
soon erupt into a surreal Follies, a musical time warp where past and
present collide. All eight of them will be thrust into the musical comedy
arcadia of Loveland, a Fragonard dreamscape where they’ll perform
double-edged Follies songs and undergo musical nervous breakdowns
which simultaneously mirror both old-time Broadway and the follies of
their lives.
The work was first and foremost a delicate memory piece, and its
nonlinear story line emphasized mood instead of plot, and never before or
since has a musical so brilliantly presented such a fluid depiction of time
and space with the intermingling of past and present into a single
dimension. James Goldman’s masterful and shockingly underrated book
was spare and incisive with its unflinching look at the losses of youth,
ideals, and innocence. His Proustian remembrance of things from an
unrecoverable past did its work with brittle wit and achingly sad insight,
and his book may well be the most compact in all lyric theatre, one that
provides the perfect framework to tell its story and to create haunting
portraits of some of the most complex characters ever seen on the musical
stage.
Goldman and the original codirectors Harold Prince and Michael
Bennett (who also choreographed) created short film-like sequences that
zoomed in and then quickly faded as they briefly but succinctly sketched
the party guests. The stage directions in the script explain that at times the
stage seems “huge and empty” and then “closed in and intimate,” and the
material “is free to be now here, now there or, on occasion, different places
all at once.” A few songs even flashed forward out of nowhere and then
suddenly vanished, such as the sequence that included “Rain on the Roof,”
“Ah, Paris!,” and “Broadway Baby.” The original production was presented
in one act and never broke its stride as the action flowed continuously
toward the climactic Loveland sequence, and later revivals did the musical
no favors by breaking the mood with a gratuitous intermission.
Sondheim’s score is his finest, which is another way of saying it’s the
best score ever created for the musical theatre. He actually wrote two
scores. The first consists of a brilliant pastiche performed at the party or in
Loveland that conjured up Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly (“One
More Kiss,” with its warning to “never look back,” could have been Kathie
and Prince Karl’s farewell song in The Student Prince), Irving Berlin
(“Beautiful Girls”), Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer (“Losing My Mind”),
Cole Porter (“Ah, Paris!”), Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin (“The Story of
Lucy and Jessie”), and the team of B. G. (Buddy) DeSylva, Lew Brown,
and Ray Henderson (“Broadway Baby”). Sondheim even created a
sequence (“You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow” and “Love Will See Us
Through”) that brilliantly evoked the Richard Rodgers of both Lorenz Hart
and Oscar Hammerstein II (note the slightly self-conscious Hart-like
rhymes for the first song and the allusion to Oklahoma!’s Ado Annie and
Will Parker in the second).
The second score is “pure” Sondheim, and the book songs found him at
the peak of his powers: Ben’s self-loathing “The Road You Didn’t Take”;
Phyllis’s blistering attack “Could I Leave You?”; Buddy’s bewilderment
over who might be “The Right Girl”; and Sally’s self-effacing “Don’t Look
at Me” and her self-deceptive “In Buddy’s Eyes.” There was also the
ultimate seen-it-all anthem “I’m Still Here” sung by Carlotta (Elaine Paige),
who is perhaps the musical’s only character who accepts the vagaries of
existence and knows that life owes you absolutely nothing. And the show-
stopping “Who’s That Woman?” (often referred to as the “mirror number”)
found the female characters performing one of the old Follies’ songs as
party entertainment, and as the older women sing of the ravages of time,
their youthful ghosts join them.
For the Loveland sequence, each of the four principals was given a
number that had its prototypes in the world of old musical comedy. Buddy’s
“The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues” brought to mind the Gershwin
brothers; Sally’s torch song “Losing My Mind” evoked Arlen and Mercer;
Phyllis’s “The Story of Lucy and Jessie” was a homage to Kurt Weill and
Ira Gershwin’s “The Saga of Jenny”; and except for its nightmarish
conclusion Ben’s “Live, Laugh, Love” could have been a jaunty supper-
club routine for Fred Astaire.
The original production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on April
4, 1971, for 522 performances, and was nominated for eleven Tony Awards,
winning six (Best Score, Best Choreography, Best Scenic Design, Best
Costume Design, Best Lighting Design, and Best Actress in a Leading Role
for a Musical [for Alexis Smith, the original Phyllis]). The production also
won the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical.
The abridged cast album was released on vinyl by Capitol, and the CD
has been issued three times (by Capitol, Broadway Angel, and Kritzerland).
All three CDs include “One More Kiss,” which had been recorded during
the cast album session but had been eliminated from the vinyl release due to
lack of space. “Rain on the Roof,” “Loveland,” and “Bolero d’Amour”
weren’t recorded, and many numbers were condensed. The script was
published in hardback by Random House in 1971.
On September 6 and 7, 1986, a concert version was presented at Lincoln
Center’s Avery Fisher Hall by the New York Philharmonic with guest
performers that included Lee Remick and George Hearn. It was recorded
live by RCA, and was later telecast on public television. A DVD of the
concert is included in The Stephen Sondheim Collection released by Image
Entertainment.
The London premiere opened on July 21, 1987, at the Shaftesbury
Theatre for 644 performances; six numbers were cut (“The Road You
Didn’t Take,” “Bolero d’Amour,” “Love Will See Us Through,”
“Loveland,” “The Story of Lucy and Jessie,” and “Live, Laugh, Love”) and
five were added (“Country House,” “Social Dancing,” a new version of
“Loveland,” “Ah, but Underneath,” and “Make the Most of Your Music,”
the latter two replacing “The Story of Lucy and Jessie” and “Live, Laugh,
Love”). The cast recording was released by First Night Records.
A production by the Paper Mill Playhouse (Millburn, New Jersey)
opened on April 15, 1998, and its cast album was released by TVT Records.
Along with the original cast album, this revival’s recording is the finest
interpretation of the score; it substituted “Ah, but Underneath” for “The
Story of Lucy and Jessie,” but included the latter as a bonus track along
with eight songs written for, but not used in, the Broadway production
(“Bring on the Girls,” “Can That Boy Foxtrot!,” “Pleasant Little Kingdom,”
“All Things Bright and Beautiful,” “That Old Piano Roll,” “Who Could Be
Blue?,” “Little White House,” and “Uptown, Downtown”) (note that “All
Things Bright and Beautiful” and “That Old Piano Roll” were heard as
background music in the original Broadway production).
The first staged New York revival opened on April 5, 2001, at the
Belasco Theatre, and went unrecorded. The disappointing production
lacked the grandeur and pathos of the original, the staging lacked clarity,
Blythe Danner never captured the inner vulnerability hidden by Phyllis’s
brittle mask, and the ghostly show girls looked like clueless walk-ons. The
choreography was unimaginative, and the scenery was skimpy (Loveland
looked like Bargain Basement Land, and Phyllis’s folly with its Pepto-
Bismol pinks and cheap-looking decor looked like leftover dinner theatre).
But Polly Bergen’s Carlotta was brilliant, and “I’m Still Here” was a
showstopper (a decade or two earlier she would have been a terrific
Phyllis); Betty Garrett was Hattie, and her “Broadway Baby” was
refreshingly understated; Marge Champion and Donald Saddler were
charming as the Whitmans; and the production’s chills-up-and-down-the-
spine factor was no less than Joan Roberts as Heidi. Yes, Oklahoma’s
original Laurey was back on Broadway after fifty-two years, and she
brought grace and nostalgia to her brief role. (The 1971 production of
Follies had reintroduced Carousel’s original Julie Jordan when Jan Clayton
was signed as Dorothy Collins’s standby and spelled Collins during her
vacation. Clayton’s voice was no longer what it had been, but her acting
skills and ravaged voice created a desolate and delusional Sally.)
A slightly revised script was published in paperback by Theatre
Communications Group in 2001, and a later edition was issued in 2011.
A concert version was presented by Encores! at City Center on February
8, 2007, for six performances.
The current revival had its own problems. It originated at the Kennedy
Center, and when it moved to Broadway a few months later it lasted only
four months. The 2001 production had dropped the characters of Vincent
and Vanessa, and their “Bolero d’Amour” became “Dance d’Amour” and
was given to the Whitmans, who also sang “Rain on the Roof,” as they had
done in the 1971 production. The current revival eliminated both Vincent
and Vanessa and “Bolero (Dance) d’Amour,” but the Whitmans were back
with “Rain on the Roof.” For some reason, the revival’s program listed
“You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” but not its related song “Love Will See
Us Through” (but both were included on the revival’s cast album, which
was released by PS Classics). For Washington, Linda Lavin, Regine, and
Terrence Currier were Hattie, Solange, and Theodore Whitman, and for
New York they were succeeded by Jayne Houdyshell, Mary Beth Peil, and
Don Correia.
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the current revival was
“in the shaky mitts of journeyman director” Eric Schaeffer and a “tentative”
cast, and what should have been a “seamless whole” was now a series of
“barely connected musical numbers of varying quality.” For “The Story of
Lucy and Jessie,” Maxwell (Phyllis) couldn’t “keep up” with the lyric and
the choreography, and Peters (Sally) suggested “a degree of mental
imbalance” and her singing voice was “wobbly.” But Paige (Carlotta) rose
“to the top” of the evening with “I’m Still Here” and her “unexpected comic
awareness.” Otherwise, Follies demanded “a real vision of theatre,” and this
wouldn’t come from Schaeffer, whose “few ideas” weren’t “even brought to
full fruition.” And while the Loveland sequence should have taken the
audience “to a different realm” it instead looked like “a gigantic potpourri
from Laura Ashley.”
Steve Suskin in Variety found the evening “thrilling and terrific,” but
noted the decor was “functional” and the costumes “generally OK.”
Burstein (Buddy) stood out and Paige brought “voltage” to her role, but
Peters was “ultimately unconvincing” because she played Sally “like
something out of Albee,” and when she sang you couldn’t tell “whether
Sally is struggling with her emotions or Peters is just struggling with the
notes.”
Scott Brown in New York noted that Paige delivered “the goods” in what
was the show’s “Elaine Stritch Moment,” and Peters sang “Losing My
Mind” (“the torch song to end all torch songs”) with a “tremulous, bird-on-
a-wire brokenness she continues to refine and deepen,” and Michael Musto
in the Village Voice said Houdyshell (Hattie), Terri White (Stella), and
Rosalind Elias (Heidi) delivered “socko old-show showmanship that
reminds you why, even if theatres shutter, vaudeville will never die.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the revival possessed the “glint
of crystalline sharpness” and there was “a performance-honing anger” that
defined the four principals (in Washington, Peters was “entirely too sexy to
be Sally,” but now she channeled her “inner frump”). The original
production was “Broadway’s ultimate ghost story” and had been staged
“with a sumptuousness that would be unthinkable today,” but in Schaeffer’s
revival “neither the ghosts nor the darkness loom as large” and the spectral
show girls didn’t “really seem to know why they’re there.” And while the
dances were “charming,” they lacked the “grandeur and precision” of
Bennett’s original choreography.
Ted Chapin’s Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical
‘Follies’ was published in hardback by Alfred A. Knopf in 2003 and is a
firsthand account of the making of the original production. In 2010, Knopf
published Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981)
with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and
Anecdotes, which includes the lyrics of all the songs written for Follies.
There was a tantalizing moment when it appeared Twentieth Century-
Fox was going forward with a film version of the musical. On April 15,
1973, A. E. Weiler in the Times reported that playwright Jean-Claude van
Itallie would write the screenplay and that the locale would be changed
from a soon-to-be-demolished Broadway theatre to a movie studio about to
be razed. Weiler said old Fox movie sets as well as snippets from Fox
musicals would be used in the projected film.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Follies); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Danny
Burstein); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Ron Raines); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Jan Maxwell); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Jayne Houdyshell); Best Costume Design of a
Musical (Gregg Barnes); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Natasha
Katz); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Kai Harada)
GODSPELL
Theatre: Circle in the Square
Opening Date: November 7, 2011; Closing Date: June 24, 2012
Performances: 264
Book: John-Michael Tebelak
Lyrics (including new lyrics) and Music: Stephen Schwartz
Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew.
Direction: Daniel Goldstein; Producers: Ken Davenport, Hunter Arnold,
Broadway Across America, Luigi Caiola, Rose Caiola, Edgar Lansbury,
Mike McClernon, The Tolchin Family, Guillermo Wiechers and Juan
Torres, and The People of Godspell (Dennis Grimaldi Productions,
Todd Miller, Pivot Entertainment Group, Chris Welch, and Cedric Yau,
Associate Producers); Choreography: Christopher Gattelli; Scenery:
David Korins; Special Effects: Chic Silber; Costumes: Miranda
Hoffman; Lighting: David Weiner; Musical Direction: Charlie Alterman
Cast: Hunter Parrish (Jesus), Wallace Smith (John, Judas), Uzo Aduba,
Nick Blaemire, Celisse Henderson, Morgan James, Telly Leung,
Lindsay Mendez, George Salazar, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle
musical was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Company); “Prepare Ye (the Way of the Lord)”
(Wallace Smith, Company); “Save the People” (Hunter Parrish,
Company); “Day by Day” (Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, Company);
“Learn Your Lessons Well” (Celisse Henderson, Company); “Bless the
Lord” (Lindsay Mendez, Company); “All for the Best” (Hunter Parrish,
Wallace Smith, Company); “All Good Gifts” (Telly Leung, Company);
“Light of the World” (George Salazar, Company)
Act Two: “Turn Back, O Man” (Morgan James, Company); “Alas for You”
(Hunter Parrish); “By My Side” (lyric by Jay Hamburger, music by
Peggy Gordon) (Uzo Aduba, Company); “We Beseech Thee” (Nick
Blaemire, Company); “Beautiful City” (Hunter Parrish, Company); “On
the Willows” (Wallace Smith, Band); Finale (Hunter Parrish, Company)
The revival of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell ushered in a mini-trend of

religious-themed musicals for the season, and it was followed by the revival
of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar as well as by Alan
Menken’s new musical Leap of Faith.
Godspell’s informal, semi-improvisational style and its ragtag, trendy,
and fast-and-loose interpretation of the Gospel According to St. Matthew
amounted to a Gospel for Dummies. But the evening’s essentially harmless
and lighthearted nature and Schwartz’s catchy soft rock score catapulted the
musical into one of the most popular crowd-pleasers of the 1970s, the kind
of show attended by those who don’t usually attend shows. The musical
highlights included “Day by Day,” one of the few popular theatre songs of
the era; “All for the Best,” a sardonic vaudeville-styled turn; and “Turn
Back, O Man,” a lowdown honky-tonk shuffle. Most audiences didn’t seem
to mind the revue-like presentation, which in the original production
included performers coyly cavorting about in Superman, Raggedy Ann, and
Disney-styled costumes with (groan) occasional mime-like makeup and
clownish affectations set against what seemed to be the playground of an
abandoned school.
The current revival was revised with topical references and audience
participation shtick, but the program didn’t identify the adaptor. The
original book writer, John-Michael Tebelak, died in 1985, but the program
credited Schwartz with new lyrics, and presumably Schwartz and director
Daniel Goldstein were responsible for the changes.
The New Yorker said the musical was now “hopelessly square,” and the
revival was “only marginally more professional than a well-done Christian-
youth-group production, but a lot pricier.” Charles Isherwood in the New
York Times said the “bopping, bouncing, bounding, [and] even
trampolining” never stopped, and he felt he was “trapped in a summer camp
rec room.” The new production was updated with frenzied “fruitcake-full”
references to Steve Jobs, Lindsay Lohan, Donald Trump, Facebook,
Occupy Wall Street, and even Schwartz’s Wicked, and this “juvenile spirit”
tended to “infantilize” the “moral and spiritual subject matter.” The
costumes were “whimsically ill-assorted attire that suggests dutiful foraging
in amateur theatricals costume trunks as well as the sales rack at Urban
Outfitters,” and in a reference to Victor Garber, who played Jesus in the
1973 film version, Isherwood recalled that the actor sported “a nimbus of
frizzy hair and clown makeup,” something he suspected Garber now “sorely
regrets.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “misconceived”
production was “valiantly if blandly piloted” by Hunter Parrish as “a
smiley-faced, buff Abercrombie & Fitch Jesus,” and Goldstein approached
the show as if it were a “Children’s Television Workshop special.” Michael
Musto in the Village Voice reported that “shtick meets solemnity,” in the
production, and so “Day by Day” became “a disco line dance complete with
clap along,” an audience member was invited on stage to play Charades,
and the audience always clapped along “even when they’re not told to.”
(Musto also noted that just like in the original production of Jesus Christ
Superstar, “it’s a black man as the backstabbing Judas!”) Scott Brown in
the New Yorker mentioned that “every moment is an exploding Easter egg,
as cast members make regular sorties” into the audience in order “to make
Hair-y contact,” and perhaps “to appreciate the show’s rapid-fire eagerness
to connect, it helps to have the mental metabolism of a properly medicated
Nickelodeon viewer.”
The musical was part of Tebelak’s graduate thesis at Carnegie-Mellon
University and was presented there in December 1970. It was later
professionally mounted Off-Off-Broadway at Café La Mama on February
24, 1971, and a revised version opened Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane
Theatre on May 17, 1971, for a marathon run of 2,124 performances. A
number of touring companies concurrently played throughout the United
States, as well, many of which settled into long runs in various cities.
Tebelak’s original versions included songs by lyricist Jay Hamburger and
composer Peggy Gordon, and the final score by Schwartz included one of
Hamburger and Gordon’s songs (“By My Side”).
One week after the Off-Broadway production closed, the musical
transferred to Broadway at the Broad-hurst Theatre, where it opened on
June 22, 1976, for 527 performances. The cast included Robin Lamont and
Lamar Alford, two members of the original Off-Broadway production. The
musical had played Off-Broadway for five years, but never on Broadway,
and because his contributions were now considered “new” (for Broadway,
at least), Schwartz received a Tony nomination for Best Score.
The original London company opened on November 17, 1971, at
Wyndham’s Theatre for 1,128 performances with Jeremy Irons in the Judas
role. The 1973 film version by Columbia Pictures was directed by David
Green, choreographed by Sammy Bayes, and besides Garber the cast
included original Off-Broadway cast members Robin Lamont, David
Haskell, and Gilmer McCormack. Schwartz contributed a new song for the
film (“Beautiful City”), which was added to the score of the current revival.
An Off-Broadway revival was presented at the Lamb’s Theatre on June 12,
1988, for 225 performances.
The original Off-Broadway cast album was released by Bell Records,
which also issued the London cast album and the film’s soundtrack. Other
recordings of the score include the Australian cast album by Lewis Young
Production Records; a 1993 studio cast recording by That’s Entertainment
Records; a 1994 “UK Cast Recording for the 90’s” by Playback Records;
and a studio cast album performed by The Last Galaxie for General
American Records. A two-CD “40th Anniversary Celebration” released by
Sony Masterworks Broadway included the original Off-Broadway cast
recording and the film’s soundtrack, and the current revival was recorded
by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records.
HUGH JACKMAN BACK ON BROADWAY

Performances: 61
Direction and Choreography: Warren Carlyle; Producers: Robert Fox and
The Shubert Organization; Scenery: John Lee Beatty; Video Design:
Alexander V. Nichols; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Ken
Billington; Musical Direction: Patrick Vaccariello
Cast: Hugh Jackman; Ensemble: Robin Campbell, Kearran Giovanni, Anne
Otto, Lara Seibert, Hilary Michael Thompson, Emily Tyra
Musical Numbers
Note: The program thanked by name the lyricists and composers whose
songs were heard in the concert, but didn’t list specific song titles. The
following list is cobbled together from various sources (newspapers,
magazines, and otherwise) and is representative of what was performed
in the concert.
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’”
(Oklahoma!, 1943; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard
Rodgers); “One Night Only” (Dreamgirls, 1981; lyric by Tom Eyen,
music by Henry Krieger); Medley of Dance Songs, including “Gotta
Dance” (probably “Broadway Rhythm” from Broadway Melody of
1936; lyric by Arthur Freed, music by Nacio Herb Brown) and “I Won’t
Dance” (1935 film version of Roberta; lyric by Dorothy Fields, Jimmy
McHugh, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Otto Harbach, music by Jerome
Kern); “L.O.V.E.” (lyric by Milt Gabler, music by Bert Kaempfert);
“The Way You Look Tonight” (1936 film Swing Time; lyric by Dorothy
Fields, music by Jerome Kern); Medley of New York Songs, including
“Best That You Can Do” aka “Arthur’s Theme” (1981 film Arthur; lyric
and music by Christopher Cross, Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager,
and Peter Allen); “Fever” (lyric and music by Otis Blackwell and Eddie
Cooley); “Rock Island” (The Music Man, 1957; lyric and music by
Meredith Willson); “Soliloquy” (Carousel, 1945; lyric by Oscar
Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers)
Act Two: “Not the Boy Next Door” (lyric and music by Peter Allen and
Dean Pitchford); Medley of Songs by Peter Allen, including songs from
The Boy from Oz (Sydney, Australia, 1998; New York, 2003; numbers
in this sequence included “I Go to Rio,” lyric and music by Peter Allen
and Adrienne Anderson, and “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” lyric and music by
Carole Bayer Sager and Peter Allen); “Tenterfield Saddler” (lyric and
music by Peter Allen); Medley of Movie Songs, including “Singin’ in
the Rain” (Hollywood Revue of 1929; lyric by Arthur Freed, music by
Nacio Herb Brown) and “Over the Rainbow” (1939 film The Wizard of
Oz; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen); “Mack the Knife”
(Der Dreigroschenoper, Berlin, 1928; New York, 1933; revised version,
New York, 1954; original German lyric by Bertolt Brecht, English lyric
by Marc Blitzstein; music by Kurt Weill); “I’d Rather Leave While I’m
in Love” (lyric and music by Carole Bayer Sager and Peter Allen)
Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway was a concert by the film and stage
star, who was backed up by a six-woman ensemble and a seventeen-piece
orchestra conducted by Patrick Vaccariello, who had conducted The Boy
from Oz, the biographical musical about Peter Allen that opened on
Broadway in 2003 and won Jackman the Tony Award for Best Performance
by a Leading Actor in a Musical. The concert had first played in San
Francisco and Toronto, and the New York run was a limited engagement of
sixty-one performances. Jackman’s repertoire emphasized Broadway and
Hollywood songs (including “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin,’” which he
sang in the 1998 London revival of Oklahoma!, and “Rock Island,” perhaps
an early preview from his forthcoming revival of The Music Man, which as
of this writing is scheduled to open on Broadway during the 2020–2021
season), as well as songs by Peter Allen.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found Jackman “impossibly
talented, impossibly energetic,” and a “dream date that delivers.” He danced
with “a Rockette’s precision” and delivered lyrics with “clarity and
meaning,” and was “a real-live star who can make grown women (and men)
tremble just by smiling.” The New Yorker said the concert caught fire when
Jackman reprised part of his Peter Allen/The Boy from Oz performance, and
in “resplendent gold lamé pants” he seemed “liberated and utterly at home
—a testament to the power of becoming oneself by becoming someone
else.” Richard Zoglin in Time said Jackman was “a metrosexual’s dream
come true,” a “macho” star not afraid “to kick up his heels, act gay and
confess his love of Broadway show tunes.” Zoglin didn’t quite “get” the
hoopla (the concert broke house records at the Broadhurst and prime tickets
went for $350 per) because while Jackman’s voice was “clear” and “bright”
it was occasionally “too boyish and unmodulated” for some of the material.
But Jackman sure knew how “to seduce an audience.”
Awards
Tony Award: Special Tony Award (Hugh Jackman)
AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY

PATINKIN
Theatre: Ethel Barrymore Theatre
Performances: 57
Direction: Mandy Patinkin (production “conceived” by Patinkin and Paul
Ford); Producers: Staci Levine, The Dodgers, Jon B. Platt, and Jessica
R. Jenen (Groundswell Theatricals, Inc.); Dance Consultant: Ann
Reinking; Costumes: Jon Can Coskunses; Lighting: Eric Cornwell;
Musical Direction: Paul Ford
Cast: Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin; Paul Ford (Piano), John Beal (Bass)
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Another Hundred People” (Company, 1970; lyric and music by
Stephen Sondheim); “When” (1966 television musical Evening
Primrose; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “A Cockeyed
Optimist” (South Pacific, 1949; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music
by Richard Rodgers); “Twin Soliloquies” (South Pacific, 1949; lyric by
Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers); “Some Enchanted
Evening” (South Pacific, 1949; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music
by Richard Rodgers); “Some Enchanted Evening” (reprise);”Getting
Married Today” (Company, 1970; lyric and music by Stephen
Sondheim); “Loving You” (Passion, 1994; lyric and music by Stephen
Sondheim); “A Cockeyed Optimist” (reprise); “I’m Old Fashioned”
(1942 film You Were Never Lovelier; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by
Jerome Kern); “I Have the Room above Her” (1936 film version of
Show Boat; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Jerome Kern);
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1949 film Neptune’s Daughter; lyric and
music by Frank Loesser); “Everybody Says Don’t” (Anyone Can
Whistle, 1964; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “A Quiet Thing”
(Flora, the Red Menace; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “It
Takes Two” (Into the Woods, 1987; lyric and music by Stephen
Sondheim); “I Won’t Dance” (1935 film version of Roberta; lyric by
Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Otto
Harbach, music by Jerome Kern); “I Want a Man” (Rainbow, 1928;
lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Vincent Youmans); “April in
Fairbanks” (New Faces of 1956; lyric and music by Murray Grand)
Act Two: “Old Folks” (70, Girls, 70, 1971; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by
John Kander); “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (Gypsy, 1959; lyric by
Stephen Sondheim, music by Jule Styne); “The God-Why-Don’t-You-
Love-Me Blues” (Follies, 1971; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim);
“The Hills of Tomorrow” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric and music
by Stephen Sondheim); “Merrily We Roll Along” (Merrily We Roll
Along, 1981; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Old Friends”
(Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim);
“Like It Was” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric and music by
Stephen Sondheim); “Oh What a Circus” (Evita, London, 1978; New
York, 1979; lyric by Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber);
“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” (Evita; lyric by Tim Rice, music by
Andrew Lloyd Webber); “Somewhere That’s Green” (Little Shop of
Horrors, 1982; lyric by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken); “In
Buddy’s Eyes” (Follies, 1971; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim);
“You’re a Queer One, Julie Jordan” (Carousel, 1945; lyric by Oscar
Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers); “If I Loved You”
(Carousel, 1945; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard
Rodgers); “If I Loved You” (reprise); “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’”
(Carousel, 1945; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard
Rodgers); “If I Loved You” (second reprise); “You’ll Never Walk
Alone” (Carousel, 1945; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by
Richard Rodgers)
A few days after Hugh Jackman’s concert opened, Broadway was

treated to An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. LuPone and
Patinkin had starred together in the original New York production of Evita
thirty-two years earlier, and their concert’s repertoire was drawn mostly
from Stephen Sondheim and from Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard
Rodgers (with a special emphasis on Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along
and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel and South Pacific), but was
generously flavored with songs by Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Frank
Loesser, Fred Ebb and John Kander, and others.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the two “driven”
performers came across “as nothing short of fearless,” and they explored
such works as Carousel and South Pacific, musical territories with a certain
“wholesome optimism” probably not all that embedded in their stage and
musical personas. LuPone wasn’t an “old-school ingénue” and “probably
never was,” but Isherwood was “transfixed” as the two stars tested “the
boundaries of their talents.”
As for “old-school ingénue,” probably LuPone’s closest venture into
this category was Stephen Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife in 1976. Four
viewings of her performance opposite two leading men, first Topol and then
his replacement Paul Sorvino, showed that LuPone could transform an
underwritten role of the ingénue variety and turn it inside out as she
conveyed an almost operatic intensity with her hot-blooded desire for a
young man and, conversely, with her calm and deep warmth for her older
husband.
The New Yorker was less than smitten with the concert. The stars were
“big of voice and energy” but “small of humor and resourcefulness,” and
while the first act was a “love-in,” the second floundered with the
“mediocrity” of songs from Evita. But Michael Glitz in the Huffington Post
said the “modest affair” offered the “distinct pleasure of two pros doing
what they do best in the company of one another,” and Mark Kennedy in
the Associated Press said the two singers kept the audience “spellbound”
during an evening that was “both intimate and goofy, touching and
confident.”
The concert was LuPone’s third for Broadway: she had previously
appeared in Patti LuPone on Broadway in 1995 and Patti LuPone: “Matters
of the Heart” in 2000. Patinkin had made four earlier concert visits: Mandy
Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual (1989), Mandy Patinkin in Concert
(1997), Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen” (1998), and
Celebrating Sondheim (2002).
BONNIE & CLYDE

“A NEW MUSICAL”
Theatre: Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

Opening Date: December 1, 2011; Closing Date: December 30, 2011
Performances: 36
Book: Ivan Menchell
Lyrics: Don Black
Direction and Choreography: Jeff Calhoun (Coy Middlebrook, Associate
Director); Producers: Kathleen Raitt, Jerry Frankel, Jeffrey Richards,
Barry Satchwell Smith, Michael A. Jenkins, Howard Caplan, Bernie
Abrams/Michael Speyer, Tena Clark, Barry and Carole Kaye, Terry
Schnuck, Nederlander Presentations, Inc., Alden Badway/The
Broadway Consortium, Corey Brunish/Brisa Trinchero, Patty Baker,
Bazinet and Company, and Jeremy Scott Blaustein in association with
Stageventures 2011 Limited Partnership, Darren Bagert, Robert G.
Bartner/Ambassador Theatre Group, BGM, Broadway Across America,
Ronald Frankel, Bruce Robert Harris/Jack W. Batman, Cynthia Stroum,
DSM/Gabriel Kamel; Scenery and Costumes: Tobin Ost; Projection
Design: Aaron Rhyne; Lighting: Michael Gilliam; Musical Direction:
Jason Howland
Cast: Kelsey Fowler (Young Bonnie), Mimi Bessette (Emma Parker), Talon
Ackerman (Young Clyde), Leslie Becker (Cumie Barrow, Governor
Ferguson), Victor Hernandez (Henry Barrow), Laura Osnes (Bonnie
Parker), Jeremy Jordan (Clyde Barrow), Claybourne Elder (Buck
Barrow), Matt Lutz (Bud), Louis Hobson (Ted Hinton), Melissa Van
Der Schyff (Blanche Barrow), Joe Hart (Sheriff Schmid), Michael
Lanning (Preacher); Ensemble: Leslie Becker, Mimi Bessette, Alison
Cimmet, Daniel Cooney, Jon Fletcher, Victor Hernandez, Michael
Lanning, Garrett Long, Matt Lutz, Marissa McGowan, Tad Wilson
The action takes place during the 1930s in the American South and
Midwest.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Picture Show” (Kesley Fowler, Talon Ackerman, Laura Osnes,
Jeremy Jordan); “This World Will Remember Us” (Jeremy Jordan,
Laura Osnes); “You’re Goin’ Back to Jail” (Melissa Van Der Schyff,
Claybourne Elder, Salon Women); “How ’Bout a Dance” (Laura
Osnes); “When I Drive” (Jeremy Jordan, Claybourne Elder); “God’s
Arms Are Always Open” (Michael Lanning, Congregation); “You Can
Do Better Than Him” (Louis Hobson, Jeremy Jordan); “You Love Who
You Love” (Laura Osnes, Melissa Van Der Schyff); “Raise a Little
Hell” (Jeremy Jordan); “This World Will Remember Us” (reprise)
(Jeremy Jordan, Laura Osnes)
Act Two: “Made in America” (Michael Lanning, Ensemble); “Too Late to
Turn Back Now” (Jeremy Jordan, Laura Osnes); “That’s What You Call
a Dream” (Melissa Van Der Schyff); “What Was Good Enough for You”
(Jeremy Jordan, Laura Osnes); “Bonnie” (Jeremy Jordan); “Raise a
Little Hell” (reprise) (Jeremy Jordan, Claybourne Elder, Louis Hobson);
“Dyin’ Ain’t So Bad” (Laura Osnes); “God’s Arms Are Always Open”
(reprise) (Melissa Van Der Schyff, Leslie Becker); “Picture Show”
(reprise) (Kelsey Fowler, Talon Ackerman); “Dyin’ Ain’t So Bad”
(reprise) (Laura Osnes, Jeremy Jordan)
Frank Wildhorn’s Bonnie & Clyde was a short-running failure that ran
less than a month and lost its entire $6 million capitalization. Perhaps for
most people the popular 1967 film was the definitive version of the story
about America’s favorite outlaw couple Bonnie Parker (Laura Osnes) and
Clyde Barrow (Jeremy Jordan), and maybe a musical version of their lives
seemed superfluous. It probably didn’t help that the show tried to “explain”
their criminality. All Bonnie really wants is movie-star fame, and who
knows, maybe if Hollywood had called, she could have channeled her
excess energies for the camera. And the program notes that it was poverty
that made Clyde a criminal, and it was prison that turned him into a killer.
Bonnie and Clyde met when they were at the respective ages of
nineteen and twenty, and both never saw the age of twenty-five. During the
early 1930s they became nationwide celebrities as they and their gang killed
several police officers and civilians during their years-long rampage in the
Southern and Midwestern states where they robbed banks, mom-and-pop
stores, and filling stations. Their robberies and killings came to an abrupt
end when they both were shot to death by law enforcement officials in
Louisiana in 1934.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the leading
characters of the “overly tame and unsurprising” show had a “hunger for
celebrity—she wanted to be Clara Bow” and “he idolized Jessie James.”
According to the musical, the Depression “forged them into hardened
criminals,” which was “an easy and rather empty conceit,” and the evening
wavered between “high drama and silly comedy.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in
the New York Post noted that a musical about “living on the edge ends up
being safe,” and the show should have heeded the title of Clyde’s song
“Raise a Little Hell.” But Wildhorn’s music was “pleasant, if un-
memorable” in its “mix of 1970s soft rock and country-fried roots,” and
Osnes and Jordan were the evening’s “biggest assets.” Elysa Gardner in
USA Today found the musical “an awkward mix of bawdy stereotypes and
sentimentality,” and Bonnie and Clyde never emerged “as the populist anti-
heroes that the writers clearly had in mind.” The score was “more
ingratiating than theatrically compelling,” but some of the “bombastic”
songs were “mildly pleasing.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the musical’s “trite
storytelling” had its leads “shooting blanks.” While the music was often
“melodious,” it was an uneasy mix of “1930s vernacular” and “’80s rock
and crossover country,” and was “especially disconcerting when Clyde
turns into Jon Bon Jovi.” Don Black’s lyrics were “clumsily literal,” and the
book’s “connection between crime and celebrity” was “hammered over and
over again,” and so Bonnie & Clyde became “a second-rate Chicago.” For
Ben Brantley in the New York Times, the musical was “modest” and “mildly
tuneful,” and “every scene” felt “like the one that came before it.” Jordan
made Clyde “both wholesome and menacing,” but Osnes had “fashion-
model proportions” as well as “an instinctive, accessible elegance that reads
Ingenue” (Brantley noted she had been “perfect” in the revival of Anything
Goes as the romantic lead Hope Harcourt), and in Bonnie & Clyde she
brought to mind “a Bennington girl slumming with rough trade on her
semester off.”
John Lahr in the New Yorker said the “merely earnest, proficient, and
dull” musical pretended “to be a walk on the wild side, but it’s really a stroll
down the middle of the road” because it “aims low, and hits the mark.”
The musical premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California,
on November 10, 2009, with Osnes and Stark Sands in the leading roles. It
was later produced at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, on
November 16, 2010. Osnes was again Bonnie, and this time around Jordan
was Clyde Barrow.
The cast album was released by Broadway Records and includes a
bonus track of the unused song “This Never Happened Before,” sung by
Jordan, Osnes, and Wildhorn.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Score (lyrics by Don Black, music by Frank
Wildhorn); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Laura Osnes)
ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER

Performances: 57
Book: Alan Jay Lerner; new book by Peter Parnell
Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner
Music: Burton Lane
Direction: Michael Mayer (Austin Regan, Associate Director); Producers:
Tom Hulce and Ira Pittelman, Liza Lerner, Broadway Across America,
Joseph Smith, Michael McCabe, Bernie Abrams/Michael Speyer,
Takonkiet Viravan/Scenario Thailand, Michael Watt, Jacki Barlia
Florin-Adam Blanshay/Chauspeciale/Astrachan & Jupin, Paul Boskind
and Martian Entertainment, Brannon Wiles, and Carlos
Arana/Christopher Maring (Stage Ventures 2011 Limited Partnership,
Associate Producers); Choreography: Joann M. Hunter (Scott Taylor,
Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Christine Jones; Costumes:
Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Kevin Adams; Musical Direction: Lawrence
Yurman
Cast: Harry Connick Jr. (Doctor Mark Bruckner), David Turner (David
Gamble), Paul O’Brien (Anton, Doctor Leo Kravis, Maurice, Mr. Van
Deusen, Gene Miller, Wesley Porter [1974]), Lori Wilner (Vera, Mrs.
Hatch, Mrs. Lloyd, Radio Singer), Sarah Stiles (Muriel Bunson), Alex
Ellis (Hannah), Alysha Umphress (Paula), Tyler Maynard (Roger,
Sawyer, Radio Singer), Zachary Prince (Alan, Wesley Porter [1944]),
Benjamin Eakeley (Preston, Announcer, Radio Singer, Stage Manager),
Kerry O’Malley (Doctor Sharone Stein), Heather Ayers (Leora Kahn,
Club Vedado Singer, Betsy Rappaport, Cynthia Roland, Radio Singer),
Jessie Mueller (Melinda Wells), Drew Gehling (Warren Smith)
action takes place in New York City during 1974, and the regression scenes
took place in 1944.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here” (David
Turner); “She Isn’t You” (Harry Connick Jr.), “Open Your Eyes”
(Heather Ayers), “Open Your Eyes” (reprise) (Jessie Mueller); “Hurry!
It’s Lovely Up Here” (reprise) (David Turner); “Wait Till We’re Sixty-
Five” (Drew Gehling, David Turner, Sarah Stiles, Zachary Prince, Alex
Ellis, Alysha Umphress, Benjamin Eakeley, Tyler Maynard); “Wait Till
We’re Sixty-Five” (reprise) (Drew Gehling); “You’re All the World to
Me” (Jessie Mueller, Harry Connick Jr., David Turner); “Who Is There
among Us Who Knows?” (Harry Connick Jr., Kerry O’Malley); “Who
Is There among Us Who Knows?” (reprise) (Harry Connick Jr., Jessie
Mueller); “On the S.S. Bernard Cohn” (Harry Connick Jr., David
Turner, Sarah Stiles, Jessie Mueller, Zachary Prince, Alex Ellis, Alysha
Umphress, Benjamin Eakeley, Tyler Maynard); “Love with All the
Trimmings” (Drew Gehling); “Open Your Eyes” (reprise) (Harry
Connick Jr., Kerry O’Malley, Sarah Stiles, Lori Wilner, Paul O’Brien,
Heather Ayers, Zachary Prince, Alex Ellis, Alysha Umphress, Benjamin
Eakeley, Tyler Maynard); “Melinda” (Harry Connick Jr., Jessie Mueller,
David Turner)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Go to Sleep” (Sarah Stiles, David
Turner); “Ev’ry (Every) Night at Seven” (Jessie Mueller, Radio
Singers); “Too Late Now” (Harry Connick Jr., Jessie Mueller); “Love
with All the Trimmings” (reprise) (Drew Gehling); “When I’m Being
Born Again” (Sarah Stiles, Harry Connick Jr., Zachary Prince, Alex
Ellis, Alysha Umphress, Benjamin Eakeley, Tyler Maynard); “She
Wasn’t You” (Kerry O’Malley, Drew Gehling, David Turner, Harry
Connick Jr.); “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” (David Turner);
“Come Back to Me” (Harry Connick Jr., Drew Gehling); “Too Late
Now” (reprise) (Harry Connick Jr., Jessie Mueller); “On a Clear Day
You Can See Forever” (Harry Connick Jr.); Finale (Company)
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever continued the season’s endless
parade of revivals. Almost 50 percent of the season’s musical offerings
were revivals of one sort or another, and in the case of the Alan Jay Lerner
and Burton Lane musical, “another” was the operative word, because
virtually no one who was familiar with the original 1965 production would
have recognized it.
The 1965 production had two things going for it: Barbara Harris’s
knockout performance and Lerner and Lane’s score (Lerner’s lyrics were
alternately clever and romantic, and Lane’s music was one of the most
melodic of the era). In 1965, the story focused on neurotic chain-smoking
New Yorker Daisy Gamble (Harris), who’s engaged to the stuffy Warren
Smith (William Daniels). She goes to psychiatrist Mark Bruckner (John
Cullum) in order to kick her habit, and soon Bruckner discovers she has
extrasensory perception. She can tell him where to look for a missing phone
number or a set of keys, and can predict when his telephone will ring (one
wonders why Warren, her friends, and her family members had failed to
observe these unusual talents). And then Daisy goes beyond ESP: it turns
out she talks and sings to flowers, and her voice causes buds to bloom into
full-blown bouquets.
And soon we discover that besides ESP and her magical abilities, our
nasal and self-effacing Daisy is also the reincarnation of the haughtier-than-
thou Melinda Welles Moncrief, who lives in eighteenth-century England
and speaks the King’s English in the plumy tones usually associated with
the hosts of Masterpiece Theatre. Melinda is romantically involved with the
dashing portrait painter Sir Edward (Clifford David), and when Bruckner
asks Daisy if she likes paintings, she replies she doesn’t really know
because she’s gotten so used to wallpaper. And to further complicate
matters, Bruckner realizes he doesn’t particularly care for Daisy but is
infatuated with Melinda.
The story had possibilities, Lerner’s book had more than its share of
amusing lines and situations, and in Daisy he created one of the era’s most
endearing characters (Harris morphed from daffy Daisy to imperious
Melinda in the blink of an eye, and Howard Taubman in the New York
Times said she was “blithe spirit and living doll”). When the script stayed in
the present and focused on Daisy, the story worked well despite Lerner’s
having saddled her character with too much kookiness. ESP, OK. But
reincarnation, too? And the greenest thumb in musical comedy history?
When Lerner strayed into Bridey Murphy territory, the narrative quickly
lost momentum, and the regression scenes didn’t really have much to do
with the present-day plot. Lerner was unable to both mirror and juxtapose
the past and present into a unified whole (Walter Kerr in the New York
Herald Tribune said the evening became “more than square” because it
became Berkeley Square). The Melinda sequences often seemed like filler
material, especially when the script veered into ersatz Tom Jones revelry
with extraneous song (“Don’t Tamper with My Sister on a Publick Walke”)
and dance (“At the Hellrakers’”). And the present-day story was bogged
down with an intrusive and tiresome sub-sub-plot about the fabulously
wealthy Themistocles Kriakos (Titos Vandis), a Greek who’s fascinated
with reincarnation because he wants to leave his money to himself. If the
regression scenes echoed Tom Jones, the Kriakos detour referenced another
popular film of the era, Zorba the Greek. Titos was even given a jingly song
(“When I’m Being Born Again”) that was yet more filler material and
added nothing to the main plot. (Kerr asked, “Why is he singing me all
this?”)
Despite its charm, the modern-day song “On the S.S. Bernard Cohn”
was another extraneous number that stretched out the evening, and counting
the “Hellrakers” dance, the somewhat short score offered just fourteen
musical numbers, including both “I’ll Not Marry” and “Tosy and Cosh” (the
former was dropped immediately after the opening and replaced by the
latter). Most of the time the characters sang to themselves, and omitting
“I’ll Not Marry” and counting “Tosy and Cosh,” eight numbers were solos,
and except for the opening lines of “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here” Daisy and
Bruckner never shared a complete song during the entire evening. There
were ample opportunities for character interaction and plot development
through song, and it would have been intriguing had Daisy/Melinda and the
three men in their lives (Bruckner, Edward, and Warren) shared a
quartet/quintet across the centuries. And perhaps in “Duet for One” fashion
(from Lerner and Leonard Bernstein’s 1976 musical 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue), Daisy and Melinda could have been given a song that offered
different perspectives on their unique situation.
The musical had other flaws as well: it looked cheap, and despite a
company of more than fifty, it always looked underpopulated. Moreover, it
didn’t really dance. The 1960s was the era of lavish Broadway productions,
and yet the expensive Clear Day (which broke ticket-price barriers with its
then unheard-of $11.90 top ticket price) looked like an anemic bus-and-
truck touring version of a once big-budgeted Broadway extravaganza
(Henry Hewes in Saturday Review decided the show’s scenery had been left
in Boston).
The choreography was anemic, and Herbert Ross’s dances were
disappointing. “At the Hellrakers’” never soared and was all too obvious,
and the dance movements for “On the S.S. Bernard Cohn” and “When I’m
Being Born Again” seemed incidental and secondhand.
But Barbara Harris gave a richly comic performance, and Lane’s lush
melodies were glorious. Harris was an alumna of the Second City troupe,
and she invested her role with a certain improvisational quality that shined
in her scenes with Bruckner. Her fumbling way with a cigarette was
priceless, and her instant shift in range and tone from Daisy to Melinda was
stunning. Her Daisy was possessed with a loopy, hang-loose style that
seemed fresh and spontaneous but had clearly been worked out, down to the
tiniest movement and inflection. Here in her musical comedy debut Harris
was no novice, and was already a seasoned performer who owned,
controlled, and commanded the stage and audience. You couldn’t take your
eyes off her because her every tic and nuance was part of a legend in the
making, and perhaps her only peer in musical comedy was Beatrice Lillie.
No one has ever matched her “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here” (Daisy’s
ode to the flowers was a blend of clever lyric and ingratiating Easter
promenade melody), and the torch song “What Did I Have That I Don’t
Have?” was a bluesy lament and the most haunting ballad Broadway had
heard in years.
Burton Lane had been absent from Broadway for an incredible eighteen
years (his most recent musical had been Finian’s Rainbow in 1947), and his
comeback score was one of the decade’s finest. Taubman said the songs had
“more melodic grace and inventive distinction than has been heard in some
years,” and haunting ballads tumbled one after another from the composer’s
music box (“She Wasn’t You,” “Melinda,” “What Did I Have That I Don’t
Have?”); the title number (and the show’s hit song) was almost wholesome
in its quasi-religious statement that all things are one, and one is part of
everything; “Come Back to Me” (which also enjoyed currency as a popular
song) was an urgent up-tempo ballad for Bruckner; and even the pompous
Warren had his great moment with “Wait Till We’re Sixty-Five” when he
looked to a golden future of pensions and paid-up health premiums.
The Clear Day of 1965 was clearly a problematic musical with a great
score and a juicy role for its leading lady, but Peter Parnell’s new book for
the revival created an equally confused show. Set in 1974, the musical now
centered on Bruckner (Harry Connick Jr.), who has a backstory (he’s now a
grieving widower), and his new patient isn’t Daisy but David (David
Turner), a gay florist with stuffy partner Warren (Drew Gehling). David no
longer has ESP and a magical way with flowers, but his profession gives
him a reason to sing “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here” to the pots, and when
under hypnosis David doesn’t regress to the eighteenth-century but to the
1940s where he’s no longer a man but a jazzy song-stylist, a thrush named
Melinda Wells (Jessie Mueller; the 1940s Melinda is Wells instead of
Welles, which must mean something). And of course, the straight Bruckner
falls in love with David-as-Melinda. The eighteenth-century sequences
were eliminated, as was the Greek millionaire (but his song “When I’m
Being Born Again” survived the musical’s sea change and was given to
other characters). And with David and Melinda now split between two
actors, the show missed the opportunity of allowing a single performer to
embody the two characters.
And so here was perhaps Broadway’s only example of real-life
reincarnation. The Clear Day of 1965 was reborn in 2011, and it was just as
confused now as it was then. It wasn’t surprising that the critics pounced on
the production and that audiences avoided it. The show managed seven
weeks on Broadway and didn’t even leave behind a cast album. Parnell’s
wrong-headed adaptation was first presented in July 2010 by the New York
Stage and Film Company & The Powerhouse Theatre at Vassar in July of
that year with Anika Noni Rose (who was succeeded by Alysha Umphress),
Brian d’Arcy James, and David Turner as Melinda, Bruckner, and David.
The new version was also given a developmental lab production at the
Vineyard Theatre in 2011 prior to the Broadway premiere later in the year.
The heavily revised score didn’t use any of the songs cut during the
original production’s tryout, and except for “She Wasn’t You” dropped all
the musical numbers from the regression sequences. The production
included three songs from the 1970 film version (“Love with All the
Trimmings,” “Go to Sleep,” and “Who Is There among Us Who Knows?”)
(for more information about the film and the last-referenced song, see
below) and four songs from Lerner and Lane’s 1951 MGM film musical
Royal Wedding (“You’re All the World to Me,” “Open Your Eyes,” “Too
Late Now,” and “Ev’ry/Every Night at Seven”).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the
revival/revisal/reincarnation had “the approximate fun quotient of a day in
an M.R.I. machine.” Connick took Bruckner’s “bereavement too much to
heart,” looked like someone “just out of grueling dental surgery,” and made
the “up number” title song “sound like an exquisitely sung dirge”; Mueller
was given a concept but not a character, and concepts “don’t generate
chemistry with their leading men”; and Turner was “required to be witless
and charmless.” The New Yorker recalled that the original “once cute” story
was now “just plain weird,” and the straight psychiatrist has “no qualms”
about treating his young, gay, and “vulnerable” male patient “in order to get
to the girl inside him.” The “absurdity” of the new adaptation was
“distracting” and “a little depressing,” and the “morally questionable”
situation was “played up as jaunty and fun.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said Clear Day was a
“dull glimmer,” and David Cote in Time Out NY said “it was broke, but they
sure ain’t fixed it,” and the “bumbling show doctors should be sued for
malpractice and felonious misuse of star talent,” and “manslaughter, too,”
because “the patient died on the slab” and Bruckner became “a creepy,
manipulative stalker.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post noted that Bruckner wasn’t
gay but was probably “nuts.” Meanwhile, Connick was “stiff and ill at
ease,” was “incapable of playing ambiguity of any kind,” and the new plot
stretched “credibility just as much as the old one.” Thom Geier in
Entertainment Weekly said the cast didn’t just perform in different time
periods, they also seemed to be performing in different theatres, and the
show felt “like one very long therapy session.” David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter noted that the production was “over-designed” with
“suffocating visuals” in which the “garish” sets mixed “op-art patterns with
bold stripes” that were “doused” in lights of “shifting colors.” As a result,
the stage looked “as if a gift-wrap factory exploded.”
During the tryout of the 1965 production, the role of Bruckner was
performed by Louis Jourdan, who left the show and was succeeded by John
Cullum (Hal Linden was the standby for Bruckner and Edward), and The
Fantasticks’ Rita Gardner was the standby for Harris. Songs deleted during
the tryout were the intriguingly titled “The Domestic Champagne Waltz,”
“The Normal Thing to Do,” “Marriage à la Mode” (which in a shortened
version was heard in the national tour as “The Solicitor’s Song”), “Dolly’s
Seduction,” and “Mom” (Bruckner’s wicked ode to motherhood).
The 1965 cast album was released by RCA Victor. “Ring Out the Bells”
was recorded but not included on the album, and didn’t surface on the later
CD release (it’s unclear if the master tape is lost). The album omitted the
quickly dropped “I’ll Not Marry,” but added the replacement number “Tosy
and Cosh.” The script was published in hardback by Random House in
1966 (and includes “Tosy and Cosh”), and the lyrics for the used and
unused songs are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics
of Alan Jay Lerner.
After the original Broadway production closed, a national tour was
mounted in a revised edition which dropped the subplot of the Greek
millionaire (his song “When I’m Being Born Again” became “When I
Come Around Again” for Bruckner’s students); included some new
sequences (“First Regression,” “The Solicitor’s Song,” and the dance “The
Gout,” which during the course of the tour was re-titled “The Spasm”); and
deleted four songs (“Ring Out the Bells,” “Tosy and Cosh,” “Don’t Tamper
with My Sister on a Publick Walke,” and “At the Hellrakers’”).
The execrable film version was released by Paramount in 1970; bloated
and completely charmless, it even managed to ruin “What Did I Have That
I Don’t Have?” by altering its tempo. Upon hearing it, you’d never guess it
was a haunting torch song, and instead Daisy sounds irked, as if she’s
missed the crosstown bus on her way to a root canal appointment.
Indifferently directed by Vincente Minnelli and with equally indifferent
performances by Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand, the film’s cast also
included Bob Newhart, Larry Blyden, Simon Oakland, John Richardson,
and Jack Nicholson. The latter played a new character named Tad, who is
Daisy’s step-brother. It was an impossible role, which by the time of the
film’s release had been cut and essentially relegated to a walk-on (and Tad’s
song “Who Is There Among Us Who Knows?” was also cut) (the unused
“People Like Me” aka “E.S.P.” was a fourth song written for the film). The
film retained six songs from the Broadway production and included two
decidedly second-drawer new ones (“Go to Sleep” and “Love with All the
Trimmings”). The soundtrack was released by Columbia.
The musical was twice revived Off-Off-Broadway, first by the Equity
Library Theatre for the period May 3–17, 1979, and then by Opening Doors
Productions at the Harold Clurman Theatre May 5–29, 1993. Both
productions essentially followed the revised script for the national tour, but
the latter included “I’ll Not Marry,” which, as noted, had been cut from the
Broadway production shortly after its opening and replaced by “Tosy and
Cosh.”
The musical was revived by Encores! for five performances on
February 10, 2000, with Kristin Chenoweth, Brent Barrett, and Roger Bart,
and the presentation included “Ring Out the Bells” and “At the
Hellrakers.’” New York’s Irish Repertory Theatre presented a new version
of the musical on June 28, 2018, which was adapted and directed by
Charlotte Moore and starred Melissa Errico and Stephen Bogardus. Among
the changes in the score were the omissions of “When I’m Being Born
Again” and “Don’t Tamper with My Sister on a Publick Walke,” the use of
“Tosy and Cosh” for underscoring, and the interpolation of “Who Is There
among Us Who Knows?”
Daisy Gamble had an earlier life as Melinda Welles Moncrief, and On a
Clear Day You Can See Forever almost had an earlier theatrical life in 1962
as I Picked a Daisy. Three years before Clear Day’s Broadway opening,
Daisy was in the works as the highly anticipated pairing of Richard Rodgers
and Lerner. The musical was to be a vehicle for Harris, Robert Horton was
to play Bruckner, and RCA owned the rights to the cast album and had even
assigned it release numbers (# LOC/LSO-1078). But the Lerner and
Rodgers collaboration was not to be when Rodgers left the project because
of his objection to Lerner’s meandering work pace.
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Jessie Mueller)
LYSISTRATA JONES
“A MUSICAL COMEDY”
Theatre: Walter Kerr Theatre

Performances: 30
Book: Douglas Carter Beane
Lyrics and Music: Lewis Flinn
Suggested by the 411 BC play Lysistrata by Aristophanes.
Direction and Choreography: Dan Knechtges (Jessica Hartman,
Associate Choreographer); Producers: Paula Herold, Alan Wasser, Joseph
Smith, Michael McCabe, John Breglio, Takonkoet Viravan/Scenario
Thailand, Hilary A. Williams, Broadway Across America, and James G.
Robinson in association with Tony Meola, Martin McCallum, and Marianne
Mills; Scenery: Allen Moyer; Costumes: David C. Woolard and Thomas
Charles LeGalley; Lighting: Michael Gottlieb; Musical Direction: Brad
Cast: Alexander Aguilar (’Uardo), Ato Blankson-Wood (Tyllis), Katie
Boren (Lampito), Lindsay Nichole Chambers (Robin), Liz Mikel
(Hetaira), Patti Murin (Lysistrata Jones), Kat Nejat (Cleonice), Josh
Segarra (Mick), LaQuet Sharnell (Myrrhine), Jason Tam (Xander),
Teddy Toye (Harold), Alex Wyse (Cinesias)
The action takes place during the present time at Athens University.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Opening: “Right Now” (Company); “Change the World” (Patti
Murin, Girls); “No More Giving It Up!” (Girls); “Lay Low” (Josh
Segarra, Boys); “I Don’t Think So” (Liz Mikel, Girls); “You Go Your
Way” (Company); “Where Am I Now?” (Patti Murin, Company)
Act Two: “Writing on the Wall” (Liz Mikel, Company); “Hold On” (Jason
Tam, Patti Murin, Liz Mikel); “Don’t Judge a Book” (LaQuet Sharnell,
Alex Wyse); “Right Now Operetta” (Company); “When She Smiles”
(Josh Segarra); “Give It Up!” (Company)
Lysistrata Jones was doomed before it ever gave its first performance.
There’s something about Aristophanes’s comedy that doesn’t go over well
in musical comedy adaptations, and every one of them has floundered (see
below).
Despite many favorable notices, Lysistrata Jones wasn’t able to manage
more than thirty performances. One or two critics suggested the marketing
campaign didn’t define the show to the general public, and noted that the
musical never quite decided on its target audience. On the other hand,
perhaps the Lysistrata Curse was there to ensure a short run.
Douglas Carter Beane’s adaptation followed the general contours of
Aristophanes’s comedy. Instead of withholding sexual favors until their
men stop fighting wars, the new version focused on college cheerleader
Lysistrata Jones (Patti Murin) who encourages the coeds to withhold sex
from their basketball-player boyfriends until the team starts winning games
(they haven’t won a single game in thirty-three seasons). (And how did our
modern-day heroine come to have such an unusual first name? Easy. Her
parents were theatre majors.)
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the “endearingly escapist”
evening “pure helium” with “tasty substance beneath the froth, just enough
to keep you hooked.” The score was “effervescent,” and thanks to Beane’s
contributions there were references to everyone from Walt Whitman to Bob
Fosse, from Emily Dickinson to Batman movies. He noted the production
made “the best use of any Broadway show to date of the dominance of the
Internet in contemporary life.” And the New Yorker said the “peppy throw-
away” musical gave the centuries-old Greek comedy “exactly what it
lacked” because Aristophanes had omitted “percussion, pom-poms, and
iPhone jokes.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said Lysistrata Jones was
“one of the season’s tastiest pieces of candy” with a “catchy” score, a
“charming” cast, “zippy” staging, and a “wickedly funny” book. Scott
Brown in vulture.com found the “agreeable” and “disposable” show “a
bright orange ray of summer nonsense” to offset “Broadway’s bleak
midwinter.” David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter noted that the
evening had its “bubbly charms,” but nonetheless he predicted a “short
semester” for the production. In its original downtown presentation at the
Judson’s gym, the venue brought the audience “courtside” in the bleacher
seats, but the Walter Kerr Theatre was “especially unaccommodating to the
sports action” and the “frisson” of audience contact was lost.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News had found the Judson
production “a perfect silly seasonal treat,” and “like popsicles” it was
“bubble-gum-flavored to match the light-as-helium, if repetitious, pop
songs.” But on Broadway the show conjured up “a schoolgirl tottering
around in mom’s high heels.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said the
”limp” production played “very thin and contrived” and lacked the urgency
of Aristophanes’s original because in his play the women went on a sexual
strike because of war, while in the musical they rebelled because the players
were losers on the basketball court. Jones also noted that Liz Mikel, the
evening’s hostess of sorts who played both the goddess Hetaria as well as
the madam of the local whorehouse Eros Motor Lodge, was “stuck with
pretty much the same African-American, sassy-maternal-madam character”
you could see in Chicago and Rock of Ages. (But at least she wasn’t saddled
with a gospel number.)
The original cast recording was released by Broadway Records and
includes a bonus track of “Hold On” by Jennifer Holliday.
The musical was developed and first presented at The Gym at Judson;
as Give It Up!, it opened at the Dallas Theatre Center’s Dee and Charles
Wyly Theatre/Potter Rose Performance Hall on January 15, 2010; and
under its present title it returned to the Judson for a limited engagement at
the Judson Memorial Church Gymnasium where it opened on June 5, 2011.
Lysistrata Jones wasn’t the first “basketball” show to play at the Judson
gym. Almost forty years earlier in April 1972, Al Carmines’s sardonic
concept musical A Look at the Fifties opened there, and used the “sweet
release” of high school basketball games to dissect the mores and values of
small-town USA in the 1950s.
During the 2011–2012 season, there were actually two “basketball”
Broadway shows. A few months after Lysistrata Jones opened and closed,
Eric Simonson’s play Magic/Bird premiered and looked at the rivalry
between basketball players Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird
(Broadway wasn’t much interested, and the play closed after thirty-seven
showings).
As for other Lysistrata-based musicals, The Happiest Girl in the World
opened at the Martin Beck (now Al Hirschfeld) Theatre on April 3, 1961,
with Dran Seitz as Lysistrata. The book by Fred Saidy and Henry Myers
was based on a story by E. Y. Harburg (“with a bow to Aristophanes and
Bulfinch”), the lyrics were by Harburg, and the music by Jacques
Offenbach was adapted by Jay Gorney. Others in the cast were Cyril
Ritchard (who also directed), Janice Rule, Bruce Yarnell, Michael
Kermoyan, Lainie Kazan, and David Canary. The lavish musical managed
just ninety-six performances.
In 1972, there were two adaptations, both titled Lysistrata. The first
opened on August 27 at the Murray Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, and
permanently closed there on September 17. Barbara Rush played the title
role, the music was by Arthur Rubinstein, the adaptation was by John
Lewin, and the score was performed by the Electric Moussaka.
The second 1972 version opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on
November 13, 1972, and closed after eight performances. The book and
lyrics were by Michael Cacoyannis, the music by Peter Link, and Melina
Mercouri was Lysistrata. It was one of the worst musicals of the era, and
made such contemporary shows as Ari, Tricks, and Rainbow Jones look like
models of classic American musical theatre. Martin Gottfried in Women’s
Wear Daily said Cacoyannis was the “crudest” of directors, but with the
new musical he outdid himself in “vulgarity” because he was also the
show’s librettist and lyricist. In fact, the dialogue and lyrics were so
tasteless that Cacoyannis became “a convincing argument against freedom
of speech.”
The Off-Off-Broadway Lyz! opened at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on
January 10, 1999, for thirteen performances and seems to have completely
vanished after its limited engagement. The book and lyrics were by Joe
Lauinger, the music by Jim Crowdery, and Jill Paxton played the title role.
Even the mere mention of Lysistrata is tempting fate. The Off-
Broadway musical The Athenian Touch opened at the Jan Hus Playhouse on
January 14, 1964, with a book by Arthur Goodman and J. Albert Fracht,
lyrics by David Eddy, and music by Willard Straight. It wasn’t based on
Lysistrata, but it dared to reference the play in its plot, offered a song titled
“Lysistrata,” and even included Aristophanes as a minor character. For its
sins, the production shut down after its first performance.
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Book (Douglas Carter Beane)
PORGY AND BESS

Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre
Opening Date: January 12, 2012; Closing Date: September 23, 2012
Performances: 293
Libretto: DuBose Heyward; current production “adapted” by Susan-Lori
Parks and Diedre L. Murray
Lyrics: DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin
Music: George Gershwin
Based on the 1927 play Porgy by Dorothy and DuBose Heyward (which in
turn had been adapted from DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel Porgy).
Direction: Diane Paulus (Nancy Harrington, Associate Director);
Producers: Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Rebecca Gold, Howard
Kagan, Cheryl Wiesenfeld/Brunish Trinchero/Meredith Lucio TBC,
Joseph and Matthew Deitch, Mark S. Golub and David S. Golub, Terry
Schnuck, Freitag Productions/Koenigsberg Filerman, The Leonore S.
Gershwin 1987 Trust, Universal Pictures Stage Productions, Ken
Mahoney, Judith Resnick, Tulchin/Bartner/ATG, Paper Boy
Productions, Alden Badway, Broadway Across America, Christopher
Hart, Irene Gandy, and Will Trice; An American Repertory Theatre
Production; Ronald Frankel, James Fuld, Jr., Allan S. Gordon, Infinity
Stages, Shorenstein Hays-Nederlander Theatres LLC; David and
Barbara Stoller; Michael and Jean Strunsky, and Theresa Wozunk;
Choreography: Ronald K. Brown; Scenery: Riccardo Hernandez;
Costumes: ESosa; Lighting: Christopher Akerlind; Musical Direction:
Constantine Kitsopoulos
Cast: Nikki Rene Daniels (Clara), Joshua Henry (Jake), NaTasha Yvette
Williams (Mariah), David Alan Grier (Sporting Life), J. D. Webster
(Mingo), Bryonha Marie Parham (Serena), Nathaniel Stampley
(Robbins), Norm Lewis (Porgy), Phillip Boykin (Crown), Audra
McDonald (Bess), Christopher Innvar (Detective), Joseph Dellger
(Policeman), Andrea Jones-Sojola (The Strawberry Woman), Phumzile
Sojola (Peter [The Honey Man]), Cedric Neal (The Crab Man);
Fishermen: Roosevelt Andre Credit, Trevon Davis, and Wilkie Ferguson
III; Women of Catfish Row: Allison Blackwell, Heather Hill, Alicia
Hall Moran, and Lisa Nicole Wilkerson
The action takes place in the late 1930s in Catfish Row, Charleston, South
Carolina, and on nearby Kittiwah Island.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = lyric by DuBose Heyward; (**) = lyric probably by DuBose
Heyward; (***) lyric by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin; (****) =
lyric by Ira Gershwin.
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Summertime” (*) (Nikki Rene Daniels,
Joshua Henry); “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing” (*) (Joshua Henry,
Ensemble); “Crap Game” (*) (Ensemble); “Gone, Gone, Gone” (*)
(Ensemble); “My Man’s Gone Now” (*) (Marie Parham); “Leaving for
the Promised Land” (**) (Audra McDonald, Ensemble); “It Takes a
Long Pull” (*) (Joshua Henry, Fishermen); “I Got Plenty of Nothing”
(***) (Norm Lewis); “I Hates Your Strutting Style” (**) (Yvette
Williams); “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” (***) (Norm Lewis, Audra
McDonald); “Oh, I Can’t Sit Down” (****) (Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (****) (David
Alan Grier, Ensemble); “What You Want with Bess?” (*) (Audra
McDonald, Phillip Boykin); “It Takes a Long Pull” (reprise) (Joshua
Henry, Fishermen); “Oh, Doctor Jesus” (*) (Marie Parham, Ensemble);
“Street Cries” (**) (Andrea Jones-Sojola, Phumzile Sojola, Cedric
Neal); “I Loves You, Porgy” (***) (Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis);
“Oh, the Lord Shake the Heaven” (*) (Ensemble); “A Red-Headed
Woman” (****) (Phillip Boykin, Ensemble); “Clara, Don’t You Be
Downhearted” (*) (Ensemble); “There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon”
(****) (David Alan Grier); “Where’s My Bess?” (****) (Norm Lewis,
Yvette Williams, Marie Parham); “I’m on My Way” (*) (Norm Lewis,
Ensemble)
George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess had its world premiere in Boston on
September 30, 1935, at the Colonial Theatre, and opened on Broadway at
the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre on October 10 for 124 performances.
The run may not have been a long one for a musical, but was impressive for
an opera, and although the production lost money in its initial presentation
it has of this writing been revived in New York seventeen times (eighteen, if
a February 1944 limited-engagement and its almost immediate return
engagement during the same month are counted separately) for a total of
1,394 performances (which includes the run of the original production and
doesn’t count preview performances for some of the Broadway and opera
house productions), a New York record for an American opera.
The work takes place in the environs of Charleston’s Catfish Row and
in a nearby “palmetto jungle” (usually identified as Kittiwah Island), and its
folk-like story has taken on a mythic quality with its tale of the crippled
Porgy (Norm Lewis in the current revival) who against all odds and reason
loves the selfish and sluttish Bess (Audra McDonald). When the demonic
Sportin’ Life (David Alan Grier) seduces her with drugs and the promise of
the “high life” in New York, she abandons Porgy without a qualm. With
only a cart pulled by a goat, Porgy sets off from Charleston to New York to
find her, and despite the soaring hopefulness of “Oh, Lawd, I’m on My
Way,” one suspects Porgy is off on a futile quest that will bring him more
unhappiness and frustration.
For years, the question of whether or not Porgy and Bess is an opera
became a serious issue whenever the work was discussed, but in recent
decades the popularity and acceptance of sung-through Broadway musicals
has made the question moot. No one really worries anymore about the
matter of classification, although it’s clear that George Gershwin considered
the work an opera (and for the 1935 New York premiere, the program
identified the work as “An American Folk Opera”).
More often than not, most revivals reinvent Gershwin’s opera, each in
its own way. In fact, it became something of a cliché for each new revival to
proclaim how different it was from previous productions, and the current
one was no different. The original production was probably too “operatic”
for Broadway consumption, and lasted for just three months. But producer
Cheryl Crawford’s 1942 revival (which opened on January 22 at the
Majestic Theatre) dropped the recitative and refashioned the work into a
more traditional musical drama with dialogue and songs. As a result, the
production more than doubled the run of the original with 286 performances
and for a time held the record as the longest-running Broadway revival of a
musical. During the next two years the opera returned three times for a total
of 88 showings (September 13, 1943, at the 44th Street Theatre for 24
performances; February 7, 1944, at City Center for 16 performances; and a
return engagement at City Center on February 28, 1944, for 48
performances). The next revival opened on March 10, 1953, at the Ziegfeld
Theatre for 305 performances (with Leontyne Price in her breakthrough
role) and holds the record as the work’s longest Broadway run (this
production restored earlier cuts and added about twenty minutes of music
never heard in any of the work’s previous Broadway mountings).
The opera was then produced at City Center four times (on May 17,
1961, for 16 performances; on March 31, 1962, for 6 performances; on May
6, 1964, for 15 performances; and on March 5, 1965, for 6 performances),
the first three by the New York City Center Light Opera Company and the
latter by the New York City Opera Company. The Houston Grand Opera
Company’s production played on Broadway at the Uris (now Gershwin)
Theatre on September 25, 1976, for 122 showings and won the Tony Award
for Best Revival. (During this period, there weren’t separate Tony Award
categories for musical and nonmusical revivals, and so all nominees for
Best Revival were lumped together and competed against one another; in
1976, the nominees for Best Revival were The Cherry Orchard, Guys and
Dolls, Porgy and Bess, and The Threepenny Opera.)
The next revival opened at Radio City Music Hall on April 7, 1983, for
forty-five showings with a huge cast and fifty-six musicians, and Douglas
W. Schmidt’s depiction of Catfish Row might well have been larger than the
one in Charleston. Scenic designer T. E. Kalem in Time said this was a
“rare” opportunity to hear Gershwin’s “uncut, fully operatic” score, and
Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “full grandeur” of the music was
now “completed” because of the “devoted restoration” of the original
orchestrations, which were “full realized for the first time.”
The Metropolitan Opera revived the work during the 1984–1985, 1989–
1990, 1990–1991, and 2019–2020 seasons (see entry for the latter revival)
for a total of sixty-eight showings, and the New York City Opera revived it
at the New York State Theatre on March 7, 2000, for ten performances and
again on March 7, 2002, for another ten showings (the March 20, 2002,
performance was telecast live on public television).
Thus, one revival would clear away the recitative in order to allow the
songs to work in traditional musical theatre fashion, and then another would
restore the recitative and other discarded or unused musical material in
order to make the work more operatic. And the current revival boasted that
it would “explain” the characters with more backstory.
During the 1970s, some critics questioned the propriety of white writers
and a white composer who dared create a work about blacks. Was this
presumptuous on the part of the creators? Insulting? Condescending?
Racist? And what about the use of dialect? Were the writers indulging in
stereotypes? Certainly, in the context of the era in which it was written,
Porgy and Bess was a serious work that intended to depict the lives of
impoverished blacks who live in a tenement during the Depression years. It
looked at the fishermen and the strawberry, crab, and honey sellers who
populate Catfish Row, and it dealt with the daily events of everyday people
who live out their lives during good times and tragic ones, such as the
respective picnic and funeral scenes.
It’s probably foolhardy to condemn any work through the politically
correct lens of the present, but one notes that if some find Gershwin’s opera
objectionable, then should every work be judged by modern-day standards?
Is it “proper” for a Jewish composer to write a musical about Christians? If
not, then banish Richard Rodgers’s The Sound of Music and Leonard
Bernstein’s Mass and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”! And what about
the black composer Thomas “Fats” Waller’s basically all-white musical
Early to Bed?
There are even those who won’t countenance flawed characters in
musicals, characters who don’t reflect politically correct attitudes. Some
damn South Pacific’s Nellie Forbush and Lieutenant Cable because early in
the musical they don’t embrace racial diversity; others pounce upon The
King and I’s Anna because she attempts to introduce Western values to an
Asian country (never mind that the King has hired her to do this; and, for
that matter, what about the King himself, who is a slave owner?); and others
are uncomfortable with Carousel because Billy Bigelow has physically
abused Julie.
For the moment, no one seems to have gotten around to damning Guys
and Dolls (oh, the sexist title!) and Miss Adelaide, whose mindset is that
marriage should be a woman’s be-all and end-all (clearly, Ms. Adelaide
should be pursuing a Master’s in social work at Columbia). And how dare
she work in a joint like the Hot Box which exploits female flesh? The list
could go on and on, and the debate seems pointless because it seems that
only censorship and/or cultural purges would satisfy the blue-noses who
demand that plots and characters fully reflect only “progressive” and
politically correct views.
The current revival was directed by Diana Paulus and the work was
“adapted” by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre L. Murray, and it originated at
the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August,
17, 2011. The production almost immediately caused controversy. Richard
Zoglin in Time reported the new creative team wanted to “fix” the opera’s
alleged “dramatic flaws” and “flesh out” the characters, and as a result
Stephen Sondheim wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he stated
that a presumption to improve the opera was an act of “willful ignorance.”
It seems that part of the new interpretation would have given the two
leading characters a backstory, and Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune
reported that a proposed ending would find Bess back in Catfish Row after
her New York sojourn, but these needless and even preposterous changes
were eventually dropped or toned down. However, the opera was shortened
to little more than two hours, and instead of naturalistic decor Kalem
reported the production was given against an “abstract, driftwood-like
backdrop.”
The original production took place “in the recent past,” but for some
reason the new adaptors chose to place the action in the “late” 1930s. The
plot summary above refers to “Sportin’ Life,” but the adaptors now called
him “Sporting Life,” a name one suspects the character himself would
reject. And while “Leavin’ fo’ de Promis’ Lan’,” “I Got Plenty o’ Nuthin’,”
and “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York” became “Leaving
for the Promised Land,” “I Got Plenty of Nothing,” and “There’s a Boat
That’s Leaving Soon,” the production didn’t find it inconsistent to retain the
original titles of “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” and “I Loves You, Porgy.”
(One hopes that future revivals of Oklahoma! won’t give us “Oh, What a
Beautiful Morning” and “I Can’t Say No,” and please allow the sailors in
South Pacific to continue their belief that “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame.”)
One of the strangest choices in the revival was to eliminate Porgy’s goat
cart, and so now he uses a cane and, according to Patrick Healy in the New
York Times, leg braces (!). There was always something heartbreaking about
Porgy and his goat cart, and it was emblematic of his loneliness and his
marked separateness from his neighbors in Catfish Row, not to mention the
physical difference between him and Crown. One cringes at what future
productions might do in the name of “progress”: Porgy in a motorized
wheelchair? That would certainly make the journey from Charleston to
New York a whole lot easier.
Note there was much consternation over the revival’s official title, The
Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (as opposed to Jerry Herman’s Porgy and
Bess?). But when the 1983 revival at Radio City Music Hall was branded
George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, no one seemed to mind.
Jeremy Gerard in the Wall Street Journal said the revival was “a
sanitized, heavily cut rewrite that strips away the show’s essence so as to
render it suitable for consumption by 21st-century prigs,” and he warned
that if you weren’t familiar with the opera you’d find the new version
“blandly pleasing,” but otherwise you’d be “appalled.” Steven Suskin in
Variety groaned that “a newly devised reprise” of “There’s a Boat That’s
Leavin’ Soon for New York” found Bess snorting cocaine while holding a
baby in her arms, and those familiar with the opera would “roll their eyes.”
Further, new dialogue was “mostly in the form of song cues that have never
been needed to tell the story” (at one point, Porgy tells us he’s crippled, as if
we hadn’t noticed). The revival was “underpopulated” and
“underdesigned,” “arbitrary” changes were made to Gershwin’s “rhythms,
harmonies and countermelodies,” and even new words were given to a song
or two.
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said those expecting a
“bang” would find the revival a “whimper.” The production was “perfectly
adequate,” the set was “bland” (“we could be anywhere”), and the evening
was “merely dramatic instead of tragic.” Lewis had a “warm” voice but
lacked “personality” and “complexity,” and although McDonald’s soprano
was “a thing of crystalline beauty,” her “natural elegance runs counter to
Bess’ grit” and limited the character to “victimhood.”
The New Yorker found “much to recommend” in the new production,
and suggested that “to dismiss it on purist grounds would be to overlook a
self-justifying work of art.” Although the orchestrations were tinny, Lewis,
McDonald, and Grier gave “breathtaking” performances. Ben Brantley in
the New York Times noted that the work now seemed “skeletal,” but
occasionally there were glimmers of how a “stripped-bare” Porgy and Bess
could work. Lewis lacked Porgy’s “haunted gravity and touch of
mysticism,” and McDonald so overpowered him vocally that “their duets
seem to confirm the townsfolk’s speculation that Bess isn’t Porgy’s kind of
woman.”
For all the disagreements about the revival, it played nine months, and
like the 1976 production won a Tony Award for Best Revival.
There are numerous recordings of the score, and one with members of
both the 1935 and 1942 productions (including Todd Duncan and Anne
Brown, who created the title roles in 1935) was released on Broadway
MCA Records. One of the most complete recordings is EMI’s three-CD set,
and the current revival was recorded by PS Classics. Since 1958, the
libretto has been published in paperback editions by the Chappell Music
Company, and it’s also included in the 1973 hardback collection Ten Great
Musicals of the American Theatre, edited by Stanley Richards and
published by the Chilton Book Company. Ellen Noonan’s The Strange
Career of “Porgy and Bess”: Race, Culture, and America’s Most Famous
Opera was published by The University of North Carolina Press in 2012,
and Joseph Horowitz’s On My Way: The Untold Story of Rouben
Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and “Porgy and Bess” was published in
2013 by W.W. Norton.
The lavish 1959 film version directed by Otto Preminger was released
by Columbia Pictures and was produced by Samuel Goldwyn (who
controlled the film rights until 1974, at which time the rights reverted to the
Gershwin estate). The film has all but disappeared during the past few
decades, reportedly because the Gershwin estate is displeased with it (the
film has never been shown on cable television or released on any home
video format). In January 1999, Bill Reed in Variety reported that Gershwin
estate executor Michael Strunsky stated that perhaps the time was right for
a “restoration and reissue” of the film, but the matter still appears to be in
legal limbo and, along with the once-promised original cast recording of
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s Jumbo and the unavailability of the
1952 film version of Frank Loesser’s Where’s Charley?, one assumes these
treasures won’t surface any time soon.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Porgy and
Bess); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Norm Lewis); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Audra McDonald); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Phillip Boykin); Best Performance by an
Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (David Alan Grier); Best
Direction of a Musical (Diane Paulus); Best Orchestrations (William
David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke); Best Costume Design of a
Musical (ESosa); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Christopher
Akerlind); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Acme Sound Partners)
ONCE
“A NEW MUSICAL”

Opening Date: March 18, 2012; Closing Date: January 4, 2015
Performances: 1,168
Book: Edna Walsh
Lyrics and Music: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Based on the 2007 Fox Searchlight Pictures film Once (direction and
screenplay by John Carney).
Direction: John Tiffany; Producers: Barbara Broccoli, John N. Hart Jr.,
Patrick Milling Smith, Frederick Zollo, Brian Carmody, Michael G.
Wilson, Orin Wolf, and The Shubert Organization; Robert Cole,
Executive Producer in association with the New York Theater
Workshop; Movement: Steven Hoggett; Scenery and Costumes: Bob
Crowley; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Supervision: Martin Lowe
Cast: David Abeles (Eamon; Guitar, Piano, Melodica, Harmonica), Will
Connolly (Andrej; Electric Bass, Ukulele, Tambourine, Cajon, Guitar),
Elizabeth A. Davis (Reza; Violin), Steve Kazee (Guy; Guitar), David
Patrick Kelly (Da; Mandolin), Cristin Milioti (Girl; Piano), Anne L.
Nathan (Baruska; Piano, Accordion, Tambourine, Melodica), Lucas
Papaelias (Svec; Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin, Drum Set), Ripley Sobo and
Mckayla Twiggs (both performers alternated in the role of Ivanka),
Andy Taylor (Bank Manager; Violin, Accordian, Cello, Guitar,
Mandolin), Erikka Walsh (Ex-Girlfriend; Violin), Paul Whitty (Billy;
Guitar, Ukulele, Cajon, Snare Drum), J. Michael Zygo (Emcee; Guitar)
The action takes place in Dublin, Ireland, during the present time.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Leave” (lyric and music by Glen Hansard) (Steve Kazee);
“Falling Slowly” (lyric and music by Glen Hansard and Marketa
Irglova) (Steve Kazee, Cristin Milioti); “The North Strand” (lyric and
music by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) (Ensemble); “The Moon”
(lyric and music by Glen Hansard) (Will Connolly); “Ej, Pada, Pada,
Rosicka” (traditional) (Ensemble); “If You Want Me” (lyric and music
by Marketa Irglova) (Steve Kazee, Cristin Milioti, Ensemble); “Broke-
Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy” (lyric and music by Glen Hansard)
(Steve Kazee); “Say It to Me Now” (lyric and music by Glen Hansard,
Graham Downey, Paul James Brennan, Noreen O’Donnell, Colm
Iomaire, and David Odlum) (Steve Kazee); “Abandoned in Bandon”
(lyric and music by Martin Lowe, Andy Taylor, and Edna Walsh) (Andy
Taylor); “Gold” (lyric and music by Fergus O’Farrell) (Steve Kazee,
Ensemble)
Act Two: “Sleeping” (lyric and music by Glen Hansard) (Steve Kazee);
“When Your Mind’s Made Up” (lyric and music by Glen Hansard)
(Steve Kazee, Cristin Milioti, Ensemble); “The Hill” (lyric and music
by Marketa Irglova) (Cristin Milioti); “Gold” (reprise) (sung a cappella
by the company); “The Moon” (reprise) (Company); “Falling Slowly”
(reprise) (Steve Kazee, Cristin Milioti, Ensemble)
Once was the season’s longest-running musical, with almost a three-

year run and chalking up 1,168 performances, and it won eight Tony
Awards, including Best Musical. It was based on the popular 2007 Irish film
musical of the same name, a sleeper of sorts that won the Oscar for Best
Song (“Falling Slowly”). The songs were written mostly by Glen Hansard
and Marketa Irglova. In the film Hansard played a nameless fellow called
Guy (Steve Kazee in the stage production), and Irglova plays a nameless
young woman known as Girl (Cristin Milioti for the musical). Kazee,
Milioti, and the Broadway cast members doubled as musicians because
there wasn’t a traditional pit orchestra.
Guy sells vacuum cleaners to pay the bills, but his true passion is music,
and he spends time on the streets of Dublin as a busker who entertains with
his singing and guitar playing. He meets Girl, a Czechoslovakian immigrant
who is a pianist and shares Guy’s love of music, and the romantic story
follows them for a week’s time as they fall in love and even make demo
recordings of their songs. But both are involved with others—he with his
London girlfriend, and she with a husband in Czechoslovakia. By evening’s
end, he plans to settle in London, and she learns that her husband will be
moving to Dublin in order to join her.
In his review of the Off-Broadway production, which opened three
months prior to the Broadway premiere, Ben Brantley in the New York
Times said the “gently appealing” show suffered from a script “steeped in
wise and folksy observations” about commitment and taking chances, most
of which were “given solemn and thickly accented utterance” by the Girl
who had now become a “kooky, life-affirming waif who is meant to be
irresistible.” But when the music started, Once soared with “rough-edged,
sweet-and-sad ambivalence that is seldom visited in contemporary
American musicals.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Post proclaimed “Kleenex alert!”
because the “wonderful” Once was “the sweetest and most romantic show
on Broadway”; David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter praised the
“sustained swoon of a musical,” and while the book veered “toward the
twee” there was a “haunting beauty” to the folk-rock score that was
garnished by traditional Irish and Central European songs; and Elisabeth
Vincentelli in the New York Post noted that because the evening was a “love
story” with “great songs, compelling characters and inventive stagecraft” it
was “downright revolutionary” because it lacked “a swinging chandelier,
tap-dancing showgirls or brand-name stars.”
Richard Zoglin in Time praised the “galvanizing” score and noted the
film’s story had been “slight to the point of nonexistence” with a “love
affair [that] goes nowhere.” But the musical’s book “dragged” on, and the
writing and direction provided “too many cheap crowd-pleasing tricks”
with “sitcom-quirky” characters. Kazee was probably “too good-looking”
for his character but he captured the spirit of the movie’s Guy, and the
evening’s “chief culprit” was Milioti’s “too high-pitched” performance as
“a pushy-wacky Audrey Hepburn wannabe” (“seldom” had Zoglin “seen a
show thrown so out of whack by one performance”). Otherwise, Once
offered “wonderful” music that was “raw and real and better than anything
you’re likely to hear in the theatre all season.”
The musical retained eight songs from the film (“Falling Slowly,” “If
You Want Me,” “Broken-Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy,” “When Your
Mind’s Made Up,” “Gold,” “The Hill,” “Leave,” and “Say It to Me Now”);
omitted seven (“Lies,” “Fallen from the Sky,” “Trying to Pull Myself
Away,” “All the Way Down,” “Once,” “And the Healing Has Begun,” and
“Into the Mystic”); and added five (“The North Strand,” “The Moon,” “Ej,
Pada, Pada, Rosicka,” “Abandon in Bandon,” and “Sleeping”).
The musical was developed at the American Repertory Theatre in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in April 2011, and was later produced Off-
Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop’s East 4th Street Theatre on
December 6, 2011, for forty-seven performances.
The cast album was released by Sony Masterworks Broadway (the
soundtrack of the 2007 film was released by Columbia). The script was
published in paperback by Theatre Communications Group in 2012.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Once); Best Book (Edna
Walsh); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Steve Kazee); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Cristin Milioti); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Elizabeth A. Davis); Best Choreography (Steven
Hoggett); Best Direction of a Musical (John Tiffany); Best
Orchestrations (Martin Lowe); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Bob
Crowley); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Natasha Katz); Best
Sound Design of a Musical (Clive Goodwin)
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

Opening Date: March 22, 2012; Closing Date: July 1, 2012
Performances: 116
Lyrics: Tim Rice
Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Direction: Des McAnuff; Producers: The Dodgers and The Really Useful
Group, Latitude Link, Tamara and Kevin Kinsella, Pelican Group,
Waxman-Dokton, Joe Corcoran, Detsky/Sokolowski/Kassie, Florin-
Blanshay-Fan/Broadway Across America, Rich/Caudwell,
Shin/Coleman, and TheatreDreams North America, LLC, A Stratford
Shakespeare Festival Production; Lauren Mitchell and Nederlander
Presentations, Inc., Associate Producers; Sally Campbell Morse,
Executive Producer; Choreography: Lisa Shriver; Scenery: Robert Brill;
Video Design: Sean Nieuwenhuis; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting:
Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Rick Fox
Cast: Paul Nolan (Jesus Christ), Josh Young (Judas Iscariot), Chilina
Kennedy (Mary Magdalene), Tom Hewitt (Pontius Pilate), Bruce Dow
(King Herod), Marcus Nance (Caiaphas), Aaron Walpole (Annas), Lee
Siegel (Simon Zealotes), Mike Nadajewski (Peter), Matt Alfano
(Thaddeus), Mark Cassius (Matthew, Priest), Ryan Gifford
(Bartholomew), Jeremy Kushnier (James the Lesser, Priest), Jaz Sealey
(Thomas), Jason Sermonia (John), Julius Sermonia (James), Jonathan
Winsby (Phillip), Sandy Winsby (Andrew, Priest), Nick Cartell (Jonah),
Mary Antonini (Elizabeth), Karen Burthwright (Ruth), Jacqueline
Burtney (Mary), Kaylee Harwood (Sarah), Melissa O’Neil (Martha,
Maid by the Fire), Laurin Padolina (Rachel), Katrina Reynolds (Esther)
The action takes place during a seven-day period in AD 33 in Bethany,
Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, and on Golgotha.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Heaven on Their Minds” (Josh Young);
“What’s the Buzz?” (Paul Nolan, Chilina Kennedy, Ensemble);
“Strange Thing, Mystifying” (Josh Young, Paul Nolan, Ensemble);
“Everything’s Alright” (Chilina Kennedy, Josh Young, Paul Nolan,
Ensemble); “This Jesus Must Die” (Marcus Nance, Aaron Walpole,
Priests, Ensemble); “Hosanna” (Marcus Nance, Paul Nolan, Ensemble);
“Simon Zealotes” (Lee Siegel, Ensemble); “Poor Jerusalem” (Paul
Nolan); “Pilate’s Dream” (Tom Hewitt); “The Temple” and “Make Us
Well” (Ensemble, Paul Nolan); “Everything’s Alright” (reprise) (Chilina
Kennedy, Paul Nolan); “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (Chilina
Kennedy); “Damned for All Time” and “Blood Money” (Josh Young,
Marcus Nance, Aaron Walpole, Ensemble)
Act Two: “The Last Supper” (Paul Nolan, Josh Young, Apostles);
“Gethsemane” (Paul Nolan); “The Arrest” (Paul Nolan, Mike
Nadajewski, Marcus Nance, Aaron Walpole, Apostles, Ensemble);
“Peter’s Denial” (Mike Nadajewski, Melissa O’Neil, Chilina Kennedy,
Priests); “Pilate and Christ” (Tom Hewitt, Paul Nolan, Aaron Walpole,
Ensemble); “Herod’s Song” (Bruce Dow); “Could We Start Again,
Please?” (Chilina Kennedy, Mike Nadajewski, Josh Young); “Judas’
Death” (Josh Young, Marcus Nance, Aaron Walpole, Ensemble); “Trial
by Pilate” and “39 Lashes” (Tom Hewitt, Marcus Nance, Paul Nolan,
Ensemble); “Superstar” (Josh Young, Women); “Crucifixion” (Paul
Nolan); “John 19:41” (Orchestra)
The current production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus
Christ Superstar marked the musical’s fourth New York revival, and it was
based on a Stratford Festival mounting in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, on
June 3, 2011, and a subsequent production at La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla,
California, on November 18, 2011. It was also the second of the season’s
three musicals to look at religion: the similarly-themed Godspell had been
revived earlier in the season, and Leap of Faith closed it out.
Superstar was a self-described “rock opera” about the last days of
Christ on earth, and it began as a concept recording on a double-album
vinyl set released by Decca in October 1970 (a year earlier, a single release
of the title song had been a hit). Following the huge successes of the single
and the album (the latter reportedly sold over 2.5 million copies by the time
of the musical’s Broadway premiere in 1971), the score was presented in
concert venues, and so a fully staged production was virtually certain.
The album overflowed with grandiose orchestrations and effusive choral
effects, and no doubt the bombastic pomposity of it all made the work seem
“important” to many listeners. To be sure, some of the music was effective,
and it was clever if not slightly cynical of Rice and Webber to write a
generic ballad (“I Don’t Know How to Love Him”) that could function as a
song for Mary Magdalene to sing about Christ.
The music probably seemed traditionally operatic to listeners who
didn’t know much about opera, and the lyrics managed to be “relevant,” one
of the era’s favorite words. As a result, the characters sang in anachronistic
colloquialisms (“Was that just PR?”/“Walk across my swimming
pool”/“You’ll escape in the final reel”) which fans of the musical could no
doubt “relate” to.
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the “loud” revival wasn’t
“recommended to anyone with a low tolerance for pomp or a headache.”
The glittery costumes made the chorines in Priscilla Queen of the Desert
look “understated,” the apostles walked around “wearing expressions of
earnest consternation,” and by the second act Paul Nolan (Jesus Christ) and
Josh Young (Judas) were “crooning and screaming like American Idol
contestants on steroids.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post noted
that the evening was “a busy patchwork of styles and references” and Nolan
was a “badass” Christ, a “god of the rock kind, strutting about and casually
dispatching falsetto thrills.” As for Judas, his costumes mirrored his arc
from good apostle to bad betrayer: the good Judas wore a blue toga, and the
bad one “an eggplant-colored velvet suit” that made him “look like a
sommelier at Caesar’s—the one in Vegas, not Rome.” Joe Dziemianowicz
in the New York Daily News found the “flashy and mechanical” musical
“minor and pretty mindless” with “thin material,” and all he could do was
give the production a “qualified like.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times reported that Christ’s
“gruesome” death was shown “with unusually lavish flair,” and each stroke
of the whip was “represented by vivid red splashes streaking across the
electronic back wall of the set.” After Christ dies on the cross, he rises
above the stage and a “giant cross, pulsating with hot gold lights, descends
from above to meet him.” Isherwood also noted that throughout the evening
an electronic ticker provided a “countdown to the Crucifixion.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said director Des McAnuff
had “never met a scaffold, an elevated catwalk, a video wall or a stadium-
style lighting plot he didn’t love.” But for “all its tricked-out technology,”
the revival was an “entertaining guilty pleasure” with “cheesy” lyrics and
catchy music. Richard Zoglin in Time said Webber’s score was “fresh,
audacious and vibrantly alive,” and compared to Webber’s music “almost
any Broadway score today sounds like kids’ stuff”—and “I’m looking at
you, Book of Mormon.”
If all the high-tech blarney weren’t enough, the production also touched
upon the undercurrents of a love triangle, with Mary Magdalene and Judas
in respectively cool and hot competition for Christ’s favors. Rooney
mentioned Judas’s “petulant jealousy” of Mary Magdalene, and Isherwood
noted that Judas’s “hungry” glances at Christ suggested “sexual jealousy.”
Hilton Als in the New Yorker sensed that Judas “would make it with Jesus if
he could,” and “he swivels or thrusts his hips” whenever he sang about
Christ.
The original Broadway production opened on October 12, 1971, at the
Mark Hellinger Theatre for 720 performances in an overproduced staging
by Tom O’Horgan. The cast included Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene)
and Barry Dennen (Pontius Pilate), who had created their roles for the
Decca recording. One song (“Could We Start Again, Please?”) that was
added to the Broadway production, was later used in the 1973 film version,
and has become part of the official score. The production’s gaudy decor,
costumes, and special effects foreshadowed many of the pretentious Euro-
pop and Disney (and Disney-inspired) musicals to come, but Broadway-as-
theme-park was a new concept in 1971, and so one must credit (or blame)
O’Horgan. He introduced a trend that took hold and exists to the present
day, and for many Broadway is defined as a showcase for dazzling effects
and familiar, feel-good material.
The script is included in the 1979 hardback collection Great Rock
Musicals, which was published by Stein and Day and edited by Stanley
Richards. The script is also included in the releases of numerous recordings
of the score, including an oversized paperback version that was packaged
with the original Decca concept album.
The first London production opened on August 9, 1972, at the Palace
Theatre for a whopping 3,358 performances with Paul Nicholas in the title
role.
The tedious 1973 Universal film version directed by Norman Jewison
offered a few interesting visual effects, but that was about all. The cast
included Ted Neeley (Jesus Christ), Carl Anderson (Judas), Joshua Mostel
(Herod), and, from the original album and Broadway production, Elliman
and Dennen. Neeley had played two small roles in the 1971 production and
had been one of two understudies for Jeff Fenholt, who created the title role
for New York.
The first New York revival opened at the Longacre Theatre on
November 23, 1977, for 96 performances, and the next played a two-week
limited engagement of 16 performances at The Paramount Madison Square
Garden Theatre on January 17, 1995, as part of a two-year national tour that
was booked in 112 cities and featured Neeley and Anderson in reprises of
their film roles. The third revival opened on April 16, 2000, at the Ford
Center for the Performing Arts for 161 showings.
As Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert, the musical was telecast by
NBC on April 1, 2018. Sony/Masterworks Broadway released both a two-
CD recording of this telecast and a DVD.
When the musical first opened on Broadway, much was made of its
having been inspired by a record album. Everyone seemed to forget (or
didn’t know) that Shinbone Alley (1957) was based on the 1955 album
archy and mehitabel; that Beg, Borrow or Steal (1960) was based on the
1959 album Clara; and that Off Broadway’s You’re a Good Man, Charlie
Brown (1967) had started life as a concept recording in 1966. One popular
concept album that never found its way to the Broadway stage was Gordon
Jenkins’s 1946 Manhattan Tower, which was revised and expanded in 1956
(“Married I Can Always Get” emerged as the score’s most popular song).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival (Jesus Christ Superstar); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Josh Young)
NEWSIES
“NEW YORK’S SMASH-HIT MUSICAL”

Opening Date: March 29, 2012; Closing Date: August 24, 2014
Performances: 1,004
Lyrics: Jack Feldman
Music: Alan Menken
Based on the 1992 Walt Disney Pictures film Newsies (direction by Kenny
Ortega and screenplay by Bob Tzudiker and Noni White).
Direction: Jeff Calhoun (Richard J. Hinds, Associate Director); Producers:
Disney Theatrical Productions, under the direction of Thomas
Schumacher (Anne Quart, Associate Producer); Choreography:
Christopher Gattelli (Lou Castro, Associate Choreographer); Scenery:
Tobin Ost; Projection Design: Sven Ortel;Costumes: Jess Goldstein;
Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical Direction: Mark Hummel
Cast: Jeremy Jordan (Jack Kelly), Andrew Keenan-Bolger (Crutchie), Ryan
Breslin (Race), Garett Hawe (Albert, Bill), Ryan Steele (Specs), Kyle
Coffman (Henry), Aaron J. Albano (Finch), Evan Kasprzak (Elmer),
Andy Richardson (Romeo), Ephraim Sykes (Mush), Kara Lindsay
(Katherine), Thayne Jasperson (Darcy), Julie Foldesi, Capathia Jenkins,
and Laurie Veldheer (Nuns), Mike Fiast (Morris Delancey), Brendon
Stimson (Oscar Delancey), John E. Brady (Wiesel, Stage Manager, Mr.
Jacobi, Mayor), Ben Fankhauser (Davey), Lewis Grosso and Matthew J.
Schechter (both alternated in the role of Les, and it seems Grosso played
Les on opening night), John Dossett (Joseph Pulitzer), Mark Aldrich
(Seitz), Nick Sullivan (Bunsen), Laurie Veldheer (Hannah), Stuart
Marland (Snyder), Capathia Jenkins (Medda Larkin), Tommy Bracco,
Jess LeProtto, and Alex Wong (Scabs), Tommy Bracco (Spot Conlon),
Kevin Carolan (Governor Roosevelt); Citizens of New York: Aaron J.
Albano, Mark Aldrich, Tommy Bracco, John E. Brady, Ryan Breslin,
Kevin Carolan, Kyle Coffman, Mike Faist, Julie Foldesi, Garett Hawe,
Thayne Jasperson, Evan Kasprzak, Jess LeProtto, Stuart Marland, Andy
Richardson, Ryan Steele, Brendon Stimson, Nick Sullivan, Ephraim
Sykes, Laurie Veldheer, Alex Wong
The action takes place in Lower Manhattan during Summer 1899.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue: “Santa Fe” (Jeremy Jordan, Andrew Keenan-Bolger);
“Carrying the Banner” (Jeremy Jordan, Newsies); “The Bottom Line”
(John Dossett, Mark Aldrich, Nick Sullivan, Laurie Veldheer); “That’s
Rich” (Capathia Jenkins); “I Never Planned on You” and “Don’t Come
a-Knocking” (Jeremy Jordan, Bowery Beauties); “The World Will
Know” (Jeremy Jordan, Ben Fankhauser, Lewis Grosso, Newsies); “The
World Will Know” (reprise) (Newsies); “Watch What Happens” (Kara
Lindsay); “Seize the Day” (Ben Fankhauser, Jeremy Jordan, Newsies);
“Santa Fe” (reprise) (Jeremy Jordan)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “King of New York” (Ben Fankhauser,
Kara Lindsay, Lewis Grosso, Newsies); “Watch What Happens”
(reprise) (Ben Fankhauser, Jeremy Jordan, Kara Lindsay, Lewis
Grosso); “The Bottom Line” (reprise) (John Dossett, Mark Aldrich,
John E. Brady); “Brooklyn’s Here” (Tommy Bracco, Newsies);
“Something to Believe In” (Kara Lindsay, Jeremy Jordan); “Seize the
Day” (first reprise) (Newsies); “Once and for All” (Jeremy Jordan, Ben
Fankhauser, Kara Lindsay, Newsies); “Seize the Day” (second reprise)
(Newsies); Finale (Jeremy Jordan, Newsies)
Disney’s 1992 live-action film musical Newsies was a major failure that
seemed to disappear from the theatres almost as soon as it opened. But a
funny thing happened on the way to certain oblivion: young people saw the
film on home video and turned it into a cult hit. And twenty years later the
stage adaptation opened on Broadway for a long run of over one-thousand
performances.
The film was frustrating. It was big and colorful, and held the promise
of an all-boy Annie or an American-styled Oliver! Set during the late 1890s
in New York City and inspired by an actual event, the story looked at the
newspaper boys (or newsies) who hawk papers on the streets of New York
but go on strike when the establishment (mostly in the person of Joseph
Pulitzer) decides to charge them more for the papers they sell. However, the
fates are on their side, and the boys learn that solidarity overcomes all
obstacles. The film lacked the winning ingredients for success, and Alan
Menken’s score was obvious and lackluster.
But Disney’s stage version changed all that with a flashy performance
by Jeremy Jordan (who was about ten years too old for the role, but nobody
cared) and a lively series of dances devised by Christopher Gattelli. These
factors along with the show’s built-in familiarity ensured that the stage
Newsies fared far better than the original film.
Richard Zoglin in Time said the “slick” and “professional” production
had “competent and appealing” performers, Jeff Calhoun’s direction kept
“the energy level high,” and there were “acrobatic” dance numbers. For all
that, the musical seemed “about as disposable as yesterday’s paper” because
the leading character Jack was “generic,” the “ginned-up” romance between
Jack and a female reporter was “perfunctory,” and Menken’s score missed
the era’s flavor with nothing in the way of ragtime and dance-hall numbers.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Newsies marketed “Urchin
Appeal,” and the newsboys “keep coming at us in full-speed-ahead” dances
in a “Broadway-by-the-numbers” mode that lacked originality but had “raw
vitality.” He praised the dancers “for always appearing to be excited by
what they’re doing,” but “unfortunately that is not the same as being
exciting.” Time said the “athletic” dances were performed with “bravado,”
but Harvey Fierstein’s book and Menken and Jack Feldman’s songs stayed
“unerringly” within “the Disney formula.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post found Fierstein’s book
“toothless,” but noted Calhoun and Gattelli kept the boys “on the move in
often impressive ways,” and it was a “rare thrill to watch so many of them
dance and jump en masse, and to hear them sing anthemic chants in
unison”; Elysa Gardner in USA Today said Fierstein’s book provided
“enough heart and wit to make it fly,” the songs were infectious, the
direction “sprightly,” and the “most exhilarating” aspects of the production
were the “stick-in-your-head” melodies and the “dazzling” and “athletic”
choreography; and Scott Brown in vulture.com indicated the musical was
“as gloriously square as it is automatically ingratiating,” and while the book
was mostly “fleet and witty” it sometimes contained “a few tiresomely
repeated beats.”
The stage version premiered on September 25, 2011, at the Paper Mill
Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, with Jeremy Jordan, who soon joined
Bonnie & Clyde as Clyde Barrow in the ill-fated production that closed in a
month. As a result, Jordan was available when Newsies opened on
Broadway three months after Bonnie & Clyde bit the dust.
The original cast recording was released by Ghostlight Records and
includes bonus tracks of extended versions with dance breaks for “Seize the
Day” and “King of New York.” A live performance of the touring
production at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, California, with Jordan
and many of the Broadway cast members was filmed and received a limited
release in theatres before being issued on DVD by Walt Disney
Productions.
The 1992 soundtrack album was released by Disney Records, and a
Blu-ray of the film was issued by Walt Disney Studios Home
Entertainment.
The Broadway production retained six songs from the film (“Carrying
the Banner,” “Santa Fe,” “The World Will Know,” “Seize the Day,” “King
of New York,” and “Once and for All”); dropped two from the film (“My
Lovey-Dovey Baby” and “High Times, Hard Times”); dropped two songs
after the Paper Mill tryout (“The News Is Getting Better” and “Then I See
You Again”); and added seven for Broadway (“The Bottom Line,” “That’s
Rich,” “I Never Planned on You,” “Don’t Come a-Knocking,” “Watch
What Happens,” “Brooklyn’s Here,” and “Something to Believe In”).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Newsies); Best Book (Harvey
Fierstein); Best Score (lyrics by Jack Feldman and music by Alan
Menken); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Jeremy Jordan); Best Choreography (Christopher Gattelli);
Best Direction of a Musical (Jeff Calhoun); Best Orchestrations (Danny
Troob); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Scenic Design by Tobin Ost
and Projection Design by Sven Ortel)
END OF THE RAINBOW

Performances: 160
Play: Peter Quilter
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers below.
Direction: Terry Johnson; Producers: Lee Dean, Laurence Myers, Joey
Parnes, Ellis Goodman, Chase Mishkin, Shadowcatcher
Entertainment/Alhadeff Productions, National Angels U.S. Inc., Charles
Diamond/Jenny Topper, Myla Lerner/Barbara and Buddy Freitag,
Spring Sirkin/Candy Gold, Hilary Williams, S. D. Wagner, and John
Johnson in association with Guthrie Theatre (Joe Dowling, Artistic
Director); Scenery and Costumes: William Dudley; Lighting:
Christopher Akerlind; Musical Direction: Jeffrey Saver
Cast: Tracie Bennett (Judy Garland), Michael Cumpsty (Anthony), Tom
Pelphrey (Mickey Deans), Jay Russell(BBC Interviewer, Porter, ASM
[Assistant Stage Manager])
The play with songs was presented in two acts.
The action takes place at the Ritz Hotel in London during December 1968.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers, but a credits’
page listed the following songs:
“I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” (Blackbirds of 1928; lyric by
Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy McHugh);”Just in Time” (Bells Are
Ringing, 1956; lyric by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Jule
Styne); “The Trolley Song” (1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis; lyric by
Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); “The Man That Got Away” (1954 film
A Star Is Born; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by Harold Arlen); “When
You’re Smiling (the Whole World Smiles with You)” (lyric and music
by Mark Fisher, Joe Goodwin, and Larry Shay); “Blue Skies” (Betsy,
1926; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Dancing in the Dark” (The
Band Wagon, 1931; lyric by Howard Dietz, music by Arthur Schwartz);
“Come Rain or Come Shine” (St. Louis Woman, 1946; lyric by Johnny
Mercer, music by Harold Arlen); “Over the Rainbow” (1939 film The
Wizard of Oz; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen); “By
Myself” (Between the Devil, 1937; lyric by Howard Dietz, music by
Arthur Schwartz).
The published script also identified the following numbers that were
performed at one time or another in the production: “I Belong to
London” (anonymous); “For Me and My Gal” (lyric by E. Ray Goetz
and Edgar Leslie, music by George W. Meyer); and “You Made Me
Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It)” (interpolated into the second edition
of The Honeymoon Express; lyric by Joseph McCarthy, music by James
V. Monaco).
The import End of the Rainbow was a play by Peter Quilter which
looked at Judy Garland (Tracie Bennett) at the end of her career (and life)
when she attempts yet another comeback, this one at London’s cabaret Talk
of the Town where she’s booked for a six-week engagement beginning in
December 1968. She must deal with alcohol, drugs, insecurities, and the
ever-present past of her days at MGM and the parade of her former
husbands, and must also orchestrate her shaky relationships with her fiancé
and soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey Deans (Tom Pelphrey) and her gay
pianist Anthony (Michael Cumpsty). Garland married Deans in March 1969
(three months after the action in the play occurs), and she died of a
barbiturate overdose three months later, on June 22, 1969, at the age of
forty-seven. The action weaved between Garland’s hotel suite and the stage
of the cabaret, and included various songs generally associated with
Garland which were performed by Bennett, who was backed by five
musicians.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Bennett’s “electrifying”
performance made him feel “exhilarated and exhausted, equally ready to
dance down the street and crawl under a rock.” Here was a performance
that was “unconditionally committed, not to mention sensational,” and he
noted that Bennett was “terrifyingly manic” in her “Ritalin-fueled”
interpretation of “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Hilton Als in the New Yorker
said End of the Rainbow wasn’t much of a play, and noted Bennett’s
performance was “beyond bravura” and was instead perhaps “a feat of
towering masochism” in which the actress tried “to contain, and sometimes
top, a performer she doesn’t embody but merely fetishizes.”
Richard Zoglin in Time said Quilter’s play was a “surprisingly sturdy
vehicle” and “one of the best close-up portraits of a star in extremis” that he
had ever seen. As for Bennett, she went “beyond parody into something like
poetry,” and her “Come Rain or Come Shine” was “an illustration of the
fine line between showmanship and psychosis.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the
New York Post said “150 percent is the least Bennett can give,” and instead
of turning in a “safe” Garland interpretation, Bennett re-created “the
Garland mystique.” And, yes, “Come Rain or Come Shine” was “so big that
it’s almost embarrassing,” and “of course, you can’t stop watching.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter found the play “one-note,”
but praised Bennett’s “full-throttle” performance, which gave the evening
“a fiercely dynamic center.” Her “Come Rain or Come Shine” was
“deliriously accelerated,” and “By Myself” was a “more-measured homage
to Garland’s singular talent.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily
News found the play both “tribute and trash” which collided “uneasily” in a
“jacked-up portrait” of Garland that was neither “a pretty picture” nor “an
illuminating one.”
End of the Rainbow was first produced at the Sydney Opera House in
Sydney, Australia, in August 2005 with Caroline O’Connor as Garland. A
revised version was presented in Great Britain at Royal & Derngate in
Northampton on February 5, 2010, and then in London at the Trafalgar
Studios on November 22, 2010, with Bennett in both productions.
The script was published in paperback by Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama
& Performance Studies in 2013. Masterworks Broadway/Sony released the
collection Tracie Bennett Sings Judy/Songs from the Broadway Production
“End of the Rainbow” and Other Garland Classics.
Another production about Garland is Terry Wale’s Judy, which began
performances at London’s Strand Theatre on March 26, 1986, with Leslie
Mackie in the title role; directed by John David and with musical staging by
Gail Gordon, the cast of characters in the play with music includes Ethel
Gumm, Louis B. Mayer, Vincente Minnelli, Sid Luft, Mickey Rooney,
Louella Parsons, and Hedda Hopper.
As Judy, the film version of End of the Rainbow was released by BBC
Films in 2019 with Renée Zellweger, who won the Best Actress Academy
Award for her performance in the title role; Rupert Goold directed and the
screenplay was by Tom Edge. The soundtrack was issued on CD by
Republic Records, and the two-Bluray/DVD set was released by Lions Gate
Studio.
Another Garland musical is Chasing Rainbows, which has been
announced for a future Broadway presentation (an “industry production”
was given in New York on January 10, 2019, and a press release indicated
the musical would center on Garland’s early years and bring “contemporary
life to songs introduced by or associated with Garland,” including “Over the
Rainbow,” “You Made Me Love You,” “Everybody Sing,” “In Between,”
and “Dear Mr. Gable”).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading
Role in a Play (Tracie Bennett); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Play (Michael Cumpsty); Best Sound Design of a
Play (Gareth Owen)
EVITA
Performances: 337
Lyrics: Tim Rice
Direction: Michael Grandage (Seth Sklar-Heyn, Associate Director);
Producers: Hal Luftig, Scott Sanders Productions, Roy Furman,
Yasuhiro Kawana, Allan S. Gordon/Adam S. Gordon, James L.
Nederlander, Terry Allen Kramer, Gutterman Fuld Chernoff/Pittsburgh
CLO, Thousand Stars Productions, Adam Blanshay, Adam Zotovich,
Robert Ahrens, Stephanie P. McClelland, Carole L. Haber, Richard
Hornos, Carol Fineman, Brian Smith, and Warren and Jale Trepp;
Choreography: Rob Ashford (Chris Bailey, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery and Costumes: Christopher Oram; Projection Design: Zachary
Borovay; Lighting: Neil Austin; Musical Direction: Kristen Blodgette
Cast: Ricky Martin (Che), Elena Roger (Eva), Christina DeCicco (Eva for
Wednesday evening and Saturday matinee performances), Max Von
Essen (Magaldi), Michael Cerveris (Peron), Rachel Potter (Mistress),
Maya Jade Frank or Isabela Moner (Child); Ensemble: Ashley Amber,
George Lee Andrews, Eric L. Christian, Kristine Covillo, Colin
Cunliffe, Margot De La Barre, Bradley Dean, Rebecca Eichenberger,
Melanie Field, Constantine Germanacos, Laurel Harris, Bahiyah Hibah,
Nick Kenkel, Brad Little, Erica Mansfield, Emily Mechler, Sydney
Morton, Jessica Lea Patty, Aleks Pevec, Rachel Potter, Kristie Dale
Sanders, Timothy Shew, Johnny Stellard, Alex Michael Todd, Daniel
Torres
The action takes place mostly in Junin and Buenos Aires, Argentina, during
the period 1934–1952.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Requiem” (Company); “Oh, What a Circus” (Ricky Martin,
Company); “On This Night of a Thousand Stars” (Max Von Essen);
“Eva, Beware of the City” (Max Von Essen, Elena Roger, Ricky Martin,
Family); “Buenos Aires” (Elena Roger, Ricky Martin, Company);
“Goodnight and Thank You” (Ricky Martin, Elena Roger, Lovers);
“The Art of the Possible” (Michael Cerveris, Elena Roger, Officers);
“Charity Concert” (Max Von Essen, Ricky Martin, Michael Cerveris,
Company); “I’d Be Surprisingly Good for You” (Elena Roger, Michael
Cerveris); “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” (Rachel Potter); “Peron’s
Latest Flame” (Ricky Martin, Company); “A New Argentina” (Michael
Cerveris, Elena Roger, Ricky Martin, Company)
Act Two: “On the Balcony of the Casa Rosada” (Michael Cerveris,
Company); “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” (Elena Roger); “High Flying,
Adored” (Ricky Martin, Elena Roger); “Rainbow High” (Elena Roger,
Valets); “Rainbow Tour” (Michael Cerveris, Ricky Martin, Elena Roger,
Company); “The Chorus Girl Hasn’t Learned” (Elena Roger,
Company); “Santa Evita” (Maya Jade Frank or Isabela Moner,
Company); “Waltz for Eva and Che” (Elena Roger, Ricky Martin); “You
Must Love Me” (Elena Roger); “She Is a Diamond” (Michael Cerveris,
Officers); “Dice Are Rolling” (Michael Cerveris, Elena Roger); “Eva’s
Final Broadcast” (Elena Roger); “Montage” (Company); “Lament”
(Elena Roger)
The revival of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita marked its
first New York production since the 1979 Broadway premiere, and was also
the team’s second musical of the season (the revival of their Jesus Christ
Superstar had opened two weeks earlier).
Like Superstar, the musical began life as a concept album. MCA
Records released the double-album set in 1976 with Julie Covington (Eva),
Paul Jones (Peron), and C. T. (Colm) Wilkinson (Che). One song on the
album (“The Lady’s Got Potential”) wasn’t carried over for the world
premiere at London’s Prince Edward Theatre on June 21, 1978, with Elaine
Paige (Eva), Joss Ackland (Peron), and David Essex (Che). The production
played for 3,176 performances, and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” became
one of the few theatre songs of the decade to attain wide popularity.
The Broadway transfer was the event musical of the season when it
opened on September 25, 1979, at the Broadway Theatre for 1,567
performances with Patti LuPone (Eva), Bob Gunton (Peron), and Mandy
Patinkin (Che). It won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best
Direction (for Hal Prince, who had also helmed the London production),
Best Book, Best Lyrics and Music, and Best Featured Actor in a Musical
(Patinkin). Patti LuPone won for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, and
her performance established her as the foremost musical theatre star of the
era.
Based on the life of Eva Peron (1919–1952), the sung-through musical
centered on the ambitious Argentine actress and radio personality Eva
Duarte, a poor “backstreet girl” who captures the fancy of the country’s
popular general, Juan Peron. Upon their marriage and his election to the
presidency they rule the country, but because of her modest background
she’s never accepted by the Argentine military or by the country’s social
set, and is generally snubbed by royalty and governments during her
“rainbow tour” of Europe.
But the poor (the shirtless ones, or the descamisados) embrace her as a
symbol of upward mobility, and while her foundation for the poor has been
ridiculed as a sham from which she and Peron skimmed millions, the
foundation apparently spent a fortune in its efforts to eradicate poverty and
ensure equal rights for women. But Eva and Peron’s world ended when she
was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died in 1952 at the age of thirty-
three. Peron remained in power for three more years and then was exiled to
Spain. Upon his eventual return to Argentina he was again elected
president, but he never again recaptured the popularity of his years with
Eva.
The musical had many strengths and some structural weaknesses, but
the overpoweringly theatrical nature of Prince’s original staging won the
day. The libretto’s major problem is that it reports rather than dramatizes the
events, and sometimes it seemed that a second Evita was playing offstage
and the one on stage was a reporter’s version of Eva’s life and times. And
while Rice’s lyrics tried for cleverness with puns and colloquialisms, they
sometimes came across as sophomoric. But Eva’s character was carefully
crafted as enigmatic and complicated, a woman who was both St. Joan and
Jezebel.
The musical daringly began with the announcement of Eva’s death and
her subsequent funeral, and there was a carefully wrought circular structure
to the score. During the funeral scene, an unseen Eva briefly sings a snippet
of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” to the millions who mourn her, and later
at the height of hers and Peron’s power she again sings it, this time on the
balcony of the presidential palace while the masses below watch in
adoration. Another scene found her hairdressers, beauty consultants, and
fashion designers extolling her “Eyes! Hair! Mouth! Figure!” as they
prepare her for the rainbow tour, and later with the same music her
morticians exclaim over her “eyes, hair, face, image” as they begin to
embalm her.
Rice and Webber created some fictional friction between Eva and Che.
In real life, the two never met, but in the musical he was the sardonic
narrator of the proceedings, and he shadowed Eva as her long-lost
conscience. After an introductory choral sequence, it is Che who is given
the score’s first full-fledged song with his ironic description of Eva’s
funeral (“Oh, What a Circus”), a number similar to many Rice wrote as
early first-act “commentary” for a (usually) male character: Superstar
offered “Heaven on Their Minds,” and Blondel (London, 1983), Chess
(London, 1986; New York, 1988), and Aida (New York, 2000) followed
suit.
The richly melodic score was Webber’s finest, and he and Rice went off
in fascinating tangents, such as the surreal “Waltz for Eva and Che”; the
pounding officers’ lament about “Peron’s Latest Flame” (in their dark
glasses and military finery, they stomped out their contempt for Eva, and
Larry Fuller’s march-like dance for the original production was one of the
choreographic highlights of the era); Che’s ambivalent ode to Eva, who is
“High Flying, Adored”; Eva’s exultant “Rainbow High”; and the blistering
choral sequence for the first-act finale, “A New Argentina.” And there was
of course the ubiquitous “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” Eva’s powerful
moment before the crowds at the Casa Rosada. The song’s popularity is
somewhat surprising because even in context the lyric is oblique and
abstract, almost dadaesque. As a result, Evita may well be the only musical
with a stream-of-consciousness hit song. The score’s weakest and most
extraneous number is “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” for one of Peron’s
discarded mistresses, a number that virtually demands to be cut but
nonetheless always shows up in revivals and even found its way into the
1996 film version (see below).
The current revival originated in London where it opened at the Adelphi
Theatre on June 2, 2006, and played for almost a full year with Argentinean
Elena Roger in the title role, which she reprised for New York. The
Broadway production also starred popular singer Ricky Martin (Che) and
Broadway favorite Michael Cerveris (Peron), and the score interpolated
“You Must Love Me,” which had been written for the film adaptation.
The New Yorker said Roger had “authenticity and drive” but lacked
“raw charisma,” and her Evita was “a sparrow-like Machiavel with a voice
better suited to Edith Piaf.” Richard Zoglin in Time also found her authentic
but charisma-challenged, and said she lacked the “sexual allure” of Evita.
Her singing was “strong but surprisingly chilly,” and with “almost no
vibrato and little lyricism in the upper register” her voice was not “pretty.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times began his review with the ominous
exclusive: “This just in: Eva Peron is still dead.” The evening was a “lavish,
worshipful wake” and a combination of “history pageant and requiem
Mass” that felt “about as warm-blooded as a gilded mummy.” Roger was an
“irony-free” Evita who for the most part exuded “grimly focused
determination” and didn’t provide “even artificial warmth that might
explain her immense appeal to the working classes.” Her singing voice had
“little variety or seductiveness” and was “sharp and nasal.”
Scott Brown in New York said Evita had fought the military, the upper
classes, and the lower classes, and in the new production she was now
fighting her “uncooperative upper-register!” London may have gone “mad”
over Roger, but Brown noted she was only “memorable” because she was
“irritating.” In the original production, Che was a Marxist, but here he’s a
“gadfly” as well as a “fly on the wall” who lacked “attitude,” “anger,” and
“anything” (Brown mentioned that Patinkin wore a beard and a beret in the
original production, which would “look ridiculous today, and by some
accounts looked ridiculous back then”).
Melissa Rose Bernardo in Entertainment Weekly stated there were just
three questions to ask: How was Roger’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”?
How was her “arm raise” (“the signature Evita pose”)? How does she
“handle that vocal-cord killing score?” For the “adequate” revival, the
respective answers were: “Passable. Effective. And badly.”
But Michael Musto in the Village Voice found Roger a “quite
believable” Evita who dances “like a dervish” and is a “good” singer
(“except for some occasional high notes”), and she “acts the cojones out of
‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.’” Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the “most
striking” aspect of Roger’s performance was her “fragility” and “hunger,”
and while her singing voice wasn’t “strong,” it possessed a “raw ache and
folky authenticity.”
There are over three-dozen recordings of the score, but the essential
ones are the studio cast album and the London and Broadway casts. Both
cast recordings were released by MCA, and lest we forget, there was also
Disco Evita from Polygram that includes seven songs from the score as well
as “Eva’s Theme: Lady Woman” (by Boris Midney), with all vocals by
Festival. The cast album of the current revival was released by
Sony/Masterworks Broadway and includes a bonus track of “Don’t Cry for
Me Argentina” sung in Spanish by Roger (the 2006 London production was
recorded and released by Verve). The script of the musical was published in
hardback by Drama Book Specialists in 1978.
The 1996 Universal Pictures’ film version is underrated. It’s an
impressive adaptation directed by Alan Parker and scripted by Parker and
Oliver Stone, and the cast features Madonna (Evita, of course), Jonathan
Pryce (Peron), and Antonio Banderas (Che). The score includes a new song
(“You Must Love Me”), which won the Academy Award for Best Song. The
film was released on DVD by Cinergi Pictures Entertainment, Inc., and
Buena Vista Pictures, and the soundtrack was issued by Warner Brothers
Records.
Evita returned to New York for a limited engagement at City Center’s
Main Stage Theatre for the period November 13–November 24, 2019; Mala
Reficco played the young Evita (ages 15–20), and Sofia Pfeiffer was the
adult Evita (through the age of 33).
There was also a Broadway drama about the Perons. Jerome Lawrence
and Robert E. Lee’s Diamond Orchid opened at Henry Miller’s Theatre on
February 10, 1965, for five performances, and here Eva and Peron were
called Paulita and Jorge Salvador Brazo and were played by Jennifer West
and Mario Alcalde.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Evita); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Michael
Cerveris); Best Choreography (Rob Ashford)
PETER AND THE STARCATCHER

Theatre: Brooks Atkinson Theatre
Performances: 319
Play and Lyrics: Rick Elice
Music: Wayne Barker
Based on the 2004 novel Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and
Ridley Pearson.
Direction: Roger Rees and Alex Timbers; Producers: Nancy Nagel Gibbs,
Greg Schaffert, Eva Price, Tom Smedes, Disney Theatrical Productions,
Susan and Ken Wirth/Debartolo Miggs, Catherine Schreiber/Daveed
Frazier and Mark Thompson, Jack Lane, Jane Dubin, Allan S.
Gordon/Adam S. Gordon, Baer and Casserly/Nathan Vernon, Rich
Affannato/Peter Stern, Brunish andTrinchero/Laura Little Productions,
Larry Hirschhorn/Hummel and Greene, Jamie deRoy and Probo
Prods./Radio Mouse Ent., Hugh Hysell/Freedberg and Dale, and New
York Theatre Workshop; Movement: Steve Hoggett; Scenery: Donyale
Werle; Costumes: Paloma Young; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical
Direction: Marco Pagula
Cast: Teddy Bergman (Fighting Prawn), Christian Borle (Black Stache),
Arnie Burton (Mrs. Bumbrake), Adam Chanler-Berat (Boy), Matt
D’Amico (Slank, Hawking Clam), Keven Del Aguila (Smee), Carson
Elrod (Prentiss), Greg Hildreth (Alf), Rick Holmes (Lord Aster), Isaiah
Johnson (Captain Scott), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Molly), David Rossmer
(Ted)
The action takes place a long time ago aboard the Neverland and the Wasp
and on Mollusk Island.
The play with music Peter and the Starcatcher was based on Dave
Barry and Ridley Pearson’s 2004 novel Peter and the Starcatchers (from
page to stage the work declined from plural to singular). The evening
provided a backstory to J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan characters, including the
Boy himself who eventually decides to never grow up.
The play ran over three-hundred performances and picked up five Tony
Awards, and it’s undoubtedly ornery to complain that there are far too many
books, plays, musicals, and movies out there that are almost neurotically
driven to tell us backstories for, add sequels to, and riff on popular literary
works and their characters. Apparently what the original authors wrote isn’t
enough, and since their works are in the public domain, why not speculate
on the Before or After? As a result, there’s a steady stream of new looks at
old books, including offshoots that analyze why such-and-such an author
was driven to write his masterwork.
Pride and Prejudice found its way into P. D. James’s 2011 mystery
Death Comes to Pemberley, in which Jane Austen’s Darcy and Elizabeth
are now married and almost become a nineteenth-century variation of Nick
and Nora Charles when a murder takes place on their estate. Poor Miss
Havisham of Great Expectations has also been given the treatment, and so
Charles Dickens’s powerful sketch of the lost soul was expanded by
Dominick Argento into his 1979 opera Miss Havisham’s Fire, which looked
at her early years. Even Dickens himself and his novella A Christmas Carol
were the subject of the 2017 film The Man Who Invented Christmas, which
showed the audience what inspired Dickens to write his classic Christmas
story.
Three works in particular seem destined for endless prequels, sequels,
and variant interpretations: Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wizard
of Oz. During the 2010s all three were available for Broadway viewing:
Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland), Peter and the Starcatcher and Finding
Neverland (Peter Pan), and 2003’s Wicked (The Wizard of Oz).
John Lahr in the New Yorker said the “larky” evening was “part
pantomime, part story theatre, and all delight,” and it explained “how Peter
got his name and his flying mojo, how Captain Hook lost his hand, [and]
how the crocodile got its ticktock.” (All these years we’ve been fed the
crock that Hook’s hand was bitten off by the crocodile, but now we learn
that Hook himself accidentally cut it off.)
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that the “ecstatic” production
was “the most exhilarating example of locomotive storytelling” since The
Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby had opened on Broadway in 1981
(note that Starcatcher’s codirector, Roger Rees, had played the title
character in that production). The twelve cast members of Starcatcher took
turns as narrators, and all of them constantly morphed into specific
characters, dozens in all. The scenery didn’t depend on high-tech effects,
and Brantley mentioned that what was seen on stage (ropes, ladders, and
toys) could have been “found in a theatre 150 years ago.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the evening lacked
“narrative clarity,” but otherwise there were “buckets of whimsy and
inspired low-tech stagecraft,” and Christian Borle (as the pirate Black
Stache who would become Captain Hook) was “deliciously hammy” with
his “scenery-chewing turn.” But the transfer from an Off-Broadway venue
that seated less than two hundred patrons to a Broadway theatre with some
one thousand seats caused the show’s “larkish pantomime” to “become
strained.”
Michael Musto in the Village Voice reported that the play went “for a
sardonic approach that mocks and comments on the material as it goes
along,” but it concluded with a “switch to total earnestness” that didn’t
“fly.” Otherwise, the evening had “enough stardust, especially when it’s at
its most wicked.”
In her review of the Off-Broadway production, Marilyn Stasio in
Variety said that despite the “talky text” and “busy staging,” the work was
“a pretty basic adventure story.” The show was “encrusted with bad puns,
corny jokes, strained literary allusions, borrowed song lyrics, and the odd
biblical reference,” most of which went over the heads of kids and didn’t
particularly amuse adults (no doubt a reference to Philip Glass was beyond
all the children and most of the adults in the audience, and probably very
few kids got the line, “You’ve made your bed, Pan!”). Perhaps the “oddest”
aspect of the production was Wayne Barker’s music (which was played by
two musicians). There weren’t enough songs for a full-fledged musical, but
the ones Barker composed were “enough to indicate that the show might be
less awkward if it actually were the musical it wants to be.”
The production was first presented in a workshop production at La Jolla
Playhouse, La Jolla, California, on February 13, 2009, and then opened Off-
Broadway on March 9, 2011, at the New York Theatre Workshop’s East 4th
Street Theatre for sixty-six performances.
The script was published in paperback by Disney Editions in 2012.
Neither the program nor the script provided a list of musical numbers, but
the script includes the lyrics for untitled musical sequences, which include
sailors’ chanties, hymns, siren songs, and tribal chants.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Play (Peter and the Starcatcher); Best
Score (lyrics by Rick Elice, music by Wayne Barker); Best Performance
by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Christian Borle); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Celia Keenan-
Bolger); Best Direction of a Play (Roger Rees and Alex Timbers); Best
Scenic Design of a Play (Donyale Werle); Best Costume Design of a
Play (Paloma Young); Best Lighting Design of a Play (Jeff Croiter);
Best Sound Design of a Play (Darron L. West)
ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS

Theatre: Music Box Theatre
Performances: 159
Play: Richard Bean
Lyrics and Music: Grant Olding
Based on the 1746 comedy The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni.
Direction: Nicholas Hytner (Adam Penford, Associate Director); Physical
Comedy Direction: Cal McCrystal; Producers: National Theatre of
Great Britain (under the direction of Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr),
Bob Boyett, National Angels, Chris Harper, Tim Levy, Scott Rudin,
Roger Berlind, Harriet Newman Leve, Stephanie P. McClelland,
Broadway Across America, Jam Theatricals, Daryl Roth, Sonia
Friedman, Harris Karma Productions, Deborah Taylor, and Richard
Willis; Choreography: Adam Penford; Scenery and Costumes: Mark
Thompson; Lighting: Mark Henderson; Musical Direction: Charlie
Rosen
Cast: Martyn Ellis (Harry Dangle), Suzie Toase (Dolly), Trevor Laird
(Lloyd Boateng), Fred Ridgeway (Charlie “The Duck” Clench), Claire
Lams (Pauline Clench), Daniel Rigby (Alan Dangle), James Corden
(Francis Henshall), Jemima Rooper (Rachel Crabbe), Oliver Chris
(Stanley Stubbers), Ben Livingston (Gareth), Tom Edden (Alfie);
Ensemble: Eli James, Ben Livingston, Sarah Manton, Stephen
Pilkington, David Ryan Smith, Natalie Smith; The Craze: Jason
Rabinowitz (Lead Vocals), Austin Moorhead (Lead Guitar), Charlie
Rosen (Bass), and Jacob Colin Cohen (Drums, Percussion)
The action takes place in Brighton, England, in 1963.
The London import One Man, Two Guvnors was Richard Bean’s
updated adaptation of the 1746 Italian commedia dell’arte The Servant of
Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni. Bean brought the familiar conventions of
the genre to his version (and one character noted that the “hummus eaters”
in the audience would understand commedia dell’arte and Goldoni’s play),
which took place in the seaside town of Brighton, England, in the early
1960s. His characters included Francis Henshall, the de rigueur cunning
servant, here played by James Corden, who originated the role in Britain,
played it on Broadway, and won the Tony Award for Best Performance by
an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play. The new version also utilized the
informal, improvisational style of the early commedias, and occasionally a
four-piece band (The Craze) peppered the evening with musical interludes.
The purposely confusing plot was a mad mixture of misunderstandings,
impersonations, and mistaken identities, and poor Francis is the fulcrum
upon which the merry-go-round of confusion circles. Francis thinks he’s the
servant of gangster Roscoe Crabbe, but Roscoe is, well, dead, and his twin
sister Rachel (Jemima Rooper) is impersonating him. Meanwhile, Francis
decides to take on another master, and little does he know that his new one
Stanley Subbers (Oliver Chris) murdered Roscoe. Neither Rachel/Roscoe
nor Stanley know that Francis is the servant of two masters. Richard Zoglin
in Time enjoyed the “crazy” scene in which Francis serves dinner to his two
masters while they are in two different rooms of a restaurant at the same
time. Further, there’s the geriatric Gareth (Tom Edden), a doddering eighty-
seven-year-old waiter. He’s nearly deaf, almost blind, must constantly
adjust his pacemaker, and has balance problems. And his major duty is to
take care of the restaurant’s china. All this resulted in what Zoglin reported
as the “funniest capper of the season”: we’re informed that it’s Gareth’s first
day on the job.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Edden was the “master of
pratfalls,” and Corden was “chaos incarnate.” Zoglin praised Corden as a
“force of nature,” and David Benedict in Variety’s review of the British
premiere said Corden was a “knockout.” The New Yorker noted that “any
haziness in the plot fades under the dazzle of Corden’s slapstick, which
feels as timeless and potent as Oedipus Rex.”
Brantley reported that the four-man band The Craze were in essence a
“scene-bridging” group, and the sound of the “salad days of Swinging
England” was captured “most infectiously” by the musicians, who during
the course of the evening morphed “from a rockabilly quartet into
something mighty like the Fab Four.” The New Yorker liked the “stylish”
band, and Benedict reported that the “cheerful, brightly lit pre-curtain
songs” brought the audience into the “lighthearted spirit” of the
proceedings.
One Man, Two Guvnors premiered at the National Theatre of Great
Britain’s Lyttelton Theatre on May 24, 2011, and a live stage performance
was filmed and shown theatrically on September 15, 2011. The play opened
on the West End at the Adelphi Theatre on November 21, 2011, and played
for three years.
The script was published in paperback by Oberon Books Ltd. in 2011.
The script referenced one specific song (“Tomorrow Looks Good from
Here”) and noted the lyric was cowritten by Bean and by Grant Olding.
Awards
Role in a Play (James Corden); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Play (Tom Edden); Best Direction of a Play
(Nicholas Hytner); Best Score (lyrics and music by Grant Olding); Best
Scenic Design of a Play (Mark Thompson); Best Costume Design of a
Play (Mark Thompson); Best Sound Design of a Play (Paul Arditti)
GHOST
“THE MUSICAL”

Performances: 136
Based on the 1990 Paramount Pictures film Ghost (direction by Jerry
Zucker and screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin).
Book: Bruce Joel Rubin
Lyrics: Bruce Joel Rubin, Dave Stewart, and Glen Ballard
Music: Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard
Direction: Matthew Warchus (Thomas Caruso, Associate Director);
Producers: Colin Ingram, Hello Entertainment/David Garfinkle,
Donovan Mannato, MJE Productions, Patricia Lambrecht, and Adam
Silberman in association with Coppel/Watt/Withers/Bewick, Fin
Gray/Michael Melnick, Mayerson/Gould Hauser/Tysoe, Richard
Chaifetz and Jill Chaifetz, Jeffrey B. Hecktman, Land Line Productions,
Gilbert Productions/Marion/Shahar, and Fresh Glory Productions/Bruce
Carnegie Brown by special arrangement with Paramount Pictures;
Choreography: Ashley Wallen (Liam Steel, Additional Movement
Sequences); Scenery and Costumes: Rob Howell; Video & Projections:
Jon Driscoll; Illusions: Paul Kieve; Lighting: Hugh Vanstone; Musical
Direction: David Holcenberg
Cast: Richard Fleeshman (Sam Wheat), Caissie Levy (Molly Jensen),
Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Oda Mae Brown), Bryce Pinkham (Carl
Bruner), Michael Balderrrama (Willie Lopez), Tyler McGee (Subway
Ghost), Lance Roberts (Hospital Ghost), Moya Angela (Clara), Carly
Hughes (Louise, Nun), Jennifer Noble (Bank Assistant), Jason Babinsky
(Minister, Detective Beiderman), Jennifer Sanchez (Mrs. Santiago),
Daniel J. Watts (Orlando), Vasthy Mompoint (Ortisha), Alison Luff
(Bank Officer, Nun), Jeremy Davis (Lionel Fergeson; Ensemble: Moya
Angela, Jason Babinsky, Jeremy Davis, Sharona D’Ornellas, Josh
Franklin, Albert Guerzon, Afra Hines, Carly Hughes, Alison Luff, Tyler
McGee, Vasthy Mompoint, Jennifer Noble, Joe Aaron Reid, Lance
Roberts, Constantine Rousouli, Jennifer Sanchez, Daniel J. Watts
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Here Right Now” (Richard Fleeshman, Caissie Levy);
“Unchained Melody” (lyric by Hy Zaret, music by Alex North)
(Richard Fleeshman); “More” (Richard Fleeshman, Bryce Pinkham,
Ensemble); “Three Little Words” (Richard Fleeshman, Caissie Levy);
“You Gotta Let Go” (Lance Roberts, Ensemble); “Are You a Believer?”
(Moya Angela, Carly Hughes, Da’Vine Joy Randolph); “With You”
(Caissie Levy); “Suspend My Disbelief” and “I Had a Life” (Caissie
Levy, Bryce Pinkham, Richard Fleeshman, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Rain” and “Hold On” (Caissie Levy, Richard Fleeshman,
Ensemble); “Life Turns on a Dime” (Bryce Pinkham, Caissie Levy,
Richard Fleeshman); “Focus” (Tyler McGee); “Talkin’ ’bout a Miracle”
(Lance Roberts, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ensemble); “Nothing Stops
Another Day” (Caissie Levy); “I’m Outta Here” (Da’Vine Joy
Randolph, Ensemble); “Unchained Melody” (reprise) (Richard
Fleeshman, Caissie Levy)
Based on the popular 1990 film Ghost, the musical premiered in

London and ran for fifteen months. The Broadway production retained the
two London leads Caissie Levy (Molly) and Richard Fleeshman (Sam), but
had a short run that barely managed four months. When the show
announced its closing, Jennifer Schuessler in the New York Times reported
its capitalization was “in the low-to-mid eight figures” and thus the
production was a “commercial failure” that never came “close to cracking
$1 million a week in ticket sales” (How-Times-Have-Changed Department:
During Christmas week of 1963, Mary Martin’s vehicle Jennie stunned
everyone when it tallied up the unheard-amount of $92,000 in ticket sales.)
The Ghost story dealt with Sam and Molly, a New York couple whose
relationship is abruptly cut short when Sam is murdered in what seems to be
a random mugging. Sam’s ghost eventually discovers that his friend and
bank coworker Carl (Bryce Pinkham) planned his murder once Sam came
across discrepancies in the bank’s accounting system. It turns out Carl is the
mastermind behind an elaborate money-laundering scheme that Sam had
inadvertently uncovered, and so Sam enlists the aid of phony medium Oda
Mae Brown (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) to help him bring Carl to justice (a
hellish justice, to be sure), and of course Oda Mae is shocked to discover
she’s actually communicating with the dead. Once Sam has put things
aright and before his spirit leaves the world forever, his ghost and Molly
have one last moment together.
The musical was awash in high-tech effects (video projections as well
as special illusions created by Paul Kieve), but at one of the critics’ preview
performances the curtain was delayed by about thirty minutes because of an
unspecified technical glitch. Charles Isherwood in the Times got to the
bottom of the mysterious if not spooky delay. It seems there were actual
ghosts in the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre that were no less than the spirits of the
venue’s namesakes, the legendary married acting team of Lynn Fontanne
and Alfred Lunt. The Lunts were “aghast” over the “thrill-free singing
theme-park ride” and “dreary digital spectacle” that was “taking place on
the boards they once nobly trod,” and thus the twosome decided to stir up a
“little mischief.”
Isherwood noted that the musical’s librettist and co-lyricist Bruce Joel
Rubin had “unbelievably” won the Academy Award for the movie’s
screenplay, and, for that matter, Whoopi Goldberg (as Oda Mae) had
“unbelievably” won an Academy Award for her performance in the film.
The musical itself was “flavorless and lacking in dramatic vitality,” the
lyrics were “rudimentary,” the music “bland,” and if the evening had any
“audience-rousing energy” it was due to Randolph and her “boilerplate
Generic Gospel Number.” (Yes, depressing but true, here was yet another
black performer saddled with yet another gospel number, and three days
after Ghost materialized Leap of Faith didn’t disappoint with more of the
same.)
Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said the musical was dominated by
“a slew of harsh, digitized illusions” and was “done in by its visuals.” The
“frigid, hard-edged, non-temporal and thoroughly inhuman palette for all
the digital scenery” was “just too chilly” for the story’s “warmhearted
romance.” He noted that “digital dancers” were used, and there were also
visuals that depicted the lyrics, including one about “sea crabs” that
“beggars belief.” Elysa Gardner in USA Today also commented on the
“visual assault,” and mentioned that the musical seemed “determined to
recapture, or even outdo, both the pathos and the flashy hocus-pocus of the
film version.” Scott Brown in New York reported that the “visual blitzkrieg”
included “great rotating walls of streaming imagery” that backed and
flanked the stage action and were “in coordination with a proscenium scrim
that materializes whenever full-frontal wizardry is required.” As for
Randolph, she had to deal with “late-eighties-sounding racial japery and
standard Broadway-gospel numbers,” but she made the old material “sound
fresh and new,” and while the New Yorker said her “cartoonish portrayal”
flirted with “minstrelsy,” she nonetheless outshone the other performers
who were “mere ghosts in the machine.”
Richard Zoglin in Time referred to the musical’s negative notices and
said the show was “almost surely headed to an early grave.” But he hoped
the “spirit” might linger for the “quite spectacular” production because
despite its “serious, plot-heavy, sometimes bombastic” look at death, the
work tried “to grapple with serious issues of death and loss” and Levy and
Fleeshman threw “every ounce of conviction and emotion into their roles.”
The musical was first presented in London on July 19, 2011, at the
Piccadilly Theatre where it played for fifteen months. The score included
“Ball of Wax,” which was dropped for Broadway and replaced by “You
Gotta Let Go.” Note that the musical retained “Unchained Melody” (lyric
by Hy Zaret, music by Alex North), which had been used in the 1990 film
version of Ghost. The song was first introduced in the 1955 film
Unchained, where it was sung by Todd Duncan, who created the role of
Porgy in the original 1935 Broadway production of George Gershwin’s
Porgy and Bess.
The London cast album was released by Ghost London Ltd./Import
Records.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Performance of an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Da’Vine Joy Randolph); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (Jon Driscoll and Rob Howell); Best Lighting Design of a
Musical (Hugh Vanstone)
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

“A NEW MUSICAL COMEDY”
Theatre: Imperial Theatre
Performances: 478
Book: Joe DiPietro (“inspired by material by Guy Bolton and P. G.
Wodehouse,” who wrote the book for the 1926 George and Ira
Gershwin musical Oh, Kay!)
Lyrics: Ira Gershwin
Direction and Choreography: Kathleen Marshall (Marc Bruni, Associate
Director; David Eggers, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Scott
Landis, Roger Berlind, Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman,
Standing CO Vation, Candy Spelling, Freddy DeMann, Ronald Frankel,
Harold Newman, Jon B. Platt, Raise trecohe Roof 8, Takonkiet Viravan,
William Berlind/Ed Burke, Carole L. Haber/Susan Carusi, Buddy and
Barbara Freitag/Sanford Robertson, Jim Herbert/Under the Wire,
Emanuel Azenberg, and The Shubert Organization; Scenery: Derek
McLane; Projection Design: Alexander V. Nichols; Costumes: Martin
Pakledinaz; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: Tom
Murray
Cast: Robyn Hurder (Jeannie Muldoon), Matthew Broderick (Jimmy
Winter), Kelli O’Hara (Billie Bendix), Chris Sullivan (Duke Mahoney),
Michael McGrath (Cookie McGee), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Chief
Berry), Terry Beaver (Senator Max Evergreen), Judy Kaye (Duchess
Estonia Dulworth), Jennifer Laura Thompson (Eileen Evergreen),
Estelle Parsons (Millicent Winter); The Chorus Girls: Cameron Adams
(Olive), Kimberly Faure (Dottie), Stephanie Martignetti (Midge),
Samantha Sturm (Alice), Kristen Beth Williams (Rosie), Candice Marie
Woods (Flo); The Vice Squad: Clyde Alves (Elliot), Robert Hartwell
(Slim), Barrett Martin (Fletcher), Adam Perry (Edgar), Jeffrey Schecter
(Floyd), Joey Sorge (Vic)
The action takes place during July 1927 in Long Island, New York.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Sweet and Low-Down” (Tip-Toes, 1925)
(Matthew Broderick, Robyn Hurder, Chorus Girls, Society Guys);
“Nice Work If You Can Get It” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress)
(Matthew Broderick, Kelli O’Hara); “Nice Work If You Can Get It”
(reprise) (Kelli O’Hara); “Demon Rum” (1947 film The Shocking Miss
Pilgrim) (Judy Kaye, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Terry Beaver, Vice
Squad); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (Oh, Kay!, 1926) (Kelli
O’Hara); “Delishious” (1931 film Delicious) (Jennifer Laura
Thompson, Bubble Girls & Boys); “I’ve Got to Be There” (Pardon My
English, 1933) (Matthew Broderick, Robyn Hurder, Chorus Girls);
“I’ve Got to Be There” (reprise) (Robyn Hurder, Chorus Girls); “Treat
Me Rough” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Kelli O’Hara); “Let’s Call the Whole
Thing Off” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Matthew Broderick, Kelli
O’Hara, Stanley Wayne Mathis); “Do It Again” (lyric by B. G. [Buddy]
DeSylva) (The French Doll, 1922) (Robyn Hurder, Chris Sullivan); “’S
Wonderful” (Funny Face, 1927) (Matthew Broderick, Kelli O’Hara);
“Fascinating Rhythm” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Matthew Broderick,
Michael McGrath, Company)
Act Two: “(Oh), Lady, Be Good!” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Orchestra);
“But Not for Me” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Kelli O’Hara); “By Strauss” (The
Show Is On, 1936) (Judy Kaye); “Sweet and Low-Down” (reprise)
(Michael McGrath); “Do, Do, Do” (Oh, Kay!, 1926) (Matthew
Broderick, Clyde Alves, Joey Sorge, Jeffrey Schecter); “Hangin’
Around with You” (Strike Up the Band, 1930) (Kelli O’Hara); “Looking
for a Boy” (Tip-Toes, 1925) (Judy Kaye, Michael McGrath); “Blah,
Blah, Blah” (1931 film Delicious) (Chris Sullivan, Robyn Hurder);
“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (reprise) (Kelli O’Hara, Matthew
Broderick); “Will You Remember Me?” (dropped during rehearsals of
Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Kelli O’Hara, Matthew Broderick); “I’ve Got to
Be There” (reprise) (Chorus Girls, Vice Squad); “I’ve Got a Crush on
You” (Treasure Girl, 1928) (Jennifer Laura Thompson, Chorus Girls,
Vice Squad); “Blah, Blah, Blah” (reprise) (Robyn Hurder, Chris
Sullivan); “Looking for a Boy” (reprise) (Michael McGrath, Judy
Kaye); “Delishious” (reprise) (Stanley Wayne Mathis, Jennifer Laura
Thompson); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (reprise) (Matthew
Broderick, Kelli O’Hara); “They All Laughed” (1937 film Shall We
Dance) (Company)
The program also included the following instrumental compositions by
George Gershwin that were heard in excerpts throughout the musical:
“Rialto Ripples” (1916); “Novelette in Fourths” (circa 1919);
“Rhapsody in Blue” (1924); “Impromptu in Two Keys” (circa 1924);
“Prelude I” (1926); “Prelude II: Blue Lullaby” (1926); “Prelude III:
Spanish Prelude” (1926); “The Three Note Waltz” (circa 1926);
“Prelude: Sleepless Night” (circa 1926); “Concerto in F” (1927);
“Second Rhapsody” (1932); “Cuban Overture” (1933); and
“Promenade” aka “Walking the Dog” (1937 film Shall We Dance)
Nice Work If You Can Get It was another catalog musical with songs by
George and Ira Gershwin, and it followed in the tradition of My One and
Only (1983) and Crazy for You (1992), which played for 767 and 1,622
respective performances. The former began life as a revised version of the
Gershwins’1927 hit Funny Face, but by the time it reached New York was
pretty much independent of any particular Gershwin show and had become
an entertaining vehicle for Tommy Tune and Twiggy. And true to its 1920s
origins, the story dealt with the romanticized subjects of aviators and
aviation. Crazy for You was a riff on the Gershwins’ 1930 hit Girl Crazy.
Nice Work If You Can Get It was inspired by another Gershwin success,
their 1926 show Oh, Kay!, and Joe DiPietro’s adaptation retained the
outlines of the original with its Long Island setting and its story about rum-
runners in Prohibition America. This version retained just two songs from
Oh, Kay! (“Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Do, Do, Do”) and
interpolated nineteen others from various Gershwin sources.
Nice Work If You Can Get It opened at the Imperial Theatre, the home of
the original Oh, Kay!, and one wonders what the ghosts of Victor Moore,
Oscar Shaw, Harland Dixon, the Fairbanks Twins, and, especially, Gertrude
Lawrence thought of it all. It was in this production that Lawrence in a
lonely mood sang the heartbreaking “Someone to Watch Over Me” to her
rag doll.
Nice Work centered on playboy Jimmy Winter (Matthew Broderick),
who is engaged to the self-centered Eileen Evergreen (Jennifer Laura
Thompson) but becomes smitten with Billie Bendix (Kelli O’Hara), who
works for the bootleggers that supply hooch for Jimmy’s parties. Billie may
wish for “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and even though we know Jimmy
is the someone, it was rather peculiar for her to sing it with a rifle in her
hand (after all, this wasn’t Annie Get Your Gun).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that occasionally “a bubble
of pure, tickling charm rises from the artificial bubbles,” but otherwise the
show was “a shiny, dutiful trickle of jokes and dance numbers performed by
talented people who don’t entirely connect with the whimsy of a bygone
era.” The evening had its moments: O’Hara’s “Someone to Watch Over
Me,” Broderick and O’Hara’s “’S Wonderful,” Judy Kaye’s “Prohibitionist
battle-ax” who gets drunk and swings from a chandelier, Michael McGrath
in the role of bootlegger who masquerades as a butler, and the “astonishing”
Estelle Parsons who swaggered on stage in an eleven o’clock appearance as
an “imperious” mother. But Broderick was perhaps too “tentative,” and
when he insisted he had “fascinating rhythm” it really seemed doubtful that
he did, and although O’Hara offered “professional proficiency” in her
comedy scenes she wasn’t “a natural exhibitionist.”
Jeremy Gerard in Bloomberg said the show was a “flop-sweat inducing
affair” in which Broderick and O’Hara were “weak sparks on damp leaves”
while “second bananas” Kaye and McGrath helped to “partly salvage this
misguided enterprise.” Time found Broderick “miscast,” and said director
and choreographer Kathleen Marshall’s “biggest challenge” was to find do-
able dance steps for him. And Hilton Als in the New Yorker said the
“lugubrious” evening relegated the great songs to “background music” in
Marshall’s “forced confection, which is equal parts simple syrup and dust.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the production was
“diverting” but didn’t “quite match the effervescence” of Marshall’s recent
revival of Anything Goes, and Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune noted
that despite its strengths the show “somehow doesn’t hang together in a
fully satisfying way” because it got “fractured” with too many locales and
plot turns that left you “scratching your head.” The book seemed “designed
to accommodate the musical numbers” when it should have been the
reverse, and the show was “too afraid of emotional engagement.”
The cast album was released by Shout Factory Records. Although the
script wasn’t officially published for sale, a set of scripts was privately
printed in a Time magazine-sized edition with a color cover of the show’s
logo and a back cover with a color photo of a scene from the musical (the
script may have been issued as part of pre-Tony Award publicity for Tony
voters to read). The script has surfaced at least once on an internet auction
site.
A silent film version of Oh, Kay! was released by First National
Pictures in 1928; Mervyn LeRoy directed, and the cast included Colleen
Moore (Kay), Lawrence Gray (Jimmy), Ford Sterling (“Shorty”), and Alan
Hale (Jansen).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Nice Work If You Can Get It);
Best Book (Joe DiPietro); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading
Role in a Musical (Kelli O’Hara); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Michael McGrath); Best Performance by
an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Judy Kaye); Best
Choreography (Kathleen Marshall); Best Direction of a Musical
(Kathleen Marshall); Best Orchestrations (Bill Elliott); Best Costume
Design of a Musical (Martin Pakledinaz); Best Sound Design of a
Musical (Brian Ronan)
LEAP OF FAITH
Performances: 19
Book: Janus Cercone and Warren Leight
Music: Alan Menken
Based on the 1992 Paramount Pictures film Leap of Faith (direction by
Richard Pearce and screenplay by James Cerecone).
Direction: Christopher Ashley (Beatrice Terry, Associate Director);
Producers: Michael Manheim, James D. Stern, Douglas L. Meyer, Marc
Routh, Richard Frankel, Tom Viertel, Steven Baruch, Annette
Niemtzow, Daryl Roth, Robert G. Bartner, Steven and Shanna Silva,
Endgame Entertainment, Patricia Monaco, Debi Coleman, Dancap
Productions, Inc., Steve Kaplan, Relatively Media, LLC,
Rich/Caudwell, and Center Theatre Group in association with Michael
Palitz, Richard J. Stern, Melissa Pinsly/Celine Rosenthal, Independent
Presenters Network, Diana Buckhantz, Pamela Cooper, Vera Guerin,
Leading Investment Co., Ltd., Christina Papagjika, Broadway Across
America, Victor Syrmis, Semlitz/Glaser Productions, and Jujamcyn
Theatres; Rebecca Falcon, Associate Producer; Choreography: Sergio
Trujillo (Edgar Godineaux, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Robin
Wagner; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Don Holder; Musical
Direction: Brent-Alan Huffman
Cast: Kecia Lewis-Evans (Ida Mae Sturdevant), Leslie Odom Jr. (Isaiah
Sturdevant), Krystal Joy Brown (Ornella Sturdivant), Raul Esparza
(Jonas Nightingale), Bryce Ryness (Brother Zak), Kendra Kassebaum
(Sam Nightingale), C. E. Smith (Brother Amon), Dennis Stowe (Brother
Carl), Jessica Phillips (Marla McGowan), Roberta Wall (Emma
Schlarp), Talon Ackerman (Jake McGowan), Michelle Duffy (Susie
Raylove), Dierdre Friel (Amanda Wayne); Angels of Mercy: Hettie
Barnhill, Ta’rea Campbell, Lynorris Evans, Bob Gaynor, Lucia
Giannetta, Angela Grovey, Tiffany Janene Howard, Grasan Kingsberry,
Fletcher McTaggart, Eliseo Roman, Bryce Ryness, C. E. Smith, Dennis
Stowe, Betsy Struxness, Virginia Ann Woodruff; Townspeople:
Michelle Duffy, Dierdre Friel, Bob Gaynor, Louis Hobson, Ann
Sanders, Danny Stiles, Betsy Struxness, Roberta Wall; Offstage
Vocalists: Maurice Murphy, Terita Reid
The action takes place during the present time at the St. James Theatre in
New York City and in Sweetwater, Kansas.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Rise Up!” (Kecia Lewis-Evans, Krystal Joy Brown, Leslie
Odom Jr., Raul Esparza, Kendra Kasselbaum, Angels of Mercy); “Fox
in the Henhouse” (Jessica Phillips, Raul Esparza); “Fields of the Lord”
(Kendra Kasselbaum, Raul Esparza, Angels of Mercy); “Step into the
Light” (Krystal Joy Brown, Raul Esparza, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Angels
of Mercy, Townspeople); “Walking Like Daddy” (Leslie Odom Jr.);
“Lost” (Kecia Lewis-Evans, Angels of Mercy); “I Can Read You”
(Jessica Phillips, Raul Esparza); “Like Magic” (Talon Ackerman, Raul
Esparza); “I Can Read You” (reprise) (Kendra Kasselbaum, Raul
Esparza); “Dancin’ in the Devil’s Shoes” (Leslie Odom Jr., Krystal Joy
Brown, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Angels of Mercy); “King of Sin” (Raul
Esparza); “Dancin’ in the Devil’s Shoes” (reprise) (Leslie Odom Jr.,
Kyrstal Joy Brown, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Angels of Mercy,
Townspeople)
Act Two: “Rise Up!” (reprise) (Angels of Mercy, Townspeople); “Long
Past Dreamin’” (Jessica Phillips, Raul Esparza); “Are You on the Bus?”
(Krystal Joy Brown, Kendra Kasselbaum, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Leslie
Odom Jr., Raul Esparza); “Like Magic” (reprise) (Talon Ackerman,
Raul Esparza); “People Like Us” (Kendra Kasselbaum, Jessica
Phillips); “Last Chance Salvation” (Raul Esparza, Angels of Mercy,
Townspeople); “If Your Faith Is Strong Enough” (Raul Esparza, Angels
of Mercy, Townspeople); “Jonas’ Soliloquy” (Raul Esparza); “Leap of
Faith” (Company)
At nineteen performances, Leap of Faith was both the season’s final

musical and its shortest-running one. In his analysis of the $14 million
disaster titled “Why Faith Never Had a Prayer,” Patrick Healy in the New
York Times noted that “toxic word of mouth” and “bad” reviews resulted in
a show that was “bleeding money because of horrid ticket sales,” and
during one week of its short run reportedly lost $275,000.
Perhaps everyone thought they’d already seen the show. Its story of a
slicker-than-slick Midwestern con man was a cliché, and even those who’d
never read Sinclair Lewis’s 1927 novel Elmer Gantry were familiar with it
and like-minded stories about likable flimflam artists who bamboozle their
victims. Herman Melville’s masterful 1857 novel The Confidence-Man
takes place on April Fool’s Day on a steamboat on the Mississippi where a
satanic master of disguises strips his victims first of their money, and then
of their faith. Sometimes a lovable rogue just happens upon an Iowa town
and sells band instruments and uniforms to gullible parents for their kids, at
other times he shows up in Texas as a rainmaker with promises to renew the
parched earth, and sometimes he’s a father who with his daughter cons
widows of their money for the purchase of expensive Bibles.
Besides the popular 1960 film version, which won Burt Lancaster the
Academy Award for his performance in the title role, Elmer Gantry was
musicalized four times, first on Broadway in 1970 as Gantry with music by
Stanley Lebowsky and which opened and closed on the same night; then in
two different regional adaptations with music by Mel Marvin, first in 1980
and then in a revised version that surfaced in 2014; and in 2007 in an
operatic adaptation by Robert Aldridge. The Music Man (1957) was perhaps
Broadway’s ultimate salute to the con artist, and there was also the
charming 110 in the Shade (1963), which was based on N. Richard Nash’s
1954 play The Rainmaker.
Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon (1973) won Tatum O’Neal an
Academy Award for her performance as perhaps the most ingratiating little
trickster in film history, and while Larry Grossman’s musical adaptation
never made it to New York, there were two regional versions, the first in
1993 and the second a revised production that made the rounds of regional
theatre in 1996 and 1997. Even Melville’s novel was twice adapted for the
musical stage. Jim Steinman’s The Confidence Man was briefly seen Off-
Off-Broadway in 1976, was later produced Off-Broadway in 1977 at the
Manhattan Theatre Club for approximately four weeks, was given a
production at Queens College in New York in 1986, and in 2003 a studio
cast recording (which included Norbert Leo Butz) was released as Songs
from “The Confidence Man.” There was also an operatic version by George
Rochberg which premiered at the Santa Fe Opera in 1982.
Leap of Faith focused on con-man Jonas Nightingale (Raul Esparza),
whose last name brought to mind Starbuck, Broadway’s rainmaker of yore.
Nightingale sells salvation, and part of the show takes place in Sweetwater,
Kansas, a town whose very name evokes innocent Midwestern hamlets.
Like the town in 110/Rainmaker, Sweetwater is in the midst of a drought
when Nightingale arrives. The widowed lady sheriff Marla (Jessica Phillips)
is wise to him, but her lonely wheelchair-bound little boy, Jake (Talon
Ackerman), sees Nightingale as a friend and father figure. Of course, all of
this echoed The Music Man’s charlatan, Harold Hill; the stern but
eventually yielding widow Marian the Librarian; and her lonely little boy,
Winthrop, who has a speech impediment. Leap of Faith’s widowed sheriff
Marla also brought to mind the widower sheriff File in The Rainmaker and
110 in the Shade.
Despite the musical’s quick demise, Broadway hadn’t seen the last of
evangelists and faith healers, and so Scandalous (about Aimee Semple
McPherson) was right around the corner.
The New Yorker said the “graceless” Leap of Faith was “drowned out
by its desperation” to “mask an aimless, dramatically inert second act.” As
a result, cast members as congregants (that is, Angels of Mercy) roamed
throughout the audience and asked for donations (play money had been
distributed to the patrons prior to the beginning of the performance, but of
course one was free to put in real money; the program noted that all the
proceeds from the collection baskets would be donated to Broadway
Cares/Equity Fights AIDS). Besides audience participation, there were also
“flashy stunt costume changes” and “pointlessly exhausting” dance
numbers. Note too that the congregants encouraged the audience members
to wave their arms upward while a cameraman recorded the action for video
monitors (part of the story took place in the St. James Theatre itself, which
is supposedly the venue for Nightingale’s three-night revival booking in
New York City).
Ben Brantley in the Times asked Broadway’s question of the year (“Say,
you ain’t buying this guff, are you?”), and he noted that the romantic
scenes, the dances, and Alan Menken’s “interchangeable” songs seemed to
have “been pasted into place the night before.” He also provided an
example of a cringe-worthy lyric (“Honey, even Helen Keller could see
through you”), and was disappointed with Esparza’s performance (gospel
wasn’t the actor’s “strong suit,” and he sounded “like a second-tier Tina
Turner impersonator”).
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said “nothing happens
in this frustrating and manipulative” musical, and while “Long Past
Dreamin’” was a “real keeper,” the score was otherwise “as striking as dust
in a drought-ravaged Kansas town”; David Rooney in the Hollywood
Reporter found the story “stubbornly unappealing” with “unsympathetic”
characters, an “unattractive” set, and a “more than serviceable” score that
didn’t sound “terribly original” and didn’t succeed “in covering for the
shortage of emotional involvement”; Elysa Gardner in USA Today rightly
predicted that Leap of Faith “hardly seems destined for the American
musical-theatre canon”; and while Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York
Post found the production “mushy” and “predictable” with a “clunky”
book, she noted the show was also a “high-energy entertainment” that was
“ridiculously fun.”
The musical premiered at the Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson
Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on September 11, 2010, with Raul
Esparza. For this production, Brooke Shields was the waitress Marva (who
becomes Nightingale’s love interest), and Jarrod Emick was widower
Sheriff Will Braverman. For Broadway, these roles were eliminated and
morphed into Marla who isn’t a waitress but is now a widowed sheriff with
a little boy, and who becomes romantically involved with Nightingale.
During the tryout, Harvey Evans was Mugs, another role eliminated for the
Broadway production. Rob Ashford directed and choreographed, and the
following songs were dropped prior to the Broadway mounting: “Do
Whatcha Gotta Do,” “Slingshot,” “Daddy’s Shoes,” “The Gospel According
to Me,” “Walk into the Sunset,” “Let It Loose,” “Hotline to Heaven,” “King
of Sin,” and “Something Real.”
The cast album was recorded by Ghostlight Records.
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Musical (Leap of Faith)
THE BOY DETECTIVE FAILS

The Boy Detective Fails and The Hollow played in repertory at the
Signature Theatre Company’s Max Theatre in Arlington, Virginia,
during the period August 25–October 16, 2011, with an official opening
night of September 10 for the former and September 11 for the latter. As
of this writing, the musicals haven’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Joe Meno
Lyrics and Music: Adam Gwon
Based on the 2006 novel The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno.
Direction: Joe Calarco; Producer: Signature Theatre Company (Eric
Schaeffer, Artistic Director); Choreography: Karma Camp; Scenery:
Derek McLane; Costumes: Kathleen Geldard; Lighting: Chris Lee;
Musical Direction: Gabriel Mangiante
Cast: Evan Casey (Killer Kowalzavich, Dale Hardly, Ensemble), Sherri L.
Edelen (Therapist, Ensemble), James Gardiner (Fenton), Anika Larsen
(Penny Maple, Ensemble), Tracy Lynn Olivera (Violet Dew, Nurse,
Ensemble), Margo Seibert (Caroline Argo), Thomas Adrian Simpson
(Professor Von Golum), Stephen Gregory Smith (Billy Argo), Russell
Sunday (Detective Brown, Ensemble), Harry A. Winter (Larry,
Ensemble)
The action takes place during the present time in Gotham, New Jersey.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Ensemble, Stephen Gregory Smith); “Billy Argo, Boy
Detective” (Company); “Caroline” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Margo
Seibert, James Gardiner); “Mr. Mammoth’s Life-Like Mustache” (Sung
by “Mr. Mammoth” [name of performer not given in program], Stephen
Gregory Smith, Ensemble); “What’s Your Problem, Billy Argo?” and
“Haunted Toy Factory” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Margo Seibert, James
Gardiner, Ensemble); “Evil” (Thomas Adrian Simpson, Ensemble);
“Amazing” (Harry A. Winter, Stephen Gregory Brown); “On the Bus
#1” and “The Chase” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Anika Larsen); “As
Long as You Are Here” (Anika Larsen, Stephen Gregory Smith); “I
Like (The Secret Song)” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Anika Larsen);
“After Secrets” and “Haunted” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Margo Seibert,
James Gardiner, Ensemble)
Act Two: “That’s All” (Evan Casey, Tracy Lynn Olivera, Stephen Gregory
Smith, Ensemble); “No Such Thing” (Thomas Adrian Simpson, Stephen
Gregory Smith); “Little Mysteries” (Anika Larsen, Stephen Gregory
Smith); “Amazing” (reprise) (Harry A. Winter, Stephen Gregory
Smith); “On the Bus #2” (Ensemble); “Billy Argo, Boy Detective”
(reprise) (Ensemble); “Let Me Save You” (Stephen Gregory Smith,
Margo Seibert, Ensemble); Finale (Stephen Gregory Smith, Anika
Larsen, Thomas Adrian Simpson)
The Boy Detective Fails and The Hollow were presented in repertory by
the Signature Theatre Company, and the former was adapted by Joe Meno
from his 2006 novel of the same name.
When Billy Argo was a boy (Stephen Gregory Smith played both the
child and adult Billy), he and his sister Caroline (Margo Siebert) were
successful child detectives. But Billy goes up against an insoluble mystery
when Caroline commits suicide for no apparent reason, and he’s soon
confined to a mental institution for ten years. Upon his release, he’s
determined to discover the cause of his sister’s suicide.
The suicide was graphically (and bloodily) staged, and the evening
included an unsuccessful suicide attempt by another character. There were
scenes at group therapy sessions for former child detectives (two with the
almost-familiar names of Dale Hardly and Violet Dew). The plot also
offered up an adult Detective Brown (Russell Sunday), a mysterious
Professor Von Golum (Thomas Adrian Simpson), and the charming
kleptomaniac (and Billy’s love interest) Penny Maple (Anika Larsen).
There was also a wispy subplot about how things in Billy’s hometown are
suddenly disappearing (not only neighbors, but also the town’s library), an
intriguing conceit that also soon went missing. Derek McLane’s decor was
fashioned around miniature dollhouse-sized buildings, and Doug Poms in
midtheatreguide.com noted these were “cleverly” used by doubling them as
tables and closets, and, in one instance, a purse.
Paul Harris in Variety warned that audiences were likely to “struggle” in
order “to comprehend Meno’s disjointed and occasionally over-precious”
script. The story was “rambling,” and the character of the “annoying”
Professor Von Golum was “severely overexposed” and needed to be lassoed
in. Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “convoluted” evening
had a “cumbersome” plot that wavered between “whimsy and cynicism,”
and the show’s message was that “life is riddled with insoluble mysteries.”
Adam Gwon’s score blended “the occasional comic razzler into a general
fabric of pleasant but undistinctive show music” that sometimes sounded
“like little more than extended vamping,” but his lyrics mirrored the
“quirky” and “often sour” tone of Meno’s book.
Peter Marks in the Washington Post noted that Billy’s character is so
“detached” he becomes “a musical-theatre cipher.” Moreover, it was never
clear just who Professor Von Golum is, and what his relationship is to Billy,
and so the musical was “a puzzle awaiting its more resonant solution.”
Rebecca J. Ritzel in the Washington City Paper also found Billy not “very
charismatic,” a matter “inherently problematic” for a musical’s leading
character. Gwon’s score was the show’s “strongest suit,” a “through-
composed” evening that included two hours of underscoring. The themes
were “strategically” recycled and represented “a variety of Nickelodeon-
friendly music.”
Missy Frederick in the Washingtonian said the musical was a nostalgic
adventure story as well as a black comedy that sometimes got “caught-up in
cutesiness,” but the songs were “catchy and diverting.” Poms liked the
score and its “hummable gems,” but despite the book’s “strong start” the
story got “a bit muddled” with such characters as Professor Von Golum, and
the show had to straddle between “quirky musical romantic comedy and
disturbing tragedy,” including a “dark resolution” to the story. The “dark”
ending was apparently in reference to the sad fact that life doesn’t give us
tidy answers, and in this case the former boy detective fails because the
tragic fact of his sister’s suicide is inherently unknowable.
BROTHER RUSSIA
Brother Russia played at the Signature Theatre Company’s Max Theatre in
Arlington, Virginia, during the period March 6–April 15, 2012, with an
official opening night of March 22. As of this writing, the musical
Book and Lyrics: John Dempsey
Music: Dana P. Rowe
Direction: Eric Schaeffer (Joe Barros, Assistant Director); Producer:
Signature Theatre Company (Eric Schaeffer, Artistic Director);
Choreography: Jodi Moccia (Joe Barros, Assistant Choreographer);
Scenery: Misha Kachman; Costumes: Kathleen Geldard; Lighting: Colin
K. Bills; Musical Direction: Gabriel Mangiante
Cast: Johnny Lescault (Brother Russia), Doug Kreeger (Sasha/Grigori),
Natascia Diaz (Sofya/Anastasia), Russell Sunday (Viktor/Nicholas,
Others), Amy McWilliams (Lyubov/Alexandra, Others), Kevin
McAllister (Anton/Dimitri, Others), Tracy Lynn Olivera (Natalia/Zoya,
Others), Christopher Mueller (Mikhail/Gapon, Others), Rachel Zampelli
(Yana/Witch, Others), Stephen Gregory Smith (Sergei/Felix, Others),
Erin Driscoll (Bella/Dominikia, Others)
The action takes place in Siberia during the present time, and its story-
within-a-story is set in Russia during the early years of the twentieth
century.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Brother Russia Presents” (Company); “Dolgaya River” (Doug
Kreeger); “Out, Out, Out” (Grigori’s Father and Mother); “Child of the
Wood” (Rachel Zampelli); “The Spirit and the Truth” (Doug Kreeger,
Two Unidentified Performers, Company); “Smoke” (Amy McWilliams,
Attendants); “Bleed That Boy” (Doctors); “This Is What You Call the
Good Life” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Unidentified Performer, Doug
Kreeger, Russell Sunday, Amy McWilliams, Company); “Siberia”
(Natascia Diaz, Nobles); “Brotherhood” (Doug Kreeger, Russell
Sunday, Men); “Elsewhere” (Natascia Diaz); “Little Finch, Little Bear”
(Doug Kreeger, Natascia Diaz); “God Save the Tsar” (Christopher
Mueller, Russell Sunday, Kevin McAllister, Doug Kreeger, Company);
“Who Did This?” (Doug Kreeger, Natascia Diaz, Russell Sunday); “I
Serve No Man” (Doug Kreeger)
Act Two: “Vodka” (Tracy Lynn Olivera, Doug Kreeger, Drunks); “The
Room above the Tavern” (Natascia Diaz, Doug Kreeger); “Return to the
Winter Palace” (Amy McWilliams, Doug Kreeger, Russell Sunday,
Natascia Diaz); “Crush Me” (Natascia Diaz, Nuns, Whores); “The Great
War” (Kevin McAllister, Doug Kreeger, Russell Sunday, Company);
“Matryoshka” (Amy McWilliams, Natascia Diaz, Women); “I Belong to
You” (Doug Kreeger, Natascia Diaz); “Bread and Freedom”
(Company); “Mistress, Please” (Erin Driscoll, Doug Kreeger, Natascia
Diaz); “The Three Deaths” (Stephen Gregory Smith, Doug Kreeger,
Rachel Zampelli); “Only Time Can Say” (John Lescault, Company);
“Brother Russia” (reprise) (Company)
Brother Russia was a new musical with book and lyrics by John
Dempsey and music by Dana P. Rowe that received its world premiere at
the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, where it was met by tepid
reviews. Dempsey and Rowe’s musicals The Fix (1997) and The Witches of
Eastwick (2000) received their world premieres in London and have been
produced regionally in the United States. Note that Dempsey and Rowe’s
1996 Off-Broadway musical Zombie Prom was set in the “Nuclear Fifties”
and dished up a witty book and a playful and adventurous score that might
best be described as retro sci-fi operetta.
Brother Russia purported to tell the story of the self-styled mystic and
faith healer Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (Doug Kreeger) and his power
over Czar Nicholas II (Russell Sunday), the Empress Alexandra (Amy
McWilliams), and their daughter the Grand Duchess Anastasia (Natascia
Diaz). Unfortunately, the production was given as a musical-within-a-
musical in which a group of traveling players roams about Siberia and
presents plays based on classic Russian literature. This time around, they
decide to perform a musical about the mysterious Rasputin, and so each
player assumes the identities of both historical and fictional characters who
are part of their Rasputin story.
The framework was the familiar one in which traveling players (who
almost always wear motley and semi-medieval clothes, often use white and
clown-like make-up, and occasionally are afflicted with mime-like
attitudes) tell ancient stories with hip, up-to-date variations. Stephen
Schwartz’s Godspell took place in a playground where performers enact the
story of Christ, and Schwartz’s Pippin and its players (including its
narrator-cum-magician known as the Leading Player) depict the life and
times of Charlemagne’s son Pippin. The use of the framing device of street
entertainers often muddies the story being told, especially when the
performers must represent both players (who are almost never well-defined)
and the characters in their story.
One suspects that Brother Russia might have been better received had
its story been presented in a straightforward manner without the extraneous
frills. And maybe it would have been best to ditch the wheel-chair-bound
narrator Brother Russia (Johnny Lescault). It seems that the notoriously
hard-to-kill Rasputin is now old and incapacitated and confined to a
wheelchair. Or maybe not. Maybe Brother Russia just thinks he’s Rasputin.
If the musical brought to mind the ragtag players and the soft rock
scores of Godspell and Pippin, it also reminded the critics of The
Threepenny Opera, Candide (the 1973–1974 version, to be sure), Cabaret,
The Rocky Horror Show, Chicago, and Les Miserables, not to mention The
Lower Depths and Mother Courage. The musical borrowed too many styles
and attitudes of earlier works and never found a voice of its own, and there
was even a song about “Vodka,” that followed other musicals laid in Russia
which offered musical-comedy salutes to that country’s favorite beverage.
George Gershwin and Herbert Stothart gave us “Vodka” in The Song of the
Flame (1925), and Sergei Rachmaninoff by way of Robert Wright and
George Forrest made that a double with “Vodka, Vodka!” in Anya (1965).
The latter was another musical that speculated about the fate of Anastasia,
but at least it didn’t turn the story of the doomed young duchess into a
Disneyfied fairy tale on the order of Anastasia (2017). Brother Russia also
offered “Siberia,” which brought to mind Cole Porter’s Silk Stockings
(1955) and its celebration of the frozen wasteland where the snow is “so
superia.”
Trey Graham in the Washington City Paper said the “smoldering train
wreck” of Brother Russia was “an exercise in tail-chasing so loud and so
loopily miscalibrated that it’s almost entertaining to watch it go speeding
off the rails,” and Joe Adcock in ShowBizRadio reported that the witch
Baba Yaga (Rachel Zampelli) wore “slinky black dominatrix attire,” the
women in the cast were “tarted up in well-fitted slutwear,” and the men
wore “male slutwear.”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post noted that the “open-shirted”
Kreeger had “chest hair [that] all but gives a performance of its own.”
Sophie Gilbert in the Washingtonian said Kreeger’s beard suggested
“‘hipster’ rather than ‘hair-raising sinister miscreant,’” and that the show’s
“historical accuracy” went “out the window” with its depiction of an
“enduring” love affair between Rasputin and Anastasia. Jonathan Padger in
Metroweekly said the “promising” first act morphed into “a shakier second”
that was “padded out with formulaic, uninspired fare” (such as “Vodka”)
and “a stream of angsty anthems that become increasingly hard to tell
apart.”
THE HOLLOW
The Hollow and The Boy Detective Fails played in repertory at the
Signature Theatre Company’s Max Theatre in Arlington, Virginia,
during the period August 25–October 16, 2011, with an official opening
night of September 11 for the former and September 10 for the latter. As
of this writing, the musicals haven’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Hunter Foster
Lyrics and Music: Matt Conner
Based on the 1820 story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington
Irving.
Direction: Matthew Gardiner; Producer: Signature Theater Company (Eric
Schaeffer, Artistic Director); Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes:
Kathleen Geldard; Lighting: Chris Lee; Musical Direction: Gabriel
Mangiante
Cast: Whitney Bashor (Katrina Van Tassel), Evan Casey (Brom Van Brunt),
Noah Chef (Pieter Claassen), Sherri L. Edelen (Henriette Van Brunt),
James Gardiner (Constable Vos), Sam Ludwig (Ichabod Crane), Tracey
Lynn Olivera (Marie Claassen), Margo Seibert (Xandra Vos), Thomas
Adrian Simpson (Charles Claassen), Russell Sunday (Ellis Buren),
Harry A. Winter (Baltus Van Tassel)
The action takes place during an autumn in the late 1790s in the village of
Sleepy Hollow, up by the Tappan Zee on the east bank of the Hudson
River.
Musical Numbers
“Legend” (Company); “Invocation” (Company); “Boston” (Whitney
Bashor); “Be Not Afraid” (Sherri L. Edelen); “Perhaps” (Sam Ludwig,
Sherri L. Edelen, Noah Chief); “Blue” (Sam Ludwig); “Legend”
(reprise) (Company); “Like a Father” (Harry A. Winter); “Be Not
Afraid” (reprise) (Sherri L. Edelen, Evan Casey, Thomas Adrian
Simpson, James Gardiner, Margo Seibert); “Little Things” (Whitney
Bashor, Sam Ludwig); “Nightmare” (Company); “Goodnight Prayer”
(Whitney Bashor); “Requiem” (Company)
The Hollow and The Boy Detective Fails were presented in repertory by
the Signature Theatre Company.
The critics were cool to The Hollow, and were especially disappointed
that the musical chose to play down the fantastic elements of Washington
Irving’s story about the ridiculous but smug schoolmaster Ichabod Crane
(here played by Sam Ludwig) and his overreaching social ambitions when
he sets his sights on the lovely Katrina Van Tassel (Whitney Bashor), the
daughter of the village’s richest man. But Katrina loves the local town hunk
Brom “Bones” Van Brunt (Evan Casey), and Brom and his cronies scare off
Ichabod with their stories of the merciless Headless Horseman who haunts
the village and outlying woods.
Unfortunately, all the spooky elements occurred offstage. Charles
Isherwood in the New York Times reported that instead of depicting the
ghostly horseman, the adaptors “solved” the matter by “avoiding” it, and so
“ominous clip-clopping of hooves” was heard offstage, and occasional
flickers of light heralded the entrance of the horseman, who remained
unseen. Less can be more in musical theatre, but The Hollow might have
benefited from stage magic and special effects.
In the new adaptation, Ichabod is a handsome charmer. Rebecca J.
Ritzel in the Washington City Paper reported that he’s now an atheist, and
new story elements introduced rape, infidelity, and religious controversy. As
a result, the evening was “half Spring Awakening, half The Crucible: The
Musical!”
Isherwood didn’t find the musical “particularly entertaining” because it
lost its “sheer narrative bite” by keeping the ghostly horseman offstage. The
musical became a “thriller from which the chief instigator of thrills has
been surgically removed: Sweeney Todd minus the titular bloodthirsty
barber.” But Matt Conner’s “ballad-heavy” score had “captivating
moments” with “polished” and “softly appealing” music, and Hunter
Foster’s lyrics were “straightforward” and his book provided “a few drops
of humor to leaven the gothic ambience.”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the show was a “snooze” that
lacked spooky and comic moments and thus unfolded “as a somber evening
service of ballads and chorales.” Here was a story about “menacing evil”
that failed “to raise a single goose bump” and replaced “chills with mere
coldness.”
Besides the current adaptation, there have been at least four other
musical versions of Irving’s story. The first was Sleepy Hollow, which
opened on June 3, 1948, at the St. James Theatre for twelve performances
with book and lyrics by Russell Maloney and Miriam Battista, additional
lyrics by Ruth Hughes Aarons, and music by George Lessner (Gil Lamb
was Ichabod Crane); the Off-Broadway musical Autumn’s Here! was the
first production to be presented at the Bert Wheeler Theatre, where it
opened on October 25, 1966, for eighty performances with book, lyrics, and
music by Norman Dean; Ichabod (with book and lyrics by Gene Traylor
and music by Thomas Tierney) played at Town Hall on January 12, 1977,
for a limited showing of one performance in which Tommy Tune performed
all the roles; and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (book by Robert Stempin,
and lyrics and music by James Crowley) was given for a special
performance at the York Theatre on June 27, 2000 (the musical was
released on a two-CD set by CE/Crowley Entertainment Records).
2012–2013 Season
FELA!

Opening Date: July 12, 2012; Closing Date: August 4, 2012
Performances: 28
Book: Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones
Lyrics and Music: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; additional lyrics by Jim Lewis and
additional music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean
Based on the life of Fela Anikulapo (1938–1997); “inspired” by Carlos
Moore’s 1982 biography Fela: This Bitch of a Life: The Authorized
Biography of Africa’s Musical Genius; and “conceived” by Bill T.
Jones, Jim Lewis, and Stephen Hendel.
Direction and Choreography: Bill T. Jones (Niegel Smith, Associate
Director; Maija Garcia, Creative Director and Associate
Choreographer); Producers: Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Will and Jada
Pinkett Smith, Ruth and Stephen Hendel, The National Theatre of Great
Britain, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Sony Pictures Entertainment,
Fela LLC, Roy Gabay, Edward Tyler Nahem, Slava Smolokowksi, Chip
Meyrelles/Ken Greiner, Douglas G. Smith, Steve Semlitz/Cathy Glaser,
Daryl Roth/True Love Productions, Susan Dietz/M. Swinsky/J. Deitch,
and Knitting Factory Entertainment (A Broadway/National Theatre of
London Production); Scenery and Costumes: Marina Draghici;
Projection Designer: Peter Nigrini; Lighting: Robert Wierzel; Musical
Direction: Aaron Johnson
Cast: Sahr Ngaujah (who performed the role on opening night), Adesola
Osakalumi, or Duain Richmond (Fela Anikulapo-Kuti), Melanie
Marshall (Funmilayo), Paulette Ivory (Sandra), Ismael Kouyate
(Ismael), Gelan Lambert (J. K. Braimah/Tap Dancer, Egungun), Rasaan-
Elijah “Talu” Green (Djembe-“Mustafa”); Ensemble: Sherinne Kayra
Anderson, Jonathan Andre, Cindy Belliot, Nandi Bhebhe, Catia Mota
Da Cruz, Nicole Chantal de Weever, Jacqui DuBois, Poundo “Sweet”
Gomis, Shakira Marshall, Jeffrey Page, Oneika Phillips, Thierry Picaut,
Duain Richmond, Jermaine Rowe, Daniel Soto, Jill Marie Vallery, Iris
Wilson, Aimee Graham Wodobode
The action takes place during the summer of 1978, mostly in Lagos,
Nigeria.
Musical Numbers
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all lyrics and music by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
Act One: “Everything Scatter” (Sahr Ngaujah, Company); “Iba Orisa”
(traditional Yoruba chant) (Ismael Kouyate, Sahr Ngaujah, Company);
“Hymn” (lyric and music by Reverend J. J. Ransome-Kuti) (Sahr
Ngaujah, Company, Band); “Medzi-Medzi” (“High Life”) (lyric and
music by E. T. Mensah) (Company, Band); “Manteca” (lyric and music
by Chano Pozo) (Company, Band); “I Got the Feeling” (lyric and music
by James Brown) (Ismael Kouyate, Company); “Originality” and
“Yellow Fever” (Sahr Ngaujah, Company); “Trouble Sleep” (Sahr
Ngaujah, Melanie Marshall, Company); “Lover” (English lyric by Jim
Lewis) (Sahr Ngaujah, Paulette Ivory); “Upside Down” (Sahr Ngaujah,
Paulette Ivory, Company); “Expensive Shit” (Sahr Ngaujah, Company);
“Pipeline” (English lyric by Jim Lewis) and “I.T.T. (International Thief
Thief)” (Sahr Ngaujah, Company); “Kere Kay” (Sahr Ngaujah,
Company)
Act Two: “Water No Get Enemy” (Sahr Ngaujah, Paulette Ivory,
Company); “Egbe Mi O” (Sahr Ngaujah, Queens, Melanie Marshall);
“Zombie” (Sahr Ngaujah, Company); “Trouble Sleep” (reprise) (Sahr
Ngaujah, Melanie Marshall, Queens); “Na Poi” (Sahr Ngaujah,
Queens); “Sorrow Tears and Blood” (Sahr Ngaujah, Company); “Iba
Orisa” and “Shakara” (Company, Band); “Rain” (lyric by Bill T. Jones
and Jim Lewis, music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean) (Melanie
Marshall, Company); “Coffin for Head of State” (Sahr Ngaujah,
Company); “Kere Kay” (reprise) (Sahr Ngaujah, Company)
The return engagement of Fela! followed the closing of the original

Broadway production by some eighteen months (that production opened at
the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on November 23, 2009, for 463 performances).
Fela was Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938–1997), a Nigerian musician who
according to the program notes of the original production “created a new
kind of music” known as Afrobeat. His nightclub, Shrine, was located in
Lagos, Nigeria, and the program explained that his music and “incendiary”
lyrics “openly attacked the corrupt and repressive military dictatorships that
rule Nigeria and much of Africa.” The program also noted that Fela
employed his own “small army” and that his compound was surrounded by
electric wiring.
The action took place at the Shrine during the summer of 1978 at Fela’s
final performance there, and while the evening looked at his music, politics,
and relationships, the script generally sidestepped various aspects of his
life, including his criticisms of many of the world’s major religions, his
marriages to twenty-seven women during a single ceremony, and his
eventual death from AIDS.
The musical had originated Off-Broadway at 37 Arts on September 4,
2008, for one month with the title role played by Sahr Ngaujah, who for
Broadway performed five times weekly (Kevin Mambo played the
remaining three performances). For the return engagement (which was part
of show’s national and international tour), Ngaujah (whose name wasn’t
listed in the program), Adesola Osakalumi, and Duain Richmond alternated
in the role. At least three numbers were cut prior to the Broadway premiere
(“Shuttering and Shmiling,” “Shine,” and “Dance of the Orisas”), and for
the return engagement two songs heard in the Broadway production were
deleted (“Mr. Syms” and “Teacher Don’t Teach Me No Nonsense”). For Off
Broadway, the role of Fela’s mother, Funmilayo, was played by Abena
Koomson, who was succeeded by Lillias White for Broadway (during the
run, Patti LaBelle assumed the role), and for the return engagement the role
was played by Melanie Marshall.
One suspects that the typical Broadway theatergoer had never heard of
Fela or his music (Michael Riedel in the New York Post quipped that the
only “fela” known to Broadway insiders was the “most happy” one). The
notion that Fela created a “new kind of music” brought to mind many a
nostalgic movie and Broadway bio in which the hero
singer/musician/composer is out there in the musical wilderness searching
and searching for that elusive “new” sound, a quest undertaken by James
Stewart as far back as the 1954 film The Glenn Miller Story (and with
Frankie Valli also seeking a new sound, the search was still going strong in
Jersey Boys). And for more nostalgia, the show’s title even evoked the
quaint exclamation-pointed heyday of 1960s and 1970s Broadway musicals.
Considering some of the swoon-filled notices for the 2009 Broadway
opening, it’s a wonder the show didn’t play now and forever. But it lasted
for just a little more than a year, and gushing critical valentines didn’t
catapult the evening into a breakout smash hit. Patrick Healy in the New
York Times reported that the show cost “about” $10 million to produce and
that some four months after the Broadway opening the weekly grosses were
“steady” with unspectacular ticket sales, and so it seems highly unlikely the
musical came anywhere near to recouping its initial capitalization.
In his original review for the Times, Ben Brantley said there should be
“dancing in the streets,” and by evening’s end you felt you’d “been dancing
with the stars.” Further, there had “never been anything on Broadway like
this production,” and the “energy” of this “singular sensation” could
“stretch easily to the borders of Manhattan and then across a river or two.”
David Rooney in Variety said the musical “breaks bold new ground in
musical theatre,” but he noted that sometimes the show was “repetitive and
self-indulgent.”
In his notice for the return engagement, Brantley again praised the
“exultant” musical and said he couldn’t decide if this was his fourth or fifth
viewing. The New Yorker said “one glory” of the show was the dancing, but
otherwise there were “notable omissions” about Fela’s life, especially “his
religious and sexual politics.”
The cast album of the original production was released by Knitting
Factory Records, and the London version was presented in repertory at the
National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre on November 16, 2010, and was later
telecast in 2011 on National Theatre Live.
As the result of a lawsuit filed by Carlos Moore during the original
Broadway run, the credits eventually cited his 1982 biography Fela: This
Bitch of a Life: The Authorized Biography of Africa’s Musical Genius as the
inspiration for the musical.
BRING IT ON
Opening Date: August 1, 2012; Closing Date: December 30, 2012
Performances: 171
Book: Jeff Whitty
Lyrics: Amanda Green and Lin-Manuel Miranda
Music: Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda
Based on the 2000 Universal Pictures’ film Bring It On (direction by
Peyton Reed and screenplay by Jessica Bendinger).
Direction and Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler; Producers: Universal
Pictures Stage Productions/Glenn Ross, Beacon
Communications/Armyan Bernstein and Charlie Lyons; Megan Larche,
Associate Producer; Kristin Caskey and Mike Isaacson, Executive
Producers; Scenery: David Korins; Video Design: Jeff Sugg; Costumes:
Andrea Lauer; Lighting: Jason Lyons; Musical Direction: Dave Pepin
Cast: Taylor Louderman (Campbell), Kate Rockwell (Skylar), Janet Krupin
(Kylar), Ryann Redmond (Bridget), Neil Haskell (Steven), Elle
McLemore (Eva), Nicolas Womack (Twig), Dominique Johnson
(Cameron), Jason Gotay (Randall), Ariana DeBose (Nautica), Gregory
Haney (La Cienega), Adrienne Warren (Danielle), Calli Alden (Burger
Pagoda Girl), Haley Hannah (Burger Pagoda Girl), Alysha Umphress
(“Legendary” Soloist), Joshua Henry (“Cross the Line” Soloist);
Ensemble: Calli Alden, Antwan Bethea, Dexter Carr, Courtney
Corbeille, Brooklyn Alexis Freitag, Shonica Gooden, Haley Hannah,
Melody Mills, Michael Mindlin, Michael Naone-Carter, David Ranck,
Bettis Richardson, Sheldon Tucker, Lauren Whitt
The action takes place in the present time in California.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program’s list of musical numbers didn’t identify the singers.
Act One: Overture; “What I Was Born to Do”; “Tryouts”; “One Perfect
Moment”; “What I Was Born to Do” (reprise); “One Perfect Moment”
(reprise); “Do Your Own Thing”; “We Ain’t No Cheerleaders”; “Friday
Night Jackson”; “Something Isn’t Right Here”; “Bring It On”
Act Two: Entr’acte; “It’s All Happening”; “Better”; “It Ain’t No Thing”;
“What Was I Thinking?”; “Enjoy the Trip”; “Killer Instinct”; “We’re
Not Done”; “Legendary”; “Eva’s Rant”; “Cross the Line”; “I Got You”
For the second season in a row, Broadway offered a “cheerleader”

musical. For those who missed Lysistrata Jones, here was the chance to see
Bring It On, which was loosely based on the popular 2000 film of the same
name that explored the labyrinthine world of competitive cheerleading.
The musical premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta on January 15,
2011, and as part of a later national tour it played a road stop on Broadway
for a scheduled run of almost three months (including a few weeks of
previews). But with generally enthusiastic reviews and audience interest,
the engagement was extended by three months for an official run of five
months and 171 performances.
The show was yet another musical marketed for young audiences
(specifically teenage girls, but younger ones, teenage boys, and twenty-
somethings of all sexes were also the demographic targets), a genre mined
by Wicked, Legally Blonde, Xanadu, Cinderella, Matilda, Dear Evan
Hansen, Anastasia, Mean Girls, The Prom, and Be More Chill. Bring It
On was also the first of three of the season’s musicals that included drag
roles (Kinky Boots and Matilda were the others).
Heroine Truman High School cheerleader Campbell (Taylor
Louderman) is obsessed with making her team the cheerleading champs,
but is horrified to learn that because of re-districting she’ll have to transfer
to the inner-city Jackson High School, which doesn’t even have a
cheerleading team and is more interested in dancing. From thereon in we
see the trials, travails, and tribulations of cheerleader politics and intrigues,
including Campbell’s nemesis Eva (Ellie McLemore), an All about Eve if
not Evil rival who will stop at nothing to ensure Campbell’s downfall and
her own glory. But all ends well when in a Learning Moment Campbell and
her friends discover that their Life Journey is really about Friendship rather
than mere trophies on a shelf.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the cheerleaders in the
“featherweight concoction” were “in constant motion, tumbling and
flipping across the stage in elaborate routines that culminate in towering
formations of human pyramids.” Choreographer (and director) Andy
Blankenbuehler’s “exciting” routines arranged the girls “into dazzling
human starbursts,” and with “precision and daring” they flung themselves
“into the air and engage[d] in breathtaking runs of back flips.” The New
Yorker praised Blankenbuehler’s “exuberant” dance sequences and said the
show’s creators had a “canny grasp of the teen vernacular and a winking
awareness of its own clichés.” But he noted the second act was “weighed
down by too many wholesome messages.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the show didn’t
“break new ground” but kept him smiling. He decided that “sometimes
pretty silly—and very acrobatic—is enough,” and if the songs were more
“serviceable” then “memorable,” there were always those “dazzling
dancing and cheering-squad routines.” Scott Brown in New York was still
recovering from the “dumbassery” of Lysistrata Jones, but he found Bring
It On “a worthy, weightless delight, a guilty pleasure you needn’t feel too
guilty about.” Blankenbuehler kept the show’s “veins running with Red
Bull,” and his dance and cheerleading routines were “patently sensational.”
Here was a “stage spectacle with many moving parts, only this time—
wonderfully, refreshingly—nearly all of them are human.”
The cast recording was released by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight/Back Lot
Music Records.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Bring It On); Best Choreography
(Andy Blankenbuehler)
CHAPLIN
“THE MUSICAL”

Performances: 135
Book: Christopher Curtis and Thomas Meehan
Lyrics and Music: Christopher Curtis
Direction and Choreography: Warren Carlyle; Producers: Rich
Entertainment Group, John & Claire Caudwell, Roy Gabay, Viertel
Routh Frankel Baruch Group, Chunsoo Shin/Waxman-Dokton, and
Broadway Across America by special arrangement with Bubbles
Incorporated, S.A. & Roy Export, S.A.S.; Richard and Emily Smucker
and Jon Luther, Associate Producers; Scenery: Beowulf Boritt; Video
and Projection Designs: Jon Driscoll; Costumes: Amy Clark and Martin
Pakledinaz; Lighting: Ken Billington; Flying Effects: Flying by Foy;
Musical Direction: Bryan Perri
Cast: Rob McClure (Charlie Chaplin), Christiane Noll (Hannah Chaplin),
Zachary Unger (Young Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan), Wayne Alan
Wilcox (Sydney Chaplin), Jim Chaplin Sr., McGranery), Jenn Colella
(Hedda Hopper), Erin Mackey (Oona O’NBorstelmann (Alf Reeves),
Michael McCormick (Mack Sennett, Charlie eill), William Ryall (Mr.
Karno), Ethan Khusidman (Usher), Hayley Podschun (Mildred Harris),
Emilee Dupre (Joan Barry); Londoners, Music Hall Patrons, Film Crew,
Starlets, Reporters, and Hollywood Elite: Justin Bowen, Emilee Dupre,
Sara Edwards, Lisa Gajda, Timothy Hughes, Ethan Khusidman, Ian
Liberto, Renee Marino, Michael Mendez, Sarah O’Gleby, Hayley
Podschun, Adam Rogers, William Ryall, Emily Tyra
The action for the first act takes place in London during the years 1894–
1913 and in Hollywood for 1913–1925; the action for the second act
takes place in Hollywood during the years 1925–1972.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture and Prologue (Company); “Look at All the People”
(Christiane Noll); “What’cha Gonna Do?” (Christiane Noll, Zachary
Unger, Rob McClure, Ensemble); “If I Left London” (Rob McClure);
“Sennett Song” (Michael McCormick); “Look at All the People”
(reprise) and “Tramp Discovery” (Rob McClure, Christiane Noll);
“Tramp Shuffle, Part 1” (Rob McClure, Michael McCormick, Ethan
Khusidman); “Tramp Shuffle, Part 2” (Reporters, Rob McClure, Ethan
Khusidman, Ensemble); “Life Can Be Like the Movies” (Rob McClure,
Wayne Alan Wilcox, Hayley Podschun, Ensemble); “The Look-a-Like
Contest” (Rob McClure, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Just Another Day in Hollywood” (Rob McClure, Jenn Colella,
Ensemble); “The Life That You Wished For” (Rob McClure); “All Falls
Down” (Jenn Colella); “Man of All Countries” (Jenn Colella, Michael
McCormick); “What Only Love Can See” (Erin Mackey); “Pre-Exile”
(Jenn Colella, Michael McCormick, Ensemble); “The Exile” (Jenn
Colella, Ensemble); “Where Are All the People?” (Rob McClure);
“What Only Love Can See” (reprise) (Erin Mackey, Rob McClure);
“This Man” (Company); Finale and “Tramp Shuffle” (reprise)
(Company)
Chaplin was about the life and career of comic film legend Charlie
Chaplin (1889–1977), and had it come along before Gypsy it might have
had a chance. But now show business biographies were commonplace, and
one sadly suspects that the name of Charlie Chaplin wasn’t all that familiar
to many potential ticket buyers in the world of 2012 Broadway.
The musical received mostly indifferent reviews, and lasted just four
months in New York. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “stolidly
conventional” show took itself “very seriously as it delivers the
unsurprising news that a clown cries,” and the framework utilized
“flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, and movies-within-movies-
within-the-musical.” The evening was a “by-the-book rags-to-riches-to-
loneliness saga,” the music was “vaporous,” and the “vaguely” period
dances went on “forever without going anywhere.” Hilton Als in the New
Yorker noted that the material didn’t require its cast “to do anything that we
haven’t seen on Broadway before,” and so the show was “Jule Styne light”
with “a little of Jerry Herman’s Mack & Mabel thrown in.”
Richard Zoglin in Time reported that the book was “a decent Cliff’s
Notes version,” but the action seemed “vaguely secondhand” because it was
“an assemblage of well-worn clichés from Hollywood biopics.” Further, the
clichés in the first act didn’t “really prepare us for the clichés in the
second,” and in order to provide the audience with a “feel-good climax”
there was an Academy Award tribute to Chaplin that proved Hollywood is
the town “where no cinematic genius is so disgraced that he can’t be
redeemed by the Irving Thalberg Award.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post complained that the evening
was so “packed” with biographical detail about Chaplin that it seemed “like
a PowerPoint presentation with songs.” Elysa Gardner in USA Today said
the book had “enough mawkish melodrama to fuel a dozen silent-film
parodies.” Scott Brown in New York found the presentation “sincere and
committed,” but it was “a kind of Wikimusical” that sometimes came up
“just short of silliness.” And Michael Musto in the Village Voice said “a
general sense of futility won’t go away, even in the moments when the
authors bravely aim for Kander-and-Ebbish satire over biopic formula.”
But Vincentelli found Rob McClure “very likable” in the title role;
Brown praised the “brilliantly gifted physical comedian”; Brantley said he
gave a “lovely impersonation of the Little Tramp”; Zoglin noted that
McClure did a “fine job of transforming himself into the Little Tramp”; and
Als said McClure was a “fantastic performer” who was “blocked in his
attempts to be great” by the direction and the score.
The musical had a long gestation period. It was first presented as Behind
the Limelight on July 21, 2005, in a workshop production at Vassar
College’s New York Stage and Film Powerhouse Theatre; it later was given
a showcase presentation in September 2006 at the New York Musical
Theatre Festival; and as Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin aka
Limelight the musical was presented on September 19, 2010, at the La Jolla
Playhouse (La Jolla, California). Prior to the New York premiere the
musical was temporarily known as Becoming Chaplin.
The cast album was released by Sony Masterworks Broadway.
Prior to the current production, there were three earlier musicals about
Chaplin (four, if one counts Anthony Newley’s 1983 musical and its revised
1985 version as two separate adaptations).
With book, lyrics, and music by Newley and Stanley Ralph Ross and
with Newley in the title role, Chaplin opened at the Music Center’s Dorothy
Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on August 12, 1983 (Variety said the
presentation had “little to say” and just “paid lip service” in its documentary
approach to Chaplin’s life and career). Newley later appeared in a revised
version that played at the Theatre Under the Stars’ Miller Theatre in
Houston on July 18, 1985, and although Variety saw “enormous potential”
in the material, the show’s “geography” was confusing and “in the stringing
together of so many barely inter-locking episodes” the show had to sacrifice
“momentum.”
A 1993 version of Chaplin’s life played in regional theatre (book by
Ernest Kinoy, lyrics by Lee Goldsmith, and music by Roger Anderson), and
Little Tramp was produced in 1995 in regional theatre and then later in
Great Britain and Russia (book by David Pomeranz and Steven David
Horwich, and lyrics and music by Pomeranz). The studio cast recording of
the latter was released by Warner Music Records, and the cast includes
Richard Harris, Petula Clark, Mel Brooks, Lea Salonga, Tim Curry, and
Treat Williams.
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
in a Musical (Rob McClure)
LEWIS BLACK: RUNNING ON EMPTY

Opening Date: October 9, 2012; Closing Date: October 20, 2012
Performances:8
Comic Material: Lewis Black; additional material by John Bowman
Direction: Lewis Black (Neil A. Mazzella, Technical Supervisor);
Producers: James L. Nederlander, Eva Price, James H. Gosnell, Jo
Anne Astrow, and Mark Lonow; Visual Consultant: Susan Hilferty;
Lighting Consultant: Jeffrey Koger
Cast: Lewis Black
The evening of solo comedy was presented in one act.
Stand-up comedian Lewis Black brought his feisty brand of political

humor to Broadway with Lewis Black: Running on Empty for a limited
engagement of eight performances in the weeks leading up to the 2012
presidential election. Black was running on all four cylinders, and although
he leaned leftward, no one was spared when he went for the political
jugular. But in an interview with Elysa Gardner in USA Today he admitted
he’d be harder on Republicans this time around because he’d had to listen
to them whine for the past four years about Obama (but he noted he’d
previously knocked Democrats when they whined about Bush). He also
mentioned that Democrats just weren’t “funny,” and in regard to Nancy
Pelosi and Harry Reid as the respective leaders of the House and Senate,
neither one was “funny,” but both were “creepy.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times was afraid an entire evening
of Black’s “splenetic seething” might be “a little toxic,” but things got off to
an amusing start when Black made his entrance and acknowledged the
audience’s applause with the comment, “This is not going to be that
entertaining.”
Black noted that for all their “political ferment and activism,” the baby
boomers had just one “real” talent, and that was for “hanging out.” And
serious national and international crises weren’t likely to be dealt with
because there were “lots of channels on television” to watch. As for young
people’s “shrinking attention span,” what else would you expect in the age
of Facebook and Twitter? And because Black was “so wryly funny and
incisive” about important matters, Isherwood wondered why the comic
would bother to make jokes about Kim Kardashian. As for the upcoming
election, Black had his very own special get-out-the-vote advice: “If you
don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch.”
In 2016, and just in time for another presidential election, Black
returned to Broadway in Black to the Future.
FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS

“THE ONE. THE ONLY. THE ORIGINAL.”

Performances: 7
Movement: Raymond Del Barrio; Producers: A Broadway Concert Event,
Live Nation Entertainment, Robert Ahrens, Eva Price, Manny Kladitis,
and Jason Stone; Scenery and Lighting: Dean Egnater; Wardrobe
Supervisor: John Furrow; Musical Direction: Robby
Cast: Frankie Valli, Landon Beard (Background Vocals), Brandon Brigham
(Background Vocals), Brian Brigham (Background Vocals), Todd
Fournier (Background Vocals), Roberto Angelucci (Guitar), Richie
Gajate Garcia (Percussion), Rick Keller (Sax), John Schroeder (Guitar),
Craig Pilo (Drums), John Menzano (Bass) The concert was presented in
two acts.
Musical Numbers
alphabetical (and partial) list of songs heard in the concert is taken from
newspaper reviews.
“Big Girls Don’t Cry” (lyric and music by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio);
“Call Me” (lyric and music by Tony Hatch); “Can’t Take My Eyes Off
You” (lyric and music by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio): “Dawn (Go
Away)” (lyric and music by Bob Gaudio and Sandy Linzer); “December
1963 (Oh, What a Night)” (lyric and music by Bob Gaudio and Judy
Parker); “Grease” (1978 film Grease; lyric and music by Barry Gibb);
“Groovin’” (lyric and music by Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati);
“Let’s Hang On (to What We’ve Got)” (lyric and music by Denny
Randell, Bob Crewe, Sandy Linzer); “My Eyes Adored You” (lyric and
music by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan); “My Girl” (lyric and music by
Smokey Robinson and Ronald White); “Rag Doll” (lyric and music by
Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio); “Save It for Me” (lyric and music by Bob
Gaudio and Bob Crewe); “Sherry” (lyric and music by Bob Gaudio);
“Silence Is Golden” (lyric and music by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio);
“Spanish Harlem” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector);
“Swearin’ to God” (lyric and music by Bob Crewe and Denny Randell);
“Walk Like a Man” (lyric and music by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio);
“Who Loves You” (lyric and music by Bob Gaudio and Judy Parker)
Frankie Valli was the ultimate Jersey Boy, and because Broadway
audiences made Jersey Boys (2005) one of the biggest hits of its era (an
eleven-year run for a total of 4,642 performances), it was probably
inevitable that Valli himself would eventually get around to appearing in a
Broadway concert, and so he did for a limited engagement of seven
performances. In fact, his was the first of three Broadway concerts during
the season, and so later there were visits from Barry Manilow and The
Rascals (see entries). (Note that Valli’s selections included the Rascals’
song “Groovin’,” which was heard later in the season in the Rascals’
concert.)
Frank Scheck in the New York Post felt sorry for audiences who saw
Jersey Boys during the week of Valli’s concert because they watched a
facsimile at the August Wilson Theatre while nearby the “real deal” of Valli
himself was on the stage of the Broadway Theatre. The years had “done
little to diminish” Valli’s “trademark tenor, which can still soar to a thrilling
falsetto,” and the legend “seemed sincerely thrilled to be making his
Broadway debut” not far away from Jersey Boys, which had brought him
and the Four Seasons “back into the spotlight.”
Valli shared the stage with four back-up singers who represented the
original Four Seasons, and he and the quartet were accompanied by six
musicians. When Valli announced, “Hi, I’m Frankie Valli, and I’m just a
Jersey Boy,” the crowd cheered, and then Valli introduced two audience
members, Bob Gaudio (one of the original Four Seasons) and Gerry Polci
(who became a member of the quartet during the 1970s).
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the concert marked the fiftieth
anniversary of the release of the Four Seasons’ first recording, and Valli
“proved a perfectly capable host” and opened the program with a “buoyant”
performance of “Grease.” The singer’s tenor was “impressively clean and
tangy,” he hit “a few falsetto flights,” and his “fellow pop preservationists
went home happy.”
Frankie Valli returned to Broadway with another limited-engagement
concert in 2016 (see entry for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on
Broadway!).
ANNIE
Performances: 487
Book: Thomas Meehan
Lyrics: Martin Charnin
Music: Charles Strouse
Based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray, which first
appeared in the New York Daily News in 1924.
Direction: James Lapine (Mark Schneider, Associate Director); Producers:
Arielle Tepper Madover, Roger Horchow, Sally Horchow, Roger
Berlind, Roy Furman, Debbie Bisno, Stacey Mindich, James M.
Nederlander, Jane Bergere/Daryl Roth, and Eva Price/Christina
Papagjika; 101 Productions, Ltd., Executive Producer; Choreography:
Andy Blankenbuehler (Rachel Bress, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery: David Korins; Projection Design: Wendall K. Harrington;
Costumes: Susan Hilferty; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction:
Todd Ellison
Cast: Lilla Crawford (Annie), Emily Rosenfeld (Molly), Georgi James
(Pepper),Taylor Richardson (Duffy), Madi Rae DiPietro (July), Junah
Lang (Tessie), Tyrah Skye Odoms (Kate), Katie Finneran (Miss
Hannigan), Jeremy Davis (Bundles, Eddie, Bert Healy, Hull), Jane Blass
(Apple Seller, Mrs. Greer, Perkins), Gavin Lodge (Dog Catcher, Ickes,
Judge Brandeis), Ryan Vandenboom (Assistant Dog Catcher), Casey
(Stray Dog), Sunny (Sandy), Dennis Stowe (Lieutenant Ward, Jimmy
Johnson, Morganthau), Amanda Lea LaVergne (Sophie the Kettle,
Connie Boylan), Brynn O’Malley (Grace Farrell), Joel Hatch (Drake,
Fred McCracken), Liz McCartney (Mrs. Pugh), Ashley Blanchet
(Cecile, Star to Be, Ronnie Boylan), Sarah Solie (Annette, Bonnie
Boylan), Anthony Warlow (Oliver Warbucks), Clarke Thorell (Rooster
Hannigan), J. Elaine Marcos (Lily St. Regis), Kevin Quillon (Sound
Effects Man, Howe), Merwin Foard (F.D.R.)
The action takes place in New York City during December 1933.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Maybe” (Lilla Crawford); “It’s the Hard-
Knock Life” (Lilla Crawford, Orphans); “It’s the Hard-Knock Life”
(reprise) (Orphans); “Tomorrow” (Lilla Crawford); “We’d Like to
Thank You” (Lilla Crawford, Ensemble); “Little Girls” (Katie
Finneran); “Little Girls” (reprise) (Katie Finneran); “I Think I’m Gonna
Like It Here” (Lilla Crawford, Brynn O’Malley, Ensemble); “N.Y.C.”
(Anthony Warlow, Brynn O’Malley, Lilla Crawford, J. Elaine Marcos,
Ensemble); “Easy Street” (Katie Finneran, Clarke Thorell, J. Elaine
Marcos); “You Won’t Be an Orphan for Long” (Anthony Warlow,
Brynn O’Malley, Lilla Crawford, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Maybe” (reprise) (Lilla Crawford);
“You’re Never Fully Dressed without a Smile” (Jeremy Davis, Sarah
Solie, Amanda Lea LaVergne, Ashley Blanchet); “You’re Never Fully
Dressed without a Smile” (reprise) (Orphans); “Easy Street” (reprise)
(Katie Finneran, Clarke Thorell, J. Elaine Marcos); “Tomorrow”
(reprise) (Lilla Crawford, Anthony Warlow, Merwin Foard, Cabinet);
“Something Was Missing” (Anthony Warlow); “Annie” (Brynn
O’Malley, Ensemble); “I Don’t Need Anything but You” (Lilla
Crawford, Anthony Warlow, Brynn O’Malley, Ensemble); “Maybe”
(second reprise) (Lilla Crawford); “A New Deal for Christmas” (Lilla
Crawford, Anthony Warlow, Brynn O’Malley, Orphans, Ensemble)
Annie made her third visit to Broadway, and just in time for the holiday
season when she joined such family fare as Elf and A Christmas Story. And
like those two musicals, which were based on popular films, Annie took
place during the Christmas season (and its score included “A New Deal for
Christmas”).
The familiar and now almost fable-like story focused on little orphan
Annie (Lilla Crawford) and her trials and tribulations at the hands of the
orphanage’s evil matron Miss Hannigan (Katie Finneran), who otherwise
might be well-suited for her job but for her unmitigated hatred of little girls.
Grace Farrell (Brynn O’Malley) is the assistant to billionaire Oliver
Warbucks (Warlow), and Grace chooses Annie as the lucky girl who will
spend the Christmas season in Warbucks’s luxurious New York City
mansion. Grace, Warbucks’s staff, and soon even Warbucks himself are
charmed by Annie, and Warbucks decides to adopt her. But problems arise
when Miss Hannigan decides to skim off some of Warbucks’s fortune by
pawning off her brother Rooster (Clarke Thorell) and his girlfriend Lily St.
Regis (J. Elaine Marcos) as Annie’s parents (when Miss Hannigan meets
Lily, she asks, “Which floor?”). But the dastardly plans are foiled, and
Hannigan and Cohorts soon find themselves in the slammer. Meanwhile,
Annie not only has her new home with Warbucks, she also can look forward
to foster parents when it becomes clear that Warbucks and Grace are
destined for the altar.
The original 1977 production (with book by Thomas Meehan, lyrics by
Martin Charnin, and music by Charles Strouse) ran six years, the 1997
revival opened on March 26 at the Martin Beck (now Al Hirschfeld)
Theatre for 239 performances, and the current one played over a year for
almost 500 showings. The 1997 production starred Nell Carter as Miss
Hannigan, and like the current revival received a single Tony Award
nomination for Best Revival of a Musical. There was no cast album for the
1997 production, but the current one was recorded by Shout Factory
Records.
A new song for Miss Hannigan and Grace Farrell was added to the 1997
version (“You Make Me Happy”), and this number and another new one
(“Why Should I Change a Thing?”) were rumored to have been heard at one
point or another during the run of the current revival. But there doesn’t
seem to be any concrete evidence of this, and the two songs may not have
been part of the revival’s score. Because Anthony Warlow was Daddy
Warbucks (a role he had earlier played in Australia where he introduced
“Why Should I Change a Thing?”), perhaps there was the assumption he
sang the number in the current revival.
Perhaps the most groundbreaking aspect of the revival was the
expansion of the role of Annie’s male dog, Sandy, here played by the
actress Sunny in an explosive and startling example of Broadway gender-
bending. Ben Brantley in the New York Times reported that Sandy was
given an extra bit of business during the obligatory pre-show
announcements (turn-off-cell-phones, don’t-crinkle-candy-wrappers, etc.).
Sandy barked out these announcements, and the management ensured that
someone of the human persuasion helpfully translated her instructions.
Brantley also noted that the actress Sunny had “bravely taken on” this
male role, and moreover the “awww” factor was in full throttle when she
made her first-act entrance. Moreover, during intermission Sunny was “the
performer people couldn’t stop talking about.” As for the production itself,
director James Lapine took a show that was heretofore “an unstoppable
sunshine steamroller” and instead flirted “with shadows” when he
“reimagined” some of the characters. As a result, Miss Hannigan was less a
villain than “a lonely lush who really just wants to land a fella”; Grace and
Lily seemed “rather grumpy”; and here Warbucks had a “naturalism” that
made him a “real person,” and thus his affection for Annie now came across
“as a bit creepy” in today’s environment.
John Lahr in the New Yorker complained that the evening put
“capitalism on parade” and the show became a “shopping spree” (Annie
gets a new coat, which Lahr noted was “the color of money”). Moreover,
Annie was rescued from the “tyranny” of the orphanage but now lives in
“another form of slavery” in a world of “ownership” where “life is
redeemed by wealth” along with its “subsidiary blessings of power and
influence.”
Richard Zoglin in Time didn’t take kindly to the “thought of another
shrill 11-year-old belting out ‘Tomorrow,’” but the he found the revival
looking “better now than it ever has” with “winning” music, “clever” lyrics,
“brisk and bright” direction, and “admirably human scale and
individualized” choreography. But Crawford adopted an “unnecessary”
New York City accent (“My folks are nevah gonna come fuh me!”) which
made her seem “like a Broadway kid who has listened to too much early
Barbra Streisand,” and Finneran’s interpretation was a “misfire” that turned
Hannigan “into a sour-lush on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” (Note
that Lahr said Finneran was in “unfortunate slaphappy form” and had been
“misdirected.”)
The musical was first presented at Goodspeed Opera House (East
Haddam, Connecticut) on August 10, 1976, with Kristen Vigard (Annie)
and Maggie Task (Miss Hannigan). Andrea McArdle was one of the
orphans (identified in the program as “The Toughest”), and she soon
assumed the title role. The show opened on April 21, 1977, at the Alvin
(now Neil Simon) Theatre for a marathon run of 2,377 performances and
boasted one of the few Broadway songs of the era to become a hit
(“Tomorrow”), and over the years a second number also found popularity
(“It’s a Hard-Knock Life”). The production won seven Tony Awards,
including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Choreography (for
Peter Gennaro), and Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Dorothy Loudon,
who played Miss Hannigan), and also won the New York Drama Critics’
Circle Award for Best Musical.
The score included the delicate waltz “Something Was Missing,” which
earlier had been heard as the lowdown Charleston “You Rat, You” (lyric by
Lee Adams) in the 1968 film The Night They Raided Minsky’s where it was
sung in a speakeasy by Lillian Hayman.
The original 1977 cast album was released by Columbia, and the CD
edition by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy includes bonus tracks of cut
and/or unused songs (“Apples,” “We Got Annie,” “Just Wait,” “That’s the
Way It Goes,” “Parents,” and “I’ve Never Been So Happy”) as well as the
first recorded performance of “Tomorrow.” There have been numerous
foreign cast recordings, including a 1981 Madrid production that includes
“Manana,” “Nueva York,” “Huerfanas,” and “Felices Navidades, Por Fin.”
Time-Life released a thirtieth-anniversary two-CD set that includes seven
songs written for the disastrous and very sour Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s
Revenge which opened at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House during the
1989–1990 season and closed there without risking Broadway.
During the summer of 1990, another sequel to Annie opened as Annie
Warbucks at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre. In 1992, Annie Warbucks
toured and then opened Off-Broadway at the now-demolished Variety Arts
Theatre on August 9, 1993, for 200 performances. The score included five
songs from Annie 2, “A Younger Man,” “When You Smile,” “Changes,”
“You! You! You!” (here revised as “Above the Law), “A Tenement
Lullaby,” and perhaps a sixth (“I Got Me” was probably a revised version
of “All I’ve Got Is Me”). These songs were included on the Annie Warbucks
cast recording released on a two-CD set by Broadway Angel.
In 2008, the Lifetime Channel aired the documentary Life after
Tomorrow which interviewed many of the now-grown-up little girls who
had played the orphans in various productions. Thomas Meehan’s Annie: An
Old-Fashioned Story was first published in hardback by Macmillan in 1980.
The first London production opened at the Victoria Palace on May 3,
1978, for 1,485 performances, and for the first few weeks of the run
McArdle reprised her New York role. The cast album was issued by CBS,
and a later London revival opened on September 30, 1998.
The charm-free film adaptation by Columbia Pictures was released in
1982; directed by John Huston, the cast included Aileen Quinn (Annie),
Albert Finney (Warbucks), Carol Burnett (Miss Hannigan), Bernadette
Peters (Lily), Ann Reinking (Grace), Tim Curry (Rooster), and Edward
Herrmann (F.D.R.). The film omitted six songs from the Broadway score
and added four new ones (“Dumb Dog,” “Sandy,” “Let’s Go to the
Movies,” and “Sign”) and reinstated “We Got Annie” from the tryout. The
soundtrack was issued by Columbia and the DVD by Sony Pictures Home
Entertainment.
An ABC Walt Disney television version was aired on November 7,
1999, and was an improvement over the 1982 film. Directed by Rob
Marshall, the cast included Alicia Morton (Annie), Kathy Bates (Miss
Hannigan), Victor Garber (Warbucks), Alan Cumming (Rooster), Kristin
Chenoweth (Lily), Audra MacDonald (Grace), and McArdle was the Star to
Be (note that in 2010 and 2018, McArdle appeared as Miss Hannigan in
regional productions of the musical). The soundtrack was issued by Sony,
and the DVD by Walt Disney Home Video.
A radically revised second theatrical film version was released in 2014
by Sony Pictures Entertainment and took place in the present time. Those
songs retained for the film were heard in altered versions, and the score also
included new ones, none of them by Strouse and Charnin. A. O. Scott in the
Times said the “hacky, borderline-incompetent” film was a “chaotic
shambles,” and the Hollywood Reporter said the “toxic mess” had
“shredded” the songs by retaining “just a signature line or two” with
“desperately hip polyrhythmic sounds, aurally assaultive arrangements and
inane new lyrics.” (But could it have been worse than Annie 2: Miss
Hannigan’s Revenge?) The soundtrack was released by RCA Victor, and the
DVD was issued by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Revival of a Musical (Annie)
ELF (2012)
Performances: 74
Director; Callie Carter, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Warner
Brothers Theatre Ventures, Inc. in association with Unique Features and
Jujamcyn Theatres; Martin Kaufman and Raymond Wu, Executive
Producers; Scenery: David Rockwell; Projection Design: Zachary
Borovay; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical
Direction: Phil Reno
Cast: Wayne Knight (Santa), Nancy Johnston (Mrs. Claus), Jordan Gelber
(Buddy), Jonathan Schwartz (Charlie, Sam, Policeman), Ariel Reid
(Shawanda), Mark Jacoby (Walter Hubbs), David Hibbard (Matthews),
Josh Lamon (Chadwick), Beth Leavel (Emily), Mitchell Sink (Michael),
Valerie Wright (Deb), Eric LaJuan Summers (Security Guard), Lee A.
Wilkins (Security Guard, Policeman), Catherine Brunell (Sales
Woman), Michael Mandell (Macy’s Manager), Leslie Kritzer (Jovie),
Timothy J. Alex (Fake Santa), Jason Eric Testa (Little Boy), Adam
Heller (Mr. Greenway), Emily Hsu (Charlotte Dennon); Ensemble:
Timothy J. Alex, Catherine Brunell, Andrea Chamberlain, David
Hibbard, Jenny Hill, Emily Hsu, Nancy Johnston, Josh Lamon, Ariel
Reid, Jonathan Schwartz, Eric LaJuan Summers, Lee A. Wilkins
York City.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Happy All the Time” (Wayne Knight,
Jordan Gelber, Company); “World’s Greatest Dad” (Jordan Gelber); “In
the Way” (Valerie Wright, Mark Jacoby, Beth Leavel, Mitchell Sink,
Company); “Sparklejollytwinklejingley” (Jordan Gelber, Michael
Mandell, Company); “I’ll Believe in You” (Mitchell Sink, Beth Leavel);
“In the Way” (reprise) (Beth Leavel, Mark Jacoby); “Just Like Him”
(Jordan Gelber, Valerie Wright, Company); “A Christmas Song” (Jordan
Gelber, Leslie Kritzer, Company); “World’s Greatest Dad” (reprise)
(Jordan Gelber, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Nobody Cares about Santa” (Fake Santas,
Michael Mandell, Jordan Gelber); “Never Fall in Love” (Leslie
Kritzer); “There Is a Santa Claus” (Mitchell Sink, Beth Leavel); “The
Story of Buddy the Elf” (Jordan Gelber, Mitchell Sink, Mark Jacoby,
Adam Heller, Beth Leavel, Leslie Kritzer, Company); “Nobody Cares
about Santa” (reprise) (Wayne Knight); “A Christmas Song” (reprise)
(Leslie Kritzer, Jordan Gelber, Beth Leavel, Mitchell Sink, Mark
Jacoby, Company); Finale (Company)
Elf made its first Broadway appearance in 2010, and now for the
holiday season it returned to its former home the Al Hirschfeld Theater for
a second limited engagement. This time around, Wayne Knight (Santa),
Jordan Gelber (Buddy), and Leslie Kritzer (Deb) joined the cast, the
returnees included Mark Jacoby (Walter) and Beth Leavel (Emily), the
opening songs for the first and second acts in the 2010 production were
dropped (“Christmastown” and “The Streets of New York”), and a new one
was added (“Happy All the Time”). The musical later returned to New York
for limited engagements in 2015 and 2017. For more information, see
specific entries for the 2010, 2015, and 2017 visits, and note that the 2010
entry gives more detailed information about the musical.
In his review of the current engagement, Neil Genzlinger in the New
York Times said the stage version depicted Buddy as “sometimes naïve,
sometimes perceptive, and too often uncomfortably close to mentally
disabled,” but otherwise the evening offered “nice” supporting
performances and “successful” moments of comedy. The score had a couple
of zingy numbers, including “Nobody Cares about Santa,” a “funny” song
with “grousing” department-store Santas having a meal in a Chinese
restaurant.
Genzlinger noted that Elf was one of two of the season’s holiday
musicals to feature a scene set in a Chinese restaurant (A Christmas Story
was in previews), and, just like Annie, A Christmas Story included a canine
cast member (actually two to Annie’s one), and, like Elf and A Christmas
Story, Annie also had a Christmas theme. All this led Genzlinger to ponder
that while “holiday cheer” was “swell,” perhaps “theatrically” it was all
“starting to be spread a bit thin.”
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD

Theatre: Studio 54
Opening Date: November 13, 2012; Closing Date: March 10, 2013
Performances: 136
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Rupert Holmes
Based on the unfinished 1870 novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood by
Charles Dickens.
Direction: Scott Ellis (Dave Solomon, Associate Director); Producer:
Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director);
Sydney Beers, Executive Producer; Choreography: Warren Carlyle
(Angie Canuel, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Anna Louizos;
Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Angie Canuel; Musical
Direction: Paul Gemignani
Note: The musical was given as a musical-within-a-musical in which a
group of music-hall players present their version of Dickens’s novel.
Following the name of each Broadway cast member are (1) the name of
the music-hall character and (2) the name of the Dickens character
portrayed by the music-hall performer.
Cast: Jim Norton (Chairman William Cartwright), Nick Corley (James
Throttle [Stage Manager], Barkeep), Will Chase (Clive Paget/John
Jasper), Stephanie J. Block (Alice Nutting/Edwin Drood), Betsy Wolfe
(Deirdre Peregrine/Rosa Bud), Alison Cimmet (Violet
Balfour/Beatrice), Janine Divita (Isabel Yearsley/Wendy), Jessie
Mueller (Janet Conover/Helena Landless), Gregg Edelman (Cedric
Moncrieffe/The Reverend Mr. Crisparkle), Andy Karl (Victor
Grinstead/Neville Landless), Chita Rivera (Angela Prysock/The
Princess Puffer), Robert Creighton (Nick Cricker/Durdles), Nicholas
Barasch (Master Nick Cricker/Deputy), Peter Benson (Phillip
Bax/Bazzard); The Citizens of Cloisterham: Alison Cimmet (Violet
Balfour), Kyle Coffman (Christopher Lyon), Nick Corley (James
Throttle), Janine Divita (Isabel Yearsley), Shannon Lewis (Florence
Gill), Spencer Plachy (Harry Sayle), Kiira Schmidt (Gwendolyn Pynn),
Eric Sciotto (Alan Eliot), Jim Walton (Montague Pruitt)
The action takes place at London’s Music Hall Royale in 1895.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “There You Are” (Jim Norton, Company); “A Man Could Go
Quite Mad” (Will Chase); “Two Kinsmen” (Stephanie J. Block, Will
Chase); “Moonfall” (Betsy Wolfe); “Moonfall Quartet” (Jessie Mueller,
Betsy Wolfe, Janine Divita, Alison Cimmet); “The Wages of Sin” (Chita
Rivera, Company); “Jasper’s Vision” and “Smoke Ballet”; “Ceylon”
and “A British Subject” (Jessie Mueller, Andy Karl, Stephanie J. Block,
Betsy Wolfe, Gregg Edelman, Company); “Both Sides of the Coin”
(Will Chase, Jim Norton, Company); “Perfect Strangers” (Stephanie J.
Block, Betsy Wolfe); “No Good Can Come from Bad” (Andy Karl,
Betsy Wolfe, Jessie Mueller, Stephanie J. Block, Gregg Edelman, Will
Chase, Waiters, Ensemble); “Never the Luck” (Peter Benson,
Company); “Off to the Races” (Jim Norton, Robert Creighton, Nicholas
Barasch, Company)
Act Two: “An English Music Hall” (Jim Norton, Company) “Settling Up
the Score” (Dick Datchery [performer purposely not identified in
program], Chita Rivera, Company); “The Name of Love” and
“Moonfall” (reprise) (Betsy Wolfe, Will Chase, Company); “Don’t Quit
While You’re Ahead” (Chita Rivera, Company); “The Solution”
(Company); Note: “The Solution” consists of seven separate and
complete musical sequences, and the one performed was based on who
was voted the murderer: “Puffer’s Confession,” “Out on a Limerick,”
“Jasper’s Confession,” “Murderer’s Confession,” a reprise version of
“Perfect Strangers,” “The Writing on the Wall,” and a reprise version of
“Don’t Quit While You’re Ahead.”
The Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the 1985 musical The

Mystery of Edwin Drood played a limited engagement of four months.
Librettist, lyricist, and composer Rupert Holmes revised some of the
material (among other changes, “I Wouldn’t Say No” and “The Garden Path
to Hell” from the original production were cut and “An English Music
Hall,” which had been heard during the pre-Broadway run at the Delacorte
Theatre in 1985 [see below] was added). Charles Dickens never completed
his novel, and so it isn’t known which character was intended to be the
murderer (and perhaps Drood wasn’t murdered at all).
The musical takes place in a British music hall (in 1873 for the original
production, 1895 for the revival) where the players present their version of
the story, and toward the end of each performance the audience is asked to
decide which of the seven likely suspects is the killer. Holmes wrote seven
alternate endings, and once the votes were tallied the appropriate
denouement was presented. In the spirit of the British musical hall as well
as the pantomime tradition, one of the music hall’s female leads (Alice
Nutting, here played by Stephanie J. Block [Betty Buckley in the original
production]) performed the role of Edwin Drood.
The musical premiered at Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre on August 4,
1985, for 24 showings, and transferred to Broadway later in the year when
it opened on December 2 at the Imperial Theatre for 608 performances.
Most of the summer cast appeared in the Broadway production, and a
notable addition to the company was future film director Rob Marshall. The
musical was nominated for eleven Tony Awards, and won five, including
Best Musical, Best Director (Wilford Leach), Best Book, and Best Score.
Two songs in the summer production were dropped for the Broadway
transfer (“An English Music Hall” and “There’ll Be England Again”); one
(“Evensong”) was cut during Broadway previews; and one (“There You
Are”) was added.
The New Yorker said the “rollicking” revival might “smack of dinner
theatre,” but Holmes had “as much fun with wordplay as he does with foul
play” and the cast was “more dead set on entertaining its audience than any
other currently on a Broadway stage.” Richard Zoglin in Time said he’d
seen the original production, but “darned” if he could remember any of it,
and that was “probably the most telling thing to say about the musical.” The
“lively” and “very polished” revival was “ultimately disposable,” but the
score was a “marvel, old-fashioned yet totally distinctive,” and the stage
shenanigans were “often fun.” However, the audience-participation
“gimmick” was a “bummer,” and he couldn’t “think of a surer way to
reduce an evening of theatre to utter trivia.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “delectable trifle”
was “handsome” and offered “a generous feast for the eyes, trimmed in
holiday cheer for an added spritz of currency.” Further, Holmes’s score was
a “rich pudding” of “skillful pastiche perfumed with real affection,” and it
sounded “pleasurably timeless.” But the evening added up “to less than the
sum of its hard-working parts,” with an “over-elaborate” finale that was
“somewhat” taxing, and the murder plot itself was at times “obscured by the
restless antics of the framing device.”
The revival’s cast album was released by DRG Records on a two-CD
set. The 1985 cast recording was released by Polydor and includes two of
the alternate endings; a later release by Varese Sarabande includes three
alternate endings; and a reissue by Polygram offers all seven. The
Australian production was recorded by GEP Records and includes all seven
endings. The first volume of the four-part series Lost in Boston (Varese
Sarabande Records) includes “Evensong” and “An English Music Hall.”
The script was published in hardback by Nelson Doubleday, Inc., in 1986
and includes some forty-two pages that reflect the seven endings and finale
sequences. The London production opened at the Savoy Theatre in 1987.
During the Broadway run of the original production, the title was
shortened to Drood, but the subtitle “The Music Hall Musical” was
retained. Jeremy Gerard in the New York Times reported that the producers
and marketing representatives wanted the show to have “a whole new crisp,
fresh look” with “a nice big title that jumps off the page.” But one unnamed
source close to the musical was afraid the loss of the word mystery would
give more prominence to the subtitle and possibly lead potential ticket-
buyers to the neighborhood of Radio City. For the current production, the
original title was reinstated.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (The Mystery of Edwin
Drood); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Stephanie J. Block); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role
in a Musical (Will Chase); Best Direction of a Musical (Scott Ellis);
Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Anna Louizos)
SCANDALOUS
“THE LIFE AND TRIALS OF AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON”

Opening Date: November 15, 2012; Closing Date: December 9, 2012
Performances: 29
Book, Lyrics, and Additional Music: Kathie Lee Gifford
Music: David Pomeranz and David Friedman
Direction: David Armstrong (Stephen Sposito, Associate Director);
Producers: Betsy and Dick DeVos, Foursquare Foundation, Cantinas
Ranch Foundation, and The Stand Up Group in association with The 5th
Avenue Theatre; Jeffrey Finn, Executive Producer; Choreography:
Lorin Latarro; Scenery: Walt Spangler; Costumes: Gregory A. Poplyk;
Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Joel Fram
Cast: Carolee Carmello (Aimee Semple McPherson), Candy Buckley
(Minnie Kennedy), George Hearn (James Kennedy, Brother Bob),
Edward Watts (Robert Semple, David Hutton), Andrew Samonsky
(Boxer, Kenneth Ormiston), Sam Strasfeld (Boxer, Charlie Chaplin),
Joseph Dellger (Boxing Ring Announcer, Mayor Cryer, William
Randolph Hearst), Roz Ryan (Emma Jo Schaeffer), Billie Wildrick
(Eve, Myrtle), Elizabeth Ward Land (Louella Parsons), Benjamin
Howes (Asa Keyes), Alison Luff (Peggy Rae Wharton); Ensemble:
Nick Cartell, Joseph Dellger, Erica Dorfler, Carlos L. Encinias, Hannah
Florence, Benjamin Howes, Elizabeth Ward Land, Alison Luff, Jesse
Nager, Sam Strasfeld, Betsy Struxness, Billie Wildrick, Dan’Yelle
Williamson, Matt Wolfe
The action takes place in the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles in 1927.
Musical Numbers
Note: Individual music credits weren’t given in the New York program;
credits provided in this entry are primarily drawn from the program of
the musical’s 2007 regional production (see below).
Act One: “Stand Up!” (music by David Pomeranz and Kathie Lee Gifford)
(Carolee Carmello, Ensemble); “Minnie’s Prayer” (Candy Buckley);
“Why Can’t I?” (music by David Pomeranz) (Carolee Carmello); “He
Will Be My Home” (music by David Pomeranz) (Edward Watts,
Carolee Carmello); “Come Whatever May” (music by David Friedman)
(Edward Watts, Carolee Carmello); “He Will Be My Home” (reprise)
(Edward Watts, Carolee Carmello, George Hearn, Candy Buckley);
“That Sweet Lassie from Cork” (music by Kathie Lee Gifford)
(Ensemble); “Come Whatever May” (reprise) (Edward Watts, Carolee
Carmello, Ensemble); “How Could You?” (Carolee Carmello); “You
Have a Fire” (Carolee Carmello, George Hearn); “Minnie’s Prayer”
(reprise) (Candy Buckley); “Follow Me” (Part I) (music by David
Pomeranz) (Carolee Carmello, Ensemble); “A Girl’s Gotta Do What a
Girl’s Gotta Do” (music by David Friedman) (Roz Ryan, Girls);
“Follow Me” (Part II) (Carolee Carmello, Ensemble); “For Such a Time
as This” (music by David Friedman) (Carolee Carmello, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Hollywood Aimee” (Reporters); “Adam and Eve” (music by
David Friedman) (Carolee Carmello, Edward Watts, Billie Wildrick);
“Foursquare March” (Carolee Carmello, Ensemble); “Samson and
Delilah” (music by David Friedman) (Carolee Carmello, Edward Watts,
Ensemble); “Hollywood Aimee” (reprise) (Reporters); “Moses and
Pharaoh” (Carolee Carmello, Edward Watts, Roz Ryan, Ensemble); “It’s
Just You” (Andrew Samonsky, Edward Watts); “No Other Choice”
(Candy Buckley); “Lost or Found?” (music by David Pomeranz)
(Carolee Carmello, Benjamin Howes, Ensemble); “What Does It
Profit?” (Carolee Carmello); “I Have a Fire” (music by David
Friedman) (Carolee Carmello, Ensemble); Finale (Company)
Broadway looked at religion with The Book of Mormon and the recent
revivals of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, and two shows focused on
over-the-top evangelists, the fictional Jonas Nightingale in Leap of Faith
and the Scandalous “life and trials” of the real-life Aimee Semple
McPherson (1890–1944). Leap of Faith was the shortest-running musical of
the 2011–2012 season, but at twenty-nine performances Scandalous lost the
short-run crown of its season because it was bested by the twenty-eight
showings of Hands on a Hard Body.
McPherson became a worldwide phenomenon as a controversial
celebrity evangelist who practiced divine healing and speaking in tongues,
not to mention her innovative use of radio to preach the gospel and her
5,300-seat temple in Los Angeles, where she offered theatrical-styled
“illustrated” sermons. She was married three times (widowed once and
divorced twice), allegedly kidnapped twice, preached all over the world
(including Broadway and the vaudeville circuit), underwent public
estrangements with both her daughter and mother, and died of an overdose
of barbiturates at the age of fifty-four.
For Scandalous, Kathie Lee Gifford wrote the book and lyrics and
cowrote the music with David Pomeranz and David Friedman. The action
took place at McPherson’s Angelus Temple in Los Angeles during 1927,
and the religious gathering served as a framework in which Charles
Isherwood in the New York Times reported that the evangelist “steps
forward to narrate (and narrate, and narrate) the story of her life.” The
show’s second act included jazzed-up biblical scenes with live actors, and
these McPherson used to illustrate stories from the good book (the musical
presented “Adam and Eve,” “Samson and Delilah,” and “Moses and
Pharaoh”). Isherwood said “collectors of camp” would find “minor
pleasures” in these sequences, especially when Adam and Eve “chomp from
a sequined apple” and when Delilah “vamps” Samson, who “groans in
beefcake bondage.”
The critics were mostly unimpressed with the new musical, which had
undergone a gestation of six years. As Saving Aimee, a series of workshop
performances had been mounted at the White Plains (New York)
Performing Arts Center during October 2005; a fully-staged production
opened at Signature Theatre’s Max Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, on April
22, 2007 (Florence Lacey was Minnie, McPherson’s mother); and another
presentation was given at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle on September
30, 2011. Carolee Carmello appeared as Aimee in all three productions as
well as in the Broadway presentation with its new title Scandalous.
Isherwood said the familiar story deviated from “boilerplate” only in
that its heroine comes “not from stage and screen but from the pulpit.” The
“generic and dull” musical reduced McPherson’s “remarkable” life into “a
cliché-bestrewn fable about the wages of fame,” and although Carmello
thrilled “with the purity and power of her voice,” she couldn’t—and “no
singer without the power of miracle could”—“bring distinction to songs
that never rise above the serviceable.”
The New Yorker said the “real scandal” was that Carmello was given
little to work with because the “baldly formulaic and emotionally tone-
deaf” Gifford trotted out “every cliché in the book” and so the evening felt
like “a paint-by-numbers vanity project”; Richard Zoglin in Time
complained that “too much of the story is merely narrated rather than
dramatized” and the songs were “generic pop-gospel.” Joe Dziemianowicz
in the New York Daily News said the “overblown and undercooked” musical
offered songs “in two similar flavors: pushy power ballad and ‘Up with
People’-style anthem,” and despite Carmello’s “commanding” performance,
“all the bombast soon leads to diminishing returns.”
Michael Musto in the Village Voice said Scandalous was Chaplin “in
drag” (and he noted that Charlie Chaplin himself was a minor character in
Scandalous). The first act was “filled with way too many bombastic songs”
and the second was a “mess” that was both “alternately campy and dull”
with a “stock black character” (Roz Ryan as Emma Jo Schaeffer,
McPherson’s wise-but-sassy friend) and “an ending with one more screechy
number.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today noted that the evening possessed
something rare in contemporary musicals because it had “the courage of its
sincerity.” The biblical skits of McPherson’s “church shtick” didn’t mock
faith or the faithful, and that wasn’t an “easy balance to strike.” As a result,
the show deserved “credit for its mix of unabashed razzle-dazzle, gentle
irreverence and gentle heart.”
Besides the Charlie Chaplin connection, Scandalous and Chaplin
indulged in a bit of celebrity name-dropping with Hollywood’s most
powerful gossip-columnist rivals, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.
Hopper had a featured role in Chaplin (with five songs, including solos and
ensembles), but Parsons had just a walk-on in Scandalous and was given
nothing to sing. Clearly, Hedda won this battle.
Songs added for the Broadway production included “Minnie’s Prayer,”
“How Could You?,” “Hollywood Aimee,” “Foursquare March” (probably a
reworked version of “Foursquare Hymn,” which had been heard in the
Seattle run), “No Other Choice,” “What Does It Profit?,” “The Coconut
Grove,” and “Demon in a Dress” (the last two were cut during Broadway
previews). Songs in the Signature production that were cut for New York
were: “I Will Love You That Way” (music by David Friedman), “Letter
from Home” (music by David Pomeranz), “Why Can’t I Just Be a Woman”
(music by David Pomeranz), “God Will Provide” (music by David
Pomeranz), “Let My People Go!” (music by David Pomeranz), “Saving
Aimee” (music by David Friedman), “The Silent, Sorrowful Shadows”
(music by David Friedman), “Emma Jo’s Lament” (music by David
Friedman), and “Paying the Price” (music by David Pomeranz). Songs in
the Seattle production that weren’t used in earlier versions or in the eventual
Broadway mounting were “Oh, the Power!” and “This Time I’ll Blame It
on Love.”
The cast album of Scandalous was released by Shout Records, and the
script of Saving Aimee was published in paperback in a self-described
“preview edition” by First Look Press in 2007 (with the notation “Revised
April 11, 2007”). Although “Moses and Pharaoh” wasn’t listed in the
program of the 2007 Signature Theatre production, the song is included in
the script.
Aimee Semple McPherson is no stranger to the musical theatre. Jack
Beeson’s opera The Sweet Bye and Bye with libretto by Kenward Elmslie
(not to be confused with the musical Sweet Bye and Bye with lyrics by
Ogden Nash and music by Vernon Duke, which closed during its pre-
Broadway tryout in 1946) was certainly inspired by the famous evangelist,
here known as Sister Rose Ora Easter (Shirlee Emmons). Its world premiere
at New York’s Juilliard Opera Theatre in November 1957 also included cast
member Ruth Kobart, a few years away from her 1961–1962 seasonal
double-header when she bookended the season with appearances in two
smashes, Frank Loesser’s How to Succeed in Business without Really
Trying (as Miss Jones) and Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the Forum (Dominia). A 1974 production of The Sweet Bye
and Bye by the Kansas City Lyric Opera was recorded on a two-album set
by Desto Records, and the album liner notes indicate the work “is a
fictional creation, and any resemblance to other religious groups is
coincidental.” The libretto was published in paperback by Boosey &
Hawkes in 1966.
Ethel Merman’s character Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter’s 1934 musical
Anything Goes was loosely patterned on McPherson (and Reno belted out
with fervor the revival-like “Blow, Gabriel, Blow”). McPherson was also
the subject of the song “Sister Aimee” from the revue Billy Barnes’ L.A.,
which opened at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles on October 10, 1962.
Joyce Jameson performed the number, which is included on the show’s cast
album released by BB Records.
Aimee was another musical about McPherson, and it was presented by
the Trinity Square Repertory Theatre Company in Providence, Rhode
Island, on December 6, 1973, for forty-six performances. Pamela Peyton-
Wright played the title role, the music was by Worth Gardner, and the book
and lyrics were by William Goyen.
The Off-Off-Broadway musical Sister Aimee opened at the Gene
Frankel Theater on April 17, 1981, for thirteen performances with Deb G.
Girdler in the title role and Willi Kirkham as Minnie (Jenifer Lewis was
also in the cast, and her program biography noted she had recently appeared
in the workshop production of Michael Bennett’s new musical Big Dreams,
where she created the role of Effie Melody White). The book, lyrics, and
music for Sister Aimee were by Worth Gardner, who had composed the
music for the earlier Aimee, and at least four songs from Aimee were heard
in Sister Aimee (“Sister Is My Daughter,” “Concrete and Steel,” “Joy, Joy,
Joy,” and “Sister Aimee”).
The Off-Broadway musical Radio Gals opened on October 1, 1996, at
the John Houseman Theatre for forty performances and took place during
the 1920s. The cast album’s liner notes explained that the show was
inspired by the early days of radio when many independent mom-and-pop
stations peppered the country before the U.S. Department of Commerce
cracked down (independent stations jumped from channel to channel to
whatever frequencies had open broadcast space). Radio Gals was
specifically inspired by an incident involving McPherson, who operated an
illegal radio station in Los Angeles during the early1920s (by 1924,
McPherson had become the first woman to be granted a commercial license
to run a radio station). The cast album of Radio Gals was released by
Varese Sarabande Records, and the script was published in paperback by
Samuel French in 1997.
Awards
in a Musical (Carolee Carmello)
A CHRISTMAS STORY (2012; 2013)

Performances: 51
Book: Joseph Robinette
Lyrics and Music: Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Based on the 1983 MGM film A Christmas Story (direction by Bob Clark
and screenplay by Clark, Jean Shepherd, and Leigh Brown), which in
turn was partially based on Shepherd’s books In God We Trust, All
Others Pay Cash (1966) and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories
(1971).
Direction: John Rando; Producers: Gerald Goehring, Roy Miller, Michael
F. Mitri, Pat Flicker Addiss, Peter Billingsley, Timothy Laczynski,
Mariano Tolentino Jr., Louise H. Beard, Michael Filerman, Scott Hart,
Alison Eckert, Bob Bartner, Michael Jenkins, Angela Milonas, and
Bradford W. Smith (Vincent G. Palumbo, Dancap Productions, Inc.,
Jeffrey Jackson, and Ric Zivic, Associate Producers); Choreography:
Warren Carlyle (James Gray, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Walt
Spangler; Costumes: Elizabeth Hope Clancy; Lighting: Howell Binkley;
Musical Direction: Ian Eisendrath
Cast: Dan Lauria (Jean Shepherd), Johnny Rabe (Ralphie Parker), Joe West
(Ralphie “at certain performances”), Erin Dilly (Mother), Zac Ballard
(Randy), John Bolton (The Old Man), Pete and Lily (The Bumpus
Hounds), J. D. Rodriguez (Schwartz), Jeremy Shinder (Flick), Analise
Scarpaci (Esther Jane), Beatrice Tulchin (Mary Beth), Jack Mastrianni
(Scut Farkus), John Babbo (Grover Dill), Grace Capeless (Child,
Nancy), Sarah Min-Kyung Park (Child, Waitress), Luke Spring (Child),
Caroline O’Connor (Miss Shields), Mark Ledbetter (Fantasy Villain,
Delivery Man, Policeman), Thay Floyd (Delivery Man, Fireman), Eddie
Korbich (Doctor, Santa Claus), Kirsten Wyatt (Nurse, Mrs. Schwartz,
Chief Elf), Lindsay O’Neil (Flick’s Mother), Andrew Cristi (Chief Elf,
Waiter), John Babbo (Goggles Kid); Neighbors, Shoppers, Parents,
Students, Townspeople, Elves, Others: Tia Altinay, John Babbo,
Charissa Bertels, Grace Capeless, Andrew Cristi, Thay Floyd, Nick
Gaswirth), Eddie Korbich, Mark Ledbetter, Jose Luaces, Jack
Mastrianni, Lindsay O’Neil, Sarah Min-Kyung Park, J. D. Rodriguez,
Analise Scarpaci, Lara Seibert, Jeremy Shinder, Luke Spring, Beatrice
Tulchin, Kirsten Wyatt
The action takes place in New York City “several years ago” and during
December 1940 in Hammond, Indiana.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “It All Comes Down to Christmas”
(Johnny Rabe, The Parkers, Ensemble); “Red Ryder Carbine Action BB
Gun” (Johnny Rabe, Dan Lauria); “It All Comes Down to Christmas”
(reprise) (Johnny Rabe, Company); “The Genius on Cleveland Street”
(John Bolton, Erin Dilly); “When You’re a Wimp” (Kids); “Ralphie to
the Rescue!” (Johnny Rabe, Caroline O’Connor, John Bolton, Erin
Dilly, Zac Ballard, Ensemble); “What a Mother Does” (Erin Dilly); “A
Major Award” (John Bolton, Erin Dilly, Neighbors); “Parker Family
Singalong” (The Parkers); Act One Finale (Johnny Rabe, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Sticky Situation” (Johnny Rabe, Jeremy
Shinder, J.D. Rodriguez, Kids, Caroline O’Connor, Kirsten Wyatt,
Lindsay O’Neil, Thay Floyd, Mark Ledbetter, Eddie Korbich); “You’ll
Shoot Your Eye Out” (Caroline O’Connor, Kids); “Just Like That” (Erin
Dilly); “At Higbee’s” (Elves); “Up on Santa’s Lap” (Eddie Korbich,
Elves, Johnny Rabe, Zac Ballard, Kids); “Before the Old Man Comes
Home” (The Parkers); “Somewhere Hovering over Indiana” (Johnny
Rabe, Zac Ballard, Kids); “Ralphie to the Rescue!” (reprise) (Johnny
Rabe, Ensemble); “A Christmas Story” (The Parkers, Company)
The 1983 film A Christmas Story really took off when it became a
holiday staple with multiple airings on cable television, and soon everyone
knew the story of what happened in Hammond, Indiana, during December
1940. More than anything, poor little nine-year-old Ralphie (Johnny Rabe
in the musical, with Joe West in the role for “certain performances”) wants
a genuine Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle, but his mother
(Erin Dilly), his Old Man (John Bolton), and even his schoolteacher Miss
Shields (Caroline O’Connor) warn him of the dangerous toy that’ll shoot
his eye out. But Christmas is Christmas, after all, and wishes come true, and
so Ralphie isn’t disappointed on Christmas morning.
The story also covered the Yellow-Eyed Farkus Affair, the Matter of the
Demented Easter Bunny, the hallowed sacredness of the Double-Dog Dare,
the Frozen Tongue on a Flagpole Incident, the Horror of a Meatloaf Dinner,
the necessity of Kitchen-Cabinet Hiding if the Old Man Goes on the
Warpath, and the moment when Ralphie lets go with the F-Word Bomb.
Other monumental events in Ralphie’s world included a department store
Santa and his elves who hate children, the Old Man’s “major award” of an
ugly lamp in the shape of a woman’s leg covered with a fish-net stocking (a
lamp that mysteriously breaks, not that mother would know anything about
that), a ruined Christmas dinner because of the evil Bumpus hounds, and
even a strange little boy who really, really likes The Wizard of Oz.
It was probably inevitable that Ralphie and Co. would find their way to
the musical stage, and sure enough in December 2009 the world premiere
took place at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre (book by Joseph Robinette,
and the lyrics and music by Scott Davenport Richards). A later production
given at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle on December 9, 2010, had a new
score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and the production toured nationally in
2011. The show made its Broadway debut in 2012 for a limited engagement
during the holiday season, and returned to New York for another limited
engagement in 2013 (see below).
Time selected the musical as one of the best theatre events of 2012, and
Richard Zoglin said “a new holiday tradition is born.” The show captured
the “sardonic nostalgia” of the movie, and although the score was “fairly
obvious,” the songs were “always sprightly, cleverly staged and with a
touch of self-parody” (Miss Shields turns “into a tap-dancing maniac” when
she cautions Ralphie with the immortal words “You’ll shoot your eye
out!”). Elysa Gardner in USA Today liked the “wacky humor and folksy
charm,” and found the entertainment “instantly accessible” and
“consistently appealing”; Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post praised
the “charming” show as “the rare family entertainment that doesn’t feel like
a soulless, dumbed-down corporate product”; and David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter said the “cute, corny, wholesome and sentimental”
show had “catchy” lyrics and “robust” melodies, and noted that the “You’ll
Shoot Your Eye Out” number was a “1930s gangster-and-molls interlude”
in which “pint-sized tap-dancing dynamo” Luke Spring was the “scene-
stealer.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times also praised the nine-year-old
“dynamo” who had “feathers for feet” and raised “such a merry clatter with
his nimble dancing that it all but brings down the house.” The show itself
was “less glitzy and more soft-spoken” than the usual “garish, overbearing”
holiday offerings, the songs were “likable” and “perky,” and the youngsters’
dance numbers made the orphans in Annie “look positively skimpy.” John
Lahr in the New Yorker noted “the nostalgia for innocence reaches its
apogee of dopiness” with the opening of A Christmas Story, and Joe
Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the show never captured
the “quirky magic” of the movie. But the story’s “sweet message” hit “the
right notes of nostalgia,” and while the songs were “serviceable,” they
“mostly exit the brain faster than Santa up a chimney.”
Masterworks Broadway released the score’s “world premiere recording”
prior to the Broadway opening, and the combination studio and Broadway
cast members include John Bolton, Liz Callaway, Matthew Lewis, Clarke
Hallum, and Tom Wopat (Narrator).
A Christmas Story returned to New York for a limited engagement at the
Theatre at Madison Square Garden during the period December 11–29,
2013, and the cast included Jake Lucas and Eli Tokash (alternating in the
role of Ralphie) and Noah Baird (Randy) as well as 2012 cast members
John Bolton (The Old Man), Erin Dilly (Mother), and Caroline O’Connor
(Miss Shields).
The musical was telecast by Fox on December 17, 2017, with Andy
Walken (Ralphie), Maya Rudolph (Mother), Chris Diamantopoulos (The
Old Man), Jane Krakowski (Miss Shields), David Alan Grier (Santa), and
Matthew Broderick (Narrator). The DVD was released by Warner Home
Video.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (A Christmas Story); Best Book
(Joseph Robinette); Best Score (lyrics and music by Benj Pasek and
Justin Paul)
MANILOW ON BROADWAY
“LIVE AT THE ST. JAMES”

Opening Date: January 29, 2013; March 2, 2013
Performances: 25
Special Material: Larry Amoros
Direction: Kye Brackett, Staging; Producers: Jujamcyn Theatres and
Stiletto Entertainment; Red Awning and Garry C. Kief, Executive
Producers; Choreography: Kye Brackett; Scenery: Seth Jackson,
Production Designer; Lighting: Jason Workman, Lighting Director;
Musical Direction: Ron Walters Jr.
Cast: Barry Manilow, Kye Brackett (Background Vocals), Sharon Hendrix
(Background Vocals), Ron Walters Jr. (Conductor), Joey Melotti
(Keyboards), Ron Pedley (Keyboards), Michael Lent (Guitar), Russ
McKinnon (Drums), David Rozenblatt (Percussion), Stan Sargeant
(Bass)
Musical Numbers
alphabetical (and partial) list of songs heard in the concert is taken from
Theatre World and from magazine and newspaper reviews.
“Bandstand Boogie” (lyric and music by C. Albertine, Bob Horn, Les
Elgart, Larry Elgart, Barry Manilow, and Bruce Sussman); “Brooklyn
Blues” (lyric and music by Barry Manilow); “Can’t Smile without You”
(lyric and music by Christian Arnold, David Martin, and Geoff
Morrow); “Copacabana” (lyric by Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman,
music by Barry Manilow); “Could It Be Magic” (lyric and music by
Barry Manilow, Frederic Chopin, and Adrienne Anderson); “Give My
Regards to Broadway” (Little Johnny Jones, 1904; lyric and music by
George M. Cohan); “It’s a Miracle” (lyric and music by Barry Manilow
and Marty Panzer); “I Made It through the Rain” (lyric and music by
Gerald Kenny and Drey Shepperd with revised lyric by Barry Manilow,
Jack Feldman, and Bruce Sussman); “I Write the Songs” (lyric and
music by Bruce Johnson); “Looks Like We Made It” (lyric and music
by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings); “Mandy” (lyric and music by Scott
English and Richard Kerr); “New York City Rhythm” (lyric and music
by Barry Manilow and Marty Panzer); “The Old Songs” (lyric and
music by David Pomeranz and Buddy Kaye); “This One’s for You”
(lyric and music by Marty Panzer and Barry Manilow); “Tryin’ to Get
the Feeling Again” (lyric and music by David Pomeranz); “Weekend in
New England” (lyric and music by Randy Edelman); “Why Don’t We
Live Together” (lyric and music by Peter Thom and Phil Galston)
Barry Manilow’s concert marked his first Broadway appearance in

twenty-two years, but it was postponed for a few days because he
contracted bronchitis. The limited run had been scheduled for seventeen
performances during the period January 18–February 9, 2013, with an
official opening night of January 24, but five showings were canceled. The
new opening night took place on January 29, the run was extended to
March 2, and there were twenty-five showings in all.
Stephen Holden in the New York Times said “I Write the Songs” was
one of his “pet peeves” because “how dare anyone claim, ‘I am music,’” but
when Manilow sang it the audience “erupted with joy” and Holden “gritted”
his teeth. But he noted that Manilow had “crossed the invisible line from
durable pop entertainer to pop institution,” was now in a “platinum
pantheon,” and his “brand” could be defined as “musical chicken soup for
the soul.” (But chicken soup was what the fans wanted, and so under the
occasional shower of confetti they sang along with Manilow and waved
glowing green light sticks, which had been distributed along with the
programs.)
Sarah Larson in the New Yorker said Manilow was “no less lovable—he
is, maybe, even more lovable—for the fact that he appears to be
animatronic.” Despite his illness he “sounded good,” and because he had
“nothing to prove” he was therefore “very relaxing” and wasn’t a “prickly
diva who only wants to play his new stuff.” With his decades of show-
business success and know-how, Manilow gave his fans what they wanted.
Manilow’s first Broadway concert was Barry Manilow on Broadway,
which opened at the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre on December 21, 1976,
for twelve performances and won him a special Tony Award. He next
appeared in Barry Manilow at the Gershwin on April 18, 1989, for forty-
four performances, and then he offered Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers at
the Paramount Theatre on September 25, 1991, for four performances. In
2019, the singer returned in concert with Manilow Broadway.
Manilow wrote the lyrics and music (and was the conductor) for the
Off-Broadway musical The Drunkard, which opened on April 13, 1970, at
the Thirteenth Street Theatre for forty-eight performances. The spoof was
based on the 1844 melodrama and included songs in the public domain as
well as new ones by Manilow (the program noted that the action took place
in a humble cottage, a sylvan glade, a wooded grove, a rose-colored arbor,
and a miserable garret).
Manilow’s hit 1978 recording “Copacabana” was developed into a CBS
television movie musical of the same name that aired on December 3, 1985,
and was then rewritten as a short stage musical given in Atlantic City prior
to a full-fledged London production that opened on June 23, 1994, for a
twenty-month run at the Prince of Wales Theatre. This version began a
year-long U.S. tour beginning on June 15, 2000, but the musical was never
produced on Broadway.
Manilow also wrote the music for Harmony, which premiered at La
Jolla (California) Playhouse on October 19, 1997, was later reworked and
opened at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, and then played at the Ahmanson
Theatre in Los Angeles for a one-month run which began on March 12,
2014. The musical hasn’t been presented in New York, but its subject
matter about the Comedian Harmonists formed the basis of the musical
Band in Berlin, which opened on March 7, 1999, at the Helen Hayes
Theatre for seventeen performances.
CINDERELLA
“BROADWAY’S LOVELIEST NIGHT”

Performances: 769
Book: Oscar Hammerstein II; new book adaptation by Douglas Carter
Beane
Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II; additional lyrics by Douglas Carter Beane
and David Chase
Music: Richard Rodgers
Based on the 1697 fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault.
Direction: Mark Brokaw (Gina Rattan, Associate Director); Producers:
Robyn Goodman, Jill Furman, Stephen Kocis, Edward Walson,
Venetian Glass Productions, The Araca Group, Luigi Caiola and Rose
Caiola, Roy Furman, Walt Grossman, Peter May/Sanford Robertson,
Glass Slipper Productions LLC/Eric Schmidt, Ted Liebowitz/James
Spry, and Blanket Fort Productions in association with Center Theatre
Group; Charles Salameno, Associate Producer; Choreography: Josh
Rhodes (Lee Wilkins, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Anna
Louizos; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Kenneth Posner;
Musical Direction: Andy Einhorn
Cast: Laura Osnes (Ella), Peter Nelson (Woodland Creature), Santino
Fontana (Topher), Phumzile Sojola (Lord Pinkleton), Peter Bartlett
(Sebastian), Victoria Clark (Marie), Greg Hildreth (Jean-Michel),
Harriet Harris (Madame), Marla Mindelle (Gabrielle), Ann Harada
(Charlotte), Heidi Giberson (Fox), Laura Irion (Raccoon), Andy Mills
(Footman), Cody Williams (Driver), Jill Abramovitz (Lady of Ridicule);
Knights, Townspeople, Lords and Ladies of the Court, Peasants: Jill
Abramovitz, Kristine Bendul, Heidi Giberson, Stephanie Gibson,
Shonica Gooden, Kendal Hartse, Robert Hartwell, Laura Irion, Andy
Jones, Andy Mills, Linda Mugleston, Peter Nelson, Nick Spangler,
Cody Williams, Branch Woodman, Kevin Worley
The action takes place in a kingdom a long time ago.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Me, Who Am I?” (Santino Fontana, Peter
Bartlett, Phumzile Sojola, Knights, Pages); “In My Own Little Corner”
(Laura Osnes); “Now Is the Time” (Greg Hildreth); “The Prince Is
Giving a Ball” (Phumzile Sojola, Townspeople, Harriet Harris, Ann
Harada, Marla Mindelle, Laura Osnes, Victoria Clark); “Cinderella
March” (Orchestra); “In My Own Little Corner” (reprise) and “Fol-De-
Rol” (Laura Osnes, Victoria Clark); “Impossible” (Victoria Clark, Laura
Osnes); “It’s Possible” (Victoria Clark, Laura Osnes); “Gavotte” (Peter
Bartlett, Santino Fontana, Phumzile Sojola, Harriet Harris, Ann Harada,
Marla Mindelle, Lords and Ladies of the Court); “Ten Minutes Ago”
(Santino Fontana, Laura Osnes); “Waltz for a Ball” (Orchestra); “Ten
Minutes Ago” (reprise) (Santino Fontana, Laura Osnes, Lords and
Ladies of the Court)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Stepsister’s Lament” (Ann Harada,
Ladies of the Court); “The Pursuit” (Santino Fontana, Phumzile Sojola,
Lords of the Court, Pages, Laura Osnes, Andy Mills, Cody Williams);
“When You’re Driving through the Moonlight” (Laura Osnes, Harriet
Harris, Ann Harada, Marla Mindelle); “A Lovely Night” (Laura Osnes,
Harriet Harris, Ann Harada, Marla Mindelle); “A Lovely Night”
(reprise) (Laura Osnes, Marla Mindelle); “Loneliness of Evening”
(Santino Fontana, Laura Osnes); “The Prince Is Giving a Ball” (reprise)
(Peter Bartlett, Phumzile Sojola, Heralds, Harriet Harris); “There’s
Music in You” (Victoria Clark); “Now Is the Time” (reprise) (Greg
Hildreth, Marla Mindelle); “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?”
(Santino Fontana, Laura Osnes); “Ten Minutes Ago” (reprise) (Santino
Fontana, Laura Osnes, Company); Finale (Victoria Clark, Company)
The long history of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1957
television musical Cinderella continued with the current revival, which
played for twenty-two months on Broadway and nineteen months on tour.
Douglas Carter Beane’s adaptation retained the basic outline of the
familiar story about the poor slavey Cinderella (Laura Osnes in the current
revival) whose cruel stepmother and her two equally unpleasant stepsisters
force her to be a servant in her late father’s home. When her fairy
godmother transforms her from drudge to diamond, Cinderella goes to a
royal ball where she stuns everyone with her beauty. She captures the heart
of the prince (Santino Fontana), but must leave the ball by midnight
because at the strike of twelve she’ll turn back into her everyday self. In her
hurry to flee, she loses her glass slipper, and the prince scours the kingdom
to discover the slipper’s owner. Ultimately, he finds Cinderella, who will
become his bride and princess.
Beane brought a hip tone to the proceedings, and probably most
traditional Cinderellistas could have done without a Cinderella for Our
Time. Even the ads for the musical were cringe inducing (“Glass Slippers
Are So Back”), a phrase one would expect to hear from a Valley Girl (but
clearly VGs were part of the show’s target audience). Cinderella is now
Ella, the prince is known as Topher, and perhaps because “step” relations
have always taken a bum rap in fairy tales due to their wickedness,
Cinderella’s kin are here a bit more kindly. Meanwhile, there’s political
unrest among the populace because unknown to Topher his kingdom is
being run by despots. The peasants are oppressed and ripe for revolt, and
Topher is encouraged by Cinderella to emancipate his people and become
an enlightened monarch. Moreover, Cinderella no longer loses her slipper:
she simply hands it to the prince. These changes clearly didn’t bother the
musical’s young fan base, and the show had a comfortable Broadway run.
But as the New Yorker noted, the fairy tale’s basic message was the
same as always: “If you are very pretty and very lucky, and nice, too, you
might get to marry a prince.”
Richard Zoglin in Time said Beane’s adaptation “could be worse.” The
story had now been imbued with “all sorts of psychological and political
background,” but happily most of this was “handled with good humor and a
minimum of revisionist smugness.” But in comparison to the original 1957
television version of the fairy tale, the current adaptation “for all its hip
updating” was “a much less adventurous project.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the musical wanted “to be
reassuringly old-fashioned and refreshingly irreverent, sentimental and
snarky, sincere and ironic, all at once.” The girl-empowerment show
hawked T-shirts in the lobby that boasted “I can be whatever I want to be,”
and when Cinderella meets the prince she doesn’t whisper “sweet nothings”
as of yore but instead lectures him about his oppressive kingdom (Brantley
suggested the heroine be renamed “Che-erella”). As a result, there was “a
whole lot of fiddling” going on because Beane gave the evening a
“politically progressive substance” with all “those mandatory messages
about self-esteem and self-empowerment.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety found Beane’s revisions “witty” with “cheeky
humor” that juxtaposed “modern sensibilities (and contemporary lingo) on
timeless storybook figures.” Osnes was a “triple threat,” and Fontana was
“cute and funny” and “limber enough to sing and move and look charming
at the same time, an impossible task for many a leading man.” Stasio noted
that the story focused on the prince because with “all those politically
correct social issues” Cinderella herself became a “secondary character in a
story about a guy who mans up and resolves his identity crisis.”
The production had its chandelier moment, but not the chandeliers at the
palace. In this case, twice during the evening Cinderella’s work clothes
were magically and instantly transformed into sumptuous ball gowns right
before the audience’s eyes.
The musical was first presented by CBS as a live television special that
was aired on March 31, 1957, with a cast which included Julie Andrews in
the title role (she was appearing on Broadway in My Fair Lady at the time),
Jon Cypher (Prince), Edith (Edie) Adams (Fairy Godmother), Howard
Lindsay (King), Dorothy Stickney (Queen), Ilka Chase (Stepmother), Iggie
Wolfington (Chef), Robert Penn (Town Crier), and Alice Ghostley and
Kaye Ballard in the respective roles of Cinderella’s stepsisters Joy and
Portia. At the time, the production was the most watched show in the
history of television with an estimated one hundred million viewers, and
while the telecast was shown in color, only a black-and-white print exists,
which was released on DVD by Image Entertainment. The television
soundtrack album was issued by Columbia.
A second television version was presented by CBS on February 22,
1965, with Leslie Ann Warren (Cinderella), Stuart Damon (Prince), Celeste
Holm (Fairy Godmother), Walter Pidgeon (King), Ginger Rogers (Queen),
Jo Van Fleet (Stepmother), and Pat Carroll and Barbara Ruick as the
stepsisters (who now sported the respective new names of Prunella and
Esmerelda). The teleplay was by Joseph Schrank and “Loneliness of
Evening” (which had been dropped during the tryout of Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s South Pacific in 1949 and had been titled “Will My Love
Come Home to Me?”) was added for the prince. The soundtrack was issued
by Columbia and the DVD by Columbia TriStar and later by the Shout
Factory.
The third television adaptation was shown by ABC on November 2,
1997; the teleplay was by Robert L. Freedman, and the cast included
Brandy (Cinderella), Paolo Montalban (Prince), Whitney Houston (Fairy
Godmother), Victor Garber (King), Bernadette Peters (Stepmother), and the
two stepsisters underwent yet another name change (to Minerva and
Calliope). This version interpolated three songs: “There’s Music in You”
(from the 1953 film Main Street to Broadway; lyric by Hammerstein and
music by Rodgers); “The Sweetest Sounds” (1962 Broadway musical No
Strings; lyric and music by Rodgers); and “Falling in Love with Love”
(1938 Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse; lyric by Lorenz Hart and
music by Rodgers). The DVD was released by Walt Disney Home
Entertainment.
The first stage adaptation was presented as a pantomime at London’s
Coliseum on December 18, 1958, as a showcase for Tommy Steele in the
newly created role of Buttons, and along with the songs for the original
1957 telecast, four were added: “A Very Special Day,” “Marriage-Type
Love,” and “No Other Love,” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1953
Broadway musical Me and Juliet, and a new song by Steele (“You and
Me”). The work was revived in London at the Adelphi Theatre on
December 22, 1960, for 101 performances. The cast album of the 1958
production was later reissued by That’s Entertainment Records.
The musical was later presented in U.S. regional theatres in an
adaptation by Don (aka Donn) Driver, including productions at the
Cleveland Musicarnival in 1961 and the St. Louis Municipal Opera in 1961
and 1962.
The first New York stage production was given by the New York City
Opera Company at the New York State Theatre on November 9, 1993, for
fourteen performances in a new book adaptation by Steve Allen, which in
turn had been based on an earlier stage version by Robert Johanson. The
cast included Crista Moore (Cinderella), George Dvorsky (Prince), Sally
Ann Howes (Fairy Godmother), Nancy Marchand (Stepmother), George S.
Irving (King), Maria Karnilova (Queen), and Alix Korey and Jeanette
Palmer as the two stepsisters who here reclaimed their original names of
Joy and Portia (note that for the current Broadway production the girls were
known as Gabrielle and Charlotte). “Loneliness of Evening” was added to
the score along with “My Best Girl,” which had been dropped during the
tryout of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1958 Broadway musical Flower
Drum Song.
City Opera revived the production on November 9, 1995, for twelve
performances with Rebecca Baxter (Cinderella), Jean Stapleton
(Stepmother), and Jane Powell (Queen); on May 3, 2001, for eleven
showings with Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Cinderella), Paolo Montalban (as the
prince, a role he reprised from the 1997 television production), and Eartha
Kitt (Fairy Godmother); and on November 12, 2004, for thirteen
performances, again with Kitt as the Fairy Godmother. For a while it
became something of a tradition for the role of the stepmother to be played
by a man in drag (Edward Quinton for the 2001 production and John
“Lypsinka” Epperson for 2004). All the City Opera presentations were
given at the New York State Theatre.
Note that “Loneliness of Evening” and “There’s Music in You” were
heard in the current Broadway production along with “Now Is the Time”
(which had been dropped from the score of South Pacific during its tryout)
and “Me, Who Am I?” (based on material from Me and Juliet).
The cast album of the current Cinderella was released by Ghostlight
Records, and the script was published in paperback by Applause Theatre &
Cinema Books in 2014.
The 2015 Walt Disney Pictures’ theatrical film Cinderella wasn’t an
adaptation of the current musical and was instead based both on the fairy
tale itself and on Disney’s 1950 animated version.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Book (Douglas Carter Beane); Best
Revival of a Musical (Cinderella); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Leading Role in a Musical (Santino Fontana); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Laura Osnes); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Victoria
Clark); Best Orchestrations (Danny Troob); Best Costume Design of a
Musical (William Ivey Long); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Kenneth Posner); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Nevin Steinberg)
HANDS ON A HARD BODY

“A NEW MUSICAL”

Performances: 28
Book: Doug Wright
Lyrics: Amanda Green
Music: Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green
Based on the 1997 documentary film Hands on a Hardbody: The
Documentary released by Ideal Enterprises (direction by S. R. Bindler).
Direction: Neil Pepe; Producers: Broadway Across America—Beth
Williams, Barbara Whitman/Latitude Link, Dede Harris/Sharon
Karmazin, and Howard and Janet Kagan; also, John and Claire
Caudwell, Rough Edged Souls, Joyce Primm Schweickert, Paula
Black/Bruce Long, and Off the Aisle Productions/Freitag-Mishkin; A
La Jolla Playhouse Production; David Carpenter, Associate Producer;
Jennifer Costello, Executive Producer; Choreography: Sergio Trujillo
(Lorin Latarro, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Christine Jones;
Costumes: Susan Hilferty; Lighting: Kevin Adams; Musical Direction:
Carmel Dean
Cast: Keith Carradine (JD Drew), Allison Case (Kelli Mangrum), Hunter
Foster (Benny Perkins), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Greg Wilhote), David
Larsen (Chris Alvaro), Jacob Ming-Trent (Ronald McCowan), Kathleen
Elizabeth Monteleone (Heather Stovall), Mary Gordon Murray (Virginia
Drew), Jim Newman (Mike Ferris), Connie Ray (Cindy Barnes), Jon
Rua (Jesus Pena), Keala Settle (Norma Valverde), Dale Soules (Janis
Curtis), Scott Wakefield (Frank Nugent), William Youmans (Don
Curtis, Doctor Stokes)
The action takes place at the Floyd King Nissan Dealership in Longview,
Texas.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Human Drama Kind of Thing” (Company); “If I Had This
Truck” (Company); “If She Don’t Sleep” (William Youmans, Dale
Soules); “My Problem Right There” (Jacob Ming-Trent); “Alone with
Me” (Mary Gordon Murray, Keith Carradine); “Burn That Bridge”
(Kathleen Elizabeth Monteleone, Jim Newman); “I’m Gone” (Allison
Case, Jay Armstrong Johnson); “Joy of the Lord” (Keala Settle,
Company); “Stronger” (David Larsen); “Hunt with the Big Dogs”
(Hunter Foster, Company)
Act Two: “Hands on a Hardbody” (Jim Newman, Scott Wakefield); “Born
in Laredo” (Jon Rua); “Alone with Me” (reprise) (Keith Carradine);
“It’s a Fix” (Dale Soules, William Youmans); “Used to Be” (Keith
Carradine, Keala Settle, Hunter Foster); “It’s a Fix” (reprise) (Kathleen
Elizabeth Monteleone); “God Answered My Prayers” (Hunter Foster);
“Joy of the Lord” (reprise) (Jacob Ming-Trent, David Larsen); “Keep
Your Hands on It” (Company)
Hands on a Hard Body was a quirky little musical that probably didn’t
stand a chance on Broadway with its very Texan tale about a Nissan
dealership in a small Texas town that will give away a new $22,000 Nissan
hard body truck to whoever can keep his or her hand on the truck for the
longest period of time. If you remove your hand for even a second, you’re
disqualified, and the last contestant to keep a hand on the red truck is the
winner. The action took place at the dealership during a ninety-one-hour
period, and the story focused on ten people who desperately need the truck,
“good ole boys,” a Latina, a black man, and a young Mexican in his
twenties. None of them can afford the truck, and owning it will give the
winner a new lease on life (to pay off bills, to escape from a dead-end job,
to sell off the truck in order to pay for an education) (as Marilyn Stasio in
Variety noted, a truck can “define your character, testify to your manhood
and affirm your human value”).
Hands on a Hard Body was the season’s shortest-running musical, and
its quiet and introspective charms were no match for the glitzy blockbuster
Kinky Boots (the season’s longest-running musical), the British import
Matilda, and the jukebox musical Motown.
The work was based on S. R. Bindler’s 1997 documentary of the same
name, and one or two critics noted that Doug Wright’s adaptation wisely
reduced the number of contestants to a manageable ten. The musical was
reminiscent of the marathon dancers in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, but
it’s likely most theatergoers were thinking about the dancers in A Chorus
Line. As the evening progressed, each contestant had his or her own song or
dramatic sequence, and the audience learned about their dreams, ambitions,
and frustrations. A Chorus Line suggested that everyone’s on the line, and
Hard Body noted in its final song “Keep Your Hands on It” that the “contest
is for life” and “it goes on and on and on.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “scrappy” and
“sincere” musical brought “a fresh, handmade feeling to Broadway,” and
the songs by lyricist and co-composer Amanda Green (daughter of Adolph
Green and Phyllis Newman) and co-composer Trey Anastasio had “an
authentic and appealing roots-rock vibe.” The evening’s “biggest challenge”
was “the inevitably static nature of the story line,” and Isherwood also
noted that references to a poor job market, a broken health care system,
immigration problems, and the reentry of returning troops into mainstream
society seemed to be a litany of social issues straight from “the platform of
the Democratic Party’s liberal wing.”
The New Yorker described the evening as “a recessionary fable with
heart and horsepower,” and the musical overcame “its initial triteness to
become a potent study of redemption in hard times.” Richard Zoglin in
Time decided the show’s title was the “worst in recent Broadway memory,”
and he wondered if Pickup! The Musical had already been taken.
Otherwise, Hard Body was a “surprisingly engaging little show” and the
“flavorful country-Western score [was] tuneful, well-integrated and
evocative of the setting.”
Jesse Green in New York found the production “earnest and solidly
performed” but felt the authors couldn’t “finesse a problem of emotional
scale.” He wondered, “how much can even a Texan want a truck?” And “for
all the worthy effort to valorize lives not usually depicted in musicals,” the
show had the “opposite effect” and made the characters look “petty.” Joe
Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News decided the show was a
“missed opportunity,” and the book just didn’t “dig deep enough to get
beyond outlines.” There was “zero tension,” and the evening’s “pattern
becomes who sings next and who falls next.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the songs were “infectious and even
moving” with an eclectic array of styles that included country, funk, gospel,
and power ballads, and if some bordered “on the banal” they “rarely” bored.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the melodies had “plenty of
variety,” and the score was “more pleasant than memorable.” But because
the musical dealt with hardscrabble blue-collar lives, the “gently appealing”
show was “a welcome change of pace, even if its folksy simplicity makes it
a commercial challenge.” Stasio said it was difficult to imagine “hotel
concierges, travel agents and group sales ladies pitching tourists” a musical
about “working-class stiffs” in East Texas, but “regional bookers should be
lining up six deep.” The book was “unusually articulate” and the score
“well-integrated,” and the show was “both musically unpredictable and
dramatically credible” in depicting the out-of-work and in-debt contestants
who hope a new truck will “turn their sorry lives around.”
The cast album was released by Ghostlight and included a bonus track
of “The Tryers,” which (along with “Brothers in a Storm” and “A Little
Something Something”) had been dropped during New York previews. The
script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 2013.
The musical was first presented at La Jolla (California) Playhouse on
May 12, 2012.
For what it’s worth, the documentary’s original title included the words
hard body, but a later poster used hardbody. The musical’s program cover
and credits’ page went with hard body, but the Who’s Who section of the
program as well as an ad in the program chose hardbody. The published
script went with hardbody (copyright and credits’ pages) and hard body
(cover).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Score (lyrics by Amanda Green, music by
Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Keith Carradine); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Keala Settle)
KINKY BOOTS
Performances: 2,505
Lyrics and Music: Cyndi Lauper
Based on the 2005 Miramax Film and Touchstone Productions film Kinky
Boots (direction by Julian Jarrold and screenplay by Geoff Deane and
Tim Firth).
Direction and Choreography: Jerry Mitchell (Rusty Mowery, Associate
Choreographer); Producers: Daryl Roth, Hal Luftig, James L.
Nederlander, Terry Allen Kramer, Independent Presenters Network, CJ
E & M, Jayne Baron Sherman, Just for Laughs Theatricals/Judith Ann
Abrams, Yasuhiro Kawana, Jane Bergere, Allan S. Gordon and Adam S.
Gordon, Ken Davenport, Hunter Arnold, Lucy and Phil Suarez, Bryan
Bantry, Ron Fierstein and Dorsey Regal, Jim Kierstead/Gregory Rae,
BB Group/Christina Papagjika, Michael DeSantis/Patrick Baugh, Brian
Smith/Tom and Connie Walsh, Warren Trepp, and Jujamcyn Theatres;
Amuse Inc., Associate Producer; Scenery: David Rockwell; Costumes:
Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Brian
Usifer
Cast: Stephen Berger (Mr. Price), Sebastian Hedges Thomas (Young
Charlie), Marquise Neal (Young Lola), Eugene Barry-Hill (Simon Sr.),
Celina Carvajal (Nicola), Stark Sands (Charlie Price), Marcus Neville
(George), Daniel Stewart Sherman (Don), Annaleigh Ashford (Lauren),
Tory Ross (Pat), Andy Kelso (Harry), Billy Porter (Lola); Angels: Paul
Canaan, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Kyle Taylor Parker, Kyle Post, Charlie
Sutton, and Joey Taranto; Jennifer Perry (Trish), John Jeffrey Martin
(Richard Bailey), Adinah Alexander (Milan Stage Manager); Ensemble:
Adinah Alexander, Eric Anderson, Eugene Barry-Hill, Stephen Berger,
Caroline Bowman, Andy Kelso, Eric Leviton, Ellyn Marie Marsh, John
Jeffrey Martin, Jennifer Perry, Tory Ross
The action takes place during the present time in Northampton, London,
and Milan.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Price & Son Theme” (Company); “The Most Beautiful Thing”
(Company); “Take What You Got” (Andy Kelso, Stark Sands,
Ensemble); “The Land of Lola” (Billy Porter, Angels); “The Land of
Lola” (reprise) (Billy Porter, Angels); “Step One” (Stark Sands); “Sex Is
in the Heel” (Billy Porter, Tory Ross, Marcus Neville, Angels,
Ensemble); “The History of Wrong Guys” (Annaleigh Ashford); “I’m
Not My Father’s Son” (Billy Porter, Stark Sands); “Everybody Say
Yeah” (Stark Sands, Billy Porter, Angels, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte and “Price & Son Theme” (reprise) (Company); “What
a Woman Wants” (Billy Porter, Tory Ross, Daniel Stewart Sherman,
Ensemble); “In This Corner” (Billy Porter, Daniel Stewart Sherman,
Tory Ross, Jennifer Perry, Angels, Ensemble); “The Soul of a Man”
(Stark Sands); “Hold Me in Your Heart” (Billy Porter); “Raise You Up”
and “Just Be” (Company)
Kinky Boots and Matilda were the seasonal heavyweights. Both opened
within a week of one another, and both featured leading men in drag roles.
With its London pedigree and its rave notices, Matilda appeared to have the
edge over Kinky Boots. Both shows recouped their initial capitalizations
($16 million for Matilda and $13.5 million for Boots), but it was Boots that
became the longest-running musical of the season and played for six years,
more than doubling the run of its British competitor. Matilda won a number
of Tony Awards (including Best Book), but Boots took home a slew of big
awards (Best Musical, Best Score, Best Choreography, and Best Leading
Actor [for Billy Porter in the drag role of Lola]).
The musical was clearly the people’s choice, but there was something
rather depressing about the déjà vu aspect of it all. First, here was a show
with yet another drag role, and it led one to ponder why critics and
audiences swoon in ecstasy whenever an actor appears in drag. Is it really
such a novelty anymore? (The 2012–2013 season offered no less than four
musicals with drag roles, the other two being Bring It On and the revival of
The Mystery of Edwin Drood.)
Then there was the Message (here, tolerance of others is good, as if we
didn’t know), and it was tiresome that musicals mimicked 1970s Norman
Lear-styled sitcoms in which every other episode seemed to conclude with a
social message. But we probably shouldn’t have been surprised about
Boots, because its book was by Harvey Fierstein, and his shows tended to
drag in a life lesson for supposedly obtuse audiences. He wrote the book for
La Cage aux Folles and starred in Hairspray, both drag musicals with what
one might term a second-act message about the importance of accepting the
differences of others, and these shows brought Tony Awards to their
respective leading-men-in-drag, George Hearn and Fierstein (and for La
Cage’s 2010 Broadway revival [see entry], Douglas Hodge had the drag
role, and he too won a Tony).
Finally, there was the outré black character (here, Lola) who dispenses
sassy wisdom (at least Lola wasn’t given a gospel number), and one
wondered if Broadway would ever ditch what were fast becoming
obnoxious clichés. Could someone start writing roles in which a black
character isn’t sassy, doesn’t sing a gospel number, and isn’t relegated to
what are generally supporting roles in a Dear Abby-mode that serve as the
wisdom-dispensing gal pal or guy pal for the leading white character?
Kinky Boots revolved around white and straight Charlie Price (Stark
Sands) who inherits the family’s faltering shoe factory. He meets up with
the black drag queen Lola (Billy Porter), who suggests he target the drag-
queen niche market because there’s a demand for kinky and glittery boots
that are sturdy enough to support the male foot. (It seemed unlikely that a
factory could make a go of it with such a limited number of prospective
clients, but it was probably best not to dwell on the marketing aspects of the
situation.) Meanwhile, Charlie and Lola discover that despite their racial
and sexual differences, they have much in common (both have father
issues) and can learn from each other. And the blue-collar types who work
in the factory and the drag-show chorines who work with Lola also learn
life lessons about accepting differences and getting along together.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised pop singer Cyndi Lauper’s
“love-and-heat-seeking score,” and he singled out “Sex Is in the Heel,”
“Everybody Say Yeah,” and the two-part finale “Raise You Up” and “Just
Be.” Further, Porter gave Lola “enough snap and sinew to make her more
than just another glamazon with biceps,” and the “terrific” Sands found
“strains of rock ’n’ roll agony in a tabula rasa part.” But one had to deal
with the evening’s clichés, too, and Lola handed out “life lessons like an
automated fortune cookie.” And so we learned that one must seek out one’s
particular passion, one must overcome prejudice, and one must transcend
stereotypes, and it was in the second act that the “preachier aspects” of
Fierstein’s book took over and “all the clichés” stood “naked before you.”
Hilton Als in the New Yorker noted that Fierstein revisited his themes
from La Cage aux Folles (“tolerance and bravery win out over bigotry and
smallness”), and said Lauper’s score was “perfectly serviceable” but not
“especially distinguished” or “original.” As for Porter, he didn’t “let the
creaking and ultimately forgettable conventions” of Kinky Boots “get in his
way,” and the script was “just a jumping off point for his indefatigable
energy, inner resources, and imagination.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said Fierstein’s book preached “sexual
tolerance to a choir that’s already singing the Wedding March.” The book
was “layered” with messages about knowing who you are, respecting
others’ humanity, and choosing the right mate (and the right shoe). But the
score had “driving energy and uplifting spirit,” and Jerry Mitchell was a
“terrific” choreographer for the “dance-heavy show.”
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal said the score seemed to come
from a boxed set called Cyndi: The Deservedly Forgotten Late-’80’s B-
Sides, but Mitchell did “his best to make something out of nothing.”
Meanwhile, Sands was “a good singer and a dull actor,” and Porter was “a
good actor and a just-about-adequate singer.” Robert Feldberg in
NorthJersey.com found the evening “relentlessly tedious,” and Michael
Musto in the Village Voice said “some of the themes and machinations may
seem off the conveyor belt,” but the score was “varied, rich, and much more
interesting than the usual Broadway fare.”
The cast album was released by Masterworks Broadway, and the
London cast album (which was recorded live) was issued by Sony Music
Canada, Inc. The London production opened on September 15, 2015, at the
Adelphi Theatre and ran for 1,400 performances. The West End version was
filmed and given a limited theatrical release in 2019, and was also released
via streaming on BroadwayHD.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Kinky Boots); Best Book
(Harvey Fierstein); Best Score (lyrics and music by Cyndi Lauper);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Billy
Porter); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Stark Sands); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a
Musical (Annaleigh Ashford); Best Choreography (Jerry Mitchell);
Best Direction of a Musical (Jerry Mitchell); Best Orchestrations
(Stephen Oremus); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (David
Rockwell); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Gregg Barnes); Best
Lighting Design of a Musical (Kenneth Posner); Best Sound Design of a
Musical (John Shivers)
MATILDA
Theatre: Shubert Theatre
Performances: 1,554
Book: Dennis Kelly
Lyrics and Music: Tim Minchin; additional music by Chris Nightingale
Based on the 1988 novel Matilda by Roald Dahl.
Direction: Matthew Warchus (Thomas Caruso, Luke Sheppard, and Lotte
Wakeham, Associate Directors); Producers: The Royal Shakespeare
Company and The Dodgers; Denise Wood and Andre Ptaszynski,
Executive Producers; Choreography: Peter Darling (Ellen Kane and
Kate Dunn, Associate Choreographers); Scenery and Costumes: Rob
Howell; Lighting: Hugh Vanstone; Musical Direction: David
Holcenberg
Cast: John Sanders (Party Entertainer, Sergei), John Arthur Greene
(Doctor), Lesli Margherita (Mrs. Wormwood), Gabriel Ebert (Mr.
Wormwood), Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon, and Milly
Shapiro (all four performers alternated in the role of Matilda), Taylor
Trensch (Michael Wormwood), Karen Aldridge (Mrs. Phelps), Lauren
Ward (Miss Honey), Ben Thompson (The Escapologist), Samantha
Sturm (The Acrobat), Bertie Carvel (Miss Trunchbull), Phillip Spaeth
(Rudolpho); Others: Thayne Jasperson, Tamika Sonja Lawrence, Ryan
Steele, Betsy Struxness; Note: Jack Broderick (Bruce; role played “on
occasion” by Judah Bellamy, Luke Kolbe Mannikus, or Sawyer Nunes),
Frenie Acoba (Lavender; played on occasion by Erica Simone Barnett,
Emma Howard, or Heather Tepe), Jared Parker (Nigel; played on
occasion by Luke Kolbe Mannikus, Sawyer Nunes, Heather Tepe, or
Ted Wilson), Beatrice Tulchin (Amanda; played on occasion by Erica
Simone Barnett, Ava DeMary, or Heather Tepe), Ted Wilson (Eric;
played on occasion by Luke Kolbe Mannikus, Sawyer Nunes, Jared
Parker, or Heather Tepe), Ava DeMary (Alice; played on occasion by
Madilyn Jaz Morrow or Heather Tepe), Emma Howard (Hortense;
played on occasion by Madilyn Jaz Morrow), Judah Bellamy (Tommy;
played on occasion by Sawyer Nunes or Heather Tepe)
The action takes place in Great Britain during the present time.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Miracle” (Company); “Naughty” (Matilda [see cast list, above]);
“School Song” (Company); “Pathetic” (Lauren Ward); “The Hammer”
(Bertie Carvel, Lauren Ward, Children); “The Chokey Chant”
(Company); “Loud” (Lesli Margherita, Phillip Spaeth); “This Little
Girl” (Lauren Ward); “Bruce” (Children)
Act Two: “Telly” (Gabriel Ebert, Taylor Trensch); “When I Grow Up”
(Company); “I’m Here” (Matilda [see cast list above], Ben Thompson);
“The Smell of Rebellion” (Bertie Carvel, Lauren Ward, Children);
“Quiet” (Matilda [see cast list above]); “My House” (Lauren Ward);
“Revolting Children” (Company)
The British import Matilda was based on Roald Dahl’s popular 1988
children’s book of the same name (which was later filmed in 1996). The
evening was yet another musical excursion into girl empowerment, and it
became a megahit in London when it opened on November 24, 2011, at the
Cambridge Theatre (after its world premiere at the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on December 9,
2010).
As of mid-2020, the show is still running in London and has played
over 3,500 performances, but the New York version didn’t quite duplicate
the London success. The $16 million production recouped its investment
and played almost four years (1,554 performances), but was by no means a
smash on the order of Wicked (another girl empowerment musical) or other
London imports such as Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, and
Miss Saigon. There was a certain irony here: in earlier Broadway decades, a
run of four years would have been considered a knockout, but these days
such a run seems merely OK when compared to blockbusters that run a
decade or more.
On the other hand, perhaps Matilda was too smart for its own good with
its look at a five-year-old girl who isn’t obsessed with video games, iPads,
Facebook, and other vital necessities for over-indulged children. No, our
Matilda is that rare creature, a child who finds solace in books, loves to
read, and relishes the power and the meaning of words (Ron Howell’s Tony
Award-winning decor mirrored Matilda’s interests with its depiction of
towers of books, alphabet blocks, and a Scrabble-like confetti of floating
tiles). Maybe Matilda and Matilda were just a bit too rarified for a
Broadway where most heroines are likely to marry a prince or be adopted
by a millionaire.
Matilda Wormwood (Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon,
and Milly Shapiro alternated in the role) finds that books transport her from
her hateful and dysfunctional family. Her parents are shallow and mean-
spirited, and because they view their brattish and inveterate TV-watching
son Michael (Taylor Trench) as a kindred spirit, they dote upon him and
ignore Matilda, whom they consider a book-reading bore.
Father Wormwood (Gabriel Ebert, who won a Tony Award for Best
Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role) is a sleazy used-car dealer,
and Mother Wormwood is a nitwit obsessed with amateur ballroom dancing
competitions. Matilda doesn’t find school the refuge it could be because it’s
dominated by the holy-terror headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Bertie Carvel
in the drag role he created for London) who despises everyone and is
clearly related to Miss Hannigan, another evildoer living a few blocks away
at the Palace Theatre.
But there’s one gleam of light in Matilda’s life, and that’s her teacher
Miss Honey (Lauren Ward), and with their mutual love of words and
reading, they become soul sisters. It turns out that Miss Honey is
Trunchbull’s much-put-upon niece, and because of Trunchbull’s constant
abuses and overall menace Matilda hexes her with telekinetic powers. As a
result, Trunchbull takes off for parts unknown and is never heard from
again. Matilda’s parents agree that their daughter can in effect be adopted
by Miss Honey, who is now headmistress, and all ends happily.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Matilda was “the most
satisfying and subversive musical ever to come out of Britain,” and with its
“melding” of book, lyrics, and music it was “as classic as Oklahoma!” The
score was “infused throughout with a Gothic strain, which sometimes
assumes the form of Dark Shadows organ chords,” and Carvel’s Trunchbull
inspired “fear and loathing” and was portrayed “as a fascist on the verge of
a nervous breakdown.” Richard Zoglin in Time decided you had to go back
to The Lion King “to find a show with as much invention, spirit and genre-
redefining verve,” and so Matilda cleared away the “deadwood” and
announced “a fresh start for the Broadway musical.” But the show wasn’t
“quite perfect” because the second act was “a bit too long” and there was
“one plot twist too many.” Further, the “combination of shrill child voices,
British accents and heavy miking causes many of the lyrics to get
muddled.” Hilton Als in the New Yorker noted that Trunchbull “wants only
the worst for you, while you love her for making you feel the way you do:
thrilled by her energy and by the monstrousness of her self-invention.”
Michael Sommers in the New Jersey Newsroom said “the fanciful show
possesses an oddly nasty flavor,” but regardless of his “taste” for the
material, the evening was “impressive”; Mark Kennedy in the Associated
Press found the evening “true” to Dahl’s “bleak vision of childhood as a
savage battleground,” but even if the production was “a bit swollen and in
need of some fine-tuning,” it nonetheless delivered a “thrilling blast of
nasty fun”; and Michael Musto in the Village Voice said the “over-the-top”
atmosphere was “tiring,” and many of the songs were “wordy emissions
that sound more work-in-progress than classic stage tunes.”
The cast recording by the 2010 British cast was released by Royal
Shakespeare Company Records, and the Broadway cast album was issued
by Yellow Sound Label/Broadway Records.
The decade saw another of Dahl’s books converted into a musical, but
this time around the results were disappointing and Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory managed just a few months on Broadway before it
shuttered.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Matilda); Best Book (Dennis
Kelly); Best Score (lyrics and music by Tim Minchin); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Bertie
Carvel); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Gabriel Ebert); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Lauren Ward); Best Choreography (Pert Darling); Best
Direction of a Musical (Matthew Warchus); Best Orchestrations
(Christopher Nightingale);Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre
(Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon, and Milly Shapiro);
Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Rob Howell); Best Costume Design
of a Musical (Rob Howell); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Hugh
Vanstone)
MOTOWN (2013)
Performances: 738
Book: Berry Gordy; David Goldsmith and Dick Scanlan, Script
Consultants; Christie Burton, Creative Consultant
Lyrics and Music: Per the program, lyrics and music by “The Legendary
Motown Catalog”; see list of musical numbers below.
Based on the 1994 autobiography To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the
Memories of Motown by Berry Gordy.
Direction: Charles Randolph-Wright (Schele Williams, Associate Director);
Producers: Kevin McCollum, Doug Morris, and Berry Gordy; Nina
Lannan, Executive Producer; Choreography: Patricia Wilcox and
Warren Adams (Brian H. Brooks, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery:
David Korins; Projection Design: Daniel Brodie; Costumes: Esosa;
Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Joseph Joubert
Cast: Brandon Victor Dixon (Berry Gordy), Valisia LeKae (Diana Ross),
Charl Brown (Smokey Robinson), Bryan Terrell Clark (Marvin Gaye),
Raymond Luke Jr., and Jibreel Mawry (alternating in the roles of Young
Berry, Stevie, and Michael); Ensemble: Timothy J. Alex (Roger
Campbell, Tom Clay, Pirate DJ), Michael Arnold (Jackie Wilson
Manager, Harold Noveck, Studio Head), Nicholas Christopher (Four
Top, Norman Whitfield), Rebecca E. Covington (Gwen Gordy,
Vandella, Gladys Horton, Cindy Birdsong), Ariana DeBose (Mary
Wilson), Andrea Dora (Suzanne de Passe), Wilkie Ferguson III (Jr.
Walker All Star), Marva Hicks (Esther Gordy, Lula Hardaway, Gladys
Knight), Tiffany Janene Howard (Anna Gordy, Marvelette), Sasha
Hutchings (Claudette Robinson, Billie Jean Brown, Marvelette), Jawan
M. Jackson (Melvin Franklin, Miracle, Commodore), Morgan James
(Landlady, Teena Marie), John Jellison (Ed Sullivan, Shelly Berger,
Dudley Buell), Grasan Kingsberry (Four Top, Contour, Jackson 5,
Georgie Woods), Marielys Molina (Marvelette, French Announcer),
Sydney Morton (Florence Ballard), Maurice Murphy (Dennis Edwards,
Miracle, Jr. Walker, Commodore), Jesse Nager (Temptation,
Magnificent Montage, Commodore), Milton Craig Nealy (Pop Gordy,
Commodore, Pip), N’Kenge (Mary Wells, Mother Gordy, Vandella),
Dominic Nolfi (Barney Ales), Saycon Sengbloh (Edna Anderson,
Martha Reeves, Chattie Hattie), Ryan Shaw (Stevie Wonder, Levi
Stubbs, Miracle, Pip), Jamal Story (Contour, Hitsville Employee), Eric
LaJuan Summers (Jackie Wilson, Four Top, Contour, Brian Holland,
Jackson 5, Rick James), Ephraim M. Sykes (Temptation, Robert Gordy,
Contour, Jackson 5), Julius Thomas III (Lamont Dozier, David Ruffin,
Jackson 5, Jermaine Jackson, Miller London, Pip), Daniel J. Watts
(Contour, Eddie Holland), Donald Webber Jr. (Temptation, Mickey
Stevenson, Martin Luther King Jr., Commodore)
The action takes place during the years 1938–1983 in Los Angeles; Detroit;
Birmingham, Alabama; Manchester, England; and other cities.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program listed the following songs in alphabetical (not
performance) order and didn’t identify the names of the singers.
“ABC” (lyric and music by Alphonso Mizell, Freddie Perren, Deke
Richards, and Berry Gordy Jr.); “A Breathtaking Guy” (lyric and music
by Smokey Robinson); “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (lyric and
music by Valerie Simpson and Nickolas Ashford); “Ain’t Too Proud to
Beg” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Edward Holland Jr.);
“Baby I Need Your Lovin’” (lyric and music by Brian Holland, Edward
Holland Jr., Lamont Herbert Dozier); “Ball of Confusion (That’s What
the World Is Today)” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and
Barrett Strong); “Brick House” (lyric and music by Lionel Richie,
Ronald Lapread, Walter Orange, Milan Williams, Thomas McClary, and
William King); “Buttered Popcorn” (lyric and music by Berry Gordy Jr.,
and Barney Ales); “Bye Bye Baby” (lyric and music by Mary Wells)
and “Two Lovers” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson); “Can I Close
the Door” (lyric and music by Berry Gordy and Michael Lovesmith);
“Cruisin’” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson and Marvin Tarplin);
“Dancing in the Street” (lyric and music by Marvin P. Gaye, Ivy Jo
Hunter, William Stevenson); “Do You Love Me” (lyric and music by
Berry Gordy Jr.); “Get Ready” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson);
“Give It to Me, Baby” (lyric and music by Rick James); “Good
Morning, Heartache” (lyric and music by Ervin M. Drake, Dan Fisher,
and Irene Higginbotham); “Got a Job” (lyric and music by Smokey
Robinson, Berry Gordy Jr., and Tyran Carlo); “Happy Birthday” (lyric
and music by Stevie Wonder); “Hey Joe (Black Like Me)” (lyric and
music by Berry Gordy and Michael Lovesmith); “I Can’t Get Next to
You” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “I
Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” (lyric and music by
Brian Holland, Lamont Herbert Dozier, and Edward Holland Jr.); “I Got
the Feeling” (lyric and music not credited in program); “I Hear a
Symphony” (lyric and music by Brian Holland, Lamont Herbert Dozier,
and Edward Holland Jr.); “I Heard It through the Grapevine” (lyric and
music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “(I Know) I’m
Losing You” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield, Edward Holland
Jr., and Cornelius Grant); “I’ll Be There” (lyric and music by Hal Davis,
Berry Gordy Jr., Bob West, and Willie Hutch); “It’s What’s in the
Groove That Counts” (lyric and music by Berry Gordy and Michael
Lovesmith); “I Want You Back” (lyric and music by Freddie Perren,
Alphonso J. Mizell, and Berry Gordy Jr.); “Lonely Teardrops” (lyric and
music by Berry Gordy Jr., Gwendolyn Gordy Fuqua, and Tyran Carlo);
“Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone” (lyric and music by Brian
Holland, Lamont Herbert Dozier, and Edward Holland Jr.); “Mercy,
Mercy Me (The Ecology)” (lyric and music by Marvin P. Gaye);
“Money (That’s What I Want)” (lyric and music by Berry Gordy Jr., and
Janie Bradford); “My Girl” (lyric and music by Ronald White and
Smokey Robinson); “My Guy” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson);
“(My) Mama Done Told Me” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson,
Berry Gordy Jr., and Tyran Carlo); “Please, Mr. Postman” (lyric and
music by William Garrett, Georgia Dobbins, Brian Holland, Freddie
Gorman, and Robert Bateman); “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” (lyric and
music by Brian Holland, Lamont Herbert Dozier, and Edward Holland
Jr.); “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” (lyric and music by
Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson); “Reet Petite (The Sweetest
Girl in Town)” (lyric and music by Berry Gordy Jr., and Tyran Carlo);
“Remember Me” (lyric and music by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie
Simpson); “Shop Around” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson and
Berry Gordy Jr.); “Shotgun” (lyric and music by Autry Dewalt);
“Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” (lyric and music by Stevie
Wonder, Syreeta Wright, Lee Garrett, and Lula Mae Hardaway);
“Square Biz” (lyric and music by Mary C. Brockert, Allen McGrier);
“Stop in the Name of Love” (lyric and music by Brian Holland, Lamont
Herbert Dozier, and Edward Holland Jr.); “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”
(lyric and music by Marvin P. Gaye, George Gordy, and William
Stevenson); “Super Freak” (lyric and music by Rick James and Alonzo
Miller); “The Happening” (lyric and music by Lamont Herbert Dozier,
Edward Holland Jr., Brian Holland, and Frank DeVol); “The Love You
Save” (lyric and music by Freddie Perren, Alphonso J. Mizell, Berry
Gordy Jr., and Deke Richards); “To Be Loved” (lyric and music by
Berry Gordy Jr., Gwendolyn Gordy Fuqua, and Tyran Carlo); “War”
(lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “What’s
Going On” (lyric and music by Renaldo Benson, Alfred W. Cleveland,
and Marvin P. Gaye); “Where Did Our Love Go” (lyric and music by
Edward Holland Jr., Brian Holland, and Lamont Herbert Dozier);
“Who’s Loving You” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson); “You’re
All I Need to Get By” (lyric and music by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie
Simpson); “You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You” (lyric and music
by James Cavanaugh, Russ Morgan, and Larry Stock); “You’ve Really
Got a Hold on Me” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson)
Note: Another section of the program included song titles that weren’t part
of the above list; these were apparently heard in the musical, and like
the list above singers weren’t identified: “Baby Love” (lyric and music
by Brian Holland, Edward Holland Jr., and Lamont Herbert Dozier);
“Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” (lyric and music by
Marvin P. Gaye and James Nyx); “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow
Polka Dot Bikini” (lyric and music by Lee J. Pockriss and Paul Vance);
“Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield
and Barrett Strong); “Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where
You’re Going To)” (1975 film Mahogony; lyric and music by Gerry
Goffin and Michael Masser); “You Can’t Hurry Love” (lyric and music
by Edward Holland Jr., Brian Holland, and Lamont Herbert Dozier)
Motown was based on the memoirs of Berry Gordy, who founded

Motown Records, the company that spawned dozens of popular singers and
singing groups as well as an avalanche of hit songs, many of them
popularized by Diana Ross and the Supremes, a group whose sound in
many ways defined pop music of the 1960s.
Of course, Broadway had already seen a musical about Motown and
The Supremes, but in Dreamgirls (1981) the names were changed and the
girl group was known as The Dreams.
In the musical, Gordy (Brandon Victor Dixon) looks back on his life
and times and reminisces about the rise of Motown and the stars he created,
including his romantic relationship with Diana Ross (Valisia LeKae). The
musical began and ended in 1983, when a television special about Motown
is in the offing and Gordy wonders whether or not he should take part. He’s
embroiled in lawsuits and is bitter because many of his discoveries have left
Motown for other record companies.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “dramatically
slapdash” but “musically vibrant” show boasted a “blazing cast of gifted
singers” who impersonated a “crowded pantheon of pop-chart immortals.”
But the jukebox musical was “mechanically” directed, Gordy was depicted
as “a heroic figure bordering on saintly,” and most of the songs were
performed in short versions. Most of the numbers were given in
presentational concert-style format by actors impersonating the original
stars, and a few songs were “shoehorned awkwardly” into the plot as book
songs. The critics pounced on a scene where Gordy and Ross are seen in
bed after a failed love-making attempt on his part, and Ross suddenly sings
“I Hear a Symphony,” a moment Isherwood decided was a “parody of a
Viagra commercial.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said “the less said about the acting the better,”
and noted that Ross “could sue for defamation for Valisia LeKae’s grisly
rendering of her.” As for Dixon, he could take a “bow” but shouldn’t
“overdo” said bow. Otherwise, it didn’t “seem fair to condemn good singers
for being lousy actors.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News
found the book “sketchy, earnest and sometimes corny,” and noted that
“drama” was missing because the musical was about “imitation” instead of
“illumination.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said the direction was
“rushed,” there were “way too many” songs, and some scenes (such as the
non-love-making scene) were “laughably bad.” The concert sequences were
the “best” part of the evening, and “the music still sometimes thrills (when
the numbers are not squelched and squashed).”
Jesse Green in New York said Motown was the “worst” jukebox musical
he’d ever seen, but one with the “best” songs he’d “ever encountered.” The
“skeletal” book had “all the finesse of nightclub patter,” and the
production’s “and-then-I-wrote monotony” even used reporters and
announcers who “might as well be traffic signs.” David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter said the show had “crude musical-theatre
craftsmanship,” but most audiences would “joyfully surrender to the non-
stop blitz of hits, even if diehard fans might have issues with some glaring
omissions.”
The musical was reportedly capitalized at $18 million and recouped its
investment. The first national tour played more than two years, and its final
booking was to be an eighteen-week return engagement on Broadway
beginning in July 2016; but the engagement lasted just three weeks (see
entry). A second national tour opened in January 2017 and played for eight
months, and the London production opened on February 11, 2016, at the
Shaftesbury Theatre and almost doubled the New York run with more than
1,300 performances.
The Broadway cast album was released by Motown Records.
Awards
Role in a Musical (Valisia LeKae); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Charl Brown); Best Orchestrations (Bryan
Crook and Ethan Popp); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Peter
Hylenski)
THE RASCALS: ONCE UPON A DREAM

Performances: 14
Dialogue: Steven Van Zandt
Lyrics and Music: Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati
Direction: Steven Van Zandt; Producers: Steven Van Zandt, Maureen Van
Zandt, Marc Brickman, Larry Magid, and Base Entertainment; Scott
Prisano, Michael Speyer, and Billy Rapaport, Associate Producers;
Scenery: Marc Brickman; Costumes: Lori Santoro and Darryl
DeAngelo; Lighting: Anthony Fransen; Musical Direction: Mark
Prentice
Live Cast: The Rascals—Felix Cavaliere (Keyboard, Vocals), Eddie Brigati
(Vocals), Dino Danelli (Drums), Gene Cornish (Guitar); Backing Band:
Mark Alexander (Keyboard), Mark Prentice (Bass, Music Director);
Singers: Sharon Bryant, Angela Clemmons, and Dennis Collins
Film Cast: Vinny Pastore (Narrator, Fat Frankie), Alexander Neil Miller
(Felix), Peter Evangelista (Eddie), Ryan Boudreau (Dino), Brandon
Wood (Gene), Maureen Van Zandt (Pam Sawyer), Crystal Arnette (Lori
Burton), Penny Bittone (Arif Mardin), Allen Enlow (Tom Dowd),
Annie Chang (Ruby), Chase Longordo (Young Eddie), Sean Martin
(Young Billy), Isabella Carter (Young Flower Child), Gabrielle Lund
Blom (Teenage Flower Child)
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers, but referenced
twenty-eight songs, of which only two were mentioned by name, “Once
Upon a Dream” (sung by Sofie Zamchick, who otherwise wasn’t
identified in the program) and “A Girl Like You.”
The following list of songs heard in the production is taken from various
newspaper and magazine reviews: “Carry Me Back,” “Find Somebody,”
“Good Lovin’”, “Groovin’”, “How Can I Be Sure,” “I Ain’t Gonna Eat
Out My Heart Anymore,” “If You Knew,” “It’s a Beautiful Morning,”
“It’s Wonderful,” “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long.” “Mickey’s Monkey,”
“People Got to Be Free,” “Slow Down,” “Sueno,” “Too Many Fish in
the Sea,” “Turn on Your Love Light,” “What Is the Reason,” and “You
Better Run.”
The Rascals (originally known as The Young Rascals) were a 1960s

New Jersey rock group, and the current concert marked a reunion for these
Jersey Boys. The evening was a collection of songs and reminiscences as
well as film and animated sequences, and a program note stated the
production would look at the 1960s, including the “idealism of the summer
of love” to “the end of the decade’s winter of discontent.” For the film
sequences, performers reenacted events that the on-stage-live-and-in-person
Rascals discussed, and Vinny Pastore served as the onscreen narrator.
The New Yorker said “the whole spectacle is indulgent, overlong,
touching, and as Jersey as it gets.” Jim Farber in the New York Daily News
said the music “never sounded better,” but the dialogue never missed “a
’60s cliché” and the “Frankenstein-like mishmash” included videos of the
Rascals “talking today about the old days” along with “scrapbook-style
footage” of their heyday (there were also “wooden reenactments” by young
performers “in terrible wigs”). The band’s “nasty” breakup in 1970 was
covered by “an explanation tacked onto the end so laughably vague” that it
seemed to have been “drafted by lawyers.”
Steve Bloom in the Hollywood Reporter said the “good concert” was “a
poor theatrical production.” The four singers offered “numerous” reasons
for their breakup, but the audience learned “little about what really
happened,” and perhaps using the four “to spin their story prevents an
honest telling of it.” Further, the “book” was “sloppy, wanders, loses
chronology and makes the guys appear less intelligent than they most likely
are.” Glenn Gamboa in Newsday decided that either a straightforward
Rascals’ concert reunion or a musical about them would have been “great.”
Otherwise, the current production offered many “pretty good” pieces, but
there were “just too many” pieces and they didn’t “always fit together.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the Rascals sang their old hits “with
the playful zeal of children rediscovering a favorite old toy,” but noted a
film sequence found one actor reassessing “rather melodramatically” the
group’s dissolution with the words “we were innocent.” David Brown in
Rolling Stone noted that “structurally” the evening was “a bit of
Frankenstein production,” but “what could have been a mess mutates into
an entertaining and fairly seamless show.”
Note that the Rascals’ song “Groovin’” had been heard earlier in the
season in Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
JEKYLL & HYDE

Performances: 30
Book and Lyrics: Leslie Bricusse
Based on the 1886 novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Direction and Choreography: Jeff Calhoun (Richard J. Hinds, Associate
Director and Choreographer); Producers: Nederlander Presentations,
Inc., Independent Presenters Network, Chunsoo Shin, Luigi Caiola, and
Stewart F. Lane/Bonnie Comley; Scenery and Costumes: Tobin Ost;
Projection Design: Daniel Brodie; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical
Direction: Steven Landau
Cast: Constantine Maroulis (Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde), Deborah Cox
(Lucy Harris), Teal Wicks (Emma Carew), Richard White (Sir Danvers
Carew), Laird Mackintosh (John Utterson), David Benoit (The Bishop
of Basingstoke, Spider), Blair Ross (Lady Beaconsfield), Jason Wooten
(Simon Stride), Brian Gallagher (Lord Savage), Mel Johnson Jr. (Sir
Archibald Proops, Q.C.), Aaron Ramey (General Lord Glossop), Dana
Costello (Nellie), James Judy (Jekyll’s Father, Poole), Jerry Christakos
(Bisset, Minister); People of London: Jerry Christakos, Dana Costello,
Wendy Cox, Brian Gallagher, Sean Jenness, Mel Johnson Jr., James
Judy, Ashley Loren, Courtney Markowitz, Aaron Ramey, Emmy Raver-
Lampman, Blair Ross, Doug Storm, Jason Wooten
The action takes place in London during the latter part of the nineteenth
century.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = lyrics by Steven Cuden, Leslie Bricusse, and Frank Wildhorn
and music by Frank Wildhorn.
Act One: “Lost in the Darkness” (Constantine Maroulis); “I Need to
Know” (Constantine Maroulis); “Façade” (Company); “Board of
Governors” (*) (Constantine Maroulis, Richard White, David Benoit,
Company); “Pursue the Truth” and “Façade” (reprise) (Constantine
Maroulis, Laird Mackintosh, Company); “Take Me as I Am”
(Constantine Maroulis, Teal Wicks); “Letting Go” (Richard White, Teal
Wicks); “Bring on the Men” (Deborah Cox, Company); “This Is the
Moment” (Constantine Maroulis); “Transformation” (*) (Constantine
Maroulis); “Alive!” (*) (Constantine Maroulis); “His Work—And
Nothing More” (*) (Laird Mackintosh, Teal Wicks, Richard White,
Constantine Maroulis); “Sympathy, Tenderness” (Deborah Cox);
“Someone Like You” (Deborah Cox); “Alive!” (reprise) (Constantine
Maroulis)
Act Two: “Murder” (*) (Company); “Once upon a Dream” (*) (Teal
Wicks); “Reflections” (Constantine Maroulis); “In His Eyes” (Deborah
Cox, Teal Wicks); “Dangerous Game” (Constantine Maroulis, Deborah
Cox); “The Way Back” (Laird Mackintosh, Constantine Maroulis); “A
New Life” (Deborah Cox); “Sympathy, Tenderness” (reprise)
(Constantine Maroulis); “Confrontation” (Constantine Maroulis);
“Letting Go” (reprise) (Richard White, Teal Wicks); “The Wedding”
(Constantine Maroulis, Teal Wicks)
The revival of Jekyll & Hyde was a revised version that according to
Theatre World had “a more contemporary rock score.” This presentation
(with book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and music by Frank Wildhorn, and
now with additional lyric credits) had opened on September 8, 2012, at La
Mirada (California) Theatre for the Performing Arts, toured for
approximately six months, and closed out the tour on Broadway with a
“strictly limited engagement” set to play through June 30, 2013. But the
visit was cut short by some six weeks, and the presentation gave its final
New York performance on May 12 for a total of thirty performances.
The original production had opened at the Plymouth Theatre on April
28, 1997, for 1,543 showings. The reviews were mixed, but the show
managed to be nominated for four Tony Awards, none of which it won.
Michael Riedel in the New York Post reported that despite the run of almost
four years, the production closed at a loss and managed to return just 75
percent of its initial capitalization of $7.2 million.
The musical was first presented at Alley Theatre’s Large Theatre in
Houston on May 24, 1990, with Chuck Wagner (in the title roles), Linda
Eder (Lucy), Rebecca Spencer (Emma, here named Lisa), and Edmund
Lyndeck (Sir Danvers Carew). The show returned to Houston on January
20, 1995, at the Music Hall in a co-production by the Alley Theatre and
Theatre Under the Stars with Robert Cuccioli (Jekyll and Hyde), Linda
Eder (Lucy), and Christiane Noll (Emma). The run was followed by an
engagement at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre on February 28, 1995, and then
the show toured nationally during the 1995–1996 season. When the musical
opened on Broadway, Cuccioli, Eder, and Noll were the leads. Prior to the
New York production, two concept albums of the score were released, and
Ben Brantley in the New York Times reported that both recordings had sold
a total of 250,000 copies before the Broadway premiere.
The story was of course based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, although you may not have
known that from the program, which failed to mention Stevenson’s name.
The musical was set in Victorian London (maybe that’s why the revival
needed “a more contemporary rock score”) and followed the story of Dr.
Jekyll (Constantine Maroulis for the return engagement) who Tempts Fate
and Goes Against Nature when he tries to isolate the elements of good and
evil in human beings. Soon things go Horribly Wrong, and the good doctor
becomes bad-man Hyde who embarks on a murderous rampage that would
have done Sweeney Todd proud. The two women in the hero/villain’s lives
mirror his dual natures, the demure and innocent Emma (Teal Wicks) and
the cynical prostitute Lucy (Deborah Cox). Guess which one escapes a
Cruel Fate and which one Gets Hers. But the evening’s lesson was a good
one: Some things should best be Left Alone because it isn’t wise to tamper
with Mother Nature.
In its review of the current engagement, the New Yorker said Maroulis
was a former American Idol finalist who was here presented as “a heavy-
metal monster with good pipes.” Otherwise, there was “about as much good
in this overly loud, luridly hysterical show as there is in Hyde—that is,
none.” Charles Isherwood in the Times decided Wildhorn’s musicals were
“the crab grass of Broadway,” and the composer’s frequent visits to New
York were either “a staggering achievement—or a virulent outbreak,
depending on your taste” (six of Wildhorn’s musicals had premiered on
Broadway within fifteen years: following the original production of Jekyll
& Hyde in 1997, there were The Scarlet Pimpernel, also 1997; The Civil
War, 1999; Dracula, 2004; Wonderland; and Bonnie & Clyde, not to
mention additional songs for Victor/Victoria in 1995).
As for the “Confrontation” scene between Jekyll and Hyde, in the
original production Cuccioli sang the number as a one-man duet and
“became” the two men by means of tossing his ample head of hair around
in order to delineate between the two personas (in his review of the original
production, Ben Brantley in the Times wondered if there was a Tony Award
category for “best use of a head of hair”). But Isherwood reported the
confrontation was now sung by Maroulis, live and onstage as Jekyll, while
on video as Hyde, Maroulis was seen as a prerecorded “flame-haloed,
glowering devil in a giant mirror.”
As mentioned, there were two concept recordings of the score. The first
was released by RCA Victor in 1990 with Colm Wilkinson and Linda Eder,
and included nine songs not heard in the first Broadway production, and the
second (subtitled “The Gothic Musical Thriller” and with the notation that it
was “The Complete Work”) was issued on a two-CD set by Atlantic
Records with eighteen songs not used in the original Broadway production.
The 1997 Broadway cast recording was issued by Atlantic, and there are
numerous foreign recordings of the score, including cast albums from
productions in Japan, Spain, Hungary, and Austria. During the original
Broadway run, David Hasselhoff played the title roles, and a performance
was taped for television and eventual DVD release by Image Entertainment.
In 2012, there was yet another concept recording, this one released by
Broadway Records, and one suspects that a complete rendering of every
song ever written for the musical would require a minimum of three CDs.
Not counting the different versions of Wildhorn’s adaptation, there have
been at least eight other musical looks at Stevenson’s novel. The 1968
regional musical After You, Mr. Hyde (book by Leonora aka Lee Thuna,
lyrics by Mel Mandel, and music by Norman Sachs) starred Alfred Drake in
the roles of Jekyll and Hyde, and in 1973 the musical was adapted for
television by Sherman Yellen as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and included
songs from After You, Mr. Hyde as well as new ones by Lionel Bart. The
production was filmed in London and telecast by NBC on March 7, 1973,
with Kirk Douglas in the title roles (others in the cast were Susan
Hampshire, Michael Redgrave, Donald Pleasence, and Stanley Holloway).
Rino in Variety said the telecast offered “dreary tunes” and “straight
unrelieved boredom.” In 1990, Sachs and Mandel revised After You, Mr.
Hyde as Jekyll and Hyde, and the new version was produced at the George
Street Theatre (New Brunswick, New Jersey) with John Cullum in the title
roles.
In the mid-1980s, a German production titled Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(book by Rudiger Rudolph and Clemens Cochius and music by Cochius)
appears to have been presented in English (the program’s song list is in
English and includes English lyrics for three of the musical’s twenty-eight
numbers).
In 1990, Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company offered a
version of the story (and two songs from the musical, “You’ve Changed”
and “Eddie’s Swing,” were recorded for DRG Records’ CD collection The
Ridiculous Theatrical Company: The 25th Anniversary). On June 25, 1990,
a one-hour Off-Off-Broadway version for young people was presented as
free summer-theatre entertainment at the Promenade Theatre for forty-five
performances (the book and lyrics were by David Krane and Marta
Kaufman, the music by Michael Skloff, and the story was set in present-day
Cleveland). Another Off-Off-Broadway adaptation titled Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde with book and lyrics by Brandon Long and music by Roger Butterley
played for fourteen performances in 1995, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(book and lyrics by David Levy and Leslie Eberhard, music by Phil Hall)
was presented at Paper Mill Playhouse (Millburn, New Jersey) on
November 4, 1998, and offered two leads in the title roles with Richard
White as Jekyll and Marc Kudisch as Hyde (note that White appeared in the
current production of Jekyll & Hyde as Sir Danvers Carew).
PIPPIN
“BROADWAY’S MUSICAL COMEDY SENSATION”

Performances: 709
Book: Roger O. Hirson
Lyrics and Music: Stephen Schwartz
Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler, Howard and Janet Kagan, Lisa
Martin, Kyodo Tokyo, A & A Gordon/Brunish Trinchero, Tom
Smedes/Peter Stern, Broadway Across America, Independent Presenters
Network, Norton Herrick, Allen Spivak, Rebecca Gold, Joshua
Goodman, Stephen E. McManus, David Robbins/Bryan S. Weingarten,
Philip Hagemann/Murray Rosenthal, Jim Kierstead/Carlos Arana/Myla
Lerner, Hugh Hayes/Jamie Cesa/Jonathan Reinis, Sharon A.
Carr/Patricia R. Klausner, Ben Feldman, Square 1 Theatrics, Wendy
Federman/Carl Moellenberg, Bruce Robert Harris/Jack W. Batman,
Infinity Theatre Company/Michael Rubenstein, Michael A. Alden/Dale
Badway/Ken Mahoney; An American Repertory Theatre Production;
James L. Simon, Associate Producer; Alecia Parker, Executive
Producer; Choreography: Chet Walker (“in the style of Bob Fosse”)
(Brad Musgrove, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Scott Pask;
Costumes: Dominique Lemieux; Circus Creation: Gypsy Snider;
Illusions: Paul Kieve; Fire Effects: Chic Silber; Flying Effects: ZFX,
Inc.; Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Charlie Alterman
Cast: Patina Miller (Leading Player), Charlotte d’Amboise (Fastrada),
Andrea Martin (Berthe), Erik Altemus (Lewis), Terrence Mann
(Charles), Matthew James Thomas (Pippin), Rachel Bay Jones
(Catherine), Andrew Cekala and Ashton Woerz (alternating in the role
of Theo); The Players: Gregory Arsenal, Lolita Costet, Colin Cunliffe,
Andrew Fitch, Orion Griffiths, Viktoria Grimmy, Olga Karmansky,
Bethany Moore, Stephanie Pope, Philip Rosenberg, Yannick Thomas,
Molly Tynes, Anthony Wayne
The action takes place during 780 AD (“and thereabouts”) in the Holy
Roman Empire (“and thereabouts”).
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Magic to Do” (The Players); “Corner of the Sky” (Matthew
James Thomas); “War Is a Science” (Terrence Mann, The Players);
“Glory” (sequence includes the dance “The Manson Trio,”
choreography by Bob Fosse) (Patina Miller, The Players); “Simple
Joys” (Patina Miller, The Players); “No Time at All” (Andrea Martin,
The Players); “With You” (Matthew James Thomas, The Players);
“Spread a Little Sunshine” (Charlotte d’Amboise); “Morning Glow”
(Matthew James Thomas, The Players)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “On the Right Track” (Patina Miller,
Matthew James Thomas); “Kind of Woman” (Rachel Bay Jones);
“Extraordinary” (Matthew James Thomas, The Players); “The Duck
Song” (aka “Prayer for a Duck”) (Matthew James Thomas, Andrew
Cekala or Ashton Woerz, Rachel Bay Jones); “Love Song” (Matthew
James Thomas, Rachel Bay Jones); “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man” (Rachel
Bay Jones); Finale (“Think about Your Life, Pippin”) (Patina Miller,
Matthew James Thomas, The Players)
The revival of Pippin ran nineteen months and won four Tony Awards,
including Best Revival of a Musical. The original production opened on
October 23, 1972, at the Imperial Theatre, ran 1,944 performances, and won
five Tony Awards, including two for Bob Fosse (Best Direction and Best
Choreography). As the Leading Player, Ben Vereen won for Best Leading
Actor in a Musical, and for the same role in the revival Patina Miller won
for Best Leading Actress. Fosse used elements of magic shows and the
circus to create the world of little-boy-lost Pippin (John Rubinstein in the
original/Matthew James Thomas in the revival), and for the revival director
Diane Paulus extended Fosse’s concept by transforming the entire musical
into a colorful circus with illusions, fire, and flying effects.
Fosse’s production was one of the most stylish of its era. The plot was
the old story of a young man trying to find himself, and in fact Pippin was
the third of three musicals to open in October 1972 about the subject (but at
sixteen and two respective performances, Dude and Hurry, Harry didn’t
fare so well). Fosse jazzed up the familiar story into a sleek package that
almost curdled with sneering irony, and by the finale our hero comes to the
realization that he’s not special and extraordinary and his destiny is to settle
down and lead an average, everyday life with the widow Catherine (Jill
Clayburgh/Rachel Bay Jones) and her little boy.
Fosse’s staging turned the evening into a series of stunning set pieces,
and his vision was supported by Roger O. Hirson’s unappreciated revue-like
book which provided the framework for Fosse’s show-stopping dances and
musical staging. Stephen Schwartz’s songs were melodic and old-fashioned
with just the right touch of the tongue-in-cheek. The highlights were the
insinuating opening number, “Magic to Do” (which described the evening
as an “anecdotic revue”); the old-time sing-along “No Time at All,” for
Pippin’s grandmother Berthe (Irene Ryan/Andrea Martin); the sincerely
insincere “Spread a Little Sunshine” for Pippin’s wicked step-mother (and
Gwen Verdon-lookalike) Fastrada (Leland Palmer/Charlotte d’Amboise),
who plots to have her son Lewis (Christopher Chadman/Erik Altemus)
inherit the throne; the irresistible vamp of “The Manson Trio” (a dance that
was part of the “Glory” sequence); and the expansive finale with the
“guardians of splendor” (“Think about Your Life, Pippin”).
Fosse’s show began with a thrilling visual effect. The smoky, pitch-
black bare stage suddenly revealed pairs of sinuously moving hands clad in
white gloves, and soon the lights came up and the Leading Player and
company went into the serpentine wails of “Magic to Do,” a glorious
opening number that, like Stephen Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight” in A
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, introduced the cast of
characters and provided a précis of the story to come. The brilliant sequence
ended in a splendid bit of stage magic in which the Leading Player holds a
small piece of red scarf in his hand. The scarf suddenly vanishes, only to
materialize on another part of the stage, and when the Leading Player pulls
it from the floor it becomes larger and larger as (per the published script) it
“magically and majestically” sweeps the full length and height of the stage
and provides the skeletal framework of Charlemagne’s palace.
And there were more tricks up Fosse’s sleeve. “No Time at All”
morphed into an audience sing-along replete with a giant-sized medieval
song sheet and a bouncing ball of light. Tony Walton’s stained-glass decor
revealed spooky moving eyes that spied on the action when court intrigues
were afoot. Leland Palmer’s sexy and slinky Fastrada and her “Spread a
Little Sunshine” was a startling homage to Gwen Verdon in both her looks
and voice, as well as her bump-and-grind dance movements (but Fastrada
makes it clear to the audience that she’s “just an ordinary housewife and
mother, just like all you housewives and mothers out there”). The “Glory”
sequence juxtaposed a deathscape where soldiers die in bloody combat (and
give new meaning to the term talking heads) and the limbo world of “The
Manson Trio,” a wordless, orgiastic ragtime vamp for the Leading Player
and two soldiers (the trio wasn’t specifically listed in the original
production’s program and cast album, although its music is part of the
“Glory” episode). And when one scene was about to end, Catherine asks the
theatre’s electricians to keep her in the spotlight because she wants to sing
another number (“I Guess I’ll Miss the Man”). Because the song was
supposedly impromptu and not part of the script, it wasn’t listed in the
program (or in the revival’s program).
The original production made theatre marketing history because it was
the first to explore the possibilities of television advertisements. All the ad
had to do was show a brief clip of “The Manson Trio” and customers
stampeded to the box office.
In its first advertisements, the show was known as The Adventures of
Pippin, and during the 1972 Washington, D.C., tryout two songs were cut,
“Marking Time” for Pippin and “Just Between the Two of Us” for Pippin
and Catherine. The music for “The Manson Trio” had originally been part
of the unused song “The Goodtime Ladies’ Rag,” and was later recorded by
Ben Vereen for his album Here I Am, which was released by Accord
Records.
An early draft of the musical was in two acts and included an extended
second-act opening where Pippin spends time in a monastery more
interested in making money than praising God. The monastery’s abbot
states there’s an order on his desk for four hundred miraculous medals that
must be filled by Thursday, and Pippin remarks that God isn’t dead, He’s in
business (the sequence included the song “Sing Hallelujah”).
The script was published in hardback by Drama Book Specialists in
1975, and the original cast album was issued by Motown Records. The later
CD edition released by Decca Broadway includes bonus tracks of “I Guess
I’ll Miss the Man” (sung by The Supremes), “Corner of the Sky” (The
Jackson 5), and “Morning Glow” (Michael Jackson). The Mexico City cast
album was released by Discos Gas Records, and a Los Angeles Harbor
College production was recorded by Audio Engineering Associates. The
Varese-Sarabande collection Lost in Boston IV includes “Marking Time”
(sung by Michael Rupert, who succeeded Rubinstein during the Broadway
run and also played the role for the national tour).
The musical was filmed for Canadian television and was later aired on
U.S. cable stations, and the DVD was released by VCI Video; the company
includes original cast members Vereen and Chadman, and others in the
production are William Katt (Pippin), Chita Rivera (Fastrada), and Martha
Raye (Berthe).
The London production opened on October 30, 1973, at Her Majesty’s
Theatre for eighty-five performances; the cast included Paul Jones (Pippin),
Northern J. Callaway (Leading Player), Diane Langton (Fastrada), and
Elisabeth Welch (Berthe).
As noted, Paulus took Fosse’s circus and magic concept and expanded it
to encompass the entire musical, which was now presented in two acts. The
New Yorker said the “outstanding” production was a marriage of Soul Train
and the Cirque du Soleil, and the musical sequences erupted “into daredevil
acrobatics, which only heighten the show’s joy and menace.” The “demonic
big top” was “presided over” by Patina Miller’s “sinister” Leading Player,
who according to Ben Brantley in the New York Times was “a pretty cold
customer, deeply proficient and as hard and shiny as Lucite” having a smile
“more confrontational than invitational.” Otherwise, the “99-pound
musical” at the center of the “muscle-bound circus” was there, and you
could “just sit back and let this exhaustingly energetic team work you over
until you’re either all tingly or all numb.”
Frank Rizzo in Variety reviewed the revival when it opened at the
American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, Massachusetts) on December 5,
2012. He said the evening was “part pageant, part caravan show and part
one-ring circus,” and the circus elements were “elegantly integrated” into
the musical by Gypsy Snider, the cofounder of Montreal’s circus troupe Les
7 Doigts de la Main (Seven Fingers). Paulus brought “razzle-dazzle”
direction to the production, and Schwarz’s score was “rich and tuneful.” Per
the program, Chet Walker’s choreography was “in the style of Bob Fosse,”
and his dances had “slink and sensuality” (but Rizzo noted that the white-
gloved hands of the opening were no longer part of the staging).
The revival omitted the song “Welcome Home.” During the run, John
Rubinstein (Broadway’s first Pippin) joined the production when he
succeeded Terrence Mann in the role of Charlemagne (here known as
Charles).
The revival’s cast album was released by Ghostlight Records, and
includes bonus sing-a-long tracks of four songs from the score.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Pippin); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Patina
Miller); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Terrence Mann); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Andrea Martin); Best Choreography (Chet Walker); Best
Direction of a Musical (Diane Paulus); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (Scott Pask); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Dominique
Lemieux); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Kenneth Posner); Best
Sound Design of a Musical (Jonathan Deans and Garth Helm)
ROMAN HOLIDAY (2012)

Roman Holiday played at the Guthrie Theatre’s McGuire Proscenium Stage
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the period June 9–August 19, 2012.
As of this writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway. (See
entry for a later 2017 version of this adaptation.)
Book: Paul Blake
Based on the 1953 Paramount film Roman Holiday (direction by William
Wyler and screenplay by John Dighton and Ian McLellan Hunter).
Direction: John Miller-Stephany (Brian Sostek, Assistant Director);
Producer: The Guthrie Theatre (Joe Dowling, Director); Choreography:
Alex Sanchez (Lainie Sakaruka, Associate Choreographer); Scenery:
Todd Rosenthal; Projection Designs: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes:
Mathew J. LeFebvre; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction:
Andrew Cooke
Cast: Christina Baldwin (Francesca Scabulo), Michelle Barber (Countess),
Stephanie Rothenberg (Princess Anne), Jim Stanek (Irving Radovich),
Edward Watts (Joe Bradley); Ensemble: David Anders, Matt Baker,
Liam Benzvi, Joseph Bigelow, David Anthony Brinkley, David Colacci,
Drew Franklin, Gabriela Garcia, Michael Gruber, Linda Talcott Lee,
Ann Michels, Jared Oxborough, Aaron Lloyd Pomeroy, Laura Rudolph,
Lainie Sakakura, John Skelley, Alan Sorenson, Peter Thomson, Angela
Timberman, Tony Vierling, Alexandra Zorn; Customers, Dignitaries,
Footmen, and Citizens of Rome: Emanuel Ardeleanu, Misty Brehmer,
James Ehlenz, Adam Moen, Lucy Rahn
The action takes place in Rome in 1953.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Once Upon a Time” (intended for the
unproduced 1933–1934 musical Ever Yours) (Stephanie Rothenberg);
“I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight” (Panama Hattie, 1940) (Edward Watts,
Ensemble); “Experiment” (Nymph Errant, 1933 [London]) (Michelle
Barber, Stephanie Rothenberg); “Why Shouldn’t I?” (Jubilee, 1935)
(Stephanie Rothenberg); “You Do Something to Me” (Fifty Million
Frenchmen, 1929) (Edward Watts, Ensemble); “Let’s Be Buddies”
(Panama Hattie, 1940) (Edward Watts, Stephanie Rothenberg); “Look
What I Found” (Around the World, 1946) (Edward Watts, Stephanie
Rothenberg, Ensemble); “Wouldn’t It Be Fun?” (1958 television
musical Aladdin) (Jim Stanek, Stephanie Rothenberg, Edward Watts);
“Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love” (Leave It to Me!, 1938) (Christina
Baldwin, Stephanie Rothenberg); “Ridin’ High” (Red, Hot, and Blue,
1936) (Edward Watts, Stephanie Rothenberg, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “A Picture of Me without You” (Jubilee,
1935) (Edward Watts, Stephanie Rothenberg, Jim Stanek); “Use Your
Imagination” (Out of This World, 1950) (Stephanie Rothenberg, Edward
Watts); “Just One of Those Things” (Jubilee, 1935) (Christina Baldwin,
Male Quartet); “Easy to Love” (1936 film Born to Dance) (Edward
Watts); “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” (Seven Lively Arts, 1944)
(Stephanie Rothenberg, Edward Watts); “I Sleep Easier Now” (Out of
This World, 1950) (Michelle Barber); “Night and Day” (Gay Divorce,
1932) (Edward Watts); “Experiment” (reprise) (Stephanie Rothenberg)
A stage musical adaptation of the hit 1953 film Roman Holiday had first
been presented at the Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis (aka The
MUNY) in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 9, 2001, with Catherine Brunell
(Princess), Jeff McCarthy (Joe), Priscilla Lopez (Francesca), Jim Walton
(Irving), and Karen Morrow (Countess).
Eleven years later, a new version of the material opened at the Guthrie
Theatre in Minneapolis. The musical borrowed songs from Cole Porter’s
catalog, and in typical jukebox musical fashion the songs were shoehorned
into the story in order to support the specific plot, characters, and
atmosphere of Roman Holiday, something these numbers were never
intended to do because of course Porter had written the songs for other
stage and film musicals.
Five years after the Minneapolis run, the musical emerged in a revised
production that played in San Francisco in 2017 (see entry).
The popular film version always seemed hugely overrated, a sort of
1950s riff on the venerable operetta plots of earlier decades in which royalty
and commoner meet, fall in love, and then part in bittersweet fashion
because Royal Duty Calls. The film never seemed to quite find its tone, and
was a disappointing mix of would-be mad-cap caper, would-be drama, and
would-be comedy, and apparently all the attempts to bring the movie to the
lyric stage resulted in a would-be musical.
2013–2014 Season
FOREVER TANGO

Performances: 73
Direction: Luis Bravo (Marcela Durán, Assistant Director); Producers: Luis
Bravo Productions and Jujamcyn Theatres; Christine L. Barkley/CBA,
Associate Producer; Red Awning, Executive Producer; Choreography:
The dancers created their own choreography; Scenery: Uncredited;
Costumes: Argemira Affonson; Lighting: Uncredited; Musical
Direction: Victor Lavallen
Cast: Gilberto Santa Rosa, and Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy
(Special Guest Stars); Dancers: Victoria Galoto and Juan Paulo
Horvath, Marcela Durán and Gaspar Godoy, “Zumo” Leguizamón and
Belén Bartolomé, Florencia Blanco and Hernán Lazart, Natalia Turelli
and Ariel Manzanares, Diego Ortego and Aldana Silveyra, Sebastian
Ripoll and Mariana Bojanich, Soledad Buss and César Peral; Orchestra:
Bandoneons—Victor Lavellén, Carlos Niesi, Jorge Trivisonno, and
Eduardo Miceli; Violin—Leonardo Ferreyra and Jose Luis Marina;
Viola—Washington Wiliman; Cello—Luis Bravo; Bass—Héctor
Pineda; Keyboard—Maurizio Najt; Piano—Jorge Vernieri
The dance program was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Preludio del bandoneon y la noche: (Victoria Galoto and Juan
Paulo Horvath); Overture (Orchestra); “El suburbio” (Company—
Victoria Galoto and Gilberto Santa Rosa, Natalia Turelli and Ariel
Manzanares, “Zumo” Leguizamón and Belén Bartolomé, Mariana
Bojanich and Juan Paulo Horvath, Hernán Lazart and Florencia Blanco,
Aldana Silveyra and Diego Ortega); “A los amigos” (Orchestra);
“Derecho viejo” (“Zumo” Leguizamón and Belén Bartolomé); “Garua”
(Gilberto Santa Rosa); “La Mariposa” (Sebastian Ripoll and Mariana
Bojanich); “Comme il faut” (choreography by Juan Paulo Horvath and
Victoria Galoto) (Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy); “La
Beba” (Hernán Lazart and Florencia Blanco); “Zum” (Diego Ortega and
Aldana Silveyra); “La Tablada” (Natalia Turelli and Ariel Manzanares);
“Si te dijeron” (Gilberto Santa Rosa); “Responso” (Orchestra); “Oro y
plata” (Candombe Dance—Gilberto Santa Rosa, Karina Smirnoff and
Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Natalia Turelli and Ariel Manzanares, “Zumo”
Leguizamón and Belén Bartolomé, Mariana Bojanich and Juan Paulo
Horvath, Aldana Silveyra and Diego Ortega)
Act Two: “Que Alguien Me Diga” (choreography by Juan Paulo Horvath
and Victoria Galoto, and by “Zumo” Leguizamón, Belén Bartolomé)
(Gilberto Santa Rosa and Company); “Tanguera” (Soledad Buss and
César Peral); “Quejas de bandoneon” (Sebastian Ripoll and Mariana
Bojanich); “El día que me queiras” (Gilberto Santa Rosa); “La
cumparsita” (Hernán Lazart and Florencia Blanco, “Zumo” Leguizamón
and Belén Bartolomé, Sebastian Ripoll and Mariana Bojanich);
“Romance entre el dolor y mi alma” (Double Concerto for Cello,
Bandoneon, and Orchestra by Lisandro Adrover) (choreography by Juan
Paulo and Victoria Galoto) (Karina Smirnoff and Maksim
Chmerkovskiy); “Jealousy” (Orchestra; Soloist: Leonardo Ferreyra);
“Preparemse” (Diego Ortega and Aldana Silveyra); “Felicia” (Natalia
Turelli and Ariel Manzanares); “La Conciencia” (Gilberto Santa Rosa);
“Preludio a mi viejo” (Orchestra); “A mis viegos” (Gaspar Godoy and
Marcela Duran); “Soledad” (Soledad Buss and César Peral);
“Vampitango” (“Zumo” Leguizamón and Belén Bartolomé); “Romance
del bandoneon y la noche” (Victoria Galoto and Juan Paulo Horvath);
Finale (Company); Encore (Gilberto Santa Rosa and Karina Smirnoff,
Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Company)
The limited engagement of Forever Tango marked its third Broadway

visit, and the company included three guest stars, the Puerto Rican singer
Gilberto Santa Rosa and the Ukrainian-born dancers Karina Smirnoff and
Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who had recently appeared on ABC’s Dancing with
the Stars.
Forever Tango was created in 1989 by the Argentine musician Luis
Bravo, was first given on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on June 19,
1997, for 453 performances, and was followed by a second engagement at
the Shubert Theatre on July 24, 2004, for 114 showings. The 1997 cast
album was released by RCA Victor/BMG Records; the cast album of
another (possibly Los Angeles) production was issued on a two-CD set
(company unknown); and a 2008 revival at Argentina’s Teatro Coliseo
Podesta in La Plata was recorded live and was released on both CD and
DVD by DPTV Media. The current production played at the dance revue’s
original Broadway home, the Walter Kerr Theatre.
Alastair Macaulay in the New York Times noted that Santa Rosa sang
with “unlovely tone but immaculate diction,” and Smirnoff and
Chmerkovskiy were “among the show’s least stylish tango executants” but
may well have been the evening’s “freest spirits.” The ensemble of six
couples provided the “best” dancing, but were forced to embody “the
show’s notion that tango couples are dressed to kill and take no joy in each
other.” Ultimately, the “foolish” production belittled its music, turned the
tango into “mere formula,” and revealed that its “real heart” was in
costumes, makeup, coiffure, and “sexuality as melodrama.” The only ones
on stage who looked “sincere” were the musicians.
Joan Acocella in the New Yorker said the evening stayed within the duet
form of the tango, but goosed up the dances “beyond belief.” Macaulay had
mentioned that sometimes the evening turned dance into a “form of
athletics,” and Acocella reported that when one of the female dancers got
“flipped three hundred and sixty degrees,” this wasn’t tango and was
perhaps “an imitation of Cirque du Soleil, which does it better.” As for
Smirnoff and Chmerkovskiy, they were “fun” and had “serious chemistry,”
but what you saw were “tricks, not tango.”
When Santa Rosa, and then Smirnoff and Chmerkovskiy, left the
production after their limited guest appearances, the show offered another
guest star, the Nicaraguan singer and songwriter Luis Enrique.
LET IT BE
“A CELEBRATION OF THE MUSIC OF THE BEATLES”

Performances: 46
Direction: John Maher; Producers: Annerine Productions, Yasuhiro
Kawana, BB Promotion, Rubin Fogel, and Jujamcyn Theatres; Scenery:
Tim McQuillen-Wright; Video Design: Duncan McLean; Original Video
Designs: Darren McCaulley and Mathieu St. Arnaud; Costumes: Jack
Galloway, Costume Supervisor; Lighting: Jason Lyons
Cast: Musicians—Graham Alexander, John Brosnan, Ryan Coath, James
Fox, Reuven Gershon, Chris McBurney, Luke Roberts, Ryan Alex
Farmery, John Korba, and Daniel A. Weiss
Musical Numbers
alphabetical list of songs is taken from newspaper and magazine
reviews as well as other sources and isn’t given in performance order.
“All My Loving”; “All You Need Is Love”; “Blackbird”; “Can’t Buy Me
Love”; “Come Together”; “A Day in the Life”; “Day Tripper”; “Drive
My Car”; “Eleanor Rigby”; “Get Back”; “Give Peace a Chance”; “Here
Comes the Sun”; “Hey Jude”; “I Saw Her Standing There”; “I Wanna
Be Your Man”; “I Want to Hold Your Hand”; “In My Life”; “It Won’t
Be Long Now”; “Let It Be”; “The Long and Winding Road”; “Lucy in
the Sky with Diamonds”; “Norwegian Wood”; “Penny Lane”; “Please
Please Me”; “Revolution”; “She Loves You”; “Strawberry Fields
Forever”; “Ticket to Ride”; “Twist and Shout”; “We Can Work It Out”;
“When I’m Sixty-Four”; “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”; “With a
Little Help from My Friends”; “Yesterday”
Didn’t it Rain enough? Apparently not, and so Broadway was flooded
with yet another all-things-Beatles show. Let It Be trod the same well-worn
territory of past Beatles tributes and didn’t offer anything new. It began life
in London where it opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on September 24,
2012, and the Broadway engagement, which was set to play five months,
gave up after just five weeks.
Ten singers alternated in the four roles, but the program didn’t indicate
who played who and instead identified all the performers as “musicians”
(the word Beatles was never once spoken on the stage, although the
program’s subtitle used the B-Word).
Anita Gates in the New York Times began her review with the burning
question: “Why do they all look like Paul?” She reported that at the
performance she attended three of the four singers looked just like him. But
audiences probably didn’t care who was singing as long as they saw four
performers in Beatles drag who imitated the originals. Linda Winer in
Newsday said Let It Be was “the cheesiest yet” of the Beatles tribute
onslaughts, but Gates found the show “by far the best of the bunch.” (For
more information about the “bunch” of Beatles stage tributes, see Rain.)
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post wondered why no one could
create a “decent” Beatles musical, and noted that the dynamics of Paul
McCartney and John Lennon’s relationship “would make for a juicy story.”
Otherwise, if you were expecting “originality” it was “tough luck” for you,
because originality wasn’t the “point” of the evening. Elysa Gardner in USA
Today said the impersonations were “simplistic” (“George Harrison” offers
the peace sign to the audience and says “Hare Krishna”) and the patter was
“contrived” (we’re told that CDs used to be black and had two sides, and if
this was over the heads of some audience members, “John Lennon” held up
a long-playing vinyl recording to demonstrate). Winer noted the evening
was for those who “take comfort in beloved dead animals stuffed by
taxidermists,” and she hastened to report that “many in the audience happily
rose from their seats [and] clapped and danced when encouraged to do so.”
Let It Be generated some offstage drama when the producers of Rain
filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement (“no kidding, copyright
infringement,” quipped Winer; Gardner was amused and noted a “certain
irony in claiming creative ownership of a purely re-creative act”; and
Vincentelli mentioned “the irony of imitators suing for imitation”). Rain
and Let It Be used the same format, and because Rain fell first, its
producers decided to go to court because both shows were jukebox musicals
that used Beatles lookalikes, and both included period film footage and
television commercials to evoke the era. Gates reported that an ad for
Carnation Instant Breakfast got a “big laugh” (clearly, the audience was
easy to please), and Winer noted there was “documentary footage” of hula-
hoops (which seems strange because hula-hoops were a late 1950s fad that
had long since faded by the time the Beatles came upon the scene).
Of the dueling Beatles tributes, Rain seemed to have had the last word
inasmuch as it returned to Broadway in 2018 for a limited engagement (see
entry).
FIRST DATE
“BROADWAY’S NEW MUSICAL COMEDY”

Opening Date: August 8, 2013; Closing Date: January 5, 2014
Performances: 174
Book: Austin Winsberg
Lyrics and Music: Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner
Direction: Bill Berry (Brandon Ivie, Assistant Director); Producers:
Junkyard Dog Productions, Stem Productions, Altar Identity Studios,
Alex and Katya Lukianov, Susan and Jim Blair, and Linda and Bill
Potter in association with Yasuhiro Kawana, Vijay and Sita Vashee,
Kevin and Lynn Foley, Jeff and Julie Goldstein, Edward and Mimi
Kirsch, Frank and Denise Phillips, Steve Reynolds and Paula Rosput
Reynolds, Land Line Productions, Alhadeff Family Productions/Sheri
and Les Biller, Pat Halloran/Laura Little Theatrical Productions, Tony
Meola/Remmel T. Dickinson and John Yonover, and ShadowCatcher
Entertainment/Tom and Connie Walsh; Choreography: Josh Rhodes
(Lee Wilkins, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Media Design:
David Gallo; Costumes: David C. Woolard; Lighting: Mike Baldassari;
Musical Direction: Dominick Amendum
Cast: Zachary Levi (Aaron), Krysta Rodriguez (Casey), Bryce Ryness (Man
#1—Gabe, Young Aaron, Edgy British Guy), Kristoffer Cusick (Man #2
—Reggie, Aaron’s Future Son, Edgy Rocker Guy), Blake Hammond
(Man #3—Waiter, Casey’s Father, Friendly Therapist), Sara Chase
(Woman #1—Grandma Ida, Lauren, Aaron’s Mother), Kate Loprest
(Woman #2—Allison, Young Casey)
Musical Numbers
“The One” (Company); “First Impressions” (Zachary Levi, Krysta
Rodriguez); “Bailout Song #1” (Kristoffer Cusick); “The Girl for You”
(Company); “The Awkward Pause” (Company); “Allison’s Theme #1”
(Kate Loprest); “Forever Online” (Bryce Ryness, Kate Loprest, Zachary
Levi, Krysta Rodriguez); “That’s Why You Love Me” (Bad Boys);
“Bailout Song #2” (Kristoffer Cusick); “Safer” (Kate Loprest); “I’d
Order Love” (Blake Hammond); “Allison’s Theme #2” (Zachary Levi,
Kate Loprest, Bryce Ryness); “The Things I Never Said” (Zachary Levi,
Sara Chase); “Bailout Song #3” (Kristoffer Cusick); “In Love with
You” (Zachary Levi); “The Check!” (Company); “Something That Will
Last” (Krysta Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Company)
The small-scaled musical First Date might have been more successful
in an intimate Off-Broadway venue where it could have attracted the
crowds that adored I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and made it a
popular and long-running hit. Or better yet, First Date should have gone
straight to television to make its mark as the first Lifetime movie musical.
But after a joint production by Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre and the
Contemporary Theatre, the show traveled to Broadway where it received
mixed reviews but nonetheless managed a five-month run.
The musical was presented in one act and played out in real time in a
restaurant as the audience watches Aaron (Zachary Levi) and Casey (Krysta
Rodriguez) on their first date. He’s Jewish, divorced, a financial analyst,
and somewhat staid, and she’s a non-Jewish free spirit who works in an art
gallery and wears edgy clothes. And so the question for the ages was
whether or not this odd-couple pairing will ever pair up. The two
performers were backed by five cast members who played fourteen roles,
many of which materialized full-blown from Aaron and Casey’s minds,
including relatives, friends, old romances, and even a “friendly” therapist.
The New Yorker said the “flimsy meet-cute” musical had some
“charming moments” but otherwise offered characters “no more developed
than a Match.com profile” and jokes that dated from “the pre-Sex and the
City era.” As a result, First Date was mostly “as dull as a bad you-know-
what.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News decided the show
wasn’t “first-rate” or even “third-tier,” and concluded “below-deck” was a
more appropriate description given that the musical “would fit better on a
cruise ship than the Great White Way.” Further, there was no intermission
and so there was “no chance to bail out.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today found the evening “dopey” and
“dimwitted,” and noted the script ensured that no cliché was “left
unturned.” Scott Brown in New York noted that considering the story line,
Blind Date would have been a more precise title. The show was all too
“familiar” with characters who were “situation-comedy mannequins,” down
to a “Gay Best Friend hovering on the margins,” but Levi and Rodriguez
pulled it off because despite playing “restricted types” they made you forget
they were playing such types. Marilyn Stasio in Variety described the
evening as “Broadway-lite” but “not too-too Broadway and not too-too lite
—quite suitable, really, for this entertaining, but not overly pushy show.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “singing sitcom” was
set to a “bland pop-rock” score and “groaningly obvious” banter “set to the
mechanical rhythms of formulaic” TV sitcoms. But the audience enjoyed
the evening and provided “a virtual live laugh track” to the “worn” jokes
and the “familiar torque in the give-and-take” between the two main
characters.
The cast album was released by Yellow Sound Records.
SOUL DOCTOR
“JOURNEY OF A ROCKSTAR RABBI” / “A NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL”

Opening Date: August 15, 2013; Closing Date: October 13, 2013
Performances: 66
Book: Daniel S. Wise; additional material by Neshama Carlebach
Lyrics: David Schechter; additional lyrics by Shlomo Carlebach
Music: Shlomo Carlebach
Direction: Daniel S. Wise (Gina Rattan, Associate Director); Producers:
Jeremy Chess, Jerome Levy, Robert Beckwitt, Edward Steinberg, Joel
Kahn, and Danny Boy Productions; Elaine Prager, Brian Murray, David
Haft, and Bernard Michael, Associate Producers; Red Awning,
Executive Producer; Choreography: Benoit-Swan Pouffer (Michael
Balderrama, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Neil Patel; Costumes:
Maggie Morgan; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical Direction: Seth Farber
Cast: Amber Iman (Nina [Simone]), Eric Anderson (Shlomo), Ron Orbach
(Reb Pinchas, Recording Engineer, Announcer), Ethan Khusidman or
Teddy Walsh (Young Schlomo, Young Eli Chaim, Joel, Ira), Ethan
Khusidman and Teddy Walsh (Chassidim), Jamie Jackson (Father,
Rebbe), Jacqueline Antaramian (Mother), Michael Paternostro
(Moisheleh, Milt, Timothy Leary), Ryan Strand (Eli Chaim, The Holy
Hippie), Zarah Mahler (Ruth); The Holy Beggars: Dianna Barger, Tara
Chambers, Maria Conti, Alexandra Frohlinger, Abdur-Rahim Jackson,
Dillon Kondor, Vasthy Mompoint, Ian Paget, Heather Parcells, J. C.
Schuster, Eric J. Stockton
The action takes place in 1938, 1957, 1963, 1966, 1968, and 1972 in
Vienna, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and San Francisco.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Return Again” (Amber Iman); “Brothers and Friends” (Eric
Anderson, The Holy Beggars); “Good Shabbos” (Michael Paternostro,
Ethan Khusidman or Teddy Walsh); “Once in a Garden” (Michael
Paternostro, Ethan Khusidman or Teddy Walsh, Vienna Beggars); “I
Will Sing Your Song” (Ethan Khusidman or Teddy Walsh); “Keep the
Fire Burning” (Jamie Jackson, Ethan Khusidman or Teddy Walsh,
Yeshiva Boys); “Torah Song” (Jamie Jackson, Ethan Khusidman or
Teddy Walsh, Eric Anderson, Ryan Strand, and Yeshiva Boys);
“Shlomo’s Dream” (Michael Paternostro, Vienna Beggars); “Arise!”
(Ryan Strand, Ethan Khusidman, Teddy Walsh); “Let Our Joy Be the
Spark” (Jamie Jackson); “Rosh Hashanah Rock” (Eric Anderson, Ryan
Strand, Seth Farber, Columbia Students); “I Put a Spell on You” (lyric
and music by Jalacy J. Hawkins) (Amber Iman); “You Know How I
Feel” (Amber Iman); “Ki va moed” (Amber Iman, Eric Anderson); “Ein
K’Elokeinu” (Ethan Khusidman or Teddy Walsh); “He’s Just a Child”
(Eric Anderson); “Ki Va Moed” (reprise) (Amber Iman, Eric Anderson,
Minister, Sinner, Churchgoers); “Show Me the Way” (Eric Anderson);
“Elijah Rock” (Blind Guitarist [performer unknown]); “Where Am I to
Turn?” (Zarah Mahler, Eric Anderson, Holy Beggars); “Somebody Is
Lonely” (Eric Anderson, Holy Beggars); “Ode Yishama” (Eric
Anderson, Backup Singers)
Act Two: “Shlomo Medley” (Eric Anderson, Ryan Strand, Young Jewish
Fans); “Sinnerman” (Amber Iman, Eric Anderson, Ryan Strand,
Ensemble); “Where Am I to Turn?” (reprise) (Zarah Mahler, Holy
Beggars); “I’m Always with You” (Amber Iman, Eric Anderson); “Sing
Shalom” (Eric Anderson, Zarah Mahler, Ryan Strand, Holy Beggars);
“We’ll Build a House” (Eric Anderson, Holy Beggars); “Song of
Shabbos” (Eric Anderson, Zarah Mahler, Ryan Strand, Ethan
Khysidman or Teddy Walsh, Holy Beggars); “Family Legacy” (Eric
Anderson, Jamie Jackson); “The Sun Is Sinking Fast” (Jacqueline
Antaramian, Jamie Jackson, Holy Beggars); “Lord Get Me High”
(Zarah Mahler, Michael Paternostro, Holy Beggars); “I Tried to Guide
Them” (Eric Anderson); “Yerushalyim” (Eric Anderson, Zarah Mahler,
Holy Beggars); “Adam Was Alone” (Holy Beggars); “I Was a Sparrow”
(Zarah Mahler); “Return Again” (reprise) (Amber Iman, Holy Beggars);
“Am Yisrael Chai” (Eric Anderson, Holy Beggars)
Soul Doctor might have been momentarily mistaken for a jukebox

revue, but its advertisements proclaimed it was the “Journey of a Rockstar
Rabbi,” a look at the life and times of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (1925–
1994). A more appropriate title might have been The Singing Rabbi, but a
musical with that name had been briefly seen on Broadway in 1931 for a
run of three performances. Carlebach (Eric Anderson) was a semi-popular
folk singer in the late 1950s and during the 1960s, and he and black singer
Nina Simone (Amber Iman) became allies in both music and social causes.
The musical had a long gestation period, first in an Off-Broadway
production in 2008 and then in a New York workshop in 2012. On
November 8, 2010, the show was given in New Orleans, and later there
were presentations in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. The material skimmed
over Carlebach’s life but never brought him to life, and the superficial by-
the-numbers biography failed to impress the critics and to draw audiences.
The musical managed two months on Broadway before shuttering.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the show’s
“thinness” never got “beyond the basic chronology” of Carlebach’s life, and
so his “precise place and significance in history remain as fuzzy as his
bearded face.” There was a lot of “kvetching, kvelling, klapping,” but the
“superficial” evening never hit its “key targets” and failed “to relate the
subject’s life story” and “then put things in context and explain why it all
matters.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post predicted the
“terminally earnest and relentlessly sunny” show’s “fish-out-of-water
quality” and “hackneyed awkwardness will spell doom on the main stem.”
And Soul Doctor definitely needed a “script doctor” (when asked if he’s
ever heard of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Carlebach says “I don’t know so much
the New Testament”).
Scott Brown in New York said that before he saw the show he didn’t
know anything about Carlebach, and after the final curtain he still wasn’t
sure he knew him. The “unctuous” and “amiably shambling” musical
“pamphleteers you mercilessly with plenty of (selective) facts,” suffers
“from structural bloat and thematic penury,” and “obsessively” informs.
Brown noted that in 1968 Carlebach opened his House of Love and Prayer
in Haight-Ashbury and was visited by Timothy Leary (Michael
Paternoster), and Brown warned there was “a great deal of unstructured
hippie dancing” (Vincentelli said the flower-power sequence looked “like a
community theatre version of Hair”).
Marilyn Stasio in Variety decided there was “entirely too much” of
“ponderous religious pedantry to keep an audience alert,” but Iman brought
“a breath of life” to the proceedings.” She was “rich and smoky” in “I Put a
Spell on You” and “You Know How I Feel,” was “radiant” in her gospel
numbers, and could “actually act.” By the time the plot got around to
Carlebach’s San Francisco period, the songs had “begun to sound alike,”
and when Iman came “to the rescue” it was “just too late.” Charles
Isherwood in the New York Times found the production “bizarre” and
“bewildering,” and Carlebach’s story was depicted in “mostly blunt, often
hoary strokes.” The title character might have been “a rabbi with a cause,”
but the cause was never defined and Anderson’s performance was “limited
by the superficiality” of the show’s book, which was “rather thick with
shtick” (when in the Vienna of 1938, a Nazi appears at the family’s front
door, Carlebach’s mother asks, “What does he want, my recipe for kugel?”).
There was no cast album, but three of the show’s cast members
(Anderson, Iman, and Ron Orbach) performed “The Chanukah Song” for
the collection Broadway Carols for a Cure Volume 15 released by Rock-It
Science Records.
Soul Doctor was the first of two musicals in the season where part of
the action took place in a New York City park (see If/Then), and was also
the first of two which included singer Nina Simone in the story (see A
Night with Janis Joplin).
BIG FISH
Performances: 98
Book: John August
Lyrics and Music: Andrew Lippa
Based on the 1998 novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by
Daniel Wallace and on the Columbia Pictures’ 2003 film Big Fish
(direction by Tim Burton and screenplay by John August).
Director, and Chris Peterson, Associate Choreographer); Producers:
Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen, Stage Entertainment USA, Roy Furman,
Edward Walson, James L. Nederlander, Broadway Across
America/Rich Entertainment Group, and John Domo in association with
Parrothead Productions, Lucky Fish, Peter May/Jim Fantaci, Harvey
Weinstein/Carole L. Haber, Dancing Elephant Productions, CJ E & M,
Ted Liebowitz, Ted Hartley, Clay Floren, and Columbia Pictures;
Scenery: Julian Crouch; Projection Design: Benjamin Pearcy for 59
Productions; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Donald Holder;
Musical Direction: Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Cast: Norbert Leo Butz (Edward Bloom), Bobby Steggert (Will Bloom),
Kate Baldwin (Sandra Bloom), Zachary Unger (Young Will), Anthony
Pierini (Young Will for Wednesday and Saturday matinees), Krystal Joy
Brown (Josephine Bloom), Ryan Andes (Karl), Brad Oscar (Amos
Calloway), Ben Crawford (Don Price), Ciara Renee (The Witch),
Kirsten Scott (Jenny Hill), Sarrah Strimel (Girl in the Water), JC
Montgomery (Doctor Bennett), Alex Brightman (Zacky Price), Bryn
Dowling (Dancing Fire), Robin Campbell and Lara Seibert (The
Alabama Lambs), Tally Sessions (Mayor), Cary Tedder (Fisherman);
Wedding Guests, New Yorkers, Citizens of Ashton, and Circus
Performers: Bree Branker, Alex Brightman, Robin Campbell, Bryn
Dowling, Jason Lee Garrett, Leah Hoffman, JC Montgomery, Ciara
Renee, Angie Schworer, Kirsten Scott, Lara Seibert, Tally Sessions,
Sarrah Strimel, Cary Tedder
The action takes place mostly during the present time in Alabama,
Mississippi, and New York City.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Prologue” (Orchestra); “Be the Hero” (Norbert Leo Butz,
Company); “The Witch” (Ciara Renee, Norbert Leo Butz, Company);
“Stranger” (Bobby Steggert); “Two Men” (Kate Baldwin); “Ashton’s
Favorite Son” (Company); “Out There on the Road” (Norbert Leo Butz,
Ryan Andes, Kirsten Scott, Company); “Little Lamb from Alabama”
(Kate Baldwin, Robin Campbell, Lara Seibert); “Time Stops” (Norbert
Leo Butz, Kate Baldwin); “Closer to Her” (Brad Oscar, Norbert Leo
Butz, Company); “Daffodils” (Norbert Leo Butz, Kate Baldwin)
Act Two: “Red, White and True” (Kate Baldwin, Norbert Leo Butz,
Company); “Fight the Dragons” (Norbert Leo Butz, Zachary Unger);
“Showdown” (Bobby Steggert, Norbert Leo Butz, Company); “I Don’t
Need a Roof” (Kate Baldwin); “Start Over” (Norbert Leo Butz, Ben
Crawford, Brad Oscar, Ryan Andes, Company); “What’s Next” (Bobby
Steggert, Norbert Leo Butz, Company); “How It Ends” (Norbert Leo
Butz); “Be the Hero” (reprise) (Bobby Steggert)
Big Fish seemed to have everything going for it. The leading character
was both a flashy and narcissistic blowhard and a sentimentalist who seeks
to define his ordinary life by infusing it with myth, and the over-the-top role
was made-to-order for Norbert Leo Butz, who walked away with such
shows as the national tour of Roundabout’s original revival of Cabaret (in
which he played the Master of Ceremonies), Thou Shalt Not, Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels, Enron, and Catch Me If You Can (for Scoundrels and Catch
Me he won Tony Awards for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a
Musical).
And the story (based on both Daniel Wallace’s 1998 novel Big Fish: A
Novel of Mythic Proportions and the Tim Burton–directed 2003 film
adaptation scripted by John August, who also wrote the musical’s libretto)
was tailor-made for the musical stage with opportunities for colorful fantasy
sequences as well as testy and touching moments for the contentious father-
and-son relationship that formed the core of the plot. And who better to
helm the show than director and choreographer Susan Stroman, an inspired
choice who could turn Edward’s fantasies into colorful musical-comedy
explosions?
Edward Bloom (Butz) is a traveling salesman who brings wonder into
his routine existence by reinventing people and incidents in his past into tall
tales about witches and werewolves and giants and mermaids, about
circuses and USO shows and high school pep rallies. He tells these stories
to his little boy Will (Zachary Unger), but in later years the grown-up Will
(Bobby Steggert) becomes estranged from his father because of Edward’s
egoism and his overwrought and dominating personality, which can be
thoughtless and hurtful to others.
When death is about to take our salesman, Edward’s wife, Sandra (Kate
Baldwin), asks Will to come home for a reconciliation, and eventually Will
comes to understand that throughout his life Edward created myths to mark
the ordinary moments of his life. By evening’s end when Edward has died,
we see Will telling tall stories to his own son.
These elements had the potential for a blockbuster musical, but sadly
nothing quite jelled and the production closed after three months.
The headline of Richard Zoglin’s review in Time proclaimed that Big
Fish was “small potatoes,” and the critic noted that the musical made a
“crippling misstep” early in the action when it depicted “cruel and
insensitive” behavior on Edward’s part that caused the audience to
immediately lose rapport and sympathy for the character. Further, the decor
lacked the flavor of the film’s mise-en-scène, and while lyricist and
composer Andrew Lippa’s songs were “lively” in Country-Western, circus,
and USO jitterbugging moments, the ballads were predictable and bland.
The show had “big ambitions” and “a few small pleasures,” but was
otherwise a “cold fish.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the musical was a
meeting of Death of a Salesman and Into the Woods. The score was
“pleasant” but “would benefit from lyrics less Hallmark-cliché and more
personal,” and although Stroman didn’t come up with a “blockbuster”
moment she at least “managed to reel in a winner by casting Butz.” The
headline of Elysa Gardner’s review in USA Today warned that “Big Fish
Won’t Quite Reel You In,” and she noted that despite “vivid” lighting,
“animated” projections, and “whimsical” scenery,” the overall effect wasn’t
“as dazzling or as moving as you would hope.” The dialogue was “stilted,”
and the score juggled “earnest ballads with generically jaunty production
numbers.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the “inventive, playful
and often downright magical” evening was undermined by a “hack” score
that strung “one banal non-tune after another.” Every time Broadway took
“one step forward musically” with scores on the order of Matilda and Once,
it took “two back with safe, witless junk” like Big Fish. And “those who
heard Lippa’s disposable contribution” to The Addams Family couldn’t
claim they “weren’t warned.” David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter
found Lippa’s music “better” than his score for The Addams Family, and
he liked the mix of “old-fashioned Tin Pan Alley with pop” and the use of
banjos to evoke the locales of Alabama and Mississippi. But Lippa’s lyrics
were “more literal than imaginative, not to mention doused in Hallmark
syrup.” As for Butz, he was an “exceptional musical-theatre talent” who
“skillfully” sidestepped his character’s “vast potential to irritate” and
instead tempered “his trademark mischievous ebullience with genuine
feeling.”
The New Yorker found the musical “pointless” and “steroid-heavy,” and
the critic wondered why Will’s wife, Josephine (Krystal Joy Brown), didn’t
“seem particularly disturbed that she’s the only black person in an all-white
Southern world.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety suggested that if the show’s
“feel-good” message under-whelmed Broadway audiences, the work’s
regional prospects looked “solid.” However, the musical lacked the
“mystical sensibility that flavors Southern storytelling,” something that
might have “taken the edge off” the “unlikable” hero and his “unpalatable”
message that wishing and wanting are enough to make dreams come true.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that for an “outlandish” story to
seduce, “you should never be able to separate the teller from the tale.” But
in the case of Big Fish, all the fantasy seemed to emanate from “some
cosmic Florenz Ziegfeld” and not from “an Everyman Walter Mitty from
Dixie.” As a result, Butz was “forced to coast on his charm, while scenery
happens around him, bringing to mind an affable Disney World guide who
has discovered he is not the main attraction.”
The cast album was released by Broadway Records, and includes a
bonus track of “The River Between Us,” a song not heard in the Broadway
production.
A revised version of the musical premiered in London on November 10,
2017, for a limited run at the Other Palace Theatre with Kelsey Grammer in
the role of Edward. Adam Hetrick in Playbill reported that the new
production took “a more human approach” to the story, emphasized
“humanity” over “special effects,” and was more “intimate and humble”
than the Broadway version.
A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN

Opening Date: October 10, 2013; Closing Date: February 9, 2014
Performances: 140
Play: Randy Johnson
Lyrics and Music: See song list, below
Direction: Randy Johnson; Producers: Daniel Chilewich, Todd Gershwin,
Michael Cohl, Jeffrey Jampol, TCG Entertainment, Stephen
Tenenbaum, Michael J. Moritz Jr./Brunish and Trinchero, Richard
Winkler, Ginger Productions, Bill Ham, Claudio Loureiro, Keith
Mardak, Ragovoy Entertainment, Bob and Laurie Wolfe/Neil
Kahanovitz, Mike Stoller and Corky Hale Stoller, Darren P. DeVerna,
Susan DuBow, Tanya Grubich, Jeremiah H. Harris, Jerry Rosenberg/A.
J. Michaels, and Herb Spivak; Red Awning, Executive Producer;
Choreography: Patricia Wilcox; Scenery and Lighting: Justin
Townsend; Projection Design: Darrel Maloney; Costumes: Amy Clark;
Musical Direction: Ross Seligman
Cast: Mary Bridget Davies (Janis Joplin), Kacee Clanton (Janis Joplin for
Wednesday and Saturday matinees); The Joplinaires: Taprena Michelle
Augustine (Chantel, Bessie Smith, Blues Singer), De’Adre Aziza
(Chantel, Nina Simone, Odetta), Allison Blackwell (Blues Woman,
Aretha Franklin), Nikki Kimbrough (Etta James, Chantel)
The action takes place in 1970 at an imaginary Janis Joplin concert.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Combination of the Two” (lyric and music by Sam Andrew)
(The Joplinaires, Band); “Tell Mama” (lyric and music by Clarence
George Carter, Marcus Lewis Daniel, and Wilbur Terrell) (Mary Bridget
Davies, Nikki Kimbrough, The Joplinaires); “My Baby” (lyric and
music by Jerry Ragovoy and Mort Shuman) (Mary Bridget Davies,
Band); “Maybe” (lyric and music by Richard Barrett) (The Chantels);
“Summertime” (Porgy and Bess, 1935; lyric by DuBose Heyward,
music by George Gershwin) (Allison Blackwell); “Summertime”
(reprise) (Mary Bridget Davies); “Turtle Blues” (lyric and music by
Janis Joplin) (Mary Bridget Davies); “Down on Me” (lyric and music
by Janis Joplin) (De’Adre Aziza); “Down on Me” (reprise) (Mary
Bridget Davies); “Piece of My Heart” (lyric and music by Bert Berns
and Jerry Ragovoy) (Mary Bridget Davies, The Joplinaires); “Today I
Sing the Blues” (lyric and music by Curtis Reginald Lewis) (Taprena
Michelle Augustine); “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and
Out” (lyric and music by James Cox) (Taprena Michelle Augustine); “A
Woman Left Lonely” (lyric and music by Spooner Oldham and Dan
Penn) (Mary Bridget Davies); “Spirit in the Dark” (lyric and music by
Aretha Franklin) (Allison Blackwell, Mary Bridget Davies, The
Joplinaires)
Act Two: “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” (lyric and music by Jerry
Ragovoy and Chip Taylor) (Mary Bridget Davies, Band); “Maybe”
(reprise) (Mary Bridget Davis, Band); “Little Girl Blue” (Jumbo, 1935;
lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers) (Mary Bridget Davies,
De’Adre Aziza); “Cry Baby” (lyric and music by Jerry Ragovoy [here
as Norman Meade] and Bert Bernes) (Mary Bridget Davies); Medley:
“Kozmic Blues” (lyric and music by Janis Joplin and Gabriel Mekler)
and “I Shall Be Released” (lyric and music by Bob Dylan) (Allison
Blackwell, De’Adre Aziza, Taprena Michelle Augustine, Nikki
Kimbrough); “Me and Bobby McGee” (lyric and music by Fred L.
Foster and Kris Kristofferson) (Mary Bridget Davies); “I’m Gonna
Rock My Way to Heaven” (lyric and music by Jerry Ragovoy and Jenny
Dean) (Mary Bridget Davies, Band); “Ball and Chain” (lyric and music
by Willie Mae Thornton) (Mary Bridget Davies); “Kozmic Blues”
(reprise) (Mary Bridget Davies); “Stay with Me” (lyric and music by
Jerry Ragovoy and George David Weiss) (Mary Bridget Davies, The
Joplinaires); “I’m Gonna Rock My Way to Heaven” (reprise) (Mary
Bridget Davies, The Joplinaires, Band); “Mercedes Benz” (lyric and
music by Janis Joplin, Michael McClure, and Robert Neuwirth) (Mary
Bridget Davies)
A Night with Janis Joplin was another in the string of Dead Celebrity
Tributes that focused on female singers who died young and were plagued
by drug and/or alcohol abuse. Two seasons earlier, End of the Rainbow
looked at Judy Garland’s final booking when she appeared at London’s Talk
of the Town club a few months before her death at the age of forty-seven
from an overdose of barbiturates, and later in the current season Lady Day
at Emerson’s Bar & Grill depicted one of Billie Holiday’s final club
appearances a few months before she died of heart problems and cirrhosis
of the liver at the age of forty-four. In the case of Janis Joplin (1943–1970),
it was death at age twenty-seven from a heroin overdose possibly
compounded by alcohol.
Another tribute was Soul Doctor, but it was radically different from the
others because it dealt with the Singing Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who died
of a heart attack at the age of sixty-nine. He and Joplin enjoyed a San
Francisco connection when in the 1960s he founded his House of Love and
Prayer in the Richmond District, and for a period she lived in the city’s
Haight-Ashbury section.
The good rabbi and Joplin also shared a mutual admiration for black
singer Nina Simone, and so Simone was depicted in two Broadway
musicals within two months. For Soul Doctor, she was a constant presence
throughout the show as a kindred spirit who shared Carlebach’s love of
music and interest in social causes, and in the Joplin musical Simone was
one of the blues-and-rock singer’s inspirations. In fact, Joplin was also
inspired by three other black singers, all of whom materialize as spiritual
musical mentors, and so besides Simone there were the presences of Bessie
Smith, Aretha Franklin, and Etta James.
A Night with Janis Joplin was a concert-styled evening in which Joplin
(Mary Bridget Davies) and her backup group (here given the name of The
Joplinaires) perform. Joplin also talks to the audience about how much the
blues means to her, but unlike End of the Rainbow and Lady Day at
Emerson’s Bar & Grill, the show sidestepped the dark side of Joplin’s life
and never grappled with her demons and her downfall.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times noted that during the
“boomer-bait musical” Joplin spent “so much time talking about the blues”
that you began “to wonder when she had time to truly suffer them.” The
script never probed her “cosmic loneliness,” which “was essentially what
drove Joplin to perform, and to self-destruct.” He also noted that the script
ensured that the character provided a rather neat narrative of her life and
career, and Isherwood suspected that if the “real” Joplin had had such a
“sensible perspective” of herself she probably wouldn’t have died of an
overdose. But Davies gave a “positively uncanny vocal impersonation” and
kept “the house rocking.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said that as “musical biography” the show was
“pretty much a bust” and you’d “better not ask” what drove Joplin because
there wasn’t “a hint of personal data” in the book “to enlighten us on that
rather critical point.” As a concert, the “well-wrought” evening would
“satisfy any rabid fan” of Joplin’s, but for those who expected “an honest
portrait” of the singer, they could, to paraphrase one of the songs, “just cry,
cry baby.” The New Yorker reported the “jukebox musical” never
mentioned Joplin’s drug overdose, and because the “narrative trails off” it
minimized Joplin’s story. But Davies’s singing performance was
“undeniably thrilling.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the estate-approved
production was “sanitized” and would have been “perfectly at home on a
cruise ship.” The script had Joplin “ramble on about the blues, but in the
most banal way,” and if you wanted “to know why Joplin screamed like a
woman possessed, look elsewhere.” David Rooney in the Hollywood
Reporter said the musical wasn’t “the place to look” if you wanted “insight”
into the “tragic supernova.” There was “overwritten patter” to link the
songs; there was “repeated emphasis” on the blues, which became “boring”;
and the “by-the-numbers” script didn’t fully explore the character and
seemed like “whitewashing.”
Patrick Healy in the Times reported that due to poor ticket sales, the
$3.9 million production closed after four months. One suspects that the
show’s subject had limited appeal for traditional theatergoers and potential
ticket-buyers, most of whom had probably never heard of Joplin and
wouldn’t have recognized her songs. Broadway wasn’t the venue for such a
show, and the concert-styled evening clearly belonged in an intimate Off-
Broadway space. Once the show closed on February 9, 2014, the producers
announced it would reopen downtown on April 10 at the small Gramercy
Theatre, a transfer that would add $650,000 to the budget. But two days
before the scheduled Off-Broadway opening the musical was abruptly
canceled, and Healy noted the show’s “implosion” was “one of the
messiest” of the season. He reported that an unnamed investor said the
production had become a “train wreck,” and others associated with the
show criticized the lack of “savvy” marketing.
What might also have done in A Night with Janis Joplin was that a few
years earlier another musical about Joplin had played Off-Broadway for
almost two years and probably satisfied those theatergoers interested in
seeing a show about the subject. Love, Janis opened at the Village Theatre
on April 22, 2001, for 713 performances and Randal Myler’s text was
inspired by the 1992 biography Love, Janis by Laura Joplin (Janis Joplin’s
sister). One actress (Catherine Curtin) was given the speaking role of the
singer, and two (Andra Mitrovich and Cathy Richardson) alternated in the
singing role. More than a dozen songs in the score were later heard in A
Night with Janis Joplin, and the entire spoken text was taken from letters
Joplin wrote to her family and from many of her press, radio, and television
interviews during 1966–1970. Anita Gates in the Times mentioned that it
was somewhat disconcerting to discover that the controversial singer had
written letters to her mother in which she recommended books on the order
of Rosemary’s Baby and Broadway shows such as Hello, Dolly!
The music credits section of the program for A Night with Janis Joplin
listed two songs that weren’t included in the regular list of musical
numbers, “Bye Bye Baby” (lyric and music by Powell St. John) and “Raise
Your Hand” (lyric and music by Stephen Lee Cropper, Eddie Floyd, and
Alvertis Isbell).
The cast album was recorded by Broadway Records.
The musical received its world premiere at the Portland (Oregon)
Center Stage on May 24, 2011, with Cat Stephani in the title role. It was
later produced on July 27, 2012, at Cleveland Play House’s Allen Theatre,
and then on September 28, 2012, at Kreeger Theatre at Arena Stage in
Washington, D.C. (for these two productions, Davies played the role of
Joplin).
Awards
in a Musical (Mary Bridget Davies)
TWO BOYS
Theatre: Metropolitan Opera House
Opening Date: October 21, 2013; Closing Date: November 14, 2013
Performances: 7 (in repertory)
Libretto: Craig Lucas
Music: Nico Muhly
The opera was inspired by the 2006 Vanity Fair article “U Want Me 2 Kill
Him?” by Judy Bachrach.
Direction: Bartlett Sher; Producer: Metropolitan Opera Company;
Choreography: Hofesh Shechter; Scenery: Michael Yeargan;
Projections and Animation: Leo Warner, Mark Grimmer, Nicol Scott,
and Peter Stenhouse for 59 Productions; Costumes: Catherine Zuber;
Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: David Robertson
Cast: Paul Appleby (Brian), Christopher Bolduc (Jake), Alice Coote (Anne
Strawson), Maria Zifchak (Brian’s Mother), Kyle Pfortmiller (Brian’s
Father), Caitlin Lynch (Cynthia), Sandra Piques Eddy (Fiona), Jennifer
Zetlan (Rebecca), Judith Forst (Anne’s Mum), Dennis Petersen (Liam),
Keith Miller (Peter), Richard Cox (Celebrant), Andrew Pulver (Boy
Soprano), Marco Nistico (Doctor), Sarah Mostov (Goth Girl), Ashley
Emerson (American Suburban Girl), Noah Baetge (American
Congressman), Juan Jose de Leon (American Congressional Page),
Anne Nonnemacher (American Suburban Mom), Maria D’Amato
(American Suburban Mom)
The action takes place during the early 2000s in Great Britain.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical sequences.
Nico Muhly’s opera Two Boys was the composer’s first of two operas
commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera Company as coproductions with
the English National Opera. Two Boys was followed by Marnie, and both
were first presented in London prior to their U.S. premieres at the Met.
Two Boys was inspired by an actual incident that took place in
Manchester, England, in the early 2000s and became the subject of a
magazine article by Judy Bachrach titled “U Want Me 2 Kill Him?,” which
appeared in Vanity Fair. The opera’s libretto was by playwright Craig
Lucas, and it looked at the world of anonymous internet chat rooms where
identities aren’t always what they seem to be and can lead to violence. The
dark opera focused on teenagers chained to their laptops and social media
devices in a cyber world of message boards, hashtags, and online lingo.
The gay thirteen-year-old Jake (Christopher Bolduc) has created a
number of online identities, including one named Rebecca (after the name
of his mousy sister, whom he reinvents as a Calypso-like sex temptress),
and as Rebecca he links up with sixteen-year-old straight Brian (Paul
Appleby) for sex. The latter submits to a sexual encounter with Jake, and
then stabs him in the heart. As the brain-dead Jake wastes away in a
hospital, non-tech-savvy detective Anne Strawser (Alice Coote) tries to
solve the mysterious crime and what led up to it.
Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times said Muhly’s score was
“rich with intriguing harmonies and textural intricacy,” but decided the
music didn’t “sufficiently penetrate the complex emotions and shocking
interactions between the characters.” However, the composer created the
“obsessive” sound of internet chat rooms with “multilayered babble,”
tidbits of “chat lingo,” short-hand internet-speak of the “r u there” variety,
and musical “collages” of “muttered” phone numbers. Justin Davidson in
New York praised the “spectacular” and “phenomenally talented” Muhly but
found the evening an “assemblage of ill-fitting components,” some “very
fine” and some “promising but neutralized by context.” As a result, the
story itself “never quite jell[ed]” and the score “work[ed] best as a
succession of atmospheres,” but for the “infinite voices” of the internet
Muhly created an “iridescent tapestry of chatter.”
The opera was first performed in London on June 24, 2011, at the
London Coliseum. The Met production was recorded on a two-CD set by
Nonesuch Records.
AFTER MIDNIGHT
Opening Date: November 3, 2013; Closing Date: June 29, 2014
Performances: 273
Text: Selected text by Langston Hughes
Direction and Choreography: Warren Carlyle (Sara Edwards, Associate
Director); Producers: Scott Sanders Productions, Wynton Marsalis, Roy
Furman, Candy Spelling, Starry Night Entertainment, Hal Newman,
Allan S. Gordon/Adam S. Gordon, James L. Nederlander, Robert K.
Kraft, Catherine and Fred Adler, Robert Appel, Jeffrey Bolton, Scott M.
Delman, James Fantaci, Ted Liebowitz, Stephanie P. McClelland, Sandy
Block, and Carol Fineman in association with Marks-Moore-Turnbull
Group, Stephen & Ruth Hendel, and Tom Kirdahy; Scenery: John Lee
Beatty; Costumes: Isabel Toledo; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical
Direction: Daryl Waters (James Burton III, Associate Conductor)
Cast: Fantasia Barrino, Dule Hill, Adriane Lenox, Julius “iGlide” Chisolm,
Virgil “Lil’ O” Gadson, Jared Grimes, Karine Plantadit, Dormeshia
Sumbry-Edwards, Marija Abney, Phillip Attmore, Everett Bradley,
Christopher Broughton, Taeler Elyse Cyrus, C. K. Edwards, Carmen
Ruby Floyd, Bahiyah Hibah, Rosena M. Hill Jackson, Monroe Kent III,
Erin N. Moore, Cedric Neal, Bryonha Marie Parham, T. Oliver Reid,
Desmond Richardson, Monique Smith, Daniel J. Watts; The Jazz at
Lincoln Center All Stars: Daryl Waters (Conductor), James Burton III
(Associate Conductor); Woodwinds—Kurt Bacher, Dan Block, Andy
Farber, Mark Gross, and Godwin Louis; Trumpets—Gregory Gisbert,
Bruce Harris, Alphonso Horne, and James Zollar; Trombones—Art
Baron, James Burton III, and Wayne Goodman; Tuba—Wayne
Goodman; Piano—Adam Birnbaum; Guitar—James Chirillo; Bass—
Jennifer Vincent; Drums—Alvester Garnett
Musical Numbers
Opening (Dule Hill); “Daybreak” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (The
Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars, Company); “Happy as the Day Is
Long” (Cotton Club Parade, 1933; twenty-second edition; lyric by Ted
Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) (Daniel J. Watts, Phillip Attmore);
“Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (Rhyth-Mania, 1931; lyric
by Ted Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) (Carmen Ruby Floyd, Rosena
M. Hill Jackson, Bryonha Marie Parham); “I’ve Got the World on a
String” (Cotton Club Parade, 1932; twenty-first edition; lyric by Ted
Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) (Dule Hill, Company); “Women Be
Wise” (lyric and music by Sippie Wallace) (Adriane Lenox); “Braggin’
in Brass” (music by Duke Ellington, Henry Nemo, and Irving Mills)
(The Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars); “I Can’t Give You Anything but
Love” (Blackbirds of 1928; lyric by Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy
McHugh) (Fantasia Barrino); “Peckin’” (lyric and music by Harry
James and Ben Pollack) (Phillip Attmore, Christopher Broughton, C. K.
Edwards, Desmond Richardson, Daniel J. Watts, Everett Bradley);
“Diga Diga Doo” (Blackbirds of 1928; lyric by Dorothy Fields, music
by Jimmy McHugh) (Everett Bradley, Cedric Neal, Monroe Kent III,
and T. Oliver Reid); “East St. Louis Toodle-oo” (lyric and music by
Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley) (Virgil “Lil’ O” Gadsen, Karine
Plantadit, Monique Marija, Erin N. Moore, Bahiyah Hibah, Taeler Elyse
Cyrus); “Stormy Weather” (Cotton Club Parade, 1933; twenty-second
edition; lyric by Ted Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) (Fantasia
Barrino); “The Skrontch” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington, Henry
Nemo, and Irving Mills) (Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Company);
“Hottentot” (lyric by Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy McHugh) (Julius
“iGLide” Chisolm, Virgil “Lil’ O” Gadson); “Ain’t It De (the) Truth”
(written for but not used in the 1943 film version of Cabin in the Sky,
where it would have been introduced by Lena Horne; later heard in the
1957 Broadway musical Jamaica, where it was sung by Horne; lyric by
E. Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen) (Dule Hill, Everett Bradley,
Cedric Neal, Monroe Kent III, and T. Oliver Reid); “Raisin’ the Rent”
(Cotton Club Parade, 1933; twenty-second edition; lyric by Ted
Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) and “Get Yourself a New Broom (and
Sweep the Blues Away)” (Cotton Club Revue, 1933; twenty-second
edition; lyric by Ted Koehler, music by Harold Arlen) (Dormeshia
Sumbry-Edwards, Phillip Attmore, Daniel J. Watts); “Zaz Zuh Zaz”
(lyric and music by Cab Calloway and Harry White) (Fantasia Barrino,
Everett Bradley, Monroe Kent III, Cedric Neal, T. Oliver Reid); “Creole
Love Call” (music by Duke Ellington) (Carmen Ruby Floyd, The Jazz
at Lincoln Center All Stars); “Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night”
(lyric and music by Sidney Easton and Ethel Waters) (Adriane Lenox);
“The Mooche” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills)
(Desmond Richardson, Taeler Elyse Cyrus, Bahiyah Hibah, Marija
Abney); “On the Sunny Side of the Street” (International Revue, 1930;
lyric by Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy McHugh) (Fantasia Barrino,
C. K. Edwards, Christopher Broughton); “The Gal from Joe’s” (lyric
and music by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills) (Carmen Ruby Floyd,
Rosena M. Hill Jackson, Bryonha Marie Parham); “Black and Tan
Fantasy” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley)
(Karine Plantadit); Tap Mathematician and “It Don’t Mean a Thing”
(lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Jared Grimes, The Jazz at Lincoln
Center All Stars); “ Cotton Club Stomp” (lyric and music by Duke
Ellington, Harry Carney, and Johnny Hodges) (Company); “Freeze and
Melt” (Cotton Club Parade, 1929; lyric by Dorothy Fields, music by
Jimmy McHugh) (Dule Hill, Carmen Ruby Floyd, Rosena M. Hill
Jackson, Bryonha Marie Parham, Company); “Rockin’ in Rhythm”
(Earl Carroll Vanities, 1932; tenth edition; lyric by Ted Koehler, music
by Harold Arlen) (The Jazz at Lincoln Center’s All Stars)
The concert After Midnight was patterned after the legendary Cotton
Club revues of the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was conceived by Jack
Viertel and was based on a presentation by New York City Center’s Encores
and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and later returned there on November 14, 2012,
for seven showings. The Broadway transfer opened on November 3, 2013,
and played through the following June for a total of 273 performances.
Over the years, a few Broadway and Off-Broadway revues and musicals
evoked the Cotton Club with songs, dances, and patter, the most successful
of which was Bubbling Brown Sugar in 1976. After Midnight went one
better than most of its predecessors by stripping away all vestiges of a book,
and instead presented a straightforward evening of music and dance set to
songs that for the most part were introduced at the Cotton Club.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times praised the “sparkling” and
“jubilant” revue, and despite the “superabundance” of talented singers and
dancers, they all played second fiddle to the “main attraction,” which was
the Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars, sixteen musicians who “rollicked”
through the music by the likes of Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, and Jimmy
McHugh. Isherwood predicted it would be a “long time” before Broadway
heard such “hot, sweet and altogether glorious” music again. Adriane
Lenox received “top marks” for her “sensationally funny” renditions of two
“lowdown” songs (“Women Be Wise” and “Go Back Where You Stayed
Last Night”), and Warren Carlyle’s Tony Award-winning choreography was
“thrilling.” Many of Carlyle’s dancers were tap specialists, the “most
exciting” of which was Jared Grimes, who gave off “sparks as he
alternately punishes and caresses the floor” in “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”
The New Yorker said the “exquisite” evening created “an impossibly
idealized” performance at the Cotton Club that offered over two dozen
numbers “into ninety buoyant, talent-rich minutes.” As the evening’s host,
Dule Hill occasionally recited poetry by Langston Hughes, the vocalists
were “excellent,” and the show belonged to the “thrilling” dancers. Marilyn
Stasio in Variety liked the “gorgeously designed” production which
showcased “roof-raising performances from top-flight talent.” Carlyle’s
choreography offered “athletic splits and leaps and somersaults” for the
“sensational” dancers, and Lenox (“looking like she’s been there and done
that, but was never actually convicted for it”) brought down the house with
two “vulgar” blues solos that injected “a hint of gritty reality” to the
evening.
The presentation included a rotating list of guest stars, and once
American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino left the show, others such as k.d.
lang, Toni Braxton, Vanessa Williams, and Patti LaBelle followed.
There was no cast recording, but Sony Legacy issued Duke Ellington:
The Original Recordings That Inspired the Broadway Hit, a compilation of
some one-dozen songs heard in the revue.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (After Midnight); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Adriane
Lenox); Best Choreography (Warren Carlyle); Best Direction of a
Musical (Warren Carlyle); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Isabel
Toledo); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Howell Binkley); Best
Sound Design of a Musical (Peter Hylenski)
IL DIVO: A MUSICAL AFFAIR

“THE GREATEST SONGS FROM THE WORLD’S FAVORITE MUSICALS”

Opening Date: November 7, 2013; Closing Date: November 13, 2013
Performances: 6
Text: Malcolm Williamson (“Speechwriter”)
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers, below
Direction: Brian Burke (Justin Mabardi, Associate Director; Richard J.
Hines, Assistant Director); Producers: Live Nation, James L.
Nederlander, and Proper Artist Management; Choreography: Musical
Staging by Kim Craven; Scenery: Brian Burke; Visual Design: Alex
Doss; Video Design: Matt McAdam; Costumes: Uncredited; Lighting:
Joshua Hutchings; Musical Direction: Andrew Small
Cast: Il Divo—Urs Buhler, Sebastien Izambard, Carlos Marin, David
Miller; Guest Artist—Heather Headley The concert was presented in
two acts.
Musical Numbers
Note: Except when noted, all songs performed by Il Divo.
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Tonight” (West Side Story, 1957; lyric by
Stephen Sondheim; music by Leonard Bernstein); “Some Enchanted
Evening” (South Pacific, 1949; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music
by Richard Rodgers); “If Ever I Would Leave You” (Camelot, 1960;
lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe); “Who Can I Turn
To?” (The Roar of the Greasepaint—The Smell of the Crowd, 1965;
lyric and music by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse); “Don’t Cry
for Me Argentina” (Evita, London, 1978; New York, 1979; lyric by Tim
Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber); “Can You Feel the Love
Tonight?” (1994 film The Lion King; Broadway adaptation, 1997; lyric
by Tim Rice, music by Elton John) (with Heather Headley); “Home”
(The Wiz, 1975; lyric and music by Charlie Smalls) (Heather Headley);
“Run to You” (lyric and music by Jud Friedman and Allan Rich; song
was introduced in the 1992 film The Bodyguard and was included in the
film’s 2012 London stage musical adaptation which starred Heather
Headley and which as of this writing has yet to play in New York)
(Heather Headley); “Memory” (Cats, London, 1981; New York, 1982;
lyric by Trevor Nunn with lines from and suggested by various poems
by T. S. Eliot, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber) (with Heather
Headley); “Unchained Melody” (1955 film Unchained; lyric by Hy
Zaret, music by Alex North; song later used in 1990 film Ghost, and in
the respective 2011 and 2012 London and New York productions of the
musical version of Ghost); “The Impossible Dream” (Man of La
Mancha, 1965; lyric by Joe Darion, music by Mitch Leigh)
Act Two: “Who Wants to Live Forever?” (lyric and music by Brian May);
“Love Changes Everything” (Aspects of Love, London, 1989; New
York, 1990; lyric by Don Black and Charles Hart, music by Andrew
Lloyd Webber); “The Winner Takes It All” (lyric and music by Bjorn
Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson; song later used in Mamma Mia!,
London, 1999; New York, 2001); “Bring Him Home” (Les Miserables,
London, 1985; New York, 1987; lyric by Herbert Kretzmer, music by
Claude-Michel Schonberg); “The Music of the Night” (The Phantom of
the Opera, London, 1986; New York, 1988; lyric by Charles Hart,
music by Andrew Lloyd Webber) (with Heather Headley); “Over the
Rainbow” (1939 film The Wizard of Oz; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music
by Harold Arlen); “I Will Always Love You” (Side Show, 1997; lyric by
Bill Russell, music by Harry Krieger); “Somewhere” (West Side Story,
1957; lyric by Stephen Sondheim, music by Leonard Bernstein); “My
Way” (lyric and music by Jacques Revaux, English lyric by Paul Anka);
Encore (“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” Carousel, 1945; lyric by Oscar
Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers)
The four-man singing group Il Divo was formed by British impresario

Simon Cowell, and their 2004 debut was followed by successful concert
appearances and recordings. The current limited-engagement concert
marked the group’s Broadway debut. The four singers (Urs Buhler, a tenor
from Switzerland; Sebastien Izambard, a pop singer from France; Carlos
Marin, a baritone from Spain; and David Miller, a tenor from the United
States) were joined by Tony Award–winning singer Heather Headley, who
occasionally sang with the principals and also performed a few solos.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said Il Divo seemed
“disconnected” and thus presented “several murky versions of iconic theatre
songs,” but what the quartet “lacked in feeling and interpretive power” they
made up for in “volume.” Otherwise, “garish” projections and three
costume changes “didn’t do much to help.” The “oddest” moment occurred
with “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” because it was “just tone deaf” for the
song to be “chopped up like a slab of Buenos Aires beef and performed by
four men.” The concert’s “high point” was Headley’s “Home.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the songs were “drained of all soul
and nuance” and became “vehicles” for “technical showboating.” The
singers cracked “corny jokes,” but Headley brought a “modicum of grace”
to a concert that had it been food would be “very heavy cheese.” Frank
Scheck in the New York Post decided Cowell had assembled Il Divo in a
“laboratory,” and although the men had “beautiful” voices their “heavy-
handed style” made all the songs sound the same, and even their English
seemed like a foreign language. Every song was “delivered with full
bombast” that rose to “inevitable crescendos,” but thankfully Headley “was
there to show what real theatre singing is about.”
Stephen Holden in the New York Times said Il Divo’s musical world was
“soupy” and “grandiloquent,” and “if nothing else” their concert was “a feat
of vocal and robotic coordination.” Holden found Headley a
disappointment. She wasn’t a “bad singer, just an ordinary one,” and for
“Run to You” she “could barely execute Whitney Houston’s vocal
curlicues.” Overall, “melody—stately, clumping, assertive, heavily echoed
—ruled” the evening.
Il Divo’s collection A Musical Affair was released by Sony Legacy
Records and includes such guest artists as Kristin Chenoweth and Heather
Headley.
A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER

“A BLOODY BRILLIANT NEW MUSICAL”

Performances: 905
Book: Robert L. Freedman
Lyrics: Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak
Music: Steven Lutvak
Based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by
Roy Horniman (which was later the basis for the 1949 Ealing Studios’
film Kind Hearts and Coronets, direction by Robert Hamer and
screenplay by Hamer and John Dighton).
Direction: Darko Tresnjak; Producers: Joey Parnes, S. D. Wagner, John
Johnson, 50 Church Street Productions, Joan Raffe and Jhett Tolentino,
Jay Alix and Una Jackman, Catherine and Fred Adler, Rhoda Herrick,
Kathleen K. Johnson, Megan Savage, Shadowcatcher Entertainment,
Ron Simons, True Love Productions, Jamie deRoy, Four Ladies and
One Gent, John Arthur Pinckard, Greg Nobile, Stewart Lane and
Bonnie Comley, Exeter Capital/Ted Snowdon, Ryan Hugh Mackey,
Cricket-CTM Media/Mano-Horn Productions, Dennis Grimaldi/Margot
Astrachan, Hello Entertainment/Jamie Bendell, Michael T. Cohen/Joe
Sirola, Joseph and Carson Gleberman/William Megevick, and Green
State Productions in association with the Hartford Stage and the Old
Globe; Choreography: Peggy Hickey; Scenery: Alexander Dodge;
Projection Design: Aaron Rhyne; Costumes: Linda Cho; Lighting:
Philip S. Rosenberg; Musical Direction: Paul Staroba
Cast: Bryce Pinkham (Monty Navarro), Jane Carr (Miss Shingle), Lisa
O’Hare (Sibella Hallward) Jefferson Mays (Asquith D’Ysquith Jr., Lord
Adalbert D’Ysquith, Reverend Lord Ezekail D’Ysquith, Lord Asquith
D’Ysquith Sr., Henry D’Ysquith, Lady Hyacinth D’Ysquith, Major
Lord Bartholomew D’Ysquith, Lady Salome D’Ysquith Pumphrey),
Jennifer Smith (Tour Guide, Newsboy), Catherine Walker (Miss
Barley), Jeff Kready (Tom Copley, Newsboy, Actor, Guard), Lauren
Worsham (Phoebe D’Ysquith), Price Waldman (Newsboy, Actor, Chief
Inspector Pinckney), Joanna Glushak (Newsboy), Eddie Korbich (Actor,
Mr. Gorby, Magistrate), Roger Purnell (Chauncey); Ensemble: Joanna
Glushak, Eddie Korbich, Jeff Kready, Jennifer Smith, Price Waldman,
Catherine Walker
The action takes place in London during 1909.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “A Warning to the Audience” (Ensemble); “You’re a D’Ysquith”
(Jane Carr, Bryce Pinkham); “I Don’t Know What I’d Do” (Lisa
O’Hare); “Foolish to Think” (Brice Pinkham);”A Warning to Monty”
(Ensemble); “I Don’t Understand the Poor” (Jefferson Mays,
Ensemble); “Foolish to Think” (reprise) (Bryce Pinkham); “Poison in
My Pocket” (Bryce Pinkham, Jefferson Mays, Catherine Walker); “Poor
Monty” (Lisa O’Hare, Company); “Better with a Man” (Jefferson Mays,
Bryce Pinkham); “Inside Out” (Lauren Worsham, Bryce Pinkham);
“Lady Hyacinth Abroad” (Jefferson Mays, Ensemble); “The Last One
You’d Expect” (Company)
Act Two: “Why Are All the D’Ysquiths Dying?” (Mourners, Jefferson
Mays); “Sibella” (Bryce Pinkham); “I’ve Decided to Marry You”
(Lauren Worsham, Lisa O’Hare, Bryce Pinkham); “Final Warning”
(Ensemble); “Poison in My Pocket” (reprise) (Bryce Pinkham);
“Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” (Jefferson Mays); “Stop! Wait!
What?!” (Bryce Pinkham); “That Horrible Woman” (Lisa O’Hare,
Lauren Worsham, Price Waldman, Eddie Korbich, Jeff Kready); Finale
(Company)
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder was the season’s sleeper, a

show that seemed to materialize out of nowhere to delight critics and
audiences, win the Tony Award for Best Musical, enjoy a run of over 900
performances, and turn a profit on its $7.5 million investment.
Based on Roy Horniman’s 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography
of a Criminal, which was later the basis for the 1949 classic British black
comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, the musical told the tale of Monty
Navarro (Bryce Pinkham), who is eighth in line to inherit the D’Ysquith
title, riches, and ancestral home of Highhurst Castle (as Charles Isherwood
in the New York Times was quick to point out, “that’s DIE-squith”). So
Monty takes a short cut to earldom and financial solvency by eliminating
seven of the D’Ysquiths (an eighth, Lord Aldabert, dies mysteriously, but
this is one death of a D’Ysquith for which Monty isn’t responsible).
As Alec Guinness had in the film version, Jefferson Mays played all
eight of the D’Ysquiths, including the drag roles of Lady Hyacinth
D’Ysquith and Lady Salome D’Ysquith Pumphrey. Note that Lady
Hyacinth is a Lady Bountiful, a philanthropist who dedicates her life to the
unfortunate (including all those “dear, disgusting lepers” in India), and
Lady Salome is a dreadfully untalented actress currently in a revival of
Hedda Gabler who in the drama’s climactic moment puts the fateful gun to
her head all too fatefully because Monty has substituted real bullets for
blanks.
And in keeping with the musical’s title, Monty also becomes
romantically involved with two ladies who seem ready to share him with
one another. Ironically, our Monty is arrested for the one murder he didn’t
commit (Aldabert’s), but through various machinations, his lady friends
come to the rescue and ensure that he goes free. But they say fate works in
mysterious ways, and sure enough, in a surprise ending Monty meets his
match when he too is murdered.
Marilyn Stasio in Variety praised the “witty and adorably wicked”
musical “about a serial killer that Stephen Sondheim didn’t write.” The
“ingeniously absurd” plot offered “smart” and “naughty” lyrics, the “lethal”
music parodied the gamut of British musical theatre, including Gilbert and
Sullivan and Noel Coward, and the “endlessly inventive” Mays played his
eight roles “with serene comic cruelty.” The New Yorker said the show had
“panache and precision” with “arch” humor, “tuneful” songs, “plush fun-
house” decor, and a performance of “buffoonish alacrity” by the “masterly”
Mays. Richard Zoglin in Time noted that director Darko Tresnjak had “a lot
of fun with his inventive, low-tech staging of the murders,” and said the
“operetta-like score” was “bright and winning,” and the lyrics were “a little
twee and on-the-nose” (“I Don’t Understand the Poor” was a put-down of
those who never get rich, and “It’s Better with a Man” was “mock-
homoerotic”).
Isherwood was happy to report that “after a long dry spell, Broadway
has a deadly sociopath to call its own.” Here was a musical that matched
“streams of memorable melody with fizzily witty turns of phrase” and the
score was “one of the most accomplished (and probably the most literate) to
be heard on Broadway in the past dozen years or so.” Moreover,
“bloodlust” hadn’t been “sung so sweetly, or provided so much theatrical
fun” since Sweeney Todd first visited Broadway years ago, and Mays
“sings, dances, ice-skates, bicycles and generally romps” through the
evening in a performance that deserved “to be immortalized in Broadway
lore for some time to come.”
The cast recording was released by Ghostlight Records, and Robert L.
Freedman’s Notes on the Writing of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love &
Murder” was published in paperback by Applause Theatre & Cinema
Books in 2019.
Prior to Broadway, the musical had been jointly produced by the
Hartford (Connecticut) Stage and the Old Globe (San Diego) Theatre,
respectively playing in these venues in October 2012 and March 2013.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (A Gentleman’s Guide to
Love & Murder); Best Book (Robert L. Freedman); Best Score (lyrics
by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak, music by Steven Lutvak);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Jefferson
Mays); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Bryce Pinkham); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Lauren Worsham); Best Direction of a Musical (Darko
Tresnjak); Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick); Best Scenic Design
of a Musical (Alexander Dodge); Best Costume Design of a Musical
(Linda Cho)
BEAUTIFUL
“THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL”

Opening Date: January 12, 2014; Closing Date: October 27, 2019
Performances: 2,416
Book: Douglas McGrath
Lyrics and Music: See list of songs, below.
Direction: Marc Bruni; Producers: Paul Blake, Sony/ATV Music
Publishing, Jeffrey A. Sine, Richard A. Smith, Mike Bosner, Harriet N.
Leve/Elaine Krauss, Terry Schnuck, Orin Wolf, Patty Baker/Good
Productions, Roger Faxon, Larry Magid, Kit Seidel, Lawrence S.
Toppall, Fakston Productions/Mary Solomon, William Court Cohen,
John Gore, BarLor Productions, Matthew C. Blank, Tim Hogue, Joel
Hyatt, Marianne Mills, Michael J. Moritz Jr., StylesFour Productions,
Brunish and Trinchero, and Jeremiah J. Harris; Sherry Kondor and
Christine Russell, Executive Producers; Choreography: Josh Prince;
Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes: Alejo Vietti; Lighting: Peter
Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: Jason Howland
Cast: Jessie Mueller (Carole King), Liz Larsen (Genie Klein), Rebecca
LaChance (Betty), Kevin Duda (Neil Sedaka, Lou Adler), Carly Hughes
(Lucille), Jeb Brown (Don Kirshner), Jake Epstein (Gerry Goffin); The
Drifters: E. Clayton Cornelious, Douglas Lyons, Arbender J. Robinson,
and James Harkness; Anika Larsen (Cynthia Weil), Jarrod Spector
(Barry Mann); The Shirelles: Ashley Blanchet, Alysha Deslorieux,
Carly Hughes, and Rashidra Scott; Rashidra Scott (Janelle Woods),
Ashley Blanchet (Little Eva), The Righteous Brothers: Josh Davis and
Kevin Duda; “One Fine Day” Backup Singers: Ashley Blanchet, Alysha
Deslorieux, and Carly Hughes; Josh Davis (Nick), Sara King (Marilyn
Wald), Alysha Deslorieux (“Uptown” Singer)
The action takes place during the period 1958–1971 in New York City,
Brooklyn, and Los Angeles.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “So Far Away” (lyric and music by Carole King) (Jessie
Mueller); “Oh Carol” (lyric and music by Neil Sedaka and Howard
Greenfield) (Kevin Duda); “1650 Broadway Medley” (Ensemble) (see
Note below); “It Might as Well Rain Until September” (lyric and music
by Gerry Goffin and Carole King) (Jessie Mueller); “Be-Bop-A-Lula”
(lyric and music by Tex Davis and Gene Vincent) (Ensemble); “Some
Kind of Wonderful” (lyric and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King)
(Jessie Mueller, Jake Epstein, The Drifters); “Happy Days Are Here
Again” (1930 film Chasing Rainbows; lyric by Jack Yellen, music by
Milton Ager) (Anika Larsen); “Take Good Care of My Baby” (lyric and
music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King) (Jake Epstein, Jessie Mueller);
“Who Put the Bomp” (lyric and music by Barry Mann and Gerry
Goffin) (Jarrod Spector); “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (lyric and
music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King) (Jessie Mueller); “He’s Sure
the Boy I Love” (lyric and music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)
(Anika Larsen, Jarrod Spector); “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
(reprise) (The Shirelles); “Up on the Roof” (lyric and music by Gerry
Goffin and Carole King) (Jake Epstein, The Drifters); “On Broadway”
(lyric and music by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber, and Mike
Stoller) (The Drifters); “The Locomotion” (lyric and music by Gerry
Goffin and Carole King) (Ashley Blanchet, Ensemble); “You’ve Lost
That Lovin’ Feeling” (lyric and music by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil,
and Phil Spector) (Jarrod Spector, The Righteous Brothers); “One Fine
Day” (lyric and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King) (Rashidra
Scott, Backup Singers, Jessie Mueller)
Act Two: “Chains” (lyric and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King)
(Jessie Mueller, Ensemble); “Walking in the Rain” (lyric and music by
Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, and Phil Spector) (Jarrod Spector, Anika
Larsen); “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (lyric and music by Gerry Goffin and
Carole King) (Sara King, Jake Epstein, Ensemble); “We Gotta Get Out
of This Place” (lyric and music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)
(Jarrod Spector); “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (reprise) (Jessie
Mueller); “Uptown” (lyric and music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)
(Alysha Deslorieux, Ensemble); “It’s Too Late” (lyric and music by
Carole King and Toni Stern) (Jessie Mueller); “(You Make Me Feel
Like) A Natural Woman” (lyric and music by Gerry Goffin, Carole
King, and Gerald Wexler) (Jessie Mueller, Ensemble); “Beautiful” (lyric
and music by Carole King) (Jessie Mueller, Ensemble)
Note: The “1650 Broadway Medley” probably included the following
songs: “I Go Ape” (lyric and music by Neil Sedaka and Howard
Greenfield); “Little Darlin’” (lyric and music by Maurice Williams);
“Love Potion #9” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller);
“Poison Ivy” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller);
“Splish Splash” (lyric and music by Bobby Darin and Jean Murray);
“Stupid Cupid” (lyric and music by Neil Sedaka and Howard
Greenfield); “There Goes My Baby” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber,
Mike Stoller, Ben King, George Treadwell, and Lover Patterson); and
“Yakkety Yak” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller).
Despite critical carping, audiences flocked to Beautiful and turned it

into one of the decade’s blockbusters. The jukebox musical was in the
tradition of Jersey Boys (some quipped the show could have been titled
Brooklyn Girl), and in this case the story centered on the personal and
professional life of singer and song-writer Carole King (Jessie Mueller) and
her relationship with Gerry Goffin (Jake Epstein), another songwriter whom
she eventually married and later divorced. In order to flesh out the plot and
provide a certain amount of comedy relief, the show also focused on King
and Goffin’s friendly rivalry with the successful songwriting team of
Cynthia Weil (Liz Larsen) and Barry Mann (Jarrod Spector).
Richard Zoglin in Time said the “entertaining if utterly pedestrian”
musical was a “paint-by-numbers” biography that was “treated too
simplistically to really sink in”: after her divorce, King moves to L.A.,
writes her own songs, plays one night at the Bitter End, “and—boom!—the
next thing you know she’s at Carnegie Hall.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety said
the “flat-footed” book offered “blunt dramaturgy and broad
characterization” that “repeatedly drag down the narrative,” and “surely”
the musical deserved “more imaginative treatment than the corny
chronological storytelling” and “old-fashioned musical format.” Ben
Brantley in the New York Times said the “formulaic” evening had a
“tracing-paper script” and “a suggestion of hangdog self-consciousness”
along with “synthetically slick [song] interpretations.” But Mueller was
“immensely likable,” and with Beautiful she “confidently” stepped “into the
V.I.P. room of musical headliners.” Mueller won the Tony Award for her
performance, and two seasons later was back on Broadway in another hit
with Waitress.
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said Mueller was “far and away the best
reason” to see Beautiful because her “presence” as “gawky” teenager to
successful celebrity was both “awkward and beatific” and was a
performance “of utter musical and emotional authenticity.” Jesse Green in
New York said Mueller created a “thrilling and true” vocal performance as
well as a real character with her “symphony of shy line readings and bubbly
self-doubt.” Otherwise, Beautiful was “a mess of a show” that—because it
borrowed the “then-I-wrote (or co-wrote, or stole) jumpiness of jukebox
nightmares like Motown”—will “probably run forever.” David Rooney in
the Hollywood Reporter said that despite the “sitcom dialogue,” which
didn’t skirt “the clichés and shortcuts of hackneyed behind-the-music
chronicles,” the story and the characters were “never less than engaging.” It
also helped that the songs were “mostly performance numbers” and thus
enhanced “the storyline without requiring the effortful plot shoehorning of
many jukebox musicals.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News
complained that the show’s “connect-the-dots story line is so simplistic that
the extravagantly talented King’s life emerges as a mundane version of the
long-suffering little woman.”
“You’ve Got a Friend” (lyric and music by Carole King) was added
after the Broadway opening and is included on the cast recording released
by Ghostlight Records (besides the CD, the company also issued the cast
album on a vinyl two-record set). Sony Pictures has bought the film rights
to the production, and the London edition opened on February 15, 2015, at
the Aldwych Theatre for approximately thirty months.
Beautiful wasn’t New York’s first Carole King tribute musical. On
February 18, 1993, Tapestry (subtitled “The Music of Carole King”) opened
Off-Off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre for nineteen performances.
Stephen Holden in the Times described the evening as a “choreographed
concert” that lacked the energy of such tributes as Ain’t Misbehavin’.
As noted, Beautiful included songs written by Cynthia Weil and Barry
Mann, who were characters in Beautiful (and whose performers were Tony-
nominated for Best Featured players). Weil and Mann were the subjects of
two musical tributes. Just Once (subtitled “A Love Story about the Feeling
of Magic”) opened on April 17, 1986, at the Bottom Line, and on February
5, 2004, Weil and Mann headlined their own tribute revue They Wrote
That?, which opened Off-Broadway at the McGlinn/Cazale Theatre for
forty-one performances. Margo Jefferson in the Times found this production
“amazingly unshaped” with a superficial text that never depicted what
inspired and motivated the team. She suggested that an “all-music, all-
dance and no-talk” approach on the order of Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Fosse
might have been more satisfying.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Beautiful); Best Book
(Douglas McGrath); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
in a Musical (Jessie Mueller); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Jarrod Spector); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Anika Larsen); Best
Orchestrations (Steve Sidwell); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Brian
Ronan)
THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY

Opening Date: February 20, 2014; Closing Date: May 18, 2014
Performances: 100
Book: Marsha Norman
Lyrics and Music: Jason Robert Brown
Based on the 1992 novel The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James
Walker (which was the basis for the 1995 film of the same name with
direction by Clint Eastwood and screenplay by Richard LaGravenese).
Direction: Bartlett Sher; Producers: Jeffrey Richards, Stacey Mindich, Jerry
Frankel, Gutterman Chernoff, Hunter Arnold, Ken Davenport, Carl
Daikeler, Michael DeSantis, Aaron Priest, Libby Adler Mages/Mari
Glick Stuart, Scott M. Delman, Independent Presenters Network, Red
Mountain Theatre Company, Caiola Productions, Remmel T. Dickinson,
Ken Greiner, David Lancaster, Bellanca Smigel Rutter, Mark S. Golub
and David S. Golub, and Will Trice with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures
and The Shubert Organization in association with the Williamstown
Theatre Festival; Steven Strauss, Michael Crea, and P. J. Miller,
Associate Producers; Choreography: Movement by Danny Mefford;
Scenery: Michael Yeargan; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting:
Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Tom Murray
Cast: Kelli O’Hara (Francesca), Caitlin Kinnunen (Carolyn), Derek Klena
(Michael), Hunter Foster (Bud), Cass Morgan (Marge), Michael X.
Martin (Charlie), Whitney Bashor (Marian, Chiara), Steven Pasquale
(Robert), Katie Klaus (State Fair Singer), Luke Marinkovich (Paolo);
Ensemble: Ephie Aardema, Jennifer Allen, Katie Klaus, Luke
Marinkovich, Aaron Ramey, Dan Sharkey
The action takes place in Winterset, Iowa, during four days in 1965 and in
the following years.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “To Build a Home” (Kelli O’Hara, Company); “Home before
You Know It” (Hunter Foster, Derek Klena, Caitlin Kinnunen, Kelli
O’Hara); “Temporarily Lost” (Steven Pasquale); “What Do You Call a
Man?” (Kelli O’Hara); “You’re Never Alone” (Hunter Foster,
Company); “Another Life” (Whitney Bashor); “Wondering” (Steven
Pasquale, Kelli O’Hara); “Look at Me” (Kelli O’Hara, Steven Pasquale,
Company); “The World Inside the Frame” (Steven Pasquale);
“Something from a Dream” (Hunter Foster); “Get Closer” (Cass
Morgan, Radio Singers); “Falling into You” (Steven Pasquale, Kelli
O’Hara)
Act Two: “State Road 21” and “The Real World” (Katie Klaus, Derek
Klena, Caitlin Kinnunen, Company); “Who We Are and Who We Want
to Be” (Steven Pasquale, Kelli O’Hara, Company); “Almost Real”
(Kelli O’Hara); “Before and after You” and “One Second and a Million
Miles” (Steven Pasquale, Kelli O’Hara); “When I’m Gone” (Michael X.
Martin, Hunter Foster, Company); “It All Fades Away” (Steven
Pasquale); “Always Better” (Kelli O’Hara, Steven Pasquale, Company)
The Bridges of Madison County was based on Robert James Walker’s

short 1992 tear-jerker, which was later filmed in 1995. Jessie Green in New
York reminded his readers that Janet Maslin called the book “the world’s
longest greeting card,” and Green noted that it was “little short of
miraculous” that the musical created “something so smart and powerful
from the treacle” of the novel.
Despite Jason Robert Brown’s highly acclaimed lyrics and music (for
which he won his second Tony Award for Best Score, following his 1998
win for Parade), O’Hara’s well-received performance (Ben Brantley in the
New York Times said she now confirmed “her position as one of the most
exquisitely expressive stars in musical theatre”), and the built-in name
recognition of the book and movie, the musical managed just three months
on Broadway.
The story took place in Winterset, Iowa, mostly in 1965. Almost twenty
years earlier, the Italian Francesca (Kelli O’Hara) and the GI Bud (Hunter
Foster) married, and when they settled in Iowa they devoted themselves to
raising their now teenage son and daughter and running their farm. As the
musical got underway, Bud and the kids are away at the state fair and the
somewhat restless and discontented Francesca is alone. When she meets
handsome National Geographic photographer Robert (Steven Pasquale),
she’s ripe for romance. He’s in Iowa to take photos of the state’s covered
bridges, and the two are immediately attracted to one another and begin a
brief affair. But Francesca knows that however empty her life might be, she
belongs to her family. (Note that the musical changed the solidly middle-
aged characters to slightly younger ones, but O’Hara’s apple-cheeked
radiance and Pasquale’s sexy swagger would indicate the two were even
younger, a misstep that undermined the bittersweet notion that the fleeting
affair was their last chance for happiness.)
Green said the “insipid” novel had become a “very serious” musical
with Marsha Norman’s “high quality” writing and a “gorgeous” score by
Brown. Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal found the score “as
musically exciting as anything heard on Broadway since Stephen
Sondheim’s glory days.” For Richard Zoglin in Time, the show “soar[ed] on
its music and its performances,” and the “lush, romantic [and] musically
complex” score was Brown’s “finest” yet. The two leads made “a
Broadway dream team” and gave off “sparks,” and if the musical didn’t
quite “satisfy,” it was because unlike the “quiet poignancy” of the novel, the
lyric adaptation was “puffed up with operatic emotionality” and “dressed in
Broadway finery.” As a result, Zoglin heard the audience’s “enthusiastic”
applause but suspected “there wasn’t a wet eye in the house.”
The New Yorker found the leads “perfectly cast” but noted “the problem
is the score” because it was “oddly tuneless” and lacked “real energy at its
core.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said the “overly earnest” musical
was “curiously somber and remote,” mainly because Norman’s book missed
the “smoldering passions” of the novel’s film version. Jones mentioned that
when Robert tells Francesca that her love for her family is why he loves her,
the “agonizing paradox” was “complex” and suggested a “thematic
direction” that the book and lyrics never explored. Further, scenic designer
Michael Yeargan’s “minimalist” decor never offered a single covered bridge
(“did he not read the marquee?”), and had the design captured the “lush
landscapes” of Iowa it might have “contributed to the romance” and offered
up “nostalgia” for small-town America.
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the evening was a
“mixed bag” of “cringe-inducing bits” and “moments of musical-theatre
nirvana.” Bud’s songs were “clunky,” and when Robert’s ex-wife (played
by Whitney Bashor) materialized in a flashback she existed “only to sing
what sounds like a Joni Mitchell B-Side.” But Francesca’s songs
“brilliantly” blended “a sense of intimacy with near-operatic grandeur,” an
effect “perfectly encapsulated” by the opening number “To Build a Home,”
which provided the character’s backstory and allowed us to see her home
materialize on stage.
Brantley said “To Build a Home” offered Francesca’s “heady hope of
liberation and the hopeless acceptance of captivity,” but Norman’s book and
Bartlett Sher’s direction weren’t as “multidimensional” as Brown’s
“sumptuous” songs and O’Hara’s “sensitive, probing and operatically rich
and lustrous” performance. Most of what surrounded O’Hara on stage had
“the depth of a shiny picture postcard” replete with “a disproportionately
long and repetitive message.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety said O’Hara’s
“soaring dramatic soprano” excused her “atrocious” Italian accent, but it
was hard to “reconcile” her “youthful bloom” with her character of a
middle-aged housewife, especially when her children “stand taller and look
older than she does.” As a result, the story lost the “powerful emotional
tug” of two middle-aged people and their “one last grasp at happiness.”
In his review of the musical’s national tour with Elizabeth Stanley and
Andrew Samonsky in the leads, Peter Marks in the Washington Post praised
Brown’s “restless” and “delicious” score of “uplifting, folksy” songs, which
elevated the “notoriously sudsy romance” depicted in the “overwrought”
novel and the “tepid” film version. Brown’s score was the “star” of the
evening, and the composer himself conducted the orchestra for the show’s
first week at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre. Marks noted that
despite the Hamilton “hype” and the recent record-breaking box-office
Broadway season, the “strange success and failure” of The Bridges of
Madison County “ought to tell you that the American musical is in some
real trouble.”
The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records.
The musical premiered at the Williamstown (Massachusetts) Theatre
Festival on August 1, 2013, with Elena Shaddow in the role of Francesca
once O’Hara had to bow out because of pregnancy.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Score (lyrics and music by Jason
Robert Brown); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Kelli O’Hara); Best Orchestrations (Jason Robert Brown);
Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Donald Holder)
ROCKY
Theatre: Winter Garden Theatre
Performances: 180
Book: Thomas Meehan and Sylvester Stallone
Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens
Music: Stephen Flaherty
Based on the MGM and United Artists’ 1976 film Rocky (direction by John
G. Avildsen and screenplay by Sylvester Stallone).
Direction: Alex Timbers; Producers: Stage Entertainment USA and
Sylvester Stallone, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, The Shubert Organization,
Kevin King-Templeton, James L. Nederlander and Terry Allen Kramer,
Roy Furman, Cheryl Wiesenfeld, Zane Tankel, Lucky Champions, Scott
Delman, JFL Theatricals/Judith Ann Abrams, Latitude Link,
Waxman/Shin/Bergere, and Lauren Stevens/Josh Goodman; Barbara
Darwall and Michael Hildebrandt, Associate Producers; Adam
Silberman and Eric Cornell, Executive Producers; Joop van den Ende
and Bill Taylor, Producers; Choreography: Steven Hoggett and Kelly
Devine; Scenery: Christopher Barreco; Video Design: Dan Scully and
Pablo N. Molina; Special Effects Design: Jeremy Chernick; Costumes:
David Zinn; Lighting: Christopher Akerlind; Musical Direction: Chris
Fenwick
Cast: Andy Karl (Rocky Balboa), Adam Perry (Spider Rico, Boxer, Boom
Operator), Ned Eisenberg (Announcer, Wysocki, Bob Dunphy), Wallace
Smith (Fight Promoter, Apollo’s Manager, Disc Jockey), James Brown
III (Sugar Jackson, Boxer, Cameraman), Luis Salgado (Kid Rizzo,
Boxer, Rocky’s Cornerman), Eric Anderson (Rocky’s Cornerman,
Gazzo, Tommy Crosetti), John Schiappa (Buddy, Jimmy Michaels),
Vasthy Mompoint (Linda McKenna, Apollo Girl), Terence Archie
(Apollo Creed), Sasha Hutchings (Apollo Girl, Ensemble), Kevin Del
Aguila (Mike, Watchman, Jack, Doctor), Dakin Matthews (Mickey),
Okieriete Onaodowan (Dipper, Apollo’s Cornerman), Vince Oddo
(Boxer, Ensemble), Margo Seibert (Adrian), Jennifer Mudge (Gloria),
Jenny Lee Stern (Joanne, Ensemble), Michelle Aravena (Angie,
Ensemble), Danny Mastro-giorgio (Paulie), David Andrew MacDonald
(Miles Jergens, Ensemble), Adrian Aguilar (Reporter, Boxer), Sam J.
Cahn (Boxer, Rocky Marciano, Referee), Kristin Piro (Apollo Girl,
Shirley)
The action takes place during 1975 in Philadelphia.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Ain’t Down Yet” (Company, Wallace Smith, Eric Anderson,
John Schiappa); “My Nose Ain’t Broken” (Andy Karl); “Raining”
(Margo Seibert); “Patriotic” (Terence Archie, Wallace Smith, Andrew
MacDonald, Apollo Girls, Ensemble); “My Nose Ain’t Broken”
(reprise) (Andy Karl); “The Flip Side” (Andy Karl, Margo Seibert);
“Adrian” (Andy Karl); “Wanna Know Why” (Eric Anderson, John
Schiappa, Andy Karl, Dakin Matthews); “Fight from the Heart” (Andy
Karl); “One of Us” (Company)
Act Two: “Training Montage 1” (Orchestra);”In the Ring” (Dakin
Matthews); “Training Montage 2” (Company); “Happiness” (Andy
Karl, Margo Seibert); “I’m Done” (Margo Seibert); “Southside
Celebrity” (Company, Andy Karl, Terence Archie); “Adrian” (reprise)
(Margo Seibert); “Keep on Standing” (Andy Karl); “Undefeated Man”
(Terence Archie, Entourage); “The Fight” (Company); Note: The
program’s music credits also cited two other songs that were heard in
the production: “Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)” (lyric and music
by Ayn E. Robbins, Carol Connors, and Bill Conti) (from the original
1976 Rocky film) and “Eye of the Tiger” (lyric and music by Frank M.
Sullivan and James M. Peterki) (from Rocky III, 1982).
The 1976 film Rocky starred Sylvester Stallone, who also wrote the
screenplay. It was the most financially successful movie of its year, won
two major Academy Awards (for Best Picture and Best Direction), and
spawned five sequels between 1979 and 2006, all of which starred Stallone.
The musical adaptation was co-scripted by Stallone and Thomas Meehan,
the lyrics were by Lynn Ahrens, and the music by Stephen Flaherty (as
noted in the above list of musical numbers, the score also included one song
from the 1976 film and another from Rocky III).
Despite a New York workshop and a lavish $20 million world premiere
in Hamburg, the $16.5 million Broadway production failed to knock out the
critics and was down for the count after five rounds (well, five months).
With so many musicals targeting the teenage-girl demographic, Rocky took
a bold step by going after the straight male audience, a target group
probably not all that much interested in Broadway musicals and that
certainly failed to show up at the Winter Garden Theatre. After Rocky,
Ahrens and Flaherty hopped on the girl-centric bandwagon with Little
Dancer (later revised as Marie, Dancing Still), which as of this writing
hasn’t been produced in New York, and the long-running Anastasia.
The familiar story looked at Rocky Balboa (Andy Karl), an all-but-has-
been-and-never-quite-was boxer who against all odds holds his own against
a champion boxer and acquits himself proudly. For the most part, the story
and score didn’t much impress anyone, but scenic designer Christopher
Barreco took home a Tony Award for his breathtaking set, a chandelier
moment if ever there was one when a regulation-sized boxing ring
descended from the flies, hovered over the audience, and then completely
displaced the first six rows of orchestra seats (to be sure, the ticketholders
for those seats had earlier been escorted onto the stage, and they sat in
ringside bleachers to watch the big fight).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Rocky Balboa was the
“underdog” and his opponent Apollo Creed (Terence Archie) was the
“uberdog,” but the show’s “governing sensibility” wasn’t just “underdog,”
it was “hangdog” because it “doggedly” refused to “camp it up” and thus
stayed “honestly sincere.” As a result, the musical didn’t “really get started”
until about 10:10 when the sixteen-minute “hell of a fight” began, a
“brutally balletic coup de theatre” that shook up “the joint in more ways
than one” and provided “an all-out, multimedia assault on the senses that
force[d] much of the audience to its feet.”
Hilton Als in the New Yorker reported that the “immense spectacle” was
“a spectacle of waste” because the “oversized” show was a “canned
commodity.” Karl was a “sweet star” and understood “how his body works
in a scene,” but despite “how much he flexes, he can’t change the musical’s
cheap structure.” But Richard Zoglin in Time noted that despite its being a
“crassly commercial enterprise,” the musical was “no loser” and “it lands.”
Karl captured enough of Stallone’s speech and swagger without parodying
them, and the big fight gave “you everything you want in a splashy stage
climax and more.” The “fast and furious” punches were choreographed, the
“blood and sputum fly,” and time was “compressed or speeded up or
stretched out with cinematic stop-action effects as announcers on giant TV
screens overhead call out the action breathlessly.” As a result, the “rousing”
finale was “abrupt and yet so satisfying” that you almost didn’t realize the
show concluded without a song.
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal said the fight was “a total-
immersion, spare-no-expense stage spectacle.” The show itself might have
been a “straight-down-the-center commodity,” but it was “a damned fine
one, maybe the best I’ve ever seen. A knockout, in fact.” David Rooney in
the Hollywood Reporter noted that the fight was “so visceral and
exhilarating that it sends the audience out on a high,” but the “indestructible
story” was given a book that was “a serviceable Xerox” of the movie and
caused the show to be a “mismatch of material and musical team.” There
was “little evidence of any real connection to the story in the songs,” and
while the ballads were “pretty in a nondescript way,” the music was “often
inessential and rarely propulsive.” Karl followed the “Stallone model” but
brought “fresh vitality and humor” to his character, and he upped “the man-
candy factor in his satin boxing trunks.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today liked the “graceful” song “Raining,” but
other numbers mixed “predictable sentiments with overheated rock
accents.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said the interpolation
of “Gonna Fly Now” and “Eye of the Tiger” underlined how Ahrens and
Flaherty’s score lacked “energy, not to mention soul,” and while the critic
had “quibbles” with the production, the “epic brawl wipes them all out, and
resets the audience’s memory so we leave on a Himalayan high.”
The original cast recording was released by Hip-O Records.
The original workshop included Karl in the role of Rocky. The
musical’s world premiere took place on November 18, 2012, at the TUI
Operettenhaus in Hamburg with Drew Sarich in the title role; the
production reportedly cost $20 million to mount, including $4.3 million for
the decor.
Awards
Role in a Musical (Andy Karl); Best Choreography (Steven Hoggett and
Kelly Devine); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Christopher
Barreco); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Christopher Akerlind)
ALADDIN
Theatre: New Amsterdam Theatre
31, 2019
Book: Chad Beguelin
Lyrics: Howard Ashman and Tim Rice; additional lyrics by Chad Beguelin
Music: Alan Menken
Based on the 1992 Walt Disney Company film Aladdin (direction by John
Musker and Ron Clements, screenplay by Ron Clements, John Musker,
Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio), which was in turn inspired by the Middle
Eastern folk tale “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” from One Thousand
and One Nights as popularized in the version by Antoine Galland.
Direction and Choreography: Casey Nicholaw (Scott Taylor, Associate
Director; John MacInnis, Associate Choreographer); Producer: Disney
Theatrical Productions (Thomas Schumacher, Director); Anne Quart,
Associate Producer; Scenery: Bob Crowley; Illusion Design: Jim
Steinmeyer; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical
Direction: Michael Kosarin
Cast: James Monroe Iglehart (Genie), Jonathan Freeman (Jafar), Don
Darryl Rivera (Iago), Adam Jacobs (Aladdin), Courtney Reed
(Jasmine), Clifton Davis (Sultan), Brian Gonzales (Babkak), Jonathan
Schwartz (Omar), Brandon O’Neill (Kassim, Spooky Voice, Voice of
the Cave), Bobby Pestka (Shop Owner), Dennis Stowe (Razoul),
Andrew Cao (Henchman), Donald Jones Jr. (Henchman), Jaz Sealey
(Prince Abdullah), Tia Altinay (Attendant), Khori Michelle Petinaud
(Attendant), Marisha Wallace (Attendant, Fortune Teller); Ensemble:
Tia Altinay, Andrew Cao, Joshua Dela Cruz, Yurel Echezarreta, Daisy
Hobbs, Donald Jones Jr., Adam Kaokept, Nikki Long, Stanley Martin,
Brandt Martinez, Rhea Patterson, Bobby Pestka, Khori Michelle
Petinaud, Ariel Reid, Trent Saunders, Jaz Sealey, Dennis Stowe,
Marisha Wallace, Bud Weber
The action takes place a long time ago in the (fictional) city of Agrabag in
Arabia.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = lyrics by Howard Ashman; (**) = lyrics by Tim Rice. All other
lyrics and additional lyrics by Chad Beguelin.
Act One: “Arabian Nights” (*) (James Monroe Iglehart, Company); “One
Jump Ahead” (**) (Adam Jacobs, Ensemble); “Proud of Your Boy” (*)
(Adam Jacobs); “These Palace Walls” (Courtney Reed, Female
Attendants); “Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim” (*) (Brian Gonzales,
Jonathan Schwartz, Adam Jacobs, Brandon O’Neill, Courtney Reed,
Ensemble); “A Million Miles Away” (Adam Jacobs, Courtney Reed);
“Diamond in the Rough” (Jonathan Freeman, Don Darryl Rivera, Adam
Jacobs); “Friend Like Me” (*) (James Monroe Iglehart, Adam Jacobs,
Ensemble); Act One Finale: “Friend Like Me” (reprise) and “Proud of
Your Boy” (reprise) (James Monroe Iglehart, Adam Jacobs)
Act Two: “Prince Ali” (*) (Brian Gonzales, Jonathan Schwartz, Brandon
O’Neill, James Monroe Iglehart, Ensemble); “A Whole New World”
(**) (Adam Jacobs, Courtney Reed); “High Adventure” (*) (Brian
Gonzales, Jonathan Schwartz, Brandon O’Neill, Ensemble);
“Somebody’s Got Your Back” (James Monroe Iglehart, Adam Jacobs,
Brian Gonzales, Jonathan Schwartz, Brandon O’Neill); “Proud of Your
Boy” (*) (reprise) (Adam Jacobs); “Prince Ali” (Sultan reprise) (Clifton
Davis, Company); “Prince Ali” (Jafar reprise) (**) (Jonathan Freeman);
Finale Ultimo: “Arabian Nights” (reprise) and “A Whole New World”
(reprise) (Company)
Disney’s Aladdin proved to be one of the company’s greatest successes,

and as of this writing is still running on Broadway with some twenty-five
hundred performances under its belt as of March 2020. The production was
based on Disney’s popular 1992 film of the same name, which won the
Academy Award for Best Song (“A Whole New World”). The film’s score
included five songs, “Arabian Nights” (lyric by Howard Ashman, sung in
the film by Bruce Adler), “One Jump Ahead” (lyric by Tim Rice, sung by
Brad Kane); “Friend Like Me” (lyric by Howard Ashman, sung by Robin
Williams); “Prince Ali” (lyric by Howard Ashman, sung by Robin
Williams); and “A Whole New World” (lyric by Tim Rice, sung by Brad
Kane and Lea Salonga). The lyric for the film’s reprise version of “Prince
Ali” was by Tim Rice, and it was sung by Jonathan Freeman, who appeared
in the stage production and who again sang the “Prince Ali” reprise. The
stage production also included songs written for but not used in the film,
and additional lyrics for the stage version were by Chad Beguelin, who also
wrote the show’s book. All the music in the production was by Alan
Menken, with the exception of a brief sequence by Leonard Bernstein (see
below for particulars).
The familiar rags-to-riches story followed the poor Aladdin (Adam
Jacobs), who rubs a magic lamp and is granted three wishes by a genie
(James Monroe Iglehart), including his wish to be a prince. Meanwhile,
Princess Jasmine (Courtney Reed) feels pressured by her father, the Sultan
(Clifton Davis), to marry, and because she doesn’t want to be fobbed off to
any “Tom, Dick or Hassim,” she disguises herself as a commoner to meet
the people. She meets Aladdin in particular, and while romance blooms
there are also court intrigues afoot when the evil Grand Vizier Jafar
(Freeman) plots to undermine the Sultan. But the villain is thwarted by
Aladdin, and all ends well in traditional fairy-tale fashion when Aladdin
and Jasmine marry.
Richard Zoglin in Time found the show “frisky and fun” with a “nifty
sleight of hand” for entrances and exits as well as a magic carpet ride, an
occasional recognition of musical comedy conventions (“They’re playing
music while we’re fighting!”), and “old-fashioned Broadway pizzazz.” And
of course there was the by now the de rigueur “feisty” and “proto-feminist”
heroine, “wisecracking” sidekicks for the hero, and a “Captain Hook-style
villain.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety liked the magic carpet ride but decided
the stage production didn’t live up to the movie. Director and choreographer
Casey Nicholaw turned the film’s “romantic fairy-tale adventure into shtick
comedy,” and “the tone of fairy-tale innocence” was replaced by “show-
queen vulgarity.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times was prepared for yet another
children’s musical with “spunky” youngsters and “wisecracking” animals,
and so he was pleased to report that Aladdin had an “infectious and only
mildly syrupy spirit” that kidded the “somewhat exhausted conventions” of
its genre “with a breezy insouciance that scrubs away some of the material’s
bland gloss” (such as when one character tells another that “we don’t have
time for self-discovery”). Nicholaw “directed and choreographed (and
choreographed, and choreographed),” and the evening was “adroitly, not to
say exhaustively, exploited for any and every opportunity to indulge in
extravagant musical numbers” that paid “energetic tribute to everything
from the Cotton Club and Las Vegas to vintage Hollywood and current
Bollywood.” Otherwise, there were “perhaps a few too many trips around
the bazaar,” and the show’s “relentless razzle-dazzle” and “anything-for-a-
laugh spirit” seemed to teach a life lesson, and that lesson was “if you can’t
be yourself, just be fabulous.”
The musical first opened in 2011 at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre, was
later produced in various U.S. and international venues, and shortly before
the Broadway premiere played its official tryout in Toronto. The London
production opened at the Prince Edward Theatre on June 15, 2016, and ran
over three years. Both the Broadway cast album and the earlier 1992 film
soundtrack were released by Walt Disney Records.
The program’s credits’ section also indicated that the following song
excerpts were heard in the production: from West Side Story, 1957:
“Mambo” (music by Leonard Bernstein); from the 1991 film Beauty and
the Beast: “Beauty and the Beast” and “Belle” (lyrics by Howard Ashman,
music by Alan Menken); from the 1989 film Little Mermaid: “Part of Your
World” and “Under the Sea” (lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan
Menken); and from 1995 the film Pocahontas: “Colors of the Wind” (lyric
by Stephen Schwartz, music by Alan Menken).
The Walt Disney Company’s live-action film version of the 1992
animated film was released in 2019 with a cast headed by Will Smith
(Genie), Mena Massoud (Aladdin), and Naomi Scott (Jasmine), and the
adaptation includes songs used in the 1992 film and the current stage
production as well as new ones by Menken, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Aladdin); Best Book (Chad
Beguelin); Best Score (lyrics by Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, and Chad
Beguelin, music by Alan Menken); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (James Monroe Iglehart); Best
Choreography (Casey Nicholaw)
LES MISERABLES
Opening Date: March 23, 2014; Closing Date: September 4, 2016
Performances: 1,024
Book: Original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel; English
adaptation by Trevor Nunn and John Caird; additional material by
James Fenton
Lyrics: Herbert Kretzmer
Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg
Based on the 1862 novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
Direction: Laurence Connor and James Powell (Anthony Lyn, Associate
Director); Producer: Cameron Mackintosh; Nicholas Alliott and Seth
Sklar-Heyn, Executive Producers; Choreography: Musical staging by
Michael Ashcroft and Geoffrey Garratt; Scenery: Set and image design
by Matt Kinley; Projections: Projections “realized” by Fifty-Nine
Productions; Costumes: Andreane Neofitou and Christine Rowland;
Lighting: Paule Constable; Musical Direction: James Lowe
Cast: Ramin Karimloo (Jean Valjean), Will Swenson (Javert), Dennis
Moench (Farmer, Claquesous), Chris McCarrell (Laborer,
Fauchelevent), Christianne Tisdale (Innkeeper’s Wife), Andrew Kober
(Innkeeper, Babet), Adam Monley (The Bishop of Digne), Nathaniel
Hackmann (Constable, Factory Foreman), Arbender J. Robinson
(Constable, Montparnasse), Caissie Levy (Fantine), Betsy Morgan
(Factory Girl), Emily Cramer (Old Woman), Natalie Charle Ellis
(Wigmaker), John Rapson (Bamatabois, Major Domo), Aaron Walpole
(Champmathieu, Brujon, Loud Hailer), Angeli Negron and Mckayla
Twiggs (alternating in the roles of Little Cosette and Young Eponine),
Keala Settle (Madame Thenardier), Cliff Saunders (Thenardier), Joshua
Colley and Gaten Matarazzo (alternating in the role of Gavroche), Nikki
M. James (Eponine), Samantha Hill (Cosette); Students: Kyle Scatliffe
(Enjolras), Andy Mientus (Marius), Adam Monley (Combeferre), Jason
Forbach (Feuilly), Nathaniel Hackmann (Courfeyrac), Chris McCarrell
(Joly), John Rapson (Grantaire), and Terance Cedric Reddick (Lesgles);
Max Quinlan (Jean Prouvaire); Ensemble: Julie Benko, Erin Clemons,
Emily Cramer, Natalie Charle Ellis, Mia Sinclair Jenness, Melissa
Mitchell, Betsy Morgan, Melissa O’Neil, Christianne Tisdale
The action takes place in France during the years 1815–1832.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Company); “Soliloquy” (Ramin Karimloo); “At the
End of the Day” (Unemployed and Factory Workers); “I Dreamed a
Dream” (Caissie Levy); “Lovely Ladies” (Clients); “Who Am I?”
(Ramin Karimloo); “Fantine’s Death” (Caissie Levy, Ramin Karimloo);
“Castle on a Cloud” (Angeli Negron or Mckayla Twiggs); “Master of
the House” (Cliff Saunders, Keala Settle, Customers); “The Bargain”
(Keala Settle, Cliff Saunders, Ramin Karimloo); “Paris” (Joshua Colley
or Gaten Matarazzo, Beggars); “Stars” (Will Swenson); “ABC Café”
(Kyle Scatliffe, Andy Mientus, Students); “The People’s Song” (Kyle
Scatliffe, Students, Citizens); “In My Life” (Samantha Hill, Ramin
Karimloo, Andy Mientus, Nikki M. James); “A Heart Full of Love”
(Samantha Hill, Andy Mientus, Nikki M. James); “One Day More”
(Company)
Act Two: “On My Own” (Nikki M. James); “A Little Fall of Rain” (Nikki
M. James, Andy Mientus); “Drink with Me to Days Gone By” (Jason
Forbach, John Rapson, Students, Women); “Bring Him Home” (Ramin
Karimloo); “Dog Eats Dog” (Cliff Saunders); “Soliloquy” (Will
Swenson); “Turning” (Women); “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” (Andy
Mientus); “Wedding Chorale” (Guests); “Beggars at the Feast” (Cliff
Saunders, Keala Settle); Finale (Company)
Revivals of Les Miserables always seem a bit premature. The original

New York production opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 12, 1987,
and closed sixteen years later on May 18, 2003, after a run of 6,680
performances. But little more than three years later it was back, this time at
the Broadhurst where it opened on November 9, 2006, and played until
January 6, 2008, for a run of 463 showings. The current revival opened on
March 23, 2014, six years after the second one closed, and played until
September 4, 2016, for a total of 1,024 performances. New York just can’t
get enough of being Miserables, and if the trend continues the next trip to
the barricade should be sometime in the early 2020s.
The musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel was an earnest but
tiresome Classic Comics version that despite occasional weak and obvious
attempts at humor was mostly a lugubrious evening that wore its heart on its
tear-stained and sometimes blood-drenched sleeve in an endless parade of
either self-important, weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulder characters who
bellowed Euro-pop power ballads or delicate waif-like victims who were
equally annoying with their more-sensitive-than-thou weepiness. It was a
musical pity-party like nothing the musical stage had ever seen, and many
of the characters met death in a variety of colorful and melodramatic ways
that prevented them from making it to the finale.
No wonder some called it The Glums. However, most were impressed
by it all and were astounded by the decor: the barricade wowed ’em, as if
they’d never seen the junk heap in Cats. But the critics gushed, and
audiences made Les Miserables one of the most successful musicals in
theatre history. The 1987 production won eight Tony Awards (including
Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, and Best Direction) and won the New
York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical. When the original
production closed in 2003, it was the second-longest-running musical in
Broadway history, and as of this writing is New York’s sixth longest-
running musical.
The plot dealt with the decades-long pursuit by the obsessed Inspector
Javert (Will Swenson for the current revival), who is fixated on the capture
of escaped convict Jean Valjean (Ramin Karimloo), whose crime against
humanity was to steal a loaf of bread for his starving daughter. The personal
story of Valjean’s persecution was mirrored by the French Student
Revolution.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times noted that the “firmly typed
good-guy bad-guy” characters and the “heaving, melodramatic” plot didn’t
give a director “much leeway to tinker,” and so “casting and matters of
crowd control are of paramount importance.” But Karimloo made a
“sterling” Broadway debut, and his “fiery intensity and full-throttled
vocalism” eventually became more “nuanced” in its “coloring” and he gave
a “beautifully restrained but richly felt rendition” of “Bring Him Home.”
Swenson was an “unusually dreamboaty” Javert, and a “beauty contest”
between him and Karimloo “would be a tough call.” But Swenson mustered
“his inner sinister to snarl and glower with gusto” and he sang with “power
and precision.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety mentioned that the 2006 revival
had seemed “tentative,” but the current one was a “solid piece of theatrical
architecture.” Karimloo acted with “great conviction” and was in “ringing”
voice, and Swenson gave a “fiercely passionate” performance. Stasio said
the decor was “limited” to “gray on black” with an occasional “flash of red”
for the barricade’s giant flag, the “murky” lighting was “quite beautiful,”
and the “stunning” projections provided a “brooding backdrop.”
The musical’s world premiere took place in Paris at the Palais des
Sports on September 24, 1980, and a revised version opened in London at
the Barbican Arts Center on October 8, 1985, where, as of this writing, it’s
still playing in the West End. The original London company included Colm
Wilkinson (Valjean) and Frances Ruffelle (Eponine), both of whom reprised
their roles for the 1987 Broadway premiere, and others in the London cast
were Patti LuPone (Fantine) and Michael Ball (Marius). The 2012 film
version was released by Universal; directed by Tom Hooper, the cast
included Hugh Jackman (Valjean), Russell Crowe (Javert), and Anne
Hathaway (Fantine).
There are over twenty recordings of the score, including the original
French concept album released by Relativity Records, the London cast
recording (also issued by Relativity), and the original Broadway cast album
on Geffen Records. Edward Behr’s The Complete Book of “Les
Miserables” was published in hardback and paperback by Little Brown &
Company in 1989 and includes the complete script (in 2016, the book was
reissued in paperback by Arcade Publishing). Another book about the
musical is Margaret Vermette’s The Musical World of Boublil and
Schonberg: The Creators of “Les Miserables,” “Miss Saigon,” “Martin
Guerre,” and “The Pirate Queen,” which was published by Applause
Theatre & Cinema Books in 2007.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival (Les Miserables); Best Performance
by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Ramin Karimloo); Best
Sound Design of a Musical (Mick Potter)
IF/THEN
Opening Date: March 30, 2014; Closing Date: March 22, 2015
Performances: 401
Book and Lyrics: Brian Yorkey
Music: Tom Kitt
Direction: Michael Greif; Producers: David Stone, James L. Nederlander,
Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Fox
Theatricals, and Marc Platt; Choreography: Larry Keigwin; Scenery:
Mark Wend-land; Costumes: Emily Rebholz; Lighting: Kenneth Posner;
Musical Direction: Carmel Dean
Cast: Idina Menzel (Elizabeth aka Liz and Beth), LaChanze (Kate),
Anthony Rapp (Lucas), James Snyder (Josh), Jerry Dixon (Stephen),
Jenn Colella (Anne), Jason Tam (David), Tamika Lawrence (Elena), Joe
Cassidy (Deputy Mayor, Others), Miguel Cervantes (Bartender, Others),
Curtis Holbrook (Soldier, Others), Stephanie Klemons (Flight
Attendant, Others), Tyler McGee (Street Musician, Others), Ryann
Redmond (Paulette, Others), Joe Aaron Reid (Architect, Others), Ann
Sanders (Cathy, Others)
The action takes place during the recent past in Madison Square Park and
all around New York City.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers; the following is
taken from information on the Broadway cast recording.
Act One: “Prologue” (Orchestra); “What If?” (Company); “It’s a Sign”
(LaChanze, Passengers); “A Map of New York” (Jerry Dixon, Idina
Menzel, LaChanze, Company); “You Never Know” (James Snyder);
“Ain’t No Man Manhattan” (Anthony Rapp, Activists); “What the
Fuck?” (Idina Menzel); “Here I Go” (Idina Menzel, James Snyder);
“You Don’t Need to Love Me” (Anthony Rapp); “No More Wasted
Time” (LaChanze, Idina Menzel, Tamika Lawrence, Jenn Colella);
“Surprise” (Company)
Act Two: “This Day” (LaChanze, Jenn Colella, Idina Menzel, James
Snyder, Company) and “Walking by a Wedding” (Idina Menzel); “Hey,
Kid” (James Snyder); “Some Other Me” (Idina Menzel, Anthony
Rapp); “Best Worst Mistake” (Anthony Rapp, Jason Tam); “I Hate You”
(Idina Menzel, James Snyder); “A Map of New York” (reprise) (Jerry
Dixon); “You Learn to Live Without” (Idina Menzel); “The Moment
Explodes” (Idina Menzel, Joe Aaron Reid, Passengers); “Love while
You Can” (Idina Menzel, LaChanze, Jenn Colella); “What Would You
Do?” (Jason Tam); “Always Starting Over” (Idina Menzel); “What If?”
(reprise) (Company)
If/Then was about the recently divorced Elizabeth (Idina Menzel),

newly arrived in New York from Phoenix and ready to start over in the big
city. The musical looked at two divergent paths her life could take, and the
two stories played out against the other in parallel time. Lighting, name
changes (Elizabeth is either Liz or Beth), and the Importance of Eye
Glasses guided the audience into whichever story was depicted (thank
goodness Elizabeth didn’t wear contacts, and as a result Menzel put on or
took off her glasses in a kind of modern-day Jekyll-and Hyde effect). But
lighting, glasses, and different names didn’t always help, and the critics
admitted to being confused at times.
Book writer and lyricist Brian Yorkey and composer Tom Kitt had
enjoyed a Pulitzer Prize–winning and long-running hit with Next to Normal,
but If/Then lasted barely a year on Broadway and didn’t take home any
awards. A national tour managed ten months.
The musical wore its seriousness on its sleeve, but why it selected just
two avenues for Elizabeth to follow wasn’t clear. Why not four options? Or
forty? Maybe there weren’t enough variants of her name, but surely we
could have been given the opportunity to explore the fates of Betty and
Lizzie. The show took an entire evening to examine the two roads open to
the heroine, while Stephen Sondheim succinctly summed up this notion in a
single song from Follies, “The Road You Didn’t Take.” Further, If/Then
was drenched in Lifetime movie clichés. Elizabeth’s choices are glamorous
ones, and in one reality she arrives in New York and immediately snags an
important position in the city government, and in the other reality marries a
handsome doctor. Those drudges who slave away in search of good jobs
and fantastic mates should be so lucky.
There were other clichés as well. The Sassy Black Woman was an
unwelcome and offensive stereotype on Broadway, and the Gay Best Friend
was another, as if black and gay characters were unworthy of leading roles
and must be relegated to supporting parts. If/Then did these notions one
better, and so Elizabeth or Liz or Beth had two Gay Best Friends, the black
Kate (LaChanze) and the white Lucas (Anthony Rapp). (Earlier in the
season, a leading character in First Date also had a GBF.)
The musical had an annoying habit of branding its mise en scène and
characters with trendy looks and habits. The show’s artwork depicted a
scene in Madison Square Park where Elizabeth is surrounded by a street
musician, a guy talking on his cell phone, and a woman drinking coffee
from a franchise’s coffee cup. Every aspect of the park was squeaky clean
in a kind of warm autumnal way and would have been right at home in a
Betty Comden and Adolph Green frolic of New York in the 1950s or 1960s
(perhaps Bells Are Ringing’s Ella and Jeff could suddenly materialize and
entertain the park’s passersby with “Just in Time” or perhaps “Just in
Parallel Time”).
More clichés abounded when the characters used fancy words instead of
ordinary ones. It’s a latte, not coffee; it’s an iPhone, not a phone; it’s pinot
instead of wine. The word choices were apparently short-cuts to
demonstrate that these were Trendy New Yorkers speaking, and not their
ordinary everyday flyover-country cousins. And the show’s message?
“Love while you can.” To which Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily
News responded, “Thanks, Hallmark.”
Richard Zoglin in Time was amused that the world of If/Then showed
people who “meet cute in parks and get offered great jobs that they have to
be talked into accepting.” Further, “street crime and homelessness” doesn’t
exist. But keeping the two stories straight was a “challenge,” and so was
“keeping awake” during an evening which became “a collection of New
York clichés.” Dziemianowicz said the “platitude-and-cliché-clogged”
musical offered a story that was “uninteresting” and lacked “impact,” and
the “banality” of it all ensured that you had “been-there-heard-this-before.”
The New Yorker said the “by-the-numbers” musical was “zippy yet ridden
with clichés,” and the score was “unmemorable.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the book and lyrics were “pretentious,”
the music “flaccid,” and Menzel was “sorely misused” by bearing the brunt
of “talky songs” and “naval-gazing” lyrics about “existential matters.”
Further, Menzel was placed in the “humiliating position” of using profanity
in order to prove how “down-to-earth” her character was. Did we really
need a song titled “What the Fuck?” Maybe a more enigmatic “WTF”
would have sufficed, but then some audience members might have confused
the acronym with “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter found the show “banal” with
“uninteresting” characters and a book that dealt in “weary platitudes”
instead of a plot. Moreover, the secondary characters came right out of the
“urban handbook of political correctness,” and Rooney decided it was a
“close contest” between Elizabeth’s Gay Best Friends to choose which was
the most “insufferable.” Ultimately, the show spent two-and-a-half hours
“telling you what it’s about while ending up being about not much at all,”
and if Menzel weren’t present the musical “would be pretty much
unwatchable.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post agreed, and said
the musical would be “DOA” without Menzel. But the dual stories made the
show a “complicated” one, and while director Michael Grief did his “best”
to “keep things moving,” the book was “overstuffed with extraneous songs
and subplots.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “nearest contemporary
equivalents” of the show’s cityscape were “those commercials in which
peppy young things go dancing in the streets to trumpet the virtues of cars
and colas.” An “antiseptic sheen” hovered over the production, the songs
were virtually “interchangeable” and provided “a sort of songwriting
tutorial by rote,” and the evening was “less like variations on a theme than
dogged reiterations of a theme.”
But Elysa Gardner in USA Today liked the musical’s “fantastic conceit,”
praised Kitt’s “consistent and rousing” score, and said Yorkey’s book and
lyrics matched the “probing compassion” of Next to Normal “without
indulging in that show’s preciousness.” The characters were “accessible and
likable,” LaChanze’s BGF Kate evolved from “a stock comic-buddy type
into a compelling individual,” and there was a “moving, invigorating effect”
in the show’s message “that there really are no ever-afters.”
The Broadway cast album was released by Masterworks Broadway.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Score (lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by
Tom Kitt); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Idina Menzel)
BULLETS OVER BROADWAY

Performances: 156
Book: Woody Allen
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers below (note that for some
songs Glen Kelly contributed additional lyrics)
Based on the 1994 Miramax film Bullets over Broadway (direction by
Woody Allen and screenplay cowritten by Allen and by Douglas
McGrath).
Director; James Gray, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Letty
Anderson, Julian Schlossberg, Edward Walson, Leroy Schecter, Roy
Furman, Broadway Across America, Just for Laughs Theatricals/Jacki
Barlia Florin, Harold Newman, and Jujamcyn Theatres; Don’t Speak,
LLC, Associate Producer; Scenery: Santo Loquasto; Costumes: William
Ivey Long; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Andy Einhorn
Cast: Nick Cordero (Cheech), Vincent Pastore (Nick Valenti); The Atta-
Girls: Paige Faure, Kelcy Griffin, Sarah Lin Johnson, Amanda Kloots-
Larsen, Brittany Marcin, Beth Johnson Nicely; Helene Yorke (Olive
Neal), Kevin Worley (Aldo), Zach Braff (David Shayne), Betsy Wolfe
(Ellen), James Moye (Sheldon Flender), Janet Dickinson (Kay, Hilda
Marx), Sarah Lin Johnson and Andy Jones (Bohemian Friends), Lenny
Wolpe (Julian Marx), Paige Faure and Kelcy Griffin (Cotton Club
Dancers), Paul McGill (Rocco); Flappers: Paige Faure, Brittany Marcin,
and Beth Johnson Nicely; Gangsters: Jim Borstelmann, Casey Garvin,
Andy Jones, Kevin Ligon, Paul McGill, James Moye, Eric Santagata,
and Kevin Worley; Jim Borstelmann (Vendor, Victim); The Four
Franks: Casey Garvin, Andy Jones, Paul McGill, and Eric Santagata;
Marin Mazzie (Helen Sinclair), Beth Johnson Nicely (Josette), Eric
Santagata (Mitchell Sabine), Brittany Marcin (Lorna), Brooks
Ashmanskas (Walter Purcell), Karen Ziemba (Eden Brent), Trixie (Mr.
Woofles), Paige Faure and Kevin Worley (Understudies), Kim Faure
(Violet), Kevin Ligon (Train Conductor); The Red Caps: Kim Faure,
Paige Faure, Kelcy Griffin, Sarah Lin Johnson, Amanda Kloots-Larsen,
Brittany Marcin, and Beth Johnson Nicely; Ensemble: Jim Borstelmann,
Janet Dickinson, Kim Faure, Paige Faure, Casey Garvin, Kelcy Griffin,
Sarah Lin Johnson, Andy Jones, Amanda Kloots-Larsen, Kevin Ligon,
Brittany Marcin, Paul McGill, James Moye, Beth Johnson Nicely, Eric
Santagata, Kevin Worley
The action takes place in New York City (and briefly in Boston) during
1929.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Tiger Rag” (lyric and music by Harry DaCosta, Edwin Edwards,
James D. LaRocca, W. H. Ragas, Anthony Sbarbaro, and Larry Shields)
(The Atta-Girls, Helene Yorke, Vincent Pastore, Nick Cordero,
Gangsters); “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You?” (lyric and music by
Andy Razaf and Don Redman) (Vincent Pastore, Helene Yorke); “Blues
My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me” (lyric and music by Charles
McCarron, Carey Morgan, and Arthur Swanstone; additional lyric by
Glen Kelly) (Betsy Wolfe, Zach Braff); “’Tain’t a Fit Night Out for Man
or Beast” (lyric by Sammy Cahn and music by Saul Chaplin) (Valenti
Gang, Kustabeck Gang, Flappers); “The Hot Dog Song” (aka “I Want a
Hot Dog for My Roll”) (lyric and music by Tausha Hammed and
Clarence Williams) (Helene Yorke); “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You?”
(reprise) (Vincent Pastore); “They Go Wild, Simply Wild, over Me”
(lyric and music by Fred Fisher and Joseph McCarthy; additional lyric
by Glen Kelly) (Marin Mazzie, Lenny Wolpe); “Up a Lazy River” (lyric
and music by Sidney Arodin and Hoagy Carmichael) (Nick Cordero);
“I’m Sitting on Top of the World” (lyric by Sam M. Lewis and Joe
Young, music by Ray Henderson) (Zach Braff); “Let’s Misbehave”
(dropped during the tryout of Paris, 1928; lyric and music by Cole
Porter) (Brooks Ashmanskas, Helene Yorke); “There’s a Broken Heart
for Every Light on Broadway” (lyric and music by Fred Fisher and
Howard Johnson; additional lyric by Glen Kelly) (Marin Mazzie, Zach
Braff); “(I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead) You Rascal You” (lyric and
music by Sam Theard) (The Atta-Girls); “’Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I
Do” (lyric and music by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins;
additional lyric by Glen Kelly) (Nick Cordero, Gangsters); “Runnin’
Wild” (lyric and music by A. Harrington Gibbs, Joe Grey, and Leo
Wood; additional lyric by Glen Kelly) (Company)
Act Two: “There’s a New Day Comin’!” (lyric by Joe Young, music by
Milton Ager) (Karen Ziemba, Company); “There’ll Be Some Changes
Made” (lyric and music by Billy Higgins and Benton Overstreet;
additional lyric by Glen Kelly) (Nick Cordero, Brooks Ashmanskas,
Gangsters); “I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle” (lyric and music by
Perry Bradford) (Marin Mazzie, Zach Braff); “Good Old New York”
(lyric and music by Roy J. Carew and Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton)
(The Red Caps); “Up a Lazy River” (first reprise) (Nick Cordero); “I’ve
Found a New Baby” (lyric and music by Jack Palmer and Spencer
Williams) (Betsy Wolfe, Zach Braff); “The Panic Is On” (lyric and
music by Burt Clarke, George Clarke, and Winston Tharp) (Zach Braff);
“’Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do” (reprise) (Nick Cordero); “Runnin’
Wild” (reprise) (Company); “Up a Lazy River” (second reprise) (Nick
Cordero); “She’s Funny That Way” (lyric by Neil Moret, music by
Richard A. Whiting) (Zach Braff, Betsy Wolfe); Finale (Company)
Bullets over Broadway was director and choreographer Susan Stroman’s
second failure of the season. It managed just four months on Broadway, but
its run was marginally better than Big Fish, which had opened earlier in the
season and played for three. Along with its Roaring Twenties background of
gangsters and show business types and its score of mostly standards from
the era, the musical also boasted a book by Woody Allen, his first foray into
Broadway musical theatre since From A to Z in 1960 (see below). Allen’s
book was based on his and Douglas McGrath’s screenplay for the 1994 film
of the same title, which he also directed. The movie was by no means a
smash, but it was well-regarded and won Dianne Wiest her second Best
Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as a diva in search of Broadway glory
despite her penchant for the bottle.
Perhaps there were too many book musicals set during the Twenties and
Thirties that featured song catalogs of those eras, including Stroman’s own
Crazy for You (1992), My One and Only (1983), Big Deal (1986), Never
Gonna Dance (2003), and Nice Work If You Can Get It. Broadway
audiences may not have been all that interested in yet another excursion
into Broadway nostalgia, and because the story veered into Damon Runyon
territory with its underworld and show business characters, potential ticket
buyers probably classified the show as a Guys and Dolls wannabe. When
one factored in the lack of a headliner and the generally indifferent reviews,
Bullets over Broadway was clearly doomed.
The story centered on the self-important playwright David Shayne
(Zach Braff). His new play is set to be produced by gangster and club
owner Nick Valenti (Vincent Pastore), whose ambition is to produce a
drama just like Macbeth. Along for the ride are Nick’s brassy and talent-
free girlfriend Olive (Helene Yorke), who hopes her role in the play will
turn her into a Broadway star; the egotistic and temperamental actress
Helen Sinclair (Marin Mazzie) as one of the drama’s leads; the drama’s
food-obsessed and overweight leading man Warner Purcell (Brooks
Ashmanskas) who grows too heavy for his costumes; and mob hit-man
Cheech (Nick Cordero) who discovers his inner O’Neill when he rewrites
and improves Zach’s pretentious dialogue.
Richard Zoglin in Time said the “enjoyable but less-than-dazzling”
musical lacked “star power” and that many of the performances were “a
step down from the more distinctive” performers who created the roles for
the screen version. Hilton Als in the New Yorker thought for a moment he
was watching Nice Work If You Can Get It, and the two musicals “merged”
in his mind, but he liked Cordero, Ashmanskas, Mazzie, and Yorke’s
performances. David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter found the show “a
watered-down champagne cocktail that too seldom gets beyond its recycled
jokes and the second-hand characterizations to assert an exciting new
identity.” He also mentioned the “handicap” of recycled songs, which were
“inorganic to the plot and characters.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the musical was “directed in
heavy italics.” The movie was a “helium-light charmer,” but the stage
production was “charm-free” and felt “oddly sour, if not misanthropic” with
characters who had been “deftly drawn cartoons” in the movie and who
were now “gargoyles.” Brantley also noted that “The Hot Dog Song” was
“the high (or low) point of phallic humor that abounds in this show.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said Allen’s book was “feeble on laughs” and
some of the players didn’t “seem comfortable navigating the earthy comic
idiom of burlesque,” and so Bullets was “close—but no cigar.” Some of the
dances fell “flat—and none flatter than ‘The Hot Dog Song,’” but the
“terrific” hoofers “always manage[d] to land on their feet,” and one
“showstopper” found the chorines as redcaps who danced atop a train car.
Elysa Gardner in USA Today decided Bullets might well become
Stroman’s “biggest hit” since The Producers in 2001. Stroman made “this
baby sing and dance, not just literally but spiritually,” and the evening
offered “as much sheer, shameless fun as any show you’ll see this season.”
The cast album was released by Masterworks Broadway Records.
Besides the list of musical numbers, the program also provided music
credits that included two songs not included in the opening night program,
“Here Comes the Hot Tamale Man” (lyric and music by Charles Harrison
and Fred Rose) and “Yes! We Have No Bananas” (lyric and music by Irving
Cohn and Frank Silvers with additional lyric by Glen Kelly). The former
was included on the cast album, and may have been dropped in previews
and then reinstated into the score after the official opening. As for the latter,
Rooney referenced the song and noted it was sung by Vincent Pastore, and
so it clearly was heard in New York previews, including the critics’
previews, and must have been dropped at the last minute.
Woody Allen contributed three sketches for the 1960 revue From A to Z,
which opened on April 20 at the Plymouth Theatre and played for twenty-
one performances. The sketches were “Psychological Warfare,” “Hit
Parade,” and “Surprise Party” (the last was dropped during the run and
replaced by the song “Counter-melody”). A fourth sketch by Allen was
“Report to America,” which was cut during the out-of-town tryout.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Book (Woody Allen); Best Performance by
an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Nick Cordero); Best
Choreography (Susan Stroman); Best Orchestrations (Doug Besterman);
Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Santo Loquasto); Best Costume
Design of a Musical (William Ivey Long)
LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL

Opening Date: April 13, 2014; Closing Date: October 5, 2014
Performances: 173
Play: Lanie Robertson
Direction: Lonny Price (Matt Cowart, Associate Director); Producers:
Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jessica Genick, Will Trice, Ronald
Frankel, Rebecca Gold, Roger Berlind, Ken Greiner, Gabrielle Palitz,
Irene Gandy, and GFour Productions; Greenleaf Productions, Michael
Crea, and P. J. Miller, Associate Producers; Scenery: James Noone;
Costumes: Esosa; Lighting: Robert Wierzel; Musical Direction: Shelton
Becton
Cast: Audra McDonald (Billie Holiday), Shelton Becton (Jimmy Powers),
Roxie (Pepi)
The play with music was presented in one act.
The action takes place in Philadelphia in March 1959.
Musical Numbers
Note: All songs were performed by Audra McDonald. “Blues Break” was a
piano interlude by Shelton Becton.
“I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone” (lyric and music by Woodrow
Johnson); “When a Woman Loves a Man” (lyric and music by Bernard
Hanighen, Gordon Jenkins, and Johnny Mercer); “What a Little
Moonlight Can Do” (lyric and music by Harry Woods); “Crazy He Calls
Me” (lyric and music by Bob Russell and Carl Sigman); “(Gimme a)
Pig Foot (and a Bottle of Beer)” (lyric and music by Wesley A. Wilson);
“Baby Doll” (lyric and music by Bessie Smith); “God Bless the Child”
(lyric and music by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.); “Foolin’
Myself” (lyric and music by Jack Lawrence and Peter Tinturin);
“Somebody’s on My Mind” (lyric and music by Billie Holiday and
Arthur Herzog Jr.); “Easy Living” (1937 film Easy Living; lyric by Leo
Robin, music by Ralph Rainger); “Strange Fruit” (lyric and music by
Lewis Allen); “Blues Break”; “’Tain’t Nobody’s Business (Bizness) If I
Do” (lyric and music by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins); “Don’t
Explain” (lyric and music by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.) and
“What a Little Moonlight Can Do” (reprise); “Deep Song” (lyric and
music by George Cory and Douglas Cross)
Lanie Robertson’s play with songs Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill
played out in real time as it depicted a nightclub performance by blues
singer Billie Holiday (1915–1959) at the titular bar, a spot where Holiday
actually performed in March 1959 (at one performance there were
reportedly just seven patrons in the audience). Four months later on June
17, Holiday was dead of cirrhosis of the liver and heart failure. (The play
had originally been presented in New York in 1986; see below for more
information. The current production marked the show’s Broadway debut.)
The well-meaning play was an opportunity to hear Holiday’s songs
again and learn something of her tragic life, but the evening veered too
much in the direction of victimhood and told us Holiday was a victim of
racism, of a dysfunctional childhood, of abusive men, of drugs, of alcohol,
and of the legal system (she served time for possession of narcotics). But
many of her problems were brought on by herself with unwise and
ultimately fatal choices.
The New Yorker said the “thin concert play” was “little more than a
party trick,” but the “silver-voiced” Audra McDonald channeled Holiday’s
“fury and mess.” Time said the evening wasn’t “much of a play” and was
“merely an extended monologue” and “rambling account” of Holiday’s
troubles.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times decided there was “much (too
much)” of Holiday’s “sorry story,” and the play’s conceit was “artificial and
a bit hoary.” He noted that Holiday herself chose to sing “in a tight
spotlight” which ensured that she couldn’t see her audience, and so it was
unlikely that the singer would “dish up her life for public consumption” as
she does in the play. But McDonald “forged a connection” with Holiday
that felt “truthful” and moved beyond “impersonation” into “identification.”
Otherwise, “groan: another night of dead-celebrity dysfunction served up as
entertainment.” Isherwood was of course referring to A Night with Janis
Joplin, which had opened earlier in the season and dealt with another singer
who was hooked on drugs and died young (in this case, of a heroin
overdose). Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post noted that like the
Joplin show it was “hard to forget we’re watching expert mimicry, a
performance of a performance,” and “perhaps these glorified tribute
concerts aren’t the best way to crack the mystery of self-destructive
genius.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety praised McDonald’s “memorable”
interpretation, but said Robertson’s script was “unrealistically stuffed” with
details about Holiday’s life, and Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily
News said McDonald turned a “workmanlike show into something
captivating, surprising and satisfying.” David Rooney in Variety said the
“slender” and “modest” play wasn’t able to “hurdle the inherent limitations
or clichés of its portrait of the artist as a maudlin trainwreck,” but the
evening was nonetheless “affecting” and McDonald brought “complex
character shadings” to her role. Rooney noted the play was “unlike” the
“heavy-handed” End of the Rainbow (about Judy Garland), and thus
Robertson’s work was “no ghoulish sideshow.” And unlike the earlier Janis
Joplin evening, Robertson didn’t “sanitize” Holiday’s “demons.”
The cast album was recorded by PS Classics; a telefilm by Home Box
Office was shown on March 12, 2016, and is available for streaming by
Prime Video; and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French
in 1989.
McDonald appeared in the limited-engagement London production,
which opened on June 27, 2017, at Wyndham’s Theatre.
The play was first presented on April 16, 1986, at the Alliance Theatre
in Atlanta with Reenie Upchurch as Holiday. The New York premiere
opened Off-Off-Broadway on June 5, 1986, at the Vineyard Theatre with
Lonette McKee as Holiday and Danny Holgate as Jimmy Powers, and later
opened as an Off-Broadway production at the Westside Arts Theatre on
September 3, 1986, with McKee, who the following March was succeeded
by S. Epatha Merkerson. The Westside Arts engagement played for 281
performances. Note that a 1993 Baltimore production at Baltimore Center
Stage starred Pamela Isaacs and was recorded by the company.
Another work about Holiday’s life is Lady Day: A Musical Tragedy,
with book by Aishah Rahman, which opened on October 17, 1972, at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music for twenty-four performances. The score
included a few Holiday standards (such as “God Bless the Child”), but
otherwise the music was by Archie Shepp and other composers and the
lyrics were by Rahman and others. The cast included Cecelia Norfleet (as
Holiday) and Rosetta LeNoire. The 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues
depicted Holiday’s life with Diana Ross in the leading role (the Paramount
film was directed by Sidney J. Furie, and one of the coproducers was Berry
Gordy). Stephen Stahl’s play with music Lady Day had been produced in
Europe prior to its New York premiere when it opened Off-Broadway on
October 3, 2013, at the Little Shubert Theatre for ninety-four performances
with Dee Dee Bridgewater in the title role.
Billie Holiday appeared on Broadway in her own revue Holiday on
Broadway, which opened at the Mansfield (now Brooks Atkinson) Theatre
on April 27, 1948, for six performances.
Awards
Tony Awards: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
(Audra McDonald); Best Sound Design of a Play (Steve Canyon
Kennedy)
VIOLET
Performances: 128
Book and Lyrics: Brian Crawley
Music: Jeanine Tesori
Based on Doris Betts’s short story “The Ugliest Pilgrim,” which was
published in her 1973 short-story collection Beasts of the Southern Wild
and Other Stories.
Direction: Leigh Silverman; Producers: Roundabout Theatre Company
(Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) in association with Amy Sherman-
Palladino and Daniel Palladino, David Mirvish, Barry and Fran
Weissler, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Mary Jo and Ted Shen;
Choreography: Jeffrey Page; Scenery: David Zinn; Costumes: Clint
Ramos; Lighting: Mark Barton; Musical Direction: Michael Rafter
Cast: Emerson Steele (Young Violet), Sutton Foster (Violet), Alexander
Gemignani (Father), Charlie Pollock (Leroy Evans, Radio Soloist, Bus
Driver 3, Bus Passenger), Ben Davis (Preacher, Radio Singer, Bus
Driver 1, Bus Driver 4), Annie Golden (Old Lady, Hotel Hooker),
Joshua Henry (Flick), Anastacia McClesky (Music Hall Singer, Bus
Passenger), Austin Lesch (Virgil, Billy Dean, Bus Driver 2, Radio
Singer, Bus Passenger), Rema Webb (Lula Buffington, Almeta, Bus
Passenger), Colin Donnell (Monty)
The action takes place “across the American South” during September
1964.
Musical Numbers
“Water in the Well” (Sutton Foster, Emerson Steele, Alexander Gemignani);
“Surprised” (Sutton Foster); “On My Way” (Sutton Foster, Company);
“M&Ms” (Company); “Luck of the Draw” (Alexander Gemignani,
Emerson Steele, Sutton Foster, Colin Donnell, Joshua Henry);
“Question ’n’ Answer” (Colin Donnell, Sutton Foster); “All to Pieces”
(Sutton Foster, Colin Donnell, Joshua Henry); “Let It Sing” (Joshua
Henry); “Anyone Would Do” (Annie Golden); “Who’ll Be the One (If
Not Me)” (Charlie Pollock, Ben Davis, Austin Lesch); “Last Time I
Came to Memphis” (Colin Donnell, Sutton Foster); “Lonely Stranger”
(Anastacia McCleskey); “Lay Down Your Head” (Sutton Foster);
“Anyone Would Do” (reprise) (Anastacia McCleskey, Rema Webb,
Annie Golden); “Hard to Say Goodbye” (Sutton Foster, Joshua Henry);
“Promise Me, Violet” (Sutton Foster, Colin Donnell, Joshua Henry);
“Raise Me Up” (Ben Davis, Rema Webb, Choir); “Down the Mountain”
(Sutton Foster, Emerson Steele, Alexander Gemignani, Austin Lesch);
“Look at Me” (Sutton Foster); “That’s What I Could Do” (Alexander
Gemignani); “Surprised” (reprise) (Sutton Foster); “Promise Me,
Violet” (reprise) (Joshua Henry, Sutton Foster); “Bring Me to Light”
(Company)
The current production of Violet marked its Broadway premiere, but the
musical had been around for twenty years, beginning in 1994 when it was
initially developed at the O’Neill (Waterford, Connecticut) Theatre Center.
It was produced Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on March 11, 1997,
for thirty-two performances in a two-act version with direction by Susan H.
Schulman, choreography by Kathleen Marshall, and a cast that included
Lauren Ward (Violet), Michael Park (Monty), Michael McElroy (Flick), and
Stephen Lee Anderson (Father). The 1997 production won the New York
Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical, and for Tony Award
purposes the current 2014 presentation was considered a revival. This
production was a direct offshoot from a special one-performance-only
mounting by Encores! Off-Center Series on July 17, 2013, with a cast that
included Sutton Foster and Joshua Henry, both of whom starred in the
Broadway production.
Set in the South during 1964, the musical focused on the naive Violet
(Foster), a young farm girl from a small North Carolina town who because
of a childhood accident bears a hideous scar on her face. She decides to take
a bus to Oklahoma in order to be cured by a televangelist, and along the
way meets two servicemen, the white Monty (Colin Donnell) and the black
Flick (Henry), and at a stopover in Memphis she and Monty make love. She
doesn’t receive any encouragement from the televangelist, and later in
Arkansas meets Monty, who has signed for a tour of duty in Vietnam and
wants her to join him in San Francisco before he ships off. She declines,
and when she happens to encounter Flick in a bus station, she realizes she’s
loved him all the time and the two go off together.
There was an almost fable-like essence about the story, and Brian
Crawley’s script made an interesting choice with the decision to not depict
Violet’s scar. It was left to the imagination of the audience to “see” it from
the perspective of how she and the other characters react to it. Otherwise,
the plot didn’t quite ring true. Would a backwoods mountain girl like Violet
go to bed with Monty, a man she hardly knows? And would she really
choose to go off with Flick? The story may have served as a progressive
liberal fantasy, but Violet’s choices weren’t in sync with the historical
reality of the South in 1964. Further, the musical fell into the trap of so
many earnest musicals of recent years when it turned obvious and preachy
(if not condescending) with its lesson that one must look beyond scars and
skin color in order to measure a person’s value. But Jeanine Tesori’s score
was intriguing (although it was somewhat depressing to see a black
character saddled with yet another gospel song, in this case Flick’s “Let It
Sing”).
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the “quietly affecting and lovingly”
directed production by Leigh Silverman provided a “nice showcase” that
allowed Foster’s usually sunny persona to “meet the challenges posed” by
the serious role with “courage and passion.” But Crawley’s book and
Tesori’s score sometimes dragged, and the “vast space” of the American
Airlines Theatre wasn’t the “ideal” venue for what was essentially an
intimate “chamber piece.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune noted that
the story was “difficult to chart and tell well,” and the current production
was “caught somewhere between the minimalist and the expansive demands
of Broadway.” The New Yorker liked Tesori’s “affable” score, but said
Crawley’s book leaned toward “pop psychology.” However, Crawley’s
“conversational” lyrics were “plausible,” and in such numbers as “Bring Me
to the Light” the score was “rapturous.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety praised Foster’s “galvanic” performance, liked
the “clever” and “unconventional” lyrics, and said Tesori eschewed the
sound of “brassy” Broadway for a “country/folk/bluegrass/gospel musical
idiom” that was “more faithful” to Violet’s “rural roots and simple faith.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times found Foster’s performance
“career-redefining” and said the two-time Tony-Award-winning actress (for
Thoroughly Modern Millie [2002] and the revival of Anything Goes) could
“take her place among the first rank of Broadway musical theatre
performers.” But Crawley’s book about Violet and her relationship with the
two soldiers required more “elaboration,” and the change that transpired
within Flick was “alluded to” but “never really clarified.” Otherwise, the
revival was “terrific” and “heart-stirring,” and the conclusion offered a
“satisfying but not too sugary note of uplift” when Violet learns to shed her
illusions of “divine intervention” and discover “the homelier comforts of
human attachments.”
The Broadway cast album was released by PS Classics on a two-CD set.
The 1997 production was recorded by Resmiranda Records and includes
“M&Ms” and “A Healing Touch,” two songs not listed in the Off-
Broadway program (the former was part of the 2014 score, which omitted
“You’re Different,” which was sung by Monty in the 1997 version). Audra
McDonald’s collection How Glory Goes includes “Lay Down Your Head.”
Note that as Violet, the short story “The Ugliest Pilgrim” was filmed in
1981 with Didi Conn in the title role and won the Academy Award for Best
Live Action Short Film.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Violet); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Sutton
Foster); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Joshua Henry); Best Direction of a Musical (Leigh Silverman)
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH

Performances: 507
Book: John Cameron Mitchell
Lyrics and Music: Stephen Trask
Direction: Michael Mayer; Producers: David Binder, Jayne Baron
Sherman, Barbara Whitman, Latitude Link, Patrick Catullo, Raise the
Roof, Paula Marie Black, Colin Callender, Ruth Hendel, Sharon
Karmazin, Martian Entertainment, Stacey Mindich, Eric Schnall, and
the Shubert Organization; Mark Berger, Associate Producer; 101
Productions, Ltd., Executive Producer; Choreography: Musical staging
by Spencer Liff; Scenery: Julian Crouch; Projection Designer:
Benjamin Pearcy for 59 Productions; Costumes: Arianne Phillips;
Lighting: Kevin Adams; Musical Direction: Justin Craig
Cast: Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig), Lena Hall (Yitzhak); The Angry Inch:
Justin Craig (Skszp—Musical Director, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals),
Matt Duncan (Jacek—Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals), Tim Mislock
(Krzyzhtoff—Guitar, Vocals), Peter Yanowitz (Schlatko—Drums,
Vocals)
The action takes place now at the Belasco Theatre.
Musical Numbers
Note: All songs performed by Neil Patrick Harris, who for some numbers
was backed by Lena Hall, Justin Craig, Matt Duncan, Tim Mislock, and
Peter Yanowitz.
“Tear Me Down”; “The Origin of Love”; “Sugar Daddy”; “Angry Inch”;
“Wig in a Box”; “Wicked Little Town”; “The Long Grift”; “Hedwig’s
Lament”; “Exquisite Corpse”; “Wicked Little Town” (reprise);
“Midnight Radio”
Hedwig and the Angry Inch was first produced Off-Off Broadway at the
Westbeth Theatre Center on March 9, 1997, for seventeen performances
with John Cameron Mitchell in the title role (Mitchell also wrote the
musical’s book), and then opened Off-Broadway at the Jane Street Theatre
on February 14, 1998, for a long run of 857 showings (Mitchell was again
Hedwig, and lyricist and composer Stephen Trask played the guitar and
keyboards and sang background vocals). A revival was rumored for Off-
Broadway’s Zipper Theatre in October 2007, but nothing came of it, and a
few years later the current production opened on Broadway for a healthy
run of 507 performances and won a slew of Tony Awards, including one for
Neil Patrick Harris (who played Hedwig) (he was followed by Andrew
Rannells, Michael C. Hall, John Cameron Mitchell, Darren Criss, and Taye
Diggs, and the subsequent national tour featured Criss and then Euan
Morton). For Tony Award purposes, the production was considered a
revival, and it won the award for Best Revival of a Musical.
The edgy musical basked in its tawdry ambience (the original
production took place in the dilapidated ballroom of a fleabag hotel in
lower Manhattan) and boasted a powerfully charged rock score. Once upon
a time Hedwig was an East German man named Hansel who had an affair
with an American GI named Luther, who promised to take him to the
United States if he’d have a sex-change operation. But instead of a sex
change, Hansel was short-changed when the operation was botched.
Abandoned by Luther, and now known as Hedwig, he starts writing songs
and takes up with Tommy Gnosis, who dumps him, but not before he steals
Hedwig’s songs and becomes an internationally famous rock star. Tommy is
now appearing in a sold-out concert at Giants Stadium, while Hedwig
performs his act at the seedy hotel and bills himself as the “internationally
ignored song stylist.” It’s only with comic irony that Hedwig gets through
his performance (and his life), and his innate grit gives him the will to ride
out life’s endless string of disappointments and allows him to exult, “I’m
the new Berlin Wall. Try and tear me down!”
The highlight of Trask’s score was “Wig in a Box,” one of the most
affecting songs of its era with a plaintive, seductive melody and a wry but
touching lyric. The number makes an interesting companion piece to Jerry
Herman’s “A Little More Mascara’ (from 1983’s La Cage aux Folles) in its
depiction of how a wig can get one through the day.
The current revival was slightly revised from the original, and instead of
an out-of-the-way downtown hotel, Hedwig now appears at Broadway’s
Belasco Theatre. The tweaked script explained that the Belasco had booked
a new musical called Hurt Locker, a show so bad it closed during
intermission at its premiere performance the night before. The Hurt Locker
set is still up, and so Hedwig gives his performance at the theatre, which is
still strewn with programs from the ill-fated half-performance debacle. For
Off Broadway, Hedwig’s band was called Cheater, but for the revival is
known as The Angry Inch.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised Harris, who now “joins an
elite club of musical-comedy male supernovas that has exactly one other
member these days, Hugh Jackman.” Harris was in “full command,” a
“bona fide Broadway star, the kind who can rule an audience with the blink
of a sequined eyelid.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety said Harris’s “bravura”
performance was “astonishing,” and “channeling his inner Rockette” he
carried off “advanced dance and acrobatic moves,” and Joe Dziemianowicz
in the New York Daily News said Harris was “a true stage animal” with a
“vibrant rapport” with the audience, and he got “his androgyny on in
bedazzled minis, gold platform boots and a Farrah Fawcett-on-steroids
coif.”
But Hilton Als in the New Yorker decided director Michael Mayer
wanted to turn Hedwig “into a feel-good production,” and thus both Hedwig
and Yitzhak (a Jewish drag queen played by Lena Hall) aren’t “adults
struggling with meaning and purpose but like the adolescents in the
tiresome Spring Awakening” (which Mayer had also directed). As a result,
Harris didn’t “quite capture” the “profound androgyny” of Hedwig’s soul,
and the actor’s “imagination” was “constrained” by Mayer’s
“condescension.” Als felt assured that Harris would “mature” in the role
and “outgrow, as all stars must, his need for the director’s approval.”
The script was published by the Overlook Press in 2000, and then later
by the Dramatists Play Service in 2003, and the 1998 cast album was
released by Atlantic Records. In 2001, Mitchell both starred and directed in
the entertaining and sometimes surreal film version, which was released by
New Line Cinema and included three new songs (“Nailed,” “Freaks,” and
“In Your Arms Tonight”). The soundtrack was issued by Hybrid Records
and the DVD by New Line Home Entertainment. The cast album of the
current revival was issued on both CD and vinyl by Atlantic Records.
The collection Wig in a Box was released by Off Records and includes
songs inspired by the musical (“City of Women” and “Milford Lane”) as
well as numbers from the stage and screen productions (“The Origin of
Love,” “Angry Inch,” “The Long Grift,” “Sugar Daddy,” “Wicked Little
Town” [both Hedwig and Tommy’s versions], “Wig in a Box,” “Tear Me
Down,” “Hedwig’s Lament,” “Exquisite Corpse,” “Midnight Radio,”
“Nailed,” and “Freaks”).
The musical was first produced in London on September 19, 2000, at
the Playhouse Theatre.
As for that half-nighter Hurt Locker, it proved to be one of the best
jokes of the Broadway season. The faux program was printed with all the
requisite information (cast and credits, a song list, a director’s note, ads for
currently-running shows). The program stated (or maybe warned) that the
running time of the musical (which takes place in Iraq during the present
time) is six hours and four minutes with three fifteen-minute intermissions,
and a helpful note indicated that the production employed “strobe lights,
smoke, actual bombs, soft shrapnel, loud sounds, three dogs, nudity, torture,
cat dander, an unpleasant moment involving an eyelid, and gluten.” The
songs included “Baghdad Mornin’ (Hello, Hazmat),” “Call Me after Call to
Prayer,” “The Humvee with the Roof-Mounted Machine Guns on Top,”
“Can’t Camouflage Love,” “The Drone Song,” and “Mission Accomplished
(with Your Body).” And “How Many Have You Seen” of other shows
playing in New York? You might want to consider Container Store: The
Musical; Gravity on Ice; Streep No More; Mom’s Hasidic, Dad’s a
Scientologist, I’m a Cat, and We’re All in Therapy!; and Jukebox: The
Musical. The program also included one of those full-page hushed and
understated advertisements for an expensive product, the kind of ad created
by snootier-than-thou marketers. In this case, and against a solid black
background, is the image of “A Bar of Gold,” and we’re told this is
“LUXURY. In its Most Essential Form.”
For those interested in faux programs, note that prop programs
sometimes surface on auction sites, including ones for Springtime for Hitler
that were used in the original 1968 film The Producers, which was partially
filmed in the now-demolished Playhouse Theatre (located on West 48th
Street across from the Cort). The musical-within-the-movie Springtime for
Hitler was filmed on the stage of the Playhouse, and there were prop
programs for the Springtime audience members. For its cover, the program
uses one of those annoying generic “traffic” photos that were so ubiquitous
throughout the 1960s, but includes the names of the Playhouse Theatre and
Springtime for Hitler. These were actually the programs for the revue Sing
Israel Sing, which opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on
May 11, 1967; for the movie, the covers of Israel were removed and the
Springtime traffic covers were substituted.
The 2001 Broadway musical version of The Producers also utilized
prop programs for three shows, Springtime for Hitler, Prisoners of Love,
and Funny Boy! (the latter was of course a musical version of Hamlet).
These programs were sometimes actual ones of The Producers with covers
removed and replaced with new ones, or were programs that consisted of
blank sheets of paper. There were two versions of the Funny Boy! program,
one black and white, and one in color, and the artwork depicted variations
of Hamlet and Yorick sharing a musical moment. The cover for the color
version notes that the show is “a new musical version of Shakespeare’s
famous Hamlet: Entire production concieved [sic], created, devised, thought
of and supervised by Max Bialystock.”
The 1970 musical Applause also featured a prop program of the comedy
The Friendly Arrangement which stars Margo Channing (a photo of Lauren
Bacall is on the cover).
Another interesting prop program is one used for the 1954 film version
of Clifford Odets’s 1950 play The Country Girl, in which the leading
character, Frank Elgin, is now a singing performer instead of a dramatic
one. For the film, Frank (Bing Crosby) appears in a Broadway musical
called The Land Around Us (which seems to be an earnest piece of
Americana in the Rodgers and Hammerstein Oklahoma! tradition and takes
place in what appears to be the Midwest of the mid-nineteenth century). In
the film, the prop program is shown while an audience member reads it, and
we discover the musical is playing at the Martin Beck (now Al Hirschfeld)
Theatre. The film also includes three songs from The Land Around Us,
“The Pitchman,” “It’s Mine, It’s Yours,” and the title song (lyrics by Ira
Gershwin and music by Harold Arlen), and the musical staging is by Robert
Alton, the legendary Broadway choreographer who excelled in jubilant,
knock-’em-dead dances and who here created a somewhat stately and
solemn homage to Agnes de Mille. (Earlier in the film, auditions for The
Land Around Us take place in the Longacre Theatre.)
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Hedwig and the Angry
Inch); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Neil Patrick Harris); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Lena Hall); Best Direction of a Musical (Michael
Mayer); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Julian Crouch); Best
Costume Design of a Musical (Arianne Phillips); Best Lighting Design
of a Musical (Kevin Adams); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Tim
O’Heir)
CABARET
Theatre: Studio 54
Opening Date: April 24, 2014; Closing Date: March 29, 2015
Performances: 388
Book: Joe Masteroff
Lyrics: Fred Ebb
Music: John Kander; dance and incidental music by David Krane
Based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1935 novella Mr. Norris Changes Trains
(published in the United States as The Last of Mr. Norris) and his 1939
novella Goodbye to Berlin; both were later published in the 1945
collection The Berlin Stories (reissued in 1975 as The Berlin of Sally
Bowles); the musical was also based upon the stage adaptation of The
Berlin Stories, the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten.
Direction: Sam Mendes (Rob Marshall, Co-director; BT McNicholl,
Associate Director); Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd
Choreography: Rob Marshall (Cynthia Onrubia, Associate
Choreographer and Choreography Re-creation); Scenery and Club
Design: Robert Brill; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Peggy
Eisenhauer and Mike Baldassari; Musical Direction: Patrick Vaccariello
Cast: Alan Cumming (Emcee); The Kit Kat Girls—Jane Pftisch (Rosie),
Kaleigh Cronin (Lulu), Andrea Goss (Frenchie), Jessica Pariseau
(Texas), Gayle Rankin (Fritzie), and Kristin Olness (Helga); The Kit
Kat Boys—Leeds Hill (Bobby), Dylan Paul (Victor), Evan D. Siegel
(Hans), and Benjamin Eakeley (Herman); Michelle Williams (Sally
Bowles), Bill Heck (Clifford Bradshaw), Aaron Krohn (Ernest Ludwig),
Benjamin Eakeley (Customs Official, Max), Linda Emon (Fraulein
Schneider), Gayle Rankin (Fraulein Kost), Evan D. Siegel (Rudy),
Danny Burstein (Herr Schultz), Andrea Goss (Gorilla), Alex Bowen
(Boy Soprano [recording])
The action takes place in Berlin during the years 1929 and 1930.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Willkommen” (Alan Cumming, The Kit Kat Klub); “So What?”
(Linda Emond); “Don’t Tell Mama” (Michelle Williams, The Kit Kat
Girls); “Mein Herr” (Michelle Williams, The Kit Kat Girls); “Perfectly
Marvelous” (Michelle Williams, Bill Heck); “Two Ladies” (Alan
Cumming, Kaleigh Cronin, Leeds Hill); “It Couldn’t Please Me More”
(Linda Emond, Danny Burstein); “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” (Alan
Cumming); “Maybe This Time” (Michelle Williams); “Money” (Alan
Cumming, Kit Kat Girls); “Married” (Danny Burstein, Linda Emond,
Gayle Rankin); “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” (reprise) (Gayle Rankin,
Aaron Krohn, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (The Kit Kat Band); “Kick Line” (The Kit Kat Klub);
“Married” (reprise) (Danny Burstein); “If You Could See Her” (Alan
Cumming, Andrea Goss); “What Would You Do?” (Linda Emond); “I
Don’t Care Much” (Alan Cumming); “Cabaret” (Michelle Williams);
Finale (Company)
About 25 percent of the season’s offerings were revivals, and in fact the
productions of Forever Tango and Les Miserables marked the second
Broadway revival for each show. Although Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar &
Grill, Violet, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch were making their Broadway
debuts, all had been previously presented in Off-Broadway productions and
so were hardly new musicals. As for Let It Be, Soul Doctor, A Night with
Janis Joplin, After Midnight, Il Divo: A Musical Affair, Beautiful,
Aladdin, and Bullets over Broadway, these offered mostly recycled songs
and their scores couldn’t be considered new. The season ended on an even
more depressing note with Cabaret, which was not only the musical’s third
New York revival but was also a revival of a revival when Roundabout
resurrected its 1998 production for another go-round.
Roundabout had first presented John Kander and Fred Ebb’s 1966
musical on March 19, 1998, at Henry Miller’s Theatre for a run of 2,377
performances. It closed on January 4, 2004, and now ten years later was
back in the same production and with Alan Cumming again in the role of
the Emcee. The 1998 presentation won four Tony Awards, including Best
Revival of a Musical, but was nevertheless a disappointment. Sam
Mendes’s direction (which was “inspired” by a 1993 version he’d helmed at
the Donmar Warehouse in London) was an attempt to provide a more
realistic approach to the musical, and so there was more emphasis on the
political horrors of Nazi Germany. Further, the Emcee was clearly gay (and
ultimately headed for a concentration camp) and Cliff was openly bisexual.
Moreover, the entertainers at the Kit Kat Klub wallowed in kinky sex, but
overplayed their hand and were more laughable than edgy because the
evening aimed to shock for shock’s sake. Unfortunately, the overall effect
was that of naughty little children all dressed up in S&M party wear.
The framework of Joe Masteroff’s book was somewhat schizoid with
both expressionistic cabaret scenes where songs were given in
presentational fashion and with literal book scenes with narrative songs.
The story dealt with the relationships of Sally Bowles (Michelle Williams
in the current revival) and Cliff (Bill Heck), and of Fraulein Schneider
(Linda Emond) and Herr Schultz (Danny Burstein), and presiding over the
evening was the smarmy and decadent Emcee, a ghoulish Pied Piper who
leads the party revelers to hell. The secondary Schneider-Shultz subplot was
never quite germane to the story, although in the original 1966 production
Lotte Lenya (as Schneider) brough emotional weight and a historical
perspective to the work, and Kander and Ebb gave her two songs in the
mode of Kurt Weill (“So What?” and “What Would You Do?”).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Williams brought to mind “an
anxiously slumming heiress out of Evelyn Waugh” instead of the
“exuberantly hedonistic” Sally, but she came “closer to evoking the musical
style of the Depression” than any Sally he’d ever seen. And for the title
song she brought the “shouty power and shell-shocked stare of someone
who’s seen the future and knows that it’s terrifying.” Brantley noted that
one problem with Mendes and Marshall’s conception was that it let us know
“we’re in hell almost as soon as we arrive in the theatre,” and this approach
somewhat worked against a few of the plot points. Brantley also asserted
that “even more than Fosse’s film” the Roundabout presentation was a
“wholesale reconception” of the original 1966 production.
But, no, it’s Fosse’s film that is the true reconception. Fosse completely
eliminated the Schneider-Shultz subplot, he introduced Cliff’s bisexuality
into the story, and he did away with every narrative number and made all
the film’s musical moments presentational (see below).
Marilyn Stasio in Variety reported that Williams sang “with more
artistry than you’d expect from Sally,” but she didn’t “get” her “girlish
sexiness” and instead projected “the wide-eyed innocence” of an English
school girl. However, her “vulnerable quality” eventually served the
character well, and finally when all her “defenses are completely stripped
away” she brought a “desperation” to the title song. Hilton Als in the New
Yorker said Williams gave a “perspicacious, authentic” performance, lifting
the production “to a level that can’t be explained,” and when she sang about
Elsie’s corpse, it was her own corpse that she imagined.
The musical’s premiere on November 20, 1966, at the Broadhurst
Theatre played for 1,165 performances and won eight Tony Awards,
including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Featured Actor in a Musical
(for Joel Grey as the Emcee). Besides Grey and Lenya, the original cast also
included Jack Gilford (Herr Schultz). The first Broadway revival opened on
October 22, 1987, at the Imperial Theatre for 262 performances. Grey was
again the Emcee (and instead of featured player billing his name was now
above the title). For this production, Cliff was depicted as a bisexual, and
his song “Why Should I Wake Up?” was replaced by new one (“Don’t
Go”). “Meeskite” was also cut, but “I Don’t Care Much” was added for the
Emcee (in the original production, the number was performed by Sally
during a few New York previews before it was cut).
The Roundabout revival cut six numbers from the original: “Telephone
Song,” “Telephone Dance” aka “Kiss Dance,” “Why Should I Wake Up?,”
“The Money Song” (“my father needs money” and sometimes referred to as
“Sitting Pretty”), “Fruit Shop Dance,” and “Meeskite.” It dropped “Don’t
Go” from 1987, but retained “I Don’t Care Much,” and included two songs
written for the 1972 film version (see below), “Mein Herr” and a new
“money” song, “Money, Money, Money” (“money makes the world go
around”); and added one song (“Maybe This Time”) that had been
interpolated into the film and which had been recorded by Liza Minnelli in
1964.
Directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and with a screenplay by Jay
Presson Allen, the 1972 movie cleared away the extraneous Schneider and
Schultz subplot and focused on Sally and Cliff’s affair, but with a
difference: they now share a male lover (Max, a character not in the original
production, but later added to revivals). The film also included two young
and doomed Jewish lovers (the characters of Natalia Landauer and Fritz
Wendel, who were part of Christopher Isherwood’s original Berlin stories
and the 1951 stage adaptation I Am a Camera). As noted, all the songs in
the film were presentational rather than narrative and thus were heard in the
cabaret, a beer garden, on the radio, or by someone playing a piano. Besides
the above mentioned songs, the film included eight from the original stage
version: “Willkommen,” “Two Ladies,” “If You Could See Her,”
“Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” “Kick Line,” the title number, and, in brief
radio or piano interludes, “Heiraten” (“Married”) and “It Couldn’t Please
Me More.” The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Direction,
Best Actress (Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Grey), and Best Scoring
(Ralph Burns).
The first London production opened on February 28, 1968, at the Palace
Theatre for 336 performances, and the cast included Judi Dench (Sally),
Kevin Colson (Cliff), Barry Dennen (Emcee), Lila Kedrova (Fraulein
Schneider), and Peter Sallis (Herr Schultz).
The 1966 Broadway cast album was released by Columbia Records, and
a later CD issue offered bonus tracks of Kander and Ebb performing “I
Don’t Care Much” and three unused songs, “Roommates,” “Good Time
Charlie,” and “It’ll All Blow Over.” The two-CD collection John Kander:
Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 on Harbinger Records includes four demos
by Kander and Ebb, “So What?” and the title song as well as two unused
ones (“Guten Abend” and “It’ll All Blow Over”).
There are almost two-dozen recordings of the score, including cast
albums from Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Mexico.
Particularly noteworthy is a two-CD studio cast recording by That’s
Entertainment Records that includes the “Fruit Shop Dance” as well as the
finale, curtain call, and exit music; and bonus tracks of “Don’t Go,” “I
Don’t Care Much,” “Mein Herr,” “Maybe This Time,” and “Money,
Money” (this last a combination of both the stage and film “money” songs).
The recording’s cast includes Maria Friedman (Sally), Gregg Edelman (here
reprising his Cliff from the 1987 revival), Judi Dench (now as Fraulein
Schneider), Fred Ebb (Herr Schultz), and Jonathan Pryce (Emcee). A Los
Angeles Harbor College production was released on a vinyl two-record set
by Audio Engineering Associates Records and includes the complete
“Telephone Song” and “Telephone Dance” sequence as well as the “Fruit
Shop Dance.”
There were no cast recordings of the 1987 and 2014 revivals, but the
1998 revival was released by BMG/RCA Victor Records.
The 1966 script was published in hardback by Random House in 1967,
and the revised Roundabout adaptation was issued in hardback by
Newmarket Press in 1999. The Making of “Cabaret” by Keith Garebian
was published by Mosaic Press in 1999, and a second edition by Oxford
University Press was issued in 2011. Another book about the musical is
Stephen Tripiano’s “Cabaret”: Music on Film, published by Limelight in
2011.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role
in a Musical (Danny Burstein); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Linda Emond)
BEACHES
Beaches opened on March 1, 2014, at the Signature Theatre Company’s
Max Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, and closed on March 30. As of this
writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Iris Rainer Dart and Thom Thomas
Lyrics: Iris Rainer Dart
Music: David Austin
Based on the 1985 novel Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart (which was later
adapted into the Buena Vista Pictures’ 1988 film Beaches, direction by
Garry Marshall and screenplay by Mary Agnes Donoghue).
Direction: Eric Schaeffer (Nick Martin, Assistant Director); Producer:
Signature Theatre Company (Eric Schaeffer, Artistic Director);
Choreography: Dan Knechtges (Jessica Hartman, Associate
Choreographer; Robbie Roby, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery:
Derek McLane; Costumes: Frank Labovitz; Lighting: Chris Lee;
Musical Direction: Gabriel Mangiante
Cast: Brooklyn Shuck (Little Bertie), Presley Ryan (Little Cee Cee), Donna
Migliaccio (Leona Bloom), Helen Hedman (Rose White), Maya Brettell
(Teen Bertie), Gracie Jones (Teen Cee Cee), Mara Davi (Bertie), Alysha
Umphress (Cee Cee), Cliff Samuels (Michael Barron), Matthew Scott
(John Perry), Michael Bunce (Arthur Wechsler), Svea Johnson (Nina),
Bayla Whitten (Janice); Ensemble: Maya Brettell, Heather Brorsen,
Michael Bunce, Jamie Eacker, Davis Hasty, Gracie Jones, Dan
Manning, Ryah Nixon, Robbie Roby, Bayla Whitten
The action takes place during the period 1951–1983 in Atlantic City,
Pittsburgh, the Bronx, Beach Haven (New Jersey), New York City,
Paris, Brighton Beach, Miami Beach, Sarasota, Hollywood, and Carmel.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “What a Star” (Presley Ryan); “The Letters (You’re Out There)”
(Brooklyn Shuck, Presley Ryan, Maya Brettell, Gracie Jones);
“Extraordinary” (Maya Brettell, Gracie Jones, Mara Davi, Alysha
Umphress, Brooklyn Shuck, Presley Ryan); “This Is the Life” (Mara
Davi, Summer Stock Company, Matthew Scott, Alysha Umphress);
“What a Star” (reprise) (Alysha Umphress); “Ce-Celia” (Matthew
Scott); “This Is the Life” (reprise) (Alysha Umphress, Mara Davi); “The
Best of It” (Alysha Umphress, Mara Davi, Cliff Samuels, Ensemble);
“My Perfect Wedding” (Brooklyn Shuck, Presley Ryan, Maya Brettell,
Gracie Jones, Mara Davi, Alysha Umphress); “44th Street” (Matthew
Scott); “The View from Up Here” (Alysha Umphress); “Wait” (Mara
Davi)
Act Two: “(I’m) All I Need” (Alysha Umphress, Ensemble); “Enough”
(Matthew Scott, Mara Davi); “What I Should Have Told Her” (Alysha
Umphress, Mara Davi); “A Bunch of Kids” (Mara Davi); “Normal
People” (Alysha Umphress, Mara Davi); “Normal People” (reprise)
(Alysha Umphress, Mara Davi, Michael Bunce, Nurses);
“Extraordinary” (reprise) (Alysha Umphress); “The Wind Beneath My
Wings” (lyric and music by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley) (Alysha
Umphress); “Nina’s Letter” (Svea Johnson); “A Day at the Beach”
(Alysha Umphress, Mara Davi); “God Gave Me You” (Alysha
Umphress, Mara Davi); “Out There” (Alysha Umphress)
Beaches was based on Iris Rainer Dart’s 1985 novel, which in 1988
became a popular film with Bette Midler (as Cee Cee) and Barbara Hershey
(Bertie in the novel, Hilary in the movie, and back to Bertie for the musical)
and introduced the hit song “The Wind Beneath My Wings” (which was
interpolated into the musical adaptation).
The movie was a four-hankie weeper, and in the lobby of the theatre
where the musical premiered special packs of “Beaches” tissues were for
sale in case audiences were beside themselves with emotion. The story
followed the thirty-year gal-pal friendship of Cee Cee (Alysha Umphress)
and Bertie (Mara Davi) who meet as little girls (played respectively by
Presley Ryan and Brooklyn Shuck) on a beach in Atlantic City, are friends
as teenagers (Gracie Jones and Maya Brettell), and throughout the decades
are there for one another through the maze of careers, husbands, children,
infidelities, and family deaths. Cee Cee becomes a famous singer, albeit
with career ups and downs, but the friendship between the two women is
the fulcrum that gets them through whatever fate has in store. The recurring
motif of a beach dominated the story, from the time the two girls meet in
Atlantic City in 1951, and then through beaches in Beach Haven, New
Jersey, Brighton Beach, New York, and Sarasota, Florida. In 1983, Bertie
dies in her beach house in Carmel, California, but death doesn’t close the
door on an eternal friendship.
The critics were kind to the musical, but Paul Harris in Variety noted
that plot and characters were often victim to “perfunctory treatment,”
particularly in the second act when a “problem with transitions” developed
as the evening raced “through a dizzying journey of plot-driven numbers.”
Further, the central relationship was “unconvincingly unveiled” and there
were questions about the “glue” that united the two women over a thirty-
year period.
Sophie Gilbert in the Washingtonian praised David Austin’s “polished”
music (and singled out “The View from Up Here,” “Normal People,” and
“My Perfect Wedding”), but felt “This Is the Life” was a “clunker.” The
score’s penultimate number was the “thrillingly jaunty” “God Gave You
Me,” but Gilbert said its “upbeat tone” was “jarringly discordant” in light of
the serious turn of the plot. Rebecca J. Ritzel in the Washington City Paper
thought the transitions between dialogue and song were “awkward,” and
mentioned there were “gaps” in character development.
Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun noted there was a certain lack of
“nuance and context” in the narration, said the “generic” score included too
much “American Idol–styled wailing,” and perhaps the three age versions
of Cee Cee and Bertie were “one age category too many.” But the inclusion
of “The Wind Beneath My Wings” marked the show’s “best musical
moment,” a “real song at last.” Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the
evening was an “amiable throwback,” but sometimes the creators’ attempt
“to navigate the stormier pathways” of the plot led them “up some muddier
alleys,” including a bland song and occasional music that quickly
evaporated as you heard it. Although the musical had a “few hiccups” and
was in need of “a bit of tinkering,” the production was otherwise “as
comically engaging as this slightly dated material will allow.”
Derek McLane’s decor caused a certain amount of controversy, or
perhaps just bewilderment. Gilbert found it a “spectacular” mountain
comprised of hundreds of pieces of interlocking beach furniture, and while
it wasn’t clear what the furniture represented, it was “interesting and
unobtrusive” and clearly the result of shopping trips to antique stores and
Restoration Hardware. Ritzel noted that the two-story wall depicted not just
chairs but tea carts, sewing machines, desks, phonographs, and other “junk”
(there were also lamps and bureaus), all of which were painted a “shabby
chic gray.” The decor wasn’t referenced in the script, and Ritzel overheard a
nearby audience member ask, “What’s with all the chairs?” Although Smith
found the wall of furniture “tiresome,” he decided it was a “metaphor” for
something, but for Marks, the decor was “pleasantly unconventional.”
2014–2015 Season
HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME
“AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL”

Opening Date: June 19, 2014; Closing Date: July 20, 2014
Performances: 38
Book: Todd Kreidler
Lyrics: Tupac Amaru Shakur
Music: For complete lyric and music credits, see song list below.
Direction: Kenny Leon (Kamilah Forbes, Associate Director); Producers:
Eric L. Gold, Chunsoo Shin, Jessica Green, Marcy Kaplan Gold, Anita
Waxman, and Afeni Shakur; Richard Martini, Executive Producer; The
Kaplan Family Limited Partnership, Associate Producer;
Choreography: Wayne Cilento (Ioana Alfonso, Senior Associate
Choreographer; Jared Grimes, Associate Choreographer); Scenery:
Edward Pierce (scenic designs based on original concepts by David
Gallo); Projection Design: Zachary Borovay; Costumes: Reggie Ray;
Lighting: Mike Baldassari; Musical Direction: Zane Mark
Cast: Saul Williams (John), Christopher Jackson (Vertus), Joshua Boone
(Darius), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Reggie), Jared Joseph (Lemar), Jahi
Kearse (Nunn), Tonya Pinkins (Mrs. Weston), Saycon Sengbloh
(Corinne), John Earl Jelks (Street Preacher), Donald Webber, Jr.
(Benny), Dyllon Burnside (Anthony), Ben Thompson (Griffy), Joaquina
Kalukango (Kamiliah); My Block Chorus: Tracee Beazer, Afi Bijou,
Mel Charlot, Carrie Compere, Otis Cotton, Brandon Gill, Ari Groover,
Jared Joseph, Joaquina Kalukango, Jahi Kearse, Muata Langley,
Valentine Norton, Christina Sajous, Charlene “Chi-Chi” Smith, Jaime
Lincoln Smith, Donald Webber Jr.
The action takes place “NOW on MY BLOCK” in a Midwestern industrial
city.
Musical Numbers
Note: Those numbers not credited to a lyricist and composer are poems
written by Tupac Amaru Shakur which here were not spoken but sung
to accompanying background music.
Act One: “My Block” (lyric and music by Osten S. Harvey Jr., Ernest Isley,
Marvin Isley, Rudolph Bernard Isley, Chris Jasper, and Tupac Amaru
Shakur) (Saul Williams, Company); “Dopefiend’s Diner” (lyric and
music by Deon Evans, Tupac Amaru Shakur, and Suzanne Vega)
(Christopher Jackson, My Block Chorus); “Life Goes On” (lyric and
music by Johnny Lee Jackson, Joseph B. Jefferson, Tupac Amaru
Shakur, and Charles B. Simmons) (Dyllon Burnside, Joshua Boone, Jahi
Kearse, Jared Joseph, Jaime Lincoln Smith, My Block Chorus); “I Get
Around” and “Keep Your Head Up” (Joshua Boone, Jaime Lincoln
Smith, Jared Joseph, Saycon Sengbloh, Joaquina Kalukango, My Block
Chorus); “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” (lyric and music by Delmar Drew
Arnold, Etterlene Jordan, Tupac Amaru Shakur, and Danny Boy
Steward) (Christopher Jackson, Saul Williams, My Block Women);
“Please Wake Me When I’m Free” and “The Rose That Grew from
Concrete” (Saycon Sengbloh, Joaquina Kalukango); “Me against the
World” (lyrics and music by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Yafeu Fula,
Malcolm Greenridge, Kenneth Karlin, Minnie Riperton, Richard
Rudolph, Carsten Schack, Tupac Amaru Shakur, and Leon Ware) (Saul
Williams, Joaquina Kalukango); “Whatz Next” (lyric and music by
Tyruss Gerald Himes, Johnny Lee Jackson, Johnny McKinzie, Maurice
Shelton-Harding Shakur, Tupac Amaru Shakur, and Salih Williams)
(Christopher Jackson, Joshua Boone, Dyllon Burnside, Saycon
Sengbloh, My Block Chorus); “Dear Mama” (lyric and music by Bruce
Andrew Hawes, Joseph B. Jefferson, Tony Pizarro, Joe Sample, Tupac
Amaru Shakur, and Charles Simmons) (Christopher Jackson, My Block
Chorus); “Holler If Ya Hear Me” (lyric and music by Kevin Rhames,
Tupac Amaru Shakur, Barrett Strong, Christopher Walker, Randy
Walker, and Norman Jesse Whitfield) (Saul Williams, Dyllon Burnside,
Joshua Boone, My Block Chorus)
Act Two: “My Block” (reprise) (Dyllon Burnside, Joshua Boone);
“Changes” (lyric and music by Deon Evans, Bruce R. Hornsby, and
Tupac Amaru Shakur) (Saul Williams, Ben Thompson, Christopher
Jackson, Dyllon Burnside, My Block Chorus); “Resist the Temptation”
(lyric and music by Jacob Brian Dutton, Deon Evans, Amel E. Larrieux,
Laru Larrieux, and Tupac Amaru Shakur) and “Dear Mama” (reprise)
(Christopher Jackson, Tonya Pinkins); “Hail Mary” (lyric and music by
Rufus Lee Cooper, Katari T. Cox, Yafeu Fula, Joseph Paquette, Tupac
Amaru Shakur, Bruce Washington, and Tyrone J. Wrice) (Saul
Williams, Joshua Boone, Dyllon Burnside, Young Souljas);
“Unconditional Love” (lyric and music by Johnny Lee Jackson and
Tupac Amaru Shakur) (Saul Williams, Saycon Sengbloh); “I Ain’t Mad
at Cha” (reprise) (Saul Williams, John Earl Jelks); “If I Die 2Nite” (lyric
and music by Willie James Clarke, Norman Anthony Durham, Osten S.
Harvey Jr., Tupac Amaru Shakur, and Betty Wright) (Dyllon Burnside,
Joshua Boone, Jaime Lincoln Smith, Jared Joseph, Young Souljas);
“Only God Can Judge Me” (lyric and music by Anthony Forte, Harold
A. Fretty, Douglas B. Rasheed, and Tupac Amaru Shakur) (Dyllon
Burnside); “Thugz Mansion” (lyric and music by Seven Marcus
Aurelius, Anthony Hamilton, Johnny Lee Jackson, and Tupac Amaru
Shakur) (Saul Williams, Christopher Jackson, Ben Thompson);
“California Love” (lyric and music by Mutah W. Beale, Rufus Lee
Cooper, Malcolm Greenridge, Tyruss Gerald Himes, Johnny Lee
Jackson, and Tupac Amaru Shakur) (Jaime Lincoln Smith, Jared Joseph,
Young Souljas, My Block Women); “Ghetto Gospel” (lyric and music
by Deon Evans, Elton John, Marshall B. Mathers III, Luis Edgardo
Resto, Tupac Amaru Shakur, and Bernie Taupin) (Company)
The jukebox musical Holler If Ya Hear Me used songs cowritten by rap

singer Tupac Amaru Shakur (born Lesane Parish Crook) (1971–1996), who
was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas and who earlier had spent
eight months in prison for sexual assault. The musical wasn’t based on
Shakur’s life, and the songs were used to tell the story of John (Saul
Williams), an ex-con recently released from prison and now intent on going
straight. But gang warfare in his neighborhood results in the killing of
Benny (Donald Webber Jr.), the brother of drug-dealer Vertus (Christopher
Jackson), and soon John is drawn into the seemingly endless cycle of
murder and revenge.
It’s likely the typical Broadway theatergoer had never heard of Shakur,
much less his songs, and so the $8 million musical never found its audience
and was gone in less than five weeks. Holler might have been successful in
an intimate Off-Broadway venue with a downtown audience more familiar
with Shakur’s songs.
Marilyn Stasio in Variety found the book “predictable” and “generic”
and the characterizations “clumsy.” Although the music was “insistently
danceable and surprisingly tuneful,” the performers were “so overly miked”
that the lyrics were “almost unintelligible.” Further, all the “bristling rage”
of the “surly” and “fictional” leading character felt like “overkill” because
his “complaints” were “vague and unspecific.” As a result, the musical
numbers and sung-through poems weren’t supported by the story and the
“ill-defined” characters seemed to inhabit “some indeterminate place and
time.”
The New Yorker said the show’s “problems” were “similar to those of
most jukebox musicals” because the songs were “shoehorned into the plot.”
Further, the book leaned on “cliché.” Richard Zoglin in Time noted that the
book offered “a generic but gritty-for-Broadway story,” and some might
“quarrel” with the show’s ultimately “feel-good” message that was based on
songs from a musician “who styled himself as an angry voice of the
underclass.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the book fell “into
predictable grooves” with characters little more “than thinly drawn types,”
and rap itself made “an uneasy fit for theatrical presentation” because the
“sizzling phrases fly by almost before you can grasp their meaning.”
Further, some of the characters were given “sermonizing” speeches, and
“such moralizing gets to be a drag.” A few days before the production
shuttered, Isherwood wrote that the only surprise about the closing notice
was that it hadn’t come sooner. The show had done “dismal” business
during previews, and after the opening and the “downbeat” reviews there
had been “no improvement” in ticket sales. For Isherwood, the problem
with the show wasn’t the rap and the hip hop. The disappointment was the
“ham-handed, sentimentalized” story with its “clichéd narrative” and
“underwritten and familiar” characters.
The cast album is rumored to have been recorded, but as of this writing
hasn’t been released.
ON THE TOWN
Theatre: Lyric Theatre
Opening Date: October 16, 2014; Closing Date: September 6, 2015
Performances: 368
Book and Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green; additional book
material by Robert Cary and Jonathan Tolins
Music: Leonard Bernstein
Based on an idea by Jerome Robbins and inspired by the 1944 ballet Fancy
Free (choreographed by Robbins and music by Leonard Bernstein).
Direction: John Rando (Carol Chiavetta, Associate Director); Producers:
Howard and Jane Kagan, Severn Partners Entertainment, Bruce Robert
Harris and Jack W. Batman, Paula Marie Black, Nigel Lythgoe, Michael
J. Moritz Jr., Mahoney/Alden/Badway, Ambassador Theatre Group,
Margie and Bryan Weingarten, Kim Schall, Michael Rubenstein,
Terry/Louise/Chris Lingner, Brunish & Trinchero, Stephanie Rosenberg,
Laruffa & Hinderliter, Rubinstein/Handelman, Lizbeth Bintz, A & A
Gordon, Matt Ross/Ben Feldman/Pamela Cooper, and Barrington Stage
Company; Daniel Rakowski; Choreography: Joshua Bergasse (Greg
Graham, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Projection Design:
Beowulf Boritt; Costumes: Jess Goldstein; Lighting: Jason Lyons;
Cast: Phillip Boykin (Workman, Miss Turnstiles’ Announcer, Dream Coney
Island Master of Ceremonies, Bimmy), Michael Rosen (Second
Workman), Stephen DeRosa (Third Workman, Bill Poster, Figment,
Actor, Nedick’s Attendant, Diamond Eddie’s Master of Ceremonies,
Conga Cabana Master of Ceremonies, Conductor), Clyde Alves (Ozzie),
Jay Armstrong Johnson (Chip), Jess LeProtto (Fourth Workman, S.
Uperman), Tony Yazbeck (Gabey), Cody Williams (Andy, Musician,
Waiter), Brandon Leffler (Tom, Policeman), Holly Ann Butler (Flossie),
Lori Ann Ferreri (Flossie’s Friend), Jackie Hoffman (Little Old Lady,
Maude P. Dilly, Diana Dream, Dolores Dolores), Julius Carter
(Policeman), Megan Fairchild (Ivy), Alysha Umphress (Hildy),
Elizabeth Stanley (Claire), Tanya Birl (High School Girl), Angela
Brydon (High School Girl, First Dancing Girl), Eloise Kropp (High
School Girl, Doll Girl, Shawl Girl), Allison Guinn (Nun, Singer, Lucy
Schmeeler), Stephen Hanna (Lonely Town Sailor), Kristine Covillo
(Lonely Town Girl), Cory Lingner (Musician), Michael Rupert (Pitkin),
Samantha Sturm (Girl in Green); Ensemble: Tanya Birl, Angela Brydon,
Holly Ann Butler, Julius Carter, Kristine Covillo, Lori Ann Ferreri,
Stephen Hanna, Eloise Kropp, Brandon Leffler, Jess LeProtto, Cory
Lingner, Skye Mattox, Michael Rosen, Samantha Sturm, Christopher
Vo, Cody Williams, Mikey Winslow
The action takes place in New York City during twenty-four hours on a
June day in 1944.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet” (Phillip Boykin,
Ensemble); “New York, New York” (Tony Yazbeck, Jay Armstrong
Johnson, Clyde Alves, Ensemble); “Gabey’s Comin’” (Tony Yazbeck,
Jay Armstrong Johnson, Clyde Alves, Ensemble); “Presentation of Miss
Turnstiles” (“She’s a Home-Loving Girl”) (Jay Armstrong Johnson,
Tony Yazbeck, Phillip Boykin, Megan Fairchild); “Come Up to My
Place” (Alysha Umphress, Jay Armstrong Johnson); “Carried Away”
(Elizabeth Stanley, Clyde Alves); “Lonely Town” (Tony Yazbeck);
“Lonely Town Pas de Deux” (Dancers); “Lonely Town Chorale” (Tony
Yazbeck, Ensemble); “Do Do Re Do” (aka “Carnegie Hall Pavane”)
(Jackie Hoffman, Megan Fairchild, Ensemble); “I Can Cook, Too”
(Alysha Umphress); “Lucky to Be Me” (Tony Yazbeck, Ensemble);
Finale Act One: “Times Square Ballet” (Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “So Long, Baby” (Angela Brydon,
Ensemble); “I Wish I Was Dead” (Stephen DeRosa, Jackie Hoffman,
Alysha Umphress); “Conga Cabana” (Elizabeth Stanley, Stephen
DeRosa); “I Wish I Was Dead” (reprise; Spanish version) (Jackie
Hoffman, Alysha Umphress, Stephen DeRosa, Tony Yazbeck); “Ya Got
Me” (Alysha Umphress, Elizabeth Stanley, Jay Armstrong Johnson,
Clyde Alves); “I Understand” (aka “Pitkin’s Song”) (Michael Rupert,
Elizabeth Stanley, Allison Guinn); “Subway Ride” and “Imaginary
Coney Island” (Dancers); “The Great Lover Displays Himself” (Phillip
Boykin); “Pas De Deux” (TonyYazbeck, Megan Fairchild); “Some
Other Time” (Elizabeth Stanley, Alysha Umphress, Jay Armstrong
Johnson, Clyde Alves); “The Real Coney Island” (Phillip Boykin);
Finale (Company)
On the Town was inspired by the ballet Fancy Free, which premiered at
the Metropolitan Opera House on April 18, 1944, with choreography by
Jerome Robbins and music by Leonard Bernstein. They worked fast in
those days, and eight months later, on December 28, the musical comedy
version of the ballet opened on Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre and ran
for 463 performances. Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the book and
lyrics, and also starred in the respective roles of Claire De Loone and Ozzie.
The story takes place in New York City during a twenty-four-hour
period in which three sailors on shore leave prowl about the town in search
of romantic adventure (one lyric notes that there’s only “one thing” that’s
important if you have just one day to spend in Manhattan). Although he’d
really prefer sight-seeing, Chip (Jay Armstrong Johnson in the current
revival) becomes entangled with man-eating taxi driver Hildy (Alysha
Umphress), Ozzie (Clyde Alves) hooks up with wacky anthropologist
Claire (Elizabeth Stanley), and Gabey (Tony Yazbeck) falls in love with the
photograph of Miss (Subway) Turnstiles of the Month Ivy (Megan
Fairchild), who is “beautiful” and “brilliant” and in other words, just “a
typical New Yorker.” Much of the evening was devoted to Gabey, his pals,
and their gals in search of the elusive Ivy, whom they finally track down in
Coney Island. By dawn, the three couples must part, and the unspoken
background of the war hovers over the proceedings. But they all hope to
meet again “Some Other Time,” a lovely and understated ballad.
The score offers two soaring ballads for Gabey (the blues “Lonely
Town” and the joyous “Lucky to Be Me”); amusing comedy songs for
Hildy (her frantic duet with Chip “Come Up to My Place” and the raucous
“I Can Cook, Too,” a dish filled with double entendres); a mock-operetta
spoof for Claire and Ozzie (“Carried Away”); and parodies of nightclub
songs (“I’m Blue” aka “I Wish I Was Dead” and “So Long, Baby”). The
musical’s most celebrated number is “New York, New York” (“it’s a helluva
town”) in which the gobs salute the city and its promise of adventure and
romance. Bernstein also created sinuously bluesy and swinging dance
music; one depicted a mid-town evening (“Times Square Ballet”), another a
subway ride to Coney Island, and two sequences contrasted an imaginary
and a real Coney Island, the former a playground of the rich (the script
describes a “dreamy void of blue” in which sophisticated men and
“unattainable” women dance “easily and coldly”) and the latter a “gaudy
honky-tonk sort of place.”
Although the musical was a long-running hit in its original production,
all its revivals have lost money and (except for the current production) had
short runs. Even the show’s original national tour met with indifferent
business and closed prematurely An Off-Broadway revival at the Carnegie
Hall Playhouse opened on January 15, 1959, for just seventy performances;
the belated London premiere (with a cast that included Elliott Gould as
Ozzie) opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on May 30, 1963, for fifty-
three performances; the first Broadway revival opened at the Imperial
Theatre on October 31, 1971, for seventy-three performances; and the
second Broadway revival opened at the Gershwin Theatre on November 19,
1998, for sixty-five showings (it had first been presented by the Public
Theatre in Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre on August 1, 1997, for twenty-
five performances). The current Broadway visit managed to run 368
performances but reportedly lost its $8.5 million investment.
In his review of the current production, Ben Brantley in the New York
Times said the “jubilant” revival was “as fresh as first sunlight,” and while
the lyric of “New York, New York” noted the city was a “helluva” town, the
revival brought Gotham “closer to heaven.” The scenic design was a
“spectrum of jelly-bean hues that makes vintage Technicolor look pallid,”
and the choreography included the “dreamiest dream ballets I’ve seen in
years.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety praised the “sensational” dancing and said
the “sheer exuberance” of the music gave “wing to the ecstatic joy of the
dance.”
There are numerous recordings of the score. Decca Records released a
partial original cast album of the 1944 production (first issued on a 78 RPM
set and then later on LP) that was a combination of original cast members
(Comden, Green, and Nancy Walker) and Mary Martin (who sang Gabey’s
songs!); the LP was paired with selections from the 1946 musical Lute
Song, which starred Martin. The London cast album was released on vinyl
by CBS Records and on CD by Sony/Masterworks Broadway; a studio cast
album by Stet Records includes many songs written for the 1949 film
version (see below); and a 1993 concert production was released by
Deutsche Grammophon during the unfortunate era of “crossover”
recordings (in this case, every singer on the planet: opera legends Samuel
Ramey and Evelyn Lear, Broadway Baby David Garrison, jazz song-stylist
Cleo Laine, and actress Tyne Daly). A complete two-CD studio cast
recording issued by Jay Records includes the generally forgotten and
ignored “I Understand” (aka “Pitkin’s Song”). The current revival was
released on a two-CD set by PS Classics. The unused song “Ain’t Got No
Tears Left” is included in the collection Leonard Bernstein’s New York
released by Nonesuch Records. There were no recordings of the 1959,
1971, and 1998 revivals.
The best recording of the score is the 1960 release by Columbia (later
issued by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy), which was conducted by
Bernstein and includes original 1944 cast members Comden, Green, Nancy
Walker, and Cris Alexander as well as studio cast singers John Reardon and
Michael Kermoyan.
The script was published in hardback by Applause Books in 1997 as
part of the collection The New York Musicals of Comden and Green, which
includes the scripts of Wonderful Town (1953) and Bells Are Ringing
(1956), but disappointingly ignores Subways Are for Sleeping (1961). The
script was also published in 2014 by the Library of America in the hardback
collection American Musicals, which includes the libretti of fifteen other
shows. Carol J. Oja’s Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Arts in a
Time of War (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides information about
the musical’s background.
The 1949 film version by MGM is notable for its lively cast, which
includes Gene Kelly (Gabey), Frank Sinatra (Chip), Jules Munshin (Ozzie),
Vera-Ellen (Ivy), Ann Miller (Claire), Betty Garrett (Hildy), and, in a
reprise of her Broadway role, Alice Pearce as that “girl of mystery” Lucy
Schmeeler. In a major departure from sound-stage filming, some scenes
were filmed in New York, and the actual and studio New York locations
blend well together and look like a Technicolor fantasy. Unfortunately, only
three songs were retained from the stage production (“New York, New
York,” “Come Up to My Place,” and, surprisingly, “I Feel Like I’m Not Out
of Bed Yet”) along with some of Bernstein’s dance music. Comden and
Green supplied the lyrics for new songs composed by Roger Edens, and
while these are pleasant enough they’re not particularly distinguished. The
soundtrack album was issued by Show Biz Records.
Note that for the premiere of Fancy Free, the dancers were John Kriza,
Harold Lang, Jerome Robbins, Muriel Bentley, Janet Reed, and Shirley
Eckl.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (On the Town); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Tony
Yazbeck); Best Choreography (Joshua Bergasse); Best Director of a
Musical (John Rando)
THE LAST SHIP

Performances: 105
Book: John Logan and Brian Yorkey
Lyrics and Music: Sting
Direction: Joe Mantello; Producers: Jeffrey Seller, Kathryn Schenker,
Kevin McCollum, Sander Jacobs, James L. Nederlander, Roy Furman,
Herb Alpert, and Jerry Moss; Choreography: Steven Hoggett; Scenery
and Costumes: David Zinn; Lighting: Christopher Akerlind; Musical
Direction: Rob Mathes
Cast: Collin Kelly-Sordelet (Young Gideon, Tom Dawson), Jimmy Nail
(Jackie White), Sally Ann Triplett (Peggy White), Jamie Jackson (Joe
Fletcher), Fred Applegate (Father O’Brien), Dawn Cantwell (Young
Meg), Michael Esper (Gideon Fletcher), Drew McVety (Sailor), Rachel
Tucker (Meg Dawson), Aaron Lazar (Arthur Millburn), Craig Bennett
(Billy Thompson), Matthew Stocke (Davy Harrison), Eric Anderson
(Freddy Newlands), Rich Hebert (Adrian Sanders), Shawna M. Hamic
(Beatrice Dees), Leah Hocking (Jessie Flynn); Ensemble: Eric
Anderson, Craig Bennett, Dawn Cantwell, Jeremy Davis, Bradley Dean,
Colby Foytik, David Michael Garry, Timothy Gulan, Shawna M.
Hamic, Rich Hebert, Leah Hocking, Todd A. Horman, Jamie Jackson,
Drew McVety. Matthew Stocke, Jeremy Woodard
The action takes place around 2007 on the streets and in the shipyard of
Wallsend, in the northeast of England.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Island of Souls” (Jimmy Nail, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Sally Ann
Triplett, Fred Applegate, Dawn Cantwell, Company); “All This Time”
(Michael Esper, Company); “August Winds” (Rachel Tucker, Dawn
Cantwell); “Shipyard” (Jimmy Nail, Craig Bennett, Sally Ann Triplett,
Fred Applegate, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Company); “If You Ever See Me
Talking to a Sailor” (Rachel Tucker, Women); “Dead Man’s Boots”
(Michael Esper, Jamie Jackson, Collin Kelly-Sordelet); “The Last Ship”
(Part One) (Fred Applegate); “Sail Away” (Sally Ann Triplett); “The
Last Ship” (Part Two) (Jimmy Nail, Fred Applegate, Company);”What
Say You, Meg?” (Aaron Lazar); “We’ve Got Now’t Else” (Jimmy Nail,
Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Shipyard Men); “When We Dance” (Michael
Esper, Rachel Tucker, Aaron Lazar); “The Last Ship” (reprise) (Michael
Esper, Jimmy Nail, Fred Applegate, Company)
Act Two: “Mrs. Dees’ Rant” (Shawna M. Hamic, Women); “The Night the
Pugilist Learned How to Dance” (Michael Esper, Collin Kelly-
Sordelet); “We’ve Got Now’t Else” (reprise) (Jimmy Nail, Michael
Esper, Company); “So to Speak” (Fred Applegate, Michael Esper);
“Hymn” (Company); “Show Some Respect” (Sally Ann Triplett,
Michael Esper, Jimmy Nail, Rachel Tucker, Company); “Island of
Souls” (reprise) (Rachel Tucker, Collin Kelly-Sordelet, Dawn Cantwell,
Michael Esper); “It’s Not the Same Moon” (Michael Esper, Rachel
Tucker); “Underground River” (Jimmy Nail, Collin Kelly-Sordelet,
Company); “Ghost Story” (Michael Esper, Collin Kelly-Sordelet);
“August Winds” (reprise) (Michael Esper, Collin Kelly-Sordelet);
Finale: “The Last Ship” (reprise) (Company)
The season offered three serious musicals (two Broadway premieres and
one revival), and all had richly melodic scores and offered original,
compelling, and heartbreaking stories and complicated characters. Sting’s
The Last Ship, the Side Show revival, and John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The
Visit avoided the feel-good clichés of jukebox and mindless-movie-
adaptation musicals, didn’t infuse their stories with preachy and politically
correct messages, and didn’t pander to the public with gaudy spectacle,
streams of profanity-laced invective, and anachronistic music. And so of
course all three failed at the box office and lost their entire investments.
Their quick demise spoke volumes about the direction, or rather
misdirection, of the current Broadway scene and the failure of audiences to
support bold excursions into fresh if occasionally flawed material whose
only weakness was perhaps overreaching ambition.
The Last Ship was a moody and brooding look at a small English
seacoast town that was once a hub of shipbuilding. Now time has passed the
town by and its shipbuilders and their industry are left behind with the
changing times (ironically, a scrap-metal company offers the men jobs to
dismantle the once-proud ships they had formerly built). The main character
Gideon Fletcher (Michael Esper) turned his back on the town fifteen years
earlier, abandoned his ailing father, left behind his girlfriend Meg Dawson
(Rachel Tucker) whom he didn’t know was pregnant, and shed his working-
class roots. Now his odyssey is over and the prodigal son has returned home
after years at sea as a kind of nomadic Flying Dutchman. But his father is
dead, the townsfolk resent him, and Meg, who is now living with the
practical businessman Arthur Millburn (Aaron Lazar) is less than happy to
see the man who fathered her son.
The overriding symbol of the musical is that of the titular last ship, and
here the musical lost some ground with its rather preposterous notion that
the laid-off shipbuilders could somehow manage to salvage scrap and build
a new ship to carry them across the seas. The idea was grand if quixotic,
and didn’t quite work because it led one to ask questions about practical
matters that the libretto essentially sidestepped. Would the salvage company
turn a blind eye to their equipment and property being used for the
construction of a private ship? And once built, where will the money come
from to pay for fuel and upkeep? And what about the families left behind at
home? How are they to survive if the men are a-sailing the seas?
Perhaps we weren’t meant to ask such questions, and had the story been
written in a more stylized and abstract fashion we wouldn’t have worried
over such pedantic and mundane matters.
Elysa Gardner in USA Today chose The Last Ship as the best Broadway
musical of 2014. Sting’s score “reaffirmed his melodic and storytelling
gifts,” and director Joe Mantello and librettists John Logan and Brian
Yorkey crafted a story “that moves, and, in the end, surprises us.” But Chris
Jones in the Chicago Tribune warned that because the “unusual” story
offered both “socially conscious realism” and the “broadly symbolic strokes
of the Homeric epic,” it would be “buffeted” on Broadway. Nonetheless, the
evening was an “honorable endeavor” with “more talent in the hold that
most new musicals can put on deck.”
Robert Kahn in NBC’s 4NewYork found The Last Ship “haunting,
gorgeously executed and involving” with a “great” cast and “foot-
stomping” choreography, and the resolution of Gideon’s conflict with his
past was “exceedingly honest.” Further, the industrial-styled decor was
transformed in the final scene “to produce a lump-in-the-throat moment.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the work was “highly personal and intensely
felt” with its use of the “ancient tradition of myth and fairy tales,” but
because these abstract notions were “grounded in the very real world of
collapsing industries and a redundant work force” they didn’t lend
themselves to “mythic treatment.” She noted that David Zinn’s set depicted
the “metal skeleton of a massive ship” that loomed over the action, his
projections showed “a dark and restless sea,” and Christopher Akerlind’s
lighting ranged from “blue-black and green-black to solid black-black.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post praised Sting’s “literate” and
“haunting” ballads and “well-crafted, pop-folksy barnburners.” But the
story was “overly earnest and a wee bit grandiose,” and the “duality” of the
story created a “shaky raft” that tried “to balance too many things.” As a
result, the efforts of the men to build their last ship weren’t as “involving”
as the story’s love-triangle. David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said
the “Celtic-flavored” score was the show’s “chief distinction” because its
“musical narrative” offered “skill” and “genuine feeling.” But the book was
“plodding” and didn’t provide Gideon enough “psychological dimension to
come alive,” and he was stranded among “generic characters and clichéd
situations.”
Richard Zoglin in Time said Sting’s “vigorous and lyrical” score was the
“uncontrovertible highpoint” of the evening with “romantic” ballads,
“hearty workers’ anthems with echoes of sea chanteys,” folk-like Irish
music, a touch of The Threepenny Opera, and some old-fashioned
“Broadway pizzazz.” But the score wasn’t “enhanced” by the production
itself, and Sting’s earlier song cycle of the score at the Public Theatre was
“actually more powerful, personal and genuinely moving” than the fully
staged Broadway presentation.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “earnest” and
“ambitious” musical offered a “seductive” score that ranked “among the
best composed by a rock or pop figure for Broadway,” but the work had “its
share of nagging flaws.” The critic noted that the idea of building one “last
ship” lacked “real-world logic,” and he wondered just what would become
of the vessel (would the builders “sell it to Carnival Cruises?”). But the
score had “haunting beauty” with “pungent” lyrics derived “directly from
character and situation” and music that drew upon sea chanteys, Celtic airs,
and even Kurt Weill.
Because of indifferent box office sales, Sting stepped into the role of
Jackie White (which had been played by Jimmy Nail) during the period
December 9, 2014–January 24, 2015, and according to Patrick Healy in the
Times his presence “provided a short-term lift at the box office but failed to
generate enough excitement for the show to last,” and so the musical closed
after less than three months and lost its entire $15 million investment.
Note that the score includes four songs that were heard on earlier
recordings by Sting: “Island of Souls” and “All This Time” (The Soul
Cages, 1991); “When We Dance” (the compilation Fields of Gold/The Best
of Sting 1984–1994, 1994); and “Ghost Story” (Brand New Day, 1999).
The cast album was released by Universal Music Classics Records and
included a bonus track of Sting performing “What Say You, Meg?” A year
before the Broadway production opened, Sting recorded his concept album
of The Last Ship for Cherrytree/A &M Records; the CD included six songs
later heard in the musical (the title song, “Dead Man’s Boots,” “August
Winds,” “The Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance,” “So to Speak,”
and “What Have We Got?” aka “We’ve Got Now’t Else,” the last sung by
Jimmy Nail, who also performed the number in the Broadway production).
The album also included five songs written for but not used in the musical
(“And Yet,” “Language of Birds,” “Practical Arrangement,” “Ballad of the
Great Eastern,” and “I Love Her but She Loves Someone Else”).
A year before the Broadway opening, Sting performed a song cycle
from the score at the Public Theatre for a few performances during October
2013. The Last Ship: Live at the Public Theatre was later released on Blu-
ray by Polydor and was shown on Great Performances in February 2014.
The concert included nine numbers later heard in the Broadway version
(“Shipyard,” “August Winds,” “What Have We Got?” aka “We’ve Got
Now’t Else,” “What Say You, Meg?,” “Dead Man’s Boots,” “So to Speak,”
“Show Some Respect,” “Underground River,” and the title song) and six
not used in the stage production (“Coming Home’s Not Easy,” “And Yet,”
“Practical Arrangement,” “Big Steamer,” “Sky Hooks and Tartan Paint,”
and “Jack the Singing Welder”).
During the 2018–2019 theatre season, a revised version with direction
and a new book by Lorne Campbell briefly toured with Sting in the role of
Jackie White. “Hymn” and “Ghost Story” were deleted, and three songs
were added, “In the Morning,” “And Yet,” and “Hadaway (Out of Your
Tiny Minds).”
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Score (lyrics and music by Sting); Best
Orchestrations (Bob Mathes)
SIDE SHOW
Performances: 56
Book and Lyrics: Bill Russell; additional book material by Bill Condon
Music: Henry Krieger
Direction: Bill Condon (Dave Solomon, Associate Director); Producers:
Darren Bagert, Martin Massman, Jayne Baron Sherman, Joan Raffe and
Jhett Tolentino, Universal Stage Productions, Joined at the Hip
Productions, CJ E & M/Mike Coolik, Shadowcatcher Entertainment,
Michael M. Kaiser, Jim Kierstead, Marc David Levine, Catherine and
Fred Adler, Bredeweg & Carlberg, Clear Channel Spectacolor, Curtis
Forsythe, Gloken, Highbrow & Nahem, Nobile Lehner Shea
Productions, Pretty Freaks, Weatherby & Fishman Theatrical, Matthew
Masten, and Jujamcyn Theatre in association with the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts and La Jolla Playhouse; Choreography:
Anthony Van Laast (Janet Rothermel, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery: David Rockwell; Illusions: Paul Kieve; Costumes: Paul
Tazewell; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical
Direction: Sam Davis
Cast: Erin Davie (Violet Hilton), Emily Padgett (Daisy Hilton), Ryan
Silverman (Terry Connor), Matthew Hydzik (Buddy Foster), David St.
Louis (Jake), Robert Joy (Sir), Brandon Bieber (3-Legged Man, Suitor),
Matthew Patrick Davis (Geek, Doctor), Charity Angel Dawson (Fortune
Teller), Lauren Elder (Venus de Milo), Javier Ignacio (Dog Boy,
Houdini, Suitor), Jordanna James (Female Cossack), Kelvin Moon Loh
(Half Man/Half Woman, Doctor), Barrett Martin (Human Pin Cushion,
Judge, Ray, Suitor), Don Richard (Lizard Man, Doctor, Sir’s Lawyer,
Cameraman, Tod Browning), Blair Ross (Bearded Lady, Auntie),
Hannah Shankman (Tattoo Girl), Josh Walker (Male Cossack), Derek
Hanson (Roustabout, Doctor, Suitor), Con O’Shea-Creal (Roustabout,
Suitor), Michaeljon Slinger (Suitor); Ensemble: Brandon Bieber,
Matthew Patrick Davis, Charity Angel Dawson, Lauren Elder, Javier
Ignacio, Jordanna James, Kelvin Moon Loh, Barrett Martin, Don
Richard, Blair Ross, Hannah Shankman, Josh Walker, Derek Hanson,
Con O’Shea-Creal
The action takes place during the 1930s.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program listed song titles, but didn’t identify names of
characters/performers who sang the numbers. The names of performers
listed below are taken from the cast album and from other sources.
Act One: “Come Look at the Freaks” (Company); “Like Everyone Else”
(Erin Davie, Emily Padgett); “Very Well Connected” (Ryan Silverman,
Matthew Hydzik); “The Devil You Know” (David St. Louis, Side Show
Attractions); “Typical Girls Next Door” (Emily Padgett, Erin Davie);
“You Should Thank Me Every Day” (Blair Ross, Emily Padgett, Erin
Davie); “Cut Them Apart” (Matthew Patrick Davis, Kelvin Moon Loh,
Don Richard, Derek Hanson, Emily Padgett, Erin Davie, Blair Ross)
and “I Will Never Leave You” (probably Emily Padgett, Erin Davie);
“All in the Mind” (Javier Ignacio, Emily Padgett, Erin Davie); “Come
See a New Land” (Robert Joy, Emily Padgett, Erin Davie, Javier
Ignacio, Blair Ross, Ensemble); “Feelings You’ve Got to Hide” (Emily
Padgett, Erin Davie); “Say Goodbye to the Sideshow” (Erin Davie,
Emily Padgett, Ryan Silverman, Side Show Attractions, David St.
Louis); “Ready to Play” (Brandon Bieber, Javier Ignacio, Barrett
Martin, Derek Hanson, Con O’Shea-Creal, Michaeljon Slinger, Emily
Padgett, Erin Davie); “The Interview” (Ryan Silverman, Reporters,
Emily Padgett, Erin Davie) and “Buddy Kissed Me” (Erin Davie, Emily
Padgett); “Who Will Love Me as I Am?” (Erin Davie, Emily Padgett,
Side Show Attractions)
Act Two: “Stuck with You” and “Leave Me Alone” (Matthew Hydzik,
Barrett Martin, Emily Padgett, Erin Davie); “New Year’s Eve”
(performers not identified); “Private Conversation” (Ryan Silverman,
Emily Padgett); “One Plus One Equals Three” (Matthew Hydzik,
Female Cherubs, Emily Padgett, Erin Davie, Cupids); “You Should Be
Loved” (David St. Louis, Erin Davie); “A Great Wedding Show”
(Texans, Matthew Hydzik, Ryan Silverman, Emily Padgett, Erin Davie);
“Marry Me, Terry” (Emily Padgett); “I Will Never Leave You” (reprise)
(Erin Davie, Emily Padgett); “Come Look at the Freaks” (reprise) (Erin
Davie, Emily Padgett, Don Richard, Company)
The highly anticipated revival of Side Show depicted the sad and
touching story of the real-life Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton
(1908–1969), played by Emily Padgett and Erin Davie (Emily Skinner and
Alice Ripley in the original). The work was permeated with melancholy,
and brought an intensity of emotion seldom encountered in a Broadway
musical, and although the original 1997 production was one of the era’s
best, attendance was sparse and the show closed after ninety-one
performances at a loss of $7 million.
The musical quickly became a cult classic, and there were hopes the
revival would allow the musical to find its audience. Lyricist (and librettist)
Bill Russell and composer Henry Krieger added a few new songs and
dropped others, and director Bill Condon was credited with “additional
book material.” Although the original had taken an abstract approach to the
story with a stylized and slightly Expressionist look that suggested but
didn’t literalize the deformities of the side show freaks, the current revival
utilized rubberized masks and full costumes to depict their heretofore only
suggested physical conditions. The revival brought Harry Houdini into the
story (he was also a character in Ragtime, which, like Side Show, lost
money during its original 1998 Broadway production and also failed to
recoup its investment for its 2009 revival). The new Side Show was even
more unsuccessful than the original, and this time around played for fifty-
six performances and lost an estimated $8 million.
Clearly, Side Show is caviar to the general public, and its subject matter
turns off potential ticket buyers. Perhaps the public mistakenly assumes the
show is a campy look at Siamese twins and the side show culture, and the
reality of a serious musical drama about conjoined twins proves too off-
putting and uncomfortable. Patrick Healy in the New York Times reported
that Scott Mallalieu (the president of GreatWhiteWay.com, a theatre ticket
agency) said the idea of Siamese twins “created horrible images in people’s
heads,” the “only clients who bought tickets had seen” and “loved” the
original production, and “everyone else was turned off.”
The virtually sung-through work looked at Daisy and Violet’s fleeting
careers in show business, which culminated in their appearance in the 1932
film Freaks. They eventually drifted into obscurity, ended their days as
baggers in a North Carolina grocery store, and died in 1969. The musical
looked at the question of identity, and examined the meaning of
relationships, both tenuous ones and those in which people are literally
bound together for life. Daisy and Violet yearn for independence and
normal lives, but are forever entwined and can never be free of one another
in order to pursue their individual dreams. At the conclusion of the musical
they accept their fate, and in one of the most powerful theatre songs of the
era they face their destiny in the ironic and double-edged yet simple and
straightforward “I Will Never Leave You.”
Russell’s book was tightly written, and Krieger’s music was one of the
richest of its time, and except for occasional period pastiche in the
vaudeville sequences he opted for what might be termed a classical
Broadway sound.
Charles Isherwood in the Times praised the “thrilling” and “beautiful
and wrenching” revival, an “engrossing showbiz saga” in which “story and
song are knit together with liquid finesse.” Side Show was the “essential
ticket of the fall season” and offered “rich, melodic” music and a
“passionate” cast (but Isherwood noted he’d “pass over the potholes” of the
lyrics), and Padgett and Davie’s performances revealed the “unquenchable
communion at the core of the sisters’ relationship” despite the fact they’d
“desperately love to be singing a solo.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety commented that the “new” and “improved”
Side Show was “both darker in tone and lighter in theme” than the original,
and she was happy to note the revival dropped the “original belligerent
subtext” that “We’re-All-Freaks.” Although Daisy and Violet were
“complex,” the other characters lacked “depth,” and while the music was
“lovely” the “clunkiness of the lyrics [landed] on defenseless ears like blunt
instruments.”
The 1997 cast album was released by Sony Classical Records, and the
script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1999. Skinner and
Ripley’s collection Duets (Varese Sarabande Records) includes the cut
songs “Stuck on You” and “Ready to Play”; their Unsuspecting Hearts (also
on Varese Sarabande) offers the cut “She’s Gone”; and their Skinner/Ripley:
Raw at Town Hall (Kritzerland Records) includes “She’s Gone,” “Who Will
Love Me as I Am?,” and “I Will Never Leave You.” Songs on the cast
album that weren’t retained for the revival are: “Happy Birthday to You and
You,” “More Than We Bargained For,” “When I’m by Your Side,” “We
Share Everything,” “Rare Songbirds on Display,” “Tunnel of Love,” and
“Buddy’s Confession.”
The 2014 cast album was released by Broadway Records. The revival
retained fifteen songs from the original production, and except for “Marry
Me, Terry,” all were included on the cast album: “Come Look at the
Freaks,” “I’m Daisy, I’m Violet” (listed in the 1997 program but not in the
current one), “Like Everyone Else,” “The Devil You Know,” “Feelings
You’ve Got to Hide,” “Say Goodbye to the Side Show (Freak Show),” “The
Interview,” “Buddy Kissed Me,” “Who Will Love Me as I Am?,” “Leave
Me Alone,” “Private Conversation,” “One Plus One Equals Three,” “You
Should Be Loved,” and “I Will Never Leave You.”
Songs added for the revival (and included on the cast album) were:
“Very Well-Connected,” “What Brought Him Here?,” “A Private Exclusive
Show,” “Typical Girls Next Door,” “You Should Thank Me Every Day,”
“Cut Them Apart,” “All in the Mind,” “Come See a New Land,” “Ready to
Play,” “Stuck with You,” and “The (A) Great Wedding Show,” which was a
revised version of the previously unused song “Coming Apart at the
Seams.” As a bonus track, the recording offers the title song, which wasn’t
used in either the original or the revival. The original production included
“New Year’s Day” (which was recorded for the 1997 cast album), and
although the revival listed “New Year’s Eve” in the program it wasn’t
recorded for the cast album.
Broadway Records also released Side Show: Added Attractions, which
was recorded live at 54 Below on March 9, 2015, with members of the
revival’s cast. The songs include numbers cut from the show, ones not
recorded for the revival’s cast album, and various ensemble and extended
numbers, including “Why Haven’t I Learned Yet?,” “Good We Found You,”
“These Two Have Faced So Many Trials,” “New Year’s Eve,” “Proposal,”
and “The Choice I Made.”
THE ILLUSIONISTS: WITNESS THE IMPOSSIBLE

Performances: 45
Music: Evan Jolly; additional compositions by Eddie Cole and Dustin
Moore
Direction and Choreography: Neil Dorward (Kirsty Painter, Associate
Director; Jenn Rapp, Associate Director and Choreographer); Illusion
Direction: Mark Kalin; Creative Direction: Jim Millan; Producers: Asia
Live Network, Simon Painter, Tim Lawson, MagicSpace Entertainment,
Road Show Theatrical, and the Production Office; Tim Lawson,
Executive Producer; Video Design: Darrel Maloney; Illusion Design:
Don Wayne; Additional Scenic Design: Todd Ivins; Costumes: Angela
Aaron; Lighting: Paul Miller; Musical Direction: Not credited
Cast: Andrew Basso (The Escapologist), Aaron Crow (The Warrior), Jeb
Hobson (The Trickster), Yu Ho-Jin (The Manipulator), Kevin James
(The Inventor), Dan Sperry (The Anti-Conjuror), Adam Trent (The
Futurist); Magician Assistants—Victoria Chimenti, Rob Coglitore,
Kelly Connolly, Tenealle Farragher, Lindsey Ferguson, Edward Purnell
Hawkins, Antonio Hoyos, Brian James, Haruki Kiyama, Todd
Hampton, and Claudia James; Z (Band)—Eddie Cole (Vocals,
Percussion), Dustin Moore (Bass, Synthesizer), Tom Terrell (Trumpet,
Keyboard), Andy Meixner (Electric Guitar), Jody Giachello (Drum Set,
Percussion)
The magic show was presented in two acts.
The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible was an evening of traditional

and would-be slightly edgy magic tricks. There were seven magicians in all,
and they were supported by eleven magician assistants and backed by Z, a
five-member rock band. Dan Sperry (The Anti-Conjuror) was able to
conjure up a flock of flying doves, Adam Trent (The Futurist) was a whiz
with a deck of cards, and Andrew Basso (The Escapologist) was true to his
name and unshackled himself while submerged in a tank of water.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the evening was
“part ‘Gee-whiz!’ and part Cheez Whiz” with a “Las Vegas vibe” replete
with “haze, strobe effects and eardrum-thumping music.” The show was a
“hodgepodge” of acts that ran the gamut “from Goth to goofball” and
served as “light family-friendly entertainment.” The New Yorker reported
that the seven headliners had “variable skill levels and a rainbow of
personalities,” and their “ragtag” show was “in the spirit of Las Vegas via
Times Square.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “bombast-riddled”
show was “overproduced and over-blown” with “seven talented tricksters
drowning in a sea of cheese.” Isherwood noted that one magic trick was
missing from the evening. If only the magicians could have made the
Marriott Marquis Theatre disappear (along with its “monolithic” hotel and
the “monstrous” video screen wrapped around its façade) and then conjure
up the five Broadway theatres (the Morosco, Fulton/Helen Hayes, Bijou,
Astor, and Gaiety/Victoria) which were demolished in order to make way
for the “eyesore.”
As of this writing, the Illusionists have returned to Broadway four
times: The Illusionists: Live on Broadway (2015), The Illusionists: Turn
of the Century (2016), and The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays (2018
and 2019 editions). For more information, see entries.
HONEYMOON IN VEGAS
Opening Date: January 15, 2015; Closing Date: April 5, 2015
Performances: 93
Book: Andrew Bergman
Lyrics and Music: Jason Robert Brown
Based on the 1992 Castle Rock Entertainment film Honeymoon in Vegas
(direction and screenplay by Andrew Bergman).
Direction: Gary Griffin; Producers: Dena Hammerstein, Roy Gabay, Rich
Entertainment Group, Dan Farah, Metro Card, King’s Leaves, Dan
Frishwasser, Leslie Greif/Thom Beers, Susan Dietz and Lenny Beer,
Howard Hoffman/Anna Czekaj, Important Musicals, Sharon Karmazin,
L. G. Scott, and Martin Markinson in association with Ken
Greiner/Ruth Hendel, Krauss Freitag/Boyle Koenigsberg, Rick
Steiner/Bell-Station Group, Pam Pariseau, and Paper Mill Playhouse
(Mark S. Hoebee, Producing Artistic Director); David Goldyn,
Associate Producer; Choreography: Denis Jones; Scenery and
Projection Designs: Anna Louizos; Costumes: Brian Hemesath;
Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Tom Murray
Cast: Rob McClure (Jack Singer), Brynn O’Malley (Betsy Nolan), Nancy
Opel (Bea Singer), David Josefsberg (Buddy Rocky, Roy Bacon), Leslie
Donna Flesner (Buddy’s Showgirl, Rose), Erica Sweany (Buddy’s
Show-girl), Tony Danza (Tommy Korman), Matthew Saldivar (Johnny
Sandwich), Matt Allen (Hotel Manager), Katie Webber (Cranberry
Waitress, Sapphire de la Tour), George Merrick (Dougie Cataracts,
Ticket Agent, Teihutu), Gaelen Gilliland (Joanne Klein, Ticket Agent),
Raymond J. Lee (Chan Elvis Park, Raymond), Zachary Prince (Alex),
Tracee Beazer (Ticket Agent), Catherine Ricafort (Mahi); Flying
Elvises: Matt Allen, Grady McLeod Bowman, Albert Guerzon,
Raymond J. Lee, Cary Tedder, and Katie Webber; Voiceover
Announcements: George Merrick and Gaelen Gilliland; Ensemble: Matt
Allen, Tracee Beazer, Grady McLeod Bowman, Leslie Donna Flesner,
Gaelen Gilliland, Albert Guerzon, Raymond J. Lee, George Merrick,
Zachary Prince, Catherine Ricafort, Erica Sweany, Cary Tedder, Katie
Webber
The action takes place during the present time in Brooklyn, Las Vegas, and
Hawaii.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “I Love Betsy” (Rob McClure, Ensemble);
“Never Get Married” (Nancy Opel, Ensemble); “Anywhere but Here”
(Brynn O’Malley); “When You Say Vegas” (David Josefsberg, Tony
Danza, Matthew Saldivar, Ensemble); “Out of the Sun” (Tony Danza);
“Forever Starts Tonight” (Tony Danza, Rob McClure); “Betsy’s Getting
Married” (Brynn O’Malley, Rob McClure, Tony Danza, Ensemble);
“Come to an Agreement” (Tony Danza); “Do Something” (David
Josefsberg, Rob McClure, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Hawaii” and “Waiting for You”
(Raymond J. Lee, Brynn O’Malley, Rob McClure, Ensemble); “Every
Day Is Happy in Hawaii” (Rob McClure, George Merrick, Catherine
Ricafort); “Friki-Friki” (Catherine Ricafort, Rob McClure); “You Made
the Wait Worthwhile” (Tony Danza, Brynn O’Malley, Ensemble); “A
Little Luck” (Tony Danza, Matthew Saldivar); “Isn’t That Enough?”
(Rob McClure); “Airport Song” (Tracee Beazer, Gaelen Gilliland,
George Merrick, Ensemble); “Higher Love” (David Josefsberg.
Ensemble); “I’ve Been Thinking” (Brynn O’Malley); Finale:
“Honeymoon in Vegas” (Rob McClure, Brynn O’Malley, Ensemble)
Based on the popular 1992 film of the same name, Honeymoon in Vegas
was well-received by the critics, Jason Robert Brown’s old-fashioned score
was especially praised, and with the ingratiating Tony Danza the show
included a nostalgic name from the world of television sitcoms. But,
surprisingly, the show never caught on and was gone less than three
months.
Jack Singer (Rob McClure) wants to marry Betsy Nolan (Brynn
O’Malley) but is literally haunted by the vow he made to his mother Bea
(Nancy Opel) on her deathbed. He promised he’d never marry, and so now
Bea returns and reminds him of that sacred promise. But Jack and Betsy
take off for Las Vegas for their wedding, and upon their arrival they meet
the silky smooth gambler Tommy Korman (Danza), who is immediately
taken with Betsy because she reminds him of his late wife, who died from
too much sun exposure. “Out of the Sun” is his ode to her memory, and he
sings that the “clouds disappeared” because she smelled of coconuts “from
all the oil she shmeared.”
In a friendly game of poker, Jack loses big time to Tommy and ends up
owing him $58,000. But kindhearted Tommy is willing to forgive the debt if
Jack will agree to let Betsy spend a weekend with him. Betsy is outraged by
the proposition (“YOU BET ME IN A POKER GAME?”), but to spite Jack
she agrees to go off with Tommy to his hideaway in Hawaii, and once there
she actually finds herself falling for him and asks him to marry her. Betsy
and Tommy head back to Vegas for their nuptials, but because Bea has now
agreed to free Jack from his vow to remain single, Jack must reach Vegas as
soon as possible in order to prevent the marriage. Alas, the fastest way to
get there is to join a group of skydiving Elvis Presley impersonators, and so
he bites the bullet and takes a dive, just in time to apologize to Betsy, who
is already having second thoughts about marrying Tommy. And so Jack and
Betsy finally tie the knot and get to have their honeymoon in Vegas.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “bright and bouncy” show
was “a real-live, old-fashioned, deeply satisfying Broadway musical in a
way few new shows are anymore.” Brown’s score was “swinging” and
Danza was “smooth-as-Ultrasuede,” and here the two men did “career-high
work,” a “scrumptious blend of cheese and caviar” that is “so stealthily
sophisticated that it takes you a while to realize the sly genius of what they
are doing.” Brown’s songs furthered the plot and defined characters in the
tradition of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s heyday with a “ring-a-ding swell
and swing” that evoked the Frank Sinatra of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The New Yorker praised the “tuneful” score, and noted director Gary
Griffin’s staging was “as bright and synthetic as Caesars Palace.” Opel
offered “welcome intrusions” as Jack’s mother, and while Danza was “no
crooner” his tap-dancing solo was “an unexpected trump card.” Richard
Zoglin in Time said the musical was “in the chips,” and Brown’s score
offered “bright, listener-friendly tunes full of big-band sizzle and lounge-
show steam.” The sequence with the flying Elvis impersonators was
performed with “such witty, low-tech stagecraft” that it “instantly” became
one of Broadway’s “great comic production numbers.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the “not-quite-knockout” musical had
“catchy” and “breezy” music and “clever” lyrics, and Danza radiated “slick
charm” with his “mellow voice, great timing and comedic know-how” in
such numbers as the “tragic narrative” of “Out of the Sun” and the
“novelty” of “Come to an Agreement.”
The cast album was recorded three months before the Broadway
opening and was released by UM Records; it includes “The Garden of
Disappointed Mothers,” which was cut for the New York production.
And speaking of weddings and disappointed mothers, Tyne Daly and
Harriet Harris had a lot to say about these subjects when It Shoulda Been
You opened later in the season. An earlier “wedding” musical was John
Kander’s A Family Affair (1962), which opened at the Billy Rose Theatre,
which was now the Nederlander and the home of Honeymoon in Vegas.
ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Performances: 144
Book and Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Music: Cy Coleman
Based on the 1932 play Twentieth Century by Ben Hecht and Charles
MacArthur (which was based on an earlier and unproduced play by
Bruce Millholland).
Direction: Scott Ellis (Kasey RT Graham, Associate Director); Producers:
The Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director);
Sydney Beers, Executive Producer; Choreography: Warren Carlyle
(Angie Canuel, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: David Rockwell;
Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical
Direction: Kevin Stites
Cast: Rick Faugno (Porter), Richard Riaz Yoder (Porter), Phillip Attmore
(Porter), Drew King (Porter), Jim Walton (Conductor Flanagan), Mark
Linn-Baker (Oliver Webb), Michael McGrath (Owen O’Malley), Justin
Bowen (Train Secretary, Officer), Andy Taylor (Congressman
Lockwood), Analisa Leaming (Anita), Peter Gallagher (Oscar Jaffee),
James Moye (Max Jacobs), Kevin Ligon (Simon Finch, Otto Von
Bismarck, Office), Paula Leggett Chase (Imelda Thornton), Kristin
Chenoweth (Mildred Plotka aka Lily Garland), Bahiyah Hibah and
Erica Mansfield (Can-Can Girls), Andy Karl (Bruce Granit), Mamie
Parris (Agnes), Mary Louise Wilson (Letitia Peabody Primrose), Linda
Mugleston (Doctor Johnson); Actors, Passengers, and Ensemble: Phillip
Attmore, Justin Bowen, Paula Leggett Chase, Ben Crawford, Rick
Faugno, Bahiyah Hibah, Drew King, Analisa Leaming, Kevin Ligon,
Erica Mansfield, James Moye, Linda Mugleston, Mamie Parris, Andy
Taylor, Jim Walton, Richard Riaz Yoder
The action takes place in the early1930s aboard the Twentieth Century
Limited en route from Chicago to New York.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Stranded (Again)” (Michael McGrath,
Mark Linn-Baker, Actors); “Saddle Up the Horse” and “On the 20th
Century” (Michael McGrath, Mark Linn-Baker, Rick Faugno, Richard
Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, Drew King, Passengers); “I Rise Again”
(Peter Gallagher, Michael McGrath, Mark Linn-Baker); “Oscar Jaffee”
and “Lily Garland Transition” (Rick Faugno, Richard Riaz Toder,
Phillip Attmore, Drew King, Peter Gallagher); “Indian Maiden’s
Lament” (Paula Leggett Chase, Kristin Chenoweth); “Veronique” (Peter
Gallagher, Kristin Chenoweth, Rick Faugno, Richard Riaz Yoder,
Phillip Attmore, Drew King, Kevin Ligon, Bahiyah Hibah, Erika
Mansfield, Ensemble); “I Have Written a Play” (Jim Walton);
“Together” (Rick Faugno, Richard Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, Drew
King, Ensemble, Peter Gallagher, Kristin Chenoweth, Andy Karl);
“Never” (Kristin Chenoweth, Mark Linn-Baker, Michael McGrath);
“Our Private World” (Peter Gallagher, Kristin Chenoweth); “Repent”
(Mary Louise Wilson); “Mine” (Peter Gallagher, Andy Karl); “I’ve Got
It All” (Kristin Chenoweth, Peter Gallagher); “End of Act I” (Rick
Faugno, Richard Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, Drew King, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra) and “Life Is Like a Train” (Rick Faugno,
Richard Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, Drew King); “I Have Written a
Play” (reprise) (Andy Taylor); “Five Zeros” (Michael McGrath, Mark
Linn-Baker, Mary Louise Wilson, Peter Gallagher); “I Have Written a
Play” (reprise) (Linda Mugleston, Michael McGrath, Mark Linn-Baker,
Peter Gallagher); “Sign Lily Sign” (Michael McGrath, Mark Linn-
Baker, Peter Gallagher, Mary Louise Wilson, Kristin Chenoweth, Andy
Karl); “She’s a Nut” (Company); “Max Jacobs” (James Moye, Kristin
Chenoweth); “Babette” (Kristin Chenoweth, Ensemble); “Because of
Her” (lyric by Amanda Green) (Peter Gallagher); “Lily/Oscar” (Kristin
Chenoweth, Peter Gallagher, Mark Linn-Baker); Finale (Company)
The revival of Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Cy Coleman’s art

deco operetta On the Twentieth Century was a welcome surprise. One of the
wittiest of all Broadway musicals, the original 1978 production was a
visually elegant Lalique affair presented in the Grand Manner with its
farcical story, comic lyrics, purposely over-the-top hammy performances,
and richly melodic score, arguably Coleman’s best (and most atypical)
work, all orchestrated by Harold Prince’s tongue-in-cheek direction. The
musical premiered on February 19, 1978, at the St. James Theatre for 453
performances and won Tony Awards for Best Book, Best Score, Best Scenic
Designer (Robin Wagner), Best Leading Actor in a Musical (John Cullum),
and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Kevin Kline).
Wagner’s magnificent decor and Florence Klotz’s dazzling costumes
were a visual knockout. Virtually all the action took place on the luxurious
Twentieth Century Limited, and the train was a fantasy of scalloped silvers
and creams that depicted drawing rooms, observation cars, corridors, and
platforms, not to mention a lit miniature of the train that zoomed across the
stage to provide a CinemaScope view of the train’s progress from Chicago
to New York. There was also a head-on view of the huge engine with its
flashing lights aimed directly at the audience (a visual in-joke that winked
at Commodore Perry’s imposing and threatening ship in Prince’s original
production of Pacific Overtures), and periodically steam rose from the
orchestra pit to simulate the speeding train.
The story focused on perhaps the two mightiest egos in all of show
business, director Oscar Jaffee (Cullum in the original production/Peter
Gallagher in the current one) and the diva of divas Lily Garland, once just
an ordinary nobody named Mildred Plotka (Madeline Kahn/Kristin
Chenoweth). In a desperate attempt to rekindle his flailing career (his latest
show closed during intermission), Jaffee butters up his former flame (and
former leading lady) Lily in hope of signing her for his next play because
her name will ensure box-office platinum. Both are traveling on the
Twentieth Century Limited, and the trip overflows with romantic, financial,
and contractual entanglements, not to mention such quirky characters as the
impossibly narcissistic Bruce Granit (Kline/Andy Karl), a bubble-headed
boy-toy being kept by Lily, and the impossibly mad-as-a-hatter Letitia
Peabody Primrose (Imogene Coca/Mary Louise Wilson), a kook obsessed
with saving the world from sin (but she’s very grateful she “did it all”
before she repented and got religion).
The rich score was a cornucopia of delights. The Barrymore-like
Oscar’s “I Rise Again” (“full-size again”) showed his determination to
again hit the pinnacle of show-biz glory, and his later nonchalant kiss-off
“The Legacy” was a jaunty Jack Cassidy-like affair (for the current
production, the lyric was rewritten as “Because of Her” by Green’s
daughter Amanda); “Veronique” was a glimpse of the show that made Lily
a star, and its second-act counterpart “Babette” looked at her dilemma when
she must choose her next role, a drawing room comedy where she’ll play a
tony Mayfair society type or a biblical epic where she’ll be none other than
Mary Magdalene (programs, cast albums, and the published script couldn’t
quite agree on the comedy’s title, and so it was given as either “Babette” or
“Babbette”).
Lily and Oscar shared two amusing duets, “I’ve Got It All” (Lily
brandishes her Academy Award, which Oscar notes isn’t the Holy Grail)
and the mocking “Lily, Oscar.” There were also an impressive number of
extended solos and ensembles that spoofed all the self-important goings-on
(“Never,” “Five Zeros,” “Sextet,” the rabid roundelay “She’s a Nut,” the
sweeping grandeur of the title song, and the porters’ wise-beyond-their-
years philosophical advice that “Life Is Like a Train”). There was an
(almost) conventional ballad for Lily and Oscar, but “Our Private World”
wasn’t “straight” and employed theatrical imagery throughout in order to
depict the two hams who see everything in the light of the limelight.
Roundabout Theatre Company’s limited engagement played four
months and received starry notices for Chenoweth. Ben Brantley in the New
York Times said Chenoweth’s “histrionics” created “one of the most
virtuosic portraits in song ever on Broadway,” and her vocal vocabulary
ranged “from jazz-baby brass to operatic silver, often in a single number”
and she switched back and forth “with jaw-dropping ease.” Marilyn Stasio
in Variety noted that Chenoweth was the show’s “magnet,” her “every move
becomes a grand gesture, every emotion a grand passion, every
inconvenience a grand tragedy,” and there was nothing outside “her comic
skills” or “beyond the range of that amazing coloratura voice.” Hilton Als
in the New Yorker said the star had an “energy level that goes beyond
anything you find in nature,” and what she did with that energy was “far
more compelling than the musical itself.”
Als found it “odd how little of the music stays with you, and how little
inspiration any of it provides,” but besides Chenoweth there was Karl’s
“Hollywood hunk,” who has “more testosterone and talent than Zeus.”
Brantley decided the musical might not be “top-of-the-heap,” but there was
the “shrewd silliness and alchemical fizz of Coleman’s operetta-style
melodies and Comden and Green’s giddy gift for showbiz satire.”
The script was published in hardback by Drama Book Specialists in
1981, and the 1978 cast album was released on vinyl by Columbia Records
and CD by Sony Broadway (the latter included three previously unis-sued
tracks, “I Have Written a Play” and both the first act and curtain call
reprises of the title song). The current production was recorded on a two-
CD set by PS Classics.
Early during the Broadway run, Kahn left the musical and was
succeeded by Judy Kaye. The post-Broadway tour starred Rock Hudson,
Coca, and Kaye, and between the 1978 and 2014 productions, the show was
given in New York by the York Theatre Company on October 25, 1985, for
twenty performances with Jeff McCarthy and Victoria Brasser. The London
premiere at Her Majesty’s Theatre opened on March 19, 1980, for 165
showings with a company that included Keith Mitchell, Julia McKenzie,
Mark Wynter, and Ann Beach (there was no cast album of the London
presentation).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (On the Twentieth
Century); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Kristin Chenoweth); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Andy Karl); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (David Rockwell); Best Costume Design of a Musical (William
Ivey Long)
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Opening Date: April 12, 2015; Closing Date: October 9, 2016
Performances: 623
Book: Craig Lucas
Lyrics: Ira Gershwin
Based on the 1951 MGM film An American in Paris (direction by Vincente
Minnelli, screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and
music by George Gershwin).
Direction and Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon (Jacquelin Barrett,
Associate Director; Dontee Kiehn, Associate Choreographer);
Producers: Stuart Oken, Van Kaplan, Roy Furman, Stephanie P.
McClelland, Darren Bagert, Carole L. Haber, James Nederlander, Five
Cent Productions, Michael Leavitt, Apples and Oranges
Studios/Dominion Pictures, Roger Berlind/Arch Road, Simone Genatt
Haft/Marc Routh, Trityk Studios/Spencer Ross, Ed Watson/Peter May,
Adam Zotovich/Celia Atkin, Eugene Beard/Julie Boardman/Kallish-
Weinstein, Stuart Ditsky/Jim Herbert/Sandy Robertson, Suzanne
Friedman/Independent Presenters Network/Wonderful Productions, The
Leonore S. Gershwin 1987 Trust/Jenkins-Taylor/Proctors, Harriet
Newman Leve/Jane Dubin/Sarahbeth Grossman, and Caiola
Productions/Jennifer Isaacson/Raise the Curtain by special arrangement
with Elephant Eye Theatrical & Pittsburgh CLO and Theatre du
Chatelet; Gloria Gracia Alanis, Amuse, Inc., Lun-Yun Chang, and Ivy
Zhong/Sean Hsu, Associate Producers; Scenery and Costumes: Bob
Crowley; Projection Design: 59 Productions; Lighting: Natasha Katz;
Musical Direction: Todd Ellison
Cast: Robert Fairchild (Jerry Mulligan), Leanne Cope (Lise Dassin), Max
von Essen (Henri Baurel), Brandon Uranowitz (Adam Hochberg), Jill
Paice (Milo Davenport), Veanne Cox (Madame Baurel), Scott Willis
(Monsieur Baurel), Victor J. Wisehart (Mr. Z), Rebecca Eichenberger
(Olga); Ensemble: Will Burton, Attila Joey Csiki, Michael Cusumano,
Taeler Cyrus, Rebecca Eichenberger, Sara Esty, Laura Feig, Heather
Lang, Dustin Layton, Nathan Madden, Candy Olsen, Rebecca Riker,
Shannon Rugani, Garen Scribner, Sarrah Strimel, Charlie Sutton,
Allison Walsh, Scott Willis, Victor J. Wisehart
The action takes place in Paris in 1945, at the end of the Second World War.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Concerto in F” (1925) (Company); “I Got Rhythm” (Girl Crazy,
1930) (Max von Essen, Brandon Uranowitz, Robert Fairchild,
Company); “Second Prelude” (1926) (Leanne Cope, Female Ensemble);
“(I’ve Got) Beginner’s Luck” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Robert
Fairchild); “The Man I Love” (the song was intended for three
Gershwin musicals, but was dropped from each one: Lady, Be Good!,
1924; Strike Up the Band, 1927 version that closed during pre-
Broadway tryout; and Rosalie, 1928) (Leanne Cope); “Liza” (Show
Girl, 1929) (Robert Fairchild); “’S Wonderful” (Funny Face, 1927)
(Brandon Uranowitz, Max von Essen, Robert Fairchild, Company);
“Shall We Dance?” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Jill Paice); “Second
Rhapsody” (1932)/“Cuban Overture” (aka “Rumba”; 1932) (Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Fidgety Feet” (Oh, Kay!, 1926) (Robert
Fairchild, Company); “Who Cares?” (Of Thee I Sing, 1931) (Jill Paice,
Brandon Uranowitz, Max von Essen); “For You, For Me, For
Evermore” (1947 film The Shocking Miss Pilgrim) (Leanne Cope, Max
von Essen, Robert Fairchild, Jill Paice); “But Not for Me” (Girl Crazy,
1930) (Brandon Uranowitz, Jill Paice); “(I’ll Build a) Stairway to
Paradise” (fourth edition of George White’s Scandals, 1922; lyric by B.
G. “Buddy” DeSylva and Arthur Francis aka Ira Gershwin) (Max von
Essen, Brandon Uranowitz, Company); “An American in Paris” (1928)
(Company); “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (1937 film Shall
We Dance) (Brandon Uranowitz, Robert Fairchild, Max von Essen)
An American in Paris was the season’s first of two classic MGM film
musicals directed by Vincente Minnelli that were adapted for the stage. Gigi
was a misfire that lasted eleven weeks, but An American in Paris played
eighteen months on Broadway for a total of 623 performances, was
nominated for twelve Tony Awards (winning four, including Best
Choreography for director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon), and
toured for eighteen months.
Craig Lucas’s adaptation followed the general outline of the 1951 film
(which won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Story/Screenplay
[for Alan Jay Lerner]). Jerry Mulligan (Robert Fairchild) is the American in
Paris who stays in France after World War II in order to pursue his interest
in painting. His best friends are composer and fellow GI Adam Hochberg
(Brandon Uranowitz) and the aspiring entertainer Henri Baurel (Max von
Essen), a Frenchman who is heir to the family fortune. Jerry is entranced
with French ballerina Lise Dassin (Leanne Cope), but discovers she’s
engaged to Henri. Meanwhile, Adam has written the score of the ballet An
American in Paris for which Lise will be the prima ballerina, and on the
ballet’s opening night Lise realizes her heart belongs to Jerry.
Lucas moved the action to the period immediately following the war.
Paris is depicted as a newly liberated city free from the shackles of German
Occupation, but the shadow of four years of military occupation hovers
over the proceedings: a Nazi banner is suddenly replaced by the French
flag, Parisians stand in breadlines, a character is marked by a war wound,
and another is accused of being a German collaborator.
Like the celebrated film, the stage musical was dance-centric and an
excuse to hear a number of classic songs by George and Ira Gershwin as
well as some of George Gershwin’s symphonic work (Concerto in F,
Second Prelude, Second Rhapsody, Cuban Overture, and An American in
Paris). The score included songs heard in the film, such as “I Got Rhythm,”
“’S Wonderful,” and “(I’ll Build a) Stairway to Paradise,” as well as other
Gershwin numbers ranging from the familiar “Who Cares?” to the lesser
known “Fidgety Feet.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “rhapsodic”
adaptation was “gorgeously danced—and just plain gorgeous” because Bob
Crowley’s costumes and decor outshone “anything currently on Broadway
in its blend of elegance, wit and sophistication” and his contributions made
the musical “as rich a visual feast as it is a musical one.” Marilyn Stasio in
Variety found it “hard to breathe during the dreamy, 14-minute” title ballet
because “we rarely see this kind of dancing on Broadway and it’s hard to let
it go,” and Elysa Gardner in USA Today said the title number was a
“dazzling achievement” and the look and sound of the musical were
“sumptuous.” David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter noted that Lucas’s
book sometimes seemed “over-complicated” and the songs felt “shoehorned
in rather than integral to the plot,” but Gershwin’s music was “gorgeous”
and the show was “thoroughly captivating.”
The stage version was capitalized at $11.5 million, and began its tryout
in no less than Paris, where it opened on December 10, 2014, at the Theatre
du Chatelet, and later the London production opened on March 21, 2017, at
the Dominion Theatre for ten months with Fairchild and Cope reprising
their New York roles. The London production was filmed, and in 2018 was
shown in theatres for a limited-engagement release (the film was codirected
by Wheeldon and Ross MacGibbon). The Broadway cast album was
released by Masterworks Broadway.
An entirely different musical adaptation of the material preceded the
current production by seven years. As The Gershwins’ An American in
Paris, the musical opened at Alley Theatre’s Hubbard Stage (Houston,
Texas) on May 18, 2008, with a book by Ken Ludwig, direction by Gregory
Boyd, choreography by Randy Skinner, and cast members Harry Groener,
Ron Orbach, Kerry O’Malley, Jeffry Denman, and Meredith Patterson. D.
L. Groover in the Houston Press reported that the adaptation was a
“backstage prequel” to the film and the basic plot dealt with the efforts of
movie producer Louis Goldman (Orbach) to persuade French music hall
star Michel Gerard (Groener) to honor his Hollywood film contract.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (An American in Paris); Best
Book (Craig Lucas); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in
a Musical (Robert Fairchild); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Leading Role in a Musical (Leanne Cope); Best Performance by an
Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Brandon Uranowitz); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Max van
Essen); Best Choreography (Christopher Wheeldon); Best Direction
of a Musical (Christopher Wheeldon); Best Orchestrations
(Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, and Bill Elliott); Best Scenic
Design of a Musical (Bob Crowley and 59 Productions); Best Costume
Design of a Musical (Bob Crowley); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Natasha Katz)
IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU

Performances: 135
Book and Lyrics: Brian Hargrove (see list of musical numbers for names of
additional lyricists)
Music: Barbara Anselmi
Direction: David Hyde-Pierce (Shelley Butler, Associate Director);
Producers: Daryl Roth, Scott Landis, Jane Bergere, Jayne Baron
Sherman, Patty Baker, Broadway Across America, Clear Channel
Spectacolor, Gloken LLC, James L. Nederlander, John O’Boyle, Judith
Ann Abrams/Jacki Barlia Florin, Old Campus Productions/Ready to
Play, and Sarah Beth Zivitz/Passero Productions; Choreography: Josh
Rhodes (Lee A. Wilkins, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Anna
Louizos; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Ken Billington;
Musical Direction: Lawrence Yurman
Cast: Lisa Howard (Jenny Steinberg), Tyne Daly (Judy Steinberg), Anne L.
Nathan (Mimsy, Aunt Sheila), Adam Heller (Walt, Uncle Morty), Chip
Zien (Murray Steinberg), Sierra Boggess (Rebecca Steinberg), David
Burtka (Brian Howard), Nick Spangler (Greg Madison), Montego
Glover (Annie Shepard), Edward Hibbert (Albert), Harriet Harris
(Georgette Howard), Michael X. Martin (George Howard), Josh Grisetti
(Marty Kaufman)
Musical Numbers
“I Never Wanted This” (lyric by Michael Cooper) (Lisa Howard); “This
Day (Opening)” (Lisa Howard, Company); “Perfect” (lyric by Carla
Rose Fisher) (Lisa Howard, Sierra Boggess); “It Shoulda Been You”
(lyric by Will Randall) (Chip Zien, Josh Grisetti, Tyne Daly, Anne L.
Nathan, Adam Heller); “Who” (Josh Grisetti, Lisa Howard); “Back in
the Day” (Michael X. Martin, David Burtka); “Nice” (Tyne Daly);
“Albert’s Turn” (Edward Hibbert, Company); “Where Did I Go Wrong”
(Harriet Harris); “Beautiful” (lyric by Ernie Lijoi) (Lisa Howard); “A
Perfect Ending” (Company); “Love You Till the Day” (lyric by Ernie
Lijoi) (Nick Spangler, Montego Glover); “Jenny’s Blues” (Lisa
Howard); “Whatever” (Josh Grisetti); “A Little Bit Less Than” (Sierra
Boggess); “What They Never Tell You” (lyric by Jill Abramovitz) (Tyne
Daly); “Perfect” (reprise) and “Whatever” (reprise) (Josh Grisetti, Lisa
Howard); “That’s Family” (Tyne Daly, Harriet Harris, Chip Zien,
Michael X. Martin); Finale (Company)
It Shoulda Been You was the second of the season’s “wedding”

musicals. The prospective groom in Honeymoon in Vegas had to contend
with the wraith (and the wrath) of his mother, who made him promise on
her deathbed that he’d never marry, but in It Shoulda Been You would-be
bride Rebecca Steinberg (Sierra Boggess) and groom Brian Howard (David
Burtka) have to deal with their respective mothers-from-Hell, Judy (Tyne
Daly) and Georgette (Harriet Harris). In fact, Georgette has always prayed
that Brian would grow up to be gay and thus save her the horror of a
daughter-in-law, and in order to encourage any latent gayness she always
took him to every Stephen Sondheim musical.
There was also a touch of Abie’s Irish Rose to the proceedings (Brian is
Catholic, Rebecca is Jewish), and the evening was slightly reminiscent of
another wedding musical, A Catered Affair (2008), but at least in that show
the warring parties were the bride’s mother and father, who differed on the
scope and expense of the wedding.
If anything, the spiritual father of It Shoulda Been You was John
Kander’s 1962 musical A Family Affair, in which the bride and groom’s
families try to wrest control of the proceedings from the other (in “Siegal
Marching Song”/“Nathan Marching Song,” the clans fight it out in a
confrontation patterned after a match between rival football teams). Once
the wedding is over, the battlers out-whine one another over whose
behavior was the worst (the song “I’m Worse Than Anybody,” in which the
groom’s mother insists that “you can carve it on my tombstone, Tilly Siegal,
Big Schlemiel”).
It Shoulda Been You received nice but not rave notices that made the
show sound rather amusing, and there was also a huge multiple plot reversal
that turned the entire story completely upside down (let’s just say that
Georgette didn’t waste her money when she took Sonny-Boy Brian to all
those Sondheim musicals). But the show didn’t much interest potential
ticket-buyers and disappeared within four months, and one suspects had
there been such a hybrid as a musical comedy-sitcom-special, It Shoulda
Been You might have gone over quite well.
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said the musical played “like
vintage dinner theatre infused with a Borscht Belt sensibility” in which the
“hoariest” jokes became “uproarious.” The songs were “utterly negligible,”
Jackie Mason would have been “embarrassed by much of the Jews vs.
Gentiles humor,” and the characters and situations were “hopelessly
contrived and formulaic,” but the performances and the “brisk” direction by
David Hyde Pierce spun “tired material into comic gold.” Elysa Gardner in
USA Today liked the “delightfully giddy, goofy” musical, and noted the
surprise twist “could certainly challenge a more skeptical theatregoer’s
ability to sustain disbelief.” But the show was the season’s “freshest and
funniest to date” with “wacky” humor, “whip-smart” direction, and a
“superb” cast.
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post found Daly and Harris “a joy
to watch” as the warring mothers, but the script was “drecky.” She also
noted that Judy tells her “single and zaftig” daughter Jenny (Lisa Howard)
that she’s “pretty,” and if she’d only “skipped a few meals” she too might
be getting married like her sister Rebecca (to which Vincentelli commented,
“Thanks, Mom!”). Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal decided the
show was a “plastic statuette for the tourist trade” that was “desperately
unfunny and relentlessly preachy” with a “been-there-done-that plot” that
was “already a cliché a half century ago.” Pierce’s direction was
“sufficiently adroit” and the cast was “excellent,” but the music sounded
“like a medley of discarded theme songs from the pilots of failed ’70s
sitcoms.”
Although there wasn’t anything “especially clever” about it and the
characters were “broadly caricatured,” Marilyn Stasio in Variety liked the
“awfully funny” show and said the cast of comic pros knew “how to get a
laugh even when they don’t have a laugh line.” Ben Brantley in the New
York Times said the musical was a “crumbly meringue” and the promise of
an “all-out catfight” between Daly and Harris was “smothered by a fuzzy
blanket of cheery political correctness.” And the addition of surprise “twists
to this cocktail of clichés” made it “taste all the flatter.” But Daly was a
“Jewish bulldozer mother” who says she “respects” Gentiles and “their
heathen ways,” and when her plus-size daughter Jenny belts out the “loud
and soulful” torch song “Jenny’s Blues,” Daly’s aside (and “the evening’s
single best line of dialogue”) is, “Why is she talking like a big black
woman?”
FINDING NEVERLAND
“BROADWAY’S SOARING NEW HIT!” / “THE STORY OF HOW PETER BECAME
PAN”

Performances: 565
Book: James Graham
Lyrics and Music: Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy
Based on the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee and its
2004 Miramax film adaptation Finding Neverland (direction by Marc
Foster and screenplay by David Magee).
Producers: Weinstein Live Entertainment, The Madison Square Garden
Company, Len Blavatnik, Ron Burkle, Radenko Milakovic, and Bryan
Cranston in association with Jason Blum, Broadway Across America,
Stephen Bronfman, Rodgin Cohen, Michael Cohl, Jean Doumanian,
Chad Dubea, Rick Gerson, Jeremiah J. Harris, Sh. Mohammed Y. El
Khereiji, Terry Allen Kramer, Howard Milstein, Nederlander
Productions, Inc., Dalip Pathak, Marvin Peart, Steve Rattner, Jimmy
Sommers, Peter Stavola, and The American Repertory Theatre; Barry
and Fran Weissler, Alecia Parker, and Victoria Parker, Executive
Producers; Harvey Weinstein, Producer; Choreography: Mia Michaels;
Scenery: Scott Pask; Projection Design: Jon Driscoll; Illusions: Paul
Kieve; Air Sculptor: Daniel Wurtzel; Flying Effects: ZFX, Inc., and
Production Resource Group; Costumes: Suttirat Anne Larlarb; Lighting:
Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Cast: Melanie Moore (Peter Pan), Matthew Morrison (J. M. Barrie), Teal
Wicks (Mary Barrie), Kelsey Grammer (Charles Frohman, Captain
James Hook), Paul Slade Smith (Mr. Henshaw), Josh Lamon (Mr.
Cromer), Jessica Vosk (Miss Bassett), Laura Michelle Kelly (Sylvia
Llewelyn Davies), Jonathan Ritter (Albert), Emma Pfaeffle (Emily,
Wendy of the Acting Troupe), Tyley Ross (Lord Cannan), Chris Dwan
(Elliot), Carolee Carmello (Mrs. Du Maurier), Rory Donovan (Captain
Hook of the Acting Troupe), Jack (Porthos); The Llewelyn Davies
Children: Jackson Demott Hill, Sawyer Nunes, and Christopher Paul
Richards (alternating in the role of George), Aidan Gemme, Jackson
Demott Hill, and Christopher Paul Richards (alternating in the role of
Peter), Alex Dreier, Christopher Paul Richards, and Hayden Signoretti
(alternating in the role of Jack), Alex Dreir, Noah Hinsdale, and Hayden
Signoretti (alternating in the role of Michael); Ensemble: Courtney
Balan, Dana Costello, Colin Cunliffe, Rory Donovan, Chris Dwan, Josh
Lamon, Melanie Moore, Mary Page Nance, Emma Pfaeffle, Jonathan
Ritter, Tyley Ross, Julius Anthony Rubio, Paul Slade Smith, Ron
Todorowski, Jessica Vosk
The action takes place in London during the early 1900s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “If the World Turned Upside Down” (Matthew Morrison);”All of
London Is Here Tonight” (Kelsey Grammer, Teal Wicks, Matthew
Morrison, Company); “The Pirates of Kensington” (George, Jack, and
Michael [see cast list above]); “Believe” (Matthew Morrison, Melanie
Moore, Laura Michelle Kelly, George, Jack, Michael, Company); “The
Dinner Party” (Teal Wicks, Carolee Carmello, Tyley Ross, Kelsey
Grammer, Matthew Morrison, Laura Michelle Kelly, Boys, Servants);
“We Own the Night” (Melanie Moore, Matthew Morrison, Laura
Michelle Kelly, George, Jack, Michael, Servants); “All That Matters”
(Laura Michelle Kelly); “The Pirates of Kensington” (George, Peter,
Jack, Michael); “Sylvia’s Lullaby” (Laura Michelle Kelly); “Neverland”
(Matthew Morrison, Laura Michelle Kelly); “Circus of Your Mind”
(Kelsey Grammer, Teal Wicks, Carolee Carmello, Company); “Live by
the Hook” (Kelsey Grammer, Pirates); “Stronger” (Matthew Morrison,
Kelsey Grammer, Pirates)
Act Two: “The World Is Upside Down” (Matthew Morrison, Kelsey
Grammer, Boys, Acting Troupe); “What You Mean to Me” (Matthew
Morrison, Laura Michelle Kelly); “Play” (Kelsey Grammer, Laura
Michelle Kelly, Matthew Morrison, Acting Troupe); “We’re All Made
of Stars” (George, Peter, Jack, Michael); “When Your Feet Don’t Touch
the Ground” (Matthew Morrison, Melanie Moore); “Something about
This Night” (Kelsey Grammer, Chris Dwan, Acting Troupe, Matthew
Morrison, Melanie Moore); “Neverland” (reprise) (Matthew Morrison,
Laura Michelle Kelly, Carolee Carmello, Boys, Acting Troupe); Finale
(Carolee Carmello, Matthew Morrison, Boys, Company)
Jukebox musicals will never go away, and it seems that another genre is
also here to stay, the seemingly endless parade of movies, plays, and
musicals that either provide the reasons why a writer was inspired to write
his masterwork or flesh out the masterwork by showing us in prequel or
sequel fashion a fuller explanation of the story and characters.
In Broadway’s olden days, this conceit was rather fresh and could be
fun, as with Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
(London and New York, 1967), which took two minor and clueless
characters in Hamlet and threw them into an existential universe of court
intrigue where they’re unable to control the factors that will lead them to
their doom. Now we must endure a parade of prefabricated entertainments
where built-in recognition of story and character are of primary importance,
and these include revivals, jukebox musicals, and shows based on a
franchise, such as a popular book or movie series.
As a result, we’re told what inspired Charles Dickens to write A
Christmas Carol (the 2017 film The Man Who Invented Christmas); we’re
given a look at the eighty-year-old woman who as a little girl was the
inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (the 1985 film
Dreamchild); and we’re privy to what really went on in Oz before that
iconic tornado (Wicked). The Wizard of Oz has also spawned the one-
character Off-Broadway musical Miss Gulch Returns! (1985) about the
shamefully misunderstood Almira Gulch, who according to the cast album’s
liner notes is the “dog-snatching, bicycle-riding, basket-wielding, spiteful
spinster-next-door who had it in for Dorothy’s little Toto” (the musical
preceded Wicked by eighteen years and was in fact subtitled “The Wicked
Musical”), and there was the 1981 film Under the Rainbow, which looked
askance at the filming of the classic 1939 movie in which the actors playing
the Munchkins run wild and become involved with spies and G-Men.
Finding Neverland focused on why James Barrie wrote Peter Pan (a
few seasons earlier, Peter and the Starcatcher provided the back story of
the characters). When Herman and His Moby-Dick (“A Whale of a Show!”)
opens, we’ll discover that Melville wrote the novel as an elegy to his
boyhood pet goldfish which tragically drowned in its bowl.
In Finding Neverland, Barrie (Matthew Morrison) finds inspiration for
his writer’s block when he meets a widow and her four sons, and the boys’
games gives him the idea for his next play. Kelsey Grammer played Barrie’s
producer Charles Frohman (and later in the action was Captain Hook).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the musical heightened the
film’s “sentimentality” with “tidy psychologizing and life-affirming
messages by thickening their syrup and corn quotients” and brought to mind
“those supersize sodas sold in movie theatres.” The songs included “sticky
soft-pop power ballads,” and the overall score brought to mind those
numbers heard in “animated feature films” and that are “favored by
contestants on The Voice and American Idol.” Ultimately, the production
had a “secondhand, synthetic quality,” the choreography was “jerky,” and
the dialogue included a groaner or two. When someone is asked if he
believes in fairies, the response is, “I work in the theatre, I see them every
day.” And one regrettable line of dialogue (supposedly a nod to Grammer)
dared to ask, “Do they say cheers where you come from?,” a line that
brought to mind a situation in the 1960 musical Wildcat where Lucille
Ball’s character must deal with an impossibly grouchy old man, and she’s
prompted to wonder if he’s related to Fred Mertz.
Despite the show’s “technical marvels,” Marilyn Stasio in Variety
decided the material didn’t require a musical adaptation. The lyrics were
“ponderous” and sometimes “well-nigh unfathomable,” and in a fancy party
sequence “the likes of which you’ve never seen,” the guests were seen
“hopping up and down like Mexican jumping beans” (the “strange”
choreography was by Mia Michaels). Further, the child performers were
“over-drilled” and “too self-aware to suggest the childhood innocence” that
supposedly inspired Barrie. The New Yorker said the story was not all that
“well handled in this enervating yet at times strangely compelling piece.”
The lyrics and music were “treacly,” and although Grammer “amusingly”
hammed it up, his performance only added to the evening’s “jumble of pop
references, unfunny homophobia, and desperate desire to please.”
But Richard Zoglin in Time found the show “surprisingly enjoyable”
and said it was “less saccharine and less dragged out” than the film upon
which it was based. The work was “brightly” written and staged, the score
was “tuneful,” the book “witty, efficient and mostly dry-eyed,” the direction
“slick and inventive,” and the choreography “winning.”
The cast album was released by Republic Records.
In earlier versions, the musical had been presented in Britain and at the
American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The British
production opened in Leicester at the Curve Theatre on September 22,
2012, and the creative team included librettist Allan Knee (whose 1998
novel The Man Who Was Peter Pan was the inspiration for the book’s 2004
film version Finding Neverland and for the current musical adaptation),
lyricist Michael Korie, composer Scott Frankel, and director Rob Ashford,
all of whom were replaced when the original musical was scuttled and a
new team (librettist James Graham and songwriters Gary Barlow and Eliot
Kennedy) was put in place.
Lorne Manly and Patrick Healy in the Times wrote an extensive article
on the gestation of the musical, and reported that producer Harvey
Weinstein had “overseen” an almost $20 million investment for the British
and later American version of the material. Manly and Graham noted that
Korie and Ashford declined to comment for the article, and Frankel stated
he couldn’t “comment specifically” on the new version but noted he was
“relieved to no longer be associated with the project.” Note that Korie and
Ashford collaborated on the well-received score for Grey Gardens (2006)
and later for War Paint (Korie also contributed lyrics for the current
season’s Doctor Zhivago).
Once the musical had been rewritten and performed in a New York
workshop, the production was given at the American Repertory Theatre in
August 2014 with Jeremy Jordan (Barrie) and Michael McGrath
(Frohman/Hook), who were respectively succeeded by Morrison and
Grammer for Broadway. During the New York run, Grammer was followed
by Terrence Mann.
THE KING AND I

Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Performances: 499
Book and Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon.
Direction: Bartlett Sher; Producers: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop,
Producing Artistic Director) in association with Ambassador Theatre
Group; Choreography: Christopher Gattelli; Scenery: Michael Yeargan;
Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical
Direction: Ted Sperling
Cast: Kelli O’Hara (Anna Leonowens), Ken Watanabe (King of Siam),
Ruthie Ann Miles (Lady Thiang), Paul Nakauchi (Kralahome), Ashley
Park (Tuptim), Conrad Ricamora (Lun Tha), Jon Viktor Corpuz (Prince
Chulalongkorn), Jake Lucas (Louis Leonowens), Murphy Guyer
(Captain Orton), Edward Baker-Duly (Sir Edward Ramsey), Marc Oka
(Phra Alack), Christie Kim (Princess Ying Yaowalak); Royal Court
Dancers: Kristen Faith Oei and Kei Tsuruharatani; Fan Dancers: Ethan
Halford Holder and Autumn Ogawa; Royal Wives, Townspeople:
Lamae Caparas, Hsin-Ping Chang, Ali Ewoldt, Maryann Hu, Misa
Iwama, Sumie Maeda, Kristen Faith Oei, Autumn Ogawa, Diane
Phelan, Lainie Sakakura, Ann Sanders, Michiko Takemasa, Xiaochuan
Xie; Guards, Monks, Townspeople: Andrew Cheng, Cole Horibe,
Kelvin Moon Loh, Paul Heesang Miller, Rommel Pierre O’Choa, Brian
Rivera, Bennyroyce Royon, Atsuhisa Shinomiya, Kei Tsuruharatani,
Christopher Vo; Royal Children: Adriana Braganza, Amaya Braganza,
Lynn Masako Cheng, Olivia Chun, Ethan Halford Holder, James
Ignacio, Christie Kim, William Poon, Ian Saraceni, Rocco Wu, Timothy
Yang; Note: For names of specific performers who appeared in the
ballet “The Small House of Uncle Thomas,” see song list below.
The action takes place in and around the King’s Palace in Bangkok, Siam,
during 1861.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “I Whistle a Happy Tune” (Kelli O’Hara,
Jake Lucas); “My Lord and Master” (Ashley Park); “Hello, Young
Lovers” (Kelli O’Hara); “The March of the Siamese Children”
(Orchestra); “A Puzzlement” (Ken Watanabe); “The Royal Bangkok
Academy” (Royal Children, Wives); “Getting to Know You” (Kelli
O’Hara, Royal Children, Wives); “We Kiss in a Shadow” (Conrad
Ricamora, Ashley Park); “A Puzzlement” (reprise) (Jon Viktor Corpuz,
Jake Lucas); “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?” (Kelli O’Hara);
“Something Wonderful” (Ruthie Ann Miles); Finale Act One (Ken
Watanabe, Company)
Act Two: “Western People Funny” (Ruthie Ann Miles, Royal Wives); “I
Have Dreamed” (Conrad Ricamora, Ashley Park); “Hello, Young
Lovers” (reprise) (Kelli O’Hara); Ballet: “The Small House of Uncle
Thomas” (Narrator: Ashley Park; Eliza: Xiaochuan Xie; Uncle Thomas:
Lamae Caparas; Angel, George: Cole Horibe; Topsy: Sumie Maeda;
Simon of Legree: Christopher Vo; Little Eva: Michiko Takemasa;
Propmen: Kelvin Moon Loh, Heesang Miller, Marc Oka, Brian Rivera;
Dogs: Autumn Ogawa, Bennyroyce Royon, Kei Tsuruharatani; Guards:
Andrew Cheng, Rommel Pierre O’Choa, Atsuhisa Shinomiya; Archers:
Hsin-Ping Chang, Kristen Faith Oei, Lainie Sakakura; Royal Singers:
Ali Ewoldt, Maryann Hu, Misa Iwama, Diane Phelan, Ann Sanders);
“Song of the King” (Kelli O’Hara, Ken Watanabe); “Shall We Dance?”
(Kelli O’Hara, Ken Watanabe); “I Whistle a Happy Tune” (reprise)
(Kelli O’Hara)
The current visit of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The
King and I received rave reviews, won the Tony Award for Best Revival of
a Musical, and played for 499 performances. The presentation marked the
work’s ninth New York revival, and including the run of the original 1951
production the show has tallied almost 3,600 New York performances, more
than any other Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said that “by rights” The King and I
“should probably embarrass us in the age of political correctness.” But
Bartlett Sher’s “resplendent” production was a “spectacle” that balanced
“epic sweep with intimate sensibility,” showed both the “panoramic” and
the “personal,” and ensured “that macro and micro points of view” were
“equally honored.” Kelli O’Hara was “one of our greatest reinterpreters of
musical standards,” the “first-rate” Ruthie Ann Miles turned “Something
Wonderful” into an “exquisite expression of romantic realism that could be
the show’s anthem,” and when Ken Watanabe narrowed his eyes, deepened
his voice, and firmly clasped O’Hara’s waist for “Shall We Dance?,” there
was no doubt that “sex has entered the building.”
Richard Zoglin in Time said the musical had “both relevance and tragic
heft” and the current revival made “a good case for The King and I as being
the best of all the R&H classics.” Hilton Als in the New Yorker noted the
work was “important” as well as “delightful and moving and complicated,”
and O’Hara was the “most physically free” he’d ever seen her with a voice
“on par, as always.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety said O’Hara had never sung
“with more vocal command” or acted “with more assurance.” Ruthie Ann
Miles brought “great dignity” to the role of Lady Thiang and she moved
“the house to tears with her shattering delivery” of “Something Wonderful,”
which was “surely one of the most moving of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
love songs.”
The original Broadway production opened at the St. James Theatre on
March 29, 1951, for 1,246 performances, with Gertrude Lawrence and Yul
Brynner. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Leading
Actress in a Musical, and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Brynner’s
name was listed below the title, and at the time any performer with such
billing was considered a featured player).
The first five revivals were limited-engagement institutional
productions, four given by the New York City Center Light Opera
Company at City Center (April 18, 1956, for twenty-three performances
with Jan Clayton and Zachary Scott; May 11, 1960, for twenty-four
performances with Barbara Cook and Farley Granger; June 12, 1963, for
fifteen performances with Eileen Brennan and Manolo Fabregas; and May
28, 1968, for twenty-two performances with Constance Towers and Michael
Kermoyan) and one by the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center at the New
York State Theatre on July 6, 1964, for forty performances with Rise
Stevens and Darren McGavin.
The next four productions were commercial revivals. The first two
starred Brynner (on May 2, 1977, at the Uris [now Gershwin] Theatre for
696 performances with Constance Towers, and on January 7, 1985, at the
Broadway Theatre for 191 performances with Mary Beth Peil), and prior to
the current production Donna Murphy and Lou Diamond Phillips starred at
the Neil Simon Theatre in a production that opened on April 11, 1996, ran
for 807 performances, and won Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical
and Best Leading Actress in a Musical.
The first London production opened at the Drury Lane on October 9,
1953, for 926 performances with Valerie Hobson and Herbert Lom, and
West End revivals in 1973 and 1999 starred Sally Ann Howes and Elaine
Paige. The current Broadway revival was presented for a limited run of
three months at London’s Palladium on June 21, 2018, with the three
leading principals (O’Hara, Watanabe, and Miles). The production was
filmed by Trafalgar Releasing and the film was given a limited release in
movie theatres in late 2018.
The 1956 film version was released by Twentieth Century-Fox with
Brynner (who won the Academy Award for Best Actor) and Deborah Kerr,
and an animated version was released by Warner Brothers Family
Entertainment in 1999.
The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1951, and
was included in the hardback collection Six Plays by Rodgers and
Hammerstein, which was published by the Modern Library in 1959. The
used and unused lyrics are included in the hardback collection The
Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. There are numerous recordings
of the classic score, including later ones that are more complete than the
original 1951 cast album released by Decca Records, but the original is the
essential one to own. The cast album of the current revival was issued by
Universal Music Classics Records.
And talk about puzzlements. In his Saturday Review appraisal of
Lincoln Center’s 1964 revival, Henry Hewes said Anna is a “smug
representative of Western colonialism” and her purported “‘goodness’ now
emerges as a hypocritical disguise for intolerance of another country’s
traditions and for her ruthless drive to emasculate a man.” He further wrote
that Anna “succeeds in destroying” the King. And Jeffrey Sweet in The Best
Plays of 1995–1996 stated that Anna’s confrontation with the King
provided “resonance” and “irony” for audiences who grew up during the
Vietnam era because “there is little doubt that she was conceived as a
character representing the same kind of liberal missionary fervor that fueled
America’s misguided adventures in southeast Asia.”
Whew!
Even the current production’s touring version (which starred Jose Llana
and Laura Michelle Kelly, and then Llana and Madeline Trumble) kicked
up some minor controversy. In this case, Joanne Ostrow in the Denver Post
noted that despite its “endearing” score and “laudable” voices, the “gigantic
production seems to sag under its own weight” and one cringed “at the
depiction of the old-style culture clash and those inscrutable ‘Orientals.’”
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (The King and
I); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Ken
Watanabe); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Kelli O’Hara); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Ruthie Ann Miles); Best Choreography
(Christopher Gattelli); Best Direction of a Musical (Bartlett Sher); Best
Scenic Design of a Musical (Michael Yeargan); Best Costume Design of
a Musical (Catherine Zuber); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Donald Holder)
GIGI
Performances: 86
Book and Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner (book adaptation by Heidi Thomas)
Music: Frederick Loewe
Based on the 1944 novella Gigi by Colette and the 1958 MGM film Gigi
(direction by Vincente Minnelli, screenplay and lyrics by Alan Jay
Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe).
Direction: Eric Schaeffer (Joe Barros, Associate Director); Producers:
Jenna Segal, Segal NYC Productions, Ilya Mikhailovic Productions,
Eion and Mia Hu, Darren P. Deverna/Jeremiah J. Harris, Merrie L.
Davis, Martin Markinson, Lawrence S. Toppall/Riki Kane Larimer/Pat
Flicker Addiss, and Marsi and Eric Gardiner/Maggie Gold Seelig and
Jonathan Selig; Choreography: Joshua Bergasse (Alison Solomon,
Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes:
Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Greg
Jarrett
Cast: Howard McGillin (Honore Lachaille [aka Lachailles]), Steffanie
Leigh (Liane d’Exelmans), Vanessa Hudgens (Gigi), Victoria Clark
(Mamita aka Madame Alvarez), Corey Cott (Gaston Lachaille
[sometimes given as Lachailles]), Dee Hoty (Aunt Alicia), Justin
Prescott (Charles), Amos Wolff (Sandomir), Ashley Yeater (Marie-
Louise), James Patterson (Dufresne), Manny Stark (Bonfils), Max
Clayton (Martel); Parisians: Cameron Adams, Max Clayton, Madeline
Doherty, Ashley Blair Fitzgerald, Hannah Florence, Brian Ogilvie,
James Patterson, Justin Prescott, Manny Stark, Tanairi Sade Vazquez,
Amos Wolff, Ashley Yeater
The action takes place in Paris during the early 1900s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Opening (Howard McGillin, Steffanie Leigh, Vanessa Hudgens,
Parisians); “It’s a Bore” (Howard McGillin, Corey Cott); “The
Parisians” (Vanessa Hudgens); “A Toujours” (Steffanie Leigh); “The
Parisians” (reprise) (Vanessa Hudgens); “The Gossips” (Parisians); “She
Is Not Thinking of Me” (aka “Waltz at Maxim’s”) (Corey Cott); “Thank
Heaven for Little Girls” (Victoria Clark, Dee Hoty); “Paris Is Paris
Again” (Corey Cott, Howard McGillin, Steffanie Leigh, Parisians); “I
Remember It Well” (Victoria Clark, Howard McGillin); “The Night
They Invented Champagne” (Vanessa Hudgens, Victoria Clark, Corey
Cott, Parisians)
Act Two: “I Never Want to Go Home Again” (Vanessa Hudgens); “Thank
Heaven for Little Girls” (reprise) (Dee Hoty); “Gigi” (Corey Cott);
“The Contract” (Dee Hoty, Victoria Clark, James Patterson, Manny
Stark, Max Clayton, Lawyers); “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore”
(Victoria Clark, Howard McGillin); “The Letter” (Vanessa Hudgens);
“Say a Prayer” (Victoria Clark); “The Gossips” (reprise) (Parisians); “In
This Wide, Wide World” (Vanessa Hudgens, Corey Cott)
Gigi followed An American in Paris as the season’s second stage

adaptation of a hit film musical directed by Vincente Minnelli and that
starred Leslie Caron. Both films won the Academy Award for Best Picture
in the respective years of 1951 and 1958, and both had screenplays by Alan
Jay Lerner (for Gigi, Lerner also contributed the lyrics for Frederick
Loewe’s music). An American in Paris played eighteen months in New
York as well as eighteen on the road and won four Tony Awards, including
Best Choreography. But Gigi was a misfire and one supposes any plans for
a stage adaptation of Minnelli’s 1945 MGM musical Yolanda and the Thief
are now on permanent hold.
Gigi shuttered eleven weeks after its premiere, and the production
seems to have been wrongheaded in almost every respect, from highly
questionable casting choices to politically corrected plot points that
eviscerated Lerner’s brilliant screenplay, which he adapted from Colette’s
1944 novella.
The 1958 film was a gorgeously produced adult fairy tale, a bon-bon of
a musical set in Belle Epoque Paris. The sumptuous decor and costumes
were by Cecil Beaton, and a few sequences were filmed in Paris, including
the color-drenched interiors of Maxim’s. The film won nine competing
Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Best Song (the title number), Best
Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best
Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Editing, and Best Score, and a
special honorary Oscar was awarded to Maurice Chevalier.
Gigi (Leslie Caron in the film/Vanessa Hudgens in the current stage
version) lives with her grandmother Mamita aka Madame Alvarez
(Hermione Gingold/Victoria Clark) and (in a running joke throughout the
film) her unseen mother, a would-be opera singer whom we always hear in
the next room practicing her scales. Gigi is about fifteen years old and is
being groomed by her imperious Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans/Dee Hoty) to
follow in the family tradition of becoming a great courtesan (the women in
the family may marry “at last,” but never “at once”). Gigi also learns that a
woman must ensure her financial solvency, and to that end must enter into a
legal agreement with her benefactor to guarantee that a carefully executed
contract is specific in regard to money, home, servants, and jewelry.
Among Mamita and Gigi’s small circle of friends is the rich and
handsome Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan/Corey Cott), a bored playboy in
his mid-thirties who is a seemingly eternal bachelor with an unending line
of mistresses. For him, Gigi is an amusing if awkward little girl, and he’s
shocked to suddenly realize she’s blossomed into a graceful and desirable
young woman. He wants her to become his mistress, and his and Aunt
Alicia’s lawyers must work out the contractual details of his financial
obligations to Gigi, who soon becomes disenchanted with the proposed
arrangement because she’s interested only in the contract of marriage. In a
musical epiphany, Gaston comes to the realization that Gigi has completely
won his heart and he proposes marriage. On the fringes of the story is
Gaston’s elderly uncle, the roué and boulevardier Honore (Maurice
Chevalier/Howard McGillin), who once upon a time had an affair with
Madame Alvarez and here serves as a narrator of sorts.
The musical sidestepped certain issues raised in Lerner’s screenplay,
and Charles Isherwood in the New York Times noted that references about
Gigi’s proposed status of a demimondaine were so “delicately vague” that a
parent could take a “tween” to the show and not “have much explaining to
do.” And to placate the politically correct police, the film’s theme song
“Thank Heaven for Little Girls” (sung by Honore at the beginning and end
of the film as a homage to little girls who grow up to be women) was now
given to Madame Alvarez and Aunt Alicia. The adaptors presumably
decided it was unacceptable for an elderly man to sing the enchanting song,
and they apparently overlooked the eyebrow-raising and highly
questionable decision of choosing two women to “thank heaven for little
girls.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the adaptors made a “foolish attempt
to spare modern-day women from feeling demeaned by the values” of the
1900s, but the “ludicrous choice” of assigning the song to the grandmother
and grand aunt made the two of them “seem like a couple of madams sizing
up the next crop of courtesans.”
The adaptors also radically changed the ages of Gigi and Gaston, and so
now Gigi is around eighteen and Gaston is somewhere in his early-to-mid-
twenties. The age difference in the film was about fifteen to twenty years,
and the lively innocence of the young and inexperienced Gigi made a stark
contrast to the bored and worldly wise Gaston. It is Gigi’s youth and ideals
that ultimately bring new meaning to his life, but now with no real
difference in their ages Stasio noted that the film’s “intergenerational sexual
tension” was lost.
If Cott’s Gaston was too young, so was McGillin’s Honore because his
youthful and dashing looks weren’t in sync with his character of an older
man who can’t even remember the details of his affair with Madame
Alvarez. As for Hudgens, Isherwood noted she had “poise” and “beauty,”
but her performance was “emotionally vacant” and “empty at the core.”
Hilton Als in the New Yorker found a certain “strangeness” in her portrayal,
which was “too mincingly coquettish by half.” Her voice was “strangely
articulated” with an accent that suggested “Gallic by way of Big Sur,” and
Stasio said Hudgens and Cott were “as Parisian as hot dogs and beer.”
Isherwood reported that during the finale, a shower of bubbles gently
fell upon the audience, presumably to evoke the fizz in a glass of
champagne, but unfortunately the fizz was more like bath bubbles because
the “squeaky clean” revival had “been scrubbed of anything even remotely
naughty or distasteful.” Als found the decor “run-down-looking” and
observed that the cast gave the impression of being “annoyed by one
another’s presence.” And Stasio said the “antiseptic” revival had “hard-
bitten” direction and a “dumbed-down” book that dragged the musical from
its “audacious era” to “our own thin-skinned age.” She asked, “Who hasn’t
lost their minds in this ill-conceived adaptation?” But she gave credit to the
design team, which “held their own” with “ornamental art-nouveau” décor,
beautiful costumes, and a “boldly colorful lighting scheme.”
Jesse Green in New York said the musical had been turned into a “girl-
power fantasy” and the show was “altogether unworthy of its name.” The
production nodded to “contemporary sensitivity,” but “too much of this”
resulted in a “college sexual-harassment pamphlet instead of literature,” and
the result was “a disastrous if not deliberate misreading” of the original
story.
Because most revivals bow to the New Puritanism, one wonders why
Gigi’s adaptors didn’t have the courage of their convictions and go all the
way. Why did they include a song that celebrates alcohol? Better if the cast
had saluted “The Night They Invented Seltzer Water.”
The current production was the second time Gigi failed on Broadway.
The first revival opened on November 13, 1973, at the Uris (now Gershwin)
Theatre for 103 performances and lost its $400,000 investment. But at least
it was true to the film’s spirit. Lerner wrote the adaptation, and he and
Loewe contributed five new songs (“The Earth and Other Minor Things,”
“Paris Is Paris Again,” “I Never Want to Go Home Again,” “The Contract,”
and “In This Wide, Wide World,” all of which were retained for the 2015
revival; a sixth song, “Everything French Is Better,” was dropped during the
1973 tryout and wasn’t used in the current production). “The Parisians” and
“Gossip” were part of the film’s score; both were heard in the 1973 tryout
(the latter as “Da Da Da Da”), were cut prior to Broadway, and were
included in the current revival.
Another of the film’s songs (Gigi’s “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight”)
wasn’t used in the 1973 revival, but turned up in the current one as “Say a
Prayer” and was sung by Mamita. (Note that in 1956 the song had been
briefly heard in the early tryout performances of My Fair Lady, where it
was sung by Julie Andrews before it was cut.) The current revival also
included a sequence for Gigi titled “The Letter,” which heretofore hadn’t
been part of the score in any of its previous incarnations. For the revival,
Mamita not only appropriates Gigi’s “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight,” she
also hijacks Honore’s breezy solo “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore,” and
the song became a duet for the two.
The cast of the 1973 production included Alfred Drake (Honore),
Daniel Massey (Gaston), Maria Karnilova (Mamita), Agnes Moorehead
(Aunt Alicia; because of illness, Moorehead was succeeded by Arlene
Francis during the Broadway run), and George Gaynes (Dufresne). For
much of the tryout, Teresa Stevens played the title role, and was eventually
succeeded by Karin Wolfe. In a devastating statement about the quality of
new scores on Broadway during 1973 and 1974, Gigi was awarded the
Tony for Best Score despite the fact that nine (including two reprises) of its
fourteen musical numbers had been heard in the 1958 film.
The song “A Toujours” had been written for but not sung in the film
version of Gigi (The Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner notes that its
music was heard as background in the ice-skating rink scene), but the song
was used in the current revival. The 1973 song “The Contract” was a
revised version of “A Toujours” (Complete Lyrics reports that some of the
song’s music is derived from “Katherine Receives Advice” from Lerner and
Loewe’s 1945 Broadway musical The Day before Spring) and was heard in
both Gigi Broadway revivals.
Note that the title and basic conceit of the lyric for “I Remember It
Well” had been used by Lerner in the 1948 Broadway musical Love Life
(music by Kurt Weill). “Gigi” is a two-part song, “Gaston’s Soliloquy” and
“Gigi,” but most recordings and programs refer to the overall sequence as
“Gigi,” and some of the music for “Gaston’s Soliloquy” was reworked from
“Where’s My Wife?” from The Day before Spring.
During the 1984–1985 season, Gigi toured but didn’t risk Broadway.
Jourdan now played Honore, and others in the cast were Lisa Howard
(Gigi), Tom Hewitt (Gaston), Betsy Palmer (Aunt Alicia), and Taina Elg
(Mamita). Except for “Gossip,” all the songs from the film were included
and only one number from the 1973 revival was retained (“The Contract”).
A London production opened in September 1985 at the Lyric Theatre
with Amanda Waring (Gigi), Jean-Pierre Aumont (Honore), Geoffrey
Burridge (Gaston), Beryl Reid (Mamita), and Sean Phillips (Aunt Alicia).
Two songs from the film weren’t retained (“Gossip” and “Say a Prayer for
Me Tonight”) but four songs from the 1973 revival were included (“Paris Is
Paris Again,” “The Contract,” “In This Wide, Wide World,” and “The Earth
and Other Minor Things,” the latter as “I Know about the Earth”).
The 1958 expanded soundtrack was released by Rhino Movie Music
and includes extended versions of “Waltz at Maxim’s” (a variation of “She
Is Not Thinking of Me”) and “Gossip” (and its reprise version). As a bonus,
the CD includes tracks of Leslie Caron singing “The Parisians” and “Say a
Prayer for Me Tonight” as well as a version of “The Night They Invented
Champagne” with Caron, Jourdan, and Gingold (for the completed film,
Caron’s vocals were dubbed by Betty Wand). The 1973 cast album was
released by RCA, the 2015 cast album by DMI Records, and the 1985
London production by Safari Records. RCA also issued a contemporary
(1958) recording of songs from the film, including “A Toujours” (sung by
Gogi Grant). The lyrics for Gigi are included in the hardback collection The
Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner.
Colette’s 1944 novella was filmed in France as a nonmusical in 1949
(Daniele Delorme was Gigi). Anita Loos’s nonmusical stage adaptation
opened on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre on November 24, 1951, for 219
performances with Audrey Hepburn, and the London production opened on
May 23, 1956, at the New Theatre for 317 showings with Leslie Caron. The
two-DVD set by Warner Brothers of the 1958 musical film is paired with
the 1949 French film version.
Awards
Role in a Musical (Victoria Clark)
FUN HOME
Performances: 583
Book and Lyrics: Lisa Kron
Music: Jeanine Tesoriyg
Based on the 2006 graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by
Alison Bechdel.
Direction: Sam Gold; Producers: Fox Theatricals, Barbara Whitman,
Carole Shorenstein Hays, Tom Casserly, Paula Marie Black, Latitude
Link, Terry Schnuck/Jack Lane, The Forstalls, Nathan Vernon, Mint
Theatricals, Elizabeth Armstrong, Jam Theatricals, Delman Whitney,
and Kristin Caskey & Mike Isaacson; A Public Theatre Production
(Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director); Choreography: Danny Mefford;
Scenery and Costumes: David Zinn; Lighting: Ben Stanton; Musical
Direction: Chris Fenwick
Cast: Beth Malone (Alison), Sydney Lucas (Small Alison), Michael
Cerveris (Bruce), Emily Skeggs (Middle [Medium] Alison), Judy Kuhn
(Helen), Oscar Williams (Christian), Zell Stelle Morrow (John), Roberta
Colindrez (Joan), Joel Perez (Roy, Mark, Pete, Bobby Jeremy)
The action takes place during the period of the late 1960s–early 2000s,
mostly in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania, Oberlin (Ohio) College, and New
York City.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The
information below is taken from the published script and the cast album.
Opening: “It All Comes Back” (Sydney Lucas, Michael Cerveris, Beth
Malone, Company); “Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue” (Judy
Kuhn, Beth Malone, Sydney Lucas, Oscar Williams, Zell Steele
Morrow, Joel Perez); “Not Too Bad” (Emily Skeggs); “Come to the Fun
Home” (Zell Steele Morrow, Oscar Williams, Sydney Lucas); “Helen’s
Etude” (Beth Malone, Joel Perez, Michael Cerveris, Sydney Lucas,
Judy Kuhn, Zell Steele, Morrow, Oscar Williams, Emily Skeggs);
“Party Dress” (Michael Cerveris, Sydney Lucas, Emily Skeggs, Beth
Malone); “Changing My Major” (Emily Skeggs); “Maps” (Beth
Malone); “Raincoat of Love” (Joel Perez, Company); “Pony Girl”
(Michael Cerveris); “Ring of Keys” (Sydney Lucas, Beth Malone);
“Days and Days” (Judy Kuhn); “Telephone Wire” (Beth Malone,
Michael Cerveris); “Edges of the World” (Michael Cerveris); Finale:
“Flying Away” (Beth Malone, Emily Skeggs, Sydney Lucas)
Fun Home wasn’t quite, and it referred to the funeral home run by
Bruce (Michael Cerveris), the father of Alison, the musical’s middle-aged
heroine who looks back at her funereal and dysfunctional family and
through the writing and drawing of her graphic novel tries to come to grips
with her complicated past.
The memory piece actually includes three Alisons, the Alison of the
present (Beth Malone) who serves as a narrator, the young child Small
Alison (Sydney Lucas), and her college self, the Middle or Medium Alison
(Emily Skeggs). The three Alisons piece together the story of their family,
including the closeted Bruce who has liaisons with men on the side, their
mother Helen (Judy Kuhn) who tries but fails to bear an unbearable
situation, and then Alison herself, who comes out as a lesbian. Matters
come to a head when Bruce commits suicide by jumping in the path of an
oncoming truck, and from the perspective of many years later Alison tries
to understand her father, her family, and herself.
The musical received rave reviews, was nominated for twelve Tony
Awards, and won five (Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, Best
Direction, and, for Cerveris, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading
Role in a Musical). The intimate show played at one of Broadway’s
smallest venues, the Circle in the Square (which seats approximately 850),
the cast numbered nine performers, and there were seven musicians. It
would seem the weekly nut was on the low side and that the musical
recouped its investment.
But it’s somewhat puzzling that the production lasted for less than 600
performances, because with low overhead, rave reviews, and five major
Tony Awards, the show seemed on track for a long run of many years.
Perhaps the subject matter turned off prospective theatergoers, who chose to
see more lighthearted and feel-good shows.
For Ben Brantley in the New York Times, the “extraordinary” musical’s
“incisive” book and lyrics and “heart-gripping” score pumped “oxygenating
fresh air into the cultural recycling center that is Broadway”; Marilyn Stasio
in Variety noted that words like “New! Fresh! Original!” were often tossed
around to describe Broadway shows, but in this case Fun Home really
“earns the praise”; and David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the
“unconventional” work “seamlessly integrates music and drama,” and to
Kron’s credit “the usual banal pop-psychology message about the
importance of self-acceptance is refreshingly left unstated.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today found the characters “intriguingly
idiosyncratic and instantly accessible,” and Cerveris revealed that beneath
Bruce’s “elegant veneer” is a “cauldron of resentment and repressed
desires.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post warned that despite the
“thoughtful” and “important” show’s “perky” title and “cute” children, it
wasn’t for “tourists” in its depiction of how its leading characters come to
terms “with their sexuality, some more successfully than others.” Tesori’s
score included “upbeat” pastiches of The Partridge Family (“Raincoat of
Love”) and the Jackson 5 (“Come to the Fun Home”), and was a
“comforting blanket of acoustic-pop.” But for such a “daring project,” the
final song (“Flying Away”) seemed “rather old-fashioned.”
The musical premiered Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre for a limited
engagement beginning on October 22, 2013, was extended, and finally
closed there on January 12, 2014.
The cast album was released by PS Classics; the tracks were recorded
on December 3, 2013 (during the run at the Public Theatre) and on April
10, 2015 (during the Broadway preview period). The script was issued in
paperback by Samuel French in 2015.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Fun Home); Best Book
(Lisa Kron); Best Score (lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine
Tesori); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Michael Cerveris); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
in a Musical (Beth Malone); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Judy Kuhn); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Sydney Lucas); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Emily
Skeggs); Best Direction of a Musical (Sam Gold); Best Orchestrations
(John Clancy); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (David Zinn); Best
Lighting Design of a Musical (Ben Stanton)
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
Performances: 23
Book: Michael Weller
Lyrics: Michael Korie and Amy Powers
Music: Lucy Simon
Based on the 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.
Direction: Des McAnnuf; Producers: Anita Waxman, Tom Dokton,
Latitude Link, and Ted Hartley/RKO Stage and Chunsoo Shin with
Margo and Roger Coleman, Corcoran Productions, J. Todd Harris, The
Pelican Group, Chase Mishkin, Wasserman Shaw, Ahmos Hassan,
Conrad Prebys and Debbie Turner, Adam Silberman, The Goldiner
Group/Caroline Lieberman, Parrothead Productions, Bruce D. Long,
and La Jolla Playhouse in association with Stage Entertainment,
Broadway Across America, Grove Entertainment, The Shubert
Organization, Tom McInerney, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Susan Polis
Schutz, Tilted Windmills, The Stanford Group, Jim and Judy Harpel,
John and Bonnie Hegeman, Itai Shoffman and Sar Inbar, Dark Style
Agency, Kelvingrove Ventures, Stephanie Torreno/Eugenie and Keith
Goggin, Rao Makineni/Jessica Green, David T. Loudermilk/Cheryl
Lachowicz, Robert and Debra Gottlieb/Sharon Azrieli, Halloran
Entertainment/Lyubov’ Productions, Lois Weiner and Dr. Robert
Weiner/Carl Pate, The Revolution Group/Samajaka Productions, and
Denise Rich and John Frost; Junkyard Dog Productions, Executive
Producer; Choreography: Kelly Devine; Scenery: Michael Scott-
Mitchell; Projection and Video Design: Sean Nieuwenhuis; Special
Effects Design: Greg Meeh; Aerial Effects Design: Paul Rubin;
Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction:
Rick Fox
Cast: Tam Mutu (Yurii Zhivago), Kelli Barrett (Lara Guishar), Tom Hewitt
(Viktor Komarovsky), Paul Alexander Nolan (Pasha Antipov [later,
Strelnikov]), Lora Lee Gayer (Tonia Gromeko), Jamie Jackson
(Alexander Gromeko), Jacqueline Antaramian (Anna Gromeko), Jonah
Halperin (Young Yurii, Sasha), Sophia Gennusa (Young Lara, Katarina),
Ava-Riley Miles (Young Tonia), Gary Milner (Priest, Kornakov), Julian
Cihi (Nikolai Nikolayovich), Pilar Millhollen (Mrs. Guishar), Michael
Brian Dunn (Markel), Drew Foster (Tusia, Secretary of Tribunal),
Spencer Moses (Ilya), Joseph Medeiros (Mischa, Shulygin), Josh
Canfield (Liberius), David McDonald (Gints), Robert Hager (Yanko),
Wendi Bergamini (Stepka, Fetisova), Briana Carlson-Goodman (Olya),
Bradley Dean (Quartermaster), Jesse Wildman (Yelenka), Melody
Butiu; Ensemble: Wendi Bergamini, Heather Botts, Melody Butiu, Josh
Canfield, Briana Carlson-Goodman, Julian Cihi, Bradley Dean, Michael
Brian Dunn, Drew Foster, Robert Hager, Ericka Hunter, David
McDonald, Joseph Medeiros, Pilar Millhollen, Gary Milner, Spencer
Moses, Julius Sermonia, Jacob Smith, Jesse Wildman
The action takes place in Russia during the first decades of the twentieth
century.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Two Worlds” (All); “Komarovsky’s Toast” (Tom Hewitt, Lora
Lee Gayer, Jamie Jackson, Jacqueline Antaramian, Guests); “Who Is
She?” (Tam Mutu); “It’s a Godsend” (Paul Alexander Nolan, Students);
“When the Music Played” (Kelli Barrett); “Who Is She?” (reprise) (Tam
Mutu); “Watch the Moon” (Tam Mutu, Lora Lee Gayer); “Forward
March” (David McDonald, Paul Alexander Nolan, Josh Canfield,
Robert Hager, Soldiers); “Somewhere My Love” (1965 film Doctor
Zhivago; lyric by Paul Francis Webster, music by Maurice Jarre)
(Nurses); “Now” (Tam Mutu, Kelli Barrett); “Forward March” (reprise)
(David McDonald); “Blood on the Snow” (Paul Alexander Nolan,
Soldiers, Nurses); “Komarovsky’s Lament” (Tom Hewitt); “Yurii’s
Decision” (Tam Mutu); “In This House” (Jamie Jackson, Lora Lee
Gayer, Tam Mutu, All)
Act Two: “Women and Little Children” and “He’s There” (Kelli Barrett,
Women); “No Mercy at All” (Paul Alexander Nolan); “In This House”
(reprise) (Jamie Jackson); “Love Finds You” (Tam Mutu, Kelli Barrett,
Tom Hewitt, Paul Alexander Nolan, Lora Lee Gayer); “Nowhere to
Hide” (Josh Canfield, Partisans); “It Comes as No Surprise” (Kelli
Barrett, Lora Lee Gayer); “Ashes and Tears” (Tam Mutu, Josh Canfield,
Partisans); “Watch the Moon” (reprise) (Lora Lee Gayer); “On the Edge
of Time” (Kelli Barrett, Tam Mutu); “Now” (reprise) (Tam Mutu);
“Blood on the Snow” (reprise) (Soldiers); Finale (Sophia Gennusa,
Kelli Barrett, Tam Mutu, All)
Despite the popularity of Boris Pasternak’s best-selling and politically

controversial 1957 novel and the success of David Lean’s romantic 1965
MGM film adaptation, the lyric version of Doctor Zhivago was a huge
failure and the shortest-running musical of the season. Had it opened two
decades earlier during the time of Broadway’s British Invasion, it might
have had a chance, but by 2015 New York had seen Les Miserables in its
original long-running production as well as in two revivals, and so another
musical about students caught up in their nation’s revolution didn’t much
interest potential ticket-buyers.
Yes, the familiar story was set during the era of the Russian Revolution
and focused on the tormented poet and doctor Yurii Zhivago (Tam Mutu),
who is torn between his faithful if dull wife Tonia (Lora Lee Gayer) and his
lover, the beautiful and mysterious Lara (Kelli Barrett) who was once
seduced by both-sides-of-the-political-fence Komarovsky (Tom Hewitt) and
later married the humorless student rebel Pasha (Paul Alexander Nolan)
who became known as Strelnikov, one of the revolution’s most deadly and
unforgiving leaders. The saga of this quintet was set against their nation’s
upheaval when the Czar is overthrown and the country embraces
Communism and becomes a Socialist republic.
The headline of Terry Teachout’s review in the Wall Street Journal
proclaimed “The Doctor Is Out,” and he suggested the musical was
“suitable only for consumption by tone-deaf tweenagers.” Joe
Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the “epic miss” was
“miscalibrated” and the “unremarkable” songs hung like “wallpaper.”
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post said “Doctor Zhivago is so dull,
it may soon be Zhiva-gone,” and she mentioned that “you know, an
inspiring score” might have helped. Elysa Gardner in USA Today noted that
musicals based on serious classics can work, but not if they are humorless,
self-important, and lack “compelling” songs, and those songs for Doctor
Zhivago had sometimes “cringe-inducing” lyrics and music that was more
melodramatic than melodically inventive.
Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said the love story was “lost in a
mélange of flame, ice, death and frantic characters rushing around a heavily
raked stage without ever seeming really to know where they are going.”
Even the song titles said it all (“Ashes and Tears,” “Blood on the Snow,”
“No Mercy at All”), and when the film’s “Somewhere My Love” was
presented it was sung by a group of “battlefield nurses” and thus didn’t
“help lighten the mood.” Some of the songs were “quite beautiful,” but they
were “squelched by the conceptual whole, unable to break free.” On the
other hand, the New Yorker said a musical adaptation of the material might
have at first seemed “dubious,” but the results were “surprisingly
respectable.” Moreover, the score was “lush” and “lovely,” and a duet (“It
Comes as No Surprise”) for Lara and Tonia was “unexpectedly touching.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said Doctor Zhivago was a
“turgid throwback” to the days of Broadway’s British Invasion and the likes
of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, but in this case Doctor Zhivago was
“inferior in most respects to the musicals it is emulating.” The score offered
a “hefty measure of love ballads” that were “melodic and skillful” but also
“indistinguishable,” the decor lacked atmosphere, and the performances
didn’t have much in the way of “spark or individuality.” A note in the
program asked the audience to “please be advised that realistic explosion
and gunfire effects will be used during the performance,” and Isherwood
noted that perhaps all the noise was to keep the audience from falling asleep
and to prevent “Broadway wags from dubbing the show ‘Doctor
Zzzzhivago.’”
As Zhivago, the musical had premiered ten years earlier at La Jolla
(California) Playhouse on May 24, 2005, with Ivan Hernandez (Zhivago),
Jessica Burrows (Lara), Matt Bogart (Pasha/Strelnikov), Rena Strober
(Tonia), and Tom Hewitt (Komarovsky). The latter reprised his role for the
New York production, and director Des McAnuff also helmed the
Broadway edition. Sergio Trujillo choreographed, but his assistant Kelly
Devine devised the dances for the Broadway production, and at least six
songs were dropped for New York (“Peace, Bread and Land,” “To Light the
New Year,” “Wedding Vows,” “In the Perfect World,” “A Man Who Lives
Up to His Name,” and “The Hope of the Peasants”).
The musical later surfaced in Australia, where it was again directed by
McAnuff. It opened at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre on February 19, 2011, and
played there and in other Australian cities for a total of six months.
The Broadway cast album was released by Broadway Records. As
noted, the hit theme song from the 1965 film of Doctor Zhivago
(“Somewhere My Love,” lyric by Paul Francis Webster and music by
Maurice Jarre) was interpolated into the Broadway production where it was
sung by a group of nurses.
SOMETHING ROTTEN!
“A VERY NEW MUSICAL”

Performances: 708
Book: Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell
Lyrics and Music: Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick
Direction and Choreography: Casey Nicholaw (Steve Bebout, Associate
Director; John MacInnis, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Scott
Pask; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical
Direction: Phil Reno
Cast: Michael James Scott (Minstrel), Brooks Ashmanskas (Brother
Jeremiah), Kate Reinders (Portia), Christian Borle (Shakespeare), Brian
d’Arcy James (Nick Bottom), John Cariani (Nigel Bottom), Peter
Bartlett (Lord Clapham, Master of the Justice), Gerry Vichi (Shylock),
Heidi Blickenstaff (Bea), Brad Oscar (Nostradamus); Ensemble: Linda
Griffin, David Hibbard, Jenny Hill, Stacey Todd Holt, Aaron Kaburick,
Austin Lesch, Beth Johnson Nicely, Aleks Pevec, Angie Schworer, Eric
Sciotto, Michael James Scott, Brian Shepard, Chelsea Morgan Stock,
Ryan Vandenboom, Marisha Wallace, Bud Weber
The action takes place in South London during 1595.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Welcome to the Renaissance” (Michael James Scott, Company);
“God, I Hate Shakespeare” (Brian d’Arcy James, John Cariani, The
Troupe); “Right Hand Man” (Heidi Blickenstaff, Brian d’Arcy James);
“God, I Hate Shakespeare” (reprise) (Brian d’Arcy James); “A Musical”
(Brad Oscar, Brian d’Arcy James, Ensemble); “The Black Death” (The
Troupe); “I Love the Way” (Kate Reinders, John Cariani); “Will Power”
(Christian Borle, Ensemble); “Bottom’s Gonna Be on Top” (Brian
d’Arcy James, Company)
Act Two: “Welcome to the Renaissance” (reprise) (Michael James Scott);
“Hard to Be the Bard” (Christian Borle, Ensemble); “It’s Eggs!” (Brian
d’Arcy James, The Troupe); “We See the Light” (Kate Reinders, John
Cariani, Brooks Ashmanskas, Brian d’Arcy James, Ensemble); “To
Thine Own Self” (John Cariani, Brian d’Arcy James, Christian Borle,
The Troupe); “Right Hand Man” (reprise) (Heidi Blickenstaff);
“Something Rotten!” (The Troupe); “Make an Omelette” (Brian d’Arcy
James, Company); “To Thine Own Self” (reprise) (Brian d’Arcy
James); Finale (Company)
The simply sophomoric and merrily moronic musical Something Rotten!

was in the time-honored tradition of such hallowed Greek tragedies as The
Producers (2001) and Spamalot (2005), and even harkened back to the
burlesque roots of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
(1962), which later influenced that famous Roman cut-up comic playwright
Plautus.
Something Rotten! was a fast-and-furious look at the London theatre
scene of 1595, and the shamelessly slap-happy show managed nineteen
months on Broadway for a run of over seven hundred performances and
then toured for sixteen months. If the show never quite reached blockbuster
status, it wasn’t for lack of trying, and it gave the customers a Laff Riot of
Komedy in the grand and dopey tradition of college varsity shows. When it
didn’t win the Tony Award for Best Musical, the ads proudly proclaimed
that the show was the “LOSER!” for “Best Musical! 2015 Tony Award.”
The opening song “Welcome to the Renaissance” helpfully established
the time and place as it waved goodbye to the Middle Ages and embraced
the new and the now where mugs are pewter and houses are Tudor. Yes, this
is the world where a codpiece makes a really big fashion statement, where
women discover their inner feminist (after all, “This is the Nineties, and
we’ve got a woman on the throne!”), and where dour Puritan Brother
Jeremiah (Brooks Ashmanskas) just can’t stop making erection jokes, no
matter how hard he tries.
But not all is smooth along the London Rialto. It seems that the
preening rock-star-like playwright Will (“I-am-the-Will-with-the-skill-to-
thrill-you-with-my-quill”) Shakespeare (Christian Borle) dominates the
theatre scene (note that he has two serious and deeply introspective
numbers, “Hard to Be the Bard” and “Will Power”), much to the chagrin of
the brother-playwriting team of the Bottom Brothers Nick (Brian d’Arcy
James) and Nigel (John Cariani), whose last name provides merriment to
the masses, including Nick’s song “Bottom’s Gonna Be on Top” and his
forthright declaration that no one will ever make an ass out of him.
In order to get a leg up on Shakespeare, Nick and Nigel decide to pay a
visit to Soothsayer Alley and consult Thomas Nostradamus (Brad Oscar),
nephew of the legendary Michel, and ask him what the next big trend in
theatre will be. Tom tells the boys that the future is . . . musical comedy, and
in his show-stopper “A Musical,” he gives them a six-minute course in
musical theatre that pays tribute to everything from West Side Story to A
Chorus Line, from Fiddler on the Roof to Les Miserables, from Cats to The
Lion King, not to mention dance homages to Bob Fosse and the Rockettes.
But the boys are confused. Why would a character abruptly stop talking and
proceed to sing and dance? Why, because it’s entertaining!!!, says
Nostradamus, and a “Five, six, seven, eight!” The boys are game and decide
to go for it, and their musical The Black Death includes a chorus line of
Grim Reapers who carry scythes instead of top hats and canes.
Meanwhile, the show treats us to the world of Elizabethan theatre, and
there’s even a scene that takes place in an after-show party tent. A Jewish
theatre lover named Shylock (Gerry Vichi) kvetches that his kind are
always ignored in Shakespeare’s plays, and Lord Clapham (Peter Bartlett) is
unhappy because someone didn’t provide a spoiler-alert and thus blurted
out the ending of Shakespeare’s latest smash Romeo and Juliet (who knew
the lovers died at the end?). By the way, Nostradamus isn’t always on the
cutting edge of the next big thing, and he stumbles badly when he
announces that Shakespeare’s next blockbuster will be the Danish tragedy
Omelette, and so to beat Shakespeare to the punch the brothers write
Omelette: The Musical. There’s also some bewilderment over another of
Shakespeare’s endless string of hits. His Richard II follows Richard III
(could it be he’s into prequels instead of sequels?).
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post praised the “deliriously
entertaining” show, a “blockbuster” that was “devilishly clever under its
goofy exterior,” and said “A Musical” was a “demented” number that
brought down the house. Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said “anything
you’ve ever liked in a musical comedy (and a few things you haven’t) are
here, just waiting to sing-and-dance you into submission,” and “Welcome to
the Renaissance” would “soon be imprinted in musical-theatre lore” and
was the best comic opening number “of the season—heck, several seasons.”
And David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter liked the “big, brash meta-
musical” with its “crowd-pleasing showstoppers, deliciously puerile gags
and an infectious love of the form it so playfully skewers.”
According to the New Yorker, if the “fizzy entertainment” had employed
“just a bit more insight,” it “could have been brilliant satire,” but was
nonetheless “singable, high-spirited fun,” and Elysa Gardner in USA Today
said there was “enough comic fodder to sustain a briskly entertaining,
though ultimately forgettable, ride,” and the viewer would “find plenty
that’s amusing, if little that’s memorable.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety noted there was “comic desperation” during
the second act, but even so, Something Rotten! was “deliriously funny” and
the “synthesis of highbrow/lowbrow humor” made the evening
“irresistible.” Despite the “messy” second act, the show was “fueled by the
bold-as-brass music, the ingenious lyrics and the sheer lunacy of the whole
enterprise.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “rambunctious”
musical was “sophomoric,” but “presumably its creators wouldn’t have it
any other way.”
The evening wallowed in “puerile puns, giggly double-entendres, lip-
smacking bad taste and goofy pastiche numbers often found in college
revues.” As the “glam rock star” Shakespeare, Borle brought his “well-
polished panoply of comic tics, winks and flourishes” to the production and
was “a master of carefully stylized excess.” But his material in Something
Rotten! gave him “nothing else to fall back on [and] like the show itself, it’s
both too much and not enough.” (But for his performance Borle picked up a
second Tony Award, following his win for Peter and the Starcatcher.)
The national tour featured Adam Pascal (Shakespeare), Rob McClure
(Nick), and Josh Grisetti (Nigel).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Something Rotten!); Best
Book (Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell); Best Score (lyrics and
music by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick); Best Performance
by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Brian d’Arcy James); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Christian
Borle); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Brad Oscar); Best Choreography (Casey Nicholaw); Best Direction of
a Musical (Casey Nicholaw); Best Orchestrations (Larry Hochman);
Best Costume Design of a Musical (Gregg Barnes)
THE VISIT
Performances: 61
Lyrics: Fred Ebb
Music: John Kander
Based on the 1956 play Der Besuch der alten Dame by Friedrich
Durrenmatt, which was produced on Broadway in 1958 as The Visit in a
translation by Maurice Valency.
Direction: John Doyle (Adam John Hunter, Associate Director); Producers:
Tom Kirdahy, Edgar Bronfman Jr., Tom Smedes, Hugh Hayes, Peter
Stern, Judith Ann Abrams, Rich Affannato, Hunter Arnold, Carl
Daikeler, Ken Davenport, Bharat Mitra and Bhavani Lev, Peter May,
Ted Snowdon, Bruno Wang Productions, Mark Lee and Ed Filipowski,
Gabrielle Palitz/Weatherby & Fishman LLC, Marguerite
Hoffman/Jeremy Youett, Carlos Arana, Veenerick and Katherine Vos
Van Liempt, 42nd Club/Silva Theatrical, Kate Cannova/Terry Loftis,
and The Shubert Organization in association with Williamstown Theatre
Festival; Marco Nieto and Invisible Wall PDS., Associate Producers;
Choreography: Graciela Daniele (Maddie Kelly, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: Scott Pask; Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward;
Lighting: Japhy Weideman; Musical Direction: David Loud
Cast: George Abud (Karl Schell), Jason Danieley (Frederich Kuhn [School
Master]), Matthew Deming (Louis Perch), Diana Dimarzio (Annie
Dummermut), David Garrison (Peter Dummermut), Rick Holmes
(Father Josef), Tom Nelis (Rudi), Chris Newcomer (Jacob Chicken),
Mary Beth Peil (Matilde Schell), Aaron Ramey (Otto Hanke), Roger
Rees (Anton Schell), John Riddle (Young Anton), Chita Rivera (Claire
Zachanassian), Elena Shaddow (Ottilie Schell), Timothy Shew (Hans
Nusselin), Michelle Veintimilla (Young Claire)
The action takes place during winter in Brachen, a small town somewhere
in Switzerland.
Musical Numbers
“Prelude” (Ensemble); “Out of the Darkness” (Townspeople); “At Last”
(Chita Rivera, Townspeople); “I Walk Away” (Chita Rivera, Matthew
Deming, Chris Newcomer, Tom Nelis); “I Know Claire” (Roger Rees);
“A Happy Ending” (Mayor, Rick Holmes, Doctor, Police Chief, Jason
Danieley, Townspeople); “You, You, You” (Chita Rivera, Roger Rees,
Michelle Veintimilla, John Riddle); “I Must Have Been Something”
(Roger Rees); “Look at Me” (Chita Rivera, Roger Rees, Michelle
Veintimilla, John Riddle, All); “A Masque” (Mayor, Townspeople);
“Eunuchs’ Testimony” (Chris Newcomer, Matthew Deming); “Winter”
(Chita Rivera); “Yellow Shoes” (Doctor, Townspeople); “A Confession”
(Chita Rivera, All); “I Would Never Leave You” (Tom Nelis, Matthew
Deming, Chris Newcomer, Chita Rivera); “Back and Forth” (Mary Beth
Peil, Elena Shaddow, George Abud); “The Only One” (Jason Danieley);
“Fear” (Roger Rees); “A Car Ride” (Roger Rees, Mary Beth Peil,
George Abud, Elena Shaddow, John Riddle, Michelle Veintimilla);
“Love and Love Alone” (Chita Rivera); “In the Forest Again” (Roger
Rees, Chita Rivera, John Riddle, Michelle Veintimilla); Finale
(Townspeople)
John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The Visit was as dark a musical as ever was
produced. It was based on Friedrich Durrenmatt’s 1956 play Der Besuch
der alten Dame, which opened on Broadway in 1958 as The Visit in a
translation by Maurice Valency and starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne
in their final Broadway appearance (the production was the first to play at
the newly renamed Lunt-Fontanne Theatre).
The story of revenge and murder takes place in the small and
impoverished Swiss village of Brachen where the world’s richest woman
Claire Zachanassian (Chita Rivera), who “married very often” and
“widowed very well,” has come to destroy Anton Schell (Roger Rees), who
seduced her when she was a poor young woman, then threw her aside and
turned her into an outcast. The one-legged Claire’s entourage includes three
blind men in her employ, all of whom wear whiteface and two of whom are
falsetto-singing eunuchs, courtesy of Claire who got even with them when
they crossed her years ago in a paternity suit she brought against Anton:
two of them gave false testimony about her on the witness stand and the
third was the judge who ruled against her.
Along with her luggage and her ghostly flunkies, Claire has brought
along a coffin intended for Anton, and upon his death he and she will rest
side by side in eternity. She’s manipulated events to ensure that Brachen is
little more than a ghost town, and she offers a proposal to the townspeople:
Kill Anton and I’ll give each of you one million dollars. Despite assurances
by Anton’s friends that they’ll keep him from harm, slowly but surely greed
overcomes them and one of the townsmen strangles him.
Kander and Ebb’s score was one of their finest, and on a level with
Cabaret and Chicago, Terrence McNally’s book was lean and incisive and
one of his most memorable achievements, and Rivera’s performance was
perhaps her greatest. The songs were flavored with mysterioso (the motif
for Claire’s eunuchs as well as their “Testimony”), old-fashioned musical
comedy celebration (“Yellow Shoes”), a jaunty ode to commitment (“I
Would Never Leave You”), a lush ballad (“You, You, You”), and a wry
acceptance of the way things are (“Love and Love Alone”).
Like the equally fresh and introspective musicals The Last Ship (which
like The Visit includes a leading character who returns to his hometown)
and the revival of Side Show which had opened and closed earlier in the
season, The Visit’s bleak and cynical vision couldn’t overcome mixed
reviews and audience apathy, and so it shuttered after two months on
Broadway.
Richard Zoglin in Time said The Visit was the “darkest” musical he’d
ever seen on Broadway, a “brave, uncompromising slice of Broadway
misanthropy.” The work was a “stunner,” McNally’s book was “clear” and
“spare,” and John Doyle’s direction brought “an intensity you rarely see in a
Broadway musical.” Kander and Ebb’s “sweet, deceptively simple, oom-
pah-pah songs” hit their “peak” with “Yellow Shoes,” an “unsettling anti-
production number” that was “as bright and chilling as a blast of winter
ice.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety found “dark, sinister beauty” in the
production, which was “more literary piece than conventional musical,” and
while The Visit was probably Kander’s “darkest” work, he composed
“beautiful romantic melodies.” But while the evening began and ended
“well,” it sagged in the middle and lacked tension because of its “foregone
conclusion.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised Rivera, who kept off the
“chill” of “this elegant dirge of a production,” which offered a score “that at
its best has the flavor of darkest chocolate.” But the evening “only rarely”
shook off “a stasis that suggest[ed] a carefully carved mausoleum frieze.”
Further, the evening veered between “merciless cynicism and a softer
sentimentality.” The world has made Claire a “whore” and so she’s made
the world a “brothel,” but despite her determination to have Anton
murdered, she’s also “eternally head over heels” in love with him, and so
his death will “be a consummation in more than one sense.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News decided revenge was
“a dish served tepid” in the musical. Scott Pask’s “skeletal” decor and Ann
Hould-Ward’s “raggedy” costumes “scream[ed] decay,” but the
performances didn’t “go there,” the staging should have been “less polite,”
and ultimately Claire and the show were “too domesticated.” Elisabeth
Vincentelli in the New York Post noted that save for the color yellow (which
represented gold) the production was shrouded in a “monochromatic
palette,” and there were so many “oddball touches” in the presentation that
sometimes it seemed the musical was “the closest Broadway will ever come
to avant-garde director Robert Wilson.”
The musical had first been announced for production in 1999 with
Angela Lansbury in the lead, but for personal reasons she withdrew from
the project. Michael Riedel in the New York Post reported that a private run-
through in early summer 1999 went well, that a projected stage reading was
to follow in the fall, then a workshop during the winter, a pre-Broadway
tryout in the summer of 2000, and a Broadway opening that fall. Once
Lansbury was no longer associated with the musical, there was speculation
that Shirley MacLaine or Glenn Close might replace her, and another rumor
circulated that a London production might star either Judi Dench or Diana
Rigg. During this period, Philip Bosco was considered a possibility for the
role of Anton.
The project finally got off the ground when the work premiered at
Chicago’s Goodman Theatre on October 1, 2001, with Rivera and John
McMartin (Frank Galati directed and Ann Reinking choreographed). The
musical was later scheduled to open at the Public Theatre during the 2003–
2004 season with Rivera and Frank Langella in a presentation financed by
private investors, but the backing fell through. Later there was talk that the
musical would be part of Roundabout Theatre’s 2003–2004 season, but
nothing happened until Rivera and George Hearn starred in a production
that opened at Signature (Arlington, Virginia) Theatre on May 27, 2008
(Galati and Reinking were again the respective director and choreographer).
On November 30, 2011, the musical was given in concert at the
Ambassador Theatre for a one-night benefit for the Actors’ Fund and the
Vineyard Theatre with Rivera and John Cullum in the leading roles (the cast
also included Mark Jacoby and Jerry Lanning, who had appeared in the
Arlington production); Reinking again choreographed, and the direction
was by Carl Andress. A year before the Broadway premiere, the musical
was given at the Williamstown (Massachusetts) Theatre Festival on July 31,
2014 with Rivera and Rees; for this production (and the subsequent
Broadway mounting the following year), the work was presented in one act,
the direction was by Doyle, and the choreography by Graciela Daniele.
Numbers heard in the various regional productions that were cut for
Broadway were: “You Know Me,” “All You Need to Know,” “Chorale,”
and “The One-Legged Tango.”
The Broadway cast album was released by Broadway Records/Yellow
Sound Label. The collection The Musicality of Kander and Ebb (Jay
Records) includes “Love and Love Alone” (performed by Karen Ziemba)
and John Kander: Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 offers the demo of the cut
song “You Know Me” (recorded in 2000 by Alix Korey and Barbara
Walsh).
Reinking’s choreography as seen in the Arlington production was
impressive, and included the macabre tango for the one-legged Claire and
the jubilant “Yellow Shoes” for the townspeople. On the surface, the latter
was a seemingly old-fashioned nod to traditional Broadway whoop-dee-
doo, but it masked the dark and ironic message that the villagers are buying
luxury goods on credit in anticipation of Claire’s pay-off when Anton is
murdered. Reinking also offered an amusing moment for the villagers when
they meet Claire upon her arrival and dutifully and joylessly undergo a
moment of clichéd Swiss cuckoo-clock-styled movement, as if they’re
required to offer up merry-villager clichés for the tourists.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (The Visit); Best Book (Terrence
McNally); Best Score (lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Chita
Rivera); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Japhy Weiderman)
CLOAK & DAGGER, OR THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN

VENUS
Cloak & Dagger, or The Case of the Golden Venus played at the Signature
Theatre Company’s Ark Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, during the
period June 12–July 6, 2014 (the official opening night seems to have
been on June 17). As of this writing, the musical hasn’t been presented
on Broadway.
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Ed Dixon
Direction: Eric Schaeffer; Producer: Signature Theatre Company (Eric
Schaeffer, Artistic Director); Scenery: Daniel Conway; Costumes:
Kathleen Geldard; Lighting: Colin K. Bills; Musical Direction: Jenny
Cartney
Cast: Doug Carpenter (Nick), Erin Driscoll (Helena), Ed Dixon (Man One),
Christopher Bloch (Man Two)
The action takes place in New York City during the early 1950s.
Musical Numbers
“The Worst of Times” (Doug Carpenter); “The Best of Times” (Doug
Carpenter); “A Real Woman” (Ed Dixon); “An Agent” (Christopher
Bloch); “Chinatown Blues” (Erin Driscoll); “Who Put the Mob In”
(Christopher Bloch, Doug Carpenter); “Subway Song” (Doug
Carpenter, Ed Dixon, Christopher Bloch); “Doors Close” (Erin
Driscoll); “Doors Close” (reprise) (Erin Driscoll); “Love Is” (Doug
Carpenter); “A Real Woman” (reprise) (Ed Dixon); “Shake Your
Maracas” (Ed Dixon, Christopher Bloch); “Opium” (Ed Dixon,
Christopher Bloch); “Opium” (reprise) (Christopher Bloch, Doug
Carpenter, Erin Driscoll); “Who Put the Mob In” (reprise) (Ed Dixon,
Christopher Bloch); “Chinatown Blues” (reprise) (Ed Dixon,
Christopher Bloch); “Love on a Boat” (Doug Carpenter, Erin Driscoll);
“Love on a Boat” (reprise) (Doug Carpenter, Erin Driscoll); “The Best
of Times” (reprise) (Company)
Cloak & Dagger, or The Case of the Golden Venus was an intimate one-
act musical spoof of film noir that featured four musicians and four
performers, including two actors (Ed Dixon and Christopher Bloch as Man
One and Man Two) who played almost twenty characters, including some in
drag. Down-on-his-luck Gotham gumshoe Nick (Doug Carpenter) takes on
a case when a sexy, blonde, and very feminine femme fatale named Helena
Troy (Erin Driscoll) hires him to track down a stolen statue known as the
Golden Venus. Helena is so dumb she’s never heard of Helen of Troy, but
her tight red dress compensates for her low IQ.
Before he knows it, Nick is chasing clues, leads, and suspects all over
the city (including Pinsky’s Burlesque, an opium den in Chinatown, a
spaghetti hangout in Little Italy, the top of the Empire State Building, and
the subway), and among those he meets on his odyssey are a hooker
(Dixon) whom Peter Marks in the Washington Post described as a Mae
West who “looks like Walter Matthau” and a theatrical agent (played by
Bloch) who (per Jordan Wright in the Alexandria Times) “conjures up
Jimmy Durante and dances to ‘Hava Nagila.’” And of course there are the
usual suspects, such as Mafia types (they must be, since they talk with
Italian accents and one of them is named Fattoni). And what about the set,
which includes three doors? Chuck Conconi in Washington Life guaranteed
they were there to ensure a lot of “rushing in and out of.”
David Siegel on ShowBizRadio liked the “lively” score and Borscht
Belt–styled humor, but Marks said the “creaking antique joke machine”
offered “uninspired” songs. Conconi noted that the songs weren’t
“especially memorable” but worked well in context, and if Sam Spade types
were now “dated and passé,” they could still be “entertaining.”
DINER
Diner played at the Signature Theatre Company’s Max Theatre in
Arlington, Virginia, during the period December 19, 2014–January 25,
2015 (the official opening night seems to have been on December 27).
As of this writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Barry Levinson
Lyrics and Music: Sheryl Crow
Based on the 1982 MGM film Diner (direction and screenplay by Barry
Levinson).
Direction and Choreography: Kathleen Marshall (Paige Kiliany, Assistant
Director; David Eggers, Associate Choreographer); Producer: Signature
Theatre Company (Eric Schaeffer, Artistic Director); Scenery: Derek
McLane (scenery adapted by James Kronzere); Costumes: Paul
Tazewell; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: Lon Hoyt
Cast: John Schiappa (Older Boogie, Bagel), Bryan Fenkart (Modell), Adam
Kantor (Eddie), John Grisetti (Shrevie), Matthew James Thomas
(Fenwick), Tess Soltau (Elyse), Erika Henningsen (Beth), Derek Klena
(Boogie), Maria Egler (Eddie’s Mother), Aaron C. Finley (Billy),
Whitney Bashor (Barbara), Colleen Hayes (Carl Heathrow), Lou Steele
(Howard), Mitch Marois (Methan), MaryLee Adams (Salon
Receptionist), Russell Sunday (Tank), John Leslie Wolfe (Eddie’s
Father), Nova Y. Payton (Stripper); Doo-Wop Guys: Ben Lurye, Mitch
Marois, David Rowen, and Lou Steele; Ensemble: MaryLee Adams,
Maria Egler, Colleen Hayes, Ben Lurye, Mitch Marois, Nova Y. Payton,
David Rowen, Lou Steele, Russell Sunday, John Leslie Wolfe
The action takes place in Baltimore during Christmas Week 1959.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Ain’t No Accident” (Adam Kantor, John Grisetti, Bryan
Fenkart, Matthew James Thomas, Erika Henningsen, Tess Soltau);
“What Would You Bet?” (Derek Klena, Matthew James Thomas, John
Grisetti, Bryan Fenkart, Company); “Working on a Brand New Groove”
(Derek Klena, Adam Kantor, Matthew James Thomas, John Grisetti,
Bryan Fenkart, Company); “Now and Then” (Doo-Wop Guys); “Please
Be There” (Aaron C. Finley); “Don’t Give It All Away” (Company);
“It’s Good” (John Grisetti, Adam Kantor); “Tear Down This House”
(Erika Henningsen, Housewives); “Last Man Standing” (Matthew
James Thomas, Wise Men)
Act Two: “Last Man Standing” (reprise) (Aaron C. Finley, John Grisetti,
Adam Kantor); “Letting Go” (Matthew James Thomas); “You’ve Got a
Lot to Learn” (Adam Kantor, Derek Klena, Guys); “Don’t” (Whitney
Bashor, Women); “Darling, It’s You” (Derek Klena, Erika Henningsen,
Beauty Salon Customers); “The Games We Play” (Aaron C. Finley,
John Grisetti, Bryan Fenkart, Matthew James Thomas, Derek Klena,
Adam Kantor, Tess Soltau); “For What It’s Worth” (Derek Klena, Erika
Henningsen, John Schiappa); “Every Man Needs a Woman” (Whitney
Bashor, Tess Soltau, Women); “Gotta Lotta Woman” (Aaron C. Finley,
Adam Kantor, John Grisetti, Derek Klena, Matthew James Thomas,
Bryan Fenkart, Nova Y. Payton); “The Wedding” (Company); “Now
and Then” (reprise) (Doo Wop Guys)
Diner was based on the well-regarded 1982 film of the same name that
was directed and written by Barry Levinson, who wrote the musical’s book
(the lyrics and music were by singer and songwriter Sheryl Crow). After a
disappointing workshop, the musical canceled its 2012 pre-Broadway tryout
in San Francisco and 2013 Broadway engagement. Variety reported the
show then underwent an “extensive overhaul,” and finally made its stage
debut in regional theatre when it opened at Arlington, Virginia’s Signature
Theatre for a limited run during the 2014–2015 season. A year later, the
musical again surfaced in regional theatre when it was presented by
Wilmington’s Delaware Theatre Company during the 2015–2016 season.
As of this writing, the musical hasn’t been produced in New York, and
one suspects the reason the show has stumbled on the road to Broadway is
because of its insistence that the mildly bad-boy behavior of its six main
characters back in the 1950s must be condemned through the prism of
modern-day sensibility and political correctness.
Levinson’s story was set during Christmas week of 1959 in Baltimore
and focused on six young men who enjoy a weekly boys-night-out at their
favorite diner, and this particular get-together takes place prior to the
wedding of Eddie (Adam Kantor) to Elyse (Tess Soltau). As in the movie,
Eddie is a sports fanatic and requires Elyse to pass a sports trivia contest to
see if she’s worthy of being his wife (and the wedding colors must be in
blue and white, the colors of the Baltimore Colts). The musical also covered
the outrage endured by Shrevie (Josh Grisetti) when his wife Beth (Erika
Henningsen) incorrectly files the LPs in his sacred collection. And, most of
all, the musical re-created the popcorn-box scene, the one in which Boogie
(Derek Klena) goes to a movie, opens the bottom of the popcorn box,
inserts his manhood through the bottom of the box, and then invites his date
to help herself to some popcorn.
Although the film’s re-creation of the rituals and routines of both single
and married guys in the late 1950s was mostly affectionate, it also depicted
the sobering moment of realization that the frat-boy persona must be
shelved when one takes on the responsibilities of adulthood.
Peter Marks in the Washington Post noted the musical adaptation
suffered from a certain “nagging flatness of execution,” and unfortunately
the story used the “hackneyed device” of using a narrator (in this case Older
Boogie, played by John Schiappa). Further, the show indulged in “thematic
overkill” with its constant announcements about social change in the United
States and the era’s “oppressive attitudes” toward women. And speaking of
women, the musical seemed to go out of its way to elevate them and to put
down men. David Siegel in DC Metro Theatre Arts reported that the women
“come across as the smarter, deeper, more nuanced lovable ones,” and while
the male actors gave their characters “likability,” it wasn’t “always an easy
acting task” given “the way their characters are written.”
Paul Harris in Variety said the musical balanced “the humorous with the
melancholy” in its depiction of “maturity-versus-adolescence” (one
presumes the women are the mature ones, and the men the adolescents).
Harris also observed that Older Boogie is “apologetic” and “condemns” the
“misdeeds” he and his friends indulged in when they were young, and as
noted above one assumes this delayed mea culpa was deemed necessary to
satisfy modern tastes. As for Crow’s score, Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun
said her lyrics “largely avoid the commonplace” and her “melodic lines and
chord progressions” had a “freshness and sophistication” that stood out
“given the generic stuff found in many a musical nowadays.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times reviewed the later Wilmington
production, which featured a few of the Arlington cast members, including
Derek Klena, Matthew James Thomas, and Erika Henningsen. Brantley said
the musical felt “like an act of earnest atonement for a generation of male-
chauvinist behavior,” and in comparison to the movie it was “softer around
the edges and more self-consciously retrospective.” Further, the leading
characters lacked “individuality,” Kathleen Marshall’s choreography had a
“tiptoe tentativeness,” and while the score was “music to tap your feet to,”
you didn’t “feel like dancing.” And in a “forward-looking epilogue” it’s
revealed that “it’s the women who wind up ruling the world.”
KID VICTORY
Kid Victory played at the Signature Theatre Company’s Max Theatre in
Arlington, Virginia, during the period February 17–March 22, 2015 (the
official opening night seems to have been on March 1). The musical
was eventually produced Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre where
it played during the period February 1–March 19, 2017 (the official
opening night was on February 22).
Book and Lyrics: Greg Pierce
Music: John Kander
Based on a story by John Kander and Greg Pierce.
Direction: Liesl Tommy (Walter Ware III, Assistant Director); Producers:
Signature Theatre Company (Eric Schaeffer, Artistic Director) (A Co-
Production with the Vineyard Theatre); Choreography: Christopher
Windom; Scenery: Clint Ramos; Costumes: Kathleen Geldard; Lighting:
David Weiner; Musical Direction: Jesse Kissel
Cast: Jake Winn (Luke), Jeffry Denman (Michael), Christiane Noll (Mom),
Christopher Bloch (Dad), Sarah Litzsinger (Emily), Laura Darrell
(Kimberly, Suze, Mara), Bobby Smith (Franklin, Detective Marks),
Donna Migliaccio (Gail), Parker Drown (Andrew)
The action takes place during the present time in Kansas.
Musical Numbers
“Lord, Carry Me Home” (Company); “A Single Tear” (Christiane Noll,
Ensemble); “Store Songs” (Laura Darrell, Bobby Smith); “Lawn”
(Sarah Litzsinger); “Vinland” (Jeffry Denman, Ensemble); “You Are the
Marbles” (Donna Migliaccio, Ensemble); “I’ll Marry the Man” (Sarah
Litzsinger); “People Like Us” (Sarah Litzsinger); “Help Me
Understand” (Bobby Smith); “There Was a Boy” (Christiane Noll);
“Dear Mara” (Sarah Litzsinger, Laura Darrell); “I’d Rather Wait”
(Laura Darrell); “Matchstick Men” (Parker Drown, Ensemble); “What’s
the Point?” (Parker Drown, Jeffry Denman, Ensemble); “The Last
Thing He Needs” (Christiane Noll, Sarah Litzsinger); “You, If Anyone”
(Jeffry Denman); “Where We Are” (Christopher Bloch)
Many of John Kander’s musicals have explored edgy themes on the

order of prejudice, racism, rape, revenge, murder, and a corrupt judicial
system (Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Visit, The
Scottsboro Boys), but Kid Victory went all out with a theme barely touched
upon in Broadway musicals, that of pedophilia (Alan Jay Lerner and John
Barry’s 1971 musical Lolita, My Love also looked at this subject, but the
show never made it to New York and closed during its pre-Broadway
tryout).
Luke (Jake Winn), a teenager who uses the online name of Kid Victory,
is gay but in the closet (although John Stoltenberg in
dcmetrotheaterarts.com wasn’t sure about that, and his “gaydar” didn’t pick
up any “signals in the script”). Luke and history teacher Michael (Jeffry
Denman) chat online about regatta races and play boat-racing games, and
when the two eventually meet Michael kidnaps the boy and keeps him
prisoner for a year (he chains him and beats him but apparently doesn’t
sexually molest him). Luke eventually escapes and returns home, but won’t
discuss what happened. He’s clearly traumatized by a dreadful experience,
but since he won’t talk about the matter no one knows exactly what
happened and what to do about it.
Luke’s well-meaning mother (Christiane Noll) is clueless; his father
(Christopher Bloch) is depicted as an ineffectual 1950s sitcom kind of dad;
the congregation at his church are pretty much in the dark, although one
member (Gail, played by Donna Migliaccio) tries to bring Luke out of his
shell with a therapy game (“You Are the Marble”); and a detective (Bobby
Smith) is pretty much stymied because Luke won’t open up. It seems that
except for the audience no one will ever know what happened to Luke
during his disappearance.
Apparently Luke didn’t learn much about the dangers of online
relationships, and in one of the final scenes we discover that through an
online gay dating service named Matchstick Men Luke hooks up with
Andrew (Parker Drown) in the woods. Meanwhile, it appears that the only
person in the world who can relate to Luke on any kind of normal basis is
the over-aged hippie Emily (Sarah Litzsinger) who runs a quaint garden
shop and decides if the shop doesn’t make it she can always move to
California and join a commune.
The critics saw potential in the material, but some felt it alienated the
audience by not bringing more of Luke into the action. In fact, Luke doesn’t
sing a note in the musical, a wrong-headed idea that probably looked good
on paper because the boy is remote and aloof. But his story is told as a
musical, and what’s the point of a musical if its main character never sings
to us? He may not want to sing to others, but there’s a reason why musicals
offer soliloquies.
Chuck Conconi in Washington Life said the “grim” and “often smarmy”
story might have worked had the book not been so “disjointed” and the
lyrics and music so “surprisingly uninspiring.” There wasn’t a “memorable”
song in the score, and Liesl Tommy’s direction didn’t “overcome the
indecisiveness” of the book, which took a “jaundiced look at mindless
religion,” something that was “all too easy a target” (Nelson Pressley in the
Washington Post noted that Pierce and Kander flirted “with stereotypes of
heartland Christians”). But it was “fortunate” the musical was presented in
one act because otherwise some in the audience wouldn’t have returned
after intermission.
Eric Althoff in the Washington Times reported that the musical was
“strangely lacking in empathy between material and audience,” and Doug
Rule in Metro Weekly complained that “we know too little about what Luke
is thinking, feeling or even wanting.” But Pressley found the production
“inquisitive and deeply empathetic” with an “open-hearted” score, and the
show probed “its difficult territory in intriguing ways.”
The Off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre production opened two years later
on February 22, 2017, for a limited engagement, and the cast recording was
released by Broadway Records. The score added three songs (“Plain White
Card,” “Not Quite True,” and “Regatta 500”) and dropped two (“Store
Songs” and “Help Me Understand”). Jeffrey Denman (who during the New
York run was succeeded by David Garrison) and Laura Darrell reprised
their earlier roles, and others in the company were Brandon Flynn (Luke),
Karen Ziemba (Mom), Daniel Jenkins (Dad), Dee Roscioli (Emily), and
Joel Blum (Detective Marks).
In his review of the Vineyard production, Ben Brantley in the New York
Times said the musical was “unresolved” and many scenes had a “muddled
fuzziness, as if everybody involved had drunk of that opiate-laced root beer
with which Luke was drugged by his captor.” Frank Scheck in the
Hollywood Reporter said the “disjointed” and “tedious” musical had an
“underwhelming” score and might have been “marginally more effective”
as a straight play. Further, the story was “confusing” and “overly cluttered
with incidents and minor characters that don’t add much to the overall
impact.” The music was “distinctly downbeat” except for the “jarringly
jaunty” number “What’s the Point?” in the Matchstick Men sequence. The
song featured “exuberant” tap dancing and didn’t “mesh with the dourness
that precedes it.”
Besides the above-mentioned cast recording, the two-CD collection
John Kander: Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 (Harbinger Records) includes
“You, If Anyone” (performed by Lewis Cleale with Greg Pierce) and
“People Like Us” (a demo recorded in 2014 and performed by John Kander
and Pierce).
LITTLE DANCER
Little Dancer played at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre in
Washington, D.C., during the period October 25–November 30, 2014,
with an official opening night of November 20. As of this writing, the
musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway (see below for information
regarding a 2019 revised production of the musical titled Marie,
Dancing Still, which played in regional theatre).
Book and Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens
Director; Ginger Thatcher, Associate Choreographer); Producers: The
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Max Woodward,
Producer); Scenery: Beowulf Boritt; Projection Design: Benjamin
Pearcy; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Ken Billington;
Musical Direction: Shawn Gough
Cast: Tiler Peck (Young Marie van Goethem), Rebecca Luker (Adult Marie
van Goethem), Boyd Gaines (Edgar Degas); Workmen: Kyle Harris,
Sean Martin Hingston, James A. Pierce III, and John Riddle; Jenny
Powers (Museum Cataloguer, Antoinette van Goethem), Janet
Dickinson (Mary Cassatt, Proprietress); Rats: Nicoline Sansouci (Jolina
Javier), Esme Pruneau (Polly Baird), Chantal Brett (Lyrica Woodruff),
and Ondine Gigot (Juliet Doherty); Abonnes: Joseph J. Simeone, John
Riddle, James A. Pierce III, and Sean Martin Hingston; Sujets: Wendi
Bergamini and Nina Goldman; Premiers danseurs: Katelyn Prominski
and James A. Pierce III; Backstage Workers: Sophia Anne Caruso, Janet
Dickinson, Kyle Harris, Sean Martin Hingston, John Riddle, Jenny
Powers, Joseph J. Simeone, and Karen Ziemba; Karen Ziemba (Martine
van Goethem), Sophia Anne Caruso (Charlotte van Goetham); Sailors:
Kyle Harris and James A. Pierce III; Michele Ragusa (Sabine, Madame
Theodore); Doctors: Kyle Harris, Sean Martin Hingston, Michael
McCormick, James A. Pierce III, John Riddle, and Joseph J. Simeone;
Michael McCormick (Monsieur Corbeil, Monsieur Plouff), Kyle Harris
(Christian, Bartender); Laundresses: Wendi Bergamini, Janet Dickinson,
Nina Goldman, Jolina Javier, Katelyn Prominski, and Michele Ragusa);
Sean Martin Hingston (Philippe de Marchal); Rat Mort Dancers: Polly
Baird, Wendi Bergamini, Nina Goldman, and Katelyn Prominski; Rat
Mort Patrons: James A. Pierce III, Michele Ragusa, John Riddle, and
Joseph J. Simeone; Urchins: Sophia Anne Caruso, Juliet Doherty, and
Lyrica Woodruff; Joseph J. Simeone (Luis Merante); Nina Goldman
(Madame Pruneau); Mothers: Jenny Powers, Janet Dickinson, Wendi
Bergamini, and Katelyn Prominski; Art Patrons: Polly Baird, Wendi
Bergamini, Sophia Anne Caruso, Juliet Doherty, Nina Goldman, Kyle
Harris, Sean Martin Hingston, Jolina Javier, Michael McCormick,
James A. Pierce III, Jenny Powers, Katelyn Prominski, Michele Ragusa,
John Riddle, Joseph J. Simeone, and Karen Ziemba; Museum Visitors:
Polly Baird, Wendi Bergamini, Sophia Anne Caruso, Juliet Doherty,
Nina Goldman, Kyle Harris, Sean Martin Hingston, Jolina Javier,
Michael McCormick, James A. Pierce III, Jenny Powers, Katelyn
Prominski, Michele Ragusa, John Riddle, Joseph J. Simeone, Lyrica
Woodruff, and Karen Ziemba; The Citizens of Paris: Polly Baird, Wendi
Bergamini, Sophia Anne Caruso, Janet Dickinson, Juliet Doherty, Nina
Goldman, Kyle Harris, Sean Martin Hingston, Jolina Javier, Michael
McCormick, James A. Pierce III, Jenny Powers, Katelyn Prominski,
Michele Ragusa, John Riddle, Joseph J. Simeone, Lyrica Woodruff, and
Karen Ziemba
The action takes place in 1917, 1880, and 1881.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Tiler Peck); Scene: Degas’s Studio in 1917 (Janet
Dickinson, Rebecca Luker); “C’est le ballet” (Rebecca Luker,
Company); “Little Hole in the Wall” (Tiler Peck, Sophia Anne Caruso,
Rebecca Luker); “Eye Examination” (Doctors); “Unfinished” (Boyd
Gaines, Janet Dickinson); “A Rat” (Rats, Rebecca Luker, Company);
“Musicians and Dancers and Fools” (Kyle Harris); “Laundry” (Karen
Ziemba, Rebecca Luker, Jenny Powers, Tiler Peck, Sophia Anne
Caruso, Laundresses); “Little Opportunities” (Jenny Powers,
Company); “Petite chanson” (Karen Ziemba, Bar Patrons, Tiler Peck);
“Ballerina” (Sophia Anne Caruso, Young Men); “In Between” (Boyd
Gaines); Act One Finale (Boyd Gaines, Rebecca Luker, Tiler Peck)
Act Two: “Looking Back at Myself” (Rebecca Luker); “At the Dressing
Table” (Jenny Powers, Karen Ziemba, Tiler Peck); “Les petites
danseuses” (Michael McCormick, Abonnes); “I’ll Follow You” (Sean
Martin Hingston); “Observations” (Janet Dickinson); “Little
Opportunities” (reprise) (Jenny Powers); “Moving Up in the World”
(Karen Ziemba, Laundresses, Rebecca Luker, Tiler Peck, Sophia Anne
Caruso); “Dancing Still” (Kyle Harris); “A Box of Things” (Boyd
Gaines, Tiler Peck); “The Exposition” (Boyd Gaines, Company); “What
You Made of Me” (Rebecca Luker); “The Little Dancer Ballet” (Tiler
Peck, Company); Finale (Company)
Little Dancer was yet another musical inspired by artwork, in this case
Edgar Degas’s sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. This limited genre
was institutionalized by Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with
George (1984), and the current musical prompted the headline “Sunday at
the Opera with Edgar” for Charles Isherwood’s review in the New York
Times (some of the musical’s characters dance with the Paris Opera Ballet).
Little Dancer played at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and
because of last-minute changes the opening night was postponed until
almost the end of the run. The reviews were generally unenthusiastic and
the musical disappeared for well over four years, but as Marie, Still
Dancing a revised version of the show was presented in regional theatre in
2019 (see below for more information).
The model for Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen was Marie van
Goethem (Tiler Peck), about whom almost nothing is known, and Lynn
Ahrens’s book speculated on the events surrounding the young dancer and
how she came to be immortalized in Degas’s masterwork. For all purposes,
the musical was a complete fiction, but it made certain to include such
clichés of Old Paree as roués and ladies of the night, and Stephen Flaherty’s
score offered a can-can and occasionally utilized an accordion. Even the
laundresses brought to mind their counterparts in Cole Porter’s Can-Can
(1953), who sang and danced “Maidens Typical of France.”
Like Diner (which opened three weeks after Little Dancer closed), the
musical utilized the questionable conceit of an older version of a younger
main character who narrates past events, and so in 1917 Adult Marie
(Rebecca Luker) looks back at Young Marie (Peck) during the years 1880
and 1881.
The musical also invited comparisons with Sondheim’s musical about
Georges Seurat. Besides the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of
La Grande Jatte, that musical evoked scenic moments that paid homage to
other paintings by Seurat, such as (Young) Woman Powdering Herself and
Bathers at Asnieres, and for Little Dancer one moment mirrored the look
and pose of Degas’s painting L’Absinthe. Similarly, the first act finale of
Sondheim’s musical re-created Seurat’s La Grande Jatte, and the final
moments of Little Dancer paid tribute to Degas’s statue. Many musicals
(and plays) have been inspired by painters and/or their artwork, and one
waits in vain for a moratorium on the genre (see below).
Isherwood said Susan Stroman’s production had “a whiff of the antique
about it” but was “polished and pretty if less than transporting.” He noted
that Degas (Boyd Gaines) tended to disappear “for significant portions” of
the evening, and so the story generally focused on Marie and her struggle to
find her place in the world of ballet. She was also given a romantic interest,
but Isherwood noted the “pro forma subplot” was “never fully developed.”
With Little Dancer, Stroman was back in “confident form” after the “belly-
flop” of Bullets over Broadway, but unfortunately “with its soft edges and
its slight air of the formulaic,” the musical set in the late nineteenth century
“might have been written sometime in the middle” of the twentieth.
Paul Harris in Variety said Ahrens’s book sometimes played like a
“sappy soap opera,” and there were some “forgettable” songs. But the
“visually stunning” production offered decor by Beowulf Boritt and
costumes by William Ivey Long that utilized the look of Degas’s
impressionist paintings. Throughout the evening, dance was “front and
center,” and “The Little Dancer Ballet” was the “undisputed” highlight of
the production. Harris and many critics singled out the “rousing” opening
number “C’est le ballet,” which may well have been the score’s best song.
Peter Marks in the Washington Post noted that the creators had “only
scratched the surface” of the “fairly pedestrian” story and they needed to
“sweep out the clichés.” Further, the show’s “biggest weakness” was that
the character of Marie was never fully explored.
As noted, there are a number of plays and musicals about painters, and
these include: two Off-Off-Broadway musicals about Paul Gauguin,
Gauguin in Tahiti (1976) and Gauguin: Savage Light (2006); four about
Toulouse-Lautrec, London’s Bordello (1974), Off-Off-Broadway’s Toulouse
(1981), Off-Off-Broadway’s Times and Appetites of Toulouse-Lautrec
(1985), and London’s Lautrec (2000) (there was even the 1982 Off-
Broadway play Jane Avril, the music-hall chanteuse who was the subject of
many of the artist’s posters and paintings); and two about Goya, Gian-Carlo
Menotti’s opera Goya (1986) and Maury Yeston’s unproduced but recorded
Goya . . . A Life in Song (1989) (Placido Domingo sang the title role in the
premiere of Menotti’s opera, and was also Goya on the recording of
Yeston’s version).
Others in the genre are: the Off-Off-Broadway opera El Greco (1993);
Michael John LaChiusa’s musical The Highest Yellow (about Vincent Van
Gogh), which was given in regional theatre in 2004; and the Broadway, Off-
Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway plays, Van Gogh! (1976), Modigliani
(1979), Cassatt (1980; Mary Cassatt was also a secondary character in
Little Dancer), Vincent (1981), Whistler (1981), and London and
Broadway’s Vincent in Brixton (both 2003). And let’s not forget Steve
Martin’s fanciful 1995 comedy Picasso at the Lapin Agile where two young
nobodies named Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein hang out together. There
was also John Musto and Mark Campbell’s 2007 opera Later That Same
Evening, a series of interconnected stories that take place during a single
night and were based on five paintings by Edward Hopper (Hotel Room,
Hotel Window, Automat, Room in New York, and Two on the Aisle).
As Marie, Still Dancing, a revised version of Little Dancer was
presented at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre for a limited engagement from
March 22 to April 14, 2019. Stroman again directed and choreographed,
and Tiler Peck, Karen Ziemba, and Kyle Harris reprised their respective
roles of Young Marie, Martine, and Christian. The production also included
Terrence Mann (Degas), Louise Pitre (Adult Marie), and Dee Hoty (Mary
Cassatt). The headline of Michael Strangeways’s review for Seattle Gay
Scene said the musical still required “re-writing” of its “clunky” book and
songs. Strangeways noted that the creators’ “talents are not up to making”
the musical or the title character “very interesting or very compelling,” and
the overall production needed “much overhauling.”
SOON
Soon played at the Signature Theatre Company’s Ark Theatre in Arlington,
Virginia, during the period March 10–April 26, 2015 (the official
opening night seems to have been on March 23). As of this writing, the
musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Nick Blaemire
Direction: Matthew Gardiner; Producers: Signature Theatre Company (Eric
Schaeffer, Artistic Director) in association with Tricia Small; Scenery:
Dan Conway; Projection Designs: Matthew Haber; Costumes: Frank
Labovitz; Lighting: Brian Tovar; Musical Direction: Darius Smith
Cast: Jessica Hershberg (Charlie), Joshua Morgan (Steven), Alex
Brightman (Jonah), Natascia Diaz (Adrienne)
The action takes place in New York City in the near future.
Musical Numbers
“When the World Ends” (Jessica Hershberg, Natascia Diaz, Joshua Morgan,
Alex Brightman); “Peanut Butter” (Jessica Hershberg); “How Are
You?” (Natascia Diaz, Jessica Hershberg); “Sweet and Golden Brown”
(Jessica Hershberg, Alex Brightman); “Bohemia Paradiso” (Natascia
Diaz, Joshua Morgan, Jessica Hershberg); “Waiting” (Alex Brightman);
“Believe Me” (Jessica Hershberg, Natascia Diaz, Joshua Morgan, Alex
Brightman); “Bar Mitzvah for the First Jewish Fish” (Alex Brightman,
Joshua Morgan); “Hasn’t Happened” (Jessica Hershberg, Natascia Diaz,
Joshua Morgan, Alex Brightman); “How Do You Know?” (Jessica
Hershberg, Alex Brightman); “Make Love” (Jessica Hershberg, Alex
Brightman)
The people in Soon faced the same question that confronted the
characters in On the Beach: What do you do while you’re waiting for the
apocalypse? In this case, the musical focused on a quartet of New Yorkers
who must kill time before time kills them. Climate change has come with a
vengeance, and soon everyone will die, apparently in a flood of biblical
proportion.
Charlie (Jessica Hershberg) worked in a bakery but now stays holed-up
in her apartment and watches depressing television news reports; her self-
obsessed mother Adrienne (Natascia Diaz) takes to the bottle; her gay
roommate Steven (Joshua Morgan) eats too much and spends time at Fire
Island; and grocery delivery guy Jonah (Alex Brightman) seems to embrace
a carpe diem philosophy that brings Charlie out of her shell and into his
arms (the final song in the musical is their duet “Make Love”).
The story moved back and forth in time, and the viewer was never quite
certain if the action is rooted in reality or is part of Charlie’s imagination.
The critics noted that the show offered a surprise ending, or at least some
kind of reversal (if not in the plot, at least in one of the characters), but the
critics didn’t give away any spoilers.
Nelson Pressley in the Washington Post found the musical “pleasantly
quirky” with “compelling and relaxed” performances, a “splendidly
cluttered” set that depicted Charlie’s apartment, and a circuitous story that
weaved together the past and the present. He also noted that late in the
evening there was a “major revelation” that “changes the way you see
everything.” Chris Klimek in the Washington City Paper found Charlie’s
character a “dud” and a “drag,” and noted the show was “in constant peril
of becoming too cute to sustain its grim premise.” Further, the evening’s
“eventual payoff” might not be an “adequate return on your modest
investment” in the 105-minute musical. One or two of the songs were
extraneous (such as “Peanut Butter” and “Bar Mitzvah for the First Jewish
Fish”), but Jennifer Perry in Broadwayworld.com found “almost all” of the
numbers “pleasant,”
Nick Blaemire wrote Soon’s book, lyrics, and music, and had earlier
contributed the lyrics and music for Glory Days, which in 2008 had played
at the Signature Theatre prior to its Broadway run of one performance.
Another musical look at life in an underwater Manhattan was
delightfully encapsulated in Sheldon Harnick’s “The Sea Is All Around Us”
from Ben Bagley’s Shoestring Revue (1958). Arte Johnson introduced the
song about a water-logged New York City, now a Runyonland of grunion,
where gefilte-fishing is common, and where crosstown submarines take
diners to the Tavern in the Green. (Could Harnick’s gefilte fish be related to
Soon’s Jewish fish?)
2015–2016 Season
AMAZING GRACE

Opening Date: July 16, 2015; Closing Date: October 25, 2015
Performances: 116
Book: Christopher Smith and Arthur Giron; additional material by Karen
Burgman, Dr. Joseph Ohrt, Alana K. Smith, and Dr. Sarah Gulish
Lyrics and Music: Christopher Smith; incidental music by Joseph Church
Direction: Gabriel Barre (Kim Weild, Associate Director); Producers:
Carolyn Rossi Copeland, Alexander Rankin, and AG Funding LLC;
Choreography: Christopher Gattelli (Shanna Vanderwerker, Associate
Choreographer); Fight and Military Movement: David Leong; Scenery:
Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce;Costumes: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting:
Ken Billington and Paul Miller; Musical Direction: Joseph Church
Cast: Chuck Cooper (Pakuteh aka Thomas), Josh Young (John Newton),
Tom Hewitt (Captain Newton) Stanley Bahorek (Robert Haweis), Erin
Mackey (Mary Catlett), Laiona Michelle (Nanna), Elizabeth Ward Land
(Mrs. Catlett), Chris Hoch (Major Gray), Toni Elizabeth White
(Tennah), Mike Evariste (Mr. Tyler), Vince Oddo (Mr. Quigley),
Rachael Ferrera (Yema), Harriett D. Foy (Princess Peyai), Savannah
Frazier (Sophie), Michael Dean Morgan (Mr. Einhorn, Prince
Frederick), Allen Kendall (Mr. Whitley), Gavriel Savit (Briggs),
Christopher Gurr (Billingsley, Monsieur Clow); Ensemble: Leslie
Becker, Sara Brophy, Rheaume Crenshaw, Miquel Edson, Mike
Evariste, Sean Ewing, Savannah Frazier, Christopher Gurr, Allen
Kendall, Michael Dean Morgan, Vince Oddo, Oneika Phillips, Clifton
Samuels, Gavriel Savit, Dan Sharkey, Evan Alexander Smith, Uyoata
Udi, Charles E. Wallace, Toni Elizabeth White
The action takes place in 1744 and the following years in such locales as
Chatham, England, at sea aboard the HMS Harwich, Sierra Leone, at
sea aboard the Greyhound, and in Barbados.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Chuck Cooper); “Truly Alive” (Josh Young, Tom
Hewitt); “The Auction” (Josh Young); “Someone Who Hears” (Erin
Mackey, Josh Young); “Yema’s Song” (Rachael Ferrera, Laiona
Michelle, Ensemble); “Voices of the Angels” (Erin Mackey); “Rule
Britannia” (Erin Mackey, Company); “We Are Determined” (Mike
Evariste, Michael Dean Morgan, Vince Oddo, Company); “Each and
Every Life” (Chuck Cooper); “No Negotiation” (Gavriel Savit, Sailors);
“Never” (Josh Young); “Shadows of Innocence” (Josh Young, Erin
Mackey, Ensemble); “Expectations” (Chris Hoch)
Act Two: “Welcome Song” (Harriett D. Foy, Ensemble); “Sing on High”
(Company); “Tell Me Why” (Erin Mackey); “Yema’s Song” (reprise)
(Rachael Ferrera); “A Chance for Me” (Tom Hewitt); “Nowhere Left to
Run” (Chuck Cooper); “Daybreak” (Laiona Michelle); “I Still Believe”
(Erin Mackey); “Testimony” (Josh Young); “I Will Remember” (Josh
Young); “Rule Britannia” (reprise) (Erin Mackey); “Nothing There to
Love” (Josh Young, Eric Mackey); “Amazing Grace” (lyric by John
Newton) (Company)
Amazing Grace was an account of the British sailor and later clergyman
John Newton (1725–1807) who wrote the words of the famous hymn
“Amazing Grace.” He was originally a slave trader, but when he embraced
the Christian faith he worked vigilantly to abolish slavery in Britain.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times found the evening similar to a
melodramatic and “overstuffed history lesson” with a “standard-issue
romantic subplot” and a “pleasant and serviceable” score. The dialogue
included “talking points” and some “faintly preposterous excesses,” and
Newton’s “conversion from slave trader to God-fearing abolitionist”
occurred “whiplash-fast.” The New Yorker noted that director Gabriel
Barre’s production was “a fine enough spectacle” and a “worthy effort,” but
was “all too noble and pat.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the score for the $16 million musical was
“overblown but serviceable” and the book “straightforward” and “old-
fashioned.” If the show was to succeed, it needed to successfully tap into
the target audience of “Christian congregations and other faith-based
groups” who would respond to the “epic-scaled saga.” Unfortunately, the
musical didn’t quite find its audience and closed after little more than three
months on Broadway.
The musical had originally been presented by Goodspeed Musicals
(Chester, Connecticut).
During the Broadway run, three numbers were dropped from the score
(“Prologue,” “Each and Every Life,” and “No Negotiation”). The cast
album was released by DMI Soundtracks. Note that in the years following
the Broadway production, a revised ninety-minute one-act version of the
musical was given in select venues, including performances at the Museum
of the Bible’s Pure Flix World Stage Theatre in Washington, D.C.
PENN & TELLER ON BROADWAY

Opening Date: July 12, 2015; Closing Date: August 16, 2015
Performances: 41
Material: Penn Jillette and Teller
Music: Mike Jones
Direction: John Rando; Magic Consultant: Johnny Thompson; Producers:
Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, Tom Viertel, Steven Baruch, Jason Van
Eman, and Ben McConley in association with Glenn S. Alai; Scenery:
Daniel Conway; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical Direction: Mike Jones
Cast: Penn (Jillette), Teller, Mike Jones (Pianist), Georgie Bernasek
(Showgirl)
The magic revue was presented in one act.
Comedy, Magic, and Musical Sequences

“Turn On Your Cell Phones”; “Pulling a Rabbit Out of a Hat”; “T.S.A.”;
“Red Ball”; “Psychic Connection”; “He’s a Little Teapot”; “Penn &
Teller: One-Minute Egg”; “Polyester in Excelsis Deo”; “Looks Simple”;
“East Indian Needle Mystery”; “Sawing a Woman into Halves”;
“Silverfish”; “Close-Up Magic with Little Cows”; “Nail Gun”; “The
Vanishing Elephant”; “Shadows”; “10-in-1”
Penn & Teller on Broadway was a limited engagement that starred Penn
Jillette and Teller, comic magicians who might best be described as a
postmodern Houdini duo. Penn was the tall and gabby one, Teller the
almost-always-silent and slightly subversive one, and their unique blend of
yin and yang sloughed aside the mystique and mystery attendant with so
many magic shows.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that even in the cavernous
Marquis Theatre Penn and Teller were “almost as intimate as a sidewalk
game of three-card monte,” and their chemistry was “ingeniously and
reassuringly” based on such comic archetypes as Mutt and Jeff, Laurel and
Hardy, and Groucho and Harpo. Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the evening
was an exercise in “non-stop foolery that can be divided into pranks, stunts,
tricks, illusions, deceptions, and baffling feats of—for want of a better word
—magic.” And the New Yorker said the duo preached “their goofy gospel of
skepticism” and wanted “their audiences to know that what they do isn’t
magic, because—duh—magic doesn’t exist.” But that didn’t prevent Penn
and Teller from indulging in mind-reading, pulling a rabbit out of a hat,
sawing a woman in half, swallowing fire, making an elephant disappear
(Brantley noted it wasn’t “really” an elephant, but “I won’t tell you what it
is”), crushing an egg and then restoring it to its original glory, and
swallowing loose needles which (magically?) emerge from said throat as a
needle necklace.
And just how sly and subversive were these two? Well, the opening
number was titled “Turn On Your Cell Phones,” and after the show they
(magically?) appeared in the lobby, chatted with audience members, and
happily posed for selfies.
The team’s first major New York appearance was Penn & Teller, which
opened Off-Broadway at the Westside Arts Theatre/Downstairs on April 18,
1985, for 666 showings. From there, Penn & Teller opened on Broadway at
the Ritz Theatre for 130 performances beginning on December 1, 1987.
And Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour opened at the Eugene O’Neill
Theatre on April 3, 1991, for 103 performances, and then, as Penn & Teller
Rot in Hell, the production transferred Off-Broadway to the John Houseman
Theatre on July 30, 1991, for 203 performances. They later played at the
Beacon Theatre on June 6, 2000, for a limited engagement of 8
performances, and were guest narrators for one week late in the run of the
2000 Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show, which opened at the
Circle in the Square on November 15 for 437 performances.
HAMILTON
“AN AMERICAN MUSICAL”

Opening Date: August 6, 2015; Closing Date: Still playing as of December
31, 2019
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
Direction: Thomas Kail; Producers: Jeffrey Seller, Sander Jacobs, Jill
Furman, and The Public Theatre (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director);
Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler; Scenery: David Korins;
Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction:
Alex Lacamoire
Cast: Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton), Javier Munoz
(Alexander Hamilton for Sunday matinees), Phillipa Soo (Eliza
Hamilton), Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Renee Elise Goldsberry
(Angelica Schuyler), Christopher Jackson (George Washington),
Daveed Diggs (Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson), Okieriete
Onaodowan (Hercules Mulligan, James Madison), Anthony Ramos
(John Laurens, Philip Hamilton), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Peggy
Schuyler, Maria Reynolds), Jonathan Groff (King George), Sydney
James Harcourt (Philip Schuyler, James Reynolds, Doctor), Thayne
Jasperson (Samuel Seabury), Jon Rua (Charles Lee), Ephraim Sykes
(George Eacker); Ensemble: Carleigh Bettiol, Ariana DeBose, Lexi
Garcia, Sydney James Harcourt, Sasha Hutchings, Thayne Jasperson,
Emmy Raver-Lampman, Jon Rua, Austin Smith, Seth Stewart, Betsy
Struxness, Ephraim Sykes; Note: Ensemble members Ariana DeBose
and Sasha Hutchings played the respective roles of Martha and Dolly.
The action takes place mostly in New York City during the period from the
1750s to 1804.
Musical Numbers
Note: The list of musical numbers is taken from the program, which didn’t
include the names of the characters/performers who sang the specific
songs.
Act One: “Alexander Hamilton” (Leslie Odom Jr., Anthony Ramos,
Daveed Diggs, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Phillipa Soo, Christopher Jackson,
Company); “My Shot” (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Ramos, Daveed
Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Leslie Odom Jr., Company); “The Story
of Tonight” (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Ramos, Okieriete
Onaodowan, Daveed Diggs, Company); “The Schuyler Sisters” (Renee
Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Leslie Odom Jr.,
Company); “Farmer Refuted” (Thayne Jasperson, Lin-Manuel Miranda,
Company); “You’ll Be Back” (Jonathan Groff, Company); “Right Hand
Man” (Christopher Jackson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr.,
Company); “Helpless” (Phillipa Soo, Company); “Satisfied” (Renee
Elise Goldsberry, Company); “Wait for It” (Leslie Odom Jr., Company);
“Stay Alive” (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Christopher Jackson, Anthony
Ramos, Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Jon Rua, Phillipa Soo,
Renee Elise Goldsberry, Company); “Ten Duel Commandments”
(Anthony Ramos, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jon Rua, Leslie Odom Jr.,
Company); “That Would Be Enough” (Phillipa Soo, Lin-Manuel
Miranda); “History Has Its Eye on You” (Christopher Jackson, Lin-
Manuel Miranda, Company); “Yorktown” (Lin-Manuel Miranda,
Daveed Diggs, Anthony Ramos, Okieriete Onaodowan, Christopher
Jackson, Company); “Dear Theodosia” (Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel
Miranda); “Non-Stop” (Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Renee
Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, Christopher Jackson, Company)
Act Two: “What I’d Miss” (Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr., Okieriete
Onaodowan, Company); “Take a Break” (Phillipa Soo, Anthony Ramos,
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Renee Elise Goldsberry); “Say No to This”
(Jasmine Cephas Jones, Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sydney
James Harcourt, Company); “The Room Where It Happens” (Leslie
Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan,
Company); “Schuyler Defeated” (Anthony Ramos, Phillipa Soo, Lin-
Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr.); “Washington on Your Side” (Leslie
Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Company) ; “One Last
Time” (Christopher Jackson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Company); “The
Adams Administration” (Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Lin-Manuel
Miranda, Okieriete Onaodowan, Company); “Hurricane” (Lin-Manuel
Miranda, Company); “The Reynolds Pamphlet” (Daveed Diggs,
Okieriete Onaodowan, Leslie Odom Jr., Renee Elise Goldsberry,
Sydney James Harcourt, Company); “Burn” (Phillipa Soo); “Blow Us
All Away” (Anthony Ramos, Ariana DuBose, Sasha Hutchings,
Ephraim Sykes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Company); “It’s Quiet Uptown”
(Renee Elise Goldsberry, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Phillipa Soo,
Company); “The Election of 1800” (Daveed Diggs, Okieriete
Onaodowan, Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Company); “Your
Obedient Servant” (Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Company);
“The World Was Wide Enough” (Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda,
Company); Finale (Company)
During each decade, there’s always one musical that is acclaimed by

critics, is popular with audiences, becomes the zeitgeist of its era, is
sometimes influential in the development of musical theatre, and almost
always permeates if not dominates the culture of its time. These once-a-
decade shows filter into the public consciousness and even attract the
attention of those who don’t follow musical theatre.
Franz Lehar’s 1905 Viennese operetta The Merry Widow opened on
Broadway in 1907 and became one of the longest-running musicals of its
era. It institutionalized Grustarkian operetta as a staple on Broadway for
decades to come. Everyone in the world knew its songs (especially the
irresistible “Merry Widow Waltz”), and the work all but defined the word
operetta. The definitive musical of the 1910s didn’t premiere until 1919, but
when Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy’s Irene opened, its modern take
on the traditional Cinderella story captured the imagination of the public,
who made the show the longest-running book musical in Broadway history
up to that time. Soon Cinderella musicals dominated Broadway, and a half-
century later the biggest Cinderella show of them all opened and My Fair
Lady became the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
The 1920s saw the premiere of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome
Kern’s Show Boat, which became the decade’s second-longest-running
musical and changed the direction of the American musical theatre. The
serious work dealt with heretofore verboten musical-theatre subjects,
including racism, miscegenation, alcoholism, and dysfunctional marriages.
The 1930s offered George and Ira Gershwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Of
Thee I Sing, a political satire the like of which New York had never seen. It
ran over a year, and paved the way for the decade’s numerous revues and
book musicals that looked at the political events of the time, including the
Depression and the growing threat of fascism in Europe. For the 1940s,
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Oklahoma! fused song,
dance, and story into a lighthearted plot laced with occasional darkness, and
the work became the longest-running musical in Broadway history, a crown
it held until Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady opened
in the 1950s and dominated the era with its familiar Cinderella story and
enchanting songs.
In the 1960s, James Rado, Gerome Ragni, and Galt MacDermot’s Hair
became the first popular rock musical, and it spawned similar shows both
on and off Broadway and introduced a scrappy in-your-face attitude that
mocked the status quo, celebrated rebellion, and offered a touch of
gratuitous nudity, which kept the box office busy. For the 1970s, Edward
Kleban and Marvin Hamlisch’s A Chorus Line was the ultimate concept
musical. It looked at a group of dancers hoping to land roles in a new
Broadway show, and inspired a number of “line” shows that took revue-like
looks at such diverse groups as prisoners (On-the Lock-In), angst-ridden
adolescents (Runaways), blue-collar workers (Working), and the elderly (My
Old Friends).
The 1980s obliged with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, a British import
that dominated Broadway for years and ushered in the so-called British
invasion of Broadway with de rigueur power ballads and grandiose scenic
effects (otherwise known as chandelier moments, thanks to Webber’s
Phantom of the Opera). The 1990s offered its own version of Hair with
Jonathan Larson’s mega-hit Rent, which celebrated the grungy world of the
East Village with story and characters inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème.
And the 2000s followed with Mel Brooks’s The Producers, which kidded
musical comedy conventions and inspired a number of similarly ironic
shows, including Spamalot and Something Rotten!
And so it was with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, which was based
on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton (born in either
1755 or 1757, and who died in 1804 as the result of a duel with Aaron
Burr), who, among other accomplishments, became the first Secretary of
the Treasury and founded the New York Post. It may be too early to define
Hamilton’s specific place in the history of Broadway theatre, but no one can
question its overwhelming success and its ability to reach audiences,
including those who don’t care or know much about musicals and
Broadway. But they all know about Hamilton, and perhaps going into the
show they know that the score draws upon many musical styles, including
rap and hip-hop, and that with the exception of King George all the white
characters were played by performers of color.
Did the critics like the musical? Well, yes: “There has been nothing on
Broadway in the past twenty years to rival the riveting, exhilarating and
haunting” musical (Elysa Gardner in USA Today); “The best and most
important Broadway musical in the past decade” (Terry Teachout in the
Wall Street Journal); “Broadway is officially the coolest place on the
planet” (Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News); an “electrifying
adaptation” (Jeremy Gerard in Deadline); an “audaciously ambitious and
supremely executed new musical” (Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune);
Hamilton “makes us feel the unstoppable, urgent rhythm of a nation being
born” (Ben Brantley in the New York Times); besides rap and hip-hop, the
“blazing” and “innovative” show offers a score that draws upon “all
available styles and musical sources, from nursery lullaby to rock ’n’ roll
and operetta” (Marilyn Stasio in Variety); and an “exciting and venturesome
new musical with something to please everybody,” and “you’ll walk out
humming the Constitution” (Richard Zoglin in Time).
Hilton Als in the New Yorker and Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York
Post offered interesting observations about the work. Als’s review was
almost as iconoclastic as the musical itself, and he noted that most of the
leading male characters were “Testosterone Tommies” whose “unbridled
masculinity” made audiences “jumpy and excited.” The characters weren’t
drawn from the “usual ‘gay’ work” of the traditional musical (and so at first
the men don’t sing about “feelings”), and instead “they’re guys in a circle
jerk, and the lube is ambition, chicks, and power.” But once Hamilton
himself (Miranda) becomes involved with Eliza Schuyler (Phillipa Soo) and
political intrigues, the evening’s “radicalism” was “slowly drained,” the
“resulting corpse” was “a conventional love story,” and the “standard
narrative” was that of a man “undone” by a woman. Further, the “most
meaningful love story” in the musical is between Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.)
and Hamilton, and so when Burr fires the fatal shot at Hamilton we see that
Hamilton’s “regret” is not the loss of his life and family but the “treasured
competition and camaraderie of his and Burr’s bromance.”
Vincentelli said Hamilton was a “phenomenon” but not a
“‘revolutionary’” show. Unlike “radical art,” which is “divisive,” the
musical was “warmly reassuring.” There were also scenes where Miranda’s
“limitations as an actor are obvious,” and “history-with-a-capital-H stuff”
was “less effective” because despite the cleverness of “turning political
debate into a rap battle,” the “big-picture importance” of Hamilton was
“diluted” and one was left to ask just “what did that guy do, exactly?”
The musical was originally presented Off-Broadway at the Public
Theatre, where it opened on February 17, 2015 (Brian d’Arcy James played
the role of King George, and for Broadway was succeeded by Jonathan
Groff). The original cast album was released on a two-CD set and a vinyl
two-record set by Atlantic Records. In addition, Atlantic’s The “Hamilton”
Mixtape offers songs from the production (including three previously
unreleased demos) performed by various artists (these recordings are issued
in both “explicit” and “edited” editions). Lullaby Versions of “Hamilton”
from the Broadway Musical was released by Roma Music Group.
The hardback Hamilton: The Revolution includes the script and was
published by Grand Central Publishing in 2016. Two books about the
musical are the paperbacks Who Tells Your Story? History, Pop Culture, and
Hidden Meanings in the Musical Phenomenon “Hamilton”: The
Unauthorized Guide by Valerie Estelle Frankel (published in 2016 by
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) and 499 Facts about Hip-
Hop “Hamilton” and the Rest of America’s Founding Fathers by Stephen
Spignesi (published in 2016 by Skyhouse Publishing). The London
production opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre on December 21, 2017.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Hamilton); Best Book (Lin-
Manuel Miranda); Best Score (lyrics and music by Lin-Manuel
Miranda); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Leslie Odom Jr.); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading
Role in a Musical (Lin-Manuel Miranda); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Phillipa Soo); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Daveed
Diggs); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Jonathan Groff); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a
Musical (Christopher Jackson); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Renee Elise Goldsberry); Best
Choreography (Andy Blankenbueler); Best Direction of a Musical
(Thomas Kail); Best Orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire); Best Scenic
Design of a Musical (David Korins); Best Costume Design of a Musical
(Paul Tazewell); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Howell Binkley)
New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award: Best Musical (Hamilton)
Pulitzer Prize: Best Drama (Hamilton)
SPRING AWAKENING
Performances: 135
Book and Lyrics: Steven Sater
Music: Duncan Sheik
Based on the 1891 play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind.
Direction: Michael Arlen (Blake Silver, Associate Director); Producers:
Ken Davenport, Cody Lassen, Hunter Arnold, and Deaf West Theatre
(David J. Kurs, Artistic Director) with Carl Daikeler, Sandi Moran,
Chockstone Pictures, Caiola Productions, H. Richard Hopper,
Learytodd Productions, R&D Theatricals, Brian Cromwell Smith,
Invisible Wall Productions, and Monica Moran Rosenthal; A Deaf West
Theatre Production; Kayla Greenspan and Alice Rix, Associate
Producers; Choreography: Spencer Liff (Alexandria Wailes); Scenery
and Costumes: Dane Laffrey; Projection Design: Lucy Mackinnon;
Lighting: Ben Stanton; Musical Direction: Jared Stein, Musical
Supervisor
Cast: Miles Barbee (Otto), Katie Boeck (Voice of Wendla, Guitar, Piano),
Alex Boniello (Voice of Moritz, Guitar), Joshua Castille (Ernst), Daniel
N. Durant (Moritz), Treshelle Edmond (Martha), Sandra Mae Frank
(Wendla), Kathryn Gallagher (Voice of Martha, Guitar), Sean Grandillo
(Voice of Otto, Bass), Russell Harvard (Headmaster Knochenbruch,
Herr Stiefel, Father Kaulbach), Amelia Hensley (Thea), Lauren Luiz
(Melitta, Voice of Thea), Camryn Manheim (Frau Bergmann, Fraulein
Knuppeldick, Fraulein Grobebustenhalter), Marlee Matlin (Frau Gabor,
Frau Bessell, Frau Schmidt), Austin P. McKenzie (Melchior), Andy
Mientus (Hanschen), Patrick Page (Herr Sonnenstich, Herr Rilow,
Doctor Von Brausepulver, Herr Gabor), Krysta Rodriguez (Ilse), Daniel
David Stewart (Voice of Ernst, Piano), Ali Stroker (Anna), Alexandra
Winter (Greta, Harp, Harmonium), Alex Wyse (Georg)
The action takes place in a provincial German town in the 1890s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Mama Who Bore Me” (Sandra Mae Frank, Katie Boeck);
“Mama Who Bore Me” (reprise) (Girls); “All That’s Known” (Austin P.
McKenzie); “The Bitch of Living” (Daniel N. Durant, Alex Boniello,
Boys); “My Junk” (Girls, Boys); “Touch Me” (Boys, Girls); “The World
of Your Body” (Sandra Mae Frank, Katie Boeck, Austin P. McKenzie);
“The Dark I Know Well” (Treshelle Edmond, Kathryn Gallagher,
Krysta Rodriguez, Girls, Boys); “And Then There Were None” (Daniel
N. Durant, Alex Boniello, Boys); “The Mirror-Blue Night” (Austin P.
McKenzie, Boys); “I Believe” (Boys, Girls)
Act Two: “The Guilty Ones” (Sandra Mae Frank, Katie Boeck, Austin P.
McKenzie, Boys, Girls); “Don’t Do Sadness” (Daniel N. Durant, Alex
Boniello); “Blue Wind” (Krysta Rodriguez, Daniel N. Durant, Alex
Boniello); “Left Behind” (Austin P. McKenzie); “Totally Fucked”
(Austin P. McKenzie, Boys, Girls); “The World of Your Body” (reprise)
(Andy Mientus, Joshua Castille, Daniel David Stewart, Boys, Girls);
“Whispering” (Sandra Mae Frank, Katie Boeck); “Those You’ve
Known” (Daniel N. Durant, Alex Boniello, Sandra Mae Frank, Katie
Boeck, Austin P. McKenzie); “The Song of Purple Summer”
(Company)
The limited-engagement revival of Spring Awakening came along less
than six years after the original production had closed, but in this case the
revival was a Deaf West Theatre Production. In 2003, Deaf West had
presented a limited run of Big River on Broadway, and like that production
Spring Awakening utilized a combination of singing/speaking and non-
speaking performers, and of the latter some were completely deaf while
others were hearing impaired. In some cases, two performers played the
same role, one speaking (and singing), the other non-speaking. The
combination of speech, song, and sign language resulted in a unique
evening of theatre, and sometimes the double-casting effect allowed
innovative and amusing takes on what could have been ordinary stage
business. For example, in Big River two actors played the role of Pap, and
when one actor took a swig of moonshine, the other wiped his mouth on his
sleeve.
Based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play of the same name, the musical
was first given Off-Broadway on June 15, 2006, by the Atlantic Theatre
Company for 54 performances and then transferred to Broadway at the
Eugene O’Neill on December 10 of that year where it enjoyed a run of 859
performances, won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best
Musical, and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score,
Best Book, Best Direction, and Best Choreography.
The show’s creators were clearly sincere in their effort to present a
musical that dealt frankly with the sexual awakening of a group of
adolescents in the Germany of 1891, and the dialogue was generally formal
in the manner of the period. Otherwise, the performance style reflected the
attitudes of the present, and the lyrics were peppered with vulgarity; further,
the score was rock-driven and sometimes the performers sang in rock-
concert fashion. The juxtaposition of the 1891 timeframe and the present
day worked for many, but one felt the evening was neither-nor and might
have been more satisfying and certainly more ironic had the lyrics and
music utilized or at least reflected some of the musical styles of the early
1890s.
The story itself was tiresome with its endless array of angst-ridden
adolescents, all of whom seemed embroiled in over-the-top melodramatic
and overwrought episodes worthy of an X-rated soap opera. The plot
included unwanted pregnancy, gay romance, rape, child molestation, two
deaths (one a suicide, the other from illness), group masturbation, and a
flashy hands-on solo masturbation act. And if the kids were just poor
misunderstood innocents trying to make their way through a sexual forest,
the adults were of course depicted as cruel, bumbling, or indifferent.
The critics praised the original production. Charles Isherwood in the
New York Times found the work “brave,” “haunting,” and “electrifying,”
said the score was “ravishing,” and in an oh, please moment stated that with
the premiere of the musical, Broadway “may never be the same.” David
Rooney in Variety said the evening was “exhilarating” and “truly original.”
Ten years earlier, critics and audiences had swooned over Rent, which at the
time was considered just about the last word in edgy, iconoclastic musical
theatre. But for Rooney, Rent was now “hampered by bad-ass, living-on-
the-edge posturing” while Spring Awakening had “an authenticity that
connects the show directly to the generation being depicted.”
For the revival, Alex Ross in the New Yorker said the pairing of
speaking and non-speaking performers gave the musical “unexpected
force,” and while the story about misunderstood adolescents was a
“familiar” one and sometimes the writers “accomplished” their adaptation
by means of “heavy-handed revision,” the story was both “particular and
universal” and invited “sympathy for all outcasts.” Peter Debruge in Variety
found the production more a “reinvention” than a revival, and noted the
story showed how the deaf characters were “directly impacted” by the
1880’s Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf (which at
that time favored lip-reading instead of sign language). Debruge also
offered an example of the effective utilization of two performers playing the
same character. In one scene, the deaf character looks at herself in the
mirror while the speaking and singing character is on the other side, and the
former hands the latter an electric guitar, which leads into the opening song
“Mama Who Bore Me.”
The cast album of the 2006 production was released by Decca
Broadway Records and came with a parental advisory. As Fruhlings
Erwachen (with the tagline “Das Rock-Musical”), a German cast recording
was issued by HitSquad Records, and a Frankfurt cast album (performed in
English) was also released. The script was published in paperback by
Theatre Communications Group in 2007, and the hardback Spring
Awakening: In the Flesh was published in hardback by Simon Spotlight
Entertainment in 2008 and includes the “unabridged” libretto (the volume is
self-described as “the official companion to the Broadway musical,” and for
some reason was “designed to resemble a vandalized book”). Note that the
following songs were cut during preproduction and during the Off-
Broadway run: “Great Sex,” “The Clouds Will Drift Away,” “All Numb,”
“A Comet on Its Way,” and “There Once Was a Pirate.”
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Spring Awakening);
Best Direction of a Musical (Michael Arden); Best Lighting Design of a
Musical (Ben Stanton)
DAMES AT SEA
Theatre: Helen Hayes Theatre
Performances: 85
Book and Lyrics: George Haimsohn and Robin Miller
Music: Jim Wise
Direction and Choreography: Randy Skinner; Producers: Infinity Theatre
Company-Anna Roberts Ostroff and Alan Ostroff, Martin Platt and
David Elliott, Patricia M. Roberts and Bert C. Roberts, Carl Berg,
Louise H. Beard, Julie Boardman/Sarabeth Grossman, and Douglas and
Steven Maine/Chris and Dawn Ellis; Scenery: Anna Louizos; Costumes:
David C. Woolard; Lighting: Ken Billington/Jason Kantrowitz; Musical
Direction: Rob Berman
Cast: Lesli Margherita (Mona Kent), John Bolton (Hennesey, The Captain),
Mara Davi (Joan), Eloise Kropp (Ruby), Cary Tedder (Dick), Danny
Gardner (Lucky)
The action takes place during the early 1930s in a 42nd Street theatre and
on a battleship.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Wall Street” (Lesli Margherita); “It’s You”
(Cary Tedder, Eloise Kropp); “Broadway Baby” (Cary Tedder); “That
Mister Man of Mine” (Lesli Margherita, Company); “Choo-Choo
Honeymoon” (Mara Davi, Danny Gardner); “The Sailor of My Dreams”
(lyric by George Haimsohn) (Eloise Kropp); “Singapore Sue” (lyric by
George Haimsohn) (Danny Gardner, Company); “Broadway Baby”
(reprise) (John Bolton); “Good Times Are Here to Stay” (lyric by
George Haimsohn) (Mara Davi, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Dames at Sea” (Company); “The
Beguine” (Lesli Margherita, John Bolton, Company); “Raining in My
Heart” (Eloise Kropp, Company); “There’s Something about You”
(Cary Tedder, Eloise Kropp); “Raining in My Heart” (reprise) (John
Bolton); “The Echo Waltz” (lyric by George Haimsohn) (Lesli
Margherita, Mara Davi, Eloise Kropp, Company); “Star Tar” (Eloise
Kropp, Company); “Let’s Have a Simple Wedding” (Company)
Dames at Sea was an affectionate spoof of 1930s Warner Brothers’

musicals, and when it opened Off-Broadway at the postage stamp–sized
Bouwerie Lane Theatre on December 20, 1968, it was an immediate hit that
ran for 575 performances (during the run, the musical transferred to the
Theatre de Lys). The story was the one about Ruby (Bernadette Peters in
the original production, Eloise Kropp in the current revival), the girl who
just got off the bus from podunk and wants to be the star of a Broadway
show.
With book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music
by Jim Wise, the musical pushed all the right buttons with its sly winks at
the stories, songs, and comic shtick that populated such Warner Brothers’
classics as 42nd Street (1933), Dames (1934), and the Gold Diggers series.
Ruby meets her Dick and they fall in love, and she becomes a star. Along
the way she meets the wisecracking chorine Joan and the tempestuous
leading lady Mona Kent. The song titles read like a catalog of early 1930s
numbers: “Choo-Choo Honeymoon,” “Singapore Sue,” “The Echo Waltz,”
“The Beguine,” and “Good Times Are Here to Stay.” The homage worked
smoothly because the story and score were performed straight by Ruby and
Dick and peppered with camp by Joan, Mona, and the rest of the gang.
The lyrics were especially endearing, with such standouts as Mona’s
“That Mister Man of Mine” (Mona had no choice but to dump her sugar
daddy once he lost his fortune in the Crash); Ruby’s “Raining in My Heart”
(what good are rubbers when you’ve lost your Dick?); and the sultry
“Beguine” (in which Mona and a long-ago flame recall their youthful
romance in the exotic tropical splendor of Pensacola, Florida).
The musical put Bernadette Peters on the map as the stage-struck Ruby
(Keeler), and it was her second Off-Broadway excursion into 1930s camp.
She’d previously appeared as Alice (Faye) in the Shirley Temple-musical
send-up Curley McDimple, which opened at the Bert Wheeler Theatre on
November 22, 1967, for 931 performances.
When the current Broadway production was first announced, one had
momentary misgivings. Would the new mounting be booked into a large
theatre with an expanded cast? Happily, no; the performers still numbered
six, and the booking was at the intimate Helen Hayes Theatre. But perhaps
time had passed the musical by, at least for New York, whose audiences had
seen Gower Champion’s lavish 1980 production of 42nd Street (which
played for 3,486 performances and was later revived in 2001 for 1,524
showings) as well as numerous nostalgia-laden revivals of the No, No,
Nanette (1971) and Irene (1973) ilk, not to mention the George Gershwin
catalog musicals My One and Only (1983), Crazy for You (1992), and Nice
Work If You Can Get It (2012).
As a result, the revival of Dames at Sea managed just eleven weeks on
Broadway, and one suspects the show is now best suited for community,
college, and regional theatre.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times decided “nostalgia ain’t what
it used to be,” and the once “pert” musical now had “a faint whiff of
mothballs.” But the score was still a “skillful pastiche,” the book “merrily
hopscotch[d] from cliché to cliché,” Randy Skinner’s “exuberant”
choreography offered “a whole lot of hearty hoofing,” and the cast was
“entirely charming.” But ultimately the show foundered because of its
“familiarity,” and sometimes the “miniature” musical seemed “just a little,
well, at sea.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety found the story “an affectionate—and smartly
constructed—sendup” of Old Hollywood, and the score made “clever
references to period songs and popular songwriters,” and the New Yorker
said the “delightful” show offered “very gay hilarity” and was “so fresh that
it feels as if all just materialized for you.”
As Dames at Sea, or Golddiggers Afloat, the musical was first presented
Off-Off-Broadway in May 1966 at the Caffe Cino, where it played for
thirteen weeks; the company included Peters and David Christmas (Dick),
both of whom reprised their roles for the 1968 Off-Broadway production.
The show was revived Off-Broadway at the Plaza 9 Music Hall on
September 23, 1970, for 170 performances (with Leland Palmer and Kurt
Peterson) and then at the Lamb’s Theatre on June 12, 1985, for 278
showings (Donna Kane and George Dvorsky). There were two Off-Off-
Broadway productions, the first at the Harold Clurman Theatre on
December 2, 1994, for thirteen performances (Kristin Chenoweth) and the
second by the Jean Cocteau Repertory (located in what had once been the
Bouwerie Lane Theatre, the home of the 1968 production) for a brief
revival on September 3, 2004.
A television version scripted by Haimsohn and Miller was presented by
NBC on November 15, 1971, with Ann-Margret, Ann Miller, Anne Meara,
Fred Gwynne, Dick Shawn, and Harvey Evans, and a London production
was given at the Duchess Theatre on August 27, 1969, for 117
performances.
There are at least four recordings of the score: the 1968 Off-Broadway
version released by Columbia Records; the television adaptation on a
privately produced and unnumbered LP by the Bell System Family Theatre;
the London version by CBS Records; and a later 1989 British production by
That’s Entertainment Records. The script was published in paperback by
Samuel French in 1969.
For those in the audience ready to take offense by the title of the song
“Star Tar,” a note in the program helpfully explained that the word tar is
“Navy slang for ‘sailor.’”
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Choreography (Randy Skinner)
ON YOUR FEET!
Opening Date: November 5, 2015; Closing Date: August 20, 2017
Performances: 746
Book: Alexander Dinelaris
Direction: Jerry Mitchell (Andy Senor Jr., Associate Director); Producers:
James L. Nederlander, Estefan Enterprises, Inc., Bernie Yuman, Roy
Furman, Terry Allen Kramer, Catherine Adler, Caiola Productions, Reg.
Grove, IPN/Albert Nocciolino, Stewart F. Lane/Bonnie Comley,
Pittsburgh CLO, Eva Price, Iris Smith, Broadway Across America,
Larry Hirschhorn/Double Gemini Productions, Marc David
Levine/Burnt Umber Productions, and Stella La Rue/Lawrence S.
Toppall; Choreography: Sergio Trujillo (Maria Torres and Marcos
Santana, Associate Choreographers); Scenery: David Rockwell;
Projection Design: Darrel Maloney; Costumes: ESosa; Lighting: David
Posner; Musical Direction: Lon Hoyt
Cast: Josh Segarra (Emilio), Eduardo Hernandez (Nayib, Jeremy, Young
Emilio), Ana Villafane (Gloria), Alexandria Suarez (Little Gloria),
Eliseo Roman (Jose Fajardo, Guitarrista), Andrea Burns (Gloria
Fajardo), Alma Cuervo (Consuelo), Genny Lis Padilla (Rebecca),
Carlos E. Gonzalez (Kiki), Henry Gainza (Marquito, Guitarrista,
Marcello), Luis Salgado (Kenny), Lee Zarrett (Phil), Eric Ulloa
(Guitarrista, Chris, Doctor Neuwirth), David Baida (Big Paquito, Latin
DJ, Antonio), Omar Lopez-Cepero (American DJ, Warren), Doreen
Montalvo (Nena, Lucia), Nina Lefarga (Robin), Linedy Genao (Rachel),
Jennifer Sanchez (Amelia); Ensemble: David Baida, Henry Gainza,
Linedy Genao, Carlos E. Gonzalez, Nina Lafarga, Omar Lopez-Cepero,
Marielys Molina, Doreen Montalvo, Genny Lis Padilla, Liz Ramos,
Eliseo Roman, Luis Salgado, Jennifer Sanchez, Marcos Santana, Brett
Sturgis, Eric Ulloa, Tanairi Sade Vazquez, Lee Zarrett
The action takes place in Cuba and the United States during the general
period of the late 1950s through the early 1990s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” (lyric and music by Gloria M.
Estefan and Enrique E. Garcia) (Ana Villafane, Company); “Cuando
sali de Cuba” (lyric and music by Luis Maria Aguile) (Alexandria
Suarez); “Tradicion” (lyric and music by Emilio Estefan and Gloria M.
Estefan) (Alexandria Suarez, Ana Villafane, Company); “Anything for
You” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan) (Ana Villafane, Genny Lis
Padilla); “1-2-3” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan and Enrique E.
Garcia) (Ana Villafane, Company); “I See Your Smile” (lyric and music
by Jon Secada and Miguel Morejon) (Ana Villafane, Josh Segarra,
Company); “Mi tierra” (lyric and music by F. Estefano Salgado)
(Andrea Burns); “Con los anos que me quedan” (lyric and music by
Emilio Estefan and Gloria M. Estefan) (Henry Gainza, Eliseo Roman,
Eric Ulloa); “Here We Are” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan)
(Ana Villafane, Josh Segarra, Henry Gainza, Eliseo Roman, Eric Ulloa);
“Dr. Beat” (lyric and music by Enrique F. Garcia) (Company);”When
Someone Comes in Your Life” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan)
(Eliseo Roman, Ana Villafane); “Conga” (lyric and music by Enrique F.
Garcia) (Ana Villafane, Company)
Act Two: “Get on Your Feet” (lyric and music by Clay Ostwald, Jorge
Casas, and John De Faria) (Ana Villafane, Company); “Live for Loving
You” (lyric and music by Emilio Estefan, Gloria M. Estefan, and Diane
Warren) (Ana Villafane, Company); “You’ll Be Mine (Party Time)”
(lyric and music by Emilio Estefan, Clay Ostwald, and Lawrence
Dermer) (Ana Villafane, Company); “Oye mi canto” (lyric and music
by Gloria M. Estefan, Clay Ostwald, and Jorge Casas) (Ana Villafane,
Company); “Cuba libre” (lyric and music by Emilio Estefan, Gloria M.
Estefan, and Flavio “Kike” Santander) (Ana Villafane, Company);
“Famous” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan) (Ana Villafane); “If I
Never Got to Tell You” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan and
Emily Estefan) (Andrea Burns, Josh Segarra); “Wrapped” (lyric and
music by Gloria M. Estefan and Gian Marco J. Zignago Alcover) (Ana
Villafane, Alexandria Suarez, Eliseo Roman, Josh Segarra, Company);
“Don’t Wanna Lose You” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan) (Josh
Segarra, Company); “Reach” (lyric and music by Gloria M. Estefan and
Diane Warren) (Company); “Coming Out of the Dark” (lyric and music
by Emilio Estefan, Gloria M. Estefan, and Jon Secada) (Ana Villafane,
Company); The Mega Mix: “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” (reprise) (Ana
Villafane, Alexandria Suarez, Company); “Oye” (lyric and music by
Emilio Estefan, Gloria M. Estefan, Randall Barlow, and Anjeannette
Chirino) (Andrea Burns, Company); “Conga” (reprise) (Alma Cuervo,
Eliseo Roman, Company); “Turn the Beat Around” (lyric and music by
Gerald Jackson and Pete Jackson) (Genny Lis Padilla, Josh Segarra,
Company); “Everlasting Love” (lyric and music by Buzz Cason and
Mac Gayden) (Ana Villafane, Josh Segarra, Company); “Get on Your
Feet” (reprise) (Company)
On Your Feet!, which was subtitled The Story of Emilio & Gloria
Estefan, was a jukebox biography musical that looked at the lives and
careers of husband-and-wife singers Emilio and Gloria Estefan (Josh
Segarra and Ana Villafane), with a particular emphasis on the latter, who as
a child fled Cuba with her family during the revolution and settled in the
United States. The story looked at her warm relationship with her
grandmother Consuelo (Alma Cuervo), the testy one with her mother Gloria
Fajardo (Andrea Burns), and her musical career with her eventual husband
Emilio when they became worldwide singing sensations. The musical also
focused on a 1990 bus accident in which Gloria and her family were injured
and that resulted in serious, near-fatal injuries for her. She underwent
hospitalization and rehabilitation for more than a year, but the words of her
popular song “Get on Your Feet” were her inspiration, and she recovered
and indeed got back on her feet and resumed her remarkable career.
The musical played for twenty-two months on Broadway, enjoyed two
long-running national tours, and began a series of international productions.
The score was culled from songs popularized by the Estefans, and included
a new number (“If I Never Got to Tell You”).
Richard Zoglin in Time said the musical never quite rose above the
“conventions of its well-worn genre: the inspiration biomusical,” but it was
an “animated souvenir for fans” with “hot-wired” dances by Sergio Trujillo,
“brisk” direction by Jerry Mitchell, and a “fine” and “fiery” performance by
Villafane. The show lacked the “grit” and “nuance” of Jersey Boys and
Beautiful, and with its “simple” sets, “paint-by-numbers” dialogue, and an
“audience-participation” conga, the show was “less suited” for Broadway
than for a “long and fruitful life on the road.”
The New Yorker liked the “energizing renditions” of the songs and the
“athletic” dances, but wished jukebox musicals would abandon all
“pretense of plot” and emphasize the music. Charles Isherwood in the New
York Times said the “salsa-splashed” show was “familiar” but “fresh,” was
“half-formulaic” and “half-original,” and was an “undeniably crowd-
pleasing” musical. The book was “often mechanical,” the dialogue was by
“rote,” the story veered between “showbiz clichés and intimately observed
scenes of family life,” and the characters’ struggles were depicted with
“honesty if occasional shorthand.” But the dances were “uptempo,”
Villafane was “vibrant,” “feisty,” and “funny,” Segarra exuded “forceful
magnetism,” and the show had “zest” with “button-pushing
professionalism” by director Mitchell.
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the “sure-fire audience pleaser” was a
“splashy spectacle” with a “knockout” performance by Villafane, and in his
review of the first national tour Peter Marks in the Washington Post said
those audience members who weren’t as happy when they left the show as
when they arrived just weren’t “adequately in touch with their feelings”
because on stage there was always “a party going on” with “swivel-hipped”
dancers and plenty of “pizzazz.”
The Broadway cast album was taken from a live performance and was
released by Masterworks Broadway Records, and a two-record vinyl edition
was issued by Analog Spark Records. The music credits in the Broadway
program listed two songs (“90 millas” and “Si senor es mi son”) which
don’t seem to have been in the production (but which may have been heard
as background music).
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Choreography (Sergio Trujillo)
ALLEGIANCE
“A NEW MUSICAL INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY”

Opening Date: November 8, 2015; Closing Date: February 14, 2016
Performances: 111
Book: Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione
Lyrics and Music: Jay Kuo
Direction: Stafford Arima; Producers: Sing Out, Louise! Productions and
ATA with Mark Mugiishi/Hawaii HUI, Hunter Arnold, Ken Davenport,
Elliott Masie, Sandi Moran, Mabuhay Productions, Barbara Freitag/Eric
and Marsi Gardiner, Valiant Ventures, Wendy Gillespie, David Hiatt
Kraft, Norm and Diane Blumenthal, M. Bradley Calobrace, Karen Tanz,
and Gregory Rae/Mike Karns in association with Jas Grewal, Peter
Landin, and Ron Poison; Meryl Federman and Francis and Vanessa
Rementilla, Associate Producers; Choreography: Andrew Palermo;
Scenery: Donyale Werle; Projection Design: Darrel Maloney;
Costumes: Alejo Vietti; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction:
Laura Bergquist
Cast: Lea Salonga (Kei Kimura), George Takei (Sam Kimura, Ojii-chan),
Telly Leung (Sammy Kimura), Katie Rose Clarke (Hannah Campbell),
Michael L. Lee (Frankie Suzuki), Christopheren Nomura (Tatsuo
Kimura), Greg Watanabe (Mike Masaoka), Darren Lee (Doctor Tanaka,
Ben Masaoka), Rumi Oyama (Mrs. Tanaka), Catherine Ricafort (Betsy
Tanaka), Scott Watanabe (Mr. Maruyama), Janelle Toyomi Dote (Mrs.
Maruyama, Executor), Aaron J. Albano (Tom Maruyama), Momoko
Sugai (Peggy Maruyama), Marcus Choi (Johnny Goto), Elena Wang
(Nan Goto), Dan Horn (Private Evans, Recruiting Officer, Big Band
Singer, USO Pilot Singer), Scott Wise (Director Dillon, Farmer,
Photographer, USO Pilot Singer), Kevin Munhall (Private Knight,
Federal Agent, Tule Lake Guard, USO Pilot Singer); Ensemble: Aaron
J. Albano, Marcus Choi, Janelle Toyomi Dote, Dan Horn, Darren Lee,
Kevin Munhall, Rumi Oyama, Catherine Ricafort, Momoko Sugai,
Elena Wang, Scott Watanabe, Scott Wise
The action takes place during the years 1941–2001 in various locales that
include California, Wyoming, Washington, D.C., Italy, and France.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Prologue” (Lea Salonga, Company);”Wishes on the Wind” (Lea
Salonga, Telly Leung, Company); “Do Not Fight the Storm”
(Company); “Gaman” (Lea Salonga, Christopheren Nomura,
Company); “What Makes a Man” (Telly Leung); “I Oughta Go” (Katie
Rose Clarke, Telly Leung); “Get in the Game” (Telly Leung, Lea
Salonga, Company); “Should I” (Katie Rose Clarke); “Allegiance”
(Christopheren Nomura, Telly Leung, Lea Salonga, Company); “Ishi
Kara Ishi” (George Takei, Lea Salonga); “With You” (Dan Horn, Telly
Leung, Katie Rose Clarke); “Paradise” (Michael L. Lee, Company);
“Higher” (Lea Salonga); “Our Time Now” (Telly Leung, Michael L.
Lee, Lea Salonga, Katie Rose Clarke, Company)
Act Two: “Resist” (Michael L. Lee, Company); “This Is Not Over” (Lea
Salonga, Michael L. Lee); “Higher” and “Resist” (reprise) (Lea
Salonga, Company); “Stronger Than Before” (Lea Salonga, Katie Rose
Clarke); “With You” (reprise) (Telly Leung, Katie Rose Clarke);
“Nothing in Our Way” (Michael L. Lee, Lea Salonga); “Itetsuita”
(Company); “442 Victory Swing” (Dan Horn, Kevin Munhall, Scott
Wise, Company); “Higher” (reprise) and “Ishi Kara Ishi” (reprise) (Lea
Salonga, Christopheren Nomura); “How Can You Go?” (Lea Salonga,
Telly Leung); “Still a Chance” (Lea Salonga, Company)
Allegiance looked at the internment of Japanese-Americans during

World War II, a policy established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt by
executive order. The work was a well-meaning attempt to tell the story of
the enforced incarceration of over one hundred thousand U.S. citizens, but
it lasted little more than three months on Broadway. Perhaps potential
ticket-buyers were turned off by the subject matter and thought the evening
would be a preachy civics lesson. Marilyn Stasio in Variety suggested the
material “might have been better served” if “the true believers behind this
labor of love” had “entrusted the story to a dramatist to develop as a play”
instead of a musical.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times noted that the evening never
found the balance to educate and entertain, and because the show was
packed “with so much incident and information” it often felt “more like a
history lesson than a musical.” The production was directed in
“workmanlike fashion” but occasionally swerved into “melodrama,” and
while “some scholars of Japanese-American history have objected to
unnecessary factual inaccuracies,” Isherwood felt the musical shouldn’t “be
held to the standards of strict documentary.” The lyrics tended toward the
“obvious,” and the music was “redolent of the more bombastic moments
from the heyday of the poperetta” (Isherwood wondered if the composer
kept Les Miserables and Miss Saigon “on permanent rotation on his iPod”).
Stasio said the score was “bland,” the lyrics “banal,” and the book “no
more than serviceable.” Despite being based on a historical event and also
inspired by performer George Takei’s memories of being interned as a
child, the evening had few “authentic moments” and was “overwhelmed”
by mostly “standard” songs and a general tendency to oversimplify and
reduce the “complex historical material” to “generic themes.” The New
Yorker found the musical “resolutely trite” with “treacly” music and
“greeting-card” lyrics; Mark Kennedy in the Associated Press said the
musical was unsuccessful in its “bombastic and generic” approach to its
“ambitious agenda”; and Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune noted that the
production got “trapped in the very freneticism of its own storytelling.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the show wanted
“to make a significant statement” but was “too tangled to say very much,”
and David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “powerful
sentiments” were “too often flattened by the pedestrian lyrics and
unmemorable melodies” and thus they made “an unconvincing case for this
material’s suitability to be a musical.”
The Broadway cast album was released by Broadway Records.
A live performance from the Broadway production was filmed and
shown theatrically in 2016. The documentary film Allegiance to Broadway:
The Dream. The Story. The Journey of a Musical was directed by Greg
Vander Veer and looked at the making of the musical; the film was released
by Fathom Events in December 2018. A limited-edition boxed set includes
a DVD of the Broadway production, the documentary, a hardback souvenir
program, and other extras.
LORD OF THE DANCE: DANGEROUS GAMES

Performances: 67
Per the program, the show was “created, produced, directed, and
choreographed” by Michael Flatley, and “music composed, arranged
and produced” by Gerard Fahy; Scenery and Lighting: Paul
Normandale; Video Creation: JA Digital; Costumes: Debbie Bennett,
Costume Supervisor
Cast: James Keegan, Morgan Comer, Fergal Keaney (Lord of the Dance),
Tom Cunningham, Nial McNally, Zoltan Papp (Dark Lord), Erin Kate
Mcilravey, Nikita Cassidy, Caroline Gray (Saoirse), Andrea Kren, Brea
McGaffey (Morrighan), Jess Judge (Little Spirit), Sophie Evans (Erin
the Goddess), Giada Costenaro Cunningham, Valerie Gleeson (Fiddle);
Lord of the Dance Orchestra: Michael Flatley (Flutes), Gerard Fahy
(Pipes, Whistles, Bouzouki, Bass, Piano, Vocals, Programming);
Maureen Fahy (Solo Fiddle), Yvonne Fahy (Bodhran, Accordion), Terry
Fahy (Drums), Willie Dunne (Piano, Keyboards), Peter Maher (Piano,
Keyboards, Bass, Electric Guitar), Barry Conboy (Electric Guitar), Ray
Diamond (Electric Guitar), John Colohan (Electric Guitar), Frankie
Colohan (Electric Guitar), Joe Egan (Electric Guitar), Robbie Casserly
(Drums), David Agnew (Oboe); Male Group Vocals: Sean Costello,
Frank Naughton, Pascal Kennedy, John Lyons, Terry Fahy, Chris Kelly
The dance musical was presented in two acts.
The action takes place in the Ireland of long ago.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t identify specific dancers and singers.
Act One: “Father Time”; “Spirit’s Dream”; “Dark Lord”; “Awakening”;
“Cry of the Celts”; “I Can See the Stars”; “Celtic Dreams”; “Dark
Disciples”; “Morrighan the Seductress”; “Strings of Fire”; “Freedom”;
“Chieftains”; “Dance Our Lives Away”; “Lord of the Dance”
Act Two: “Robojig”; “Dance of Light”; “Surprise in the Spirit’s Cave”;
“Hell’s Kitchen”; “Drying Little Tears”; “Stolen Kiss”; “Entrapment”;
“Our World Now”; “Chrysalis”; “No Surrender”; “Dangerous Games”;
“Nightmare”; “The Duel”; “Victory”; “III Lords”; “Planet Ireland”
Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games was a dance

musical set in the Ireland of long ago, an enchanted land inhabited by dark
demons, robots, fairies, goddesses, seductresses, unicorns, and, of course, a
hero (namely the Lord of the Dance, a role danced by three alternates,
James Keegan, Morgan Comer, and Fergal Keaney). This land of fantasy
was swathed in dry-ice fogs, torches of flame, explosions, and videos that
depicted rainbows and waterfalls.
Brian Seibert in the New York Times said that for the opening
performance the “handsome” Keegan offered “terrific footwork” that was
“undeniably exciting,” and the “mass effect” of male dancers “hammering
the floor in unison” was thrilling. Unfortunately, the evening gave “the
same thrill over and over” and every dance sequence had the “same
accelerating shape” and the “same applause-button ending.” Further, the
production was awash in “technology” and “little” in the show felt “truly
live,” and thus “you might as well be watching it on TV.”
Flatley was one of the creators of Riverdance, and from there he created
a succession of dance musicals such as Lord of the Dance (1996; not the
current Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games), Feet of Flames (1998), and
Celtic Tiger (2005). He wasn’t one of the dance characters in Lord of the
Dance: Dangerous Games, but he appeared at the end of the show and
Seibert reported that his “charisma” was comparable to that of Fred Astaire
and Gene Kelly. His solo dances had “more variety” than the choreography
in the show itself, and while his Lord of the Dance persona would live on
after his announced and pending retirement, there would be “something
essential” missing because “Elvis will have left the building.”
Joan Acocella in the New Yorker noted that the production was the sort
of spectacle that brought to mind Cirque du Soleil and the Olympics’
opening ceremonies, and was one of the “most egregious examples” of this
type. Every character has a “dream” that comes true because of “optimism,”
the female cast members seemed “to hail from cosmetic ads,” and the hero
must undergo “a series of trials without his undershirt on.” But when
Flatley appeared at the end of the evening, one wished the sequence “would
go on forever.” At one point, Flatley pointed to the Lord of the Dance belt
worn by Keegan, in effect told the audience that “he had passed the torch”
of dance to another, and Acocella quickly noted, “fat chance.”
During the run, “Believe” was added, and “I Can See the Stars” was
deleted. The show was a limited engagement that was part of a worldwide
tour, and was released on DVD by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
Note that Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games isn’t related to Graciela
Daniele’s dance musical Dangerous Games, which opened at the
Nederlander Theatre on October 19, 1985, for four performances and had
been earlier produced as Tango Apasionado.
THE ILLUSIONISTS: LIVE ON BROADWAY

Performances: 64
Music: Evan Jolly; additional compositions by Eddie Cole and Dustin
Moore
Direction: Neil Dorward (Kirsty Painter and Jenn Rapp, Associate
Directors); Illusion Direction: Mark Kalin; Producers: Simon Painter,
MagicSpace Entertainment, and Road Show Theatrical; Tim Lawson,
Executive Producer; Choreography: Jenn Rapp; Video Design: NICE
Studios; Illusion Design: Don Wayne; Lighting: Jared A. Sayeg;
Musical Direction: Not Credited
Cast: Raymond Crowe (The Unusualist), Jonathan Goodwin (The
Daredevil), Jeff Hobson (The Trickster), Yu Ho-Jin (The Manipulator),
James More (The Deceptionist), Dan Sperry (The Anti-Conjuror),
Adam Trent (The Futurist); Magician Assistants—Kenny Bermudez,
Rob Coglitore, Tenealle Farragher, Katy Goodwin, Todd Hampton,
Tiffany Marie, Chris Matesevac, Nicole Medoro, Ida Nash, and Eddie
Shellman; Z (Band)—Eddie Cole, Dustin Moore, Tom Terrell, Andy
Meixner, and Jody Giachello
The Illusionists were back for their second of five Broadway

engagements during the decade (for more information, see The Illusionists:
Witness the Impossible). The company included seven magicians, ten
magician assistants, and Z, a five-member rock band.
The New Yorker said the “bombastic blend of good tricks and bad taste”
included patter by Jeff Hobson (The Trickster and the evening’s host) that
was “almost as tawdry as his sequined shoes,” and his humor relied
“heavily” on “testicle jokes and gay innuendo.” The two best acts were by
Adam Trent (The Futurist), who performed “sweet-natured routines”
involving iPhones and selfies, and Yu Ho-Jin (The Manipulator), who was
an “elegant master of misdirection.” Otherwise, a cockatoo performer
refused to perform, and the critic saluted the “sensible bird.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter found the evening an
“enjoyably hokey, Las Vegas-style variety” show and warned those readers
who were “allergic to audience participation” to avoid sitting in the front
rows of the orchestra section. Otherwise, he predicted that “this popular
family-geared entertainment will make plenty of theatregoers’s money
disappear.”
SCHOOL OF ROCK
Performances: 1,309
Book: Julian Fellowes
Based on the 2003 Paramount film School of Rock (screenplay by Mike
White and direction by Richard Linklater).
Direction: Laurence Connor (David Ruttura, Associate Director);
Producers: Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Really Useful Group, Warner
Music Group & Access Industries, The Shubert Organization, and The
Nederlander Organization; Nina Lannan and Madeleine Lloyd Webber,
Executive Producers; Choreography: JoAnn M. Hunter (Patrick
O’Neill, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Anna
Louizos; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Darren Ledbetter
Cast: Alex Brightman (Dewey), Sierra Boggess (Rosalie), Spencer Moses
(Ned), Mamie Parris (Patty), Taylor Caldwell (Shonelle), Evie Dolan
(Katie), Jersey Sullivan (James), Carly Gendell (Marcy), Ethan
Khusidman (Mason), Bobbi MacKenzie (Tomika), Dante Melucci
(Freddy), Brandon Niederauer (Zack), Luca Padovan (Billy), Jared
Parker (Lawrence), Isabella Russo (Summer), Corinne Wilson (Sophie),
Shahadi Wright Joseph (Madison); Ensemble: Natalie Charle Ellis,
Emily Cramer, Alan H. Green, Michael Hartney, John Hemphill, Merritt
David Janes, Jaygee Macapugay, Cassie Okenka, Tally Sessions,
Jonathan Wagner, Jeremy Woodard
The action takes place during the present time.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “I’m Too Hot for You” (No Vacancy [singing group], Alex
Brightman); “When I Climb to the Top of Mount Rock” (Alex
Brightman); “Horace Green Alma Mater” (Sierra Boggess, Students,
Teachers); “Here at Horace Green” (Sierra Boggess); “Variations 7”
(Alex Brightman, Spencer Moses); “Children of Rock” (Alex
Brightman, Spencer Moses); “When I Climb to the Top of Mount Rock”
(reprise) (Mamie Parris); “Queen of the Night” (music by Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart) (Sierra Boggess, Alex Brightman, and character
identified by the name of Gabe [no such name appears in the cast of
characters]); “You’re in the Band” (the program noted that the song
includes musical “quotes” from Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ritchie
Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Anderson Paice,
Lou Reed, and Ludwig van Beethoven) (Alex Brightman, Students);
“You’re in the Band” (reprise) (Alex Brightman, Students); “If Only
You Would Listen” (Students); “In the End of Time” (lyric and music
by Jack Black and Warren Fitzgerald) (Alex Brightman); “Faculty
Quadrille” (Teachers); “In the End of Time” (Band Practice Version)
(reprise) (Alex Brightman, Students); “Stick It to the Man” (Alex
Brightman, Students); “In the End of Time” (The Audition Version)
(reprise) (Alex Brightman, Students); “Stick It to the Man” (reprise)
(Alex Brightman, Students)
Act Two: “Time to Play” (Isabella Russo, Students); “Amazing Grace”
(music by John Newton) (Bobbi MacKenzie); “Math Is a Wonderful
Thing” (lyric and music by Jack Black and Mike White) (Alex
Brightman, Students); “Where Did the Rock Go?” (the program thanked
Jim Steinman for the song’s title) (Sierra Boggess); “School of Rock”
(Band Practice Version) (lyric and music by Mike White and Sammy
James Jr.) (Alex Brightman, Students); “Dewey’s Confession” (Alex
Brightman, Sierra Boggess, Mamie Parris, Spencer Moses, Parents); “If
Only You Would Listen” (reprise) (Students); “I’m Too Hot for You”
(reprise) (No Vacancy [singing group]); “School of Rock” (reprise)
(Alex Brightman, Students); “Stick It to the Man” (Encore Version)
(reprise) (Alex Brightman, Students); Finale (Company); Note: The
music credits section of the program included “Edge of Seventeen”
(lyric and music by Stephanie Nicks), but the song was apparently not
heard in the production.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock was based on the popular 2003
film, and the musical was equally popular and gave Lloyd Webber a solid
success that recouped its investment and played over thirteen hundred
performances.
The story brought to mind Meredith Willson’s The Music Man (1957)
and the more recent Matilda. The plot revolved around the seemingly
eternal loser Dewey (Alex Brightman), an aspiring rock musician who’s
tossed from the band No Vacancy, a name perhaps a bit too literal because
he lives with his friend and sometimes substitute teacher Ned (Spencer
Moses) and Ned’s girlfriend Patty (Mamie Parris), and the latter wants to
evict freeloader Dewey for nonpayment of rent.
Dewey intercepts a letter for Ned from the upscale Horace Green
private school, which has offered Ned a teaching job, and Dewey applies
for the position by pretending to be Ned. The school’s principal Rosalie
(Sierra Boggess) is uptight and into Mozart, and it would seem the slapdash
eccentricities of rock star wannabe Dewey won’t mesh with her personality
and her rigid academic standards. But Dewey wins over his students with
his enthusiasm for rock music and creates a school rock band that fills a
void for the kids, most of whom are ignored by their overly busy parents.
And, of course, Rosalie eventually melts when she discovers her inner Janis
Joplin.
In some ways Dewey was a modern version of Professor Harold Hill,
Rosalie was reminiscent of Marian the Librarian, and the kids and their
aloof parents brought to mind the basic situation in Matilda, whose title
character is ignored and even ostracized by her parents because she loves to
read.
The critics were generally positive about the musical, audiences were
enthusiastic, and some sixteen months after its premiere the production had
recouped its entire investment. The success must have been particularly
sweet for Lloyd Webber because School of Rock was his first musical to
premiere on Broadway without benefit of a previous London production.
His 1996 musical Whistle Down the Wind would have been his first show to
open in New York before London, but despite its richly melodic (and
underrated) score, the musical permanently closed in Washington, D.C.,
after its tryout (but later played in London for over one thousand
performances). (Technically, Broadway saw Jesus Christ Superstar before
London when it opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in 1971, some ten
months before its West End premiere. But Superstar’s concept album had
been a worldwide best seller and there had been concert productions of the
work, and so Superstar wasn’t really “new” when it premiered in New
York.)
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said everyone involved with School
of Rock seemed to be having a “fine time,” including Lloyd Webber,
“whose insistent signature melodiousness paradoxically feels less insidious
when it’s given a pumped-up decibel count” (and the composer kidded
himself when at a school audition a little girl “screeches” a few bars of
“Memory”). Brightman brought “charm” to his character’s “gung-ho
clumsiness” and came across as “a rock ’n’ roll nerd of limited talent but
infinite passion,” the New Yorker praised his “exuberant” performance, and
Marilyn Stasio in Variety found him “immensely likeable.” Charles
McNulty in the Los Angeles Times said the adaptation was “journeyman
work” with an “over-obvious” book, and although the show “squeak[ed] by
with the lowest of passing grades,” the youngsters in the cast deserved “to
be on Broadway’s honor roll.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the evening was
“wildly energetic but uneven,” and although the show wanted “to rock your
socks off” it “just move[d] in fits and starts” and felt “labored.” The
production included a few songs heard in the film, and “most” of the new
ones were “just okay at best.” Jesse Green in New York noted that the
musical’s “problem” was its “point” because Dewey was a “loser” and a
“poseur, not just liberating but undermining everyone around him.” Further,
the show’s “villain” was Patty, who is “punished for the crime of wanting”
Dewey to pay his rent, and as written, her character was “turned into a
hideous nightmare bitch.”
The cast album was released by Warner Brothers Records; it includes
“Give Up Your Dreams,” which was cut during Broadway previews, as well
as three bonus tracks in alternate or rock versions, “I’m Too Hot for You,”
“If Only You Would Listen,” and “In the End of Time.” The London
production opened at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on November 14, 2016.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (School of Rock); Best Book (Julian
Fellowes); Best Score (lyrics by Glenn Slater, music by Andrew Lloyd
Webber); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Alex Brightman)
ELF (2015)
Theatre: The Theatre at Madison Square Garden
Direction: Sam Scalamoni (Bejamin Shaw, Associate Director); Producer:
BSL Enterprises, LLC; Choreography: Connor Gallagher (Nancy Renee
Braun, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Christine Peters; Costumes:
Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Paul Miller; Musical Direction: Nate Patten
Cast: JB Adams (Santa), Julia Louise Hosack (Mrs. Claus), Eric Petersen
(Buddy), Paul Ianniello (Charlie, Matthews, Policeman), Emily Larger
(Tequila, Macy’s Sales Woman, Charlotte Dennon), Tom Galantich
(Walter Hobbs), Drew Franklin (Sam, Policeman), Will Mann
(Chadwick, Fake Santa), Christiane Noll (Emily Hobbs), Joshua Colley
(Michael Hobbs), Jen Bechter (Deb), Giovanni Bonaventura (Security
Guard), Nick Silverio (Security Guard), Arthur L. Ross (Store
Manager), Veronica J. Kuehn (Jovie), Tyler Altomari (Little Boy on
Santa’s Lap), Danny Rutigliano (Mr. Greenway); Ensemble: Tyler
Altomari, Giovanni Bonaventura, Amanda Braun, Elizabeth Burton,
Drew Franklin, Julia Louise Hosack, Paul Ianniello, Andrew Kreup,
Emily Larger, Will Mann, Nick Silverio, Dani Spieler, Amy Van
Norstrand
York City.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Happy All the Time” (JB Adams, Eric
Petersen, Company); “World’s Greatest Dad” (Eric Petersen); “In the
Way” (Jen Bechter, Tom Galantich, Christiane Noll, Joshua Colley,
Company); “Sparklejollytwinklejingley” (Eric Petersen, Veronica J.
Kuehn, Arthur L. Ross, Company); “I’ll Believe in You” (Joshua
Colley, Christiane Noll); “In the Way” (reprise) (Christiane Noll, Tom
Galantich); “Just Like Him” (Eric Petersen, Jen Bechter, Company); “A
Christmas Song” (Eric Petersen, Veronica J. Kuehn, Company);
“World’s Greatest Dad” (reprise) (Eric Petersen, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Nobody Cares about Santa” (Will Mann,
Fake Santas, Arthur L. Ross, Waitress, Eric Petersen); “Never Fall in
Love” (Veronica J. Kuehn); “There Is a Santa Claus” (Joshua Colley,
Christiane Noll); “The Story of Buddy the Elf” (Eric Petersen, Joshua
Colley, Tom Galantich, Danny Rutigliano, Christiane Noll, Jen Bechter,
Company); “Nobody Cares about Santa” (reprise) (JB Adams); “A
Christmas Song” (Veronica J. Kuehn, Eric Petersen, Christiane Noll,
Joshua Colley, Tom Galantich, Company); Finale (Company)
The current visit from Elf was its third of four productions during the
decade; the musical had been previously presented in 2010 and 2012, and
would later be revived in 2017. All the productions were limited
engagements which played during their respective holiday seasons (for
more information, see entries for the other three productions, and note that
the 2010 entry gives more detailed information about the musical).
Alexis Soloski in the New York Times noted that the musical seemed a
“little lost” within the confines of the Theatre at Madison Square Garden,
its decor was “flimsy,” and its “good cheer not quite infectious.” But Eric
Petersen’s Buddy was “particularly spirited and winning” and Tom
Galantich was “especially good as Buddy’s grumpy biological dad.”
THE COLOR PURPLE

Performances: 450
Book: Marsha Norman
Lyrics and Music: Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray
Based on the 1982 novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker and the 1985
film adaptation released by Warner Brothers Pictures (direction by
Steven Spielberg and screenplay by Alice Walker and Menno Meyjes).
Direction: John Doyle; Producers: Scott Sanders Productions, Roy Furman,
Oprah Winfrey, David Babani, Tom Siracusa, Caiola Productions,
James Fantaci, Ted Liebowitz, Stephanie P. McClelland, James L.
Nederlander, Darren Bagert, Candy Spelling, Adam Zotovich, Eric
Falkenstein/Morris Berchard, Just for Laughs Theatricals/Tanya Link
Productions, Adam S. Gordon, Jam Theatricals, Kelsey Grammer,
Independent Presenters Network, Carol Fineman, and Sandy Black; A
Menier Chocolate Factory Production; Choreography: Musical Staging
by John Doyle; Scenery: John Doyle; Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward
(Christopher Vergara, Associate Costume Designer); Lighting: Jane
Cox; Musical Direction: Jason Michael Webb
Cast: Danielle Brooks (Sofia), Dwayne Clark (Guard), Lawrence Clayton
(Preacher, Ol’ Mister), Carrie Compere (Church Lady), Patrice
Covington (Squeak), Cynthia Erivo (Celie), Jennifer Hudson (Shug
Avery), Bre Jackson (Church Lady), Isaiah Johnson (Mister), Joaquina
Kalukango (Nettie), Grasan Kingsberry (Adam, Buster), Kevyn Morrow
(Pa), Kyle Scatliffe (Harpo), Antoine L. Smith (Grady), Carla R.
Stewart (Olivia), Akron Watson (Bobby), Rema Webb (Church Lady);
Others: The program noted that “all other roles” were “played by
members of the company.”
The action takes place mostly in Georgia during the period 1909–1949.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Huckleberry Pie” (Cynthia Erivo, Joaquina Kalukango);
“Mysterious Ways” (Company); “Somebody Gonna Love You”
(Cynthia Erivo); “Our Prayer” (Joaquina Kalukango, Cynthia Erivo,
Isaiah Johnson); “Big Dog” (Isaiah Johnson, Men); “Hell No!”
(Danielle Brooks, Women); “Brown Betty” (Kyle Scatliffe, Patrice
Covington, Men); “Shug Avery Comin’ to Town” (Isaiah Johnson,
Cynthia Erivo, Company); “Too Beautiful for Words” (Jennifer
Hudson); “Push da Button” (Jennifer Hudson, Company); “Uh Oh!”
(Company); “What about Love?” (Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Hudson)
Act Two: “African Homeland” (Joaquina Kalukango, Cynthia Erivo,
Company); “The Color Purple” (Jennifer Hudson); “Mister’s Song”
(Isaiah Johnson); “Miss Celie’s Pants” (Cynthia Erivo, Women); “Any
Little Thing” (Kyle Scatliffe, Danielle Brooks); “I’m Here” (Cynthia
Erivo); “The Color Purple” (reprise) (Cynthia Erivo, Company)
The Color Purple was back on Broadway some eight years after the
original production closed, this time in a revised version that originated in
London and was directed by John Doyle. Despite swoon-filled notices from
the critics and two major Tony Awards (Best Revival of a Musical and, for
Cynthia Erivo, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical), the run was surprisingly short and managed just thirteen months
on Broadway. Playbill reported that when the musical closed it was near
recoupment and was expected to fully recoup once it began its national tour.
The story took place during the period 1909–1949 and was set mostly in
Georgia but with side trips to Tennessee and Africa. At the beginning of the
musical when Celie (Erivo) is fourteen years old, she’s raped and twice
impregnated by her stepfather, who gets rid of the babies and eventually
dispatches Celie by forcing her into marriage with Mister (Isaiah Johnson),
who expects her to be a workhorse on his farm. In the meantime, Celie’s
sister Nettie (Danielle Brooks) is almost seduced by the stepfather, and so
she runs away and Celie loses track of her. When entertainer Shug Avery
(Jennifer Hudson) meets Celie, the two become lovers, and later Celie
discovers that her two babies, now grown into adulthood, are with Nettie in
Africa. When Nettie and the children return to Georgia, Celie is at last
reunited with her family.
The original production, which was capitalized at $10 million, opened
on December 1, 2005, at the Broadway Theatre for 910 showings. Like
many musicals of the era that were based on novels (Jane Eyre, The Woman
in White, and Doctor Zhivago), the critics found the musical too episodic.
In their reviews of the 2005 production, John Lahr in the New Yorker said
the “noisy” musical was “overamplified, overheated, and overhyped” and
the script had “a kind of color-me-purple comic-book outline”; Ben
Brantley in the New York Times said Celie “morphed” into a heroine not
unlike those found in books by Barbara Taylor Bradford and Danielle Steel;
Richard Corliss in Time said the novel had been reduced to “a catalogue of
abuses” with a “men bad”–“women good” message that indicated women
must “turn to each other for solace, and sometimes sex” (Corliss noted that
the novel’s 1985 film version “stayed skittishly on the periphery” of
“lesbian empowerment,” but the musical “strolls right on in” to the subject);
and Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the score was “a pleasant if
not particularly memorable” one.
The current production opened at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory
on July 17, 2013, for a two-month run with Erivo in the leading role, and
Doyle reportedly shortened the musical by forty minutes. Brantley said the
“vitally reincarnated” revival was a “glory to behold,” and one could
“throw in a hearty hallelujah.” Erivo was an “incandescent new star,”
Hudson was “enchanting,” and their characters’ duet “What about Love?”
was the “most sensual love song on Broadway this season.” As far as
Brantley was concerned, Doyle’s “formula” of “stripping” musicals “down
to their bare essentials” allowed audiences “to zero in” on a show’s
“musical and emotional essence” and placed “narrative control directly in
the hands of the performers.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said that “in a feat of reverse magic, Doyle’s
minimalist production maximizes the strength and beauty” of the story, and
Hilton Als in the New Yorker found Doyle’s direction was “much more
intimate and nuanced” than Gary Griffin’s direction of the original
production. As for Erivo, Als said she brought the musical “to a level that is
unusual both on and off Broadway,” but Hudson was “lackluster” and “a
cipher, a voice without a soul.”
The 2005 cast album was released by Angel-EMI Records, and the cast
recording for the revival was issued by Broadway Records.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (The Color
Purple); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Cynthia Erivo); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Danielle Brooks); Best Direction of a
Musical (John Doyle)
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Performances: 431
Book: Joseph Stein
Lyrics: Sheldon Harnick
Music: Jerry Bock
Based on various short stories by Sholem Aleichem.
Direction: Bartlett Sher (Tyne Rafaeli, Associate Director); Producers:
Jeffrey Richards, Jam Theatricals, Louise Gund, Jerry Frankel,
Broadway Across America, Rebecca Gold, Stephanie P. McClelland,
Barbara Freitag & Company/Catherine Schreiber & Company,
Greenleaf Productions, Orin Wolf, Patty Baker, Caiolo Productions, The
Nederlander Organization, Gabrielle Palitz, Kit Seidel, TenTex Partners,
Edward M. Kaufman, Soffer/Namoff Entertainment, Healy Theatricals,
Clear Channel Spectacolor, Jessica Genick, and Will Trice; John Frost
and James Forbes Sheehan, Associate Producers; Choreography:
Hofesh Shechter; Scenery: Michael Yeargan; Costumes: Catherine
Zuber; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Ted Sperling
Cast: Danny Burstein (Tevye), Jessica Hecht (Golde), Alexandra Silber
(Tzeitel), Samantha Massell (Hodel) Melanie Moore (Chava), Jenny
Rose Baker (Shprintze), Hayley Feinstein (Bielke), Alix Korey (Yente),
Adam Kantor (Motel), Ben Rappaport (Perchik), Adam Dannheisser
(Lazar Wolf), Michael C. Bernardi (Mordcha), Adam Grupper (Rabbi),
Jeffrey Schecter (Mendel), George Psomas (Avram), Lori Wilner
(Grandma Tzeitel), Jessica Vosk (Fruma-Sarah), Mitch Greenberg
(Yussel, Nachum), Karl Kenzler (Constable), Nick Rehberger (Fyedka),
Aaron Young (Sasha), Jennifer Zetlan (Shaindel), Jesse Kovarsky (The
Fiddler); Villagers: Eric Bourne, Stephen Carrasco, Eric Chambliss,
Jacob Guzman, Reed Luplau, Brandt Martinez, Sarah Parker, Marla
Phelan, Tess Primack
Except for a prologue set in the present time, the action takes place during
1905 in the Russian village of Anatevka.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue: “Tradition” (Danny Burstein, Villagers); “Matchmaker,
Matchmaker” (Samantha Massell, Melanie Moore, Alexandra Silber);
“If I Were a Rich Man” (Danny Burstein); “Sabbath Prayer” (Danny
Burstein, Jessica Hecht, Villagers); “To Life” (Danny Burstein, Adam
Dannheisser, Villagers); “Tevye’s Monologue” (Danny Burstein);
“Miracle of Miracles” (Adam Kantor); “Tevye’s Dream” (aka “The
Tailor, Motel Kamzoil” and “The Dream”) (Danny Burstein, Jessica
Hecht, Lori Wilner, Adam Grupper, Jessica Vosk, Villagers); “Sunrise,
Sunset” (Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht, Ben Rappaport, Samantha
Massell, Villagers); “The Wedding” (Villagers)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Now I Have Everything” (Ben Rappaport,
Samantha Massell); “Tevye’s Monologue” (reprise) (Danny Burstein);
“Do You Love Me?” (Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht); “The Rumor”
(aka “I Just Heard”) (Alix Korey, Villagers); “Far from the Home I
Love” (Samantha Massell); “Chavaleh” (Danny Burstein); “Anatevka”
(Villagers)
The return of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof
marked the classic musical’s fifth New York revival, and later in the season
another Bock and Harnick evergreen opened when She Loves Me returned
for its second Broadway revival.
The familiar story of Fiddler on the Roof took place in the small pre-
revolutionary Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905 and focused on the
concept of change. The brilliant opening number “Tradition” explored that
theme, and Joseph Stein’s book emphasized both the personal and political
changes in the heretofore well-ordered life of the Jewish Orthodox Tevye
(Danny Burstein), a poor dairyman who must contend with the loss of one
daughter when she moves away to be with her husband and an even more
profound loss when one marries a Gentile. Moreover, Tevye, his family, and
fellow villagers endure pogroms and then must face exile when they are
forced to leave their homeland and move to faraway countries. The musical
ended on an especially poignant note when one realized that by fleeing
Russia with its pogroms and prejudice, many of the villagers were headed
to middle Europe and the impending Holocaust.
The revival lasted just one year in New York, and it appears that the
lavish production (which included almost sixty-five performers and
musicians) was unable to make a return on its $11.5 million capitalization.
Frank Rizzo in Variety found the revival “thoughtful but uneven,” and
sometimes director Bartlett Sher’s “touches seem unfinished, unclear or
labored.” However, Burstein had an “easy rapport” with the audience and
ultimately he carried the show. But the New Yorker said Burstein wasn’t a
star, and “a star is what’s required to put this show over.” Further, Jessica
Hecht’s Golde was “as good as Burstein,” but she also lacked the “lustre” to
make the production “as special as it should be.” Charles Isherwood in the
New York Times praised the “superb” revival and Burstein’s “affecting but
not overscaled” performance, and noted that while Hecht’s singing was
“merely adequate” and her accent swerved “toward the Germanic,” she
nonetheless brought a “moving, careworn quality” to her portrayal.
The revival was notable because it offered new dances by the Israeli
choreographer Hofesh Shechter rather than a slavish reproduction of Jerome
Robbins’s original work. Isherwood noted that the new choreography bore
the “unmistakable stamp of Robbins’s genius” and included steps from
Robbins’s bottle dance for the wedding scene, but if the new dances lacked
Robbins’s “formal beauty and ingenuity” they nonetheless possessed
“athletic exuberance.” Rizzo said Shechter introduced “new movements and
dance” which were “based” on Robbins’s originals, but Shechter found his
own “conceptual vocabulary” in “grounded and raw folkloristic moves” that
nonetheless paid tribute to Robbins.
Sher brought one questionable change to the musical. For some reason,
he added a wordless opening sequence that found Burstein in modern-day
dress looking at a space that was once the village of Anatevka. Suddenly
the actor shed his parka and became Tevye, and soon the musical began
with its opening number “Tradition.” This gratuitous addition to the script
was as needless (but not as misguided) as Sher’s change for the ending of
his My Fair Lady revival. (What next? A revival of The Sound of Music
that ends with Maria deserting the von Trapps in order to join the
underground and fight the Nazis?)
The original production of Fiddler on the Roof opened on September
22, 1964, at the Imperial Theatre for 3,242 performances, with Zero Mostel
as Tevye, and it won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best
Musical and nine Tony Awards, including one for Best Musical. The current
revival was preceded by four others on December 28, 1976, at the Winter
Garden Theatre for 167 performances with Mostel; on July 9, 1981, at the
New York State Theatre for 53 performances with Herschel Bernardi (who
had succeeded Mostel during the original Broadway run); on November 18,
1990, at the Gershwin Theatre for 241 performances with Topol (who
starred in the original 1967 London production and the 1971 film version);
and on February 26, 2004, at the Minskoff Theatre for 781 performances
with Alfred Molina.
The musical premiered in London at Her Majesty’s Theatre on February
16, 1967, for 2,030 performances, and the dreary and bloated film version
was directed by Norman Jewison and released by United Artists.
The script was published in hardback by Crown Publishers in 1965; was
included in the 1973 hardback collection Ten Great Musicals of the
American Theatre (Chilton Book Company); and was also one of sixteen
scripts included in the Library of America’s 2014 hardback collection
American Musicals. A fascinating account of the work is The Making of a
Musical: “Fiddler on the Roof” by Richard Altman and Mervyn Kaufman
(Crown Publishers, 1971), and two other books about the musical are Alisa
Solomon’s Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of “Fiddler on the
Roof” (Henry Holt & Company, 2013) and Barbara Isenberg’s Tradition!
The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood
Story of “Fiddler on the Roof,” The World’s Most Beloved Musical (St.
Martin’s Press, 2014).
The 1964 Broadway cast album was issued by RCA Victor Records,
and the CD release includes “I Just Heard” (aka “The Rumor”), which had
been recorded at the time of the original recording session but hadn’t been
included on the vinyl release because of space limitations. There are
numerous recordings of the score, many of which offer cut and unused
songs (such as “If I Were a Woman,” “When Messiah Comes,” “Dear Sweet
Sewing Machine,” and “A Little Bit of This”) as well as music not recorded
for the original cast album (“Wedding Dance” and the Chava sequence).
The cast recordings of the 2004 and current revivals also include Tevye’s
spoken monologues. A new song by Bock and Harnick (“Topsy-Turvy”)
was added for the 2004 revival and is included on that production’s cast
album (this production omitted “I Just Heard”). The current revival’s cast
album was issued by Broadway Records and includes bonus tracks, one of
which is the unused song “Dear Sweet Sewing Machine,” here sung by the
revival’s cast members Adam Kantor and Alexandra Silber; note that this
revival didn’t include “Topsy-Turvy.”
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Fiddler on the Roof);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Danny
Burstein); Best Choreography (Hofesh Shechter)
DISASTER!
Opening Date: March 8, 2016; Closing Date: May 8, 2016
Performances: 72
Book: Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick; additional material by Drew Geraci
(“concept created by Seth Rudetsky and Drew Geraci”)
Direction: Jack Plotnick; Producers: Robert Ahrens, Mickey Liddell/LD
Entertainment, Hunter Arnold, James Wesley, Carl Daikeler, and Burba
Hayes in association with Sandi Moran and Stephen CuUnjeing;
Katherine Ann McGregor, Mary J. Davis, William Megevick/In Fine
Company, Gary and Jaime Rubenstein/Sherry Wehner, and Adam S.
Gordon; Choreography: JoAnn M. Hunter; Scenery: Tobin Ost;
Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical
Direction: Steve Marzullo
Cast: Adam Pascal (Chad), Max Crumm (Scott), Seth Rudetsky (Professor
Ted Scheider), Roger Bart (Tony), Kerry Butler (Marianne), Jennifer
Simard (Sister Mary Downy), Faith Prince (Shirley), Kevin Chamberlin
(Maury), Lacretta Nicole (Levora), Rachel York (Jackie), Baylee Littrell
(Ben, Lisa); Casino Guests and Staff: Manoel Feliciano, Casey Garvin,
Travis Kent, Maggie McDowell, Olivia Phillip, Catherine Ricafort
The action takes place in New York City in 1979.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a traditional list of musical numbers with
performer/character credits. The following is taken from a song credits
list in the credits’ section of the program.
“All Right Now” (lyric and music by Andy Fraser and Paul Rogers);
“That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” (lyric by Jacob
Brackman, music by Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman); “A Fifth of
Beethoven” (music by Walter Murphy); “Muskrat Love” (lyric and
music by Willis Alan Ramsey); “Feels So Good” (lyric and music by
Chuck Mangione); “Without You” (lyric and music by Peter Ham); “I’d
Really Love to See You Tonight” (lyric and music by Dan England and
John Ford Coley); “The Lord’s Prayer” (music by Albert Hay Malotte);
“Torn Between Two Lovers” (lyric and music by Phillip Jarrell and
Peter Yarrow); “You’re My Best Friend” (lyric and music by John
Deacon); “When Will I Be Loved” (lyric and music by Phil Everly);
“Three Times a Lady” (lyric and music by Lionel Richie); “Hawaii 5-0
Theme” (music by Morton Stevens); “Theme from Mahogany (Do You
Know Where You’re Going To?)” (1975 film Mahogany; lyric by Gerry
Goffin, music by Michael Masser); “Still the One” (lyric and music by
Johanna Hall and John Hall); “Saturday Night” (lyric and music by Bill
Martin and Phil Coulter); “Never Can Say Goodbye” (lyric and music
by Clifton Davis); “Nadia’s Theme” (lyric and music by Barry De
Vorzon and Perry Botkin Jr.); “Mockingbird” (lyric and music by
Charlie Foxx and Inez Foxx); “Knock Three Times” (lyric and music by
Larry Brown and Irwin Levine); “Hooked on a Feeling” (lyric and
music by Mark James); “Ben” (aka “Ben’s Song”) (1972 film Ben; lyric
by Don Black, music by Walter Scharf); “Come to Me” (lyric and music
by Tony Green); “25 or 6 to 4” (lyric and music by Robert Lamm); “Sky
High” (lyric and music by Desmond Dyer and Clive Kenneth Scott);
“Reunited” (lyric and music by Dino Fekaris and Frederick L./Freddie
Perren); “Knock on Wood” (lyric and music by Stephen Lee Cropper
and Eddie Floyd); “I Will Survive” (Frederick L./Freddie Perren and
Dino Fekaris); “Do You Wanna Make Love” (lyric and music by Peter
McCann); “Daybreak” (lyric and music by Adrienne Anderson and
Barry Manilow); “Baby Hold on to Me” (lyric and music by Gerald
Edward Levert and Edwin Lamar Nicholas); “We Don’t Cry Out Loud”
(lyric by Carole Bayer Sager, music by Peter W. Allen); “I Am Woman”
(lyric by Helen Reddy, music by Ray Burton and Helen Reddy); “Hot
Stuff” (lyric and music by Peter Bellotte, Harold Falter-meyer, and
Keith Forsey); “Feelings” (lyric by Morris Albert, music by Louis
Gaste)
The musical spoof Disaster! lived up to its title and exclamation point
because it kidded all those disaster flicks that flooded movie theatres during
the 1970s: Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, the
Airport franchise, and countless others that punished mankind with a series
of endless calamities, including killer bees (The Swarm), cantankerous
cobras (Sssssss), merciless worms (Squirm), and, yes, even evil rabbits
(Night of the Lepus). These movies were virtual self-parodies, but soon
Hollywood offered outand-out spoofs, notably the Airplane! series and the
all-but-forgotten The Big Bus (1976) in which everyone from Stockard
Channing to Ruth Gordon to Lynn Redgrave are hapless riders on the non-
stop Manhattan-to-Denver maiden voyage of the super-bus Cyclops (which
sports its own cocktail lounge and pianist).
For Disaster!, we’re aboard the maiden voyage of the unlucky
Barracuda, a combination floating casino and disco harbored on a Hudson
River pier near the West Side Highway. According to a well-known
professorial “disaster expert” (played by Seth Rudetsky, the musical’s
cowriter), the Barracuda is berthed right above a fault line, and, sure
enough, it’s soon Earthquake Time, Tidal Wave Time, and Volcano Time,
and, of course, the Barracuda belly-flops. And what about that tank full of
pesky piranhas? Are they swimming around in the water-logged vessel and
causing even more worries for all those would-be just-wanna-have-fun
party people who had paid good money for a night of gambling and disco
dancing?
The musical also paid homage to two memorable disaster queens of the
1970s. Faith Prince’s Shirley Summers was a nod to Shelley Winters, and
our Shirl even tap dances a Morse code to passengers trapped on the deck
below, a deck that was once above her. And Jennifer Simard’s Sister Mary
Downy paid tribute to Helen Reddy, although in this case our pious sister
lets it all hang out when she discovers the unmentionable thrills afforded by
a one-arm bandit and must eventually choose between God or Gambling.
If all this weren’t enough, the score was a virtual catalog of 1970s pop
hits of the “Hot Stuff”–“Ben”–“I Will Survive”–“Feelings”–“We Don’t Cry
Out Loud”–“I Am Woman”–“Three Times a Lady”–“Muskrat Love”
variety—songs that David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter described as
“felonies.”
The musical had been scheduled to play from March 8 to July 3, but
closed two months early on May 8. The show had been previously produced
Off-Off-Broadway at the Triad Theatre in January 2012 and at St. Luke’s
Theatre in November 2013, and one suspects the musical would have
enjoyed a long run had it settled into an Off-Broadway theatre.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the evening provided “a
rush of giddy nostalgia that’s just as pleasurable, at times, as the more
substantial rewards of the musical theatre’s higher-reaching shows.” The
cast members included Simard (“heaven-sent”), Prince (a “warmhearted
Jewish matron”), and Rachel York (as the disco’s headliner who flings
around her “fabulous Farrah wig” and is “amusingly vapid, all bugle beads
for brains”). The New Yorker found the musical “splashy, silly, and as
nourishing as processed cheese,” and noted the performers were “well
attuned to the show’s broad comedic style.” And Marilyn Stasio in Variety
said the show was “ridiculously if unevenly funny,” but the “70s disaster
movies were far more ludicrous than anything” presented in the musical.
Robert Kahn on 4NewYork said the “goofy” and “slight, silly, campy,
and cornball” musical might have been better served in a shorter, one-act
version, and while he “laughed some” he was “mostly rooting for the
piranhas.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the show
wasn’t “sharp enough to be a toothy parody” and wasn’t “consistently
funny enough to be called hilarious,” and so it wasn’t a “Titanic—or a
jackpot,” but was instead “campy entertainment” that landed “halfway
between” and was “something see-worthy but middle-of-the-road.” Rooney
enjoyed the rather “grisly pleasure” of how the 1970s songs (“or more
often, just a merciful few bars of them”) were used, “even if their
contextualization within the slapdash narrative makes Mamma Mia! look
like Ibsen.”
The Broadway cast album was released by Broadway Records. Note
that the score included the Academy Award-nominated song “Ben” (aka
“Ben’s Song”) from Ben, which lost to a song (“The Morning After”) from
another disaster movie (The Poseidon Adventure). And let’s not forget that
another song (“We May Never Love Like This Again”) from another
disaster movie (The Towering Inferno) also won the Best Song Academy
Award. Both “The Morning After” and “We May Never Love Like This
Again” were first recorded by Maureen McGovern (who also appeared in
The Towering Inferno, and later played a singing nun in the spoof
Airplane!).
Awards
Role in a Musical (Jennifer Simard)
SHE LOVES ME
Theatre: Studio 54
Performances: 132
Book: Joe Masteroff
Lyrics: Sheldon Harnick
Music: Jerry Bock
Based on the play Illatszertar (Parfumerie) by Miklós László.
Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd
Choreography: Warren Carlyle; Scenery: David Rockwell; Costumes:
Jeff Mahshie; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Paul
Gemignani
Cast: Michael McGrath (Ladislav Sipos), Nicholas Barasch (Arpad Laszlo),
Jane Krakowski (Ilona Ritter), Gavin Creel (Steven Kodaly), Zachary
Levi (Georg Nowack), Byron Jennings (Mr. Maraczek), Alison Cimmet
(First Customer), Cameron Adams (Second Customer), Laura Shoop
(Third Customer), Jenifer Foote (Fourth Customer), Gina Ferrall (Fifth
Customer), Laura Benanti (Amalia Balash), Jim Walton (Keller), Peter
Bartlett (Headwaiter), Michael Fatica (Busboy); Ensemble: Cameron
Adams, Justin Bowen, Alison Cimmet, Benjamin Eakeley, Michael
Fatica, Gina Ferrall, Jenifer Foote, Andrew Kober, Laura Shoop, Jim
Walton
The action takes place in Budapest from June to December of 1934.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Good Morning, Good Day” (Zachary
Levi, Nicholas Barasch, Michael Mc-Grath, Jane Krakowski, Gavin
Creel); “Sounds while Selling” (Customers, Michael McGrath, Gavin
Creel, Zachary Levi); “Days Gone By” (Byron Jennings); “No More
Candy” (Laura Benanti); “Three Letters” (Zachary Levi, Laura
Benanti); “Tonight at Eight” (Zachary Levi); “I Don’t Know His Name”
(Laura Benanti, Jane Krakowski); “Perspective” (Michael McGrath);
“Goodbye, Georg” (Customers, Clerks); “Will He Like Me?” (Laura
Benanti); “Ilona” (Gavin Creel); “I Resolve” (Jane Krakowski); “A
Romantic Atmosphere” (Peter Bartlett); “Dear Friend” (Laura Benanti)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Try Me” (Nicholas Barasch); “Where’s
My Shoe?” (Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi); “Ice Cream” (aka “Vanilla
Ice Cream”) (Laura Benanti); “She Loves Me” (Zachary Levi); “A Trip
to the Library” (Jane Krakowski); “Grand Knowing You” (Gavin
Creel); “Twelve Days to Christmas” (Carolers, Customers, Clerks);
Finale (Zachary Levi, Laura Benanti)
Roundabout Theatre Company’s She Loves Me followed Fiddler on the

Roof as the second Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick musical to be revived
during the season, and like Roundabout’s 2014 revival of Cabaret, which
was based on their earlier 1998 revival, Roundabout had previously
presented She Loves Me in a 1993 production that had also been directed by
Scott Ellis.
The musical was based on Miklós László’s play Illatszertar
(Parfumerie) which had been adapted into the charming 1938 film The
Shop around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. She
Loves Me was set in the prewar Budapest of 1934 and looked at the lives of
a group of employees at a parfumerie owned by Maraczek (Byron
Jennings), including head clerk Georg (Zachary Levi), the serious Sipos
(Michael McGrath), the flighty Ilona (Jane Krakowski), the cad Kodaly
(Gavin Creel), the ambitious Arpad (Nicholas Barasch), and the newly
hired salesclerk Amalia (Laura Benanti). For Georg and Amalia, it’s intense
dislike at first sight, and they have no idea their anonymous lonely-hearts
correspondence is with one another. After various complications, all ends
romantically on a snowy Christmas Eve.
Bock and Harnick’s score was one of their finest, a cornucopia of
delicious songs with wry lyrics and lush melodies. The story unfolded in an
almost continuous flow of songs (for the original Broadway production
there were some two-dozen separate numbers, almost twice the era’s norm),
all of which furthered the plot, delineated character, and created the
“romantic atmosphere” celebrated in one of the songs.
Indeed, one of the score’s highlights is “A Romantic Atmosphere,”
which is sung in a café where Georg and Amalia have arranged to meet
after so many months of anonymous correspondence. Despite his efforts,
the headwaiter (Peter Bartlett) must battle a noisy busboy (Michael Fatica),
a loud violinist, and unruly customers. Another delightful song was the
chorale “Twelve Days to Christmas” in which frenzied last-minute shoppers
complain about those perfect planners who have their names printed on
Christmas cards in June and mail their packages in August. The song was
particularly effective because the shoppers’ commentary was presented in
counterpoint with a touching scene between Georg and Amalia.
The unusual “Sounds while Selling” cleverly juxtaposed fragments of
conversations between clerks and customers; the almost madrigal-like a
cappella sequence “Thank You, Madam” was the clerks’ inevitable closure
to each customer transaction; and Sipos’s “Perspective” summed up his
five-word workplace philosophy (“Do not lose your job”). Ilona’s “A Trip
to the Library” depicted her first visit to such an institution, and she’s
amazed that the place has “so many books”; in Harnick’s brilliant lyric, she
describes her encounter with an optometrist she met in the library. Of
course, she slapped him when he suggested she couldn’t go wrong with The
Way of All Flesh, but how could she have been expected to know that’s the
title of a book? But she eventually decides she likes his “novel approach.”
Another clever song was Amalia and Ilona’s duet “I Don’t Know His
Name.” Amalia is somewhat sheepish because she doesn’t know the name
of her correspondent, and Ilona emphasizes the importance of knowing a
person’s name. But the lyric’s notion turns on itself when Ilona realizes she
knew the names of all the men in her life, and all were rotters. As a result,
she and Amalia conclude the song by asking the question, “What’s in a
name?”
Kodaly had two outstanding numbers, the sultry Porteresque beguine
“Ilona” and the sardonic shuffle-off-to-Buffalo-styled “Grand Knowing
You,” a musical kiss-off to the parfumerie and his coworkers when he’s
fired.
There were yearning romantic songs as well, including Maraczek’s
bittersweet waltz “Days Gone By,” Georg’s jubilant title song, Amalia’s
delicate and tentative “Will He Like Me?,” and her heartbreaking lament
“Dear Friend” (not to be confused with Bock and Harnick’s polka “Dear
Friend” from their 1960 musical Tenderloin). Amalia’s piquant “No More
Candy” was a hushed sales pitch in which she sells a cigarette container as
a candy box; her fiery “Where’s My Shoe?” is a musical explosion when
she thinks Georg doesn’t believe she’s too sick to go to work; and for the
café scene’s wry and cautionary “Tango Tragique,” Georg warns Amalia of
the danger of meeting men through a dating service (unfortunately, and
apparently because of political correctness, most productions, including
Roundabout’s two revivals, now drop the song from the score).
The score’s most enduring number is Amalia’s aria “Ice Cream” when
she examines her contradictory feeling about Georg. The song was first
introduced by Barbara Cook in the original production and it became her
signature song.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “cheerful seamlessness of
She Loves Me defies reconstruction” and thus the revival was “remarkably
free of the shadows and subtexts” that such directors as John Doyle and
Bartlett Sher kept “uncovering in their reconceptions of vintage musicals.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety praised the “charming” and “enchanting” revival
with its “endearing” leads, a “dream team” of supporting players,
“absolutely flawless” stagecraft, “alluring” decor, “upbeat” lighting, and an
overall “candy-colored” look. The New Yorker found the “sweet and
harmless” musical “as fragrant and squeaky-clean as the lily-scented soap
sold at Maraczek’s Parfumerie.”
The original production opened on April 23, 1963, at the Eugene
O’Neill Theatre for 301 performances, and the cast album was released on a
two-record set by MGM Records and then later on CD by Polydor. The
script was published in hardback by Dodd, Mead & Company in 1964, and
in 1993 was published in a special hardback edition by the Fireside Theatre.
Roundabout’s 1993 revival opened on June 10 at the Criterion Center
Stage Right for 61 performances; the cast included Boyd Gaines (who won
the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical) and Judy Kuhn. Two
months after the production closed, it returned to Broadway at the Brooks
Atkinson Theatre on October 7 for 294 performances (both productions
totaled 355 showings, and note that the second presentation was coproduced
by Roundabout and by James M. Nederlander and Elliot Martin with
Herbert Wasserman, Freddy Bienstock, and Roger L. Stevens). The
revival’s cast album was recorded by Varese Sarabande during the run at the
Brooks Atkinson, and for this production Amalia was performed by Diane
Fratantoni, who is heard on the cast album.
Other recordings of the score include The Music from “She Loves Me”
by Danny Davis and His Orchestra and Chorus (MGM Records) and Music
from the Hit Broadway Show “She Loves Me” by Frank Chacksfield and
His Orchestra (Decca Records). The deleted songs “Tell Me I Look Nice”
and “Christmas Eve” are included in the respective collections Lost in
Boston III and A Broadway Christmas, both released by Varese Sarabande.
The first London production opened on April 29, 1964, at the Lyric
Theatre for 189 performances. Rita Moreno was Ilona, and the character’s
song “I Resolve” was replaced with “Heads I Win” (the cast album was
released by EMI Records Limited and later issued on CD by EMI/West End
Angel Records). The 1993 revival was produced in London at the Savoy
Theatre on July 12, 1994, and was recorded by First Night Records (“Tango
Tragique” was heard without its lyric as a dance number at the café, and
this instrumental version is included on the London but not the 1993
Broadway recording).
In 1978, a truncated 105-minute television adaptation was produced by
the British Broadcasting Corporation and directed by Michael Simpson; the
cast included Gemma Craven (Amalia), Robin Ellis (Georg), David Kernan
(Kodaly), and Diane Langton (Ilona) (this version was later shown on
American television). John J. O’Connor in the Times said the musical was
always “charming,” but the television production was “sensationally
charming” and “just about flawless.” With its “exceptionally good” score
and the “attractive” performances by Craven and Ellis, the televised
adaptation was “one of the nicest gifts of the season.”
The current 2016 revival was filmed and shown theatrically on a limited
basis and is available for streaming on BroadwayHD. The film was also
shown on the PBS series Great Performances on October 20, 2017.
She Loves Me is the second musical adaptation of Parfumerie. The first
was the 1949 MGM film In the Good Old Summertime, which starred Judy
Garland and Van Johnson. The film’s score includes many well-known
numbers (such as “I Don’t Care” and the title song) and one lovely new one
(“Merry Christmas,” lyric and music by Janice Torre and Fred Spielman)
that has become a minor holiday standard.
The revival’s cast album was released by Ghostlight Records.
A theatrical urban legend attributes the short run of the original
production of She Loves Me to the era’s musical blockbuster mentality
which didn’t allow an intimate show to flourish among megahits of the
Hello, Dolly! and Fiddler on the Roof variety. But the Broadway run of She
Loves Me ended one week before the New York premiere of Dolly and nine
months before the opening of Fiddler. Five new musical theatre works
premiered on Broadway in the waning months of the 1962–1963 season,
and She Loves Me’s direct competition were the book musicals Tovarich
(264 performances), Sophie (8), Hot Spot (43), and the revue The Beast in
Me (4). And Broadway was receptive to small musicals during the era,
witness Stop the World—I Want to Get Off (555 performances) and Irma La
Douce (524).
It’s more likely She Loves Me’s relatively short and unprofitable run
was due to two major factors: lack of star power (the names of Barbara
Cook, Daniel Massey, Jack Cassidy, and Nathaniel Frey didn’t sell tickets)
and a certain lack of enthusiasm among the critics. Perhaps such mild
comments as “makes a virtue of modesty and taste” (Richard Watts Jr., in
the New York Post) and “directed . . . with unfailing good taste” (John
Chapman in the New York Daily News) hurt the box office, and while
Howard Taubman in the Times liked the “bonbon of a musical,” he warned
that “if you are allergic to sugary confections and fragile romances” then
you would want to “keep away” from the show. Walter Kerr in the New
York Herald Tribune complained that the plot was “pin-sized” with a story
not told “very well,” the score tended to “peddle plot information” and had
less “lyrical feeling than a blackboard diagram,” it was hard to
“reassemble” the “odd clauses” of lyrics and music into a “pleasing
pattern,” and, overall, things were “a little shopworn around the corner.”
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (She Loves Me);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Zachary
Levi); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Laura Benanti); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Jane Krakowski); Best Direction of a Musical (Scott Ellis);
Best Orchestrations (Larry Hochman); Best Scenic Design of a Musical
(David Rockwell); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Jeff Mahshie)
BRIGHT STAR
Theatre: Cort Theatre
Opening Date: March 24, 2016;
Closing Date: June 26, 2016
Performances: 109
Book: Steve Martin
Lyrics: Edie Brickell
Music: Steve Martin and Edie Brickell
Based on a story by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.
Direction: Walter Bobbie; Producers: Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner, John
Johnson, Zebulon LLC, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Len Blavatnik, James
L. Nederlander, Carson and Joseph Gleberman, and Balboa Park
Productions in association with Rodger Hess A.C. Orange International,
Broadway Across America, Sally Jacobs and Warren Baker, Exeter
Capital, Agnes Gund, True Love Productions, and The Old Globe
(Barry Edelstein, Artistic Director); Choreography: Josh Rhodes (Lee
Wilkins, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Eugene Lee; Costumes:
Jane Greenwood; Lighting: Japhy Weideman; Musical Direction: Rob
Berman
Cast: Carmen Cusack (Alice Murphy), A. J. Shively (Billy Cane), Stephen
Bogardus (Daddy Cane), Hannah Elless (Margo Crawford), Max
Chernin (Max), Sarah Jane Shanks (Florence), Sandra DeNise (Edna),
Jeff Blumenkrantz (Daryl Ames), Emily Padgett (Lucy Grant), Paul
Alexander Nolan (Jimmy Ray Dobbs), Stephen Lee Anderson (Daddy
Murphy), Dee Hoty (Mama Murphy), Michael Mulheren (Mayor Josiah
Dobbs), William Youmans (Stanford Adams), Michael X. Martin
(Doctor Norquist), Patrick Cummings (Stationmaster), Allison Briner-
Dardenne (County Clerk); Ensemble: Allison Briner-Dardenne, Max
Chernin, Patrick Cummings, Sandra DeNise, Michael X. Martin, Tony
Roach, Sarah Jane Shanks, William Youmans
The action takes place in various locales in North Carolina during the years
1945 and 1946, and twenty-two years earlier.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “If You Knew My Story” (Carmen Cusack, Company); “She’s
Gone” (Stephen Bogardus, A. J. Shively); “Bright Star” (A. J. Shively,
Ensemble); “Way Back in the Day” (lyric and music by Edie Brickell)
(Carmen Cusack, Ensemble); “Whoa, Mama” (Paul Alexander Nolan,
Carmen Cusack, Ensemble); “Firmer Hand” and “Do Right” (Stephen
Lee Anderson, Dee Hoty, Carmen Cusack, Ensemble); “A Man’s Gotta
Do” (Michael Mulheren, Paul Alexander Nolan); “Asheville” (Hannah
Elless, Ensemble); “What Could Be Better” (Paul Alexander Nolan,
Carmen Cusack, Ensemble); “I Can’t Wait” (Carmen Cusack, Paul
Alexander Nolan, Ensemble); “Please, Don’t Take Him” (Michael
Mulheren, Carmen Cusack, Stephen Lee Anderson, Dee Hoty, William
Youmans, Ensemble); “A Man’s Gotta Do” (reprise) (Michael
Mulheren, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Sun’s Gonna Shine” (Carmen Cusack, Dee Hoty, Hannah Elless,
Stephen Bogardus, Sandra De-Nise, Sarah Jane Shanks, Ensemble);
“Heartbreaker” (Paul Alexander Nolan); “Another Round” (Emily
Padgett, Jeff Blumenkrantz, A. J. Shively, Ensemble); “I Had a Vision”
(Carmen Cusack, Paul Alexander Dolan); “Always Will” (A. J. Shively,
Hannah Elless, Ensemble); “Can’t Wait” (reprise) (Ensemble); “So
Familiar” (Carmen Cusack, Ensemble); “At Long Last” (lyric and
music by Edie Brickell) (Carmen Cu-sack, Ensemble); Finale
(Company)
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Bright Star was a modest musical
without big-name stars, splashy scenic effects, and a familiar brand-name
pedigree. The earnest musical sought to tell a bittersweet story of separation
and ultimate reunion, and perhaps its understated virtues were out of place
in a Broadway more at home with glitz and gimmicks. As a result, the
production managed only three months on Broadway and lost its $10.5
million investment.
The action takes place in North Carolina during the years 1945 and
1946 as well as twenty-two years earlier, and the story was based on a
newspaper account from the early 1900s about a baby who was
miraculously saved after being hidden in a valise and thrown from a train
into a river.
The action focused on middle-aged literary magazine editor Alice
Murphy (Carmen Cusack) and young and aspiring writer and war veteran
Billy Cane (A. J. Shively), and how their lives intersect beyond the world of
publishing. It’s probably no spoiler to say that the musical was a mystery of
sorts in which Alice comes to discover that her baby son wasn’t given up
for adoption when she was a young unmarried woman, and that in fact the
child was apparently murdered by its paternal grandfather. But by chance
Alice comes upon evidence that the baby survived and that Billy is her son.
The New Yorker said the two plots of the “bighearted” musical
converged “in a soapy twist you can see coming acres away, [and] with a
weepy ending,” but the show “sings and swings to the sound of its lovingly
and furiously played fiddle, banjo and mandolin.” For Charles Isherwood in
the New York Times, the evening was “gentle-spirited” in its story “of lives
torn apart and made whole again,” and a story most “likely to be found in
radio serials and movies of yore.” But the production’s “soft-hued style”
and the “wry tone” of Martin’s book kept the ingredients “from curdling
into treacle” and the score offered “simple but seductive melodies” and
lyrics that had “a sweet, homespun quality.” But Marilyn Stasio in Variety
decided director Walter Bobbie’s production was “Broadway-slick” and the
“sheer scale of the package overwhelms this sweet but slender homespun
material.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today noted that Martin’s book was “forthright”
as well as “smart, funny and charming” and he and Brickell refused to
“condescend” to their characters. Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post
said the “weird” musical was a “Broadway oddity” because it juxtaposed
“an over-the-top plot with a low-key production and mild-tempered music,”
and while the “gentle fable” had a “quirky charm,” its “stubborn refusal to
face up to its dark side diminishes it.” Jesse Green in New York stated that
the “banal, self-cancelling, upbeat” work wanted “to demonstrate a lot of
heart without actually having one,” and the “pep” of the bluegrass score and
the overall “charm” of the production undermined the essentially “sad and
almost gothic story.”
Jeremy Gerard in Deadline Hollywood said the “earnest but soggy
mess” was “as earthbound as the folks it wants to celebrate” and “reek[ed]
of condescension, from the twangy accents to the charm layered on like
dollar perfume and the thigh-slapping slap-happy dances.” Further, the
evening felt like a jukebox musical because the songs didn’t “fit or advance
the story and almost never reveal the interior lives” of the characters.
Robert Hofler in The Wrap said only “time will tell” if Bright Star finds its
window card on “the walls of Joe Allen restaurant’s gallery of flops.” But
as far as Hofler was concerned, “on the walls of my mind, Bright Star has
already taken its place between last season’s Doctor Zhivago and 1979’s
Got to Go Disco.”
The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records. The musical was
presented in a workshop production by New York Stage and Film & Vassar
at the Powerhouse Theatre during Summer 2013, and the fully staged
presentation premiered at the Old Globe Theatre (San Diego) on September
28, 2014. A few months before the Broadway opening, the musical opened
at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre on December 2, 2015.
A number of songs in the production had earlier been recorded by Steve
Martin and Edie Brickell on their joint albums Love Has Come for You
(2013) and So Familiar (2015). The former includes “Asheville” and “Sun’s
Gonna Shine,” and the latter “So Familiar,” “Always Will,” “Way Back in
the Day,” “I Had a Vision,” “Another Round,” and “Heartbreaker.” The
former album also includes “Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby,” a
song that in effect is a one-song version of the Bright Star story (note that
this song wasn’t part of the Broadway score).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Bright Star); Best Book (Steve
Martin); Best Score (lyrics by Edie Brickell, music by Steve Martin and
Edie Brickell); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Carmen Cusack); Best Orchestrations (August Eriksmoen)
AMERICAN PSYCHO
Performances: 52
Book: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Lyrics and Music: Duncan Sheik
Based on the 1991 novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.
Direction: Rupert Goold (Whitney Mosery, Associate Director); Producers:
David Johnson and Jesse Singer for Act 4 Entertainment, Jeffrey
Richards, Will Trice, Rebecca Gold, Greenleaf Productions, John Frost,
Trevor Fetter, Joanna Carson, Gordon Meli Partners, Clip Service/A.C.
Orange International, Nora Ariffin, Jam Theatricals, Almeida Theatre,
Center Theatre Group, Paula and Stephen Reynolds, J. Todd Harris, and
the Shubert Organization in cooperation with Edward R. Pressman; An
Almeida and Headlong Production; Foresight Theatrical/Allan
Williams, Executive Producer; Carlos Arana, Jimmy and Sara
Hendricks Batcheller, CTM Productions, Stella La Rue, Nate Bolotin,
and James Forbes Sheehan, Associate Producers; Choreography: Lynne
Page (Rebecca Howell, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Es Devlin;
Video Design: Finn Ross; Costumes: Katrina Lindsay; Lighting: Justin
Townsend; Musical Direction: Jason Hart
Cast: Benjamin Walker (Patrick Bateman), Alice Ripley (Svetlana, Mrs.
Bateman, Mrs. Wolfe); Anna Eilinsfeld (Victoria), Ericka Hunter (Video
Store Clerk, Sabrina), Alex Michael Stoll (ATM, Craig McDermott,
Tom Cruise), Jennifer Damiano (Jean), Theo Stockman (Timothy Price),
Dave Thomas Brown (David Van Patten), Jordan Dean (Luis
Carruthers), Holly James (Hardbody Waitress, Hardbody Trainer,
Christine), Drew Moerlein (Paul Owen), Helene Yorke (Evelyn
Williams), Morgan Weed (Courtney Lawrence), Jason Hite (Sean
Bateman), Krystina Alabado (Vanden), Keith Randolph Smith (Al,
Detective Donald Kimball)
The action takes place during 1989 in New York City and the Hamptons.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Opening (Morning Routine)” (Benjamin Walker); “Selling Out”
(Benjamin Walker, Company); “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
(Jennifer Damiano, Company); “Cards” (Drew Moerlein, Theo
Stockman, Dave Thomas Brown, Alex Michael Stoll, Jordan Dean);
“You Are What You Wear” (Helene Yorke, Morgan Weed, Women);
“True Faith” (Krystina Alabado, Company); “Killing Time” (Benjamin
Walker, Theo Stockman); “In the Air Tonight” (Women, Company);
“Hardbody” (Holly James, Alex Michael Stoll, Dave Thomas Brown,
Jordan Dean, Men); “You Are What You Wear” (reprise) (Ensemble);
“If We Get Married” (Helene Yorke, Benjamin Walker, Jennifer
Damiano); “Not a Common Man” (Benjamin Walker); “Mistletoe
Alert” (Helene Yorke, Benjamin Walker, Company); “Hip to Be
Square” (Benjamin Walker, Drew Moerlein)
Act Two: “Clean” (Company); “Killing Spree” (Benjamin Walker); “Nice
Thought (Beautiful Child)” (Alice Ripley, Jennifer Damiano, Women);
“At the End of an Island” (Helene Yorke, Benjamin Walker, Company);
“I Am Back” (Benjamin Walker, Company); “You Are What You Wear”
(second reprise) (Ensemble); “A Girl Before” (Jennifer Damiano);
“Don’t You Want Me” (Drew Moerlein, Jason Hite, Jordan Dean,
Company); “This Is Not an Exit” (Benjamin Walker, Company)
Note: The score also included popular songs of the 1980s, and these
numbers were listed in a separate music credits’ section of the program
(some were also included in the program’s standard list of musical
numbers): “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (lyric and music by
Roland Orzabal, Chris Hughes, and Ian Stanley); “True Faith” (lyrics
and music by Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Gillian
Gilbert, and Stephen Hague); “In the Air Tonight” (lyric and music by
Phil Collins); “Hip to Be Square” (lyric and music by Bill Gibson, Sean
Hopper, and Huey Lewis); and “Don’t You Want Me” (lyric and music
by John Callis, Phil Oakey, and Philip Adrian Wright).
American Psycho was based on Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial 1991

novel (which was also somewhat controversial in its 2000 film adaptation).
Perhaps because shock and sensation aren’t what they used to be for
increasingly jaded audiences, the musical version didn’t cause much of a
stir. The production received mixed notices and failed to grab the attention
of ticket-buyers, and as a result lasted just six weeks and lost its entire $9.8
million investment. In his post-mortem analysis of some of the season’s
failures, Michael Paulson in the New York Times noted the material was
“unsuitable for families and unappealing to tourists,” and even “adventures
theatergoers” disagreed about the work. Some liked the “bold look and
daring content,” but others decided the satire was too “underplayed” and the
“explicit and misogynistic violence” was “offensive.”
The title character is Patrick Bateman (Benjamin Walker, here in
another memorable musical title role that followed his appearance in
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), a self-absorbed New York City yuppie
and investment banker, a narcissistic material boy obsessed with his
fashionable brand-name wardrobe and the latest vogues which will crown
him as a master of the universe in his trendier-than-thou social set. For
Patrick, a day is completely ruined if he can’t get reservations at the latest
exclusive restaurant du jour, and he’s devastated if someone’s business card
is classier than his.
Patrick is also into rough sex, and enjoys inflicting pain on his partners,
but something’s missing in his life, and he comes to realize he’s only
satisfied when he kills. His first victim is a homeless man, and from there
his serial-killing binge includes office colleagues and prostitutes. The
murders are what make him unique, but even when he confesses his crimes
no one believes him and he’s condemned to live out his life as an ordinary
person who in the eyes of the world is just another undistinguished face in
the crowd.
But wait. These murders are just a figment of Patrick’s fevered
imagination, and so on every level he’s nothing more than an average,
everyday nobody. Patrick’s gore-fest fantasies reflect Jack the Ripper, but in
reality he’s nothing more than a New Age Walter Mitty.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the musical a “mess”
because of its “terminally undecided tone” in which the “conflicts of
intention cancel one another out.” Further, the musical satirized the
consumerist culture of the 1980s and looked upon that era with
“condescending nostalgia.” But clearly nothing much had changed, and the
1980s consumer-conscious yuppies were now 2016 consumer-conscious
millennials. However, Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the “stylized”
adaptation was “witty” and Bateman was “one hunk of gorgeous ice
sculpture.” The production offered “razor-sharp musical choices” and a
“knife-edge tech design” with a “visual barrage of black-and-white patterns
splattered” against a cubist set.
Jesse Green in New York noted that the show’s decor was (as Patrick
might say) “as neat and tucked-in as a Turnbull & Asser poplin double-cuff
contrast-collar shirt.” But the musical’s “structure and tone” were a “lazy
mess,” and Patrick’s character was an undeveloped “cipher.” Sheik’s score
had its moments (such as “Cards” and “At the End of an Island”) but
overall the “vague rhymes” and “noodly structures” lacked “profile” and
had “no weight in storytelling.” In fact, the interpolated pop songs from the
1980s were the only ones that “consistently nail[ed] down the dramatic
moment,” and thus we’d arrived at a “low place” when a “pop jukebox
seems preferable to an original musical.”
Jeremy Gerard in Deadline Hollywood noted that the evening created “a
celebration of vapidity and inhumanity that is itself vapid and inhuman,”
but while the book was “awkward,” the score included “confident, well-
crafted numbers.” A brief scene when Patrick meets Tom Cruise in an
elevator was “hilariously mean,” the decor was “nurse’s uniform white,” the
lighting had an “ice-blue chill,” and a plexiglass scrim splayed with blood
was “one part shower scene from Psycho” and “one part Jackson Pollock.”
Elysa Gardner in USA Today said Patrick and his story were “scarier
and more thrilling than ever” and showed how little had changed since the
novel had first been published. Rupert Goold directed “with gale force and
fabulous style,” there was “human pain and soulful beauty” in Sheik’s
electronic score, the book delivered “humor and horror with breathless
punch,” and Walker’s Patrick held the audience “rapt throughout.” Elisabeth
Vincentelli in the New York Post said the adaptation had “tone[d] down the
gore and dial[ed] up the satire” with its look at “late-’80s excess,” and
Walker was “toned and resplendent.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune
observed that “sharper edges and much more careful observation” were
required to achieve a “darker, more complex,” and “more truthful” story,
and while Sheik’s score was a “myopic mess” which fused original songs
with authentic ones from the 1980s, you could “see how branded sonic
chaos could fit the crime and the criminal.”
The musical’s world premiere at London’s Almeida Theatre opened on
December 12, 2013, with Matt Smith as Benjamin; the production was a
limited engagement that was recorded by Concord Records (there was no
Broadway cast album). Songs heard in this production (but not in New
York) were “Oh Sri Lanka” and “Hardbody Luis,” and the cast album
includes bonus material performed by Sheik and various singers, including
Broadway cast member Jennifer Damiano (“Selling Out,” “Everybody
Wants to Rule the World,” and “Killing Time 2.0”).The script was
published in paperback by Samuel French in 2018.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Es Devlin and
Finn Ross); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Justin Townsend)
WAITRESS
“A NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL BAKED FROM THE HEART”

Performances: 1,544
Book: Jessie Nelson
Lyrics and Music: Sara Bareilles
Based on the 2007 Fox Searchlight Pictures film Waitress (direction and
screenplay by Adrienne Shelly).
Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler, Norton and Elayne Herrick, David
L. Berley, Independent Presenters Network, A.C. Orange International,
Peter May, Michael Roiff, Ken Schur, Marisa Sechrest, Jam Theatricals,
42nd.club/Square 1 Theatricals, Benjamin Simpson and Joseph
Longthorne/Shira Friedman, and The American Repertory Theatre
(Diane Paulus, Artistic Director); Brett England and Daniel M. Posener,
Associate Producers; Alecia Parker, Executive Producer;
Choreography: Lorin Latarro (Abbey O’Brien, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: Scott Pask; Costumes: Suttirat Anne Larlarb;
Lighting: Christopher Akerlind; Musical Direction: Nadia
DiGiallonardo
Cast: Jessie Mueller (Jenna), Eric Anderson (Cal), Kimiko Glenn (Dawn),
Keala Settle (Becky), Dakin Matthews (Joe), Nick Cordero (Earl),
Charity Angel Dawson (Nurse Norma), Drew Gehling (Doctor
Pomatter), Christopher Fitzgerald (Ogie), Claire Keane (per program,
Lulu on “Wed., Sat. Eve., Sun.”) and McKenna Keane (Lulu on “Tues.,
Thurs., Fri., Sat. Mat.”); Ensemble: Charity Angel Dawson, Thay Floyd,
Molly Hager, Aisha Jackson, Jeremy Morse, Stephanie Torns, Ryan
Vasquez
The action takes place in a small Southern town.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “What’s Inside” (Jessie Mueller, Company); “Opening Up”
(Jessie Mueller, Keala Settle, Kimiko Glenn, Eric Anderson, Company);
“The Negative” (Jessie Mueller, Keala Settle, Kimiko Glenn); “What
Baking Can Do” (Jessie Mueller); “Club Knocked Up” (Charity Angel
Dawson, Female Ensemble); “Pomatter Pie” (Orchestra); “When He
Sees Me” (Kimiko Glenn, Company); “It Only Takes a Taste” (Drew
Gehling, Jessie Mueller); “You Will Still Be Mine” (Nick Cordero,
Jessie Mueller); “A Soft Place to Land” (Jessie Mueller, Keala Settle,
Kimiko Glenn); “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” (Christopher
Fitzgerald, Company); “Bad Idea” (Jessie Mueller, Drew Gehling,
Company)
Act Two: “I Didn’t Plan It” (Keala Settle); “Bad Idea” (reprise)
(Company); “You Matter to Me” (Drew Gehling, Jessie Mueller); “I
Love You Like a Table” (Christopher Fitzgerald, Kimiko Glenn); “Take
It from an Old Man” (Dakin Matthews, Company); “Dear Baby” (Jessie
Mueller); “Contraction Ballet” (Jessie Mueller, Company); “She Used
to Be Mine” (Jessie Mueller); “Everything Changes” (Jessie Mueller,
Company); “Opening Up” (reprise) (Company); Note: “Club Knocked
Up,” “Pomatter Pie,” “Dear Baby,” and “Contraction Ballet” weren’t
listed in the program but were included on the Broadway cast album.
Waitress was based on the 2007 film of the same name, and focused on
Jenna (Jessie Mueller), a waitress and pie baker in a small Southern town
who is trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband Earl (Nick
Cordero) and finds herself pregnant. In order to break free of the marriage
and find independence and financial security, she decides to enter a pie-
baking contest that will award $20,000 to the winner. In the meantime, she
goes to a new gynecologist (Dr. Pomatter, played by Drew Gehling), and
despite the doctor-patient relationship, she and the young and attractive
(and married) doctor have an affair.
The diner where Jenna works is owned by the gruff but lovable (and
terminally ill) Joe (Dakin Matthews), and besides Jenna there are two other
waitresses employed there, Becky (Keala Settle) and Dawn (Kimiko
Glenn), the former romantically involved with Cal (Eric Anderson) and the
latter with Ogie (Christopher Fitzgerald). When Joe dies, he leaves the diner
to Jenna, and two years later we find Jenna free of Earl and no longer
involved with the doctor. Her daughter Lulu is two years old, and Jenna is
independent and successfully running the restaurant and her pie shop.
The story was somewhat reminiscent of the 1974 film Alice Doesn’t
Live Here Anymore and the subsequent television series Alice. There was
the feisty and independent waitress and her sitcom-like camaraderie with
fellow waitresses, and Joe was a stand-in for Alice’s boss, the crusty but
lovable Mel. In the original film, Alice meets her dream man (played by
Kris Kristofferson), and of course in the musical Jenna has an affair with
Doctor Dreamboat.
Along with its sitcom trappings, the musical raised questions about the
plot contrivances. Would any small town offer a huge cash prize of $20,000
for a pie-baking contest? And why was Earl depicted as a straw-man
heavy? Perhaps his and Jenna’s deteriorated relationship might have been
more interesting had he been conceived in a less clichéd and cartoonish
manner. Further, the affair between Jenna and her gynecologist was
somewhat off-putting, and it was odd that no one seemed to raise the
questionable and problematic ethics of a doctor who sleeps with one of his
patients.
Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune liked the “intimate harmonics” of
singer and songwriter Sara Bareielles’s score. Jones also praised Mueller as
a “golden star” whose performance was “stripped of condescension” and
said “no singing actress” of Mueller’s generation was “better able to play a
woman of low power and self-esteem.” But the gynecologist came across
“like a sitcom doc,” and Earl was depicted as your “standard-issue man-
spreader” and should have been written with a “deeper” insight into his
“anger and depression.” David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said
Mueller gave a “transcendent performance” and was “so damn good you
start mentally casting her in classic musical roles while you’re watching,”
and Barielles’s score offered “lilting melodic flights.” But Jessie Nelson’s
script included “stock characters,” director Diane Paulus and choreographer
Lorin Latarro overplayed the “whimsy,” and despite the “impressive
fluidity” of Paulus’s staging, she sometimes pushed “the broad comedy with
a heavy, somewhat patronizing hand.”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post liked the “zesty energy” of the
score, which offset the “overly formulaic” show’s “saccharine sitcom
sensibility,” but Earl’s character should have been softened; his villainy was
“so transparently designed to provoke a specific response” that he came
across “as an inane contrivance.” But Mueller had “great presence and even
better vocal chops,” and perhaps “the long search for the star of a Broadway
revival of Funny Girl” was over. Christopher Kelly in NY Advance Media
for NJ.com said the “cloying” musical with its “coffeehouse schmaltz”
score was “an exceptionally tasteless princess fantasy” based on
“threadbare source material,” but Mueller had a “wide, high-wattage smile
and an easy rapport with her fellow performers.”
The New Yorker decided that the affair between patient and
gynecologist was “less creepy than it sounds,” noted that the songs were
“ethereal, gorgeously harmonic, and even funny,” and Mueller was “just the
performer to put them over, with equal parts warmth and grit.” Marilyn
Stasio in Variety praised both the “charming score that suits the quirky
material” and Mueller’s “dazzling voice and endearing personality.” But the
character of Earl was “pure caricature,” and for the first act, Paulus’s
direction “unwisely chose to play for broad caricature and slapstick laughs.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said Mueller’s talents “often
outstrip[ped] the material” because she possessed a “rich, soulful and
emotionally translucent voice” and was able to bring “cupfuls of subtext to
her acting.” Otherwise, most of the characters were flat, and Paulus brought
“slick surface professionalism” to the musical “rather than anything
approaching real depth.”
The musical premiered at the American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge,
Massachusetts) on August 2, 2015; for Broadway, choreographer Chase
Brock and lighting designer Kenneth Posner were respectively replaced by
Lorin Latarro and Christopher Akerlind, and cast members Joe Tippett
(Earl), Jeanna de Waal (Dawn), and Jeremy Morse (Ogie) were respectively
succeeded by Nick Cordero, Kimiko Glenn, and Christopher Fitzgerald.
During the Broadway run, Barielles occasionally played the role of Jenna.
The Broadway cast album was released by DMI Soundtracks, and
Barielles’s What’s Inside: Songs from “Waitress” (Epic Records) includes
two numbers dropped during the tryout (“Door Number Three” and “Lulu’s
Pie Song”). The London production opened at the Adelphi Theatre on
March 7, 2019, with Katharine McPhee as Jenna.
Much was made of the fact that the musical’s creative team consisted of
women, Jessie Nelson (book writer), Sara Bareilles (lyrics and music),
Diane Paulus (director), and Lorin Latarro (choreographer). But Elizabeth
Swados got there first with her 1978 Broadway musical Runaways (which
had originated Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre). For Runaways,
Swados wrote the book, lyrics, and music; was the director and
choreographer; and was a guitarist in the show’s orchestra.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Waitress); Best Score (lyrics and
music by Sara Bareilles); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading
Role in a Musical (Jessie Mueller); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Christopher Fitzgerald)
TUCK EVERLASTING
Performances: 39
Book: Claudia Shear and Tim Federle
Lyrics: Nathan Tysen
Music: Chris Miller
Based on the 1975 novel Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.
Direction and Choreography: Casey Nicholaw (Patrick Wetzel, Associate
Director; Stacey Todd Holt, Associate Choreographer); Producers:
Grove Entertainment, Arlene Scanlan and Michael Jackowitz, Howard
and Janet Kagan, Jeffrey A. Sine, Broadway Across America, Samira
Nanda, Matthew Blank, Laurie Glodowski/Susan Daniels, Joan Jhett
Productions/Gabrielle Hanna and Marcy Feller, Patti Maurer/Bev
Tannenbaum/Sunshine Productions/Karen Humphries Sallick, Rich
Entertainment Group/Jeremiah J. Harris/Darren P. Deverna/AC Orange
International LLC, Warner/Chappell Music/Linda G. Scott, Late Life
Love Productions/Alexis Fund, Fakston Productions/Kyle Fisher, Jack
Thomas/Caduceus Productions, and Barry Brown; Sara Skolnick,
Executive Producer; Scenery: Walt Spangler; Costumes: Gregg Barnes;
Lighting: Brian Ronan; Musical Direction: Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Cast: Andrew Keenan-Bolger (Jesse Tuck), Carolee Carmello (Mae Tuck),
Robert Lenzi (Miles Tuck), Michael Park (Angus Tuck), Sarah Charles
Lewis (Winnie Foster), Terrence Mann (Man in the Yellow Suit),
Valerie Wright (Mother), Pippa Pearthree (Nana), Michael Wartella
(Hugo), Fred Applegate (Constable Joe); Ensemble: Timothy J. Alex,
Chloe Campbell, Ben Cook, Deanna Doyle, Brandon Espinoza, Lisa
Gajda, Jessica Lee Goldyn, Neil Haskell, Justin Patterson, Marco
Shittone, Jennifer Smith, Kathy Voytko, Sharrod Williams
The action begins in 1808 in Treegap, New Hampshire, and takes place
mostly in August 1893.
Musical Numbers
Note: For the list of musical numbers, the program provided song titles
only, and didn’t cite names of characters or performers. The program
also omitted the production’s most well-received number, the story
ballet “The Story of Winnie Foster.” The information below is taken
from the original Broadway cast album and the published script.
Act One: “Live Like This” (Carolee Carmello, Sarah Charles Lewis,
Michael Park, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Robert Lenzi, Terrence Mann,
Ensemble); “Good Girl, Winnie Foster” (Sarah Charles Lewis, Valerie
Wright, Carolee Carmello); “Join the Parade” (Terrence Mann,
Musicians); “Good Girl, Winnie Foster” (reprise) (Sarah Charles
Lewis); “Top of the World” (Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Sarah Charles
Lewis); “Hugo’s First Case” (Michael Wartella); “Story of the Tucks”
(Carolee Carmello, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Robert Lenzi); “My Most
Beautiful Day” (Carolee Carmello, Michael Park); “Join the Parade”
(reprise) (Terrence Mann, Ensemble); “Partner in Crime” (Sarah
Charles Lewis, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Ensemble); “Seventeen”
(Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Sarah Charles Lewis, Terrence Mann,
Ensemble)
Act Two: “Everything’s Golden” (Terrence Mann, Ensemble); “Seventeen”
(reprise) (Sarah Charles Lewis); “Time” (Robert Lenzi); “Everything’s
Golden” (reprise) (Terrence Mann); “You Can’t Trust a Man” (Fred
Applegate, Michael Waatella); “The Wheel” (Michael Park, Sarah
Charles Lewis, Ensemble); “Story of the Man in the Yellow Suit”
(Terrence Mann); “Everlasting” (Sarah Charles Lewis); “The Story of
Winnie Foster” (Dancers); “The Wheel” (reprise) (Andrew Keenan-
Bolger, Ensemble)
Tuck Everlasting was based on Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 novel of the same
name, which became a children’s classic and inspired two film versions (in
1980 and 2002). The musical adaptation was refreshingly different from
Broadway’s typical tried-and-true family fare. There were no flying cars or
flying nannies, and instead here was a story that looked at the very nature of
existence. Clearly, this was not a bubble-headed feel-good show, and it
actually posed thoughtful questions for both children and adults in regard to
life and death. For its sins, the musical closed in five weeks and lost its $11
million investment.
During August 1893 in the woods near the New Hampshire town of
Treegap, eleven-year-old Winnie Foster (Sarah Charles Lewis) meets the
Tuck family, Angus (Michael Park), Mae (Carolee Carmello), and their
sons, the twenty-one-year-old Miles (Robert Lenzi) and the seventeen-year-
old Jesse (Andrew Keenan-Bolger). Winnie discovers a startling and
fantastic secret about the Fosters when she learns that some eighty years
earlier they drank from a spring in the woods and didn’t realize its water
was magical and gave eternal life to whoever drank from it. (For some
reason, their horse didn’t drink, proving the old adage that you can lead a
horse to water . . .)
Winnie can either drink or not drink from the spring, and either choice
has a clear-cut conclusion. Drink, and her life will never end. Don’t drink,
and live out her years in whatever time is allotted before death takes her.
Angus reminds her that one needn’t live forever, but one needs to live, and
Winnie makes her choice.
A dance sequence (titled “The Story of Winnie Foster” in the script and
on the cast album) shows us the results of Winnie’s decision. Decades later
the Tucks come upon her grave and read the inscription on her stone: she
was a cherished wife, a devoted mother, and the dearest of grandmothers.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “warm-spirited and
piercingly touching” musical had been “deftly” adapted by Claudia Shear
and Tim Federle and had a “winning” and “varied” score by Nathan Tysen
and Chris Miller. Director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (who with
Tuck Everlasting now had four musicals on Broadway, The Book of
Mormon, Aladdin, and Something Rotten!) had found the “tender
emotional core” of the story as well as “its layers of mildly dark
philosophical inquiry.” And Isherwood reiterated that “yes,” he had used
the words “philosophical inquiry” in a musical “aimed at the family
crowd,” a musical that asked if a “never-ending life would be worth living.”
Frank Rizzo in Variety noted that the “warmhearted” story and
“handsome” production would appeal to the “family-centric market,” but
otherwise “jaded” theatergoers would “find the proceedings not so much
timeless as time-consuming,” and he stated there was a lack of “salt and
vinegar to give the sweetness some kick.” The New Yorker liked the
“bighearted” show and said Nicholaw brought “visual dazzle” to the
production with Walt Spangler’s “translucent storybook” decor, Gregg
Barnes’s “fanciful” costumes, and Shear and Federle’s “snappy” script. But
the score was “mostly schmaltzy and generic.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter decided the show was a
“sweet concoction” that seemed “over its head amidst the flashier delights
of Wicked and Matilda” and was “likely destined for an all-too-finite life on
the Great White Way.” The book was “more serviceable than inspired,” the
“tuneful country and folk music–influenced score” was “equally
unmemorable,” and “depending on your point of view” the story was
“either creepy or charming.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post
noted that Babbitt’s novel wasn’t “afraid of the dark,” but the musical was
“toothless” and the score was “a procession of dull, Renaissance Faire
songs that float by, making barely a ripple.”
On one thing all the critics agreed: the climactic ballet “The Story of
Winnie Foster” was a knockout and brought to mind Broadway’s Golden
Age of expansive dance sequences that were an extension of the narration.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the “stirring” ballet
was the evening’s “highlight” where “past, present and future fuse”; the
New Yorker noted that the musical’s “trump card” and “real innovation”
was the “wordless, time-hopping, and lovely” ballet; and Rizzo said the
dance packed an “emotional wallop.”
Scheck said the “beautifully staged” dance “charmingly” illustrated the
stages of Winnie’s life, a life “marked by love and loss” and a dance that
achieved “a level of subtle artistry that makes everything preceding it seem
pedestrian by comparison.” Vincentelli said the story ballet resonated “more
than anything that preceded” it, and while Tuck Everlasting might “not last
forever . . . this number should.” And Isherwood said that for the evening’s
“thrilling final moments” Miller’s “rapturous” music took over and the cast
members and dancers expressed the story’s theme “with a kinetic beauty
that startles with its emotional resonance and theatrical force.”
The original cast album was released by DMI Soundtracks, and the
script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 2017. The musical
was first presented at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre on January 21, 2015 (songs
heard in this production but not in the Broadway version are: “Come to the
Fair,” “One Small Story,” “Jump the Line,” and “For the Best”).
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Costume Design of a Musical (Gregg
Barnes)
SHUFFLE ALONG; OR, THE MAKING OF THE MUSICAL

SENSATION OF 1921 AND ALL THAT FOLLOWED
Performances: 100
Book: George C. Wolfe
Lyrics: Noble Sissle
Music: Eubie Blake
Direction: George C. Wolfe; Producers: Scott Rudin, Roy Furman,
Columbia Live Stage, Center Theatre Group, Roger Berlind, William
Berlind, Broadway Across America, Heni Koenigsberg, The Araca
Group, Peter May, Jon B. Platt, Color Mad Productions, Daryl Roth, Jay
Alix and Una Jackman, Scott M. Delman, Sonia Friedman, Ruth
Hendel, Independent Presenters Network, Tulchin Barnter Productions,
Len Blavatnik, Spring Sirkin, and Eli Bush; Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner,
and John Johnson, Executive Producers; Choreography: Savion Glover;
Scenery: Santo Loquasto; Costumes: Ann Roth; Lighting: Jules Fisher
and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Shelton Becton
Cast: Brian Stokes Mitchell (F. [Flournoy] E. Miller), Billy Porter (Aubrey
[L.] Lyles), Joshua Henry (Noble Sissle), Brandon Victor Dixon (Eubie
Blake), Audra McDonald (Lottie Gee), Adrienne Warren (Gertrude
Saunders, Florence Mills), Amber Iman (Eva, Mattie Wilkes); The
Harmony Kings: Darius de Haas, JC Montgomery, Arbender Robinson,
and Christian Dante White; The Jazz Jasmines: Afra Hines, Adrienne
Howard, Lisa LaTouche, Erin N. Moore, Janelle Neal, Brittany Parks,
Karissa Royster, and Pamela Yasutake; The Dancin’ Boys (aka Kids):
Phillip Attmore, Curtis Holland, Kendrick Jones, Joseph Wiggan, and
Richard Riaz Yoder; The Jimtown Flappers: Lisa LaTouche, Brittany
Parks, Karissa Royster, and Pamela Yasutake; Christian Dante White
(Harry Walton), Arbender Robinson (Tommy), Curtis Holland (Li’l
Baby C); Dancing Waiters: Curtis Holland and Kendrick Jones; Izzy’s
Girls: Brittany Parks and Pamela Yasutake; Brooks Ashmanskas (Sam,
Izzy, Carlo, Railroad President, Famous Celebrities, and International
Emcees), Phillip Attmore (William Grant Still), Amber Iman (Madame
Madame)
The action takes place mostly in New York City during 1921 and the years
immediately following.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a traditional list of musical numbers.
Sources are unclear as to what was heard on opening night and who
performed specific songs (in some cases, characters are cited who aren’t
listed in either the preview or opening night programs). The following is
cobbled together from various sources, including the Internet Broadway
Database (www.ibdb.com) and the music credits section of the program,
and these may not be a completely accurate representation of what was
heard on opening night. For information about song sources, including
names of lyricists and composers, see text of this entry.
Act One: “Broadway Blues” (Company); “Affectionate Dan” (Joshua
Henry, Brandon Victor Dixon); “Sellin’ the Show” (Brandon Victor
Dixon, Joshua Henry, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter); “Introducing
Sam” (Brooks Ashmanskas, Brandon Victor Dixon, Joshua Henry,
Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter); “Makin’ a Show” (Company);
“I’m Simply Full of Jazz” (Adrienne Warren, The Jimtown Flappers);
“In Honeysuckle Time (When Emaline Said She’d Be Mine)” (Audra
McDonald, Brandon Victor Dixon); “Swing Along” (Brian Stokes
Mitchell, Company); “Campaign Songs” (Company); “Bandana Days”
(The Jazz Jasmines); “Love Will Find a Way” (Audra McDonald); “If
You Haven’t Been Vamped by a Brownskin, You Haven’t Been Vamped
at All” (The Harmony Kings); “You Got to Git the Gittin’ While the
Gittin’s Good” (Joshua Henry, Curtis Holland, Kendrick Jones); “Ain’t
It a Shame” (Company); “Pennsylvania Graveyard Shuffle” (The
Dancin’ Kids); “Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home?” (Audra
McDonald); “I’m Just Wild about Harry” (Audra McDonald, Adrienne
Warren, Curtis Holland); Act One Finale (Company)
Act Two: “Dance around the One” (The Dancin’ Kids, The Harmony
Kings); “Shuffle Along” (Audra McDonald, Dancing Waiters);
“Struttin’” (Joshua Henry, Brandon Victor Dixon, Brian Stokes
Mitchell, Billy Porter); “I’m Craving for That Kind of Love” (Adrienne
Warren, Audra McDonald); “Till Georgie Took ’Em Away” (The
Harmony Kids, Phillip Attmore); “The Broadway Buzz” (Brooks
Ashmanskas, Company); “Rang Tang” and “Chocolate Dandies” (The
Dancin’ Kids); “It’s Getting Dark on Old Broadway” (Brooks
Ashmanskas, Mr. Broadway’s Girls); “That Comedy Chorus Girl (Gal)”
(Freda, Baker Boys [performers unknown]); “Uptown Noir” (The
Harmony Kings); “You’re Lucky to Me” (Audra McDonald, Brandon
Victor Dixon); “Low-Down Blues” (Billy Porter); “Shuffle Along”
(reprise) (Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Musical Selections with Sissle and
Blake” (Brandon Victor Dixon, Joshua Henry, Harriet [performer
unknown], Avis [performer unknown]); “Memories of You” (Audra
McDonald); “The Original Broadway Rag” (Brooks Ashmanskas,
Company); “Shuffle Off” (Adrienne Warren, Audra McDonald, Brian
Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Brandon Victor Dixon, Joshua Henry)
The groundbreaking musical Shuffle Along was one of the biggest hits
of the 1920–1921 season when it opened on May 23, 1921, at the 63rd
Street Music Hall and played for 504 performances. There had been other
black Broadway musicals, but this one was written and partially produced
by blacks (Burns Mantle reported that Harry Cort, the son of theatre
manager John Cort, was also a backer of the show), it included an all-black
cast, and was a crossover success that attracted white audiences. There were
even midnight matinees on Wednesdays, a clever ploy that allowed theatre
insiders to see the show and recommend it to others, and soon celebrities,
politicians, and “society” types flocked uptown to see the new musical
everyone was talking about. Shuffle Along did indeed become a sensation,
and after Jerome Kern’s Sally was the season’s second-longest-running
musical.
The lighthearted book by Flournoy E. Miller (Brian Stokes Mitchell)
and Aubrey L. Lyles (Billy Porter) was based on their vaudeville sketch
“The Mayor of Jimtown” (aka “The Mayor of Dixie”), and their story
revolved around the comical goings-on of a mayoral campaign in the
imaginary Southern locale of Jimtown. The infectious songs with lyrics by
Noble Sissle (Joshua Henry) and music by Eubie Blake (Victor Brandon
Dixon) included one (“I’m Just Wild about Harry”) that became an
evergreen (but a survey of six contemporary newspaper reviews doesn’t
yield a single mention of the number). In the story, “I’m Just Wild about
Harry” (which was sung by Lottie Gee [played by Audra McDonald in the
current production] and the Jimtown Sunflowers) was a campaign song for
Harry Walton (played by Roger Matthews in the original presentation], one
of the mayoral candidates. Like the later musical comedy towns of Glocca
Morra, Brigadoon, and Greenwillow, Jim-town was a mythical place (in this
instance, located somewhere in Dixieland and specifically in Mississippi).
In various black shows of the 1920s, Jimtown popped up in different
Southern states, including South Carolina, and the town was a geographic
cousin to Bamville, another invented locale for the era’s black musicals.
Shuffle Along excelled in old-fashioned comedy, a melodic score, and
dazzling dances, and it set the standard against which every 1920s black
show was measured (for further reading about the original production,
including information about the published script, various recordings, and
later Shuffle Along musicals, see the author’s The Complete Book of 1920s
Broadway Musicals).
When the original production of Shuffle Along opened, it was reviewed
by the black critic Lester A. Walton for the black newspaper New York Age.
Walton reported he’d attended a tryout performance of the musical when it
played at Philadelphia’s Dunbar Theatre, and he was curious to see it again
when it opened in New York with a primarily white audience in attendance.
He referred to the “strange workings of the Caucasian mind,” and wondered
if whites would accept the show on its own terms and not bring “absolute
notions of what the average white American thinks of the Negro today.”
Usually, blacks “of the old mammy and Uncle Joe variety,” comedians in
blackface, and the “dandy darkey” type with a “grin and strut” were
“perpetually tolerated.” But what about a representation of “the Negro as
nice-looking young men and women, well dressed and using plain United
States language?” If such blacks were represented on stage, most theatre
managers would likely tell them to “get back to plantation stuff or bill
yourself as” Indians, Puerto Ricans, or Cubans.
Walton was curious if Shuffle Along would ultimately find its place as a
so-called “white folks’ show” (and time has proven that the production was
one that both blacks and whites enjoyed together). As for the show itself,
Walton found the songs “original, tuneful and worthy of a place in a
Broadway musical show,” and “speaking as a colored American” Walton
predicted the musical would “shuffle along . . . for a long time.”
The current production was (depending on one’s point of view)
pretentiously or jubilantly titled Shuffle Along; or, The Making of the
Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed. The show was by no
means a revival, and instead purported to depict the backstory of how the
show came to be produced and how it became one of the seminal musicals
in Broadway history. To be sure, the new production’s score included a
number of songs from the original Shuffle Along (along with other numbers
by various writers and from different sources), but the current show (which
for the remainder of this entry is referred to as Sensation while the original
1921 production is referenced by its full title) was in no way a revival of
Shuffle Along (but the Sensation team wanted the Tony Award committee to
consider the show for Best Revival of a Musical because it was clear
Hamilton was an unstoppable force that was all but guaranteed the win for
Best Musical).
Sensation opened to mixed reviews and didn’t win any of its ten Tony
nominations, but its powerhouse cast (which included Audra McDonald,
Brian Stokes Mitchell, Joshua Henry, and Billy Porter) seemed certain to
pave the way for a long and profitable run. But a contract—and fate—
stepped in, and the $12 million production shut down after just 100
performances. It turned out that McDonald was contracted to reprise her
2014 Broadway role of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar &
Grill for a three-month run in London and thus was always scheduled to
leave Sensation during June, just a few weeks after the Broadway premiere.
No doubt many potential ticket buyers decided to hold off buying tickets
until McDonald resumed performances in the fall. And perhaps there were
some prospective audience members who were somewhat turned off by the
show’s title, which may have come across as a dry documentary or history
lesson.
And then fate stepped in with the announcement that McDonald was
pregnant and would withdraw from both Sensation and the London
engagement of Lady Day, and during the remainder of her tenure in
Sensation she would appear in six of the show’s eight weekly performances.
But audiences didn’t pack the Music Box, and during one week in late June
when McDonald appeared in all eight performances, the show’s weekly
gross dropped by an astonishing $158,743.57. As a result, Sensation posted
its closing notice and became one of the biggest financial failures of the
season. (McDonald eventually appeared in the West End when Lady Day
opened on June 27, 2017, at Wyndham’s Theatre for a limited engagement.)
There were almost three dozen musical numbers in Sensation, of which
ten had been heard in the original Shuffle Along, all of them with lyrics by
Sissle and music by Blake: “I’m Simply Full of Jazz,” “In Honeysuckle
Time (When Emaline Said She’d Be Mine),” “Bandana Days,” “Love Will
Find a Way,” “If You Haven’t Been Vamped by a Brownskin, You Haven’t
Been Vamped at All,” “Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home?,” “I’m Just
Wild about Harry,” “Shuffle Along,” “I’m Craving for That Kind of Love,”
and “Low-Down Blues.” It’s likely that Sensation’s “Broadway Blues” and
“Broadway Buzz” were “Oriental Blues” and “Baltimore Buzz” from the
original production but with revised lyrics. Two songs heard in Sensation
(“You’re Lucky to Me” and “Memories of You”) were from Blackbirds of
1930 with lyrics by Andy Razaf and music by Blake; ‘You Got to Git the
Gittin’ While the Gittin’s Good” was a 1956 song with lyric by Miller and
music by Blake; and “It’s Getting Dark on Old Broadway” was from the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1922 with lyric by Gene Buck and music by Dave
Stamper. Other songs heard in Sensation were probably ones with revised
lyrics set to preexisting music by Blake. A credits’ section in the opening
night program listed the songs “Everybody’s Struttin’ (Strutting) Now”
(lyric and music by Sissle and Blake, from the 1923 musical Elsie) and
“Original Charleston Strut” (lyric and music by Thomas Morris, William
Russell, and Clarence Williams), and perhaps one of these morphed into the
second-act number “Struttin’.”
The critics praised the cast and Savion Glover’s choreography, but had
reservations about the book. Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the
evening both “bubbly and flat,” and noted the show opened “with a whoop
and a sigh” because of its “identity crisis.” The plot was a variation of the
“mossiest” of show business stories about putting on a show, and book
writer and director Wolfe brought “pedagogical annotations and sentimental
mistiness” to the proceedings with “a checklist of historic points” and a
“form of Wikipedia-style biographical summaries.” But the performers
brought their “distinctive charismas” to the production, the chorus was the
“comeliest and most dynamic” on Broadway, and “I’m Just Wild about
Harry” was a “piping-hot showstopper.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said Wolfe “piles it on, stretching the show’s
baggy structure all out of shape” with an “incoherent” book and a second
act that “actively [fought] with itself.” There was “rich material” here, but
Wolfe “should have stopped himself from cramming it all into this show.”
The New Yorker said the production was a “razzle-dazzle history lesson”
that offered “one showstopper after another,” and while Wolfe attempted
“to avoid making a musicalized PBS special,” there was “too little drama”
in the script. Roger Friedman in showbiz411.com said the show’s concept
was “undercooked,” and he suggested “a pared down, shorter, maybe off
Broadway version” might work better.
The production’s program added a classy touch with the insertion of a
replica of the original 1921 program.
Note that Keep Shufflin’ was a sequel of sorts to Shuffle Along. It
opened on February 27, 1928, at Daly’s Theatre for 104 performances, and
it too took place in Jimtown. Miller and Lyles wrote the book, Henry
Creamer and Andy Razaf the lyrics, and James P. Johnson, Thomas “Fats”
Waller, and Clarence Todd the music.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Shuffle Along; or, The Making of
the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed); Best Book
(George C. Wolfe); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Brandon Victor Dixon); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Adrienne Warren); Best Choreography
(Savion Glover); Best Direction of a Musical (George C. Wolfe); Best
Orchestrations (Daryl Waters); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Santo
Loquasto); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Ann Roth); Best
Lighting Design of a Musical (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer)
PARAMOUR
Opening Date: May 25, 2016; Closing Date: April 16, 2017
Performances: 366
Lyrics: Andreas Carlsson
Music: Bob and Bill (aka Guy Dubuc and Marc Lessard) and Andreas
Carlsson
Direction: Philippe Decoufle (West Hyler, Associate Creative Director and
Staging Director; Pascale Henrot, Associate Creative Director);
Producer: Cirque du Soleil Theatrical (Scott Zeiger, President and
Managing Director; Jean-Francois Bouchard, Creative Guide and
Creative Director); Jayna Neagle, Executive Producer; Choreography:
Daphne Mauger (Shana Carroll, Associate Creative Director, Acrobatic
Designer, and Choreographer); Verity Studios (Flying Machine Design
and Choreography); Acrobatic Performance Designer: Boris
Verkhovsky; Scenery: Jean Rabasse; Projection Designs: Olivier Simola
and Christophe Waksmann; Props Design: Anne-Seguin Poirier;
Costumes: Philippe Guillotel; Lighting: Patrice Besombes; Musical
Direction: Seth Stachowski
Cast: Jeremy Kushnier (AJ Golden), Ruby Lewis (Indigo James), Ryan
Vona (Joey Green), Bret Shuford (Robbie), Sarah Meahl (Gina), Kat
Cunning (Lila); Ensemble: Tom Ammirati, Andrew Atherton, Lee
Brearley, Yanelis Brooks, Samuel William Charlton, Martin Charrat,
Nate Cooper, Myriam Deraiche, Kyle Driggs, Jeremias Faganel, Amber
Brooke Fulljames, Tomasz Jadach, Rafal Kaszubowski, Reed Kelly,
Denis Kibenko, Joe McAdam, Raven McRae, Amber J. Merrick,
Sheridan Mouawad, Amber Barbee Pickens, Justin Prescott, Fletcher
Blair Sanchez, Mathieu Sennacherib, Blakely Slaybaugh, Sam Softich,
Amiel Soicher, Steven Trumon Gray, Bruce Weber, Amber Van Wijk,
Tomasz Wilkosz, Zhengqi Xia
The time and the place are “The Golden Age of Hollywood.”
Musical Numbers
Note: The program (and the cast album) didn’t cite names of singers.
Act One: “The Hollywood Wiz”; “Lila’s Song”; “Ginger Top”; “Something
More”; “Paramour” (Part One); “The Muse”; “Serenade from a
Window”; “The Honeymoon Days of Fame”; “Help a Girl Choose”
(Part One); “Help a Girl Choose” (Part Two)
Act Two: “Paramour” (Part Two); “The Muse” (reprise); “Love Triangle”;
“Writer’s Block”; “Everything” aka “The Lover’s Theme”; “Extra!
Extra!”; “Everything” (reprise); Finale: “Paramour”
The Cirque du Soleil took over the barnlike Lyric Theatre with
Paramour, the company’s latest presentation and their first for Broadway.
The program noted that the evening was “written with the greatest respect
for the traditions of Broadway, by way of Busby Berkeley.” The story
centered on a love triangle in which aspiring actress Indigo James (Ruby
Lewis) is torn between director AJ Golden (Jeremy Kushnier) and
composer Joey Green (Ryan Vona), and the program stated the story was
told by “dance, acrobatics, song, live video, film footage and interactive
projections.”
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “weightless” and
“forgettable” production was “simultaneously frenetic and tedious” with “a
star-is-born plot reeking of mothballs.” And sometimes it was hard to focus
on a song because so much was going on. When the heroine sang a number
in a speakeasy, the club “resembled a pinball machine” and the ensemble
was “bouncing around the room like tennis balls,” and so you forgot what
the song was about (was the heroine singing of “love,” “loss,” or maybe
“her favorite nail salon”?). Further, the basic story was banal and couldn’t
compete with the acrobatic sequences, which provided the evening’s “real
entertainment.”
The New Yorker found the show a “flimsy, cliché-ridden excuse” for
“first-rate” acrobatics, including one in which two “hunky” twins (Andrew
and Kevin Atherton) flew above the audience; another that offered a
“balletic trapeze routine” that featured a woman and two men who mirrored
the show’s “clumsy” book and its love triangle; and a “thrilling” climactic
“rooftop gangster free-for-all” that dazzled with wall-walking and precision
flips. Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the book was “corny” and the score
“mindless,” but the show boasted “spectacle,” “sensational design
elements,” and plenty of “aerialists, acrobats. jugglers, and tumblers.” And
a “jaw-dropping” high-wire act by the Atherton twins was “more
authentically beautiful and sensually alluring than any of the claptrap going
on below.”
During the early weeks of the run, Gordon Cox in Variety reported that
the musical (which was capitalized at $25 million) canceled a few
performances in order to tweak the show with a new acrobatic sequence,
new movement and choreography for a scene with flying machines and
drones, and “deeper backstories” for the leading characters.
Prior to the opening of Paramour there was speculation that the Lyric
would be the Cirque du Soleil’s permanent New York home, but after the
production closed the venue reverted to more traditional fare and as of this
writing the Lyric is hosting the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,
Parts One and Two (2018).
The cast album was released by Cirque de Soleil/Paramour Records.
CAKE OFF
Cake Off played at the Signature Theatre Company’s Ark Theatre in
Arlington, Virginia, during the period September 29–November 22,
2015 (the opening night seems to have been on October 11, 2015). As
of this writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Sheri Wilner and Julia Jordan
Lyrics: Julia Jordan and Adam Gwon
Music: Adam Gwon
Based on a play by Sheri Wilner.
Direction: Joe Calarco (Walter Ware III, Assistant Director); Producer:
Signature Theatre Company (Eric Schaeffer, Artistic Director); Scenery:
Jason Sherwood; Costumes: Frank Labovitz; Lighting: R. Lee Kennedy;
Musical Direction: Andrea Grody
Cast: Sherri L. Edelen (Rita Gaw), Todd Buonopane (Paul Hubbard), Jamie
Smithson (Jack DeVault, Lenora Nesbit, Nancy DeMarco), Ian Berlin
(Sweetie Boy)
The action takes place in 1996.
Musical Numbers
“No Distractions” (Sherri L. Edelen); “Gonna Be a Good Day” (Todd
Buonopane);”You Think Millberry” (Jamie Smithson); “Round One”
(Sherri L. Edelen, Todd Buonopane); “Gonna Be a Good Day” (reprise)
and “No Distractions” (reprise) (Sherri L. Edelen, Todd Buonopane);
“Fun” (Sherri L. Edelen, Jamie Smithson); “Simpler (Round Two)”
(Todd Buonopane, Sherri L. Edelen); “Less Like Me” (Todd
Buonopane); “Be a Little Sweeter” (Jamie Smithson); “Rita in the
Mirror” (Sherri L. Edelen); “If I Won” (Sherri L. Edelen, Todd
Buonopane, Jamie Smithson); “Piece of Cake” (Sherri L. Edelen); “You
Can’t Have This (Round Three)” (Sherri L. Edelen, Todd Buonopane);
“Transform” (Sherri L. Edelen)
Both Cake Off and Waitress offered characters who enter a baking
contest. For the latter musical, Jenna enters a pie-baking contest, and the
latter focused on the fictional 1996 Millberry Cake Off, a televised event
where for the first time men are allowed to enter into competition against
the women. This time the prize is $1 million, and the two major finalists are
Rita (Sherri L. Edelen) and Paul (Todd Buonopane). For Rita and Paul, the
cake off is a chance to prove their self-worth. She put her husband through
law school, bore him five children, they’re now divorced, and she lost the
previous two competitions. As for Paul, his wife has left him for her
personal trainer, and he’s trying to prove to his teenage son he’s not a loser.
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the “sporadically tasty”
musical was at its “flattest” in the music, a “thin” score whose only flavor
was “mostly sour,” and the overall effect of the “sketch-comedy premise”
was that of “tweeness and predictability.” But the show’s “economical
recipe” of four cast members and one musician might pave the way for
future productions in regional and community theatres. Charles Isherwood
in the New York Times said the “sweet puff pastry of a musical” offered a
“light, sweet” score, and Doug Rule in MetroWeekly decided the “final
product” wasn’t “satisfying or sweet enough,” and when at the conclusion
Rita sublimates “her dreams and desires into those of her unseen daughter”
it left “a rather unpleasant taste” because her character “resort[ed]
somewhat to gender stereotypes.”
GIRLSTAR
Girlstar played at the Signature Theatre Company’s Max Theatre in
Arlington, Virginia, during the period October 13–November 15, 2015
(the official opening night seems to have been on October 26). As of
this writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book and Lyrics: Anton Dudley
Music: Brian Feinstein
Direction: Eric Schaeffer (Amanda Connors, Assistant Director); Producer:
Signature Theatre Company (Eric >Schaeffer, Artistic Director);
Choreography: Lorin Latarro (Matthew Gardiner, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: Paul Tate Depoo III; Video Design: Matthew
Haber; Costumes: Frank Labovitz; Lighting: Jason Lyons; Musical
Direction: Adam Wachter
Cast: Donna Migliaccio (Daniella Espere), Desi Oakley (Tina), Bobby
Smith (Uncle Derek), Diana Huey (Piper), Jamie Eacker (Neela), Sam
Edgerly (Jeff); The Esperes: Kellee Knighten Hough, Nora Palka, Bayla
Whitten
Musical Numbers
Act One: “One Eye Open” (Donna Migliaccio); “Tonight” (Desi Oakley);
“Your Espere” (Donna Migliaccio, Diana Huey, Jamie Eacker, Kellee
Knighten Hough, Nora Palka, Bayla Whitten); “Your Espere” (reprise)
(Donna Migliaccio, Desi Oakley); “Get Used to This” (Sam Edgerly,
Desi Oakley); “Seal Your Fate I” (Donna Migliaccio); “Released”
(Donna Migliaccio, Desi Oakley, Kellee Knighten Hough, Nora Palka,
Bayla Whitten); “Released” (reprise) (Bobby Smith); “Moves Like
These” (Donna Migliaccio, Desi Oakley, Kellee Knighten Hough, Nora
Palka, Bayla Whitten); “Isn’t It Convenient” (Donna Migliaccio, Bobby
Smith); “I’ll Follow You” (Sam Edgerly, Desi Oakley); “Brand New”
(Desi Oakley); “Seal Your Fate II” (Donna Migliaccio, Desi Oakley)
Act Two: “One Eye Open” (reprise) (Donna Migliaccio); “Music
Everywhere” (Desi Oakley); “What’s the Word” (Sam Edgerly, Kellee
Knighten Hough, Nora Palka, Bayla Whitten); “My Night” (Desi
Oakley, Donna Migliaccio, Diana Huey, Jamie Eacker, Kellee Knighten
Hough, Nora Palka, Bayla Whitten); “More Clever Than You” (Donna
Migliaccio); “Derek’s Confession” (Bobby Smith, Desi Oakley); “The
Mirror” (Donna Migliaccio, Bobby Smith, Desi Oakley); “Who Would I
Be?” (Desi Oakley); “New” (Sam Edgerly, Desi Oakley)
Perhaps Girlstar could best be described as Gypsy Meets the Rocky

Horror Show. In this case, the beyond-ambitious record producer Daniella
(Donna Migliaccio) is determined to create the next big rock star, and so
Momma Rose—that is, Auntie Daniella—concocts a magic elixir composed
of a special green-colored body fluid found in talented performers whom
she has murdered, and thus the essence of what made stars of her victims is
extracted for future use. In keeping with her emerald color scheme, Daniella
has a lime green snake on her desk at all times because said snake serves as
the vessel where she stores the magic fluid.
Daniella gives the special cocktail to her wannabe-rock-star niece Tina
(Desi Oakley), and thus the young woman will possess all the talent
necessary to become a superstar. (But a lifetime of watching horror movies
has taught us that These Things Can Go Wrong, and so Daniella’s perfect
plan may not achieve the desired result.)
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the evening was “one of the
most confused vehicles” he’d ever seen at the Signature Theatre, and
although the evening might have had Phantom of the Opera aspirations it
was most likely a candidate for the “sendup artists” of Forbidden Broadway
because it was “rife with moments that make for inadvertent howlers.” But
Alan Katz in DC Theatre Scene said the “dark fantasy critique of American
celebrity culture” was “one of the most delightfully cult-y new musicals
I’ve seen in awhile.”
2016–2017 Season
MOTOWN (2016)

Performances: 24
Book: Berry Gordy; David Goldsmith and Dick Scanlan, Script
Consultants; Christie Burton, Creative Consultant
Lyrics and Music: Per the program, lyrics and music by “The Legendary
Motown Catalogue”; see list of musical numbers in the entry for the
2013 production of Motown.
Based on the 1994 autobiography To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the
Memories of Motown by Berry Gordy.
Direction: Charles Randolph-Wright (Schele Williams, Associate Director);
Producers: Kevin McCollum, Doug Morris, and Berry Gordy; Nina
Lannan and Nansci Neiman-Legette, Executive Producers;
Choreography: Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams (Brian H. Brooks,
Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: David Korins; Projection Design:
Daniel Brodie; Costumes: Esosa; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical
Direction: Darryl Archibald
Cast: Chester Gregory (Berry Gordy), Allison Semmes (Diana Ross), Jesse
Nager (Smokey Robinson), Jarran Muse (Marvin Gaye), Leon Outlaw
Jr. (Young Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson); Ensemble:
Nik Alexander (Dennis Edwards, Miracle, Mickey Stevenson,
Commodore), Erick Buckley (Jackie Wilson Manager, Harold Noveck,
Studio Head), Chante Carmel (Edna Anderson, Martha Reeves,
Marvelette), Chadae (Anna Gordy, Marvelette), Lynorris Evans
(Temptation, Fuller Gordy, Contour, Jackson 5), Robert Hartwell
(Temptation, Contour, Jackson 5, Robert Gordy), Trisha Jeffrey (Mary
Wilson, Mother Gordy), Elijah Ahmad Lewis (Stevie Wonder, Levi
Stubbs, Miracle, Jr. Walker Allstar), Loren Lott (Esther Gordy, Lula
Hardaway, Vandella, Gladys Horton), Jarvis B. Manning Jr. (Jackie
Wilson, Contour, Eddie Holland, Frontier Announcer, Hitsville
Employee), Krisha Marcano (Florence Ballard, Suzanne de Passe),
Marq Moss (Temptation, Commodore, Contour, Jr. Walker), Rashad
Naylor (Four Top, Contour, Brian Holland, Jackson 5, Rick James),
Ramone Owens (Melvin Franklin, Miracle, Commodore), Olivia
Puckett (Claudette Robinson, Landlady, Teena Marie, Billie Jean
Brown, Hitsville Employee, Marvelette), Jamison Scott (Barney Ales,
Roger Campbell, Tom Clay, Pirate DJ), Joey Stone (Four Top, Norman
Whitfield, Commodore), Doug Storm (Ed Sullivan, Shelly Berger,
Dudley Buell), Martina Sykes (Gwen Gordy, Vandella, Cindy Birdsong,
Mary Wells), Julius Thomas III (Lamont Dozier, David Ruffin,
Commodore, Jermaine Jackson), Nik Walker (Four Top, Martin Luther
King Jr., Miller London, Pop Gordy)
The action takes place during the years 1938–1983 in Los Angeles; Detroit;
Birmingham, Alabama; Manchester, England; and other cities.
Motown returned to Broadway, but it was clearly a bit too soon. The
original production had opened in April 2013 and closed in January 2015
after a run of 738 performances, and the current visit, which marked the
final booking of the production’s first national tour, was scheduled to play
on Broadway for a limited run of three months, from July 12 through
November 13, 2016 (although there didn’t seem to be an official opening
night, a critics’ performance was apparently designated for the evening of
July 20). But the customers didn’t come, and the engagement closed on July
31 after a run of just twenty-four performances. Michael Paulson in the New
York Times reported that for the show’s first week the grosses were
$424,198, or 37 percent of the potential gross.
For information about the original production, including a list of the
musical numbers, see that entry. Note that the current edition included two
songs not used in the original, “Being with You” (the program didn’t credit
lyricist and composer, and instead included the note, “Add TBD ‘being with
you’ credit”) and “I Wish” (lyric and music by Stevie Wonder), and omitted
two numbers, “Cruisin’” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson and Marvin
Tarplin) and “I’ll Be There” (lyric and music by Hal Davis, Berry Gordy Jr.,
Bob West, and Willie Hutch).
In his review of the return engagement, Charles Isherwood in the Times
noted that the show was still “a sparkling and enjoyable, if lumpy journey”
through Motown history. Chester Gregory now played Gordy, and although
he could have used more “intensity” to “illuminate” his character, he
nonetheless brought “some nice nuances” to the role, and as Diana Ross,
Allison Semmes exuded “a mixture of calculating ambition and youthful
naïvete” which evoked that “cotton candy purr of Ms. Ross’s, without being
mere vocal mimicry.”
CATS
Opening Date: July 31, 2016; Closing Date: December 30, 2017
Performances: 593
Lyrics: T. S. Eliot; additional lyrics by Trevor Nunn and Richard Stilgoe
Based on T. S. Eliot’s 1939 book of verse Old Possum’s Book of Practical
Cats (and other writings by Eliot).
Direction: Trevor Nunn (Chrissie Cartwright, Associate Director and
Choreographer); Producers: The Shubert Organization, James L.
Nederlander, The Really Useful Group, Cameron Mackintosh, Roy
Furman, John Gore, Stella La Rue, Grove Entertainment, Burnt Umber
Productions, Independent Presenters Network/Al Nocciolino, and Peter
May; Nina Lannan, Executive Producer; Choreography: “Choreography
by Andy Blankenbuehler Based on the Original Choreography by
Gillian Lynne”; Scenery and Costumes: John Napier; Projection Design:
Brad Peterson; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: William
Waldrop
Cast: Ahmad Simmons (Alonzo), Christine Cornish Smith
(Bombalurina),Tyler Hanes (Bill Bailey, Rum Tum Tugger), Giuseppe
Bausilio (Carbuckety), Emily Pynenburg (Cassandra), Corey John Snide
(Coricopat), Kim Faure (Demeter), Lili Froehlich (Electra), Leona
Lewis (Grizabella), Sara Jean Ford (Jellylorum), Eloise Kropp
(Jennyanydots), Ricky Ubeda (Mistoffelees), Jess LeProtto
(Mungojerrie), Andy Huntington Jones (Munkustrap), Christopher Gurr
(Peter, Bustopher Jones Asparagus aka Gus), Daniel Gaymon (Plato,
Ma-cavity), Sharrod Williams (Pouncival), Shonica Gooden
(Rumpelteazer), Arianna Rosario (Sillabub), Jeremy Davis
(Skimbleshanks), Emily Tate (Tantomile), Kolton Krouse
(Tumblebrutus), Quentin Earl Darrington (Victor, Old Deuteronomy),
Georgina Pazcoguin (Victoria); The Cat Chorus: Richard Todd Adams,
Aaron J. Albano, Jessica Hendy, Madison Mitchell, Nathan Patrick
Morgan, Megan Ort
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” (Company); “The Naming of
Cats” (Company); “Invitation to the Jellicle Ball” (Georgina Pazoguin,
Ricky Ubeda, Andy Huntington Jones);“The Old Gumbie Cat” (Andy
Hunttington Jones, Eloise Kropp, Sara Jean Ford, Kim Faure, Christine
Cornish Smith); “The Rum Tum Tugger” (Tyler Hanes, Company);
“Entry of Grizabella” (Leona Lewis, Kim Faure, Christine Cornish
Smith, Company); “Bustopher Jones: The Cat about Town”
(Christopher Gurr, Kim Faure, Christine Cornish Smith, Company);
“Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer” (Jess LeProtto, Shonica Gooden);
“Old Deuteronomy” (Andy Huntington Jones, Tyler Hanes, Quentin
Earl Darrington); “Song of the Jellicles and the Jellicle Ball”
(Company); “Memory” (Leona Lewis)
Act Two: “Introduction to Act II” and “The Moments of Happiness”
(Quentin Earl Darrington, Arianna Rosario); “Gus the Theatre Cat”
(Sara Jean Ford, Christopher Gurr); “The Awefull Battles of the Pekes
and the Pollicles” (Christopher Gurr, Quentin Earl Darrington, Andy
Huntington Jones, Company); “Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat”
(Jeremy Davis, Company); “Macavity, the Mystery Cat” (Kim Faure,
Christine Cornish Smith, Company); “Magical Mister Mistoffelees”
(Ricky Ubeda, Tyler Hanes, Company); “Memory” (reprise) (Arianna
Rosario, Andy Huntington Jones, Leona Lewis); “Journey to the
Heaviside Layer” (Company); “The Ad-dressing of Cats” (Quentin Earl
Darrington, Company); Finale
The revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats ushered in a wave of

1980s and 1990s nostalgia for those Broadway audiences praying for a
second British Invasion. By season’s end the composer’s Sunset Boulevard
(which had opened on Broadway in 1994) and Boublil and Schonberg’s
Miss Saigon (1991) joined the nostalgia-and-revival bandwagon, and for
Lloyd Webber it must have seemed like the good old days with four of his
shows on the Broadway boards at the same time: two revivals (Cats and
Sunset); a holdover of his latest musical, which had opened the previous
season (School of Rock); and Phantom of the Opera, which had opened in
1988 and was still thrilling audiences with the shock-and-awe of that
chandelier.
The critics weren’t overwhelmed with the second life of Cats, and no
doubt secretly hoped there wouldn’t be seven more Broadway lives in the
show’s future. But audiences supported the musical for almost six-hundred
performances, and so clearly there were enough customers eager to see the
show again or to experience it for the first time.
Cats first opened in London at the New London Theatre on May 11,
1981, for 8,949 performances, and the Broadway edition premiered at the
Winter Garden Theatre on October 7, 1982, for 7,485 showings. The revue-
like musical was based on T. S. Eliot’s 1939 volume of light verse Old
Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, but whimsy on the printed page became
overblown and pretentious in the theatre. A short one-act version might
have worked better, but a full-length evening of coy and seemingly endless
goings-on among musical-comedy cats quickly became tedious. As a result,
Eliot’s amusing words and Lloyd Webber’s score were more satisfying as
background cast-album songs you could listen to at will and in small doses.
The thin plot dealt with a so-called Jellicle Ball where cats cavort and
one (Grizabella, an old tabby from a cat house) is chosen to journey to a
kind of cat heaven known as the Heaviside Layer where she’ll be re-born
into new life. The overly grandiose decor depicted a garbage dump where
the cats hang out amid huge bottles, cartons, and other junk scaled to the
proportions and perspective of cats. And Grizabella’s ascent to the heavens
took place on a flying-saucer-old-tire-like contraption that literally
propelled her high above the stage and through an opening in the ceiling,
something not to be tried at home because one strongly suspects the
experience would not thrill your curious-but-not-that-curious Whiskers.
This was a musical for tourists, a Disneyfied feel-good epic that ushered
in the famous British Invasion. To be sure, Lloyd Webber’s Evita had
opened in New York three years earlier, but Cats institutionalized British
imports on Broadway as a trend that lasted well over two decades. The
show was one of a series of like-minded musicals aimed at both tourists and
the family trade, and to this day Broadway relentlessly offers musicals
geared to children, pre-teens, and teenagers. Added to the mix are constant
revivals of tried, true, and tested family-fare musicals and a continuing
onslaught of jukebox musicals that regurgitate familiar songs from
composer catalogs.
Prior to the 1982 New York premiere of Cats, one hoped it would live
up to its advance reputation as the ultimate in dance musicals. But
choreographer Gillian Lynne’s conceptions were less than enthralling and
they never catapulted the show into that Heaviside Layer. It’s conceivable
that a Bob Fosse or a Jerome Robbins might have created a series of electric
dances, but Lynne’s choreography was energetic at best and lacked the
effervescence to make you forget the overall sameness of the revue-like
songs and story.
The revival’s program stated “Choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler
Based on the Original Choreography by Gillian Lynne.” Ben Brantley in the
New York Times reported that Blankenbuehler had “done significant
retooling” on some of the solo numbers but otherwise the dances seemed
“almost entirely true to the original.” Brantley also noted that a song (the
second-act “Growltiger’s Last Stand”) with “potentially offensive Asian
accents” by Siamese cats had been dropped (and replaced by “The Awefull
Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles,” which had originally been performed
in the first act); the audience was allowed a selfie-moment when the cats
prowled up and down the theatre aisles; and the orchestra had been “notably
reduced.” The critic also mentioned that Leona Lewis as Grizabella came
across not as a “tattered feline” but a “radiant beauty” with a “rich” and
“powerful” voice, and so when she took off for the Heaviside Layer he
thought she might instead opt to “fly to Las Vegas to open for Britney
Spears.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said Blankenbuehler hadn’t performed
“radical surgery” on the choreography and had made few changes “other
than freshening it up a bit.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News
liked the “talented litter of hoofers” but found the “lively yet enervating”
revival a “musical furball” that had a “whisker of a plot,” was “repetitive”
and “nonsensical,” and became “tiresome enough to make you wish for a
catnap.” And for Jesse Green in New York, the “wan” revival was a “total
nonstarter.” It was “not exactly an engine of narrative suspense,” “both
pretentious and déclassé,” and “not so much feline as bovine.”
Geffen Records released both the original London and Broadway cast
albums, and in 1998 the musical was filmed for home video release by
Universal Studios with a cast that included Elaine Paige, Ken Page, and
John Mills. A theatrical film of the musical was released in 2019; produced
by Working Title, the direction was by Tom Hooper, the screenplay by Lee
Hall, and the cast included Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden,
Ian McKellen, and Judi Dench. The film included a new song, “Beautiful
Ghosts” (lyric by Taylor Swift, and music by Lloyd Webber). Universal
Pictures Home Entertainment released DVD and Blu-ray editions of the
film.
During previews of the original London mounting, Judi Dench created
the role of Grizabella and was the first to sing “Memory,” but during a
performance she injured her ankle and had to withdraw from the production
(she was succeeded by Paige). There are conflicting accounts about her
brief time in the musical, including one that indicates “Memory” wasn’t
part of the score when she was in the show and was later added when Paige
joined the cast. But a preview program with Dench includes “Memory” in
the song list and indicates the number is sung by Grizabella (Dench) and
Jemima (Sarah Brightman), the latter a character not referenced in the
original New York production and current revival.
The original New York program noted that “Prologue: Jellicle Songs for
Jellicle Cats” included additional material written by Trevor Nunn and
Richard Stilgoe, and that the lyric of “Memory” was by Trevor Nunn and
based on poems by Eliot (“Memory” includes lines from and is suggested
by Eliot’s “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” and other poems of his “Prufrock”
period). Further, some of the lyrics for “The Marching Song of the Pollicle
Dogs” and “Grizabella, the Glamour Cat” were discovered among
unpublished works by Eliot. The program also indicates the musical’s
prologue was based on ideas from Eliot’s unfinished poem “Pollicle Dogs
and Jellicle Cats,” and Growltiger’s aria was taken from an Italian
translation of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
LEWIS BLACK: BLACK TO THE FUTURE

Opening Date: September 12, 2016; Closing Date: October 24, 2016
Performances: 6
Comic Material: Lewis Black; additional material by John Bowman
Direction: Lewis Black (Neil A. Mazzella, Technical Supervisor);
Producer: James L. Nederlander; Ben Brewer, Associate Producer;
James H. Gosnell, Presenter; Scenery: Susan Hilferty, Visual
Consultant; Lighting: Timothy Reed, Lighting Consultant
Cast: Lewis Black
The evening of solo comedy was presented in one act.
Stand-up political comic Lewis Black had last brought his acerbic brand
of humor to Broadway just prior to the 2012 election in Lewis Black:
Running on Empty, and now he was back just before the 2016 election
with the limited engagement of Lewis Black: Black to the Future, which
played at the Marquis Theatre on Mondays when the theatre’s regular tenant
On Your Feet! took the night off.
Elizabeth Vincentelli in the New York Times said Black was a man of
many moods, and could be “incensed, seething, irate, furious, aggrieved,
[and] annoyed,” and “at his quietest” he seemed to struggle in order “to
hold back another choleric eruption.” The current election season had
clearly depressed him, and he said we lived in “fictional times.” He made
wry observations about a recent trip to Copenhagen (he noted that the
natives seemed “to be simultaneously Socialist and happy”), and when he
got around to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton he “rush[ed] through the
jokes, as if disgust had doused the last embers of his rage.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said Black felt the campaign
was “the longest election cycle of my lifetime,” and the critic suspected a
“saturation point” for political humor had been reached and thus the
political material seemed “less than fresh” and some of it had passed the
“sell-by date.” Black was actually “far funnier” when he looked at
nonpolitical issues (he decided that most people learn about bipolar disorder
“through dating”) and reported on strange news items (in 2015, Americans
lavished $647 million on Valentine’s Day gifts for their pets).
The September 16, 2016, performance was filmed live and shown on
Comedy Central a few weeks later on October 7.
Black returned to the Marquis Theatre in Celebrity Autobiography on
Broadway, which played for a few Monday performances when The
Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays was dark; Black appeared at the
November 26, 2018, performance.
HOLIDAY INN
Theatre: Studio 54
Performances: 117
Book: Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge
Lyrics and Music: Irving Berlin
Based on the 1942 Paramount film Holiday Inn (direction by Mark
Sandrich and screenplay by Claude Binyon from an adaptation by
Elmer Rice).
Direction: Gordon Greenberg (Andy Senor Jr., Associate Director);
Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic
Director) in association with Universal Stage Productions;
Choreography: Denis Jones (Barry Busby, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery: Anna Louizos; Costumes: Alejo Vietti; Lighting: Jeff Croiter;
Musical Direction: Andy Einhorn
Cast: Bryce Pinkham (Jim Hardy), Corbin Bleu (Ted Hanover), Megan
Sikora (Lila Dixon), Lee Wilkof (Danny), Morgan Gao (Charlie
Winslow), Lora Lee Gayer (Linda Mason), Megan Lawrence (Louise);
Ensemble: Darien Crago, Shina Ann Morris, Catherine Ricafort,
Amanda Rose, Jonalyn Saxer, Samantha Sturm, Amy van Nostrand,
Paige Williams, Malik Akil, Will Burton, Matt Meigs, Drew Redington,
Travis Ward-Osborne, Victor Wisehart, Kevin Worley, Borris York
The action takes place during 1946 and 1947 in Hoboken, New York City,
Midville (Connecticut), Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = song from 1942 film Holiday Inn.
Act One: “Steppin’ Out with My Baby” (1948 film Easter Parade) and
“I’ll Capture Your Heart (Singing)” (*) (Bryce Pinkham, Corbin Bleu,
Megan Sikora, Ensemble); “The Little Things in Life” (written for, but
not used in, 1930 film Reaching for the Moon) (Bryce Pinkham); “Blue
Skies” (Betsy, 1926) (Bryce Pinkham, Ensemble); “Marching Along
with Time” (written for, but not used in, 1938 film Alexander’s Ragtime
Band) (Bryce Pinkham, Lora Lee Gayer); “Heat Wave” (As Thousands
Cheer, 1933) (Corbin Bleu, Megan Sikora, Ensemble); “It’s a Lovely
Day Today” (Call Me Madam, 1950) (Bryce Pinkham, Megan Sikora,
Megan Lawrence); “Plenty to Be Thankful For” (*) (Corbin Bleu,
Megan Sikora, Ensemble); “Plenty to Be Thankful For” (reprise) (Lora
Lee Gayer, Morgan Gao); “Marching Along with Time” (reprise) (Lora
Lee Gayer); “Nothing More to Say” (source unknown) (Lora Lee
Gayer); “Shaking the Blues Away” (Ziegfeld Follies of 1927) (Megan
Lawrence, Ensemble); “White Christmas” (*) (Bryce Pinkham, Lora
Lee Gayer); “Holiday Inn” (*) and “Happy Holiday” (*) (Bryce
Pinkham, Megan Lawrence, Ensemble); “Let’s Start the New Year
Right” (*) (Lora Lee Gayer, Bryce Pinkham, Corbin Bleu, Ensemble)
Act Two: “You’re Easy to Dance With” (*) (Corbin Bleu, Girls); “Let’s
Take an Old-Fashioned Walk” (Miss Liberty, 1949) (Bryce Pinkham,
Lora Lee Gayer); “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” (*) (Bryce Pinkham, Lora
Lee Gayer, Corbin Bleu); “Cheek to Cheek” (1935 film Top Hat)
(Corbin Bleu, Lora Lee Gayer, Ensemble); “Easter Parade” (As
Thousands Cheer, 1933) (Corbin Bleu, Bryce Pinkham, Lora Lee
Gayer, Ensemble); “Song of Freedom” (*) (Lora Lee Gayer, Corbin
Bleu, Bryce Pinkham); “Let’s Say It with Firecrackers” (*) and “Song
of Freedom” (reprise) (Bryce Pinkham, Corbin Bleu, Lora Lee Gayer,
Ensemble); “Nothing More to Say” (reprise) (Lora Lee Gayer); “White
Christmas” (reprise) (Lora Lee Gayer, Bryce Pinkham); Finale
(Company)
Irving Berlin’s 1942 film Holiday Inn is a cozy, old-fashioned musical

with a serviceable if not particularly realistic story (screenplay by Claude
Binyon from an adaptation by Elmer Rice) about singer Jim Hardy (Bing
Crosby in the movie, Bryce Pinkham in the current production) who plans
to quit show business and open a Connecticut inn that will give
performances only on holidays. Before he makes the move to Connecticut,
he’s jilted by his fiancé Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale/Megan Sikora) when she
opts to remain a singer and dancer and marry his partner, dancer Ted
Hanover (Fred Astaire/Corbin Bleu). Jim later meets unknown singer and
dancer Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds/Lora Lee Gayer) and casts her as
the leading lady in his floorshows at the inn, but soon Ted comes upon the
scene: it turns out that Lila has jilted him, and now he finds himself
entranced by Linda. Complications of the romantic variety ensue, and the
smooth, easygoing script, enjoyable performances, and Berlin’s songs made
the movie a delight.
Berlin’s score included a few of his standards (such as “Easter Parade”
from the 1933 revue As Thousands Cheer and his 1924 hit independent
song “Lazy”), but most of the numbers were new and supported the holiday
theme (the film took place during the period of one year, from one
Christmas season to the next, and the stage adaptation occurred over fifteen
months during 1946 and 1947). The holiday songs included the classic
Oscar-winning “White Christmas,” the jaunty “Happy Holiday,” the
musical resolution to “Let’s Start the New Year Right,” and for Valentine’s
Day the heartfelt and cautionary ballad “Be Careful, It’s My Heart.” For
Washington’s birthday there was “I Can’t Tell a Lie,” an amusing
juxtaposition of minuet and boogie-woogie (which wasn’t included in the
stage production); for Lincoln’s birthday “Abraham,” which was also
dropped for the stage adaptation; for the Fourth of July there were the
snappy “Let’s Say It with Firecrackers” and the serious “Song of Freedom”;
and for Thanksgiving the catchy, eight-to-the-bar “Plenty to Be Thankful
For.”
The film overlooked a few holidays, such as St. Patrick’s Day and
Halloween, but the 1950 film musical My Blue Heaven took care of the
latter, and Harold Arlen and Ralph Blane’s score included “Halloween,”
which referenced Holiday Inn and noted that Berlin hadn’t included a song
for this particular holiday.
Roundabout’s limited-engagement stage adaptation by Gordon
Greenberg and Chad Hodges retained the basic outline of the film, added
many Berlin songs from other sources (both obscure and standard ones),
and dropped two songs from the film (the above-mentioned “I Can’t Tell a
Lie” and “Abraham”). The production received mixed reviews and the
critics felt it didn’t measure up to the stage adaptation of Berlin’s 1954 film
White Christmas (see below for more information).
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “perky but bland”
evening had “generic” characters and Denis Jones’s choreography featured
too many tap routines that were “more workmanlike than inspired” and
seemed “to go on forever” (but a jump-rope number was “spirited” and was
the show’s “freshest novelty”). Otherwise, Holiday Inn was just another
“familiar Broadway exercise in nostalgia,” a “polished and pleasant” affair
that was “like a prematurely hung Christmas stocking smelling faintly of
mothballs.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter found the production
“formulaic but sweet-hearted,” a “corny and predictable” show with a
“rudimentary” book, “clichéd” jokes, characters who were “thin
archetypes,” and only “serviceable” sets. But Jones’s choreography was
“consistently inventive” and the costumes were “outstanding.” Frank Rizzo
in Variety said the “feel-good” musical was an “easy-on-the-eyes, none-too-
taxing escape” with “dynamic dancing,” and Frank Dziemianowicz in the
New York Daily News noted that the show was “light-on-its-feet” with
“wall-to-wall” songs by Berlin, and as such was “familiar and vanilla-
flavored fluff, but with tasty sprinkles.”
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal said the production was “less
a show than a cash machine, a cynical repurposing” of the “beloved film”
that “exists solely to make as much money as possible” for Roundabout.
The evening was “slick, synthetic and soulless, a musical full of robotic
jokes and devoid of genuine romance.”
The headline of Jesse Green’s review in New York proclaimed, “Holiday
Inn, Where I’m Dreaming of a Copyright Extension,” and Green said the
“contraption” was a “jukebox” designed to gather Berlin’s soon-tobe public
domain songs “into a new dramatic work that remonetizes them.” The “dim
and tiresome” show was “less a ‘New Irving Berlin Musical’ than a new
Irving Berlin medley” with “flat” sets, “glare-y” lighting, and “garish”
costumes. But Lora Lee Gayer put “sufficient spin on [her] character to
make her lovable,” and Corbin Bleu aced “Let’s Say It with Firecrackers”
(Dziemianowicz said the number sparkled in “red, white and Bleu”).
The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records, and a DVD of a
live performance was released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
on a two-disk set that also includes the original 1942 film and a CD of
twelve soundtrack selections from the film. This live performance was also
shown on the PBS series Great Performances on November 24, 2017.
Except for “Nothing More to Say,” all the lyrics heard in the film and stage
production are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of
Irving Berlin.
Paramount’s 1954 film White Christmas (which was the highest-
grossing film of that year) starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary
Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, and other cast members included Dean Jagger,
Mary Wickes, Barrie Chase (as the “likewise, I’m sure” chorine), and then
chorus-boy George Chakiris. The film was not a re-make of Holiday Inn,
although most of the story took place at an inn (this time in Vermont instead
of Connecticut). “White Christmas” was retained, and the film also offered
an occasional standard by Berlin (such as “Heat Wave” from As Thousands
Cheer), but otherwise the score included both new and trunk songs by
Berlin (the most popular was the Oscar-nominated “Count Your Blessings
Instead of Sheep” for Crosby and Clooney, and the best was the knockout
torch song “Love, You Didn’t Do Right by Me” for Clooney and four
extremely disinterested chorus boys, one of whom was Chakiris).
A stage adaptation of White Christmas has enjoyed a number of national
tours, and the musical has played two limited runs on Broadway (both at the
Marquis Theater, in 2008 and 2009).
The Complete Lyrics reports that in 1939 Berlin and Moss Hart
discussed the idea of a Broadway revue (to be titled Happy Holiday) which
looked at all the major holidays. Berlin’s rough draft for the revue includes
two proposed songs, “A Little Bit of Irish” and “Jack O’Lantern.”
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Choreography (Denis Jones)
OH, HELLO ON BROADWAY

Performances: 120
Play: Nick Kroll and John Mulaney
Direction: Alex Timbers; Producers: Patrick Catullo, Marcia Goldberg,
Barbara Whitman, Marc Platt, Pierce Cravens, James H. Kernochan,
Jonathan Reinis, Benjamin Simpson and Joseph Longthorne/Shira
Friedman, Triptyk Studios, Bellanca Smigel Rutter, Nathan Vernon,
Mike Lavoie, and Comedy Central; A Nick Kroll and John Mulaney
Production; Tom Casserly, Associate Producer; Movement Consultant:
Patrick McCollum; Scenery: Scott Pask; Nightmare Effect Design: Basil
Twist; Costumes: Emily Rebholz, Costume Consultant; Lighting: Jake
Degroot
Cast: Nick Kroll (Gil Faizon), John Mulaney (George St. Geegland)
The action takes place during the present time in New York City in “an
apartment and maybe one or two other places.”
Musical Numbers
The program noted that two songs were “original music” written for the
production: “Too Much Tuna Theme” (lyric and music by Drew Brody,
who also wrote “other tuna music”) and “Sweet Rosalie” (lyric and
music by Mark Rivers).
Other music heard in the production includes: “Nothing Is Forever” (lyric
and music by Harry Sukman); “Old Folks” (lyric and music by Hill
Dedette Lee and Robison Willard); “Speedo” (lyric and music by Esther
Navarro); “For What It’s Worth” (lyric and music by Stephen A. Stills);
“Theme from Taxi Driver” (1976; music by Bernard Herrmann); “The
More I See You” (1945 film Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe; lyric by
Mack Gordon, music by Harry Warren); “Brown Sugar” (lyric and
music by Michael Phillip Jagger and Keith Richards); “Hungry Like the
Wolf” (lyric and music by James Bates Nicholas, John Le Bon Simon,
Andrew Taylor, John Nigel Taylor, and Roger Andrew Taylor); “Jump”
(lyric and music by Roosevelt Bonner LeRoy, Berry Gordy Jr., Eugene
Jones Marshall, Jermaine Dupri Mauldin, Ralph Middlebrooks,
Alphonso James Mizell, Walter Morrison, Norman Bruce Napier,
Andrew Nolan, Frederick J. Perren, Marvin R Pierce, Deke Richards,
Clarence Satchell, and Gregory Allen Webster); “Dracula Restored”
(lyric and music by Hans J. Salter); “Lament” (lyric and music by Giya
Kancheli and Hans Sahl); “The Bloody Fruits of Barrow” (lyric and
music by Brian Reitzell); “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” (lyric and
music by David Foster and John Parr); “Christmas Time Is Here” (1965
CBS television special A Charlie Brown Christmas; lyric by Lee
Mendelson and music by Vince Guaraldi).
Nick Kroll and John Mulaney’s respective comic personas Gil Faizon
and George St. Geegland were the cantankerous cutups on Comedy
Central’s Kroll Show, and during the previous season they and their
characters visited Off Broadway’s Cherry Lane Theatre where the show
enjoyed a popular run. The limited Broadway engagement of Oh, Hello on
Broadway received an enthusiastic reception and played over three months.
Gil and George are cranky, show business–obsessed roommates who
live in a cramped upper–West Side apartment in the “coffee breath of
neighborhoods” and lament the good old days when New York had
“quality” porn movie theatres in the Times Square area. Their apartment is
filled with theatre memorabilia, including a trap door from The Diary of
Anne Frank and a hair dryer from Steel Magnolias, and, oh, how these old
boys recall their make-over of a Sam Shepard drama into True Upper West.
They also kid Billy Crystal’s oneman show 700 Sundays, and mock such
hoary theatrical conventions as the “one-sided phone call.” There was a
barrage of politically incorrect jokes, and even an out-of-nowhere
nightmare ballet, effects courtesy of Basil Twist.
The evening was less a play than a series of revue-like sketches and
routines, and critics and audiences couldn’t have been happier. The bottom
line for Frank Scheck’s review in the Hollywood Reporter was that the
show “delivers more laughs per minute than any show on Broadway.”
Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post praised the “infectiously energetic”
evening that was “packed with winning zingers” and directed “with
chutzpah” by Alex Timbers. And Ben Brantley in the New York Times
reported that “the dirty old men are back” and “oh, the pleasure of their
company.”
FALSETTOS
Performances: 84
Book: William Finn and James Lapine
Lyrics and Music: William Finn
Direction: James Lapine; Producers: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre
Bishop, Producing Artistic Director) in association with Jujamcyn
Theatres; Choreography: Spencer Liff; Scenery: David Rockwell;
Costumes: Jennifer Caprio; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical Direction:
Vadim Feichtner
Cast: Christian Borle (Marvin), Andrew Rannells (Whizzer), Anthony
Rosenthal (Jason), Brandon Uranowitz (Mendel), Stephanie J. Block
(Trina), Tracie Thoms (Doctor Charlotte), Betsy Wolfe (Cordelia)
The first act takes place in 1979, the second in 1981.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Four Jews in a Room Bitching” (Andrew Rannells, Christian
Borle, Anthony Rosenthal, Brandon Uranowitz, Stephanie J. Block); “A
Tight Knit Family” (Christian Borle); “Love Is Blind” (Christian Borle,
Anthony Rosenthal, Andrew Rannells, Brandon Uranowitz, Stephanie J.
Block); “Thrill of First Love” (Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells);
“Marvin at the Psychiatrist (A Three Part Mini-Opera)” (Anthony
Rosenthal, Brandon Uranowitz, Andrew Rannells, Christian Borle);
“Everyone Tells Jason to See a Psychiatrist” (Anthony Rosenthal,
Christian Borle, Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells); “This Had
Better Come to a Stop” (Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells, Anthony
Rosenthal, Stephanie J. Block, Brandon Uranowitz); “I’m Breaking
Down” (Stephanie J. Block); “Please, Come to Our House” (Brandon
Uranowitz, Stephanie J. Block, Anthony Rosenthal); “Jason’s Therapy”
(Brandon Uranowitz, Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells, Christian
Borle, Anthony Rosenthal); “A Marriage Proposal” (Brandon
Uranowitz, Stephanie J. Block); “A Tight Knit Family” (reprise)
(Christian Borle, Brandon Uranowitz); “Trina’s Song” (Stephanie J.
Block); “March of the Falsettos” (Brandon Uranowitz, Christian Borle,
Anthony Rosenthal, Andrew Rannells); “Trina’s Song” (reprise)
(Stephanie J. Block); “The Chess Game” (Christian Borle, Andrew
Rannells); “Making a Home” (Brandon Uranowitz, Anthony Rosenthal,
Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells); “The Games I Play” (Andrew
Rannells); “Marvin Goes Crazy” (Christian Borle, Brandon Uranowitz,
Anthony Rosenthal, Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells); “I Never
Wanted to Love You” (Christian Borle, Brandon Uranowitz, Anthony
Rosenthal, Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells); “Father to Son”
(Christian Borle, Anthony Rosenthal)
Act Two: “Welcome to Falsettoland” (Company); “The Year of the Child”
(Anthony Rosenthal, Stephanie J. Block, Christian Borle, Brandon
Uranowitz, Tracie Thoms, Betsy Wolfe); “Miracle of Judaism”
(Anthony Rosenthal); “The Baseball Game” (Company); “A Day in
Falsettoland” (Company); “Everyone Hates His Parents” (Brandon
Uranowitz, Anthony Rosenthal, Christian Borle, Stephanie J. Block);
“What More Can I Say?” (Christian Borle); “Something Bad Is
Happening” (Tracie Thoms, Betsy Wolfe, Christian Borle, Andrew
Rannells); “Holding to the Ground” (Stephanie J. Block); “Days Like
This I Almost Believe in God” (Company); “Cancelling the Bar
Mitzvah” (Anthony Rosenthal, Brandon Uranowitz, Stephanie J.
Block); “Unlikely Lovers” (Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells, Tracie
Thoms, Betsy Wolfe); “Another Miracle of Judaism” (Anthony
Rosenthal); “You Gotta Die Sometime” (Andrew Rannells); “Jason’s
Bar Mitzvah” (Company); “What Would I Do?” (Christian Borle,
Andrew Rannells)
William Finn wrote three so-called “Marvin” musicals (named after the
leading character in all three works), all one-acters originally produced Off-
Off-Broadway and then Off-Broadway: In Trousers (1978), March of the
Falsettos (1981), and Falsettoland (1990). Finn wrote the lyrics and music
for all three of the virtually sung-through works and also wrote the books
for the first two (the latter’s book was by Finn and James Lapine). A 1992
Broadway production titled Falsettos wasn’t a new musical, and instead
was the overall title for an evening that combined March of the Falsettos
(for the first act) and Falsettoland (for the second).
The basic story dealt with Marvin (Christian Borle in the current
revival), who leaves his wife, Trina (Stephanie J. Block), and son, Jason
(Anthony Rosenthal), for his lover Whizzer (Andrew Rannells).
Meanwhile, Marvin’s psychiatrist Mendel (Brandon Uranowitz) marries
Trina, Whizzer dies of AIDS, and Marvin tries to reestablish a relationship
with Jason. Moreover, the politically correct world of the musical ensured
that Marvin and Whizzer’s next-door neighbors are two lesbians, Doctor
Charlotte (Tracie Thoms) and Cordelia (Betsy Wolfe).
The work was commendable in its attempt to depict fresh and timely
subject matter, but was weak and disappointing in execution. The general
framework straddled the worlds of soap opera and sitcoms, and the
characters were far too bright, too self-aware, too articulate, too “on.” As a
result, one never had time to gradually know and discover them because
they were forever explaining themselves, and despite the musical’s serious
elements, the action and characterizations were no more than skin deep.
If the score had been strong, the show might have overcome its essential
banality, but the music was watery and unmemorable and the lyrics
tiresome. To be sure, the show had its adherents, and in the main most
critics praised it. The 1992 production of Falsettos played on Broadway for
more than a year and won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score.
In his review of the current limited-run revival, Charles Isherwood in
the New York Times said there was “hardly a moment” in the “exhilarating”
and “devastating” revival that didn’t “approach, or even achieve,
perfection,” and such achievement was “miraculous.” The lyrics were
“witty,” and the “tightly knit” score was like “one uninterrupted song, a
song that I would be happy to listen to forever.” David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter praised the “sweetheart of a show,” which was “pure
pleasure,” and Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the “surprisingly fresh” revival
was “disarming” and offered “tuneful” melodies, “insightful” lyrics, and a
“terrific” cast.
But Hilton Als in the New Yorker stated the musical’s “hideously cheap
sentiment” made it “one of the most dishonest musicals I have ever seen.”
The “rot” at the show’s “center” was “slathered in self-congratulation,” and
there was a “seemingly endless array of self-referential songs and weak
humor.” In Un-censored John Simon, Simon found the revival “only partly
effective, aside from feeling somewhat dated,” and “the whole thing smacks
a mite too much of self-righteousness and complacently good intentions.”
In Trousers opened Off-Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons’
Mainstage Theatre on December 8, 1978, for eight performances with Chip
Zien as Marvin (others in the cast were Alison Fraser and Mary Testa). The
musical looked at Marvin’s relationships with a (female) high school
sweetheart as well as Miss Goldberg, one of his teachers. The show
reopened on February 21, 1979, for an additional twenty-four showings, the
cast album was released by Original Cast Records, and the script was
published in paperback by Samuel French in 1986. A slightly revised
version opened Off-Off-Broadway at The Second Stage Theatre on
February 22, 1981, for fifteen performances (Jay O. Sanders was Marvin,
and the cast included Alaina Reed and Karen Jablons), and another revised
version was produced Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre on March
26, 1985, for sixteen performances (Tony Cummings was Marvin).
March of the Falsettos premiered Off-Off-Broadway at Playwrights
Horizons Studio Theatre on April 1, 1981, for 42 showings, transferred to
the company’s Mainstage Theatre on May 20, 1981, for 170 performances,
and then transferred again, this time to Off-Broadway’s Westside Arts
Theatre’s Cheryl Crawford Theatre on October 13, 1981, for 128
performances, for a total of 340 showings (in preproduction, the musical
was known as The Pettiness of Misogyny and Four Jews in a Room
Bitching). The musical introduced Whizzer (Stephen Bogardus), Michael
Rupert was Marvin, and Fraser reprised her Trina from the original
production of In Trousers. Zien, who had created the role of Marvin for In
Trousers, now played Mendel, Marvin’s psychiatrist. The cast album was
released by DRG Records, and the script was published in paperback by
Samuel French in 1981. March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland were later
published together as Falsettos in a paperback edition by Samuel French in
1995. The scripts for all three “Marvin” musicals (In Trousers, March of the
Falsettos, and Falsettoland) were published in hardback as The Marvin
Songs by the Fireside Theatre in an undated (circa 1991) edition.
Falsettoland first opened Off-Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on
June 28, 1990, and transferred to the Lucille Lortel Theatre the following
September 16 for a total run of 215 performances. Rupert, Bogardus, and
Zien were in the production, and Faith Prince was Trina. The musical took
place a short time after the events depicted in March of the Falsettos. The
cast album was released by DRG, and the script was published in the
editions noted above. On July 16, 1998, the musical was revived Off-Off-
Broadway by the National Asian American Theatre at the Dim Sum Theatre
for twenty-nine performances with an Asian-American cast. Incidentally,
Andre Bishop, then artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, wrote that
Falsettoland didn’t “preach or proselytize,” but one wonders why in one
song Finn felt compelled to include a cruel and gratuitous swipe at Nancy
Reagan.
The cast album of the current revival was issued on a two-CD set by
Ghostlight Records. The production was later telecast on October 27, 2017,
for the PBS series Live from Lincoln Center and is available for viewing by
BroadwayHD.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Falsettos); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Christian
Borle); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
(Andrew Rannells); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in
a Musical (Brandon Uranowitz); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Stephanie J. Block)
FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS ON

BROADWAY!
“THE LEGEND RETURNS”

Performances: 7
Producers: Live Nation and Eva Price; Jason Stone and Maximum
Entertainment; Scenery: Design by Dean Egnater; Video: Doriana
Sanchez; Costumes: Eileen Miller, Wardrobe Supervisor;
Choreography: Movement by Doriana Sanchez; Lighting: Michael
Brown, Production Electrician; Musical Direction: Robby Robinson
Cast: Frankie Valli; Singers and Musicians: Landon Beard (Background
Vocals), Brandon Brigham (Background Vocals), Brian Brigham
(Background Vocals), Todd Fournier (Background Vocals), Bill
DeLoach (Keyboard), Larry Esparza (Guitar), Keith Hubacher (Bass),
Rick Keller (Saxophone, Flute), Craig Pilo (Drums),Tom “Bones”
Malone (Trombone), Trevor Neuman (Trumpet, Flugelhorn), Memo
Acevedo (Percussion)
The Jersey Boy himself was back on Broadway with his limited
engagement concert, and it followed his Frankie Valli and the Four
Seasons, which had opened on October 19, 2012, at the Broadway Theatre
for seven performances.
Valli appeared with four singers and eight musicians, all of whom were
directed by Robby Robinson. For more information about Valli, see the
entry for the 2012 engagement, which includes a partial list of songs heard
in that production (both the 2012 and 2016 programs didn’t include a list of
musical numbers).
KRISTIN CHENOWETH: MY LOVE LETTER TO

BROADWAY
Performances: 12
Additional Material: Marco Pennette
Lyrics and Music: See song list below.
Direction: Richard Jay-Alexander; Producer: James L. Nederlander;
Scenery: Rob Bissinger; Costumes: Christian Siriano; Lighting: Matt
Berman; Musical Direction: Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Cast: Kristin Chenoweth; Musicians—Mary-Mitchell Campbell (Piano),
Damien Bassman (Drums, Percussion), Summer Boggess (Cello), Eric
Davis (Guitar), Brian Hamm (Bass), Justin Smith (Violin)
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t list musical numbers, and a program note by
Chenoweth indicated that at each performance she’d perform “a
different selection of songs so that every show is unique and special.”
The following alphabetical list is taken from various opening night
reviews and reflects some of the songs heard at that performance.
“All the Things You Are” (Very Warm for May, 1939; lyric by Oscar
Hammerstein II, music by Jerome Kern); “Bring Him Home” (Les
Miserables, 1987 [Broadway]; lyric by Herbert Kretzmer, music by
Claude-Michel Schonberg); “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” (A Chorus
Line, 1975; lyric by Edward Kleban, music by Marvin Hamlisch); “The
Heart of the Matter” (lyric and music by Don Henley); “A House Is Not
a Home” (1964 film A House Is Not a Home; lyric by Hal David; music
by Burt Bacharach); “I Could Have Danced All Night” (My Fair Lady,
1956; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe); “I Get
Along without You Very Well” (lyric partially based on a poem by Jane
Brown Thompson, music by Hoagy Carmichael); “I’m Tired” (1974
film Blazing Saddles; lyric and music by Mel Brooks); “Let Me
Entertain You” (Gypsy, 1959; lyric by Stephen Sondheim, music by Jule
Styne); “Little Sparrow” (lyric and music by Dolly Parton); “Losing My
Mind” (Follies, 1971; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim);
“Popular” (Wicked, 2003; lyric and music by Stephen Schwartz); “A
Quiet Thing” (Flora, the Red Menace, 1965; lyric by Fred Ebb, music
by John Kander); “Smile” (lyric by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons,
music by Charlie Chaplin [music but not lyric was first heard in 1936
film Modern Times]); “You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do
It)” (second edition of The Honeymoon Express, 1913; lyric by Joseph
McCarthy, music by James V. Monaco); “You Were Always on My
Mind” (lyric and music by Johnny Christopher, Mark James, and Wayne
Carson); “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” (Thumbs Up!, 1934;
lyric and music by James F. Hanley)
Kristin Chenoweth’s Broadway concert followed Frankie Valli’s visit by

a few weeks, and her program notes indicated that each performance would
be “unique and special” because no two showings would offer the same
selection of songs. Each performance also included a special guest
appearance (by such artists as Renee Fleming, Jason Robert Brown, Kelli
O’Hara, and Andy Karl). Chenoweth’s repertoire included Broadway, film,
and pop songs, and she performed one number apiece from her Broadway
shows Wicked (“Popular”) and Promises, Promises (“A House Is Not a
Home,” which had been interpolated into the Broadway revival).
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said that with her
“powerhouse” voice and “self-deprecating patter,” Chenoweth made an
“enchanting” Broadway concert debut. He enjoyed her “appealingly earthy
demeanor,” and when she performed John Kander and Fred Ebb’s “A Quiet
Thing” she was “a singing ray of sunshine.”
Chenoweth returned to Broadway in another concert when Kristin
Chenoweth: For the Girls opened in 2019.
NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

Opening Date: November 14, 2016; Closing Date: September 3, 2017
Performances: 336
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Dave Malloy
Based on a portion of the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (partially
serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger during the years
1865–1867, and published in book format in 1869).
Direction: Rachel Chavkin; Producers: Howard and Janet Kagan, Paula
Marie Black, Carole Shorenstein Hays, Jenny Steingart and Jason
Eagan, Mary Lu Roffe and Susan Gallin, Diana DiMenna, Mary
Maggio/Sharon Azrieli/Robin Gorman, Darren Sussman/Roman
Gambourg/Lev Gelfer, Tom Smedes, John Logan, Lisa Matlin, Margie
and Bryan Weingarten, Daveed Frazier, Argyle Productions/Jim
Kierstead, In Fine Company/Hipzee, Gutterman & Caiola/Backdrop
Partners, Siderow Kirchman Productions/Sunnyspot Productions,
Gordon/Meli Theatricals, Rodger Hess/Larry Toppall, Daniel
Rakowski/Matt Ross/Ben Feldman, Mike Karns, The American
Repertory Theatre, and Ars Novas; Choreography: Sam Pinkleton;
Scenery: Mimi Lien; Costumes: Paloma Young; Lighting: Bradley King;
Musical Direction: Or Matias
Cast: Josh Groban (Pierre), Denee Benton (Natasha), Brittain Ashford
(Sonya), Gelsey Bell (Mary, Opera Singer, Maidservant), Nicholas
Belton (Andrey, Bolkonsky), Nick Choksi (Dolokhov), Amber Gray
(Helene), Grace McLean (Marya D.), Paul Pinto (Balaga, Servant,
Opera Singer), Lucas Steele (Anatole), Reed Luplau (Opera Dancer),
Ani Taj (Opera Dancer); Ensemble: Sumayya Ali, Courtney Bassett,
Josh Canfield, Ken Clark, Erica Dorfler, Lulu Fall, Ashley Perez
Flanagan, Paloma Garcia-Lee, Nick Gaswirth, Alex Gibson, Billy Joe
Kiessling, Mary Spencer Knapp, Reed Luplau, Brandt Martinez,
Andrew Mayer, Azudi Onyejekwe, Pearl Rhein, Heath Saunders, Ani
Taf, Cathryn Wake, Katrina Yaukey, Lauren Zakrin
The action takes place in Moscow during 1812.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (Company); “Pierre” (Josh Groban, Company);
“Moscow” (Grace McLean, Denee Benton, Brittain Ashford); “The
Private and Intimate Life of the House” (Nicholas Belton, Gelsey Bell);
“Natasha & Bolkonskys” (Denee Benton, Gelsey Bell, Nicholas
Belton); “No One Else” (Denee Benton); “The Opera” (Company);
“Natasha and Anatole” (Denee Benton, Lucas Steele); “The Duel”
(Lucas Steele, Josh Groban, Nick Choksi, Amber Gray, Company);
“Dust and Ashes” (Josh Groban, Chorus); “Sunday Morning” (Denee
Benton, Brittain Ashford, Grace McLean); “Charming” (Amber Gray,
Denee Benton); “The Ball” (Denee Benton, Lucas Steele)
Act Two: “Letters” (Company); “Sonya & Natasha” (Brittain Ashford,
Denee Benton); “Sonya Alone” (Brittain Ashford); “Preparations”
(Nick Choksi, Lucas Steele, Josh Groban); “Balaga” (Paul Pinto, Lucas
Steele, Nick Choksi, Company); “The Abduction” (Company); “In My
House” (Grace McLean, Denee Benton, Brittain Ashford); “A Call to
Pierre” (Grace McLean, Josh Groban, Company); “Find Anatole” (Josh
Groban, Lucas Steele, Amber Gray, Denee Benton, Company); “Pierre
& Anatole” (Josh Groban, Lucas Steele); “Natasha Very Ill” (Brittain
Ashford); “Pierre & Andrey” (Josh Groban, Nicholas Belton); “Pierre &
Natasha” (Josh Groban, Denee Benton); “The Great Comet of 1812”
(Josh Groban, Company)
The season all but guaranteed four sure-fire event musicals: Natasha,
Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, War Paint, Groundhog Day, and the
Bette Midler revival of Hello, Dolly! The latter didn’t disappoint, but the
three others had short runs and lost money. However, Dolly was joined by
two out-of-nowhere small-scale musicals that became huge hits, Dear Evan
Hansen and Come from Away, and in fact, Dear Evan Hansen went
stratospheric and joined The Book of Mormon and Hamilton as one of the
decade’s must-see blockbusters.
The Great Comet seemed to have everything going for it, including
rapturous buzz from its downtown and Cambridge productions, the casting
of popular singing idol Josh Groban in one of the leading roles, a
spectacular environmental staging, and a number of glowing reviews that
found many critics in a veritable swoon-fest of gush-overload.
The show’s box office did boom business at the beginning, but then
suddenly the excitement died down and the musical fizzled out on a wave
of bitterness that in retrospect seems unfair to the show, to the cast
members, and to the producers (more below).
Perhaps the production was done in by a confluence of events and
perceptions. The discovery that the musical was based on War and Peace
might have turned off a good many potential ticket-buyers, who perhaps
thought the show would be too complicated and too confusing (all those
Russian names!), and maybe too earnest and too serious, like a required
history lesson. And that title may not have helped, as it came across as coy,
fussy, and precious. Moreover, it was clear that a superstar of Groban’s
stature would remain in the show for only a limited time, and maybe there
was a reluctance on the part of some theatergoers to buy tickets in advance
due to their uncertainty over Groban’s schedule. And because the producers
clearly opted for a big-name star to open their show, one wonders why they
didn’t line up a name performer to follow Groban.
There may also have been word-of-mouth that the good-looking Groban
wasn’t playing a matinee-idol hero, but instead wore a fat suit and adopted a
generally unkempt-looking hair and beard style (Chris Jones in the Chicago
Tribune noted that the character seemed to have “been feeling too much”
and thus didn’t “shower with regularity”). Maybe the star’s fan base didn’t
want to see their Josh in such disarray and would have preferred him as
another character in another musical set in Russia, specifically the
handsome hero Dmitry in the late-season opening of Anastasia.
Because the musical was based on a portion of Tolstoy’s novel, the
producers had an uphill battle to ensure that the audience understood the
action and the characters. But it’s always a bad sign when a program feels
the need to include a plot summary, and Natasha devoted no less than two
full pages of the program to background information: one page was a plot
summary, and the other an illustrated family tree that depicted the
complicated relationships among the characters.
The basic story line centered on Natasha (Denee Benton) and her
involvement with various men in the Moscow of 1812. She’s engaged to
Andrey (Nicholas Belton) but falls under the spell of the decadent Anatole
(Lucas Steele) and the two plan to run away together. Pierre (Groban)
intervenes and thwarts the elopement, but Andrey is unable to forgive
Natasha for her unfaithfulness and she attempts suicide.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “gorgeous” and
“intoxicatingly good” musical was a “witty, inventive enchantment,”
Groban was “absolutely wonderful,” the other performers were “vivid,” and
Dave Malloy’s music had “variety and richness” (Malloy also wrote the
book and lyrics). Marilyn Stasio in Variety found Malloy’s adaptation
“innovative,” and said the show was a “luscious, 360-degree immersive
experience that feels like being smothered in velvet.” And David Rooney in
the Hollywood Reporter found the score “madly infectious” and said the
“maverick” show was “boundlessly inventive” and “arguably the most fully
immersive production Broadway has ever seen.”
Jesse Green in New York said “the most gorgeous new musical in town”
was also the “silliest.” The show sold itself as “hot comedy” (if director
Rachel Chavkin “could have found a way to put pole dancers into the story,
she would have”), and so when “the cool eye of Tolstoy” dominated the
final part of the evening, these sequences seemed like “an aberration, not
the main event.” The characters were “reduced to herky-jerky self-
caricature” and they were “prompted by the need to sing something rather
than by having things that must be sung.”
Jones said “little attention” was given “to the emotional inner lives of
the characters,” and so you didn’t “feel terribly much for anyone” because
there was no “compelling narrative arc.” But Malloy’s songs were “quirky,
unconventional and thoroughly beguiling,” and Groban was “moving” and
gave an “exceptionally generous star performance, wholly respectful of
ensemble.”
The critics praised the production’s decor, which won Mimi Lien the
Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical. Rooney reported that the
lobby of the Imperial Theatre had been transformed into “a shabby post-
Soviet hall” replete with Russian posters, and the auditorium itself was an
“explosion” of red velvet drapes, gilt-framed artwork, mirrors, and
“sputnik” chandeliers, and Green said the brass and candlelight of the
“Czarist wonderland” included catwalks, staircases, onstage seats, and
tables where audience members could order drinks. Jones noted that the
ramps and catwalks as well as the risers and banquettes actually looked as if
they were part of the theatre’s original design (Rooney estimated there were
some two-hundred tables and banquettes).
When Groban left the show in July 2017, he was succeeded by the black
actor Okieriete Onaodowan, but soon the producers announced that Mandy
Patinkin would join the production for a few weeks in late summer in order
to bolster weak box office sales. This casting decision caused an uproar, and
Joshua Barone in the Times wrote that “people took issue with a black actor
stepping aside to be replaced by a white one.” As a result, Patinkin
withdrew, Onaodowan left the show on August 13, and for the last three
weeks of the run Scott Stangland and then Malloy played the role.
In an article titled “Race, Money and Broadway: How Great Comet
Burned Out,” Michael Paulson in the Times reported that the production
team was “stunned” by the racial controversy because the show was
“unusually multiethnic.” Benton, a black who played the title role of
Natasha, “had repeatedly praised the show for being willing to cast her to
play a Russian countess,” and Actors’ Equity had earlier honored the
musical for its commitment to diversity. And when the show closed, more
than one-hundred people were out of a job.
Michael Riedel in the New York Post reported that the musical lost 80
percent of its $14 million investment.
The Great Comet premiered Off-Broadway at Ars Nova on October 16,
2012, with Phillipa Soo and Malloy in the title roles; it later played at
Kazino (which the published script noted was “a custom-built tent located
first in the Meatpacking District and then in Times Square”) on May 13,
2013; and was later presented at the American Repertory Theatre
(Cambridge, Massachusetts) on December 1, 2015. During the period of the
pre-Broadway engagements, “Natasha Lost” was cut from the score.
The Off-Broadway cast album was issued on a two-CD set by
Ghostlight Records, and the two-CD Broadway cast album was released by
Reprise. The pre-Broadway script was published in paperback by Samuel
French in 2014, and the 2016 hardback The Great Comet of 1812: The
Journey of a New Musical to Broadway edited and compiled by Steven
Suskin was published by Sterling and includes information about the
making of the musical along with photos, a sampler CD, and Malloy’s
annotated script.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Natasha, Pierre & The Great
Comet of 1812); Best Book (Dave Malloy); Best Score (lyrics and
music by Dave Malloy); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading
Role in a Musical (Josh Groban); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Leading Role in a Musical (Denee Benton); Best Performance by an
Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Lucas Steele); Best
Choreography (Sam Pinkleton); Best Direction of a Musical (Rachel
Chavkin); Best Orchestrations (Dave Malloy); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (Mimi Lien); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Paloma
Young); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Bradley King)
ALTON BROWN LIVE: EAT YOUR SCIENCE

Performances: 8
Material: Conceived and written by Alton Brown
Direction: Jim Millan, Technical Director; Producers: Alton Brown and
MagicSpace Entertainment; Scenery: Todd Bailey; Video: Eric May;
Digital Ops: Sarah De Heer, Director; Costumes: Uncredited; Lighting:
Justin Borgelt; Musical Direction: Chris Smallwood
Cast: Alton Brown, Will Brandstetter (Mr. Brown’s Assistant), Sarah De
Heer (Mr. Brown’s Assistant), Chris Smallwood (Musical Director and
Piano), James “Jim” Pace (Percussionist), Scott Mulvahill (Bass)
The production was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers.
Food Network celebrity Alton Brown (whose shows include Good Eats,
Iron Chef America, and Cutthroat Kitchen) took over the Ethel Barrymore
Theatre for a limited run of eight performances where he entertained his
television fans with sly if not subversive looks at life in the kitchen. Perhaps
the headline of Alexis Soloski’s review in the New York Times said it all:
Brown was “A Mad Culinary Scientist in a Broadway Laboratory.”
Soloski said the “wildly indulgent” evening was a “hoot” that combined
“cooking lore with physics, chemistry, comedy and a live band,” and Brown
was a “know-it-all who just might know it all.” He sang a novelty number
about turkey-brining, invited innocent audience members to join him
onstage for a drink or a bite (one cocktail was a mixture of tequila, pumpkin
spice liqueur, and mouthwash), and wisely and compassionately counseled
a little boy who complained that he didn’t like the way his father cooked
bacon (“One day your dad is going to die, but bacon will always be there
for you”).
John Soltes in Hollywood Soapbox noted that Brown navigated the
audience participants “through a series of hilarious and potentially
embarrassing experiments,” and so perhaps there was good reason why the
star insisted they sign a waiver before the fun began. And Brown would
have made Patti LuPone proud: when he spied an audience member filming
the show with a smartphone, he suggested the person should “create
memories not videos.”
THE ILLUSIONISTS: TURN OF THE CENTURY

Performances: 57
Text: Mike Caveney, Writer and Historical and Magic Consultant
Music: Evan Jolly
Direction: Neil Dorward (Jean Rapp, Associate Director; Mark Kalin,
Creative Director); Producers: Simon Painter, Tim Lawson,
MagicSpace Entertainment, and Kilburn Live; Tim Lawson and Andrew
Spencer, Executive Producers; Neil Dorwald, Creative Producer; Simon
Painter, Executive and Creative Producer; Scenery: Todd Ivins;
Costumes: Angela Aaron; Lighting: Paul Smith; Musical Direction:
Matthew Croft
Cast: Dana Daniels (The Charlatan), Charlie Frye (The Eccentric), Jonathan
Goodwin (The Daredevil), Mark Kalin (The Showman), Jinger Leigh
(The Conjuress), Justo Thaus (The Grand Carlini), Rick Thomas (The
Immortal), Thommy Ten and Amelie Van Tass (The Clairvoyants);
Band: Matthew Croft (Conductor, Keys 2), Brian Radock (Drums),
David White (Bass), Brent McGee (Keys 1)
The Illusionists were back for their third of five limited Broadway
Witness the Impossible). The present company included nine magicians and
four musicians, there was a videotaped sequence, and the music was both
live and pre-recorded.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the evening had “a
vintage vaudeville vibe” and each act was “polished and professional,” but
the show lacked “pizazz” and “time disappears slowly during it.” Alexis
Soloski in the New York Times noted that this time around the Illusionists
favored acts that were popular a hundred years ago, and while there wasn’t
“scrupulous attention to historical accuracy” the magic feats included
sawing a woman in half and an escape act in which handcuffs, a burning
rope, and “some very pointy spikes” played important parts.
A BRONX TALE
Opening Date: December 1, 2016; Closing Date: August 5, 2018
Performances: 700
Book: Chazz Palminteri
Music: Alan Menken
Based on the 1989 play A Bronx Tale by Chazz Palminteri.
Direction: Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks (Stephen Edlund, Associate
Director); Producers: Tommy Mottola, The Dodgers, Tribeca
Productions, Evamere Entertainment, Neighborhood Films, Jeffrey
Sine, Cohen Private Ventures, and Grant Johnson in association with
Paper Mill Playhouse; Lauren Mitchell, Associate Producer; Sally
Campbell Morse, Executive Producer; Choreography: Sergio Trujillo
(Marc Kimelman, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Beowulf Boritt;
Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical
Direction: Jonathan “Smitti” Smith
Cast: Rory Max Kaplan, Dominic Nolfi, Cary Tedder, and Keith White
(Doo-Wop Guys), Bobby Conte Thornton (Calogero), Hudson Loverro
(Young Calogero), Athan Sporek (Young Calogero at some
performances), Nick Cordero (Sonny), Lucia Giannetta (Rosina),
Richard H. Blake (Lorenzo), Joe Barbara (Police Officer, Gang Leader,
Carmine), Joey Sorge (Rudy the Voice), Jonathan Brody (Eddie Mush),
Michael Barra (JoJo the Whale), Ted Brunetti (Frankie Coffeecake),
Paul Salvatoriello (Tony-Ten-to-Two), Keith White (Sally Slick), Rory
Max Kaplan (Handsome Nick), Dominic Nolfi (Crazy Mario), Gilbert
L. Bailey II (Jesse), Christiani Pitts (Denise), Bradley Gibson (Tyrone),
Ariana DeBose (Jane), Trista Dollison (Frieda); Ensemble: Gilbert L.
Bailey II, Joe Barbara, Michael Barra, Jonathan Brody, Ted Brunetti,
Brittany Conigatti, Kaleigh Cronin, Trista Dollison, David Michael
Garry, Rory Max Kaplan, Dominic Nolfi, Christiani Pitts, Paul
Salvatoriello, Joey Sorge, Cary Tedder, Kirstin Tucker, Keith White
The action takes place in the Bronx, New York, in 1960 and 1968.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Belmont Avenue” (Bobby Conte Thornton, Ensemble); “Look to
Your Heart” (Richard H. Blake, Hudson Loverro); “Roll ’Em” (Nick
Cordero, Hudson Loverro, Ensemble); “I Like It” (Hudson Loverro,
Ensemble); “Giving Back the Money” (Richard H. Blake, Hudson
Loverro, Lucia Giannetta, Nick Cordero); “I Like It” (reprise) (Bobby
Conte Thornton, Hudson Loverro, Nick Cordero, Ensemble); “Ain’t It
the Truth” (Bobby Conte Thornton, Rory Max Kaplan, Dominic Nolfi,
Keith White); “Out of Your Head” (Bobby Conte Thornton, Ariana
DeBose, Ensemble); “Nicky Machiavelli” (Nick Cordero, Joey Sorge,
Jonathan Brody, Ted Brunetti, Michael Barra, Paul Salvatoriello);
“These Streets” (Richard H. Blake, Nick Cordero, Lucia Giannetta)
Act Two: “Webster Avenue” (Ariana DeBose, Bobby Conte Thornton,
Bradley Gibson, Gilbert L. Bailey II, Christiani Pitts, Trista Dollison);
“Out of Your Head” (reprise) (Ariana DeBose); “One of the Great
Ones” (Nick Cordero); “Ain’t It the Truth” (reprise) (Bradley Gibson,
Gilbert L. Bailey II); “Look to Your Heart” (reprise) (Lucia Giannetta);
“One of the Great Ones” (reprise) (Bobby Conte Thornton); “Hurt
Someone” (Company); “In a World Like This” (Bobby Conte Thornton,
Ariana DeBose, Ensemble); “The Choices We Make” (Company)
Chazz Palminteri starred in his one-man show A Bronx Tale, which

opened Off-Broadway at Playhouse 91 on October 10, 1989, for seventy-six
performances; he later wrote the screenplay and played the role of Sonny in
the 1993 film version, which was produced by Savoy Pictures and was
directed by Robert De Niro (who played the role of Lorenzo); on October 7,
2007, Palminteri starred in a Broadway production of the play, which
opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre for 108 performances; and now
Palminteri wrote the book for the musical, which was codirected by De
Niro. With so many variations of the original play on hand, Marilyn Stasio
in Variety wondered if a ballet version or an operatic adaptation were next.
The memory piece focused on Calogero (Bobby Cone Thornton), who
looks back on his youth in 1960 when he grew up in the semi-mean streets
of the Bronx, where he was influenced by two very different men: his
honorable hardworking father, Lorenzo (Richard H. Blake), and the flashy
mobster Sonny (Nick Cordero). Of course, Calogero learns something from
both men, assimilates their good qualities, and at the end stands tall on his
own two feet.
The musical also veered into West Side Story territory when Calogero
falls in love with the black Jane (Ariana DeBose), and in fact Terry
Teachout in the Wall Street Journal noted the second act resembled the
classic musical “so closely that the word ‘shameless’ isn’t nearly strong
enough.” And perhaps it didn’t help that Beowulf Boritt’s set featured
stacks of fire escapes, a visual motif that brought to mind the Leonard
Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim classic.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times liked the show’s “polished
professionalism and infectious energy,” and said the score was “wonderful
and ample.” To be sure, the production was “not without its formulaic or
sentimental aspects,” but for those “already mourning the imminent closing
of Jersey Boys [which would end its marathon run on January 15, 2017, six
weeks after the opening of A Bronx Tale], this is the show for you.” But
Stasio wasn’t impressed, and said the “ill-advised” musical adaptation had
an “anemic” score by Alan Menken with music “soggier than overcooked
meatballs” and lyrics by Glenn Slater that had “absolutely no bite.” Sergio
Trujillo’s choreography was “a snooze,” and the usually reliable costume
designer William Ivey Long fell “down on the job” and forgot that the
people who actually wore the period outfits back in the 1960s “thought they
looked good in them.”
Teachout reported that what was good about the original play had now
been watered down until it was “as tasteless as a fast-food milkshake.” In
this “earthbound” musical, the action was “obvious,” the lyrics “flat,” and
the music “Disneyfied doo-wop with some ersatz Sinatra thrown in, the
stuff TV commercials are made of.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune
noted that the “wildly uneven” show had an “accessible, old-school” score
and “light, witty” choreography; Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter
decided the material worked better as a musical than in its previous stage
and film versions and found the songs “tuneful and fun,” but he noted the
second act was “packed with a succession of melodramatic incidents” that
felt “rushed and unconvincing”; and Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York
Daily News said the “conventional” and “by the numbers” evening needed
“a surprise or two,” but Menken and Slater’s score offered “periodic” lifts
and you’d hum three outstanding songs (“I Like It,” “One of the Great
Ones,” and “Out of Your Head”).
The Broadway cast album was released by Ghostlight Records.
DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Opening Date: December 4, 2016; Closing Date: Still playing as of
December 31, 2019
Book: Steven Levenson
Lyrics and Music: Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
Direction: Michael Greif (Adrienne Campbell-Holt, Associate Director);
Producers: Stacey Mindich, Mickey Liddell, Hunter Arnold, Caiola
Productions, Double Gemini Productions, Fakston Productions, Roy
Furman, Harris Karma Productions, On Your Marks Group, Darren
Bagert, Roger and William Berlind, Bob Boyett, Colin Callender,
Caitlin Clements, Freddy DeMann, Dante Di Loreto, Bonnie and
Kenneth Feld, FickStern Productions, Eric and Marsi Gardiner, Robert
Greenblatt, Jere Harris and Darren DeVerna, The John Gore
Organization, Mike Kriak, Arielle Tepper Madover, David Mirvish, Eva
Price, Zeilinger Productions, Adam Zotovich, Ambassador Theatre
Group, Independent Presenters Network, and The Shubert Organization;
Wendy Orshan and Jeffrey M. Wilson, Executive Producers, in
association with Arena Stage and Second Stage Theatre; Jayne Hong
and Rachel Weinstein, Associate Producers; Choreography: Danny
Mefford; Scenery: David Korins; Projections Design: Peter Nigrini;
Costumes: Emily Rebholz; Lighting: Japhy Weideman; Musical
Direction: Ben Cohn
Cast: Laura Dreyfuss (Zoe Murphy), Mike Faist (Connor Murphy), Rachel
Bay Jones (Heidi Hansen), Kristolyn Lloyd (Alana Beck), Michael Park
(Larry Murphy), Ben Platt (Evan Hansen), Will Roland (Jared
Kleinman), Jennifer Laura Thompson (Cynthia Murphy); Virtual
Community Voices: Becca Ayers, Mary Bacon, Gerard Canonico, Jenn
Colella, Adam Halpin, Mykal Kilgore, Stephen Kunken, Tamika
Lawrence, Carrie Manolakos, Ken Marks, Asa Somers, Jason Tam,
Natalie Weiss, Brenda Wehle, Tim Young, Remy Zaken
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Anybody Have a Map?” (Rachel Bay Jones, Jennifer Laura
Thompson); “Waving Through a Window” (Ben Platt, Company); “For
Forever” (Ben Platt); “Sincerely, Me” (Mike Faist, Ben Platt, Will
Roland); “Requiem” (Laura Dreyfuss, Michael Park, Jennifer Laura
Thompson); “If I Could Tell Her” (Ben Platt, Laura Dreyfuss);
“Disappear” (Mike Faist, Ben Platt, Kristolyn Lloyd, Will Roland,
Jennifer Laura Thompson, Michael Park, Laura Dreyfuss); “You Will
Be Found” (Ben Platt, Company)
Act Two: “Sincerely, Me” (reprise) (Mike Faist, Will Roland); “To Break in
a Glove” (Michael Park, Ben Platt); “Only Us” (Laura Dreyfuss, Ben
Platt); “Good for You” (Rachel Bay Jones, Kristolyn Lloyd, Will
Roland, Ben Platt); “You Will Be Found” (reprise) (Company); “Words
Fail” (Ben Platt); “So Big/So Small” (Rachel Bay Jones); Finale
(Company)
Like Come from Away, Dear Evan Hansen seemed to come out of
nowhere, and in a season of sure-fire hits that misfired, these two musicals
surprised everyone and became must-see shows. In fact, Dear Evan Hansen
went stratospheric and joined The Book of Mormon and Hamilton as the
decade’s event musicals, and Hansen walked away with six Tony Awards
(Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Leading Actor, Best Featured
Actress, and Best Orchestrations).
The musical caught on with teenagers and those in their early twenties,
and seems to be the kind of show for those weary of Wicked (another
musical that touched upon the angst of high-school life and the notion of
popularity) and in search of something edgier. The story revolved around
Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), a withdrawn teenager with social and anxiety
issues who lives with his single mother Heidi (Rachel Bay Jones). At the
behest of his therapist, Evan writes letters to himself that are in the nature of
epistolary pep talks. School bully Connor Murphy (Mike Faist) appropriates
one of Evan’s letters, and after Connor commits suicide his family assumes
the letter is a suicide note from Connor to his heretofore unknown-to-them
best friend Evan. They’re overjoyed that their aggressive and unpopular son
had a friendship with someone, they welcome Evan into their lives, and
Evan reluctantly goes along with the charade. The family is distraught when
it discovers the friendship was fabricated, but a year after the events Evan
meets Connor’s sister Zoe (Laura Dreyfuss) who tells him the family has
kept his secret and in fact have become closer because of the matter.
Charles Isherwood in the New York Times said the “gorgeous
heartbreaker” was for “just about everybody with a beating heart,” and it
offered a sensitive book, “haunting” score, “superb” direction, and a rich
and wrenching performance by Platt. Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York
Daily News praised the “vibrant” and “varied” songs, said the “original and
up-to-the-minute” musical had “a lot to say,” and Platt was a “Broadway
star being born”; Jesse Green in New York said the work should be “seen
again—and again”; and for Matt Windman in amNewYork the “tight and
compelling” production offered a “haunting” score, a “captivating” book,
and a “seamless visual design.”
But in Uncensored John Simon, the critic said the “non-dear Evan” was
the “only show within recent memory that I had to grit my teeth to prevent
walking out on in the middle,” and the music was “deplorable” without “a
single worthwhile tune”; Hilton Als in the New Yorker noted that the show’s
“long stretch of brilliance” was “ultimately undone by pop psychology” of
the “closure” and “healing” variety, and Steven Levenson’s book took “side
trips into tired knee-jerk liberalism and therapeutic healing”; and in his
review of the premiere of the musical’s national touring company, John
Wenzel in the Denver Post said the “crisply performed but mediocre”
musical offered “treacly pop melodies” with mostly “trite, overly familiar
construction” and a book with “jokes and clichés hardly worthy of the best
sitcom repartee.”
The cast recording was released by Atlantic Records on CD and vinyl
formats; the script was published in paperback by Theatre Communications
Group in 2017; and a novelization of the story by Val Emmich with Steven
Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul was published in hardback by Poppy
Books in 2018. The musical premiered at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.,
on July 30, 2015, and later was produced Off-Broadway at Second Stage
Theatre on May 1, 2016 (for Washington, Michael Park and Alexis Molnar
played the respective roles of Larry Murphy and Alana Beck; for Off-
Broadway, the roles were performed by John Dossett and Kristolyn Lloyd;
and for Broadway by Park and Lloyd).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Dear Evan Hansen); Best
Book (Steven Levenson); Best Score (lyrics and music by Benj Pasek
and Justin Paul); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Ben Platt); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role
in a Musical (Mike Faist); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Rachel Bay Jones); Best Direction of a Musical
(Michael Greif); Best Orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire); Best Lighting
Design of a Musical (Japhy Weideman)
IN TRANSIT
Opening Date: December 11, 2016; Closing Date: April 16, 2017
Performances: 145
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ
Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth
Direction and Choreography: Kathleen Marshall (David Eggers, Associate
Director and Associate Choreographer); Producers: Janet B. Rosen,
Marvin S. Rosen, Robert F. Smith, Jeff Hecktman, Ed Rendell/Kenneth
Jarin, Manny Medina, Frankel/Viertel/Baruch/Routh Group, Hello
Entertainment/David Garfinkle, Michael S. Falk/Annie Falk, Karen
Mehiel, Robert Sher/Sharon Azrieli, Mark B. Davis/Yoly Davis, Edgar
Bronfman Jr./Benjamin Bronfman, Deke Sharon, and Sleep Tite
Productions; Scenery: Donyale Werle; Projection Designs: Caite
Hevner; Costumes: Clint Ramos; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical
Direction: Rick Hip-Flores
Cast: David Abeles (Dave), Moya Angela (Ms. Williams, Momma, Althea),
Justin Guarini (Trent), Telly Leung (Steven), Erin Mackey (Ali),
Gerianne Perez (Kathy), Margo Seibert (Jane), Chesney Snow or Steven
“HeaveN” Cantor (performers alternated in the role of Boxman), James
Snyder (Nate), Mariand Torres (Nina), Nicholas Ward (Chris)
Musical Numbers
“Deep Beneath the City” and “Not There Yet” (Company); “Do What I Do”
(Margo Seibert); “Four Days Home” (Justin Guarini, Telly Leung,
Company); “Broke” (James Snyder); “Saturday Night Obsession” (Erin
Mackey); “Wingman” (Nicholas Ward, Company); “But, Ya Know”
(James Snyder, Margo Seibert); “Not There Yet” (reprise) (Erin
Mackey, Justin Guarini, Margo Seibert, James Snyder, Moya Angela);
“Keep It Goin’” (Moya Angela, Company); “A Little Friendly Advice”
(Moya Angela); “Choosing Not to Know” (Justin Guarini); “The
Moving Song” (Erin Mackey); “We Are Home” (Telly Leung, Justin
Guarini); “Getting There” (Margo Seibert); Finale (Company)
In Transit was Broadway’s first a cappella musical, but critics and

audiences weren’t all that interested in the long-aborning $7 million show,
which managed just four months in New York before coming to a stop.
Michael Paulson in the New York Times reported that in its penultimate
week on Broadway the production grossed $194,641 (which was 27 percent
of the potential weekly sales) and said it was likely the investors would
“lose much if not all of their money.”
For the most part the musical took place within the confines of the New
York City subway system, and it focused on a cross-section of riders, all of
whom have the kind of trendy problems endemic to characters in New
York–centric musicals and might have been at home in If/Then (in fact, cast
member James Snyder was one of the leads in that musical). Ali (Erin
Mackey) continues to carry a torch for a former boyfriend but tries to forget
him by training for marathons; aspiring actress Jane (Margo Seibert) works
as an office temp but lives for the day she’ll conquer Broadway; Nate
(Snyder) has been ousted from his high-powered Wall Street position
because he accidentally pressed the reply-to-all key on an indiscreet email
and is now virtually penniless; and the gay couple Trent (Justin Guarini)
and Steven (Telly Leung) must face a potential showdown when the former
plans to tell his mother (Moya Angela, who in addition played two other
roles in the show) that he and Steven are more than just “roommates.”
Golly, the characters in Subways Are for Sleeping (1961) were surely
more interesting than these (although come to think of it, Nate has quite a
bit in common with Subway’s Tom Bailey, another disgraced former Wall
Streeter, and perhaps Tom could teach Nate a trick or two about survival
skills in New York when you’re down and out, and how to pick up the odd
job, such as dog-walking or playing Santa during the holiday season).
Ben Brantley in the Times noted that for In Transit “peppy” clichés
pranced across the stage with stereotypes that felt “as old as the A train
line,” and “fortune-cookie versions” of “life lessons” were “on tap
everywhere” (the musical’s wise lesson was that one should live in the
moment, and Brantley enjoyed the “sardonic” song “A Little Friendly
Advice,” which suggested that one should give up on one’s dreams and
ideals). Jesse Green in New York said the show “promptly derails” and was
little more “than a collection of unrelated clichés strung together in the
manner of a themed revue.” Linda Winer in Newsday “just wish[ed] it were
a fraction as challenging theatrically as a morning commute.” Frank Scheck
in the Hollywood Reporter said the “cliched characters and situations
[were] too bland for a sitcom, let alone theatre.” And Matt Wind-man in
amNewYork found the premise “corny” and the characters “generic.”
But Robert Kahn in NBCNewYork praised the “superior” cast and liked
the “catchy” score, and while Frank Rizzo in Variety noted the book was
“by-the-numbers, with the audience’s minds moving ahead of the plot faster
than a scurrying subway rodent,” the musical was “a surprisingly moving
experience” that made “you feel that though you’re watching separate lives
of these strangers on a train, you’re hearing the heart of one connected
urban village.”
The cast album was released by Hollywood Records.
As Along the Way, a portion of the musical was presented at Upstairs at
54 as a staged reading for the New York Musical Theatre Festival during
Fall 2004; as In Transit, the work was developed at the Eugene O’Neill
Theatre Center during the National Music Theatre Center Conference in
2008; a staged concert was presented Off-Broadway by the York Theatre
Company at the Theatre at St. Peter’s Church on August 8, 2008, for five
performances (the run included “Where Are the Girls?,” “Reunion,” and
“Funny That Way,” which weren’t part of the Broadway score); and an Off-
Broadway production by Primary Stages opened at 59E59 Theatre A on
October 5, 2010, for twenty-seven performances (this run included “No
Dental” and “Maxed Out,” which were cut prior to the Broadway
production).
It appears that New York’s first a cappella musical was Off Broadway’s
Avenue X (book and lyrics by John Jiler and music by Ray Leslee), which
was produced by Playwrights Horizons on June 3, 1993, for fourteen
performances and then again on February 21, 1994, for forty-eight more
showings. The script was published in paperback by Samuel French in
1995, and the cast album was released by RCA Victor. The musical took
place in Brooklyn during the summer of 1963 and depicted racial tensions
in a neighborhood populated by blacks and Italian-Americans.
CANDIDE
Theatre: Frederick P. Rose Hall/Lincoln Center
Opening Date: January 6, 2017; Closing Date: January 15, 2017
Performances: 10
Book: Hugh Wheeler
Lyrics: Richard Wilbur; additional lyrics by Leonard Bernstein, John
Latouche, and Stephen Sondheim
Music: Leonard Bernstein
Based on the 1759 novel Candide, or Optimism by Voltaire (aka Francois-
Marie Arouet).
Direction: Harold Prince (Arthur Masella, Associate Director; Albert
Sherman, Assistant Director); Producer: The New York City Opera
Company (Michael Capasso, General Director); Choreography: Pat
Birch (Deanna Dys, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Clarke
Dunham; Costumes: Judith Dolan; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical
Direction: Charles Prince
Cast: Gregg Edelman (Voltaire, Doctor Pangloss, Businessman, Governor,
Second Gambler, Police Chief, Sage), Jay Armstrong Johnson
(Candide), Peter Kendall Clark (Huntsman, Bulgarian Soldier,
Legionnaire, Don), Jessica Tyler Wright (Paquette), Sishel Claverie
(Baroness, Calliope Player), Brooks Ashmanskas (Baron, Grand
Inquisitor, Slave Driver, Pasha-Prefect), Meghan Picerno (Cunegonde),
Keith Phares (Maximilian), Chip Zien (Maximilian’s Servant, Bulgarian
Soldier, Don Issachar the Jew, Judge, Father Bernard, First Gambler),
Eric McKeever (Westphalian Soldier, Don), Glenn Seven Allen
(Westphalian Soldier, Pirate), Curt Olds (Heresy Agent, Don), Wayne
Hu (Legionnaire, Lion), Christopher Morrissey (Inquisition Agent, Don,
Sailor), Damian Chambers (Inquisition Agent, Don, Damian
Chambers), Zak Edwards (Inquisition Agent, Don, Sailor), Matthew
Michael Urinak (Inquisition Agent, Don, Sailor), Linda Lavin (Old
Lady), Barrett Davis (Don, Sailor), Makoto Winkler (Pirate), Leah
Horowitz (Sheep), Kat Liu (Sheep), Esther Antoine (Whore), Hannah
Jewel Kohn (Whore); Ensemble: Samarie Alicea, Glenn Seven Allen,
Michael Boley, Lisa Chavez, Sishel Claverie, Peter Kendall Clark,
Patrick Dunn, Lianne Gennacco, Leah Horowitz, Wayne Hu, Kat Liu,
Eric McKeever, Curt Olds, Kaley Voorhees, Makoto Winkler, Rachel
Zatcoff; Dancers: Esther Antoine, Elyssa Jo Brown, Damian Chambers,
Barrett Davis, Zak Edwards, Lauren Gemelli, Dani Goldstein, Hannah
Jewel Kohn, Christopher Morrissey, Matthew Michael Urinak
The action takes place during the eighteenth century in Westphalia, Lisbon,
Cadiz, Buenos Aires, and sundry places throughout the world.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers; the song list
below is taken from the 2005 revival of the musical by the New York
City Opera Company, and unless the current production tinkered with
the score, the following was probably heard in the current revival.
Act One: Overture; “Life Is Happiness Indeed”; “The Best of All Possible
Worlds”; “Oh, Happy We”; “It Must Be So” (aka “Candide’s
Meditation”); “Westphalian Fanfare”; “Chorale”; “Battle”; “Glitter and
Be Gay”; “Dear Boy”; “Auto-da-fe” (aka “What a Day for an Auto-da-
fe”); “Candide’s Lament” (aka “This World”); “You Were Dead, You
Know”; “I Am Easily Assimilated”; “Quartet Finale”
Act Two: Entr’acte; “Ballad of the New World”; “My Love”; “The Old
Lady’s Tale”; “Barcarolle”; “Alleluia”; “Sheep Song”; “Governor’s
Waltz”; “Bon Voyage”; “Quiet”; “The Best of All Possible Worlds”
(reprise); “Constantinople”; “What’s the Use”; “You Were Dead, You
Know” (reprise); “Make Our Garden Grow”
The current limited-engagement revival of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide

was the eighth one presented by the New York City Opera Company; the
first had opened in 1982 and was followed by visits in 1983, 1984, 1986,
1989, 2005, and 2008. The company filed for bankruptcy and closed its
doors in 2013, but soon returned with shorter seasons and smaller-scaled
productions, and among their presentations were the New York premieres of
such operas as Angels in America, Brokeback Mountain, and Stonewall.
The operetta satirized optimism with its depiction of the picaresque
adventures of the naive Candide who roams the world looking for goodness
and finding nothing but misery and despair. After wasting much of his life
in the quest of an impossible dream, the disillusioned Candide returns to his
homeland with the knowledge that man isn’t noble and that one should
aspire to cultivate one’s own garden and try to make the best of one’s life.
The story was set against what is probably the most brilliant score ever
composed for the Broadway theatre, and despite a variety of lyricists, the
unified set of witty and ironic lyrics seems written by one hand.
The original production opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck (now
Al Hirschfeld) Theatre on December 1, 1956, for seventy-three
performances, and Lillian Hellman’s book struck just the right note of
barbed satire, which, unlike later productions of the work, never went over
the top into sitcom-styled vulgarity and foolishness. Unfortunately, the
terms of her will preclude the use of her book in any staging, but surely
somewhere there’s a librettist who could create a book in the style of
Voltaire and could match the satiric tone of Bernstein’s masterful score.
A myth about the original production is that it received poor reviews
and went unseen and unappreciated until the opening of the tiresome 1973–
1974 adaptation by Hugh Wheeler, which was directed by Harold Prince. In
truth, most critics gave the musical rapturous notices. John Chapman in the
New York Daily News hailed the “artistic triumph” and said it was the best
light opera since the 1911 premiere of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.
Moreover, he noted that sixty seconds after conductor Samuel
Krachmalnick brought down his baton for the overture “one sensed that
here was going to be an evening of uncommon quality.”
Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times found the work a “brilliant
musical satire” that was a “triumph of stage arts molded into a symmetrical
whole,” and he noted that nothing in Bernstein’s previous theatre music had
the “joyous variety, humor and richness” of this “wonderful” score. He also
said Oliver Smith’s “fabulous” decor and Irene Sharaff’s “vigorous”
costumes made Candide “the most stunning production of the season.” Tom
Donnelly in the New York World-Telegram said the score was not only
Bernstein’s best, it was also “one of the most attractive scores anyone has
written for the theatre.” Here was “lush, lovely, and electric” music, and
when it wasn’t as “voluptuous as velvet” it was “as frostily pretty as a
diamond bell.”
Although Robert Coleman in the New York Daily Mirror said the
musical had its “faults” (which he didn’t specify), it was nonetheless
“distinguished” and “towers heads and shoulders above most of the song-
and-dancers you’ll get this or any other season”; Richard Watts in the New
York Post felt the libretto sometimes lacked “bite and pungency” but the
production was still “brilliant” and offered “so much in the way of musical
excellence, visual beauty, grace of style and boldness of design”; and John
McClain in the New York Journal-American said the “ambitious and
brilliant” evening included a bright book by Hellman, delightful music by
Bernstein, and scenery that was “imaginative and exciting.”
But Walter Kerr in the New York Herald Tribune stated Candide was a
“really spectacular disaster.” It was a “great ghostly wreck that sails like a
Flying Dutchman across the fogbound stage of the Martin Beck,” and the
story was “thumped out with a crushing hand.” Kerr felt the lyrics had “no
purposeful edge,” but said Bernstein’s music emerged unscathed from “this
singularly ill-conceived venture.”
In his American Drama since World War II, Gerald Weales wrote that
Candide was “not only the most sophisticated product of the American
musical stage,” it was “probably the most imaginative American play to
reach Broadway since the war.”
In 1958, a concert version of the musical toured with original cast
members Robert Rounseville (Candide) and Irra Petina (The Old Lady) as
well as Mary Costa (Cunegonde) and Martyn Green (Pangloss); the
adaptation was by Michael Stewart and Krachmalnick again conducted. The
London production opened on April 30, 1959, at the Saville Theatre for
sixty performances, and the cast included Denis Quilley (Candide), Costa
(Cunegonde), Laurence Naismith (Pangloss), Edith Coates (The Old Lady),
Ron Moody (The Governor), and Victor Spinetti (The Marquis). The book
was credited to Hellman, who was “assisted” by Stewart.
In 1967, another production briefly toured the United States in an
adaptation by Sheldon Patinkin, and on November 10, 1968, a one-
performance-only concert with William Lewis and Madeleine Kahn was
presented at Philharmonic Hall (later Avery Fisher Hall and now named
David Geffen Hall) in an adaptation that combined Hellman, Stewart, and
Patinkin’s versions. In 1971, a lavish revival with Frank Poretta and Costa
toured for four months but closed prior to Broadway; the adaptation was by
Patinkin, and the decor was by Oliver Smith, who had designed the original
production.
From there came the lamentable 1973–1974 adaptation by Wheeler,
which originated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on December 1, 1973,
for forty-eight showings and transferred to the Broadway Theatre on March
5, 1974, for a money-losing run of 740 performances. This was a
kindergarten Candide that was played for laughs, if not laffs, and reduced
Voltaire to Laugh In–styled antics. Bernstein’s scintillating score came
across as an afterthought in an evening designed to support the foolish
goings-on in a so-called environmental staging that reduced the venerable
Broadway Theatre to a hodgepodge of overly busy playing areas.
In his review of the current City Opera revival, Anthony Tommasini in
the Times praised the “lively and colorful” production (in which traveling
showman Voltaire presents a circus troupe that includes acrobats) and said it
represented “an encouraging forward step for the reconstituted company.”
Eric C. Simpson in New York Classical Review enjoyed the “superb”
evening in which every joke was oversold and treated like a “punchline,” a
decision that was “just about right,” considering the work was “batty” and
thus there was “no point in going half-way.” And David Salazar in
OperaWire said City Opera could “check off the box next to ‘success’” in
regard to the production.
Christopher Johnson in ZealNYC said the 1973–1974 revision was a
“massive act of cultural vandalism” that was “very coarse and ugly” with
“inane sitcom-shenanigans” and performers who acted like “hyperkinetic
tenth-graders” (with the notable exception of Linda Lavin, whose
performance as the Old Lady showed “what musical theatre is all about”).
Besides Lavin, the other highlight of the evening was the simple and
straightforward approach to the climactic song “Make Our Garden Grow.”
But this “magnificent” moment was “fatal to Prince’s whole approach”
because he allowed the musical to speak as it was meant to, and thus it
“showed how utterly debased” the work had “become in his hands.”
The original Broadway cast album has never been out of print, and was
first released by Columbia Records on vinyl and later on CD by Sony
Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records. The script of the 1956 production was
published in hardback by Random House in 1957, and Wheeler’s script was
published in hardback by Schirmer Books/MacMillan Performing Arts
Series in 1976 (the cast album was issued on a two-LP set and later re-
issued on a two-CD set by Sony/Masterworks Broadway). The 1982 City
Opera revival was released on CD and vinyl by New World Records, and
the score’s “final, revised version, 1989” was conducted by Bernstein and
released by Deutsche Grammophone on vinyl and CD formats (a 1989
concert, which was given prior to the release of the recording, was released
on DVD by the company). A Broadway revival opened on April 29, 1997,
at the Gershwin Theatre for 103 performances and was recorded by RCA
Victor. Another concert version, which was performed at Lincoln Center’s
Avery Hall on May 5, 2005, was shown on public television’s Great
Performances and later released on DVD by Image Entertainment.
SUNSET BOULEVARD
Opening Date: February 9, 2017; Closing Date: June 25, 2017
Performances: 138
Book and Lyrics: Don Black and Christopher Hampton
Based on the 1950 Paramount Pictures’ film Sunset Boulevard (direction by
Billy Wilder and screenplay by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.
M. Marshman Jr.).
Direction: Lonny Price (Matt Cowart, Associate Director); Producers: Paul
Blake & Mike Bosner, Michael Linnit, Michael Grade, Jeffrey A. Sine,
Richard A. Smith, Gate Ventures PLC, James L. Nederlander, Stewart
Lane/Bonnie Comley, AC Orange Entertainment Ltd., Terry Schnuck,
Len Blavatnik, Daryl Roth, Shorenstein Hays-Nederlander, Matthew C.
Blank, Tim Hogue/Walter Schmidt, and 42nd. Club/Marc Levine by
arrangement with The Really Useful Group Ltd.; An English National
Opera Production; Johnny Hon, Executive Producer; Choreography:
Stephen Mear; Scenery: James Noone; Costumes: Tracy Christensen;
costumes for Glenn Close by Anthony Powell; Lighting: Mark
Henderson; Musical Direction: Kristen Blodgette
Cast: Glenn Close (Norma Desmond), Michael Xavier (Joe Gillis), Siobhan
Dillon (Betty Schaeffer), Fred Johanson (Max von Mayerling), Preston
Truman Boyd (Artie Green), Paul Schoeffler (Cecil B. DeMille), Andy
Taylor (Sheldrake), Jim Walton (Manfred); Ensemble: Nancy Anderson,
Mackenzie Bell, Preston Truman Boyd, Barry Busby, Britney Coleman,
Julian R. Decker, Anissa Felix, Drew Foster, David Hess, Brittney
Johnson, Katie Ladner, Stephanie Martignetti, Lauralyn McClelland, T.
Oliver Reid, Lance Roberts, Stephanie Rothenberg, Graham Rowat,
Paul Schoeffler, Andy Taylor, Sean Thompson, Matt Wall, Jim Walton
The action takes place in Los Angeles during 1949 and 1950.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program listed song titles but omitted names of the cast
members/characters who sang them. For information about the
performers/characters who sang specific numbers, see pages 178–79 of
the author’s The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals.
Act One: Overture; “Let Me Take You Back”; “Let’s Have Lunch”;
“Betty’s Pitch”; “Car Chase”; “No More Wars”; “Once Upon a Time”;
“With One Look”; “Salome”; “The Greatest Star of All”; “Schwab’s
Drugstore”; “Girl Meets Boy”; “I Started Work”; “New Ways to
Dream”; “The Lady’s Paying”; “New Year Tango”; “The Perfect Year”;
“I Had to Get Out”; “This Time Next Year”; “Auld Lang Syne”; End of
Act One
Act Two: Entr’acte; “Sunset Boulevard”; “There’s Been a Call”; “It Took
Her Three Days”; “Norma in the Studio”; “As If We Never Said
Goodbye”; “Paramount Conversations”; “Was That Really Norma
Desmond?”; “Girl Meets Boy” (reprise); “A Little Suffering”; “I Should
Have Stayed There”; “Too Much in Love to Care”; “New Ways to
Dream” (reprise); “The Phone Call”; “What’s Going On, Joe?”;The
Final Scene
The revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard marked the

musical’s return to New York after its grandiose and controversial 1994
Broadway production. The current revival’s calling card was Glenn Close,
who starred in the Broadway premiere and now returned for a limited
engagement in a scaled-down version.
Based on Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film, the story looked at the dark
side of tinsel town in its merciless examination of the rich and delusional
silent-screen star Norma Desmond (Close), a has-been determined to make
her return (don’t even think of uttering the word comeback!) to the movies
with Salome. She’s completed the screenplay and expects it to be filmed as
written and with her as the star, even though she’s clearly some thirty years
too old for the part. By chance she meets down-and-out script writer Joe
Gillis (Michael Xavier) and hires him to polish the screenplay for eventual
submission to Cecil B. DeMille. Joe is soon living in her mansion on Sunset
Boulevard and quickly becomes her kept man and reluctant lover. But it’s
sunset for Joe when Norma descends into madness and shoots him in a
jealous rage. However, the murder and her arrest don’t really affect her
because it all seems part of an endless movie playing in her head.
Wilder’s film was a masterpiece of black comedy, but Don Black and
Christopher Hampton’s book never captured the movie’s irony and lost the
film’s baroque sensibility. Lloyd Webber’s score was generally more
successful, but it too was disappointing. The title song was too bombastic,
the musical scenes for Joe and script writer Betty Schaeffer (Siobhan
Dillon) were jejune, and their watery songs (especially “Too Much in Love
to Care”) should have been tossed in preproduction. The generic chorus
numbers (such as “The Lady’s Paying”) were little more than filler material,
but Norma’s songs were quite strong and among the best of Lloyd Webber’s
career. These included “With One Look” (Norma’s description of the time
when movies were magical), “The Perfect Year” (an insinuating ballad that
greets the New Year with heady expectation), and the thrilling grandeur of
“As If We Never Said Goodbye” (when Norma briefly returns to her old
studio).
The current revival offered modest scenery, but in the original
production John Napier’s decor matched the style of the film, and, like the
movie, began with a startling swimming pool scene where the murdered Joe
is seen face down in the water as he begins to tell the story in flashback.
The striking visual effect made it seem as if the audience was at the bottom
of the pool looking up at Joe’s body floating high above on the water’s
surface, and Norma’s mansion was a rococo nightmare that knowingly
commented on her decades-long isolation in a world of fantasy and
delusion.
The musical premiered in London on July 12, 1993, at the Adelphi
Theatre with Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson in the leading roles, and ran
for 1,530 performances. LuPone’s contract stipulated she would play the
role in New York, but Close was chosen for the U.S. premiere in Los
Angeles and the subsequent Broadway run, and the New York Times
reported LuPone’s contract was bought out for a rumored $1 million. When
the actress left the London production she was succeeded by Betty Buckley,
and others who played the role there were Elaine Paige, Petula Clark, and
Rita Moreno.
When Close left the L.A. production in order to open the musical on
Broadway, Faye Dunaway was signed to succeed her, but the Times
reported that she was “abruptly dismissed” during rehearsals (apparently
because Lloyd Webber was disappointed with her singing voice). Dunaway
filed a lawsuit for breach of contract, which was settled out of court. During
the New York run, Close (who won the Tony Award for Best Leading
Actress in a Musical) was succeeded by Buckley and Paige.
Because of the backstage drama surrounding the production, the
musical opened in New York on waves of publicity almost unheard of for
the typical musical, and reportedly had the largest advance sale of any show
in Broadway history. The show opened on November 17, 1994, at the
Minskoff Theatre for 977 performances at an estimated capitalization of
$13 million, and when it closed the Times reported the production had
recouped about 80 percent of its investment.
The revival was first presented by the English National Opera at the
London Coliseum, where it played a five-week engagement beginning on
April 4, 2016, and the New York production included Close and all the
London principals. The huge forty-piece orchestra was onstage, and for the
most part the decor provided touches to depict the time and place
(occasional suggestive props such as chandeliers were enhanced with visual
projections).
Ben Brantley in the Times said Close’s singing voice was “reedy and at
times off-key,” but hers was “grand-gesture acting of a singularly
sophisticated and disciplined order” and her presence was “operatic in the
richest sense of the word.” But the music reflected “singsong insistence”
and the lyrics were mindful of “schoolyard jingles with rhymes that land as
emphatically as children on hopscotch squares.” Terry Teachout in the Wall
Street Journal found the musical “unworthy” of its “classic” source material
with “sing-songy and ill-crafted” lyrics and a “gooey” score with “no more
cutting power than a butter knife” and a “tensionless mélange of recycled
Rachmaninoff and ersatz jazz.” Further, the onstage placement of the
orchestra created a “shallow” and “cluttered” playing area for the cast
members. But Close’s performance was “as memorable in its own way” as
Gloria Swanson’s. Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the “luscious” music was
“burdened by clunky lyrics,” but Close was “triumphant” in a “once-in-a-
lifetime” role, and Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter decided Close
now gave a “more subtle” and “nuanced” performance and despite all the
previous musical Normas she now “owned” the role.
The original London cast album was released on a two-CD set by
Polydor Records, and with LuPone’s brilliant singing performance it’s by
far the best recording of the score. The L.A. production was also issued by
Polydor on a two-CD set; there was no Broadway cast recording because
the L.A. version was for all purposes a Broadway cast album (but note that
Betty is sung by Judy Kuhn, who was succeeded by Alice Ripley for New
York). Other recordings include the 1995 Canadian cast album by Polydor
(with Diahann Carroll); a German cast album on Polydor (Helen
Schneider); another German recording on Polydor with three songs
(Daniela Ziegler); a special highlights CD on Polygram of four songs
(Buckley); another highlights album on Polydor of three songs (Clark); one
song by Paige for WEA Records; and three songs issued by Rugsun
Records taken from a 2001–2002 UK tour with Faith Brown and Earl
Carpenter.
“Sunset Boulevard” from Movie to Musical by George Perry was
published in hardback by Henry Holt and Company in 1993; the book
includes the complete libretto and lyrics, numerous color photographs, a
section about the original 1950 film (with many period black-and-white
photos), and general background information about the musical. The script
was also published in paperback by Faber and Faber in 1993.
Before Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard there was Boulevard! (which
had originally been titled Starring Norma Desmond). It was developed for
Gloria Swanson in 1952 with lyrics and music by Dickson Hughes and
Richard Stapley, and a demo with Swanson was recorded. According to the
liner notes of Boulevard! (which was issued on a two-CD set by Stage Door
Records in 2008), Swanson appeared on The Steve Allen Show on
November 10, 1957, and sang a number from the score (“Those Wonderful
People”). Boulevard! was never produced, but the CD includes the tracks
from the demo album, a live performance taken from the telecast of “Those
Wonderful People,” and bonus tracks of early recordings by Swanson from
some of her films.
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
Theatre: Hudson Theatre
Opening Date: February 23, 2017; Closing Date: April 23, 2017
Performances: 61
Book: James Lapine
Direction: Sarna Lapine; Producers: Ambassador Theatre Group; Carole
Shorenstein Hays, Caiola Productions, Jeffrey Finn, Jere Harris and
Darren DeVerna, J/K/R/S, Claire-Bridget Kenwright, LD Entertainment,
Benjamin Lowry and Adrian Salpeter, Tulchin Bartner Productions,
Jeanine Tesori, and Riva Marker; A New York City Center Production;
Adam Speers for Ambassador Theatre Group, Executive Producer;
Choreography: Musical staging by Ann Yee; Scenery: Beowulf Boritt;
Projections Design: Tal Yarden (Christopher Ash, Co-Projections
Designer); Costumes: Clint Ramos; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical
Direction: Chris Fenwick
Cast: Annaleigh Ashford (Dot, Marie), Brooks Ashmanskas (Mr., Charles),
Jenni Barber (Celeste # 2, Elaine), Phillip Boykin (Boatman, Lee),
Mattea Conforti (Louise, Rayne), Erin Davie (Yvonne, Naomi),
Claybourne Elder (Soldier, Alex), Penny Fuller (Old Lady, Blair),
Jordan Gelber (Louis, Billy), Jake Gyllenhaal (George), Robert Sean
Leonard (Jules, Bob), Liz McCartney (Mrs., Harriet), Ruthie Ann Miles
(Frieda, Betty), Ashley Park (Celeste # 1, Theresa), Jennifer Sanchez
(Nurse, Samantha), David Turner (Franz, Dennis); Ensemble: Max
Chernin, Mary Ann Hu, Michael McElroy, Jaime Rosenstein
The action for the first act takes place on a series of Sundays from 1884 to
1886 and alternates between a park on an island in the Seine just outside
of Paris, and in George’s studio; the second act takes place in 1984 at an
American art museum and on the island.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Sunday in the Park with George” (Annaleigh Ashford); “No
Life” (Robert Sean Leonard, Erin Davie); “Color and Light” (Annaleigh
Ashford, Jake Gyllenhaal); “Gossip” (Ashley Park, Jenni Barber, Phillip
Boykin, Jennifer Sanchez, Penny Fuller, Robert Sean Leonard, Erin
Davie); “The Day Off” (Jake Gyllenhaal, Jennifer Sanchez, David
Turner, Ruthie Ann Miles, Phillip Boykin, Claybourne Elder, Ashley
Park, Jenni Barber, Erin Davie, Mattea Conforti, Robert Sean Leonard,
Jordan Gelber); “Everybody Loves Louis” (Annaleigh Ashford);
“Finishing the Hat” (Jake Gyllenhaal); “We Do Not Belong Together”
(Annaleigh Ashford, Jake Gyllenhaal); “Beautiful” (Penny Fuller, Jake
Gyllenhaal); “Sunday” (Company)
Act Two: “It’s Hot Up Here” (Company); “Chromolume # 7” (Jake
Gyllenhaal, Annaleigh Ashford); “Putting It Together” (Jake
Gyllenhaal, Company); “Children and Art” (Annaleigh Ashford);
“Lesson # 8” (Jake Gyllenhaal); “Move On” (Jake Gyllenhaal,
Annaleigh Ashford); “Sunday” (reprise) (Company)
The limited engagement of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s

Sunday in the Park with George was the work’s second Broadway revival,
and one of the season’s event musicals. In this case, popular film actor Jake
Gyllenhaal portrayed the title character, and because of the short run tickets
were at a premium.
The musical’s first act was a fantasia that speculated on the creation of
Georges Seurat’s masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La
Grande Jatte. Seurat (1859–1891) began the work in 1884 and completed it
two years later. The huge painting, which is comprised of thousands of dot-
like brush strokes and measures 81 by 120 inches, is on permanent display
at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The first act takes place on a series of Sunday afternoons over the two
years it took Seurat to finish the painting, and the story focused on the
artist’s unique vision in which he merged the techniques of
chromoluminarism and pointillism. Instead of mixing colors together with
brush strokes to create images, Seurat used thousands of tiny separate dots
of color, and it was the eye of the viewer that optically merged the dots into
coherent areas of color and light. In the musical, Seurat is depicted as a
lonely figure whose art takes precedence over everything in his life. His
appropriately named mistress, Dot, must necessarily take second place, and
he doesn’t require approval from the art establishment to validate his work.
The people in the park become subjects in Seurat’s painting, and the
musical theorized that some were known to him, such as Dot, his mother,
and a fellow artist. Some of the figures were represented by members of the
company, others were depicted by life-sized cut-outs, and some by pop-ups
that emerged from the floor of the stage. At the close of the first act Seurat
has completed the painting, and as if ordained by destiny the people in the
park assume their places on stage to match their positions on the canvas. As
the first act ended and the subjects of La Grande Jatte fell into place, the
audience witnessed one of the most stunning theatrical images of the era as
Seurat stood on the apron of the stage before the completed painting. (Note
that this description reflects the staging and scenic design of the original
1984 production.)
The first act was a perfect self-contained one-act musical, but
unfortunately there was a second one to contend with, and it never matched
the magnificence of the first. The second half occurs one hundred years
later and looks at a multimedia artist, also named George, who may be
Seurat’s great-grandson. Unlike his great-grandfather, the young man is
beholden to museum politics, rich donors, foundation money, grants, and
the like. There is incipient irony in how the two Georges differ, the first
dependent on nothing but his artistic vision, the second on commissions and
the approbation of the art community because, in his words, “vision” is “no
solution.” The second half suffered because the present-day George was
generally bland and uninteresting. You were emotionally drawn to Seurat
and his vision, but the modern-day George was tiresome in his journey
through the labyrinth of museum intrigues.
Lapine’s first act was a supreme achievement, and one regretted the
second was never urgent or compelling. But Sondheim’s entire score was
brilliant, and at its nucleus were a handful of songs that dealt with art from
the perspective of artists, critics, the general art community, and even the
subjects of the paintings themselves (“No Life,” “Color and Light,”
“Finishing the Hat,” “Putting It Together,” “Children and Art,” and “It’s
Hot Up Here”). The close of the first act included the ethereal “Sunday,” a
shimmering and almost ghostly promenade in which the characters in the
painting assume their final and eternal positions, and for the second-act
opening “It’s Hot Up Here” the figures on the canvas complain of being
forever trapped within the painting where there’s no sense of perspective,
no proportion, and where even their profiles don’t show them to best
advantage. As the song ended, the painting melted away and the audience
was thrust into the present day.
Curiously, Lapine’s book chose to take gratuitous swipes at Americans,
and the tourist couple Mr. and Mrs. are depicted as Southern caricatures.
They speak French incorrectly, talk loudly, are overdressed, eat pastries, and
can hardly wait to get back home. In his review of the original production,
Howard Kissel in Women’s Wear Daily noted that Mr. and Mrs. were the
“most offensive” of Lapine’s stereotypes, and Kissel found it ironic that
such supposedly “vulgar” and “stupid” Americans had the taste and
perspicacity to buy so many “major works of French art of the period”
(including La Grande Jatte) that are now housed in American rather than
French collections. Clive Barnes in the New York Post also mentioned that
the two tourists are eventually seen “carting off a couple” of Renoirs “as
souvenirs,” and he found this “a small visual joke—but a cheap one.”
The original production opened at the Booth Theatre on May 2, 1984,
for 604 performances with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. It
received a few rave reviews, but many of the critics were surprisingly
indifferent and the show was almost completely shut out of the Tony
Awards, winning only two (for Best Scenic and Lighting Designs). But the
work was designated the Best Musical by the New York Drama Critics’
Circle, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
The first New York revival originated in London at the Menier
Chocolate Factory on November 29, 2005, and then transferred to the West
End on May 23, 2006, at Wyndham’s Theatre. It was directed by Sam
Buntrock and starred Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell, all of whom reprised
their work for the Broadway production that opened at Studio 54 on
February 21, 2008, for 149 performances.
The current revival (which originated in a concert production given at
City Center the previous November with Gyllenhaal and Annamarie
Ashford) received enthusiastic notices, one of which veered into gush-
overload territory. Marilyn Stasio in Variety found the production “more
theatrically structured” than the earlier concert version, said Gyllenhaal’s
singing voice was “refreshed and enhanced,” and Ashford was “in stunning
voice and quite enchanting.” Stasio also noted that the creation of the
painting was depicted through Tal Yarden’s projections, which
deconstructed and then reassembled the canvas. Joe Dziemianowicz in the
New York Daily News praised the “wonderful” revival with its “radiant”
score, noted that the direction by Sarna Lapine (James Lapine’s niece) was
“efficient and spare,” and Gyllenhaal had a “handsome, nimble singing
voice.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter commented that the work
stood “tall among both musicals and plays for its nuanced reflections on the
sacrifices of making art,” and Sondheim’s score contained “as much rapture
as suffering.” In fact, the cast’s “soaring vocals” for the “celestial”
“Sunday” was “a testament to the fact that great art is its own enduring
reward.” Gyllenhaal was “deeply affecting,” there were “tremendously
moving layers” to Ashford’s performance, and others in the cast (including
Penny Fuller, Ruthie Ann Miles, Robert Sean Leonard, and Brooks
Ashmanskas) provided “lively character portraits.”
For Ben Brantley in the New York Times, the “marvelous” revival felt
“more incisive and urgent, even necessary, than ever.” There were “tears”
on his cheeks, and he noted that “something deeper than love—closer to
religious gratitude” was the “sentiment” one might feel at the conclusion of
the first act. The production retained the “frills-free elegance” of the earlier
concert presentation, Gyllenhaal was a “searing theatrical presence,” and
Ashford’s performance was “embodied with gorgeous precision” and
“eloquent” singing.
The script was published in hardback by Dodd, Mead & Company in
1986; a paperback edition published by Applause Books in 1991 offers
supplemental materials, including deleted lyrics; and a British edition of the
script was published in 1990 by Nick Hern Books in a paperback edition
that includes articles and background information about the musical. All the
lyrics are included in Sondheim’s 2011 hardback collection Look, I Made a
Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments,
Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and
Miscellany.
The 1984 Broadway cast album was released by RCA Victor on vinyl
and CD, and the latter includes bonus tracks of “Sunday” (performed by
Peters and the Broadway Chorus and American Theatre Orchestra from the
1992 concert Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall) and “Putting It
Together” (sung by the Off-Broadway cast of the 1993 Sondheim
retrospective revue Putting It Together). The 2008 revival was recorded
during its London run on a two-CD set by PS Classics, and includes the
complete version of “The One on the Left” (for more information, see
below). The current revival was recorded on a two-CD set by Arts Music
Records.
The 1984 production was filmed at the Booth Theatre with most of the
original cast and was shown on both cable and public television in 1986.
The film was released for home video on videocassette, laser disk, and
DVD formats, and its most recent video release is part of the DVD boxed
set The Stephen Sondheim Collection issued by Image Entertainment.
A tenth anniversary concert production with most of the original
Broadway principals was presented for one performance at the St. James
Theatre on May 15, 1994.
The first London production was given in repertory by the Royal
National Theatre at the Lyttelton Theatre on March 15, 1990, for a limited
engagement of 117 performances with Philip Quast and Maria Friedman.
Sunday in the Park with George was first produced Off-Broadway for
twenty-five workshop performances at Playwrights Horizons beginning on
July 6, 1983; for the first twenty-two showings, only the first act was
presented, and for the final three showings the second act was also given.
Most of the cast members were in the Broadway production that opened ten
months later, and those in the workshop who didn’t appear in the Broadway
version were Carmen Mathews, Christine Baranski, Kelsey Grammer, and
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
Three songs in the workshop were deleted for Broadway: “Yoo-Hoo!,”
“Soldiers and Girls,” and “Have to Keep Them Humming.” “Soldiers and
Girls” was replaced by “The One on the Left,” a brief number that wasn’t
listed in the Broadway program but was sung between “Everyone Loves
Louis” and “Finishing the Hat.” Although “The One on the Left” was
performed during the entire Broadway run and was included in the
published script, it wasn’t part of the Broadway cast recording. The song
was listed in the Broadway preview program, but not in the opening night
and subsequent programs.
Note that for the current revival, the producers withdrew the production
for Tony Award consideration. Rooney noted that this decision enabled the
producers to avoid giving away “1,600 comps for [Tony] voters and their
guests,” a decision that made “commercial sense” given the short limited
engagement and the “tight profitability window.”
The revival marked the first production to play at the newly restored
Hudson Theatre, which first opened its doors in 1903. The Hudson went
dark after the April 20, 1968, performance of George Panetta’s comedy-
cum-science fiction play Mike Downstairs, which managed just four
showings (at the end of the play, the world ends in an atomic holocaust and
the characters die in slow motion as omnipresent loudspeakers blast out
“The Night Was Made for Love,” Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach’s gentle
ballad from 1931’s The Cat and the Fiddle). Between Mike Downstairs and
Sunday in the Park with George the venue had been briefly known as the
Savoy, a nightclub of sorts that hosted the dance musical Manhattan
Rhythm, which opened on July 27, 1982, for twenty-seven performances.
COME FROM AWAY

Opening Date: March 12, 2017; Closing Date: Still running as of January
31, 2019
Performances: Still running as of January 31, 2019
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Irene Sankoff and David Hein
Direction: Christopher Ashley; Producers: Junkyard Dog Productions, Jerry
Frankel, Latitude Link, Smith & Brant Theatricals, Steve and Paula
Reynolds, David Mirvish, Michael Rubinoff, Alhadeff Productions,
Michael Alden and Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Sam Levy, Rodney Rigby,
Spencer Ross, Richard Winkler, Yonge Street Theatricals, Sheridan
College, Michael and Ellise Colt, Ronald Frankel, Sheri and Les Biller,
Richard and Sherry Belkin, Gary and Marlene Cohen, Allan Detsky and
Rena Mendelson, Lauren Doll, Barbara H. Freitag, Wendy Gillespie,
Laura Little Theatricals, Carl and Jennifer Pasbjerg, Radio Mouse
Entertainment, The Shubert Organization, Cynthia Stroum, Tulchin
Bartner Productions, Gwen Arment/Molly Morris and Terry
McNicholas, Maureen and Joel Benoliel/Marjorie and Ron Danz,
Pamela Cooper/Corey Brunish, Demos Bizar/Square Theatrics, Joshua
Goodman/Lauren Stevens, Just for Laughs Theatricals/Judith Ann
Abrams Productions, Bill and Linda Potter/Rosemary and Kenneth
Willman, La Jolla Playhouse, and Seattle Repertory Theatre;
Choreography: Kelly Devine; Scenery: Beowulf Boritt; Costumes: Toni-
Leslie James; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Ian
Eisendrath
Cast: Petrina Bromley (Bonnie, Others), Geno Carr (Oz, Others), Jenn
Colella (Beverley, Annette, Others), Joel Hatch (Claude, Others),
Rodney Hicks (Bob, Others), Kendra Kassebaum (Janice, Others), Chad
Kimball (Kevin T., Garth, Others), Lee MacDougall (Nick, Doug,
Others), Caesar Samayoa (Kevin J., Ali, Others), Q. Smith (Hannah,
Others), Astrid Van Wieren (Beulah, Others), Sharon Wheatley (Diane,
Others)
The action takes place in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, on September
11, 2001, on the days following, and ten years later.
Musical Numbers
“Welcome to the Rock” (Company); “38 Planes” (Company); “Blankets
and Bedding” (Company); “28 Hours” and “Wherever We Are” (the
latter included “My Heart Will Go On,” lyric and music by Will
Jennings and James Horner from the 1996 film Titanic) (Company);
“Darkness and Trees” (Company); “Costume Party” (Sharon Wheatley,
Q. Smith, Chad Kimball, Caesar Samayoa, Company); “I Am Here” (Q.
Smith); “Prayer” (aka “Prayer of St. Francis”) (Chad Kimball,
Company); “On the Edge” (Company); “Screech In” (includes “My
Heart Will Go On”) (Joel Hatch, Company); “Me and the Sky” (Jenn
Colella, Female Company); “Stop the World” (Lee MacDougall, Sharon
Wheatley, Company); “Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere”
(Company); “Something’s Missing” (Company); Finale (Company)
Come from Away came out of nowhere and (like Dear Evan Hansen)
emerged as one of the season’s sleeper hits. Well, not quite out of nowhere:
prior to Broadway, the musical had been presented in a number of venues,
including La Jolla (San Diego) Playhouse; Seattle Repertory Theatre;
Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.; and the Royal Alexandra Theatre in
Toronto, Ontario. The musical had also been given in developmental
productions at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, and at Goodspeed in
East Haddam, Connecticut.
“Feel-good” was the operative description of the musical by many of
the critics. The story focused on the day of the terrorist attacks in the United
States on September 11, 2001, when over three-dozen passenger planes
were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, as air traffic was
suspended due to fear that other planes might be embedded with terrorists
bent on more death and destruction. The planes included some sixty-five
hundred passengers and crew, and the story looked at how the town of
Gander with its population of about nine thousand residents coped with the
situation and housed, fed, and befriended the stranded passengers known to
the natives as those who “come from away.”
The locals and the visitors bonded during the days following the
terrorist attacks, and the musical’s cast of twelve played multiple roles.
Most of the score consisted of ensemble numbers (in his review of the
production when it played at Ford’s Theatre prior to Broadway, Peter Marks
in the Washington Post noted that “Me and the Sky,” a song for one of the
pilots, was a solo and you were “left scratching your head a bit as to why”
[for New York, the pilot’s song was accompanied by a female ensemble]).
The cast was supplemented by an eight-piece onstage band that included
such instruments as whistles, Irish flute, uilleann pipes, bouzouki, and
fiddle.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “big bearhug of a musical”
was “smarter than it first appears” because it began on “a grating key of
deep earnestness” that eventually covered “a vast expanse of sensitive
material with a respect for its complexity.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety liked
the “modest, earnest, life-affirming” show with its “sound-alike-and-run-
together songs in the conversational musical score” which often flirted with
parody in its depiction of the “universal Canadian character” with its
“overdone accents” and “plain-as-plain-can-be apparel.” Although the
music was “monotonous” and the characters had no “character,” the show’s
“intentions” were nonetheless “heartfelt.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the score for the
“big-hearted and crowd-pleasing” show was “flavored by Celtic folk, gentle
rock, foot-stomping rhythms and perhaps a whisper of Gordon Lightfoot.”
Although the music was “rousing and rich in harmony,” it suffered from a
certain “sameness” and he reported that the “sound mix . . . obscures
lyrics.” Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter praised the “heartwarming
and thoroughly entertaining” musical and said the “propulsive, Celtic and
folk-flavored” songs helped “to prevent the show from becoming too
treacly.”
For Jesse Green in New York, the “aggressively nice” musical
“borrowed” the tragedy of 9/11 as a means for “Canadian civic
boosterism.” Gander and its people were “teeth-grindingly sweet,” the
American passengers showed “distrust, prejudice, and a sense of
entitlement,” and the latter changed only because of their “forced
interaction” with the locals. But the Canadians didn’t change, because
“saints cannot be elevated any higher.” Green noted that a “basically true”
story wasn’t necessarily “more believable onstage,” the characters were
vague because they were “composites of real ones,” and during the last
segment the musical lost “all self-control” with “several postscript
sequences” that depicted what happened to the characters over the next ten
years (tellingly, the deaths of the three thousand victims in the terrorist
attacks were “only gingerly mentioned”).
The Broadway cast album was released by The Musical Company, and
the hardback script “Come from Away”: Welcome to the Rock, a self-
described “insider look at the hit musical” by Irene Sankoff, David Hein,
and Laurence Maslon, was published by Hachette Books in 2019. The
London production opened at the Phoenix Theatre on February 18, 2019.
Come from Away is Broadway’s longest-running Canadian import.
Previously, The Drowsy Chaperone (2006) held that distinction with 674
showings, and so Chaperone and Come from Away broke the curse of
earlier Canadian revues and musicals that never quite caught on in New
York. When Toronto’s The American Hamburger League opened Off-
Broadway in 1969 it lasted one night. Love and Maple Syrup (which began
in London and later in Canada) was an evening of French and English songs
by Canadians (the title song was by Gordon Lightfoot) that opened Off-
Broadway in 1970 and played for 15 performances. Justine (retitled Love
Me, Love My Children for Off Broadway) managed 187 performances in
1971. The Charlottestown Festival’s perennial favorite Anne of Green
Gables played out its limited engagement of 16 performances at City Center
in 1971, but never enjoyed a Broadway run. A Bistro Car on the CNR (a
retitled and revised version of Jubalay) ran for 61 performances Off-
Broadway. Rockabye Hamlet lasted 7 performances on Broadway in 1976
(it was previously known in Canada as Kronberg: 1582, and post-Broadway
was revised as Something’s Rockin’ in Denmark!). And Billy Bishop Goes
to War played 12 performances on Broadway in 1980, and ten days after its
closing reopened Off-Broadway for 78 showings.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Come from Away); Best Book
(Irene Sankoff and David Hein); Best Score (lyrics and music by Irene
Sankoff and David Hein); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Jenn Colella); Best Choreography (Kelly Devine);
Best Direction of a Musical (Christopher Ashley); Best Lighting
Design of a Musical (Howell Binkley)
MISS SAIGON
Performances: 340
Book: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
Lyrics: Alain Boublil; additional lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr.
Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg
Loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly.
Direction: Laurence Connor; Producers: Cameron Mackintosh; Nicholas
Allott, Thomas Schonberg, and Seth Sklar-Heyn; Choreography: Bob
Avian (Geoffrey Garratt, Additional Choreography); Scenery: Totie
Driver and Matt Kinley (Adrian Vaux, Design Concept); Projections:
Luke Halls; Costumes: Andreane Neofitou; Lighting: Bruno Poet;
Cast: Jon Jon Briones (The Engineer), Eva Noblezada (Kim), Lianah Sta.
Ana (Kim at certain performances), Rachelle Ann Go (Gigi), Anna-Lee
Wright (Yvonne), Kimberly-Ann Truong (Mimi), Tiffany Toh (Fifi),
Catherine Ricafort (Dominique), Minami Yusui (Yvette); Bar Girls:
Emily Bautista, Paige Faure, Ericka Hunter, and Linda Lee; Nicholas
Christopher (John), Alistair Brammer (Chris); Marines: Colby Dezelick,
Taurean Everett, Graham Scott Fleming, Casey Garvin, Nkrumah
Gatling, Dan Horn, Casey Lee Ross, Antoine L. Smith, Sam Strasfield,
Travis Ward-Osborne, and Warren Yang; Barmen: Julian DeGuzman,
Paul Heesang Miller, Robert Pendilla, and Christopher Vo; Devin Ilaw
(Thuy); Casey Lee Ross, Jason Sermonia, and Warren Yang (Dragon
Acrobats); Billy Bustamante (Assistant Commissar), Katie Rose Clarke
(Ellen); Jace Chen, Samuel Li Weintraub, and Gregory Ye (alternating
in the role of Tam); Embassy Workers, Inhabitants of Saigon, Vendors,
Others: The Company
The action takes place during the years 1975–1978 in Saigon (later known
as Ho Chi Minh City), Bangkok, and Atlanta.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “The Heat Is On” (Jon Jon Briones, Nicholas Christopher,
Alistair Brammer, Rachelle Ann Go, Eva Noblezada, Company); “The
Movie in My Mind” (Rachelle Ann Go, Eva Noblezada, Girls); “The
Transaction” (Jon Jon Briones, Nicholas Christopher, Alistair
Brammer); “Why God Why?” (Alistair Brammer); “This Money’s
Yours” (Alistair Brammer, Eva Noblezada); “Sun and Moon” (Alistair
Brammer, Eva Noblezada); “Asking for Leave” (Nicholas Christopher,
Alistair Brammer); “The Deal” (Jon Jon Briones, Alistair Brammer);
“The Wedding Ceremony” (Rachelle Ann Go, Eva Noblezada, Alistair
Brammer, Girls); “Thuy’s Intervention” (Devin Ilaw, Eva Noblezada,
Alistair Brammer); “If You Want to Die in Bed” (Jon Jon Briones);
“The Last Night of the World” (Eva Noblezada, Alistair Brammer);
“The Morning of the Dragon” (Jon Jon Briones, Company); “I Still
Believe” (Eva Noblezada, Katie Rose Clarke); “Coo-Coo Princess” (Jon
Jon Briones, Eva Noblezada, Devin Ilaw, Soldiers); “You Will Not
Touch Him” (Eva Noblezada, Devin Ilaw); “If You Want to Die in Bed”
(reprise) (Jon Jon Briones); “I’d Give My Life for You” (Eva
Noblezada)
Act Two: “Bui Doi” (Nicholas Christopher); “What a Waste” (Jon Jon
Briones); “Too Much for One Heart” (Eva Noblezada, Nicholas
Christopher); “Kim’s Nightmare (Fall of Saigon 1975)” (Devin Ilaw,
Eva Noblezada, Alistair Brammer, Nicholas Christopher, Company);
“Sun and Moon” (reprise) (Eva Noblezada); “Room 317” (Katie Rose
Clarke, Eva Noblezada); “Maybe” (Katie Rose Clarke); “The
Confrontation” (Katie Rose Clarke, Alistaire Brammer, Nicholas
Christopher, Eva Noblezada); “Paper Dragons” (Jon Jon Briones, Eva
Noblezada); “The American Dream” (Jon Jon Briones, Company);
“Little God of My Heart” (Eva Noblezada)
The current production marked the first Broadway revival of Alain

Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s hit Miss Saigon, which premiered
in London at the Drury Lane on September 20, 1989, for 4,264
performances with Lea Salonga (Kim) and Jonathan Pryce (The Engineer),
both of whom reprised their West End performances for Broadway (and
won Tony Awards for their portrayals) when the musical opened at the
Broadway Theatre on April 11, 1991, for 4,097 showings. The revival also
played at the Broadway Theatre, and Eva Noblezada and Jon Jon Briones
played the leading roles. The production, which was based on a slightly
revised 2014 London revival, received good reviews and played almost ten
months.
The musical was a variation of Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama
Butterfly and took place during the years of the Vietnam War. It focused on
the doomed romance of American Marine Chris (Alistair Brammer) and bar
girl Kim, who are separated when Saigon falls to the Communists. Years
later, Chris has married Ellen (Katie Rose Clarke), but once he discovers
that he fathered Kim’s child, Tam, he returns to South Vietnam in order to
help them. When Kim realizes there’s no chance that both she and Tam can
go to the States, she kills herself in the hope that without her Chris will be
able to take Tam to America. Crawling around the fringes of the plot like a
poisonous spider is the amoral and slippery Engineer, a French-Asian pimp
and hustler who resents his outsider Eurasian status and attempts to
manipulate those around him in order to make his way to the States to
achieve his corrupt vision of the American Dream.
Of the many musicals that played on Broadway during the period of the
so-called British Invasion, Miss Saigon was despite its weaknesses one of
the best and most entertaining. For the most part, the story was compelling,
the performances of Salonga and Pryce memorable, and the production
lavish (its chandelier moment depicted a realistic helicopter that hovered
above the stage to transport some of the panic-stricken mob desperate to
leave Saigon before the Communists take over). Although the score was
generally in the mode of movie background music and was mostly vapid
(“Sun and Moon”) or overwrought (“Why God Why?”), there were three
superior songs, the strong choral opening “The Heat Is On (in Saigon),” the
lonely blues of Kim and Chris’s ballad “The Last Night of the World,” and
the Engineer’s vampy ragtime-styled “The American Dream.”
The musical was too long, and there was far too much stage time
allotted to the tiresome role of Chris’s wife, Ellen, and his fellow marine
John (Devin Ilaw). Had these roles been reduced, the story would have been
better served and a grateful audience would have been spared the
impossibly written role of Ellen and the overwritten one of John. Further,
John’s well-intentioned but preachy “Bui-Doi” was a time-waster in its
special pleading for Asian American orphans, and even included a kind of
heavenly choir as well as documentary film footage to support its plea. The
sequence was extraneous to the main action and saddled the second act with
a weak opening, and in fact was similar to Will Rogers’s shoehorned radio
speech about the homeless and a song about environmental correctness in
The Will Rogers Follies, which followed the Broadway opening of Miss
Saigon by about two weeks.
There was also an off-putting slant to the evening that was embodied by
“Bui-Doi” and the virulent Ugly American diatribe “The American
Dream,” which included a visual insult to the Statue of Liberty and the
American flag. It could be argued that “The American Dream” simply
reflected the Engineer’s venomous contempt for himself and everything
around him, but if America is so corrupt, how come he, Kim, and almost
everyone else on the stage are so desperate to live there?
The opening of the original New York production was preceded by
casting controversies. American Equity protested that a white Welchman
(Pryce) was cast as a half-Asian, and later the union complained that
Philippine-born Salonga was given the role instead of an Asian-American
actress. There were further protests that for the London production Pryce
wore a certain amount of “yellow face” make-up to convey his half-Asian
heritage, but for New York there weren’t any facial characteristics to depict
his Asian background, and so perhaps some audience members were a bit
confused over his lineage because he clearly appeared to be 100 percent
Western.
Because of the casting controversy surrounding Pryce, the New York
production was briefly canceled and the producers took out a newspaper ad
to explain their position. The statement noted that Equity wouldn’t
“condone the casting of a Caucasian actor in the role of a Eurasian,” and the
musical’s creative team found “this position to be irresponsible, and a
disturbing violation of the principles of artistic integrity and freedom.” The
producers stated they looked “forward to a time when a calmer, more
balanced atmosphere prevails” and said the London production continued at
the Drury Lane and an Asian company would appear in a Japanese-
language production at Tokyo’s Imperial Theatre beginning on April 22,
1992. But matters settled down, and Miss Saigon opened on Broadway with
Pryce and Salonga.
The original London cast album was issued on a two-CD set by Geffen
Records, and there are approximately one-dozen other recordings of the
score. Because Salonga and Pryce reprised their London roles for New
York, there was no Broadway cast album. The musical was revived in
London at the Prince Edward Theatre on May 21, 2014, for 760 showings,
and it was this production that inspired the current New York revival.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “time-warped” revival was
“as mechanically melodramatic as any theatrical potboiler from the early
20th century” and was “as affecting as a historical diorama, albeit a lavishly
appointed one.” Briones was more “realistic” than Pryce but came across as
a “supporting player,” and Noblezada offered “appropriate open
vulnerability.” But ultimately the show was “singing scenery,” and when the
helicopter appeared in the second act it received “the most enthusiastic
applause of the night so far.”
David Cote in Time Out found the lyrics “awfully leaden and generic”
and the score “the musicological equivalent of yellow face”; Terry Teachout
in the Wall Street Journal said that like Boublil and Schonberg’s Les
Miserables the musical was “an opera for the tone-deaf” with
“unendurable” music; David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter noted there
was “no shortage of pretty melodies” but “the less said about” the lyrics
“the better”; Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News found the
lyrics “clunky” but said Noblezada was an impressive Kim and Briones
brought “sleaze and sly humor” to the Engineer’s role; and Linda Winer in
Newsday liked the “unusually graceful” lyrics, noted that the “generic Euro-
pop ballads and anthems” sounded “like many we’ve heard before,”
remarked that the script didn’t clarify the difference between the Viet Cong
and the North Vietnamese and didn’t explain Vietnam’s civil war, and said
the “fake documentary” which showed “real international orphans” was
“shameless.”
The Story of “Miss Saigon” by Edward Behr and Mark Steyn
(published in hardback by Arcade Publishing/Little, Brown and Company
in 1991) provides background information on the making of the musical;
another related book is The Musical World of Boublil and Schonberg: The
Creators of “Les Miserables,” “Miss Saigon,” “Martin Guerre,” and “The
Pirate Queen” by Margaret Vermette, published in 2007 by Applause
Theatre & Cinema Books.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Miss Saigon); Best
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Eva
Noblezada)
AMÉLIE
Performances: 56
Book: Craig Lucas
Lyrics: Nathan Tysen and Daniel Messe
Music: Daniel Messe
Based on the 2001 film Amélie aka Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain aka
Amélie from Montmartre (direction by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and
screenplay by Guillaume Laurant).
Direction: Pam MacKinnon; Producers: Aaron Harnick, David Broser,
Triptyk Studios, Spencer B. Ross, Harbor Entertainment, Berkeley
Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Simone Genatt Haft, Mark
Routh, Saltaire Investment Group, The John Gore Organization, David
Mirvish, Terry Schnuck, and Jujamcyn Theatres; Lauren Heirigs,
Stephanie Cowan, YL Entertainment & Sports Corp., Nelke Planning
Co. Ltd., Disk Garage, and Tsinghua Culture Media Corp.;
Choreography: Sam Pinkleton; Scenery and Costumes: David Zinn;
Projection Design: Peter Nigrini; Puppet Design: Amanda Villalobos;
Lighting: Jane Cox and Mark Barton; Musical Direction: Kimberly
Grigsby
Cast: David Andino (Blind Beggar, Garden Gnome, Anchorperson), Randy
Blair (Hipolito, Rock Star, Belgian Tourist), Heath Calvert (Lucien,
Adrien Wells, Mysterious Man), Adam Chanler-Berat (Nino), Alison
Cimmet (Amandine, Philomene), Savvy Crawford (Young Amélie),
Manoel Felciano (Raphael, Bretodeau), Harriett D. Foy (Suzanne),
Alyse Alan Louis (Georgette, Sylvie, Collignon’s Mother), Maria-
Christina Oliveras (Gina), Tony Sheldon (Dufayel, Collignon), Phillipa
Soo (Amélie), Paul Whitty (Joseph, Fluffy, Collignon’s Father)
The action takes place in Paris and its environs from 1975 through 1997.
Musical Numbers
Prologue: “Times Are Hard for Dreamers” (Savvy Crawford); “World’s
Best Dad” (Savvy Crawford, Manoel Felciano); “World’s Best Friend”
(Savvy Crawford, Alison Cimmet, Paul Whitty); “World’s Best Mom”
(Savvy Crawford, Alison Cimmet); “Times Are Hard for Dreamers”
(reprise) (Phillipa Soo); “The Commute” (Company); “The Bottle
Drops” (Savvy Crawford, Phillipa Soo, Company); “Three Figs” (Heath
Calvert); “The Girl with the Glass” (Tony Sheldon, Phillipa Soo): “How
to Tell Time” (Phillipa Soo, Manoel Felciano); “Tour de France”
(Phillipa Soo, Company); “Goodbye, Amélie” (Randy Blair, Phillipa
Soo, Choir); “Backyard” (Phillipa Soo, Manoel Felciano); “When the
Booth Goes Bright” (Adam Chanler-Berat); “Sister’s Pickle” (Phillipa
Soo); “Halfway” (Savvy Crawford, Phillipa Soo, Alison Cimmet);
“Window Seat” (Phillipa Soo, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Heath Calvert);
“There’s No Place Like Gnome” (David Andino, Manoel Felciano,
Alison Cimmet); “Thin Air” (Adam Chanler-Berat); “Blue Arrow Suit”
(Phillipa Soo); “The Late Nino Quincampoix” (Phillipa Soo, Company);
“A Better Haircut” (Maria-Christina Oliveras, Harriett D. Foy, Alyse
Alan Louis, Adam Chanler-Berat); “Stay” (Phillipa Soo, Adam Chanler-
Berat); “Halfway” (reprise) (Phillipa Soo); “Where Do We Go from
Here?” (Phillipa Soo, Adam Chanler-Berat, Company)
The title character of Amélie describes herself as a “snowflake,” and

maybe that was the problem with the musical. This Parisian Pollyanna
(Phillipa Soo) lives in a whimsical world where her pet goldfish and best
friend Fluffy (Paul Whitty) becomes a puppet; where her garden gnome
(David Andino) comes to life (and, yes, his big number is “There’s No
Place Like Gnome”); where painter friend Dufayel (Tony Sheldon)
continuously re-paints a copy of Renoir’s The Luncheon of the Boating
Party; and where grocery clerk Lucien (Heath Calvert) seems unnaturally
obsessed with figs (in his song “Three Figs,” he names one of them Figaro).
Amélie is also inspired by the life and death of Princess Diana; she dreams
that Elton John (called Rock Star in the program and Elton John in the
published script, and played by Randy Blair) materializes and serenades her
with “Goodbye, Amélie”; and she becomes involved with Nino (Adam
Chanler-Berat), who works in a porn shop and delights in collecting
discarded photos from photo booths (with the advent of selfies, one
assumes that photo booths have gone the way of telephone booths, and so
who knows what new hobby her feller has found).
With indifferent reviews and sparse audiences, the musical collapsed
after fifty-six performances and lost its $12 million investment.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “mild-mannered” and
“oddly recessive” show “neither offends nor enthralls” and seemed “to have
no nationality, or sensibility, to call its own.” The show was “aggressively
cute and quirky,” the characters were “pale and watery,” and the score was
“a smooth pastel stream that suggests pink Champagne gone a bit flat.” As
for the animated gnome, Brantley wisely advised his readers to “never
mind” about it, and in regard to that “twinkly” painter and his obsession
with Renoir, “don’t ask.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News found the evening
“simply pleasant” when it wasn’t “plodding,” and stated the songs tended to
“come and go, then vaporize”; Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the lyrics were
“too precious,” the music “emphatically insipid,” the story “plot-heavy,”
and ultimately all the “relentless whimsy” was “just wearying”; David
Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter noted that the film source was “a
whirligig of contrived whimsy,” and the musical adaptation was “a dud, a
bundle of cutesy affectations in search of a human core” in which the
“aggressively adorable” Soo was here “not in her element” as she flashed
“an endless succession of winsome smiles to diminishing returns”; and
Michael Schulman in the New Yorker decided “the whole thing is more
grape juice than Cabernet.”
The cast album was released by Rhino Warner Classics Records, and the
script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 2018. The musical
was first presented in September 2015 by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in
California (where Samantha Barks created the title role), and in December
2016 was given by the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. A British
production was recorded and released on MP3 on iTunes in 2020.
WAR PAINT
Opening Date: April 6, 2017; Closing Date: November 5, 2017
Performances: 236
Book: Doug Wright
Lyrics: Michael Korie
Music: Scott Frankel
Based on the 2003 book War Paint: Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden
—Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead and by
the 2007 documentary The Powder and the Glory (direction and story
by Arnie Reisman and Ann Carol Grossman).
Direction: Michael Greif (Johanna McKeon, Associate Director);
Producers: David Stone, Marc Platt, James L. Nederlander, Barbara
Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Marcia Goldberg, Universal Stage
Productions, Independent Presenters Network, and Goodman Theatre;
Choreography: Christopher Gattelli (Mark Myars, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: David Korins; Costumes: Catherine Zuber;
Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Lawrence Yurman
Cast: Patti LuPone (Helena Rubinstein), Christine Ebersole (Elizabeth
Arden), John Dossett (Tommy Lewis), Douglas Sills (Harry Fleming),
Mary Ernster (Society Doyenne, Mrs. Trowbridge-Phelps, Others),
David Girolmo (Senator Royal Copeland, William S. Paley, Mr. Levin,
Others), Joanna Glushak (Countess, Magda, Others), Chris Hoch (Mr.
Simms, Hal March, Mr. Baruch, Others), Mary Claire King (Miss
Beam, Tulip, Arden Girl, Others), Steffanie Leigh (Dorian Leigh, Arden
Girl, Others), Erik Liberman (Charles Revson, Sailor, Others), Barbara
Marineau (Grand Dame, Beauty Technician, Others), Stephanie Jae
Park (Arden Girl, Beauty Technician, Others), Angel Reda (Heiress,
Miss Smythe, Arden Girl, Others), Jennifer Rias (Miss Teale, Arden
Girl, Others)
The action takes place in New York City during the period 1935–1964.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Best Face Forward” (Joanna Glushak, Barbara Marineau, Angel
Reda, Mary Ernster, Ensemble); “Behind the Red Door” (Mary Claire
King, Steffanie Leigh, Angel Reda, Jennifer Rias, Joanna Glushak,
Barbara Marineau, Mary Ernster, Christine Ebersole); “Back on Top”
(Patti LuPone, Barbara Marineau, Stephanie Jae Park); “My Secret
Weapon” (Patti LuPone, Douglas Sills, Christine Ebersole, John
Dossett, Mary Ernster, Barbara Marineau, Angel Reda, Joanna Glushak,
Mary Claire King, Steffanie Leigh, Stephanie Jae Park, Jennifer Rias);
“My American Moment” (Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole); “Step on
Out” (Mary Claire King, Steffanie Leigh, Stephanie Jae Park, Jennifer
Rias, John Dossett, Douglas Sills); “If I’d Been a Man” (Christine
Ebersole, Patti LuPone); “Better Yourself” (Christine Ebersole); “Oh,
That’s Rich” (John Dossett, Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole, Douglas
Sills); “Face to Face” (Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole)
Act Two: “Inside of the Jar” (Joanna Glushak, Barbara Marineau, Angel
Reda, Mary Ernster, Shoppers, Salesgirls); “Necessity Is the Mother of
Invention” (Christine Ebersole, Patti LuPone, Women Machinists,
WACs, John Dossett, Douglas Sills, Soldiers); “Best Face Forward”
(reprise) (Joanna Glushak, Barbara Marineau, Angel Reda, Mary
Ernster, Branch Salon Clients); “Now You Know” (Patti LuPone); “No
Thank You” (Douglas Sills, Christine Ebersole, Douglas Sills, Patti
LuPone, David Girolmo); “Fire and Ice” (Erik Liberman, Steffanie
Leigh, Mirror Girls); “Dinosaurs” (John Dossett, Douglas Sills); “Pink”
(Christine Ebersole); “Forever Beautiful” (Patti LuPone); “Beauty in the
World” (Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole); Finale (Company)
War Paint held promise as the season’s if not the era’s event musical.
Here was no revival but a brand new book musical which starred
Broadway’s two reigning divas Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole as the
respective legendary and feuding cosmetic queens Helena Rubinstein and
Elizabeth Arden. But despite a virtual guarantee of theatrical and box office
fireworks, the musical never quite caught on with the public and was gone
after seven months. Instead, the season’s event musicals turned out to be
Bette Midler’s revival of Hello, Dolly! and the almost out-of-nowhere Dear
Evan Hansen.
So what happened? Perhaps audiences expected a lowdown-and-dirty
musical catfight between the two women who put the cosmetic industry on
the map. But during their lives these business rivals never met, and perhaps
some felt the script deprived the audience of a juicy one-on-one in the
tradition of Feud’s television mini-series Bette and Joan about the
competition and dislike between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis (the series’
first of eight episodes was telecast two days before War Paint gave its first
preview performance).
The Grey Gardens’ team of librettist Doug Wright, lyricist Michael
Korie, and composer Scott Frankel clearly had more in mind than a
campfest. Most of the production offered separate-but-equal episodes from
Arden and Rubinstein’s lives and careers, and only toward the end of the
musical did the authors devise a purely fictional (and brilliantly written)
encounter between the two titans. The story focused on the ruthless
business acumen of two driven women whose brands and marketing
campaigns seduced women to buy into the notion that a natural look is only
natural if powder, lotions, and lipstick are applied.
The plot also examined the prejudices against the two women (the
Jewish Rubinstein came from a Polish shtetl, and Arden from Canadian
farm country) who were never accepted by New York society. Wright’s
book also touched upon the phenomenon of successful businesswomen in a
man’s world, and the ironic historical fact that after decades as the leaders
in their field they were upstaged by a man, in this case Charles Revson,
who created a new line of so-called drugstore cosmetics with his Revlon
“Fire and Ice” campaign. The story also looked at the two men in Arden
and Rubinstein’s lives, the former’s husband Tommy (John Dossett) and the
latter’s right-hand assistant Harry (Douglas Sills), both of whom switched
sides and aligned themselves with the other’s rival.
The critics praised LuPone and Ebersole’s performances, and found the
impressive score especially striking in the latter half of the second act with
a series of outstanding numbers: Tommy and Harry’s “Dinosaurs” (for
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal, the one-word definition for the
two women was the score’s best song, but David Rooney in the Hollywood
Reporter found it weak and said it “begs to be cut”); Arden’s “Pink” (Ben
Brantley in the New York Times said the score’s “most exquisite” song used
a “seemingly cheery” word to capture the character’s “full, ambivalent
spectrum of a lifetime”); Rubinstein’s “Forever Beautiful” (Marilyn Stasio
in Variety praised the “definitive” song in which the character celebrates
herself through her portraits by Dali, Dufy, and Picasso and a sculpture by
Giacometti); and Arden and Rubinstein’s “Beauty in the World” (a “rueful”
duet according to Jesse Green in New York, an anthem of sorts when the
two recall that once beauty and style were “permanent,” and now such
qualities are transient and more like a “dress rehearsal”).
The score also allowed separate entrances for the two stars, “Behind the
Red Door” for Arden and “Back on Top” for Rubinstein, and “Fire and Ice”
(according to Green a “swell” production number in which Revson
introduces his new line of cosmetics [but Rubinstein dryly notes that all you
get with fire and ice is . . . a puddle]).
Brantley said the two leads went the “distance in disguising the show’s
essential sameness,” and they made it seem the evening was “moving
forward” when in reality it was just “running in place in high heels.” And
because the two women never met, the authors depicted their “twinned
biographies as a series of parallel lives, acted out in counterpoint on
separate sides of the stage.” Green found this structure “a bit monotonous,”
but the both “beguiling” and “frustrating” musical offered singing that was
“almost too rich to be believed.” Further, the “astonishing” costumes and
the score with “real theatre songs” were “as good as Broadway gets.”
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said LuPone and Ebersole were
“thrillingly suited” to their characters but overall, War Paint was “edifying”
instead of “exciting”; Teachout indicated the evening wasn’t “very
dramatic” and was “structurally rigid, dramaturgically overcrowded and
emotionally tepid” with “well-honed” lyrics and music that were
“harmonically rich but melodically inert”; and Stasio said the music “feels
right” for the characters and the timeframe, and the book was “smart and
literate.”
Linda Winer in Newsday said the musical wasn’t “great” but was
nonetheless “enormously satisfying,” and while the score had “rich
dramatic context” it didn’t quite have “the wished-for originality”; Joe
Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News found the two stars “in rare
form,” but the “back and forth” structure made the evening seem “like
musical ping pong”; and Rooney said the stars were “simply mesmerizing”
with their “fully lived-in characterizations,” and the “deluxe” production
was “thoroughly compelling and masterfully entertaining.”
The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records, and the script was
published in paperback by Samuel French in 2018. During the tryout, “A
Woman’s Face,” “Hope in a Jar,” “A Working Marriage,” and the title song
were cut.
War Paint wasn’t the first time that Arden and Rubinstein “met” in a
musical. That first meeting occurred seventy-three years earlier in the 1934
edition of the Ziegfeld Follies, which opened at the Winter Garden Theatre
on January 4 and ran for 182 performances. The “Fifth Avenue” sequence
included a parody of Arden (Marian Santre) and Rubinstein (Marie
Stevens), but a few weeks into the run Rubinstein’s character mysteriously
dropped out of the sketch.
Awards
Role in a Musical (Christine Eber-sole); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Patti LuPone); Best Scenic
Design for a Musical (David Korins); Best Costume Design for a
Musical (Catherine Zuber)
GROUNDHOG DAY
Theatre: August Wilson Theatre
Performances: 176
Book; Danny Rubin
Lyrics and Music: Tim Minchin
Based on Columbia Pictures’ 1993 film Groundhog Day (direction by
Harold Ramis and screenplay by Ramis and Danny Rubin).
Direction: Matthew Warchus (Thomas Caruso, Associate Director);
Producers: Whistle Pig (produced for Whistle Pig by Matthew Warchus
and Andre Ptaszynski), Columbia Live Stage (produced for Columbia
Live Stage by Lia Vollack), The Dodgers (produced for The Dodgers by
Michael David), and Michael Watt; The Araca Group, Len Blavatnik,
Burnt Umber Productions, Michael Coppel, Ken Davenport, Stephen
Found, Greenleaf Productions, David Harris, Independent Presenters
Network, The John Gore Organization, Stephanie P. McClelland, Just
for Laughs Theatricals/Glass Half Full Productions, Marion Alden
Badway, Marriner Group, Tommy Mottola, Nederlander Presentations
Inc., Daryl Roth, Sonia Friedman Productions, Theatre Mogul, Tulbart,
David Walsh, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and Jujamcyn Theatres;
Choreography: Peter Darling (Ellen Kane, Co-Choreographer; Kate
Dunn, Associate Choreographer; Finn Caldwell, Additional
Movement); Scenery and Costumes: Rob Howell; Video Design:
Andrzej; Illusions: Paul Kieve; Lighting: Hugh Vanstone; Musical
Direction: David Holcenberg
Cast: Andy Karl (Phil Connors), Barrett Doss (Rita Hanson), Rebecca
Faulkenberry (Nancy), John Sanders (Ned Ryerson), Andrew Call
(Gus), Raymond J. Lee (Ralph), Michael Fatica (Chubby Man), Heather
Ayers (Mrs. Lancaster), Katy Geraghty (Debbie), Gerard Canonico
(Fred), Sean Montgomery (Sheriff), William Parry (Jenson), Kevin
Bernard (Hot Dog Vendor), Vishal Vaidya (Larry), Joseph Medeiros
(Deputy), Rheaume Crenshaw (Doris), Travis Waldschmidt (Jeff), Josh
Lamon (Buster), Taylor Iman Jones (Lady Storm Chaser), Jenna Rubaii
(Joelle), Tari Kelly (Piano Teacher)
The action takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, during the present
time.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “There Will Be Sun” (Company); “Small Town, USA” (Andy
Karl, Company); “Punxsutawney Phil” (Company); “February 2nd” and
“There Will Be Sun” (reprise) (Barrett Doss, Company); “Small Town,
USA” (reprise) (Andy Karl, Company);”Punxsutawney Phil” (reprise)
(Company); “February 2nd” (reprise) and “There Will Be Sun” (reprise)
(Barrett Doss, Company); “Small Town, USA” (reprise) (Company);
“Stuck” (Andy Karl, Healers); “Nobody Cares” (Andrew Call,
Raymond E. Lee, Andy Karl, Company); “Philandering” (Company);
“One Day” (Barrett Doss, Andy Karl, Company)
Act Two: “Playing Nancy” (Rebecca Faulkenberry); “Hope” (Andy Karl,
Company); “Everything about You” (Andy Karl); “If I Had My Time
Again” (Barrett Doss, Andy Karl, Company); “Everything about You”
(reprise) (Andy Karl); “Philosopher” (Andy Karl, Company); “Night
Will Come” (John Sanders); “Philanthropy” (Andy Karl, Company);
“Punxsutawney Rock” (Tari Kelly, Company); “Seeing You” (Andy
Karl, Barrett Doss, Company); “Dawn” (Company)
Like Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 and War Paint,
Groundhog Day promised to be one of the season’s sure-fire hits, but
unfortunately all three productions had disappointing runs and were money-
losers.
The 1993 movie Groundhog Day was a cult classic, and its title became
a virtual synonym for déjà vu and senseless repetition. When the musical
version opened in London for a limited engagement at the Old Vic on
August 16, 2016, Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the “bright
whirligig of a show” and said Andy Karl’s performance made him a “top-
of-the-heap” musical star.
Further, the show’s creative team had performed similar duties for the
blockbuster London and New York hit Matilda, including director Matthew
Warchus, lyricist and composer Tim Minchin, choreographer Peter Darling,
scenic and costume designer Rob Howell, illusion designer Paul Kieve,
lighting designer Hugh Vanstone, and orchestrator Christopher Nightingale.
Groundhog Day won the Olivier Award for Best Musical, and one for Karl
as Best Actor in a Musical, and the headline of Michael Riedel’s column in
the New York Post proclaimed that “Broadway Producers Are Terrified of
Groundhog Day” because it might “trample its rivals at the box office and
the Tony Awards.” Further, Karl was “headed for Hugh Jackman–like
fame,” and with “a Tony Award in his future . . . everybody just get out of
the way.”
But the show seemed jinxed almost as soon as it began Broadway
previews. There were set malfunctions, and at one performance Karl tore a
ligament in his knee, missed a few performances, and when he returned had
to use a cane. Further, some of the reviews were less than enthusiastic, and
so the pre-New York momentum died down, the show didn’t take home a
single Tony, and after five months on Broadway the production closed at a
huge loss (Michael Paulson in the Times estimated the show’s capitalization
was about $17.5 million and noted that “much of that money will be lost”).
The story took place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where cynical and
self-centered television weatherman Phil Connors (Karl) is set to cover the
annual February 2 event when groundhog Punxsutawney Phil makes an
appearance. If the critter sees his shadow, legend has it there’ll be six more
weeks of winter weather. But there’s more in store on this particularly
strange and surreal Groundhog Day, and due to an unexplained and
mysterious cosmic joke, Connors finds himself trapped in a confined
existence where he’s doomed to relive the same day over and over, a curse
that leads him into a series of unsuccessful suicide attempts.
Connors of course realizes that each day is essentially a repetition of
itself, but the people he interacts with don’t, and based on what he’s lived
through on a previous day he’s able to maneuver and manipulate events to
some degree. But fate has more surprises for him, and soon he discovers
he’s changed for the better because the magical if temporary spell has
taught him a thing or two. He’d been contemptuous of small-town types
whose daily lives are little more than a series of recurring rituals and
routines, and now that he’s been cursed to live one day over and over, he
learns that the very nature of life is cyclical and perhaps the happiest people
are those who accept the predictable daily ups and downs and make the
most of their existence.
Brantley was still in the musical’s corner when it opened on Broadway.
The show was “dizzyingly witty” and “outrageously inventive,” and Karl
“unconditionally” owned his role and used “every tool in the musical
arsenal” to “devastating effect” and thus allowed audiences “to witness the
full emergence of a newborn, bona fide musical star.” Further, the songs
offered “undulating” melodies and “whip-smart” lyrics, and an adjunct to
the story was its satiric look at the small-town life in which Connors is
trapped, the kind of “hick burg” that feels like “an all-too-chipper song-and-
dance show.” But Charles Isherwood in BroadwayNews said the “mostly
flavorless and uninspired” evening was “tedious, charm-free and often
tasteless.” He objected to a musical number about “drunk driving,” said
Connors’s attempts at suicide struck a “sour note,” disliked the “predatory”
nature of Connors’s attitude toward women, found the lyrics “cleverly
turned” but “vulgar,” and objected to the scene when Connors is given an
enema. But Karl had “fertile, bounding energy” and his performance was
“an impressive display of physical pyrotechnics.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the show offered
“kinetic and sometimes witty but ultimately wearying antics,” and the
production’s “silver lining” was the “musical-comedy dreamboat” Karl;
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal praised the “magnetically
charismatic” Karl and said the musical’s adaptors had done a “smart, mostly
solid job,” but noted the score was “lively but facelessly eclectic” and the
lyrics were “overstuffed” and “ill-crafted”; and David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter said Karl was the “sour-sweet” show’s “magic
ingredient” who gave a “musical comedy performance of the highest
caliber.”
Linda Winer in Newsday found Karl “terrific” in the “ingenious, witty,
dark yet joyously offbeat” musical; Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune
liked the “deliciously funny, quirky and waggish” songs; and Robert Kahn
in 4NewYork praised the “textured, twisted and ticklish comic musical” that
was “marvelously good fun” with “devilish humor” and a “magnetic”
leading man.
The cast album was released by Masterworks Broadway/Broadway
Records.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Groundhog Day); Best Book
(Danny Rubin); Best Score (lyrics and music by Tim Minchin); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Andy Karl);
Best Choreography (Peter Darling and Ellen Kane); Best Direction of a
Musical (Matthew Warchus); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Rob
Howell)
HELLO, DOLLY!
Theatre: Shubert Theatre
Performances: 550
Book: Michael Stewart
Lyrics and Music: Jerry Herman
Based on the 1955 play The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder, which was a
revised version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers (which in turn
was based on the 1842 Austrian play Einen jux will er sich machen by
Johann Nestroy, which had been based on the 1835 British play A Day
Well Spent by John Oxenford).
Direction: Jerry Zaks; Producers: Scott Rudin, Roy Furman, James L.
Nederlander, Eli Bush, Universal Stage Productions, Roger Berlind,
William Berlind, Heni Koenigsberg, Terry Allen Kramer, Seth A.
Goldstein, The John Gore Organization, Daryl Roth, The Araca Group,
Len Blavatnik, Eric Falkenstein, Ruth Hendel, Independent Presenters
Network, Peter May, Jay Alix and Una Jackman, Jane Bergere, Scott M.
Delman, Wendy Federman, Stephanie P. McClelland, Anita Waxman,
Al Nocciolino, Spring Sirkin, Barbara Freitag, John Mara Jr., and
Benjamin Simpson; Joey Parnes, Sue Wagner, and John Johnson,
Executive Producers; Choreography: Warren Carlyle; Scenery and
Costumes: Santo Loquasto; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction:
Andy Einhorn
Cast: Bette Midler (Dolly Gallagher Levi), Will Burton (Ambrose Kemper),
David Hyde Pierce (Horace Vandergelder), Melanie Moore
(Ermengarde), Gavin Creel (Cornelius Hackl), Taylor Trensch (Barnaby
Tucker), Beanie Feldstein (Minnie Fay), Kate Baldwin (Irene Molloy),
Linda Mugleston (Mrs. Rose), Jennifer Simard (Ernestina), Kevin Ligon
(Rudolph), Michael McCormick (Judge), Justin Bowen (Court Clerk);
Townspeople, Waiters, Others: Cameron Adams, Phillip Attmore,
Giuseppe Bausilio, Justin Bowen, Taeler Cyrus, Leslie Donna Flesner,
Jessica Lee Goldyn, Stephen Hanna, Michael Hartung, Robert Hartwell,
Aaron Kaburick, Amanda LaMotte, Analisa Leaming, Jess LeProtto,
Nathan Madden, Michael McCormick, Linda Mugleston, Hayley
Podschun, Jessica Sheridan, Christian Dante White, Branch Woodman,
Ryan Worsing, Richard Riaz Yoder
The action takes place in New York City and Yonkers during the 1890s.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “I Put My Hand In” (Bette Midler,
Company); “It Takes a Woman” (David Hyde Pierce, The Instant Glee
Club); “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” (Gavin Creel, Taylor Trensch,
Bette Midler, Will Burton, Melanie Moore); “Put on Your Sunday
Clothes” (reprise) (The People of Yonkers); “Ribbons Down My Back”
(Kate Baldwin); “Motherhood” (Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce, Kate
Baldwin, Beanie Feldstein, Gavin Creel, Taylor Trensch); “Dancing”
(Bette Midler, Gavin Creel, Taylor Trensch, Beanie Feldstein, Kate
Baldwin, Dancers); “Before the Parade Passes By” (Bette Midler,
Company)
Act Two: “Penny in My Pocket” (David Hyde Pierce); “Elegance” (Kate
Baldwin, Gavin Creel, Beanie Feldstein, Taylor Trensch); “The Waiters’
Gallop” (Kevin Ligon, Waiters); “Hello, Dolly!” (Bette Midler, Kevin
Ligon, Waiters, Cooks); “The Contest” (Will Burton, Melanie Moore,
Kate Baldwin, Gavin Creel, Beanie Feldstein, Taylor Trensch,
Contestants); “It Only Takes a Moment” (Gavin Creel, Kate Baldwin,
Prisoners, Policemen); “So Long, Dearie” (Bette Midler); “Hello,
Dolly!” (reprise) (Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce); Finale (Company)
Jerry Herman’s Hello, Dolly! was here seen in its fourth New York
revival, and thanks to the presence of Bette Midler in the title role the
current production was one of the season’s event musicals.
The farcical story centered on the meddling, take-no-prisoners Dolly
Gallagher Levi (Carol Channing in the original 1964 production) and her
tunnel-vision determination to become the wife of Horace Vandergelder
(David Burns in the original, David Hyde Pierce in the current production),
the grouchiest (and richest) man in Yonkers. She achieves her goal, but not
before she becomes involved in a number of comic misunderstandings and
splashy production numbers.
The current revival was a blockbuster, and the public clamored for
tickets in order to see their Midler (who performed seven times weekly and
was spelled by Donna Murphy for Tuesday night showings).
The critics praised Santo Loquasto’s colorful sets and costumes and
Warren Carlyle’s choreography (which paid tribute to Champion’s original
dances), and with one notable exception most of them wrote valentines to
Midler. But there were reservations about the frantic performances of some
of the featured players.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “bright and brassy” revival
was “festooned in shades of pink” with “hot pastels,” the dances were
“expert and exhausting,” Pierce was like a “springtime-fresh cartoon,” and
Midler did everything to stop the show. But the supporting cast members
seemed “under the impression they’re in a Mack Sennett farce.” Joe
Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the “dazzling” production
had a “supernova” named Midler at its core, and he praised the “old-school
comic jewel filled with great songs” and a “tight and bouncy” book.
Linda Winer in Newsday liked the “pastel candy-colored” costumes of
the “first-rate” revival, and praised Carlyle’s “ballroom-balletic”
choreography and Herman’s “optimistic, beltable,” and “simply structured
songs.” Midler employed her “stage savvy and intelligent fabulousness”
throughout the evening, and her Dolly had “a crescent moon twinkle of
Bette in her eye” along with “nonstop show-biz virtuosity.” Peter Marks in
the Washington Post noted that “with Midler in charge, you know for
certain what you’re in for: a rude, giddy burst of comic enchantment”;
Marilyn Stasio in Variety reported that Midler “instinctively understands the
avid thirst for life that prompts Dolly’s comic desperation and gives depth
to her character”; and Jesse Green in New York said the “ecstatic” revival
brought together the “brilliant alignment” of performer and role, and as a
result Midler was “a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime Dolly.” (Of course, for
many, Channing was their once-in-a-lifetime Dolly.)
But the headline in Terry Teachout’s review in the Wall Street Journal
warned “Disaster Despite a Diva.” Midler’s “singing voice” was “in a
desperate, sometimes shocking state of disrepair” and her speaking voice
was “hoarse” (Teachout wondered if she had an “acute case of laryngitis”).
Further, the star didn’t “even bother to act: She simply comes on stage and
plays her familiar self, albeit at a disturbingly low level of energy.” He was
“actually embarrassed” by her “mugging” in the courtroom scene, and said
all she had to offer was “the memory of a great career.”
The original production of Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre
on January 16, 1964, for 2,844 performances. It was directed and
choreographed by Gower Champion, and won ten Tony Awards (including
one for Best Musical and another for Channing, who during the seven-year
run was succeeded by Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Bibi
Osterwald, Phyllis Diller, and Ethel Merman). Channing reprised her role
for the first national tour, and others who starred in various national touring
companies were Eve Arden and Dorothy Lamour; Mary Martin opened the
show in London in 1965.
About midway through the original Broadway run, producer David
Merrick pulled a casting stunt that gave new life to the show when an all-
black version opened in 1967 with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway. It
played two years, and even enjoyed its own cast album.
Prior to the current revival, the musical revisited Broadway on
November 6, 1975, at the Minskoff Theatre for fifty-one performances
(Bailey and Billy Daniels); on March 5, 1978, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
for 147 performances (Channing and Eddie Bracken); and on October 19,
1995, at the Lunt-Fontanne for 118 showings (Channing and Jay Garner).
The bloated and charmless film version was released by Twentieth
Century-Fox in 1969. It starred Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau and
included two new songs by Herman (“Leave Everything to Me” and “Love
Is Only Love”).
The script was published in hardback by DBS Publications in 1969 with
a memorable misprint on both its dust jacket and title page which credits the
musical’s source to “Thorton” Wilder. There are numerous recordings of
Herman’s melodic, old-fashioned score, but the definitive one is the original
1964 cast album released by RCA Victor Records. Shortly after the
production opened, “Come and Be My Butterfly” was replaced by “The
Polka Contest,” and early vinyl pressings of the cast album include a photo
of Burns and chorus girls in a scene from the “Butterfly” number (the song
is referenced on the album but wasn’t included on the recording).
Besides the cast album of the Bailey production by RCA, Merman
recorded a 45 RPM single of two new songs by Herman (“World, Take Me
Back” and “Love, Look in My Window”) that she introduced when she
assumed the role in 1970. There are a number of foreign cast recordings
(Brazil, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Mexico), and
the cast album of the London production with Martin was issued by RCA.
The 1995 Broadway revival was recorded by Varese Sarabande, and the
cast album of the current revival was issued by Masterworks Broadway.
Note that the current production included “Penny in My Pocket” for
Vandergelder. The song was heard during all of the Detroit and most of the
Washington, D.C., tryouts of the original production and was sung by Burns
at the end of the first act. As a result, tryout audiences went into
intermission after hearing a song about Vandergelder in a musical that was
about Dolly, and so for the final D.C. performances “Penny” was dropped
and “Before the Parade Passes By” added for Dolly. In the current revival,
Vandergelder got his “Penny” back, but this time he sang it at the top of the
second act.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Hello, Dolly!);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (David
Hyde Pierce); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Bette Midler); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Gavin Creel); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Kate Baldwin); Best Direction of a Musical
(Jerry Zaks); Best Orchestrations (Larry Hochman); Best Scenic Design
of a Musical (Santo Loquasto); Best Costume Design of a Musical
(Santo Loquasto); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Natasha Katz)
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Performances: 305
Book: David Greig
Lyrics: Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman; additional lyrics by Leslie
Bricusse and Anthony Newley
Music: Marc Shaiman; additional music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony
Newley
Based on the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald
Dahl; as Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the film version of the
novel was released by Paramount in 1971 (direction by Mel Stuart,
screenplay by Dahl and the uncredited Dave Seltzer, and lyrics and
music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley; four songs from the
film were retained for the stage production). Note that in 2005 as
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the novel was again filmed, this
time by Warner Brothers (direction by Tim Burton, screenplay by John
August, music by Danny Elfman, and lyrics taken from Dahl’s text).
Direction: Jack O’Brien (Matt Lenz, Associate Director); Producers:
Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Langley Park Productions, and Neal
Street Productions; Mark Kaufman, Kevin McCormick, and Caro
Newling, Executive Producers; Choreography: Joshua Bergasse (Alison
Solomon, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Mark
Thompson; Video and Projection Design: Jeff Sugg; Puppetry Design:
Basil Twist; Lighting: Japhy Weideman; Musical Direction: Nicholas
Skilbeck
Cast: Christian Borle (Willy Wonka), Jake Ryan Flynn, Ryan Foust, and
Ryan Sell (alternating in the role of Charlie Bucket), Kyle Taylor Parker
(Mrs. Green), John Rubinstein (Grandpa Joe), Emily Padgett (Mrs.
Bucket), Kristy Cates (Grandma Josephine), Madeleine Doherty
(Grandma Georgina), Paul Slade Smith (Grandpa George), Jared
Bradshaw (Jerry), Stephanie Gibson (Cherry), Kathy Fitzgerald (Mrs.
Gloop), F. Michael Haynie (Augustus Gloop), Ben Crawford (Mr. Salt),
Emma Pfaeffle (Veruca Salt), Alan H. Green (Mr. Beauregarde), Trista
Dollison (Violet Beauregarde), Michael Wartella (Mike Teavee), Jackie
Hoffman (Mrs. Teavee); Ensemble: Yesenia Ayala, Darius Barnes, Colin
Bradbury, Jared Bradshaw, Ryan Breslin, Kristy Cates, Madeleine
Doherty, Paloma Garcia-Lee, Stephanie Gibson, Talya Groves, Cory
Lingner, Elliott Mattox, Monette McKay, Kyle Taylor Parker, Paul
Slade Smith, Kathie Webber
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = lyrics and music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
Act One: “The Candy Man” (*) (Christian Borle, Ensemble); “Willy
Wonka! Willy Wonka!” (Charlie [see cast listing for the names of the
three performers who alternated in the role of Charlie], Ensemble); “The
Candy Man” (reprise) (Charlie); “Charlie, You and I” (John
Rubinstein); “A Letter from Charlie Brackett” (Charlie, Emily Padgett,
John Rubinstein, Kristy Cates, Madeleine Doherty, Paul Slade Smith);
“More of Him to Love” (F. Michael Haynie, Kathy Fitzgerald,
Ensemble); “When Veruca Says” (Ben Crawford, Emma Pfaeffle);
“Queen of Pop” (Trista Dollison, Alan H. Green, Gum Chompin’
Divas); “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” (Michael Wartella, Jackie
Hoffman, Ensemble); “If Your Father Were Here” (Emily Padgett);
“I’ve Got a Golden Ticket” (*) and “Grandpa Joe” (Charlie, John
Rubinstein, Emily Padgett, Kristy Cates, Madeleine Doherty, Paul Slade
Smith); “It Must Be Believed to Be Seen” (Christian Borle, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Strike That, Reverse It” (Christian Borle, Golden Ticket
Winners); “Pure Imagination” (*) and “Grandpa Joe” (reprise)
(Christian Borle, Charlie, John Rubinstein, Golden Ticket Winners);
“The Oompa Loompa Song” (*) (Oompa Loompas); “Auf Wiederschen,
Augustus Gloop” (Christian Borle, Oompa Loompas); “When Willy
Met Oompa” (Christian Borle, Oompa Loompas); “Veruca’s Nutcracker
Sweet” (Emma Pfaeffle, Oompa Loompas); “Vidiots” (Christian Borle,
Michael Wartella, Jackie Hoffman, Oompa Loompas); “The View from
Here” (Christian Borle, Charlie)
Roald Dahl’s popular 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory was filmed twice, in 1971 as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
and in 2005 as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the first film version’s
score included “The Candy Man,” one of the few movie songs of the era to
become a bona fide hit). The current production was based on the hit
London musical that opened at the Drury Lane on June 25, 2013, and
played over three years; the score included new songs (with lyrics by Scott
Wittman and Marc Shaiman and music by Shaiman) as well as four songs
(“The Candy Man,” “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” “Pure Imagination,” and
“The Oompa Loompa Song”) held over from the 1971 film with lyrics and
music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
There is also an all-but-forgotten stage musical version of Dahl’s novel
that was produced in 2004 (see below for more information).
Although the 2013 London presentation was a hit that ran over three
years, the revised (and darker) Broadway version met with indifferent
reviews and managed a run of only eight months. The story centered on the
mysterious Willy Wonka (Christian Borle), who runs a candy store and is
secretly the owner of a huge chocolate factory. He invites five children to
visit the factory, the poor but honest and upright Charlie (Jake Ryan Flynn,
Ryan Sell, and Ryan Foust alternated in the role, and the latter played the
character for the designated critics’ performance) and four absolute horrors,
Augustus Gloop (a glutton), Violet Beauregarde (a spoiled brat), Veruca
Salt (an obnoxious gum-chewer), and Mike Teavee (obsessed with
television and his laptop). This quartet was respectively played by four
adult performers, F. Michael Haynie, Trista Dollison, Emma Pfaeffle, and
Michael Wartella, and it was a clever touch to cast the foursome with adult
actors because all of them come to fiendish ends, and perhaps their terrible
fates didn’t seem so harsh to young audiences because on stage it was adult
and not child performers who met their doom.
When the children tour the factory, they meet the strange Oompa
Loompas, a group of crayon-colored, life-sized puppets (created by Basil
Twist) who run the factory and make the candy. As the tour guide, Willy
cautions the children to behave and follow the factory rules, but the
headstrong foursome ignore Willy and thus meet death and destruction.
Augustus is sucked into a chocolate pipe and drowns in a vat of fudge;
Violet turns into a giant human blueberry and explodes; Veruca enters into a
dance of death with oversized squirrels (whose job is to separate the good
nuts from the bad), and when they decide Veruca is a bad nut they tear her
limbs apart; and Mike gets swept into a television set, shrinks to the size of
a doll, and will forever be a prisoner in his mother’s purse. But the good
and honest and rule-obeying Charlie is rewarded by Willy, and Charlie will
become Willy’s partner in running the chocolate factory.
The critics thought the story was too sour and downbeat, and were
particularly unhappy with the show’s decor. Jesse Green in New York said
the show was “a hideous, cheap-looking, melted Whitman’s sampler,” the
decor was “unusually dull,” and the story was both “too maudlin” and “too
angry”; Ben Brantley in the New York Times warned his readers not to
“expect a sugar rush,” but noted the revised Broadway production was an
“improvement” over the London version (however, the songs were “still
largely forgettable”); and Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News
found the songs “pale” and the book “flavorless,” and decided the show
“still needs work.” Michael Schulman in the New Yorker noted that “pure
imagination” was one thing, and then there was the problem of
“overthinking it.” As a result, the show felt “like the result of late-night
script meetings and second-guessing,” and the “artistic choices” didn’t
“seem wrong so much as exasperated.” Two choices were “particularly
unfortunate.” The first was to begin the musical with Willy telling the
audience his plans and then “going undercover,” all of which resulted in the
loss of Willy’s “entrance and the surprise ending.” The second was the “big
miscalculation” of the factory, which was “less a cabinet of wonders than a
featureless box.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the musical was “inflated” and
“mechanized,” and although the evening was “visually droll” there were too
many “gimmicks” that distracted from the story and encouraged “the
cartoon treatment of characters as caricatures.” Linda Winer in Newsday
decided that a show about “the wonder of pure imagination” was “bizarrely
lacking in it,” the first act was “long and slow,” and overall the production
was “saccharine and soporific.” Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune found
the work “deeply disappointing,” and “Oh, fudge” was the “bottom line”
summary of David Rooney’s review in the Hollywood Reporter. Rooney
said the “misfire” was “perversely charmless,” some of the deaths were
“downright repugnant,” and the production ranked as “one of the most
aesthetically off-putting family musicals in memory.” (In a follow-up article
about the announcement of the show’s closing, Rooney noted the musical
“was not expected to recoup its investment on Broadway,” but the
producers planned a post-Broadway U.S. national tour as well as an
international one).
The London cast recording was issued by Water Tower Music, and the
New York cast album was released by Masterworks Broadway. The London
recording includes the following numbers that were omitted for Broadway:
“Almost Nearly Perfect,” “The Amazing Fantasical History of Mr. Willy
Wonka,” “News of Augustus,” “News of Veruca,” “News of Violet,” “The
Double Bubble Duchess,” “News of Mike,” “It’s Teavee Time!,” “Don’cha
Pinch Me, Charlie,” “The Chocolate Room,” “Simply Second Nature,”
“Augustus’ Downfall,” “Gum!,” “Juicy!,” and “A Little Me.” For New
York, “If Your Mother Were Here” became “If Your Father Were Here.”
As noted, there was an earlier “forgotten” version of the musical. As
Willy Wonka, the musical opened at the Kennedy Center on November 26,
2004, with direction by Graham Whitehead and a book adaptation by Leslie
Bricusse and Tim McDonald (all songs were credited to Bricusse and to
Anthony Newley). The show was a self-described “version for young and
family audiences commissioned by the Kennedy Center and produced
through special arrangement with Music Theatre International.” A cast
album of the production was released by the Kennedy Center and Music
Theatre International on an unnumbered CD, and includes the following
numbers: “Pure Imagination,” “The Golden Age of Chocolate,” “The
Candy Man,” “I Eat More,” “Think Positive!,” “I See It All on TV,” “Cheer
Up, Charlie,” “Think Positive!!” (reprise), “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” “At
the Gates,” “In This Room,” “Oompa-Loompa!,” “There’s No Knowing,”
“Chew It,” “Oompa-Loompa 2,” “Flying,” “Burping,” “I Want It Now,”
“Oompa-Loompa 3,” “Oompa-Loompa 4,” and “Finale.”
ANASTASIA
Performances: 808
Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens
“Inspired” by the Twentieth Century-Fox films Anastasia (1956; direction
by Anatole Litvak and screenplay by Arthur Laurents) and Anastasia
(1997; direction by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, screenplay by Susan
Gauthier and Bruce Graham, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by
Stephen Flaherty).
Direction: Darko Tresnjak; Producers: Stage Entertainment, Bill Taylor,
Tom Kirdahy, Hunter Arnold, 50 Church Street Productions, The
Shubert Organization, Elizabeth Dewsberry and Ali Ahmet Kocabiyik,
Carl Daikeler, Van Dean/Stephanie Rosenberg, Warner/Chappell Music,
42nd.Club/Phil Kenny, Judith Ann Abrams Productions, Broadway
Asia/Umeda Arts Theatre, Mark Lee and Ed Filipowski, Harriet
Newman Leve, Peter May, David Mirvish, Sandi Moran, Seoul
Broadcasting System, Sara Beth Zivitz, Michael Stotts, LD
Entertainment/Sally Cade Holmes, Jay Alix & Una
Jackman/Blumegreenspan, Carolyn and Marc Seriff/Bruno Wang, and
Silva Theatrical Group/Adam Zell; Eric Cornell, Executive Producer, in
association with Hartford Stage; Choreography: Peggy Hickey;
Scenery: Alexander Dodge; Projection Design: Aaron Rhyne;
Costumes: Linda Cho; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction:
Tom Murray
Cast: Nicole Scimeca (Little Anastasia, Alexei Romanov), Mary Beth Peil
(Dowager Empress), Lauren Blackman (Tsarina Alexandra),
Constantine Germanacos (Tsar Nicholas II, Count Ipolitov), Molly
Rushing (Young Anastasia, Paulina), Sissy Bell (Maria Romanov,
Marfa), Allison Walsh (Olga Romanov, Odette in Swan Lake), Shina
Ann Morris (Tatiana Romanov, Dunya), Caroline O’Connor (Countess
Lily), Ramin Karimloo (Gleb), Derek Klena (Dmitry), John Bolton
(Vlad), Christy Altomare (Anya), Ken Krugman (Gorlinsky, Count
Leopold), Wes Hart (Doorman), Kyle Brown (Prince Siegfried in Swan
Lake), James A. Pierce III (Von Rothbart in Swan Lake); Suitors,
Soldiers, Comrades, Ghosts, Parisians, White Russians, Waiters,
Reporters, Cygnets in Swan Lake: Zach Adkins, Lauren Blackman,
Sissy Bell, Kyle Brown, Janet Dickinson, Constantine Germanacos,
Wes Hart, Ken Krugman, Shina Ann Morris, James A. Pierce III, Molly
Rushing, Johnny Stellard, Allison Walsh, Beverly Ward
The action takes place in St. Petersburg during the years 1907, 1917, and
1927, and in Paris in 1927.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = musical numbers retained from the 1997 film
Act One: Prologue: “Once Upon a December” (*) (Mary Beth Peil, Nicole
Scimeca); “The Last Dance of the Romanovs” (Ensemble); “A Rumor
in Saint Petersburg” (Derek Klena, John Bolton, Ensemble); “In My
Dreams” (Christy Altomare); “The Rumors Never End” (Ramin
Karimloo, Ensemble); “Learn to Do It” (*) (John Bolton, Christy
Altomare, Derek Klena); “The Neva Flows” (Ramin Karimloo, Christy
Altomare); “The Neva Flows” (reprise) (Men); “My Petersburg” (*)
(Derek Klena, Christy Altomare); “Once Upon a December” (reprise)
(Christy Altomare, Ensemble); “A Secret She Kept” (Christy
Altomare); “Stay, I Pray You” (Constantine Germanacos, Christy
Altomare, Derek Klena, John Bolton, Ensemble); “We’ll Go from
There” (John Bolton, Christy Altomare, Derek Klena, Ensemble);
“Traveling Sequence” (Ramin Karimloo, Ken Krugman, Christy
Altomare, Derek Klena, John Bolton); “Still” (Ramin Karimloo);
“Journey to the Past” (*) (Christy Altomare)
Act Two: “Paris Holds the Key (to Your Heart)” (*) (John Bolton, Derek
Klena, Christy Altomare, Ensemble); “Crossing a Bridge” (Christy
Altomare); “Close the Door” (Mary Beth Peil); “Land of Yesterday”
(Caroline O’Connor, Ensemble); “The Countess and the Common Man”
(John Bolton, Caroline O’Connor); “Land of Yesterday” (reprise)
(Ramin Karimloo); “A Nightmare” (*) (Romanov Children, Constantine
Germanacos, Lauren Blackman); “In a Crowd of Thousands” (Derek
Klena, Christy Altomare); “Meant to Be” (John Bolton); “Quartet at the
Ballet” (Christy Altomare, Derek Klena, Mary Beth Peil, Ramin
Karimloo, Ensemble); “Everything to Win” (Derek Klena);”Once Upon
a December” (reprise) (Christy Altomare, Mary Beth Peil); “The Press
Conference” (Caroline O’Connor, John Bolton, Ensemble); “Everything
to Win” (reprise) (Christy Altomare); “Still” (reprise) and “The Neva
Flows” (reprise) (Ramin Karimloo, Christy Altomare, Ensemble);
Finale (Christy Altomare, Derek Klena, Company)
The program for Anastasia noted that the musical was “inspired” by the
two Twentieth Century-Fox films of the same name, the dramatic version
released in 1956 and the animated musical version for tweens released in
1997 with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty, both of
whom wrote additional songs for the stage adaptation. Forbes reported the
musical was capitalized at $12.5 million and recouped its investment, and
the New York Times indicated the investment went “up to $15 million.” The
Times noted that at the beginning of its run the show enjoyed high grosses
(peaking at $1.3 million for nine performances during Christmas week of
2018) that later “dropped to problematic levels.” If the musical didn’t reach
grosses of blockbuster proportions it nonetheless seems destined for
profitable road and international presentations.
Although the musical appropriated some of the historical details
surrounding the brutal assassinations in 1918 of Emperor of Russia
Nicholas II, his wife the Princess Alix (aka Alexandra), their daughters the
Grand Duchesses Maria, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia (Christy Altomare in
the musical) and their son Alexei, the Tsarevich of Russia, the musical
sidestepped the recent DNA test results that proved Anastasia was
murdered along with the rest of her family. Instead, the musical’s thesis was
that the heroine escaped from her would-be killers, developed amnesia, and
later fully recovered her memory and realized that she was indeed
Anastasia. Along the way, and before she recalls her identity, she meets the
con men Vlad (John Bolton) and Dmitry (Derek Klena), who note her
resemblance to the presumed-dead Anastasia and hope to be rewarded by
the Dowager Empress (Mary Beth Peil) by pawning off the young woman
as her granddaughter and heir to the Romanov fortune.
So imagine the delight of the tweens in the audience when Anastasia not
only remembers her identity but also falls in love with the handsome
Dmitry, who reciprocates her feelings and renounces his heretofore unruly
ways. And before they decide to live happily ever after, they give the
reward money to charity. Moreover, Anastasia is a girl for our times: she’s a
spunky Disneyfied heroine who is all about girl empowerment.
One is certain that immediately after the final curtain, all the tweens in
the audience dashed home in order to study Russian history, and hopefully
they didn’t become unhinged when they discovered there was no handsome
Dmitry in Anastasia’s future because she was shot and stabbed to death on
the night of July 17, 1918, just a few weeks after her seventeenth birthday.
Ben Brantley in the Times said the musical, like its heroine, had a
“troubling case of multiple personality disorder” because it was drawn from
both the “dignified” and “soapy” costume drama from 1956 and the 1997
“animated spectacle” that offered “talking animals and a resurrected
Rasputin” (note that both Rasputin and the animals were dropped for the
musical stage adaptation). Brantley and other critics groaned over the
sequence (which included the song “Learn to Do It”) in which Dmitry and
Vlad tutor Anastasia in the ways of becoming a grand lady. Brantley said
that “never” had he so missed “The Rain in Spain,” and other critics chimed
in as well: “My Fair Russian Lady” (Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York
Daily News), “My Fair Tsarina” (Linda Winer in Newsday), and “My Fair
Princess” (Frank Rizzo in Variety).
Brantley also noted that one number (“My Petersburg”) brought to mind
“Anatevka” from Fiddler on the Roof and that another (“The Countess and
the Common Man”) echoed Gigi. Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said
the villainous Gleb (Ramin Karimloo) evoked memories of Javert and Les
Miserables, while Anastasia’s involvement with the “proletariat” brought to
mind Newsies.
Dziemianowicz said the show’s “identity crisis” and “split personality”
couldn’t decide whether it was a “serious” or a “frothy” musical, and as a
result the evening’s tone was “muddy”; Winer found the story “pretty” but
“vapid” and “dispiritingly predictable”; and Rizzo commented that “in this
alt-reality, history is rewritten,” and while the songs were “melodic” they
were also “exposition-crammed.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “princess fantasy” hit
the “girly-girl sweet spot,” and the “squeals of the tween girls packing the
audience approach Beatlemania levels of hysteria,” especially their “vocal
fervor” for Klena (Rooney feared for the actor’s “post-show safety at the
stage door or at least his ability to remain clothed”). Otherwise, the musical
was “a tad bland,” the songs were “more often serviceable than inspired,”
the book lacked “nuance,” the leads were “quite vanilla,” and there was an
overall “work-manlike feel” to the production. Jones questioned the choice
of the “video-heavy” design, and sometimes all the screens conjured up
“human beings performing in front of an Imax travelogue.” But the evening
offered many “gorgeous” and “charming” songs, and when Altomare was
“center stage” the musical worked “quite delightfully.”
Michael Schulman in the New Yorker found the production “incredibly
overblown,” and said Ahrens and Flaherty “never met a pop ballad that they
couldn’t top off with a sweeping high note.” Otherwise, parents “might get
some thorny questions” when their children asked what the “rioting hordes”
had against “pretty, pretty princesses.”
During the tryout, “A Simple Thing,” “Anya,” and “I Never Should
Have Let Them Dance” were cut, and the characters of Josephine Baker,
Pablo Picasso, Isadora Duncan, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and
Coco Chanel were eliminated from the story.
The 1956 film was based on a French drama by Marcelle Maurette,
which was adapted by Guy Bolton, whose version opened in Great Britain
at the Theatre Royal Windsor’s repertory theatre in Windsor, Berkshire, and
was later televised on the BBC on July 12, 1953, with Mary Kerridge (as
Anna Broun) and the British actress Helen Haye (as the Dowager Empress).
A London premiere followed on August 5, 1953, at the St. James’s Theatre
for 117 performances with Kerridge and Haye (the direction by John
Counsell, who also directed the Windsor and BBC versions), and the
Broadway production opened on December 29, 1954, at the Lyceum
Theatre for 272 performances with Viveca Lindfors and Eugenie
Leontovish and direction by Alan Schneider. The film adaptation of the
play was directed by Anatole Litvak, scripted by Arthur Laurents, and
starred Ingrid Bergman (whose performance won her a second Academy
Award for Best Actress), Yul Brynner, and the American actress Helen
Hayes. As noted, the animated musical film version was released in 1997.
A 1986 version of the story was televised by NBC as Anastasia: The
Mystery of Anna with screenplay by James Goldman and direction by
Marvin J. Chomsky; the cast included Amy Irving, Rex Harrison, Olivia de
Havilland, Omar Sharif, and Christian Bale.
Anya was a Broadway musical adaptation of the 1954 play, and was the
final production to open at the legendary Ziegfeld Theatre, where it
premiered on November 29, 1965, and closed after sixteen performances.
Bolton and director George Abbott collaborated on the book, and the lyrics
were by Robert Wright and George Forrest, who also adapted the music
from themes by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The cast included Constance Towers,
Michael Kermoyan, and Lillian Gish. The work was later revised as the
chamber musical I, Anastasia, which opened in South Africa in December
1980, and in 1986 Variety reported that a backer’s audition of a newly
revised version now called The Anastasia Game was staged by Edwin
Lester. On October 9, 1989, The Anastasia Game was produced by the
Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a revised
book by Bolton and Jerome Chodorov, and in 1991 a recording of the
revised score was released as The Anastasia Affaire with Merrimack cast
members Judy Kaye, Len Cariou, and Steve Barton, as well as studio cast
members Regina Resnik, George Lee Andrews, Walter Willison, and Willi
Burke (in 1967, the latter had appeared in the title role of Anya in a summer
stock production); this recording includes most of the songs from The
Anastasia Game (many of which were adapted from Anya).
If one is interested in hearing a full set of Anastasia-related recordings,
here they are (referenced in their CD versions): the 1956 soundtrack with
music by Alfred Newman was released by Varese Sarabande and includes a
previously unreleased recording of Newman at the piano playing the main
title theme, and the television soundtrack of Anastasia: The Mystery of
Anna was issued by Southern Cross Records with music by Laurence
Rosenthal, the composer of the Broadway musical Sherry! (1967).
The original cast album of Anya has been released by Kritzerland, and
The Anastasia Affaire was recorded by Bay Cities Records. The recording
titled Anastasia was released by Original Cast Records and also includes
songs from other Wright and Forrest musicals, including At the Grand
(1958; closed prior to Broadway), Kean (1961), and Grand Hotel (1989);
and Classics from Hollywood to Broadway: Songs by Robert Wright and
George Forrest (issued by Koch/Schwann Records) includes four songs
from Anya and The Anastasia Game/The Anastasia Affaire.
The soundtrack of the 1997 animated film of Anastasia was issued by
Atlantic Records (a later limited edition included a “Free Gift Inside!”), and
the Broadway cast recording of the current production was issued on both
CD and vinyl by Broadway Records (the latter includes a bonus track of
“Journey to the Past” sung by Liz Callaway and Christy Altomare).
As of this writing, a lawsuit by Maurette’s heir has been filed against
the Anastasia Musical LLC and librettist McNally. Ashley Cullins in the
Hollywood Reporter notes that the heir alleges copyright infringement
because much of the original play’s dialogue, characters, and plot are
fictional and were used in the stage musical’s adaptation. The heir claims
that Maurette’s play was licensed to 20th Century-Fox for the 1956 and
1997 film adaptations, but he retained “all rights in live stage
performances.” McNally “moved for summary judgment” and argued that
the play and the musical were not “substantially similar,” but the U.S.
District Judge for the Southern District of New York disagreed and denied
the motion, and stated the two works share “significant commonalities not
traced to any documented historical record.”
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Performance of an Actress in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Mary Beth Peil); Best Costume Design of a Musical
(Linda Cho)
BANDSTAND
“THE NEW AMERICAN MUSICAL”

Performances: 166
Book and Lyrics: Rob Taylor and Richard Oberacker
Music: Richard Oberacker
Direction and Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler (Mark Stuart,
Associate Choreographer); Producers: Tom Smedes, Gabrielle Palitz,
Terry Schnuck, Tom Kirdahy, Roger Horchow, Peter Stern, Michael
Palitz, Jane Dubin, David Lyons, Sarah Perot, James L. Nederlander,
James and Catherine Berges, Darren Deverna and Jere Harris, Jeff and
Ellen Adler, Nancy and Randy Best, Deep End Productions, Patty
Baker, Terry D. Loftis/Scott D. Huffman, Independent Presenters
Network/Charles and Lisa Siegel, Rosie Gunther McCooe/J. Scott and
Sylvia G. Bechtel, Roy Putrino/Heather Shields, Diane and John
Kalishman/Alison and John Ferring, and The Shubert Organization in
association with Paper Mill Playhouse; Sammy Lopez, Associate
Producer; Scenery: David Korins; Costumes: Paloma Young; Lighting:
Jeff Croiter; Musical Direction: Fred Lassen
Cast: Corey Cott (Donny Novitski), Laura Osnes (Julia Trojan), Beth
Leavel (Mrs. June Adams), James Nathan Hopkins (Jimmy Campbell),
Brandon J. Ellis (Davy Zlatic), Alex Bender (Nick Radel), Geoff
Packard (Wayne Wright), Joe Carroll (Johnny Simpson), Mary Callanan
(Jean Ann Ryan, Production Assistant), Kevyn Morrow (Al, James
Haupt), Ryan Kasprzak (Mr. Jackson), Jonathan Shew (Andre Baruch),
Jessica Lea Patty (Jo), Drew McVety (Oliver), Ryan Vandenboom
(Roger Cohen), Morgan Marcell (Entertainment Director), Max Clayton
(Tom), Andrea Dotto (Betsy); Ensemble: Mary Callanan, Max Clayton,
Andrea Dotto, Ryan Kasprzak, Erica Mansfield, Morgan Marcell, Drew
McVety, Kevyn Morrow, Jessica Lea Patty, Keven Quillon, Jonathan
Shew, Ryan Vandenboom, Jaime Verazin
The action takes place in Cleveland, Ohio, and New York City during the
period August–December 1945.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Just Like It Was Before” (Company); “Donny Novitski” (Corey
Cott); “I Know a Guy” (James Nathan Hopkins, Brandon J. Ellis, Alex
Bender, Geoff Packard, Corey Cott, Company); “Ain’t We Proud”
(Corey Cott); “Who I Was” (Laura Osnes); “Just Like It Was Before”
(reprise) (Beth Leavel); “First Steps First” (Laura Osnes, Corey Cott);
“Breathe” (Corey Cott, Alex Bender, Geoff Packard, Brandon J. Ellis,
James Nathan Hopkins, Joe Carroll); “You Deserve It” (Corey Cott,
Laura Osnes, Company); “Love Will Come and Find Me Again” (Laura
Osnes); “Right This Way” (Corey Cott, Alex Bender, Geoff Packard,
Brandon J. Ellis, James Nathan Hopkins, Joe Carroll, Laura Osnes)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Nobody” (Corey Cott, Geoff Packard,
Alex Bender, Brandon J. Ellis, Laura Osnes, Beth Leavel, Joe Carroll,
James Nathan Hopkins, Company); “I Got a Theory” (Laura Osnes,
Corey Cott, Geoff Packard, Alex Bender, Brandon J. Ellis, Joe Carroll,
James Nathan Hopkins, Company); “Everything Happens” (Beth
Leavel); “Welcome Home” (Corey Cott, Laura Osnes); “A Band in New
York City” (Joe Carroll, Brandon J. Ellis, James Nathan Hopkins, Alex
Bender, Geoff Packard, Laura Osnes, Corey Cott, Company); “This Is
Life” (Corey Cott, Laura Osnes); “Welcome Home” (reprise) (Laura
Osnes); Finale (Corey Cott, Laura Osnes, Company)
Bandstand was an ambitious look at a group of World War II veterans

who come home from the war, most of them emotionally or physically
scarred in one way or the other with survivor guilt, posttraumatic stress
syndrome, and physical injury. The story focused on former Private First
Class Donny Novitski (Corey Cott), a pianist and songwriter who can’t
quite find his place in the civilian world. He’s always thanked for his war
service, but no one offers him a job and he’s reduced to playing the
accordion at weddings. He decides to organize a swing band with his fellow
servicemen so they can compete in an NBC radio contest called Tribute to
the Troops!, the winner of which will be featured in an upcoming Frank
Sinatra and June Havoc MGM musical The Boys Are Back (but surely that
should have been June Haver!). Donny also falls in love with Julia Trojan
(Laura Osnes), the widow of one of his fallen comrades. She works as a
clerk at a cosmetics counter but is a singer and lyricist, and soon she joins
the band as its songstress. The band wins the contest, makes the movie, and
soon they’re off on a nationwide tour of the hottest nightclubs.
The critics gave the musical credit for its dramatic strengths, but the
production never quite found its tone, or, for that matter, its audience. For
his dances, director and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler took home the
show’s single Tony Award, but ticket sales were disappointing. Andrew R.
Chow in the New York Times reported that for the first full week of August
2017 the musical took in just 51 percent of its potential gross and seemed
certain to lose its $13.5 million capitalization. The show managed almost
five months on Broadway, and closed after a disappointing run of 166
performances.
Alexis Soloski in the Times said the “openhearted” but “indecisive”
musical was “an undercooked slice of apple pie, served with a dollop of
anguish.” At times it offered a “‘let’s put on a show’ jollity,” and at other
moments it depicted how the band members are “dragged down by dancers
playing fallen comrades,” a “symbolic gesture” that hit “like a gut punch”
and showed that theatre “can sometimes tell a story more boldly and more
viscerally” than movies or television.
Frank Rizzo in Variety decided the “earnest and often-entertaining”
musical with “fluid” direction and “evocative” choreography never “quite
achieve[d] its noble ambitions” because of the “uneven” and “sketchy”
book, “undistinguished” dialogue, and “only-serviceable” songs that were
“pleasant and easily forgettable.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily
News noted that the “well-meaning mishmash” was “dark and a bit daring”
in its depiction of how returning servicemen aren’t given the necessary help
to deal with the traumas they faced in wartime. But the story was also
“conventional” when it looked at the “fame game” and show-business
success. As a result, the evening was “a bit all over the place,” and
musically was a “blur” with “workmanlike and pleasant” songs.
Linda Winer in Newsday found the musical’s concept “more ambitious,
darker and more sophisticated” than its title might indicate, but also noted
the evening was “a little shapeless and overly long.” She praised the
“gorgeous jazz and new-old swing” music and the “moody” lyrics, but felt
the book was “padded with jokes and plot diversions that drag down the
expert stagecraft.” Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said the
“thematically ambitious” production was “at war with itself” because it was
“severely disjointed” with “cheap” comedy juxtaposed against a story of
“battle-scarred” vets, and sometimes the evening felt like The Best Years of
Our Lives “set to music, with predictably awkward results.”
The cast recording was released by Broadway Records, and the script
was published in paperback by Samuel French in 2018. A live performance
was filmed and shown theatrically in a limited release in 2018.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Choreography (Andy
Blankenbuehler); Best Orchestrations (Bill Elliott and Greg Anthony
Rassen)
FREAKY FRIDAY
Freaky Friday played at the Signature Theatre Company’s MAX Theatre in
Arlington, Virginia, during the period October 4–November 20, 2016; it
appears the official opening night was October 24. As of this writing,
the musical hasn’t been presented on Broadway.
Book: Bridget Carpenter
Lyrics: Brian Yorkey
Music: Tom Kitt
Based on the 1972 novel Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers and the Walt
Disney Pictures/Buena Vista Pictures film of the same name (1976 film,
direction by Gary Nelson and screenplay by Mary Rodgers; 2003 film,
direction by Mark Waters, screenplay by Heather Hatch and Leslie
Dixon). The material was also adapted as a 1995 television special for
The Wonderful World of Disney (direction by Melanie Mayron and
teleplay by Stu Krieger).
Direction: Christopher Ashley (Amy Corcoran, Associate Director);
Producer: Signature Theatre Company (Eric Schaeffer, Artistic
Director); musical produced by special arrangement with Disney
Theatrical Productions; Choreography: Sergio Trujillo (Jermaine R.
Rembert, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Beowulf Boritt;
Costumes: Emily Rebholz; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical
Direction: Bryan Perri
Cast: Heidi Blickenstaff (Katherine), Emma Hunton (Ellie), Jason Gotay
(Adam), Alan H. Green (Mike), Jake Heston Miller and Tyler Bowman
(alternating in the role of Fletcher), J. Elaine Marcos (Torrey), Storm
Lever (Savannah), Shayna Blass (Hannah), Katie Ladner (Gretchen),
Thaddeus McCants (Parker, Ensemble), Julian Ramos (Wells,
Ensemble), Tanisha Moore (Teen Ensemble), Robert Walters (Teen
Ensemble), Bobby Smith (Grandpa George, Biology Teacher, Senor
O’Brien, Ensemble), Sherri L. Edelen (Grandma Helene, Mrs.
Luckenbill, Mrs. Time, Ensemble), Cicily Daniels (Journalist, Ms.
Meyers, Officer Sitz, Ensemble), Jason SweetTooth Williams (Pastor
Bruno, Doctor Ehrin, Officer Kowalski, Ensemble)
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Just One Day” (Ensemble); “I Got This” (Emma Hunton, Heidi
Blickenstaff, Students, Teachers); “What You Got” (Heidi Blickenstaff,
J. Elaine Marcos, Cecily Daniels, Photographer); “Oh, Biology” (Emma
Hunton, Jason Gotay, Students); “Vows” (Alan H. Green); “Busted”
(Emma Hunton, Heidi Blickenstaff, Parents, Students); “Somebody Has
Got to Take the Blame” (Heidi Blickenstaff, Emma Hunton, Jason
SweetTooth Williams, Sherri L. Edelen); “I Got This” (reprise) (Heidi
Blickenstaff); “Watch Your Back” (Cicily Daniels, Emma Hunton,
Students); “Parents Lie” (Heidi Blickenstaff); “Just One Day” (reprise)
(Company)
Act Two: “I’m Not Myself Today” (Heidi Blickenstaff, Emma Hunton,
Company); “Women and Sandwiches” (Jason Gotay, Jake Heston Miller
or Tyler Bowman); “Bring My Baby (Brother) Home” (Heidi
Blickenstaff, Emma Hunton, Alan H. Green, Officers); “Go” (Jason
Gotay, Company); “After All of This and Everything” (Heidi
Blickenstaff); “No More Fear” (Emma Hunton); “Today and Ev’ry
Day” (Company)
Mary Rodgers’s popular 1972 novel Freaky Friday dealt with the comic
situations surrounding a magical exchange in which a mother (Heidi
Blickenstaff for the musical) and her teenage daughter Ellie (Emma
Hunton) switch personalities. Besides the musical and its 2018 television
adaptation, the novel has been filmed three times, two theatrical
presentations in 1972 (with Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster) and 2003
(Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan) and one television version in 1995
(Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffman).
Paul Harris in Variety noted that the “delightfully spunky” musical was
clearly aimed at the “lucrative pre-teen market.” The score offered
“enjoyable melodies and stirring ensemble harmonies” but “seldom
deviate[d] from the relentless pace that contributes to the show’s overall
frenetic feel.”
During previews, “The Switch” was cut.
In 2017, Walt Disney Records released a studio cast album of the score
with members of the Signature production (including Blickenstaff and
Hunton) as well as other singers, and the score included two numbers not
heard in the stage presentation (“The Hourglass” and “The Other
Hourglass”).
The musical was televised on the Disney Channel on August 10, 2018,
with direction by Steve Carr; Blickenstaff reprised her role of Katherine,
and Cozi Zuehlesdorff was Ellie. The soundtrack was released by Walt
Disney Records, and the DVD by Walt Disney Video (the DVD has also
been issued in a collection that includes the 1972 and 2003 film versions).
SOUSATZKA
The musical began performances at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, on February 25, 2017; the official opening night was March 23,
and the production closed on April 9. As of this writing, the musical
hasn’t been presented on Broadway (at one point, a Broadway opening
was announced for November 3, 2018).
Book: Craig Lucas
Lyrics: Richard Maltby Jr.
Music: David Shire; additional music by Lebo M
Based on the 1962 novel Madame Sousatzka by Bernice Rubens, which was
filmed by Cineplex-Odeon Films in 1988 (direction by John Schlesinger
and screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Schlesinger with
additional written material by Peter Morgan and Mark Wadlow).
Direction: Adrian Noble; Producers: Teatro Proscenium; Garth Drabinsky;
Choreography: Graciela Daniele; Scenery: Anthony Ward; Projections
Design: Jon Driscoll; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Howell
Binkley; Musical Direction: Brad Haak
Cast: Victoria Clark (Madame Sousatzka), Montego Glover (Xholiswa
Khenketha), Judy Kaye (The Countess), Jordan Barrow (Themba), Ryan
Allen (Jubulani), Sara Jean Ford (Jenny), Eryn LeCroy (Young
Sousatzka, Ensemble), Isaiah Slater (Young Themba, Ensemble), Kaden
Stephen (Young Themba, Ensemble), Rebecca Eichenberger (Madame
Sousatzka at certain performances), Fuschia (Naledi), John Hillner
(Felix Manders), Virginia Preston (Sarah), Christianne Tisdale (Mrs.
Manders), Nick Wyman (Mr. Cordle); Ensemble: Jewelle Blackman,
Mark Cassius, Leroy Church, Janelle Cooper, Rejean Cournoyer, Alvin
Crawford, Saccha Dennis, Bernard Dotson, Shiloh Goodin, Kira
Guloien, Mary Gutzi, Tevyn Hill, Erin Lamar, James Levesque, Hailey
Lewis, David Lindo-Reid, Allison McCaughey, Cory O’Brien, Rebecca
Poff, Travis Pratt, Mya Rose Puryear, Jack Rennie, Timothy Shew,
Jamal Shuriah, David Silvestri, Eva Tavares, Tryphena Wade, Charles
E. Wallace, J. D. Webster, Jonathan Winsby
The current action takes place in London during 1982; there are also
flashback sequences that occur in Warsaw and in Soweto.
Musical Numbers
Note: The following is an alphabetical list of some of the songs heard in the
production.
“All I Wanna Do Is Go Dancin’”; “Brand New Family”; “Gifted”; “Let
Go”; “Manders’ Salon”; “Nguwe”; “Rainbow Nation”; “Ring One
Bell”; “Song of the Child”; “This Boy”
Sousatzka was based on Bernice Rubens’s 1962 novel Madame
Sousatzka, which was later filmed under that title in 1988 with Shirley
MacLaine in the title role.
Craig Lucas’s book focused on young South African Themba (Jordan
Barrow), who is torn between two women with different ideas about what is
best for him, the Jewish Madame Sousatzka (Victoria Clark), a London
piano teacher from Poland who survived the Holocaust, and his mother
Xholiswa (Montego Glover), who with Themba fled from Soweto once his
father was arrested for treason during the apartheid era. The story never
quite clarified why Themba is “torn” between Sousatzka and his mother. He
studies piano and classical music, and eventually gives a well-received
concert, and J. Kelly Nestruck in the Globe wondered if perhaps Themba
uses classical music to “rebel” against both his parents and their music, or
perhaps against apartheid itself, or maybe he enjoys the “escape” that Bach
and Beethoven provide.
Sousatzka and Themba have been victims of horrendous oppression, but
they’ve survived and their worst days are behind them. As a result, it would
seem that the real drama is over before the story begins. There was a certain
lack of tension in what was left of the plot. Moreover, the boarding house
where Sousatzka lives is filled with living clichés, each with his or her own
problem: a gay man, a prostitute, her john and the john’s wife, and an
aspiring dancer (Nestruck said she seemed to have emerged from A Chorus
Line).
Susan G. Cole in Now Magazine said the evening was “far from
perfect” and was “a mess, actually”; Carly Maga in Variety found the “over-
produced” and “overly complicated” musical an “offensive and tone-deaf
portrayal of South African politics and people”; and Christopher Hoile in
stage-door.com noted that the major characters embodied “Big Themes but
never become real” people, and a musical “without conflict or character”
will only “stimulate the snooze response.”
The team of composer David Shire and lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. had
last been represented on Broadway with the debacle Big (1996). Nestruck
said the best song in their new score was the “gorgeous” duet “Let Go” for
Clark and Judy Kaye; Cole found “Let Go” a “winner”; and Maga said the
score mostly consisted of “uninspiring ballads and arbitrary comedic
songs.”
Sousatzka brought to mind Roza, a 1987 musical that bombed on
Broadway after twelve performances. Directed by Harold Prince and with
Georgia Brown in the title role, the book and lyrics were by Julian More
and the music by Gilbert Becaud, and the work was based on the 1975
novel La vie devant soi (The Life Before Us) by Emile Ajar (aka Romain
Gary). The musical took place in a boarding house in Paris, the Jewish Roza
was a concentration-camp victim, and among the boarders are a drag queen
and a hooker (and the latter’s john).
2017–2018 Season
ANGELS IN AMERICA
Theatre: Frederick P. Rose Hall/Rose Theatre/Lincoln Center

Opening Date: June 10, 2017; Closing Date: June 16, 2017
Performances: 4
Libretto: Mari Mezei
Music: Peter Eotvos
Based on the plays Angels in America, Part I: Millennium Approaches
(1991) and Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika (1992) by Tony
Kushner.
Direction: Sam Helfrich; Producer: The New York City Opera Company;
Scenery: John Farrell; Costumes: Kaye Voyce; Lighting: Derek Van
Heel; Musical Direction: Pacien Mazzagatti
Cast: Andrew Garland (Prior Walter), Kirsten Chambers (The Angel,
Voice), Sarah Beckham-Turner (Harper Pitt, Ethel Rosenberg, Angel
Antarctica), Wayne Tigges (Roy Cohn, Ghost 1, Angel Australia), Sarah
Castle (Hannah Pitt, Rabbi Chemelwitz, Henry, Angel Asiatica), Aaron
Blake (Louis Ironson, Angel Oceania), Matthew Reese (Belize, Mr.
Lies, Woman, Angel Africanii), Michael Weyandt (Joseph Pitt, Angel
Europe, Ghost 2); Vocal Trio: Cree Carrico (Soprano), Sarah Heltzel
(Mezzo-Soprano), and Peter Kendall (Baritone)
The action takes place mostly in New York City during the period 1985–
1990.
The season was bookended by two gay-themed operas presented by the

New York City Opera Company as part of its annual LGBT season. Peter
Eotvos’s operatic version of Tony Kushner’s plays Angels in America, Part
I: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika was
given its New York premiere for four performances in June, and the
following May Charles Wuorinen’s Brokeback Mountain received its New
York premiere.
Kushner’s plays had opened on Broadway in 1993 and were subtitled
“A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” Millennium premiered in San
Francisco in 1991, and opened on Broadway in June 1993, and it was joined
by Perestroika in November of that year (the premiere took place in Los
Angeles in 1992). The two plays were given at the Walter Kerr Theatre and
eventually played in repertory for the respective totals of 367 and 216
performances. The plays were rapturously received by the majority of the
critics and won numerous awards, but Best Plays reported that Perestroika
closed at a loss.
The two plays were about seven hours in length, and the opera was two-
and-a-half hours. The opera premiered on November 23, 2004, at the
Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, and the first U.S. production opened in June
2006 at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion in Boston.
The multiple stories depicted in the plays focused on real-life figure
Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was a closeted gay and died of AIDS; the
relationship of two fictional gay men, Louis and Prior, the latter stricken by
AIDS; and the marriage of the bi-sexual Joe and his valium-addicted wife
Harper. Louis and Joe enter into an affair and are guilt-ridden for having
deserted Prior and Harper, and hovering over the action are not only ghosts
but angels who interact with some of the characters.
Francisco Salazar in OperaWire said he left the opera “hoping to never
encounter it again.” The music was “mere background noises,” in the
second act the libretto was a “mess,” after intermission a “large portion” of
the audience never returned, and those who remained gave “tepid” applause
at the final curtain call; David Patrick Stearns in Operavore noted that the
score had a “controlled sense of invention, not to mention a richness that
borders on lush,” and while the libretto was “fairly deft” the opera “may
never make sense without knowing the play first”; and James Jordan in the
Observer felt the libretto emphasized the story’s “obvious and
melodramatic plot elements” and ignored Kushner’s “stylistic decision” to
use “nonstop” talking as “central” to the play’s action, and while there were
“good ideas” in the score, the music was for the most part “generically
quirky.”
Heidi Waleson in the Wall Street Journal said the adaptation
“strip[ped]s out the humanity in favor of the supernatural” and thus lost the
original’s “emotional grandeur.” The score emphasized cacophony with
“noisily insistent instruments,” the vocal writing was “varied but
inconsistent,” and the part of the text that was spoken seemed “randomly
positioned.” Eric C. Simpson in the New York Classical Review found the
libretto “energetic,” and while the music struggled “to find its way out of a
murky, sour tonality” there was nonetheless a “remarkable variation” in the
“constantly inventive” score with its “ever-shifting textures.”
PRINCE OF BROADWAY
Theatre: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Opening Date: August 24, 2017; Closing Date: October 29, 2017
Performances: 76
Book: David Thompson
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for names of lyricists and
composers
Direction: Hal Prince (Susan Stroman, Codirector; Daniel Kutner, Associate
Director); Producer: Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, Artistic
Director) by special arrangement with Gorgeous Entertainment;
Choreography: Susan Stroman (James Gray, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery and Projection Design: Beowulf Boritt; Costumes: William
Ivey Long; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Fred Lassen
Cast: Chuck Cooper, Janet Dacal, Bryonha Marie Parham, Emily Skinner,
Brandon Uranowitz, Kaley Ann Voorhees, Michael Xavier, Tony
Yazbeck, Karen Ziemba
The revue was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Overture (“Tradition”; Fiddler on the Roof, 1964; lyric by Sheldon Harnick,
music by Jerry Bock; “Willkommen” and “Cabaret”; Cabaret, 1966;
lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander; “Cool” and “Maria”; West
Side Story, 1957; lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, music by Leonard
Bernstein; “The Blob”; Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric and music by
Stephen Sondheim; “Broadway Baby”; Follies, 1971; lyric and music
by Stephen Sondheim; “The Music of the Night” and “The Phantom of
the Opera”; The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway production 1988;
lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, music by
Andrew Lloyd Webber; “Being Alive”; Company, 1970; lyric and music
by Stephen Sondheim; “A Quiet Thing”; Flora, The Red Menace, 1965;
lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander; “Hey, There”; The Pajama
Game, 1954; lyric and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross; “The
Ballad of Sweeney Todd”; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street, 1979; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim; “Don’t Cry for Me
Argentina”; Evita, Broadway production 1979; lyric by Tim Rice, music
by Andrew Lloyd Webber; “I’ve Got It All”; On the Twentieth Century,
1978; lyric by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Cy Coleman;
“She Loves Me”; She Loves Me, 1963; lyric by Sheldon Harnick, music
by Jerry Bock; and “Life Is”; Zorba, 1968; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by
John Kander)
Act One: “Hey, There” (The Pajama Game, 1954; lyric and music by
Richard Adler and Jerry Ross) (Michael Xavier); “Heart” (Damn
Yankees, 1955; lyric and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross)
(Brandon Uranowitz, Michael Xavier, Chuck Cooper, Tony Yazbeck);
“Something’s Coming” (Tony Yazbeck) and “Tonight” (Tony Yazbeck
and Kaley Ann Voorhees) (West Side Story, 1957; lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim, music by Leonard Bernstein); “Tonight at Eight” (Brandon
Uranowitz) and “Will He Like Me?” (Bryonha Marie Parham) (She
Loves Me, 1963; lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, music by Jerry Bock);
“You’ve Got Possibilities” (“It’s a Bird It’s a Plane It’s SUPERMAN,”
1966; lyric by Lee Adams, music by Charles Strouse) (Janet Dacal);
“Beautiful Girls” (Company), “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” (Tony
Yazbeck and Chuck Cooper), and “The Right Girl” (Tony Yazbeck)
(Follies, 1971; lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Night Waltz”
(Orchestra), “You Must Meet My Wife” (Michael Xavier, Emily
Skinner), and “Send in the Clowns” (A Little Night Music, 1973; lyrics
and music by Stephen Sondheim); “If I Were a Rich Man” (Chuck
Cooper) (Fiddler on the Roof, 1964; lyric by Sheldon Harnick, music by
Jerry Bock); “Willkommen” (Brandon Uranowitz), “If You Could See
Her” (Brandon Uranowitz, Karen Ziemba), “So What?” (Karen
Ziemba), and “Cabaret” (Bryonha Marie Parham) (Cabaret, 1966; lyrics
by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander)
Act Two: “Company” (Company), “The Ladies Who Lunch” (Emily
Skinner), and “Being Alive” (Michael Xavier) (Company, 1970; lyrics
and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Buenos Aires” (Janet Dacal), “A
New Argentina” (Tony Yazbeck, Company), and “Don’t Cry for Me
Argentina” (Janet Dacal) (Evita, Broadway production 1979; lyrics by
Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber); “Ol’ Man River” (Chuck
Cooper) and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Kaley Ann Voorhees,
Bryonha Marie Parham, Chuck Cooper) (1994 Broadway revival of
Show Boat; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Jerome Kern);
“Now You Know” (Emily Skinner) (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric
and music by Stephen Sondheim); “This Is Not Over Yet” (Tony
Yazbeck) (Parade, 1998; lyric and music by Jason Robert Brown);
“Dressing Them Up” (Brandon Uranowitz) and “Kiss of the Spider
Woman” (Janet Dacal) (Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1993; lyrics by Fred
Ebb, music by John Kander); “The Worst Pies in London” (Karen
Ziemba), “My Friends” (Chuck Cooper), and “The Ballad of Sweeney
Todd” (Karen Ziemba, Chuck Cooper, Company) (Sweeney Todd: The
Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 1979; lyrics and music by Stephen
Sondheim); “The Phantom of the Opera” (Michael Xavier, Kaley Ann
Voorhees), “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” (Kaley Ann
Voorhees), and “The Music of the Night” (Michael Xavier) (The
Phantom of the Opera, Broadway production 1988; lyrics by Charles
Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, music by Andrew Lloyd
Webber); “Do the Work” (Company) (song written for Prince of
Broadway; lyric and music by Jason Robert Brown)
The Manhattan Theatre Club’s limited engagement of Prince of

Broadway was a salute to director and producer Hal Prince (and was
directed by Prince with Susan Stroman as codirector and Daniel Kutner as
associate director), but it perhaps never quite answered the question of how
you pay such a tribute. Do you look at the shows a producer both chose and
turned down because of thematic or other reasons? And what about
direction? How does one convey directorial choices that define the look and
the mood and the atmosphere of a particular production? These discussions
might work in a panel format among theatre wonks, but are audiences out
for a night of theatre (and who in this case are shelling out $89 to $165 for a
single ticket) really interested in such arcane matters as a director’s style
and his production choices? Probably not, and so Prince of Broadway
amounted to little more than an evening of the greatest hits from musicals
directed and/or produced by Hal Prince. (In this case, not all the songs were
greatest hits, but surely no one complained that such relative rarities as
“You’ve Got Possibilities,” “Will He Like Me?,” and “Now You Know”
were given stage time. See list below for those musicals directed and/or
produced by Prince that weren’t included in the revue.)
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said “a prince comes up a pauper”
in this “inspirationally impoverished” catalog revue. The evening was “an
unsteady walk down a variety of memory lanes” that seemed “slapped
together for the entertainment portion of a benefit dinner,” and replete with
“wooden commentary” (the cast members often sported eyeglasses perched
on their foreheads, a look that became a trademark of sorts for Prince and
that was probably lost on most of the audience). For Ben Brantley in the
New York Times, the “motley” production offered “overtaxed” performers in
an “oppressive succession” of wigs and costumes, and sometimes context
was lacking for a particular song (such as Cabaret’s “If You Could See
Her”). Moreover, a complex and nuanced musical like Follies was an
“unlikely candidate” for such a “quick-take anthology show.” As a result,
the evening brought to mind “dinner theatre.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News noted that the show
never went “deep” into its subject and was more “Shallow Hal,” and David
Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the production left “no doubt”
about Prince’s “validity” as an “exalted” producer and director but was
nonetheless “thin on illuminating detail.” For Chris Jones in the Chicago
Tribune, the evening lacked “meaningful insight” into Prince and mostly
served “as a cautionary tale about the difficulty of anthologizing directors in
a Broadway show.”
The cast included Chuck Cooper, Janet Dacal, Brandon Uranowitz,
Tony Yazbeck, Emily Skinner, and Karen Ziemba. Skinner and Ziemba
were singled out, and Brantley praised the former’s “electrifying” take on
“The Ladies Who Lunch” and the latter’s “gripping philosophical
weariness” for “So What?”
The anthology show originated in Japan, where it opened for a limited
engagement in Tokyo at the Tokyu Theatre Orb on October 23, 2015, and
was followed by a brief engagement in Osaka; this production included
Japanese and U.S. performers, and the latter included Shuler Hensley,
Nancy Opel, Emily Skinner, and Tony Yazbeck.
Note that Prince of Broadway included one new song, “Do the Work,”
which served as the evening’s finale; the lyric and music were by Jason
Robert Brown, whose 1998 musical Parade was directed by Prince.
The following musicals were directed and/or produced by Prince, and
weren’t included in the song selections heard in Prince of Broadway: New
Girl in Town (1957), Fiorello! (1959), Tenderloin (1960), A Family Affair
(1962), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Baker
Street (1965), Pacific Overtures (1976), A Doll’s Life (1982), Grind (1985),
Roza (1987), Whistle Down the Wind (closed during 1996–1997 pre-
Broadway tryout), and LoveMusik (2007).
SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY
Performances: 229
Spoken Material, Lyrics, and Music: Bruce Springsteen
Direction: Bruce Springsteen; Producers: Jon Landau and George Travis;
Barbara Carr, Associate Producer; Scenery: Heather Wolensky;
Lighting: Natasha Katz
Cast: Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa Springsteen
The concert was given in one act.
Musical Numbers
song titles are taken from the original cast album (note that during the
run a few numbers were added, and some of the following songs were
probably deleted).
“Growin’ Up”; “My Hometown”; “My Father’s House”; “The Wish”;
“Thunder Road”; “The Promised Land”; “Born in the U.S.A.”; “Tenth
Avenue Freeze-Out”; “Tougher Than the Rest”; “Brilliant Disguise”;
“Long Time Comin’”; “The Ghost of Tom Joad”; “The Rising”;
“Dancing in the Dark”; “Land of Hope and Dreams”; “Born to Run”
The three new book shows The Book of Mormon, Hamilton, and Dear
Evan Hansen were the event musicals of the decade, the Bette Midler
Hello, Dolly! was the event revival, and Bruce Springsteen on Broadway
was the event concert, one that evoked Lena Horne: The Lady and Her
Music (1981) with its songs and occasional autobiographical detail. Horne’s
show was a monument to survival, and Springsteen’s was more in the
nature of a rueful and nostalgic narrative of his life that viewed his past and
present and perhaps even contemplated his future.
Springsteen sang a dozen or so songs at each performance (and
accompanied himself on guitar and piano), and was joined by his wife Patti
Scialfa for two numbers (“Tougher Than the Rest” and “Brilliant
Disguise”). The concert was originally scheduled for a limited run of a few
weeks, but because of its popularity and the singer’s willingness to extend
the engagement, the show played on and off for over a year (with six
scheduled periods when it went on hiatus) and gave five showings for each
performance week, a total of 229.
Jesse Green in the New York Times said the “overwhelming and
uncategorizable” evening was a “painful if thrilling” statement about the
performer’s life and music and was a “greatest anti-hits concert,” because
some songs were “less familiar and more meditative” than his hits. Green
also said that “as portraits of artists go, there may never have been anything
as real—and beautiful—on Broadway.” Andy Greene in Rolling Stone
noted that the evening wasn’t a concert or a “typical” one-man show, and it
“certainly” wasn’t a Broadway musical. But it was “one of the most
compelling and profound shows by a rock musician in recent memory.” Jim
Fusilli in the Wall Street Journal said the concert was “enjoyable though not
entirely successful,” and it “worked best” when the singer “brought the
audience closer” and “sagged when he reverted to the outsize character
required to communicate to much larger crowds.” Fusilli noted that the
evening was an “unabashed proclamation” of the singer’s “affiliation with
traditional values” that embraced his family and friends, and he even recited
“The Lord’s Prayer,” a “risky gambit that came off thanks to his linking it”
to stories of his early childhood Catholic education.
A recording of the concert was released by Columbia Records on a two-
CD set and a four-record vinyl set. A film of the concert was taken from
two live performances given in the summer of 2018, and was shown on
Netflix on December 16, 2018, the day after the Broadway production
closed.
Awards
Tony Award: Special Award (Bruce Springsteen)
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL

Libretto: Tom Cairns and Thomas Ades
Music: Thomas Ades
Based on the 1962 Gustavo Alatriste film The Exterminating Angel
(direction by Luis Bunuel and screenplay by Bunuel and Luis Alcoriza).
Direction: Tom Cairns; Producer: The Metropolitan Opera Company (and
coproduced with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Royal
Danish Theatre; and the Salzburg Festival); Choreography: Amir
Hosseinpour; Scenery and Costumes: Hildegard Bechtler; Projection
Designs: Jon Clark; Lighting: Jon Clark; Musical Direction: Thomas
Ades
Cast: Joseph Kaiser (Edmundo De Nobile), Amanda Echalaz (Lucia De
Nobile), Audrey Luna (Leticia Maynar), Alice Coote (Leonora Palma),
Sally Matthews (Silvia De Avila), Iestyn Davies (Francisco De Avila),
Christine Rice (Blanca Delgado), Rod Gilfry (Alberto Roc), Sophie
Bevan (Beatriz), David Portillo (Eduardo), Frederic Antoun (Raul
Yebenes), David Adam Moore (Colonel Alvaro Gomez), Kevin
Burdette (Senor Russell), John Tomlinson (Doctor Carlos Conde),
Christian Van Horn (Julio), John Irvin (Lucas), Ian Koziara (Enrique),
Paul Corona (Pablo), Mary Dunleavy (Meni), Edyta Kulczak (Camila),
Andrea Coleman (Servant), Marc Persing (Servant), Jeff Mattsey (Padre
Sanson), Lucas Mann (Yoli), Cynthia Millar (Ondes Martenot), Dimitri
Dover (Piano), Michael Kudirka (Guitar)
The opera was presented in three acts.
The action takes place in a luxurious mansion on the Calle de la
Providencia in an unspecified country during the early 1960s.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of the musical sequences.
Thomas Ades’s opera The Exterminating Angel was based on Luis

Bunuel’s 1962 film of the same name. Bunuel’s dark and surreal horror-
comedy took place in an elegant mansion where well-to-do society types
have been invited to dinner, an elegant crystal-and-silver affair that
promises to be a memorable evening. The hosts welcome their guests, but
oddly enough most of the servants have fled, no doubt due to a premonition
of an approaching apocalypse. What transpires is a nightmare in which
everyone at the dinner party is overtaken by inertia, a self-imposed
imprisonment where there’s no exit and they’re condemned to remain in the
dining room forever or until death, whichever comes first. They eventually
run out of food, and in one way or another begin to die off, two by suicide.
The film was a not-too-subtle satire of the upper classes in Spain who failed
to respond to Franco’s oppressive regime and thus passively allowed their
country to fall under his dictatorship.
If City Opera’s Candide included performers who impersonated coy and
cute musical-comedy sheep, the Met did one better by hiring three actual
sheep (Charles Passy in the Wall Street Journal wrote about the trio of
“reigning divas,” and reported that Nancy Novograd of All-Tame Animals
assured everyone that the sheep were “properly cared for and happy to take
part in productions”). The animals roamed the stage and weren’t sheepish in
their roles which served to underscore the inertia of their human
counterparts. And the sheep served in other ways, as a temporary means of
survival for the guests, who butcher them for food when there’s nothing left
to eat (but rest assured that our three divas weren’t harmed). If sheep are
sacrificed, so eventually are those who eat them, a conceit that no doubt
would have pleased Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, whose characters in their
opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny are similarly trapped, in
this case in a city that permits and even encourages every vice imaginable
except the one most unforgivable sin of all, being poor: if you can’t pay
your bills, you are executed.
Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times praised the “audacious” and
“powerful” opera, and said the “thorny, modernistic” music “bristled with
manic, almost madcap, energy,” and in the suicide scene the lovers were
given the evening’s “most rapturous” music. Tommasini suggested that if
his readers were to attend just one of the Met’s offerings during a season
“very heavy on the staples,” that opera should be the “bold” Exterminating
Angel.
Heidi Waleson in the Wall Street Journal noted that because of the
“streamlined” libretto the opera was “almost always funny” and the “vocal
writing” made the characters “distinct.” She singled out a brief aria for the
spoiled and effete Francisco (Iestyn Davies, who also won praise later in the
season when he sang the role of Farinelli in Farinelli and the King) who
laments that his coffee was served with a teaspoon instead of a coffee
spoon. Justin Davidson in New York said Ades’s score was of “exquisite
craftsmanship,” and there were few composers who could “conjure fear,
contentment, bitterness, disgust, and joy with a few quick measures.”
David Patrick Stearns in Operavore said the score was “wonderfully
atmospheric in the orchestral writing” but the “word settings and vocal
writing border[ed] on disaster,” and the music was “too heavy-handed to be
humorous.” And although David Salazar in OperaWire found the evening
an “interesting exercise,” that didn’t mean it made “for exhilarating opera,”
especially for those “uninitiated into the art form.”
The opera’s world premiere was presented by the Salzburg Festival at
the Haus fur Mozart on July 28, 2016, and was later given in London on
April 24, 2017, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The libretto was published in paperback by Faber Music in 2017. The
October 26, 2017, performance of the opera was broadcast live on radio,
and the November 18 performance was shown theatrically as part of the
Metropolitan Opera Live HD series.
THE BAND’S VISIT

Opening Date: November 9, 2017; Closing Date: April 7, 2019
Performances: 589
Book: Itamar Moses
Based on the 2007 Sony Pictures Classics’ film The Band’s Visit (direction
and screenplay by Eran Kolirin).
Direction: David Cromer; Producers: Orin Wolf, Stylesfour Productions,
Evamere Entertainment, Atlantic Theatre Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic
Director), David F. Schwartz, Barbara Broccoli, Frederick Zollo, Grove-
Reg, Lassen Blume Baldwin, Thomas Steven Perakos, Marc Platt, The
Shubert Organization, The Baruch/Routh/Frankel/Viertel Group, Robert
Cole, Deroy-Carr-Klausner, Federman-Moellenberg, Filmnation
Entertainment, Roy Furman, FVSL Theatricals, Hendel-Karmazin,
Horipro Inc., IPN (Independent Presenters Network), Jam Theatricals,
The John Gore Organization, Koenisberg-Krauss, David Mirvish, James
L. Nederlander, Al Nocciolino, Once Upon a Time Productions (Iris
Smith, CEO), Susan Rose, Paul Shiverick; Allan Williams, Executive
Producer; Steven Chaikelson, Associate Producer; Choreography:
Patrick McCollum; Scenery: Scott Pask; Projection Design: Maya
Ciarrocchi; Costumes: Sarah Laux; Lighting: Tyler Micoleau; Musical
Direction: Andrea Grody
Cast: Katrina Lenk (Dina), Tony Shalhoub (Tewfiq), John Cariani (Itzik),
Ari’el Stachel (Haled), George Abud (Camal), Etai Benson (Papi),
Adam Kantor (Telephone Guy), Andrew Polk (Avrum), Bill Army
(Zelger), Rachel Prather (Julia), Jonathan Raviv (Sammy), Sharone
Sayegh (Anna), Kristen Sieh (Iris), Alok Tewari (Simon); The Band:
Ossama Farouk, Sam Sadigursky, Harvey Valdes, Garo Yellin
The action takes place in Israel in 1996.
Musical Numbers
Overture (The Band); “Waiting” (Residents of Bet Hatikva); “Welcome to
Nowhere” (Katrina Lenk, John Cariani, Etai Benson); “It Is What It Is”
(Katrina Lenk); “The Beat of Your Heart” (Andrew Polk, John Cariani,
Alok Tewari, George Abud); “Soraya” (The Band); “Omar Sharif”
(Katrina Lenk); “Haj-Butrus” (The Band); “Papi Hears the Ocean” (Etai
Benson); “Haled’s Song about Love” (Ari’el Stachel, Etai Benson);
“Something Different” (Tony Shalhoub, Katrina Lenk); “Itzik’s
Lullaby” (John Cariani, George Abud); “Something Different” (reprise)
(Katrina Lenk); “Answer Me” (Adam Kantor, Ensemble); “The
Concert” (The Band)
David Yazbek’s The Band’s Visit was based on the 2007 Israeli film of
the same name, and although the musical had enjoyed a critically acclaimed
and extended Off-Broadway run during the 2016–2017 season, the show
was something of an underdog during the current one, which offered brand
musicals based on popular films and television shows (the family-friendly
Frozen and SpongeBob SquarePants and the teenage-girl-and-high-school
saga Mean Girls). But like the previous season’s Dear Evan Hansen and
Come from Away, The Band’s Visit became a hit and in fact walked away
with nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score (Yazbek), Best
Book (Itamar Moses), Best Director of a Musical (David Cromer), Best
Leading Actor in a Musical (Tony Shalhoub), and Best Leading Actress in a
Musical (Katrina Lenk). The production cost a reported $8.75 million to
mount, and recouped its capitalization some ten months into the Broadway
run. The musical’s success was particularly gratifying because, as Ben
Brantley in the New York Times stated, it was “an honest-to-God musical for
grown-ups.”
The story dealt with an eight-member Egyptian band known as The
Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra which is booked for an
engagement at an Arab cultural center in an Israeli city. But the band is
mistakenly sent to a backwater Jewish village in the Negev Desert, a god-
forsaken place where they’re greeted by the locals with the song “Welcome
to Nowhere.”
The band and its conductor Tewfiq (Shalhoub) are stuck in the village
until the next day, when a bus will take them to their original destination.
The locals warily but charitably step in and house and feed the band
members, most notably the café owner Dina (Lenk). Despite their different
backgrounds and religions, Tewfiq and Dina overcome their uneasiness
about the other because they’re both divorced and share the common bond
of loneliness. The next day comes, the band takes off, and the village falls
back into its usual routines and rituals.
The evening began with projected words on the stage that referenced the
Egyptians who came to Israel, something “you probably didn’t hear about”
because “it wasn’t very important.” And, heartbreakingly, the evening
ended with the same words, this time spoken by Dina.
Yes, this was a musical in which nothing happens and everything
happens in its depiction of lonely, ordinary people who overcome their
wariness of strangers and share a few hours of understanding and maybe
even self-knowledge. And, most impressive, Moses’s book followed the
less-is-more dictum and never delved into the inherent political differences
between the two cultures, and never talked down to the audience by
relegating complicated political, cultural, and religious differences with
platitudes of the why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along variety.
Michael Schulman in the New Yorker praised the “beguiling” lyrics and
music and the “spare and shrewd” book, and said the creators and the
performers knew “exactly what, and when, to hold back”; Marilyn Stasio in
Variety said the “disarming” evening had “emotional depth” and Yazbek’s
“wonderful” score was “nuanced” in its use of “vaguely” Arabic and Israeli
music; Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal noted that the score was a
“savory multicultural mix” of Egyptian “pop,” Israeli klezmer, and “cool
American jazz,” and these songs were “so fresh-sounding that you can
scarcely believe they’re being sung on a Broadway stage”; Barbara Schuler
in Newsday said the work’s “brilliance” stemmed from Yazbek’s score,
which brought the story to life with “rich ballads, smooth jazz, a touching
lullaby, even some klezmer”; for Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily
News, the “hushed” and “heart-melting” musical was “real” and “truly
magical,” and it worked “wonderfully because it never overstates”; and
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said Shalhoub gave an “immaculately
tender performance,” Lenk was “tough-shelled but emphatic,” and when the
latter sang she was “as alluring as a cool wind on a sultry Middle Eastern
night.”
Perhaps Brantley best summed up The Band’s Visit: it was “one of the
most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by.”
Note that both Come from Away and The Band’s Visit explored similar
stories of outsiders who are temporarily thrust into new environments and
how during the course of hours or days both visitors and natives learn
something about others, and, perhaps more importantly, something about
themselves.
The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records and includes a
bonus track of the unused song “Afifi.” The script was published in
paperback by Theatre Communications Group in 2018.
The musical had previously been presented Off-Broadway by the
Atlantic Theatre Company at the Linda Gross Theatre on December 8,
2016.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Band’s Visit); Best Book
(Itamar Moses); Best Score (lyrics and music by David Yazbek); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Tony
Shalhoub); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Katrina Lenk); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Ari’el Stachel); Best Direction of a Musical (David
Cromer); Best Orchestrations (Jamshied Sharifi); Best Scenic Design
of a Musical (Scott Pask); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Tyler
Micoleau); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Kai Harada)
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

“LIVE ON BROADWAY” / “THE BROADWAY CONCERT CELEBRATION”

Performances: 47
Direction: Hadley Schnuck, Associate Director; Producers: Chart Breakers
Live! and Michael J. Guccione; Jeffrey Chrzczon; Mike and Carol
Molus, Associate Producers; Costumes: James Brown III, Wardrobe
Stylist; Fashions provided by Sherri Hill, Stephen F, Nina Shoes, and
Noah Waxman; Lighting: Jason Kantrowitz; Musical Direction:
Jonathan Tessero
Cast: Host—Kaitlyn Bristowe; Performers—Candice Glover, Josh
Kaufman, Bianca Ryan, Peter Hollens, Evynne Hollens; Special
Appearance—Danny Aiello
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The
alphabetical list below reflects some of the songs heard in the
production and is taken from various newspaper reviews.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You”; “Christmas (Baby, Please Come
Home)”; “Do You Hear What I Hear?”; “The First Noel”; “Have
Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis;
lyric and music by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); “Joy to the World”;
“O Come, All Ye Faithful”; “O Holy Night”; “Silver Bells” (1951 film
The Lemon Drop Kid; lyric and music by Jay Livingston and Ray
Evans); “What Christmas Means to Me”; `“Where Are You,
Christmas?”; “Why Couldn’t It Be Christmas Every Day?”
The Christmas concert Home for the Holidays played out its limited
engagement of six weeks, but not before receiving brickbats from the
critics. Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Times said the “limp” evening
lacked the “sense of humor and kitsch” of Donny and Marie’s 2010 holiday
show (Donny & Marie—A Broadway Christmas) and thus made the
Osmonds’ presentation “look as debauched as a Motley Crue concert.”
Adam Feldman in Time Out noted that a sign in the theatre lobby warned of
“haze effects,” and sure enough the evening offered a “hazy concept,”
“hazy singing,” and “hazy stories,” and the show was “unlikely to remind
you much of home unless you were raised in a department-store elevator.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News was on the same
wavelength as Feldman, and said the scenery consisted of six fold-out
Christmas trees “that appear to have been borrowed from a department
store,” and all the songs were performed in “fast, furious, forgettable
fashion.” And Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said the “torturous”
evening was akin to something offered “on a cruise ship or in a low-rent
Las Vegas casino,” had the “distinction of being one of the cheapest-
looking shows to hit the Great White Way in many years,” and was a
Christmas presentation that “only Ebenezer Scrooge could love.”
Most of the cast members were from the worlds of television reality
competitions and the internet, including Candice Glover (American Idol),
Josh Kaufman (The Voice, and also the title role of Pippin during the run of
its 2013 Broadway revival), Bianca Ryan (America’s Got Talent), Kaitlyn
Bristowe (Bachelorette), and husband-and-wife Peter and Evynne Hollens
(who per their program bios were YouTube and Facebook favorites). And
for some reason veteran actor Danny Aiello was in the cast, occasionally
telling nostalgic stories (Scheck reported that Aiello told the audience he’d
been “somewhat apprehensive” about appearing in the concert, and the
critic said the actor’s instincts were “correct”).
As the concert’s host, Bristowe announced that the evening had “a cast
unlike any ever assembled before,” and Scheck said the statement had “the
virtue of being true.” Further, Bristowe said being on Broadway fulfilled
her “lifelong dream.” Scheck was quick to note that “one person’s dream is
an audience’s nightmare.” Dziemianowicz said something was “missing” in
the show, and that something was “a star,” because “winning a contest
doesn’t guarantee you radiate stage presence.” But Vincentelli noted that
Candice Glover’s “singing and warmth” filled the theatre with her
“naturally burnished” tone, and Scheck said Kaufman had a “nicely low-
key vocal style.”
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND

Performances: 457
Book and Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens
Based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love, or The Peasant Girl by Rosa
Guy.
Direction: Michael Arden (David Perlow, Associate Director); Producers:
Ken Davenport, Hunter Arnold, Carl Daikeler, Roy Putrino, Broadway
Strategic Return Fund, Sandi Moran, Caiola Productions, H. Richard
Hopper, Diego Kolankowsky, Brian Cromwell Smith, Ron Kastner, Rob
Kolson, Judith Manocherian/Kevin Lyle, Witzend Productions/Jeff
Grove/Wishnie-Strasberg, Mark Ferris/Michelle Riley/Marie Stevenson,
and The Harbert Family/Keith Cromwell/Red Mountain Theatre
Company; Kayla Greenspan and Valerie Novakoff, Associate
Producers; Choreography: Camille A. Brown (Rickey Tripp, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: Dane Laffrey; Costumes: Clint Ramos;
Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Alvin
Hough Jr.
Cast: Phillip Boykin (Tonton Julian), Darlesia Cearcy (Storyteller), Rodrick
Covington (Storyteller), Merle Dandridge (Papa Ge), Quentin Earl
Darrington (Agwe), Emerson Davis (Little Girl), Alysha Deslorieux
(Andrea), Tyler Hardwick (Storyteller), Cassondra James (Storyteller),
David Jennings (Armand, Storyteller), Hailey Kilgore (Ti Moune),
Grasan Kingsberry (Storyteller), Loren Lott (Storyteller), Kenita R.
Miller (Mama Euralie), Alex Newell (Asaka), Isaac Powell (Daniel), T.
Oliver Reid (Storyteller), Lea Salonga (Erzulie), Aurelia Williams
(Storyteller), Mia Williamson (Little Girl)
The action takes place “then and now” on an island in the French Antilles.
Musical Numbers
Prologue and “We Dance” (Company); “One Small Girl” (Phillip Boykin,
Kenita R. Miller, Emerson Davis, Storytellers); “Waiting for Life”
(Hailey Kilgore, Storytellers); “And the Gods Heard Her Prayer” (Alex
Newell, Quentin Earl Darrington, Merle Dandridge, Lea Salonga);
“Rain” (Quentin Earl Darrington, Storytellers); “Discovering Daniel”
(Hailey Kilgore, Storytellers); “Pray” (Hailey Kilgore, Phillip Boykin,
Kenita R. Miller, Storytellers); “Forever Yours” (Hailey Kilgore, Isaac
Powell, Merle Dandridge, Storytellers); “The Sad Tale of the
Beauxhommes” (David Jennings, Storytellers); “Ti Moune” (Kenita R.
Miller, Phillip Boykin, Hailey Kilgore, Storytellers); “Mama Will
Provide” (Alex Newell, Storytellers); “Waiting for Life” (reprise)
(Hailey Kilgore); “Some Say” (Storytellers, Emerson Davis); “The
Human Heart” (Lea Salonga, Storytellers); “Gossip” (Storytellers;
sequence may have included a reprise of “Pray”); “Some Girls” (Isaac
Powell); “The Ball” (Alysha Deslorieux, Isaac Powell, Storytellers); “Ti
Moune’s Dance” (Hailey Kilgore, Grands Hommes); “Andrea
Sequence” (aka “When We Are Wed”) (Alysha Deslorieux, Hailey
Kilgore, Isaac Powell, Storytellers); “Promises” and “Forever Yours”
(reprise) (Merle Dandridge, Hailey Kilgore, Lea Salonga, Storytellers);
“Wedding Sequence”; “A Part of Us” (Kenita R. Miller, Emerson Davis,
Phillip Boykin, Storytellers); “Why We Tell the Story” (Company)
The slight story of Once on This Island dealt with a group of islanders
in the French Antilles who pass the time during a storm by acting out a
fable about class distinction in which a poor girl loves a rich man’s son who
eventually scorns her by marrying another. In his review of the original
1990 production, Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News reported that
the jilted girl does the only logical thing, and thus turns herself into a tree.
Further, there was an “implicit” element of “condescension towards the
characters,” and the performers were “restricted by the pidgin quality” of
the score, which lacked “depth” with its “repetitive” and “mechanical”
music and “arch and coy” lyrics. And in his review of the original
production, Clive Barnes in the New York Post welcomed the “cheerful”
show but noted that with the release of the cast album the score’s
“relentlessly pastiche style” was “mercilessly exposed.”
The current revival received mostly favorable reviews, and in a season
in which the other two revivals were politically correct takes on Carousel
and My Fair Lady, Once on This Island walked away with the Tony Award
for Best Revival of a Musical. The production was capitalized at $7.5
million and mustered 457 performances (the original played for 469
showings), and according to the New York Times it failed to recoup its
investment.
Jesse Green in the Times praised the “ravishing” revival; Marilyn Stasio
in Variety found the score “perfectly lovely” and made the statement that
the songs advanced the narrative “in ways rarely seen”; and David Rooney
in the Hollywood Reporter said the score was “propulsive” and “calypso-
accented,” and while some of the early scenes flirted “with a whimsical
quality that might easily turn cloying, the dramatic integrity of the piece
prevails.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal noted that the
“imaginative” revival offered a book and score that were “often sweet,
clever and touching,” but if the musical intended to depict a “myth,” the
myth was “weak stuff” with “its power and mystery insisted upon but not
felt,” and if the show meant “to offer a moral lesson, it is even weaker.”
The musical was first presented Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons
on May 6, 1990, for twenty-four performances, and opened on Broadway at
the Booth Theatre the following October 18 for 469 showings. Between the
Off-Broadway engagement and the Broadway premiere, the cast recording
was issued by RCA Victor Records (which included two sequences not
listed in the Broadway program, “Ti Moune’s Dance” and “When We Are
Wed,” the latter also known as “Andrea Sequence”). The London
production opened at the Island Theatre on September 28, 1994, and was
recorded by That’s Entertainment Records; it includes the two
aforementioned songs as well as “Discovering Daniel,” a song not listed in
the program of the original Broadway production but reclaimed for the
current revival.
The Varese Sarabande collections Lost in Boston (the first in the series,
and not described as volume one) and Lost in Boston III include two cut
songs from the score (the first offers “Come Down from the Tree” and the
second “When Daniel Marries,” a number intended for the character Ti
Moune and is here sung by LaChanze aka Rhonda LaChanze Sapp, who
played the role for both the Off-Broadway and Broadway productions). The
revival’s cast album was released by Broadway Records.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Once on This
Island); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Hailey Kilgore); Best Direction of a Musical (Michael Arden); Best
Orchestrations (AnnMarie Milazzo and Michael Starobin); Best Scenic
Design of a Musical (Diane Laffrey); Best Costume Design of a
Musical (Clint Ramos); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Jules Fisher
and Peggy Eisenhauer); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Peter
Hylenski)
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
Opening Date: December 4, 2017; Closing Date: September 16, 2018
Performances: 327
Book: Kyle Jarrow
Lyrics and Music: Original songs by Yolanda Adams, Steven Tyler and Joe
Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, Alex Ebert of
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Lady
Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman, John Legend, Panic! At the
Disco, Plain White T’s, They Might Be Giants, T.I. (Clifford Harris Jr.),
Domani Harris, and Li’l C (the latter probably Darwin Quinn); songs by
David Bowie and Brian Eno, and Tom Kenny and Andy Paley;
additional lyrics by Jonathan Coulton; additional music by Tom Kitt
Based on the Nickelodeon television series SpongeBob SquarePants, which
was first aired in 1999 and was created by Stephen Hillenburg.
Direction: Tina Landau; Producers: Nickelodeon, The Araca Group, Sony
Music Masterworks, and Kelp on the Road; Susan Vargo, Executive
Producer; Choreography: Christopher Gattelli; Scenery and Costumes:
David Zinn; Projection Design: Peter Nigrini; Lighting: Kevin Adams;
Musical Direction: Julie McBride Cast: Ethan Slater (SpongeBob
SquarePants), Danny Skinner (Patrick Star), Gavin Lee (Squidward Q.
Tentacles), Lilli Cooper (Sandy Cheeks), Brian Ray Norris (Eugene
Krabs), Wesley Norris (Sheldon Plankton), Jon Rua (Patchy the Pirate),
Vasthy Mompoint (Security Guard), JC Schuster (Security Guard, Old
Man Jenkins), Allan K. Washington (Gary, Larry the Lobster),
Stephanie Hsu (Karen the Computer), Gaelen Gilliland (The Mayor),
Abby C. Smith (Mrs. Puff), Jai’Len Christine Li Josey (Pearl Krabs),
Kelvin Moon Loh (Perch Perkins); The BFFs: Kyle Matthew Hamilton,
Vasthy Mompoint, and Robert Taylor Jr.; Plankton Dancers: Vasthy
Mompoint, Oneika Phillips, Jon Rua, and Robert Taylor Jr.; Sardine
Corps: Lauralyn McClelland, Vasthy Mompoint, Oneika Phillips, Jon
Rua, and Robert Taylor Jr.; The Electric Skates: L’ogan J’ones, Kyle
Matthew Hamilton, and Curtis Holbrook; French Narrator: Tom Kenny;
A Vast Array of Undersea Creatures: Gaelen Gilliland, Kyle Matthew
Hamilton, Curtis Holbrook, Stephanie Hsu, L’ogan J’ones, Jai’Len
Christine LI Josey, Kelvin Moon Loh, Lauralyn McClelland, Vasthy
Mompoint, Oneika Phillips, Jon Rua, JC Schuster, Abby C. Smith,
Robert Taylor Jr., Allan K. Washington
The action takes place in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Bikini Bottom Day” (lyric and music by Jonathan Coulton) (The
Town); “Bikini Bottom Day” (reprise) (Ethan Slater); “No Control”
(lyric and music by David Bowie and Brian Eno) (Kelvin Moon Loh,
The Town); “BFF” (lyric and music by Plain White T’s/Tom
Higgenson) (Ethan Slater, Danny Skinner); “When the Going Gets
Tough” (lyric and music by T.I. aka Clifford Harris Jr., Domani Harris,
and Darwin Quinn) (Plankton, The Town); “(Just a) Simple Sponge”
(lyric and music by Panic! At the Disco/Brendon Urie) (Ethan Slater,
Brian Ray Norris, Gavin Lee, Plankton, Sponges); “Daddy Knows
Best” (lyric and music by Alex Ebert of The Magnetic Sharp and the
Magnetic Zeros) (Brian Ray Norris, Jai’Len Christine Li Josey); “Hero
Is My Middle Name” (lyric and music by Cyndi Lauper and Rob
Hyman) (Ethan Slater, Danny Skinner, Lilli Cooper); “Super Sea Star
Savior” (lyric and music by Yolanda Adams) (Danny Skinner,
Sardines); “Tomorrow Is” (lyric and music by The Flaming Lips/Wayne
Coyne, Steven Drozd, and Derek Brown) (The Town)
Act Two: “Poor Pirates” (lyric and music by Sara Bareilles) (John Rua,
Pirates); “Bikini Bottom Day” (reprise) (Ethan Slater); “Bikini Bottom
Boogie” (lyric and music by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith)
(The Electric Skates, Jai’Len Christine Li Josey, Fans); “Chop to the
Top” (lyric and music by Lady Antebellum/Charles Kelley, Dave
Haywood, and Hillary Scott) (Lilli Cooper, Ethan Slater); “(I Guess I)
Miss You” (lyric and music by John Stephens and John Legend) (Danny
Skinner, Ethan Slater); “I’m Not a Loser” (lyric and music by They
Might Be Giants/John Flansburgh and John Linnell) (Gavin Lee, Sea
Anemones); “(Just a) Simple Sponge” (reprise) (Ethan Slater); “Best
Day Ever” (lyric and music by Andy Paley and Tom Kenny [or
Kenney]) (Ethan Slater, The Town); Finale: “Bikini Bottom Day”
(reprise) (The Town); Program Note: “[A]nd of course: “The
SpongeBob Theme Song” by Derek Drymon, Mark Harrison, Stephen
Hillenburg and Blaise Smith.”
With its built-in fan base, brand-name franchise, and many good
reviews, a musical version of the popular and long-running television
animated series SpongeBob SquarePants seemed destined for a long and
profitable Broadway run. But the production (which reportedly cost $20
million to mount) managed just 327 performances. One suspects the show
will do better as a road attraction on a subscription series, and the musical
seems a given for community theatre if a smaller, modified version is
eventually made available.
The musical took place in the undersea world of Bikini Bottom and
featured its host of quirky inhabitants, including hero and fast-food
employee SpongeBob SquarePants (Ethan Slater) and his best-friend-
forever Patrick Star (Danny Skinner). Along for the ride are Squidward Q.
Tentacles (Gavin Lee) and others who sport such names as Mr. Krabs, Larry
the Lobster, Perch Perkins, and Karen the Computer. The basic story line
focused on a volcano that threatens Bikini Bottom and its citizens.
SpongeBob anticipated Escape to Margaritaville. Both musicals
featured a plot that involved a volcano, both utilized rather garish
Hawaiian-styled outfits for the players to wear, and both ended with a
downpour of beach balls which showered the audience. And history
repeated itself! David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said he was
“knocked on the head” with a beach ball (“lawsuit pending,” he noted), and
later in the season when he attended Margaritaville Peter Marks in the
Washington Post underwent the same experience with one of the offending
orbs.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “exhaustively imaginative”
show offered “lavish” decor by David Zinn that amounted to a “playpen-
aquarium as it might have been conceived by an industrious five-year-old,”
or one “with an obsessive-compulsive attention to detail.” But Brantley
warned that if you weren’t initiated into the sensibility of the SpongeBob
world, you might “find your patience sorely tested.” As for Slater, you’ll
never see “as convincing an impersonation of a two-dimensional cartoon by
a three-dimensional human.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the evening’s “visual language” was
“psychedelically inspired” with “hallucinogenic stagecraft,” but because
there were so many lyricists and composers the score lacked a “signature
style.” However, the evening provided “plenty of giddy, goofy fun for all.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said “fun [is] the name of
the game in this family-friendly” show, with a “powerhouse” performance
by Slater and an “eclectic” and “easy-to-like” score, and Adam Feldman in
Timeout praised the “splashy” production, which was a “joy” to watch in its
“ravishing stream of color and invention.” David Rooney in the Hollywood
Reporter noted that the presentation was “uneven” with a “patchwork”
score but nonetheless had “genuinely explosive moments.” To be sure,
“West Side Story it ain’t,” and the musical was certain “to reignite the old
debate about the infantilization and theme-parkification of Broadway.”
The cast album was released by Masterworks Broadway on CD and a
two-record vinyl set.
During the period of the post-Broadway tour, the musical was filmed
live before a studio audience and was televised on Nickelodeon and other
cable channels in December 2019; the cast included members from the
original Broadway production, including Ethan Slater and Gavin Lee.
Amazon Prime Video released the telefilm for streaming.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (SpongeBob SquarePants);
Best Book: Kyle Jarrow; Best Score (lyrics and music by Yolanda
Adams, Sara Bareilles, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith,
Jonathan Coulton, Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros,
The Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, Rob Hyman, John
Legend, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T’s, They Might Be Giants,
T.I. Domani, and Li’l C; Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading
Role in a Musical (Ethan Slater); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Gavin Lee): Best Choreography
(Christopher Gattelli); Best Direction of a Musical (Tina Landau); Best
Orchestrations (Tom Kitt); Best Scenic Design of a Musical (David
Zinn); Best Costume Design of a Musical (David Zinn); Best Lighting
Design of a Musical (Kevin Adams); Best Sound Design of a Musical
(Foley Design by Mike Dobson and Sound Design by Walter Trarbach)
ELF (2017)
Theatre: The Hulu Theatre at Madison Square Garden
The current visit from Elf was the fourth of four productions given
during the decade; the musical had been previously presented in 2010,
2012, and 2015, and like the current show all had been limited engagements
that played during their respective holiday seasons. For the current
production, George Wendt was Santa and Erik Gratton was Buddy. See
entries for the other three productions, and note that the entry for the 2010
engagement gives more detailed information about the musical.
FARINELLI AND THE KING

Opening Date: December 17, 2017; Closing Date: March 25, 2018
Performances: 111
Play: Claire Van Kampen
Direction: John Dove; Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions,
Shakespeare’s Globe, Paula Marie Black, Tom Smedes, Peter Stern,
Jane Bergere, Jane Dubin/Rachel Weinstein, 1001 Nights Productions,
Elizabeth Cuthrell and Steven Tuttleman, Rupert Gavin, Robyn L.
Paley, SGC USA, Tulchin Bartner Productions, Cindy and Jay
Gutterman/Marc David Levine, Marguerite Hoffman/Van Kaplan, and
Shakespeare Road; A Shakespeare’s Globe Production; Scenery and
Costumes: Jonathan Fensom; Lighting: Paul Russell; Musical Direction:
Robert Howarth
Cast: Sam Crane (Farinelli aka Carlo Broschi), Huss Garbiya (Doctor Jose
Cervi), Melody Grove (Isabella Farnese), Lucas Hall (Jethro, Miguel),
Colin Hurley (John Rich), Edward Peel (De La Cuadra), Mark Rylance
(King Philippe V); Singers: Iestyn Davies, James Hall; Musicians:
Robert Howarth (Harpsichord), Pavlo Benzo-Siuk (Violin), Chloe Fedor
(Violin), Kyle Miller (Viola), Daniel Swenberg (Theorbo, Baroque
Guitar), Jonathan Byers (Cello), Pippa Macmillan (Bass)
The action takes place in Madrid during the 1730s.
Musical Sequences
“Ho perso il caro ben” (Handel; Il Parnasso in Festa, Part 2 XIII); “Alto
Giove” (Porpora; Polifemo, Act One, Scene Four); “Fra tempeste
funeste a quest’alma” (Handel; Rodelinda, Act Two, Scene Four);
“Sento la gioia” (Handel; Amadigi di Gaula, Act Three, Scene Six); “Se
in fiorita” (Handel; Giulio Cesare, Act Two, Scene Two); “Venti,
turbini, prestate” (Handel; Rinaldo, Act One, Scene Nine); “Cara sposa”
(Handel; Rinaldo, Act One, Scene Seven); “Bel contento” (Handel;
Flavio, Act One, Scene Five); “Lascia, ch’io pianga” (Handel; Rinaldo,
Act Two, Scene Four)
The play-with-music Farinelli and the King was first produced in

London in 2015, where it was given by Shakespeare’s Globe at the Sam
Wanamaker Playhouse and then in the West End at the Duke of York’s
Theatre. The New York limited engagement featured the original British
cast members, including Mark Rylance (King Philippe V) and Sam Crane
(Farinelli). The author and musical arranger of the play was Claire Van
Kampen (Rylance’s wife), and the production included seven musicians.
Note that Crane portrayed Farinelli and that Iestyn Davies sang the part (at
some performances, Davies was spelled by James Hall).
The drama centered on the Spanish King Philippe V, who according to
the program notes by David Cote suffered from bipolar disorder; he
remained on the throne for fifty years, but his behavior was erratic and his
mental health was questioned by his subjects (in his first scene, we find
Philippe fishing in a goldfish bowl). His second wife, Isabella Farnese
(Melody Grove), decided music therapy might help him, and brought the
castrato Farinelli to court, where he sang for Philippe during a period of
almost ten years.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that despite dialogue that
didn’t always “flow melodically,” the “strangely enchanting” evening was a
“shimmering fairy tale for grown-ups,” and when Philippe hears Farinelli’s
voice it was as if he “glimpsed a paradise beyond his fractious court and his
burdened royal self.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal found the
play a “tissue-thin” vehicle for Rylance, an evening that was “all frosting
and no cake.” But the frosting was made with the “very best butter cream,”
and Davies’s singing and John Dove’s direction overcame the play’s
“dramatic deficiencies.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety noted that Dove gave the production a
“heavily gilded style” appropriate for the formal Baroque mise-en-scène,
but she regretted that the dialogue utilized “anachronistic” language that
was “barbarically contemporary”; Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York
Daily News thought the first act “poky,” but said the second gained
“momentum,” Rylance was “riveting” but “occasionally too stagy,” and the
evening’s “bright creative stroke” was the notion of two Farinellis (the
“wonderfully sympathetic” Crane and the “sweet-voiced countertenor”
Davies); David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter found the play
“structurally shaky and thematically a tad thin,” but said Dove’s direction
was “exquisite”; and Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune said the
“fascinating” play was a “strange and slow-burning theatrical experience”
that was a “remarkably complicated exploration” of the nature of opera and
its audience.
The play was published in paperback by Oberon Books in 2018.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Play (Farinelli and the King); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Mark Rylance);
Best Scenic Design of a Play (Jonathan Fensom); Best Costume Design
of a Play (Jonathan Fensom); Best Lighting Design of a Play (Paul
Russell)
ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE
Performances: 124
Book: Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley
Lyrics and Music: Jimmy Buffett and others (for more information, see both
the list of musical numbers and text below)
Direction: Christopher Ashley (Amy Anders Corcoran, Associate Director);
Producers: Frank Marshall, Rich Entertainment Group, Anita Waxman,
Grove Entertainment, James L. Nederlander, Jeremiah J. Harris and
Darren P. Deverna, Linda G. Scott, John H. Tyson, The Shubert
Organization, Latitude Link, John Morgan, Roy Furman, Jeffrey A.
Sine, AC Orange Entertainment, Arlene Scanlan and Witzend
Productions, Terry Allen Kramer, Universal Music Group and Scott
Landis, Kevin J. Kinsella, Independent Presenters Network and Al
Nocciolino, Seahenry Productions and Skolnick-Dagen, Jam
Theatricals, and La Jolla Playhouse; Grove Entertainment, Executive
Producer; Choreography: Kelly Devine (Andrew Turteltaub, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: Walt Spangler; Costumes: Paul Tazewell;
Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Christopher Jahnke
Cast: Paul Alexander Nolan (Tully), Alison Luff (Rachel), Lisa Howard
(Tammy), Eric Petersen (Brick), Rema Webb (Marley), Don Sparks
(J.D.), Andre Ward (Jamal, Ted), Ian Michael Stuart (Chadd,
Ensemble), Sara Andreas (Female Tourist, Ensemble), Mike Millan
(Goon # 1, Jesus, Ensemble), Justin Mortelliti (Goon # 2, Cloud,
Ensemble); Cloud and Ensemble: Albert Guerzon, Julius Anthony
Rubio, and Brett Thiele; Ensemble: Matt Allen, Tessa Alves, Samantha
Farrow, Steven Good, Angela Grovey, Keely Hutton, Ryann Redmond,
Jennifer Rias
The action takes place during the present time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in
the Caribbean.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program’s list of musical numbers gave song titles in alphabetical
order without names of singers. The following is taken mostly from
information on the Broadway cast album.
Act One: “License to Chill” (lyric and music by Alan Anderson, Jimmy
Buffett, and Lyman “Mac” McAnally Jr.) (Paul Alexander Nolan,
Ensemble); “Fins” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett, Barry Chance,
Thomas Corcoran, and Deborah McColl) (Alison Luff, Lisa Howard,
Ensemble); “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” (lyric and music by Jim
Brown and Don Rollins) (Ensemble); “Ragtop Day” (lyric and music by
Jimmy Buffett, Wilbur H. Jennings, and Michael aka Mike Edward
Utley) (Eric Petersen, Paul Alexander Nolan, Ensemble); “It’s My Job”
(lyric and music by Lyman “Mac” McAnally Jr.) (Alison Luff); “Why
Don’t We Get Drunk” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett) (Don Sparks,
Ensemble); “Three Chords” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett) (Paul
Alexander Nolan, Alison Luff); “We Are the People Our Parents
Warned Us About” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett; this sequence
apparently included “The Natives Are Restless Tonight,” which wasn’t
listed in the program; lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett) (Eric Petersen,
Lisa Howard, Ensemble); “Son of a Son of a Sailor” (lyric and music by
Jimmy Buffett) (Paul Alexander Nolan, Alison Luff); “My Head Hurts,
My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus” (lyric and music by Jimmy
Buffett) (Rema Webb, Andre Ward, Don Sparks, Ensemble); Medley:
“Coconut Telegraph” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett); “Last Mango
in Paris” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett, M. Marshall Chapman,
Will Jennings, and Michael aka Mike Edward Utley); and “Changes in
Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett)
(Rema Webb, Don Sparks, Andre Ward, Alison Luff, Lisa Howard, Paul
Alexander Nolan, Ensemble); “Margaritaville” (lyric and music by
Jimmy Buffett) (Paul Alexander Nolan, Eric Petersen, Don Sparks,
Rema Webb, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Volcano” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett, Harry Marshall
Dailey, and Elroy Keith Sykes) (Andre Ward, Ensemble); “Grapefruit—
Juicy Fruit” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett) (Eric Petersen, Paul
Alexander Nolan, Don Sparks); “He Went to Paris” (lyric and music by
Jimmy Buffett) (Paul Alexander Nolan, Eric Petersen, Don Sparks);
“Cheeseburger in Paradise” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett) (Lisa
Howard, Eric Petersen, Ensemble); “Tin Cup Chalice” (lyric and music
by Jimmy Buffett) (Paul Alexander Nolan, Ensemble); “Love and
Luck” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett, Jocelyne Beroard, and Jean-
Claude Naimro) (Paul Alexander Nolan, Alison Luff, Ensemble);
“Come Monday” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett) (Paul Alexander
Nolan, Alison Luff); “A Pirate Looks at Forty” (lyric and music by
Jimmy Buffett) (Paul Alexander Nolan, Alison Luff, Lisa Howard, Eric
Petersen, Don Sparks, Rema Webb, Ensemble); “One Particular
Harbour” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett and Bobby Holcomb)
(Paul Alexander Nolan, Alison Luff, Ensemble)
Escape to Margaritaville was another jukebox musical, and this time

around Jimmy Buffett was the song-writer du jour. Most of the numbers
were familiar old favorites to his following, one or two new songs were
included in the mix, and occasionally lyrics were tweaked in order to adapt
them into book-musical format. Despite the popularity of the Buffett brand,
the musical managed just three-and-a-half months on Broadway.
Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune speculated that Buffett’s fans were
the show’s “core audience, maybe the only audience,” and the evening was
that “rare” Broadway musical “generally interested in what Middle America
enjoys.” Marilyn Stasio in Variety noted that the show was in “ship-shape to
travel to the north, west, and south of us—anywhere but here.” And, indeed,
Escape to Margaritaville might have done better had it skipped New York
and instead booked a national tour into cities where audiences were more
receptive to Buffett’s style and the show’s sitcom antics.
Rachel (Alison Luff) and Tammy (Lisa Howard) are the musical’s
heroines who leave Cincinnati for a vacation in the Caribbean at the
Margaritaville Hotel & Bar (one well may ask, why oh why oh did they
leave Ohio?). But to prove the show had more on its mind than just another
tropical drink embellished with a small pastel-colored umbrella, Rachel is a
workaholic and humorless environmental scientist whose dream is to
produce energy from potatoes (“or something like that,” per Frank Scheck
in the Hollywood Reporter). As for the plump Tammy, she’s engaged to a
boor who hounds her about her weight, and she’s ready for a getaway and a
vacation-cum-bachelorette-party. Once the two are settled into the
Margarittaville, they find romance. Rachel melts into the arms of the hotel’s
handsome entertainer Tully (Paul Alexander Nolan), who each week shacks
up with a different female guest, and Tammy meets bartender Brick (Eric
Petersen), who loves her for herself and doesn’t care about extra poundage
because he has some himself. Of course, all ends well for everyone, and
they all get to sing “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw),”
“Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Last Mango in Paris,” “License to Chill,” and
“My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus.”
The musical also included an older and comic third couple, the
outspoken and sassy hotel owner Marley (Rema Webb) and Viagra’s best
customer J.D. (Don Sparks). There was also a sardonic handyman named
Jamal (Andre Ward), and what Scheck described as “a token gay couple”
who were unnamed in the program and weren’t given any dialogue.
And did we mention the volcano? Yes, this was the second musical of
the season in which a volcano figured into the plot (see SpongeBob
SquarePants). There were also scenic effects of both dancing clouds and
snorkelers “swimming” in midair, a plot point about a hidden airplane,
another one about a hidden treasure, a chorus line of tap-dancing corpses
who used to be insurance salesmen, and a finale that dropped hundreds of
beach balls on the audience (Peter Marks in the Washington Post reported
that one of the beach balls “ricocheted” off his head, and this was “the only
thing” in the “lamely antiseptic” and “insufferably dumb” show that he
“didn’t see coming”).
If all this was too much for you, the lobby of the Marquis had been
decked out in gaudy fashion as an island-styled bar that offered margaritas,
and Jesse Green in the New York Times wrote that “if ever there were a time
to be drunk in the theatre, this is it.” The “good news” was that the bar
made “getting sloshed” easy, but the “bad news is that you still have to see
the show.”
Stasio found the musical “witless but colorful” with a “corny” story and
a “by-the-numbers” book; Scheck noted the evening had “a distinct sitcom-
style sensibility” with a book he “charitably” described as “rudimentary”
and replete with jokes about Viagra and vibrators; and Jones noted the
production was “very careful to tread within the sensibilities of the
moment,” and so while “bikinis” were absent there were often “shirtless”
men. Green said the show was “pitched so low it will temporarily
extinguish your IQ,” and he mentioned that the songs grew “quickly
monotonous”; it was also “quite a comedown in the sing-to-me-of-romance
department from” The King and I’s “Shall We Dance?” to Margaritaville’s
“Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw).”
Sara Holdren in New York found herself “overcome” with sensations of
“part boredom, part annoyance, part melancholy.” The show followed the
“sacred commandments” of “Cliché Romantic Comedy 101,” the story had
the “freshness” of a rerun of Friends, and “roughly the same kind of
network-TV humor and gender dynamics.” Although Joe Dziemianowicz in
the New York Daily News thought the book was “weak and weird,” the
show was still a “breezy but dopey diversion,” and Adam Feldman in
Timeout said he had “fun” because the show “revels in its own goofiness,”
didn’t try to be “paradise,” and was in fact just “fine with being a
cheeseburger.”
The program’s list of musical numbers also included the following
songs, which may have been heard as background music: “Breathe In,
Breathe Out, Move On” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett and Matt
Benton), “Coast of Marseilles” (lyric and music by Elroy Keith Sykes),
“Havana Daydreamin’” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett), and
“Somethin’ ’bout a Boat” (lyric and music by Dave Berg, Patrick Davis,
Jeff Hughes, James Otto, Eric Paslay, and Django Walker). Another section
of the program also listed songs that may have been heard as background
music, and these were: “Holiday” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett,
William Eaton, Ralph MacDonald, and William Salter), “I Wave Bye Bye”
(lyric and music by Jesse Winchester), “It’s Been a Lovely Cruise” (lyric
and music by Jonathan Baham), “Jamaica Mistaica” (lyric and music by
Jimmy Buffett, Russ Kunkel, Roger Guth, Peter Mayer, and Jim Mayer),
“Jolly Mon Sing” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett, Will Jennings, and
Michael aka Mike Edward Utley), “King of Somewhere Hot” (lyric and
music by Jimmy Buffett, Robert Greenidge, Ralph MacDonald, and
William Salter), “Knees of My Heart” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett,
Will Jennings, and Michael aka Mike [Edward Utley]), “La Vie Dansante”
(lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett, Will Jennings, and Michael aka Mike
Edward Utley), “Off to See the Lizard” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett
and Jay Oliver), and “The Stories We Could Tell” (lyric and music by John
Sebastian).
The cast recording was released by Mailboat Records and includes “I
Will Play for Gumbo” (lyric and music by Jimmy Buffett), which wasn’t
included in any of the program’s song lists.
FROZEN
Opening Date: March 22, 2018; Closing Date: March 11, 2020
Performances: 825
Book: Jennifer Lee
Lyrics and Music: Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
Based on the 2013 Walt Disney Studios’ film Frozen (direction by Chris
Buck and Jennifer Lee, screenplay by Jennifer Lee, and lyrics and music
by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez).
Direction: Michael Grandage (Adrian Sarple, Associate Director);
Producer: Disney Theatrical Productions under the direction of Thomas
Schumacher; Anne Quart, Coproducer; Choreography: Rob Ashford
(Sarah O’Gleby and Charlie Williams, Associate Choreographers);
Scenery and Costumes: Christopher Oremus; Video Design: Finn Ross;
Special Effects Design: Jeremy Chernick; Lighting: Natasha Katz;
Musical Direction: Stephen Oremus
Cast: Audrey Bennett or Mattea Conforti (Young Anna), Brooklyn Nelson
or Ayla Schwartz (Young Elsa), Ann Sanders (Queen Iduna), James
Brown III (King Agnarr), Timothy Hughes (Pabbie), Olivia Phillip
(Bulda), Patti Murin (Anna), Caissie Levy (Elsa), Robert Creighton
(Weselton), John Riddle (Hans), Jelani Alladin (Kristoff), Andrew
Pirozzi (Sven), Adam Jepsen (Sven at certain performances), Greg
Hildreth (Olaf), Kevin Del Aguila (Oaken); Ensemble: Tracee Beazer,
Wendi Bergamini, Ashley Blanchet, James Brown III, Claire Camp,
Lauren Nicole Chapman, Jeremy Davis, Kali Grinder, Zach Hess,
Donald Jones Jr., Nina LaFarga, Ross Lekites, Austin Lesch, Synthia
Link, Adam Perry, Olivia Phillip, Noah J. Ricketts, Ann Sanders, Jacob
Smith, Nicholas Ward
The action takes place a long time ago in a Scandinavian country (probably
Norway in the early decades of the nineteenth century).
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Vuelie” (lyric and music by Frode Fjellheim and Christophe
Beck) (Company); Opening (Audrey Bennett or Mattea Conforti,
Brooklyn Nelson or Ayla Schwartz, James Brown III, Ann Sanders,
Townspeople); “A Little Bit of You” (Brooklyn Nelson or Ayla
Schwartz, Audrey Bennett or Mattea Conforti); “Do You Want to Build
a Snowman?” (Audrey Bennett or Mattea Conforti, Patti Murin, Caissie
Levy); “For the First Time in Forever” (Patti Murin, Caissie Levy,
Townspeople); “Hans of the Southern Isles” (John Riddle); “Dangerous
to Dream” (Caissie Levy, Townspeople); “Love Is an Open Door” (Patti
Murin, John Riddle); “Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People” (Jelani
Alladin); “What Do You Know about Love?” (Patti Murin, Jelani
Alladin); “In Summer” (Greg Hildreth); “Hans of the Southern Isles”
(reprise) (John Riddle, Robert Creighton, Townspeople); “Let It Go”
(Caissie Levy)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Hygge” (Kevin Del Aguila, Jelani
Alladin, Patti Murin, Greg Hildreth, Family, Friends); “For the First
Time in Forever” (reprise) (Patti Murin, Caissie Levy); “Fixer Upper”
(Olivia Phillip, Timothy Hughes, Greg Hildreth, Hidden Folk); “Kristoff
Lullaby” (Jelani Alladin); “Monster” (Caissie Levy, John Riddle, Men);
“True Love” (Patti Murin); “Colder by the Minute” (Patti Murin, Jelani
Alladin, Caissie Levy, John Riddle, Townspeople); Finale (Company)
Disney’s 2013 film Frozen became the highest-grossing animated film

on record, and the inevitable stage adaptation (which reportedly cost in the
neighborhood of $25–$30 million) premiered in Denver in September 2017
and opened on Broadway the following March. The production received
mixed reviews: the critics didn’t freeze out the show but were generally
cool, and the musical failed to win a single Tony Award. But the
production’s target audience didn’t care about critics and awards, and
Frozen quickly established itself as a popular family-friendly show.
The action takes place in one of those long-ago kingdoms, in this case
the Scandinavian country of Arendelle, and the story focuses on the
kingdom’s two princesses, the lighthearted Anna (Patti Murin) and the dark
and serious Elsa (Caissie Levy). They’re separated as young girls because
of Elsa’s fearsome magical powers that can freeze humans and inanimate
objects, but by the finale the sisters are reunited when Elsa realizes that
Anna’s love has the power to overcome the loneliness that has enveloped
her cold and emotionally frozen life.
The musical followed the familiar formula of the era’s family musicals.
It was based on a well-known and beloved commodity (in this case, the
2013 film), it utilized trendy themes (sisterhood and girl empowerment),
and it offered a platitudinous message (love solves all problems).
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the evening “sometimes
rousing, often dull, alternately dopey and anguished.” The show alternated
between the “somber” (Elsa and her unfortunate powers) and the “silly”
(the spunky Anna), and thus didn’t blend “visually, musically or
emotionally” and began its “long descent into confusion” with “narrowly
drawn” characters, “over-tailored” songs, and sequences that made him
wonder if Frozen was a “Broadway show, an animated movie or a Vegas
revue.” Along the same lines, David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter
noted that the decor seemed “borderline pedestrian” and “almost cheap,”
and some of the beaded crystal curtains would have been “right at home in
a Celine Dion Vegas act.” The “merely adequate” show was “low on
inspiration” and struggled “to establish a consistent, unifying tone,” but for
the “Frozen faithful” the musical was probably “enough” and the fans no
doubt enjoyed “being showered with great bucket loads of paper snow
during the finale.”
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the kids had “a
shiny new Broadway toy,” but their parents might have “buyer’s remorse”
because the show was “polished but predictable” with a “wow-free”
adaptation “short on surprises.” And Johnny Oleksinski in the New York
Post stated that Frozen was “visually drab, mechanical and often boring,”
and just “not a very good show.”
During preproduction, director Alex Timbers was succeeded by Michael
Grandage.
The cast recording was released on CD by Walt Disney Records and
includes a bonus track of a song cut from the production (“When
Everything Falls Apart”).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Frozen); Best Book (Jennifer Lee);
Best Score (lyrics and music by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert
Lopez)
ROCKTOPIA
“A CLASSICAL REVOLUTION”

Performances: 40
Direction: Uncredited; Producers: Franzblau Media, Inc., Hughes Wall
LLC, RT Entertainment Inc., Dr. and Mrs. Bud Negley, Jules and Fran
Belkin, M2M Entertainment, and Two Hands Entertainment, Inc.;
William Franzblau, Executive Producer; Maggie Seidel-Laws,
Associate Producer; Robert Kinkel, Music Producer; Scenery: Michael
Stiller; Video Design: Michael Stiller and Austin Switser; Costumes:
Cynthia Nordstrom (Mimi Prober, Fashion Design); Lighting:
Uncredited; Musical Direction: Randall Craig Fisher
Cast: Vocalists—Rob Evan, Chloe Lowery, Tony Vincent, Kimberly
Nichole, Alyson Cambridge; Special Guest Star and Vocalist—Pat
Monahan; Mairead Nesbitt (Violin), Tony Bruno (Guitar), Henry
Aronson (Piano), Mat Fieldes (Bass), Alex Alexander (Drums); Maestro
Randall Craig Fleischer and The New York Contemporary Symphony
Orchestra with The New York Contemporary Choir
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t list musical numbers, but a musical credits’ page
in the program provided a list of the following musical sequences
(without performer credits and probably not given in performance
order).
Also Sprach Zarathustra (music by Richard Strauss); “Baba O’Riley” (lyric
and music by Peter Townshend); Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (music by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart); “Come Sail Away” (lyric and music by
Dennis DeYoung); “Lascia ch’io pianga” (music by George Frideric
Handel); “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (lyric and music by
Elton John and Bernie Taupin); “ Allegretto” from Symphony No. 7
(music by Ludwig van Beethoven); “Stairway to Heaven” (lyric and
music by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant); The Rite of Spring (music by
Igor Stravinsky); “Purple Haze” (lyric and music by Jimmy Hendrix);
“Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture” (music by Pyotr Ilyich
Tschaikovsky); “Dream On” (lyric and music by Steven Tyler);
“Another Brick in the Wall” (lyric and music by Roger Waters);
“Uprising” (lyric and music by Roger Bellamy); “Kashmir” (lyric and
music by John Bonham, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant); “Nessun
Dorma” (music by Giacomo Puccini); Pictures at an Exhibition (music
by Modest Mussorgsky); “Where the Streets Have No Name” (lyric and
music by Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, and Larry Mullen Jr.);
Symphonie fantastique (music by Hector Berlioz); “Because the Night”
(lyric and music by Bruce Springsteen); “Quando me’n vo” (music by
Giacomo Puccini); “Something” (lyric and music by George Harrison);
“Caruso” (music by Lucio Dalla); “I Want to Know What Love Is”
(lyric and music by Mick Jones); Fanfare for the Common Man (music
by Aaron Copland); “On the Turning Away” (lyric and music by David
Gilmour); “Schindler’s List” (music by John Williams); Adagio for
Strings (music by Samuel Barber); “Who Wants to Live Forever” (lyric
and music by Brian May); “We Are the Champions” (lyric and music by
Freddie Mercury); “Ode to Joy” from Symphony No. 9 (music by
Ludwig van Beethoven); “Jupiter” from The Planets (music by Gustav
Holst); “Drops of Jupiter” (lyric and music by Pat Monahan); Rhapsody
in Blue (music by George Gershwin); “Bohemian Rhapsody” (lyric and
music by Freddie Mercury)
Rocktopia was a limited engagement concert of singers, individual

musicians, orchestra, and choir that wedded classical and rock music. Frank
Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter described the event as a “shotgun
wedding” that often felt “gimmicky,” and the two-and-a-half hour evening
quickly became a “punishing exercise.” Many of the performers sang in
“the American Idol tradition of favoring bombast over subtlety” and
“volume over lyrical interpretation.” Further, the costumes were “cheesy,”
the lighting was blinding, and the production was “woefully out of place” in
the “historic” Broadway Theatre where once Ethel Merman had appeared in
the original production of Gypsy. Scheck noted that with Rocktopia now on
that stage, Merman “must be rolling over in her grave.”
Thom Geier in The Wrap found the production “dated” and
“misbegotten” and Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Times said the
“real problem” was the show’s “utter blandness,” but Elysa Gardner in New
York Stage Review noted you had to give the production “credit” for
knowing its fan base and catering “unabashedly to baby-boomer
audiences.”
One of the songs was “We Are the Champions,” and as it was
performed an LED screen provided images of Anne Frank, John F.
Kennedy, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Van Gogh, and
Diana, Princess of Wales. Vincentelli commented that these images served
as “visual aids” to the song, and the sequence would “go down as featuring
one of the most misguided PowerPoint presentations ever to grace a
Broadway stage.”
Early in the run, Pat Monahan of Train was the guest singer, and he was
followed by Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister and then Robin Zander of Cheap
Trick.
Rocktopia enjoyed national and international tours, and a 2016 concert
in Budapest was recorded live and released on CD and DVD by PBS, which
also aired the concert.
MEAN GIRLS
Opening Date: April 8, 2018; Closing Date: Still playing as of December
31, 2019
Book: Tina Fey
Lyrics: Nell Benjamin
Music: Jeff Richmond
Based on the 2004 Paramount Pictures’ film Mean Girls (direction by Mark
Waters and screenplay by Tina Fey), which was inspired by the 2002
self-help book Queen Bees & Wannabees by Rosalind Wiseman.
Director; John MacInnis, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Lorne
Michaels, Stuart Thompson, Sonia Friedman, Paramount Pictures,
Marisa Sechrest, Ars Nova Entertainment, Berlind Productions, Steve
Burke, Scott M. Delman, Roy Furman, Robert Greenblatt, Ruth Hendel,
Jam Theatricals, The John Gore Organization, The Lawy Salpeter
Company, James L. Nederlander, Christine Schwarzman, Universal
Theatrical Group; David Turner, Executive Producer; Micah Frank and
Caroline Maroney, Associate Producers; Scenery: Scott Pask; Video
Design: Finn Ross and Adam Young; Costumes: Gregg Barnes;
Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Cast: Grey Henson (Damian Hubbard), Barrett Wilbert Weed (Janis
Sarkisian), Erika Henningsen (Cady Heron), Kerry Butler (Mrs. Heron,
Ms. Norbury, Mrs. George), Rick Younger (Mr. Duvall), Taylor
Louderman (Regina George), Ashley Park (Gretchen Wieners), Kate
Rockwell (Karen Smith), Cheech Manohar (Kevin Gnapoor), Kyle
Selig (Aaron Samuel); Ensemble: Stephanie Lynn Bissonnette, Collins
Conley, Ben Cook, DeMarius R. Copes, Kevin Csolak, Devon Hadsell,
Curtis Holland, Myles McHale, Nikhil Saboo, Jonalyn Saxer, Brendon
Stimson, Riza Takahashi, Kamille Upshaw, Zurin Villanueva, Gianna
Yanelli
The action takes place in Kenya and Illinois during the present time.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “A Cautionary Tale” (Barrett Wilbert Weed, Grey Henson); “It
Roars” (Erika Henningsen, Ensemble); “It Roars” (reprise) (Erika
Henningsen, Ensemble); “Where Do You Belong?” (Grey Henson,
Barrett Wilbert Weed, Erika Henningsen, Ensemble); “Meet the
Plastics” (Taylor Louderman, Ashley Park, Kate Rockwell, Barrett
Wilbert Weed, Grey Henson, Erika Henningsen); “Stupid with Love”
(Erika Henningsen); “Apex Predator” (Barrett Wilbert Weed, Erika
Henningsen); “What’s Wrong with Me?” (Ashley Park); “Stupid with
Love” (reprise) (Erika Henningsen, Kyle Selig); “Sexy” (Kate
Rockwell, Ensemble); “Someone Gets Hurt” (Taylor Louderman, Kyle
Selig, Ensemble); “Revenge Party” (Barrett Wilbert Weed, Grey
Henson, Erika Henningsen, Ensemble); “Fearless” (Erika Henningsen,
Ashley Park, Kate Rockwell, Ensemble); “Someone Gets Hurt”
(reprise) (Tayler Louderman)
Act Two: “A Cautionary Tale” (reprise) (Barrett Wilbert Weed, Grey
Henson); “Stop” (Grey Henson, Kate Rockwell, Ensemble); “What’s
Wrong with Me?” (reprise) (Ashley Park, Kerry Butler); “Whose House
Is This?” (Cheech Manohar, Erika Henningsen, Ashley Park, Kate
Rockwell, Ensemble); “More Is Better” (Erika Henningsen, Kyle Selig);
“Someone Gets Hurt” (reprise) (Barrett Wilbert Weed, Grey Henson);
“World Burn” (Taylor Louderman, Ensemble); “I’d Rather Be Me”
(Barrett Wilbert Weed, Ensemble); “Fearless” (reprise) (Erika
Henningsen); “Do This Thing” (Erika Henningsen, Kerry Butler,
Ensemble); “I See Stars” (Erika Henningsen, Company)
Was New York ready for yet another musical about girl empowerment?
Apparently so, and Mean Girls took off like a mean streak with its target
audience who didn’t care that the critics were less than impressed and that
the show didn’t win a single of its eleven Tony Award nominations. Most
musicals in this genre focused on (mostly) high school girls, and Mean
Girls joined the era’s endless girl-power parade which included Wicked
(2003), Cinderella, Matilda, Off-Broadway’s Heathers (2014), Gigi,
Waitress, Anastasia, Frozen, and, yes, even the revival of My Fair Lady,
which decided that Eliza must leave Higgins at the end of the story. But of
course none of these young power girls had a patch on the older heroine of
The Visit, who mutilates, castrates, and even kills any and all chauvinists
who get in her way.
Mean Girls was based on the popular 2004 film of the same name,
which was scripted by Tina Fey, who also wrote the book of the musical
(her husband Jeff Richmond composed the music, and the lyrics were by
Nell Benjamin who cowrote the lyrics and music with her husband
Laurence O’Keefe for the 2007 girl-powered musical Legally Blonde).
The story focused on Cady (Erika Henningsen), a teenager newly
arrived from Kenya where she and her parents lived before settling down in
a suburb near Chicago. Now that Cady’s enrolled in high school she quickly
learns about the arcane rules and rituals of the in-crowd and their cliques.
The leader of the pack is Regina (Taylor Louderman), and soon Cady
becomes part of the sacred inner circle. And circling around the members of
high school royalty are two decided outsiders, the all-things-goth-
worshipper Janis (Barrett Wilbert Weed) and the gayer-than-gay Damian
(Grey Henson), who serve as narrators of sorts as they view and comment
upon the action.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times liked Fey’s adaptation, and noted
that the dialogue exuded “an idiosyncratic, carefully exaggerated comic
charm” with one “terminally insecure” character, another “terminally
stupid,” and one “‘almost too gay to function.’” But the “many” songs were
only “passable by middle-ofthe-road Broadway standards,” and the lyrics
with their “shoehorned rhymes” didn’t “bear close examination.” The
numbers “rarely” reflected the “tone” and “time” of the era and lacked the
necessary “energizing pop snap,” and when a character was about to go into
yet another song, Brantley thought, “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said you could never have “too much pink or
too much bitchery” in this musical about “high-school-as-living-hell.”
Regina, Gretchen (Ashley Park), and Karen (Kate Rockwell) are the trio
known as “The Plastics” who make the rules at North Shore High, and their
rigid rules must always be followed (never wear a ponytail more than once
a week, never wear a tank top two days running, and always wear pink on
Wednesdays). Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News liked the
“fizzy blast.” It wasn’t a “great” musical (the choreography was
“repetitive,” the book was sometimes “choppy,” and the show was too long
and made you want “far more lean girls”), but the songs were “easy-to-like
and a big plus” and the evening was “a lot of fun.” Terry Teachout in the
Wall Street Journal decided Mean Girls was “another super-safe musical
whose target market is those who loved the movie,” and Adam Feldman in
Timeout found Louderman “sensational” as the “blackhearted” Regina who
brings to high school life “a reign of terror, angst and mall fashions” where
“popularity is arrogated and then ruthlessly enforced.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “divine” Louderman
played Regina “with a delectable streak of cruelty” and was “a Medusa with
a better hair care regimen.” The songs were “workmanlike pastiche,” but
Fey’s book offered “snappy” comedy and the show was “a surprisingly
enjoyable and genuinely funny sugar treat with a lot of heart.” But Sara
Stewart in the New York Post said the “watered-down” stage adaptation of
the “wonderfully nasty” movie was “Mean Girls lite,” and “mean should
never feel this warm and fuzzy.”
During the tryout, the following songs were cut: “Wildlife,” “Kevin’s
Rap,” “Rockin’ Around the Pole,” “Justice,” “Bossed Up,” “Stay with
Mother,” and “Here, You Can Sit with Us.”
The cast album was released by Atlantic Records on CD and on a two-
record vinyl set.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Mean Girls); Best Book (Tina
Fey); Best Score (lyrics by Nell Benjamin and music by Jeff
Richmond); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Taylor Louderman); Best Performance by an Actor in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Grey Henson); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Ashley Park); Best
Choreography (Casey Nicholaw); Best Direction of a Musical (Casey
Nicholaw); Best Orchestrations (John Clancy); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (scenery by Scott Pask and video design by Finn Ross and
Adam Young); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Gregg Barnes); Best
Sound Design of a Musical (Brian Ronan)
CAROUSEL
Performances: 181
Based on the 1909 play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar (as adapted by Benjamin
F. Glazer).
Direction: Jack O’Brien; Producers: Scott Rudin, Roy Furman, Barry
Diller, Edward Walson, Universal Theatrical Group, Benjamin Lowy,
Eli Bush, James L. Nederlander, Candy Spelling, John Gore
Organization, Peter May, Ronnie Lee, Sid and Ruth Lapidus, Stephanie
P. McClelland, Sandy Robertson, Caiola Productions, Len Blavatnik,
Dominion Ventures, SHN Theatres, The Araca Group, Patty Baker, Al
Nocciolino, Darlene Marcos Shiley, Julie Boardman and Marc David
Levine, Jennifer Fischer and Olympus Theatricals, Candia Fisher and
Allen L. Stevens, Jon Jashni and Matthew Baer, Thomas S. Perakos and
Jim Fantaci, and Wendy Federman and Heni Koenigsberg; Joey Parnes,
Sue Wagner, and John Johnson, Executive Producers; Choreography:
Justin Peck; Scenery: Santo Loquasto; Costumes: Ann Roth; Lighting:
Brian MacDevitt; Musical Direction: Andy Einhorn
Cast: John Douglas Thompson (The Starkeeper), Joshua Henry (Billy
Bigelow), Margaret Colin (Mrs. Mullin), Jessie Mueller (Julie Jordan),
Lindsay Mendez (Carrie Pipperidge), Amar Ramasar (Jigger Craigin),
Antoine L. Smith (First Policeman), William Youmans (Mr. Bascombe),
Renee Fleming (Nettie Fowler), Alexander Gemignani (Enoch Snow),
Jacob Keith Watson (Captain); Nicholas Belton and Ahmad Simmons
(Policemen, Heavenly Friends); Brittany Pollack (Louise), Andrei
Chagas (Fairground Boy), Garett Hawe (Enoch Snow Jr.); Rosena M.
Hill Jackson (School Principal); Ensemble: Yesenia Ayala, Nicholas
Belton, Colin Bradbury, Andrei Chagas, Leigh-Ann Esty, Laura Feig,
David Michael Garry, Garett Hawe, Rosena M. Hill Jackson, Amy
Justman, Jess LeProtto, Skye Mattox, Anna Noble, Adriana Pierce,
Rebecca Pitcher, David Prottas, Craig Salstein, Ahmad Simmons,
Antoine L. Smith, Erica Spyres, Ryan Steele, Ricky Ubeda, Scarlett
Walker, Jacob Keith Watson, William Youmans
The action takes place during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth
centuries in Maine (the years 1873 and 1888 in the original 1945
production).
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prelude: “The Carousel Waltz” (Company); “You’re a Queer
One, Julie Jordan” (Lindsay Mendez, Jessie Mueller); “Mister Snow”
(Lindsay Pipperidge); “If I Loved You” (Julie Jordan, Joshua Henry);
“June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” (Renee Fleming, Lindsay Mendez,
Company); “Mister Snow” (reprise) (Women, Jessie Mueller, Lindsay
Mendez, Alexander Gemignani); “When the Children Are Asleep”
(Alexander Gemignani, Lindsay Mendez); “Blow High, Blow Low”
(Amar Ramasar, Joshua Henry, Men); “Soliloquy” (Joshua Henry);
Finale Act I: “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” (reprise) (Renee Fleming,
Company)
Act Two: “A Real Nice Clambake” (Renee Fleming, Jessie Mueller, Joshua
Henry, Alexander Gemignani, Lindsay Mendez, Company); “What’s the
Use of Wond’rin’?” (Jessie Mueller); “You’ll Never Walk Alone”
(Renee Fleming); “The Highest Judge of All” (Joshua Henry); “Ballet”
(Brittany Pollack, Garett Hawe, Company); “If I Loved You” (reprise)
(Joshua Henry); Finale: “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (reprise) (Renee
Fleming, Company)
The word problematic is now often attached to Richard Rodgers and

Oscar Hammerstein II’s masterpiece Carousel, but perhaps the word should
instead be applied to those viewers who demand that plays and musicals
must be populated with characters who reflect their own politically correct
values and often overly delicate sensibilities. Complex characters with all-
too-human flaws aren’t acceptable to the more-sensitive-than-thou brigade,
and because Billy Bigelow (Joshua Henry in the current revival) and Julie
Jordan (Jessie Mueller) are among the most complex in the entire lexicon of
American musical theatre, they are now deemed “problematic” because
they dare to have human foibles. Billy has physically struck Julie on at least
one occasion, and she has forgiven him (one suspects that for many her
behavior is worse than Billy’s because she’s an “enabler”).
Carousel’s bittersweet story centers on ne’er-do-well carousel barker
Billy and millworker Julie and their doomed marriage that results in
tragedy. Billy is a smug, self-satisfied blowhard and braggart who admits he
hit Julie (apparently more than once, but Julie tells her friend Carrie
[Lindsay Mendez] he hit her “last Monday”), and he’s the kind who has no
qualms about participating in an armed robbery if it’s the easiest way to get
ready cash. When the holdup goes awry, he commits suicide and leaves
Julie and his unborn child alone and penniless.
In the afterlife, Billy is given a second chance to make amends for his
failures on earth, but he almost botches his visit when he encounters his
now fifteen-year-old-daughter Louise (Brittany Pollack), who of course
doesn’t know who he is. They briefly argue, he slaps her hand, and this slap
leads to the musical’s most controversial lines of dialogue when Louise asks
Julie if it’s possible to be hit by someone but not feel any pain, something
Julie confirms as true.
And Julie is no wimp. She may come across as meek and mild, but
inwardly she’s deep, a strong woman who knows exactly what she wants,
and what she wants is Billy, as her lover and husband. Despite his abuse, his
inability to be a breadwinner, his robbery, and his suicide, Julie loves him
unconditionally, and her song “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’?” tells us she
loves him for his “good” and “bad” qualities, and that’s “all there is to that”
and there’s “nothin’ more to say.”
If Julie accepts Billy’s failings and forgives him, that’s her right as a
complicated woman who makes her own choices (whether they are wise or
unwise) and lives with them. And if Billy repents his actions, he should be
taken at his word and be forgiven. But in the current theatrical climate
there’s subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle censorship that demands perfect
characters (so no more revivals of Medea?). Perhaps self-appointed censors
need to Get Over It, and if they can’t they should avoid plays and musicals
that offend them.
In regard to that “offending” dialogue, the critics who saw the current
revival were in disagreement as to what they heard. Corby Kummer in The
Atlantic indicated the dialogue had been cut for the revival, and Adam
Feldman in Timeout reported that “a few especially unseemly lines have
been excised.” But Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the lines were
“delivered quietly and unconvincingly, almost as if hoping to pass
unnoticed,” and Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said
director Jack O’Brien’s approach to the show’s “tricky, controversial
material” was “to not draw attention to it.”
Brantley found the “heartfelt” revival “half-terrific,” and like most of
the critics he praised Justin Peck’s Tony Award–winning choreography. The
evening’s highlight was the whalers’ “Blow High, Blow Low,” which
brought to mind the heyday of legendary choreographer Michael Kidd, who
specialized in foot-stomping romps for his male dancers (from the
backcountry brothers in the 1954 film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers to
the sidewalk Santa Claus chorus in the 1961 Broadway musical Subways
Are for Sleeping).
Marilyn Stasio in Variety found the revival “conventional,” and
Dziemianowicz said the “wobbly” revival didn’t offer “anything fresh and
exciting,” and the secondary characters were more notable than the
principals because Billy and Julie were presented in “one-note” fashion and
lacked the necessary “intense chemistry.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street
Journal noted that the “uneven” revival was a “disappointment” and felt
“slick, like an old-master painting that has been garishly over-restored,” and
he commented that Henry charged through “Soliloquy” as though “he had
to catch a train.”
The headline of Matt Windman’s review in amNewYork said the revival
was a “total disaster.” O’Brien’s “extensive and brutal edits” had
“reconceived or removed” songs (“Geraniums in the Winder” and
“Stonecutters Cut It on Stone”) and scenes (in a “heavy-handed” move, the
Starkeeper appeared in several scenes prior to his “official” entrance), and
the “misguided” production was “disappointing, bewildering and
frustrating.” Henry seemed “disconnected” from the other characters and
came off as “completely contemporary,” Mueller was too “muted” and her
Julie was “completely overshadowed and overpowered,” Mendez was “far
too strident,” and Renee Fleming (Nettie) displayed “little acting ability or
sense of character.”
Windman’s review encapsulated what was wrong in the production, and
his and other notices clearly clued in would-be ticket-buyers who decided
this might not be the Carousel revival for the ages (which surely was the
magnificent 1993 London/1994 New York revival). As a result, the musical
lasted just five months on Broadway.
Moreover, the choices for the revival’s program cover and artwork
advertising were puzzling. The dull black-and-white program cover
depicted a photo in which the likenesses of Henry and Mueller were cut in
half, and the cover was so stark you felt it might have been intended for a
Beckett revival. (At least the cover for the program’s June 2018 Rainbow
Pride issue offered a striking dramatic photo of Henry during the
“Soliloquy,” although it ignored Mueller/Julie.) And the poster artwork of a
small string of horses and human figures (who seemed to be tumbling about
in limbo) was more in keeping with those old-fashioned kitchen shelf liners
that strung out repeated images of flowers and other patterns.
The original production of Carousel opened on April 19, 1945, at the
Majestic Theatre for 890 performances with John Raitt (Billy) and Jan
Clayton (Julie), and including the current revival the musical has returned
to New York a total of seven times: a return engagement of 49
performances on January 25, 1949, at City Center (which eventually
transferred to the Majestic) starred Stephen Douglass and Iva Withers; 3
presentations by the New York City Center Light Opera Company on June
2, 1954, for 79 performances (Chris Robinson and Jo Sullivan), on
September 29, 1957, for 27 performances (Howard Keel and Barbara
Cook); and on December 15, 1966, for 22 performances (Bruce Yarnell and
Constance Towers); a revival by the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center on
August 10, 1965, for 48 showings (Raitt and Eileen Christy); and a revival
that originated in London in 1993 and opened at the Vivian Beaumont
Theatre on March 24, 1994, for 337 performances and won the Tony Award
for Best Revival of a Musical (Michael Hayden and Sally Murphy).
The first London production opened at the Drury Lane on June 7, 1950,
for 566 performances (Douglass and Withers); the 1956 film was released
by Twentieth Century-Fox (Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones); and an
ABC television adaptation was shown on May 7, 1967 (Robert Goulet and
Mary Grover).
The script was published in hardback by Alfred A. Knopf in 1946, and
was later included in the hardback collection Six Plays by Rodgers and
Hammerstein (published by The Modern Library in 1959). The 1945
original cast album was released by Decca Records, and the CD (issued by
MCA Classics) includes a bonus track of an alternate (and more complete)
“Carousel Waltz.” The current revival’s cast album was released by Craft
Recordings.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Carousel); Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Joshua
Henry); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
(Jessie Mueller); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a
Musical (Alexander Gemignani); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Lindsay Mendez); Best Performance by an
Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Renee Fleming); Best
Choreography (Justin Peck); Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick);
Best Costume Design of a Musical (Ann Roth); Best Lighting Design of
a Musical (Brian MacDevitt); Best Sound Design of a Musical (Scott
Lehrer)
MY FAIR LADY
Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Performances: 501
Book and Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner
Music: Frederick Loewe
Based on the 1912 play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and the 1938
film of the same name (direction by Anthony Asquith and Leslie
Howard; among others, Shaw was one of the film’s script writers and he
won the Academy Award for the screenplay).
Direction: Bartlett Sher; Producer: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop,
Producing Artistic Director) in association with Nederlander
Presentations, Inc.; Choreography: Christopher Gattelli; Scenery: David
Yeargan; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical
Direction: Ted Sperling
Cast: Lauren Ambrose (Eliza Doolittle), Jordan Donica (Freddy Eynsford-
Hill), JoAnna Rhinehart (Mrs. Eynsford-Hill), Allan Corduner (Colonel
Pickering), Lee Zarrett (Selsey Man), Harry Hadden-Paton (Professor
Henry Higgins), Paul Slade Smith (Hoxton Man); The “Loverly”
Quartet: John Treacy Egan, Christopher Faison, Adam Grupper, and
Justin Lee Miller; Michael Halling (Frank), Joe Hart (Harry), Lance
Roberts (Jamie), Norbert Leo Butz (Alfred P. Doolittle), Kerstin
Anderson (Flower Girl), Linda Mugleston (Mrs. Pearce), Liz
McCartney (Mrs. Hopkins); Higgins’s Butlers: Adam Grupper and Paul
Slade Smith; Higgins’s Maids: Cameron Adams, Kerstin Anderson,
Kate Marilley, and Liz McCartney; Diana Rigg (Mrs. Higgins), Matt
Wall (Charles); Stewards: Justin Lee Miller and Lee Zarrett; John
Treacy Egan (Lord Boxington), Rebecca Eichenberger (Lady
Boxington); Constables: Justin Lee Miller and Keven Quillon; Manu
Narayan (Professor Zoltan Karpathy), Blair Ross (Hostess); Adam
Grupper and Justin Lee Miller (Footmen); Suellen Estey (Queen of
Transylvania); Mrs. Higgins’s Servants: Rommel Pierre O’Choa, Paul
Slade Smith, and Matt Wall; Ensemble: Cameron Adams, Shereen
Ahmed, Kerstin Anderson, John Treacy Egan, Rebecca Eichenberger,
Suellen Estey, Christopher Faison, Steven Trumon Gray, Adam
Grupper, Michael Halling, Joe Hart, Sasha Hutchings, Kate Marilley,
Liz McCartney, Justin Lee Miller, Rommel Pierre O’Choa, Keven
Quillon, JoAnna Rhinehart, Lance Roberts, Blair Ross, Christine
Cornish Smith, Paul Slade Smith, Samantha Sturm, Matt Wall, Lee
Zarrett
The action takes place in London in 1913 (the original 1956 production of
My Fair Lady was set in 1912, and the 2007–2008 U.S. national tour
[referenced below], which was based on the National Theatre of Great
Britain’s 2001 revival, took place in 1910).
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Why Can’t the English?” (Harry Hadden-
Paton); “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” (Lauren Ambrose, The “Loverly”
Quartet); “With a Little Bit of Luck” (Norbert Leo Butz, Joe Hart,
Lance Roberts); “I’m an Ordinary Man” (Harry Hadden-Paton); “With a
Little Bit of Luck” (reprise) (Norbert Leo Butz, Company); “Just You
Wait” (Lauren Ambrose); “The Servants’ Chorus” (aka “Quit, Professor
Higgins”) (Linda Mugleston, Higgins’s Butlers and Maids); “The Rain
in Spain” (Harry Hadden-Paton, Lauren Ambrose, Allan Corduner); “I
Could Have Danced All Night” (Lauren Ambrose, Linda Mugleston,
Higgins’s Maids); “Ascot Gavotte” (Company); “On the Street Where
You Live” (Jordan Donica)
Act Two: “The Embassy Waltz” (Orchestra); “You Did It” (Harry Hadden-
Paton, Allan Corduner, Linda Mugleston, Higgins’s Servants); “Just
You Wait” (reprise) (Lauren Ambrose); “On the Street Where You
Live” (reprise) (Jordan Donica); “Show Me” (Jordan Donica, Lauren
Ambrose); “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” (Lauren Ambrose, The “Loverly”
Quartet); “Get Me to the Church on Time” (Norbert Leo Butz, Joe Hart,
Lance Roberts, Company); “A Hymn to Him” (Harry Hadden-Paton);
“Without You” (Lauren Ambrose, Harry Hadden-Paton); “I’ve Grown
Accustomed to Her Face” (Harry Hadden-Paton)
The current revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s classic
My Fair Lady will go down as the one where Eliza walked out on Higgins.
In a misguided attempt to pander to political correctness, director Bartlett
Sher “empowered” Eliza, and most of the critics got on the bandwagon and
applauded his decision. Adam Feldman in Timeout even went so far as to
praise Sher’s “clever solution” to what Feldman considered the musical’s
“notoriously slippery ending.”
But everyone seems to have forgotten that from day one Eliza was
always empowered, and as a refresher course the doubters need to read or
re-read Lerner’s published script. Eliza (Lauren Ambrose in the current
production) is a street flower-seller determined to better herself in the class-
conscious world of Edwardian England. She’s well aware that she looks
like a guttersnipe, speaks Cockney English, and doesn’t know proper
manners, and she realizes that the road to upward mobility is through
education and proper deportment. Her dream is to have a tony flower shop,
but she knows that rough language and soot on her face won’t attract well-
heeled customers.
To this end, she decides to get help from the best, the famous linguist
Professor Henry Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton). He teaches her the ways of
being a fine lady, and by the time her training is over she’s captivated
London society and royalty and everyone thinks she’s a blueblood.
Eliza and Higgins’s relationship is that of pupil and teacher, and until
the end of the musical he’s never once been romantically interested in her.
And when she’s hailed as a princess, Eliza discovers she wants more out of
life than just a position in a flower shop. It’s also clear she’s fallen in love
with the petulant and introspective Higgins and expects something from
him that he’s never promised her. As far as he’s concerned, his job was to
teach her, and now it’s up to her to make her way in the world. After all,
that was their bargain.
Lerner and Loewe (and of course George Bernard Shaw, who wrote
Pygmalion, upon which the musical is based) created two strong, self-
willed characters, and their dramatic arc is that once Eliza gets what she
wants she discovers she wants something more, and that Higgins realizes
that his heretofore comfortable eternal-bachelor existence is perhaps not
quite what he wants, either.
But the two are strong-willed, and always have been. And no doubt
always will be. It’s unlikely there will ever be a sea-change in their basic
natures.
Lerner and Loewe could have concluded My Fair Lady in a number of
ways, and the ending they chose was one of the most powerful in the
history of the American musical theatre, and in fact ended with oblique
dialogue instead of song. Higgins is alone in his study listening to the
recording he made of Eliza on the day of her first lesson. Eliza quietly
walks into the room and repeats some of the words she spoke on that day,
and while according to the stage directions her presence gives him a feeling
of “unmistakable relief and joy” he instead assumes an air of indifference
and asks her where his slippers are. As the curtain falls, the stage directions
tell us that with tears in her eyes Eliza nods and “understands.”
Just what does she understand? And what does Higgins really mean
when he asks for those slippers? Higgins’s request is his signal that he’ll
always be stubborn and self-centered and unlikely to change. And Eliza
“understands” this. And the curtain falls.
Lerner and Loewe’s brilliant choice of an ambiguous ending allowed
the audience to think for itself and speculate on what will happen to these
willful and self-possessed individuals. Will they accept each other despite
their differences? Will Eliza stay with Higgins? Will she walk out on him?
Lerner and Loewe let us decide.
But the current revival made the decision for us. Without a word, Eliza
turns her back on Higgins, and in fact breaks the fourth wall, leaves the
stage, and walks down the aisle of the theatre.
Apparently this ending satisfied those who wanted a clear-cut resolution
to the story, and it pleased those who wanted a statement about female
empowerment. But as noted, Eliza has always been empowered and she’s
clearly a feminist of her time. So there seemed little reason for her
flamboyantly theatrical exit, unless perhaps it was a sop to make
contemporary feminist audiences feel good about themselves.
Jessie Green’s headline in the New York Times informed us that Eliza is
now “in charge,” and for him the “plush and thrilling” as well as the
“marvelous” and “redemptive” production made My Fair Lady “better than
it ever was.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal said the new ending
didn’t “quite come off,” but David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter
noted there were “those” who were “convinced” that the musical had
“problems that needed addressing.” Corby Kummer in The Atlantic said
Sher introduced “notes of feminism somewhat gratuitously,” including a
scene with marching suffragettes (an image that was also used in the 2001
British revival that toured in the United States during the 2007–2008
season) and another in which five chorus men donned drag during “Get Me
to the Church on Time.” Kummer concluded that Sher’s new ending wasn’t
“particularly satisfactory.”
The original Broadway production opened on March 15, 1956, at the
Mark Hellinger Theatre for a then record-breaking run of 2,717
performances with Rex Harrison (Higgins), Julie Andrews (Eliza), Stanley
Holloway (Doolittle), and Robert Coote (Pickering). Including the current
revival, the musical has been presented in New York six times: two
productions at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera
Company, on June 28, 1964, for 47 performances (Myles Easton and Marni
Nixon) and on June 13, 1969, for 22 performances (Fritz Weaver and Inga
Swenson, with George Rose as Doolittle); a twentieth-anniversary
production at the St. James Theatre on March 25, 1976, for 377 showings
(Ian Richardson and Christine Andreas, with Rose reprising his Doolittle); a
revival with Harrison at the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre on August 18,
1982, for 119 performances (Nancy Ringham was Eliza); and on December
9, 1993, at the Virginia Theatre for 165 performances (Richard Chamberlain
and Melissa Errico in what was a visually arresting production with an
amusingly boyish and petulant performance by Chamberlain).
A major 2007–2008 U.S. tour based on the National Theatre of Great
Britain’s hit 2001 revival wisely avoided Broadway. It was for the most part
indifferently cast, but Timothy (Tim) Jerome brought welcome old-
fashioned Broadway know-how to Doolittle, and Sally Ann Howes (who
had succeeded Andrews during the original 1956 production) was Mrs.
Higgins (she left the revival after the Washington, D.C., run and was
succeeded by another MFL graduate, Marni Nixon). This revival, like the
current Broadway production, stumbled a bit in its would-be attempts at
relevancy: suffragettes marched through London (as they did in the current
revival) and a quartet called the Dustbin Lid Dancers performed Stomp-like
dance movements on the city pavements.
The first London production opened at the Drury Lane on April 30,
1958, for 2,281 performances with the four Broadway leads; and the cast of
the 1964 Warner Brothers’ film adaptation included Harrison and Holloway
along with Audrey Hepburn (whose singing voice was dubbed by Marni
Nixon), and the movie won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture
and Best Actor (Harrison).
The script was published in hardback by Coward-McCann in 1956.
There are numerous recordings of the score, but the definitive one is the
original 1956 cast album released by Columbia Records (the most recent
CD reissue by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy includes contemporary
1956 interviews with Harrison, Andrews, and Lerner and Loewe). Beware
of the 1958 London cast recording (which was the first stereo version of the
score) because the performances are far too studied and lack spontaneity.
One particularly noteworthy recording is the cast album for the 1959
Mexico City production Mi bella dama, which included a young Placido
Domingo credited as one of Doolittle’s friends in “Con un poquitin” (in at
least one Mexico City program, he’s identified as Placido Domingo Jr.).
The cast album of the current revival was issued on CD and vinyl formats
by Broadway Records.
For more information about the musical, see Keith Garebian’s The
Making of “My Fair Lady” (published by ECW Press in 1993) and
Dominic McHugh’s The Life and Times of “My Fair Lady” (Oxford
University Press, 2012).
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (My Fair Lady);
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Harry
Hadden-Paton); Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Musical (Lauren Ambrose); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured
Role in a Musical (Norbert Leo Butz); Best Performance by an Actress
in a Featured Role in a Musical (Diana Rigg); Best Choreography
(Christopher Gattelli); Best Direction of a Musical (Bartlett Sher); Best
Scenic Design of a Musical (Michael Yeargan); Best Costume Design of
a Musical (Catherine Zuber); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Donald Holder)
SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL

Opening Date: April 23, 2018; Closing Date: December 30, 2018
Performances: 288
Book: Colman Domingo, Robert Cary, and Des McAnuff
Lyrics and Music: Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Paul Jabara, and
others (see list of musical numbers)
Direction: Des McAnuff; Producers: Tommy Mottola, The Dodgers, Steven
A. and Alexandra Cohen, Thalia Sodi, Courtney Sachs, Ollawood
Productions, Lawrence S. Toppall, Rodney Rigby, Morris Goldfarb,
James L. Nederlander, Universal Music Group, and John Gore
Organization; Dana Sherman, Executive Producer; Choreography:
Sergio Trujillo; Scenery: Robert Brill; Projection Design: Sean
Nieuwenhuis; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Howell Binkley;
Musical Direction: Taylor Peckham
Cast: LaChanze (Diva Donna, Mary Gaines), Ariana DeBose (Disco
Donna), Storm Lever (Duckling Donna, Mimi), Kaleigh Cronin
(Giorgio Moroder), Kendal Hartse (Pete Bellotte, Don Engel), Aaron
Krohn (Neil Bogart, Sommelier, Gunther), Jessica Rush (Joyce Bogart),
Drew Wildman Foster (Brian, Helmuth Sommer), Rebecca Riker (Bob),
Ken Robinson (Andrew Gaines), Wonu Ogunfowora (Young Mary
Ellen, Brooklyn), Kimberly Dodson (Young Dara, Amanda), Harris M.
Turner (Pastor), Afra Hines (Michael, Maid, “To Turn the Stone”
Soloist), Mackenzie Bell (Detective, David Geffen), Jared Zirilli (Bruce
Sudano), Jenny Laroche (Norman Brokaw), Anissa Felix (Adult Mary
Ellen), Christina Acosta Robinson (Adult Dara); Ensemble: Angelica
Beliard, Mackenzie Bell, Kaleigh Cronin, Kimberly Dodson, Anissa
Felix, Drew Wildman Foster, Kendal Hartse, Afra Hines, Jenny
Laroche, Wonu Ogunfowora, Rebecca Riker, Christina Acosta
Robinson, Jessica Rush, Harris M. Turner
The action depicts the life and career of Donna Summer (1948–2012).
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t list the names of individual performers.
“The Queen Is Back” (lyric and music by Evan Kidd Bogart, Donna
Summer, and Jonathan Rotem); “I Feel Love” (lyric and music by
Donna Summer, Peter Bellotte, and Giorgio Moroder); “Love to Love
You Baby” (lyric and music by Peter Bellotte, Giorgio Moroder, and
Donna Summer); “I Remember Yesterday” (lyric and music by Peter
Bellotte, Giorgio Moroder, and Donna Summer); “On My Honor” (lyric
and music by Donna Summer, Bruce Sudano, and Harold Faltermeyer);
“Faster and Faster to Nowhere” (lyric and music by Peter Bellotte,
Giorgio Moroder, and Donna Summer); “White Boys (Black Boys)”
(Hair [Off Broadway, 1967; Broadway, 1968]; lyric by James Rado and
Gerome Ragni, music by Galt MacDermot); “MacArthur Park” (lyric
and music by Jim Webb); “Heaven Knows” (lyric and music by Giorgio
Moroder, Peter Bellotte, Donna Summer, and Greg Mathieson); “No
More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (lyric and music by Paul F. Jabara and
Bruce Roberts); “Pandora’s Box” (lyric and music by Peter Bellotte,
Giorgio Moroder, and Donna Summer); “On the Radio” (lyric and
music by Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer); “I Love You” (lyric
and music by Peter Bellotte, Giorgio Moroder, and Donna Summer);
“Bad Girls” (lyric and music by Joseph Esposito, Edward Hokenson,
Bruce Sudano, and Donna Summer); “She Works Hard for the Money”
(lyric and music by Donna Summer and Michael Omartian); “Dim All
the Lights” (lyric and music by Donna Summer); “I Believe in Jesus”
(lyric and music by Donna Summer); “Unconditional Love” (lyric and
music by Donna Summer and Michael Omartian); “To Turn the Stone”
(lyric and music by Giorgio Moroder and Peter Bellotte); “Stamp Your
Feet” (lyric and music by Donna Summer, Gregory Allen Kurstin, and
Danielle A. Brisebois); “Friends Unknown” (lyric and music by Keith
Diamond, Anthony Smith, Vanessa Robbie Smith, and Donna Summer);
“Hot Stuff” (lyric and music by Peter Bellotte, Harold Faltermeyer, and
Keith Forsey); “Last Dance” (1978 film Thank God It’s Friday; lyric
and music by Paul F. Jabara)
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical was yet another jukebox musical,
and this one looked at the life of singer Donna Summer (1948–2012), who
practically defined the sound of disco in its heyday of the mid-to-late 1970s
with her hits “Hot Stuff,” “Last Dance,” and “Love to Love You Baby.” The
critics were underwhelmed by the superficial treatment of the singer and her
career, and the generally unenthusiastic notices and the lack of a single
Tony Award didn’t help the show at the box office. The New York Times
reported that during one week in November 2018 the production grossed
$462,747, which “was about 32 percent of its potential.”
Director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo had enjoyed a
blockbuster with their jukebox musical Jersey Boys (2005), which played
on Broadway for over eleven years for a total of 4,642 performances. But
Summer failed to match the success of the Frankie Valli opus and lasted just
a little over eight months before giving up. Three actresses played the title
role (LaChanze was Diva Donna, Ariana DeBose was Disco Donna, and
Storm Lever was Duckling Donna), and for some reason many, but not all,
of the male roles were played by women, a conceit that was somewhat
puzzling because of its inconsistency.
The headline of Jesse Green’s review in the Times said “Hot Stuff Turns
Cold.” The jukebox musical genre was “the cockroach of Broadway,” and
Summer was a “blight” with an “appallingly banal” script. The diva’s life
was the “stuff of real drama” and was “unsuited” to the “expurgated, down-
talking children’s book treatment” it received here. Further, many of the
songs were performed in “quick snippets,” and with its “skimpy lyrics and
lack of development” disco music was “especially unfit for narrative use.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the book was “thin”; Adam Feldman in
Timeout decided the “befuddled kitsch” of the “tacky, sub-Vegas” show was
a “hot mess” and a “disco dud”; and Johnny Oleksinski in the New York
Post found the “borderline incoherent” musical a “mess” that had been
“scotch-taped together” and had turned Summer’s “complex” life into a
“slide show of events.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “tacky little” show
was “feebly dramatized” and “dramaturgically inept,” and the “clichéd
narrative [flattened] every human experience into a clumsy song cue.”
Moreover, the evening rammed its “female-empowerment message down
your throat the way geese are force-fed on the foie gras production line,”
and even more “depressing” than the “pandering feminist platitudes” were
the “whoops of ‘You go, girl!’ approval from the audience.”
Early in her career, Summer had appeared in the original German
production of Hair, and Summer included one song from the score (“White
Boys”/”Black Boys”). In the 1978 film Thank God It’s Friday, Summer
introduced “Last Dance, which won the Academy Award for Best Song.
Note that one of the songs in Summer is “Stamp Your Feet,” which was
cowritten by Danielle A. (Anne) Brisebois, who created the role of the
orphan Molly in the original 1977 Broadway production of Annie.
The cast album was released on CD by Republic Records.
Awards
Role in a Musical (LaChanze); Best Performance by an Actress in a
Featured Role in a Musical (Ariana DeBose)
RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES (2018)

Opening Date: May 3, 2018; Closing Date: May 6, 2018
Performances: 6
Under the slightly different title of Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on
Broadway, the Beatles’ tribute had first opened on October 26, 2010, at the
Neil Simon Theatre for 300 performances. The current edition played a
limited engagement at Madison Square Garden for six showings; it was
produced by MSG Live, and the four leading singers were Steve Landes (as
John Lennon, the role he played in the 2010 production), Paul Curatolo
(Paul McCartney; Paul Curatolo’s father Joey was McCartney in 2010),
Alastar McNeil (George Harrison), and Aaron Chiazza (Ringo Starr). For
more information about the tribute, see entry for the 2010 production.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Opening Date: May 31, 2018; Closing Date: June 4, 2018
Performances: 4
Libretto: Annie Proulx
Music: Charles Wuorinen
Based on the 1997 short story “Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx and
the 2005 River Road Entertainment/Focus Features’ film Brokeback
Mountain (direction by Ang Lee and screenplay by Diana Ossana and
Larry McMurtry).
Direction: Jacopo Spirei; Producer: The New York City Opera Company in
cooperation with the Salzburg State Theatre; Scenery and Costumes:
Eva Musil; Lighting: Susan Roth Hayes; Musical Direction: Kazem
Abdullah
Cast: Daniel Okulitch (Ennis del Mar), Glenn Seven Allen (Jack Twist),
Heather Buck (Alma Beers), Hilary Ginther (Lureen), Christopher Job
(Aguirre), Brian Kontes (Hogboy), Kristee Haney (Mrs. Beers), Kevin
Courtemanche (John Twist Sr.), Jenni Bank (Mrs. Twist), Melissa Parks
(Bartender), Sarah Heltzel (Sales-woman); New York City Opera
Chorus
The action takes place in Wyoming and Texas during the years 1963–1983.
The season began with Peter Eotvos’s Angels in America, a gay-themed

opera given by the New York City Opera Company as part of its annual
LGBT season, and for the season’s final production the company presented
the New York premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s opera Brokeback Mountain,
a love story about two doomed cowboys in the mid-twentieth-century
Midwest.
The opera was based on Annie Proulx’s 1997 short story “Brokeback
Mountain,” which was filmed in 2005. For the opera, Proulx wrote the
libretto, and the world premiere took place at the Teatro Real of Madrid on
January 28, 2014. Daniel Okulitch created the role of Ennis Del Mar, and
reprised his role for the New York presentation. The current production was
based on a staging at the Salzburg State Theatre in 2016.
Ennis and Jack Twist (Glenn Seven Allen) are two cowboys who meet
in Wyoming in 1963 and fall in love. They remain lovers for years, but
societal norms essentially keep them apart, and each marries and raises a
family. Also, because of his inability to completely accept his sexual
desires, Ennis is unwilling to go the distance with Jack in an open
relationship. Ultimately, they are separated forever when Jack dies in a car
accident (which Ennis imagines might have been murder by gay-bashers),
and Ennis must live out his life with loneliness and regret.
Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times found the score
“unabashedly atonal,” “fiercely complex,” “relentlessly busy,” and
“ineffectively intricate.” Further, for such “unsophisticated” and “rural”
characters, the music made them seem “oddly brainy.” Matt Costello in
OperaWire said the work was “compelling” but the libretto was too rushed.
The score lacked lyricism and avoided even an “intermittent burst of
melody,” but the final moments when Ennis faces his loss offered music “of
appropriate power.” James Jorden in the Observer said Wuorinen’s music
could be “breathtakingly exquisite,” but it sounded “dated and limited” in
its “emotional response to the action” and was “cerebral rather than
visceral.” And for its setting and characters, the score was too “edgy, urban,
contemporary and sophisticated.”
Oussama Zahr in Opera News noted the opera was “arid and
threatening, with atonal flourishes that rise to treacherous peaks before
dissipating in the mountain air,” but noted that Ennis’s final scene was sung
by Okulitch with a “beautiful tone that pierced the heart.” The headline of
Eric C. Simpson’s notice in the New York Classical Review stated the
“dreary” score put “passion on ice.” The music was “rarely up to the task of
filling out the text” and it was difficult to find a “connection” between the
music in the pit and the action on stage. But Okulitch’s “warm” and
“wooly” bass-baritone was used “to its greatest effect in his crushing final
monologue, part apology and part lament.”
A DVD of the Madrid production was released by Bel Air Classiques.
THE HONEYMOONERS
The Honeymooners played at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New
Jersey, during the period September 28–October 29, 2017, with an
official opening night of October 8. As of this writing, the musical
Book: Dusty Kay and Bill Nuss
Lyrics: Peter Mills
Music: Stephen Weiner
Based on the CBS television series The Honeymooners.
Direction: John Rando; Producer: Paper Mill Playhouse (Mark S. Hoebee,
Producing Artistic Director); Choreography: Joshua Bergasse; Scenery:
Beowulf Boritt; Costumes: Jess Goldstein; Lighting: Jason Lyons;
Musical Direction: Remy Kurs
Cast: Leslie Kritzer (Alice Kramden), Michael McGrath (Ralph Kramden),
Michael Mastro (Ed Norton), Stacey Todd Holt (“Captain Video”
Announcer), Laura Bell Bundy (Trixie Norton), Holly Ann Butler (Mrs.
Manicotti); Jingle Singers: Holly Ann Butler, Hannah Florence, Tessa
Grady, and Eloise Kropp; David Wohl (Allen Upshaw), Lewis Cleale
(Bryce Bennett), Britton Smith (Freddie Muller), Jeffrey Schecter
(Lenny Stern, “Cavalcade” Cohost), Chris Dwan (Ed Streb), Lewis J.
Stadlen (Old Man Faciamatta), Kevin Worley (Francois Renault), Harris
Milgrim (Dylan Casey), Lance Roberts (Perry O’Brien, Morris Fink),
Michael L. Walters (“Cavalcade” Host); Ensemble: Holly Ann Butler,
Chris Dwan, Hannah Florence, Tessa Grady, Stacey Todd Holt, Eloise
Kropp, Harris Milgrim, Justin Prescott, Lance Roberts, Jeffrey Schecter,
Britton Smith, Michael J. Walters, Kevin Worley
The action takes place in Brooklyn and Manhattan a few weeks before
Christmas 1950.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Going Places” (Michael McGrath, Bus Drivers); “King of the
Castle” (Michael McGrath, Michael Mastro); “Eighty-Eight Keys”
(Leslie Kritzer); “Undeniable”” (Laura Bell Bundy, Michael Mastro);
“The Madison Avenue Line” (Britton Smith, Michael McGrath, Bus
Drivers); “Upshaw and Young” (Chris Dwan, Gray Flannelers,
Secretaries, Michael McGrath, Michael Mastro); “Infine la Felicita”
(Lewis J. Stadlen, Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, Michael Mastro,
Chris Dwan, Gray Flannelers); “Trixie’s Audition” (Laura Bell Bundy,
Kevin Worley); “Toast of the Town” (Michael McGrath, Leslie Kritzer,
New York Society)
Act Two: “To the Moon” (Michael McGrath, Leslie Kritzer); “You’re One
of Our Kind” (Lewis Cleale, Michael Mastro); “Keepin’ It Warm”
(Laura Bell Bundy, El Morocco Ensemble); “Love Gone Down the
Drain” (Michael Mastro, Sewer Workers); “The Raccoon Hymn”
(Michael McGrath, Raccoons); “A Woman’s Work” (Leslie Kritzer);
“I’ll Miss the Guy” (Michael McGrath, Michael Mastro); “Faciamatta
Commercial” (Laura Bell Bundy, “Cavalcade” Ensemble); “Baby,
You’re the Greatest” (Michael J. Walters, Michael McGrath, Leslie
Kritzer, Michael Mastro, Laura Bell Bundy, Company)
The characters in the long-running television series The Honeymooners

were back, and this time Ralph and Alice and Ed and Trixie (and, in a
sense, the performers who created the roles, Jackie Gleason, Audrey
Meadows, Art Carney, and Joyce Randolph) were in a musical.
The Honeymooners sounds like a pleasant enough evening, but after its
world premiere at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse it seems to have
disappeared. One suspects the show might have a reasonably healthy life in
regional and community theatre, and perhaps is a viable candidate for a
national road tour. It probably wouldn’t stand a chance on Broadway, but
there’s likely a built-in national audience for the musical adaptation (on the
other hand, maybe the television show’s fan base has dwindled and The
Honeymooners brand is an unknown quantity to those audiences who
support Wicked, The Book of Mormon, and Dear Evan Hansen).
The musical pushed all the right buttons as it followed the familiar
pattern of the beloved TV series. If Lucy Ricardo is always obsessed with
becoming a star (that episode when she tries to break into show business is
one of the best!), then New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden (Michael
McGrath) and sewer worker Ed Norton (Michael Mastro) are always
looking in vain for a sure-fire, get-rich-quick scheme, and for the musical
they win a jingle contest and are promptly hired by a Madison Avenue
advertising firm.
The score included songs with such redolent titles as “To the Moon,”
“Baby, You’re the Greatest,” “King of the Castle,” and “The Raccoon
Hymn,” Ed and his fellow sewer workers sang “Love Gone Down the
Drain,” and for those steeped in Honeymooners’ minutiae, yes, even the
immortal swivel-hipped Mrs. Manicotti (Holly Ann Butler) made an
appearance.
The evening offered fifties’ nostalgia with a song titled “Toast of the
Town,” and the chorus portrayed “Gray Flannelers” and the El Morocco
crowd. Leslie Kritzer was Ralph’s long-suffering wife Alice who has to put
up with his bellowing braggadocio as well as their cramped Brooklyn
apartment, and it was she who sang “A Woman’s Work,” the score’s most
well-received number (“A Woman’s Work Is Never Done” was the title of
the fourth episode of the “Classic 39” Honeymooners episodes which were
aired during the 1955–1956 season).
The book writers gave Ed’s wife Trixie (Laura Bell Bundy) a backstory,
and so we discover that prior to her marriage she was a stripper, and in the
musical she takes up her former vocation. Perhaps her stripper lineage was
a subtle homage to Gleason’s blockbuster (and now forgotten) 1944
Broadway musical Follow the Girls, which played for 882 performances
and for a time was the second-longest-running book musical in Broadway
history. In that show, Gleason played Goofy Gale, and his girlfriend,
Bubbles LaMarr, is a stripper who entertains soldiers at a canteen. Because
Goofy is a civilian, he can’t enter the canteen, and so he disguises himself
as a WAVE (but as Wilella Waldorf noted in the New York Post, Gleason
“made a very large WAVE indeed, almost a tidal WAVE”).
Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times said the “darned enjoyable” and
“pleasantly fluffy” show gave you a “nostalgia bath,” Alice’s “A Woman’s
Work” was a show-stopper, “The Madison Avenue Line” was “particularly
hilarious,” and McGrath gave a “pretty good” imitation of Gleason.
Although Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News said the four
leads were “aces” and director John Rando and the designers delivered
“polished work,” the show never went “to the moon” because with so much
plot “padding” the musical couldn’t get a “liftoff.”
Frank Rizzo in Variety found the evening “lumbering” and
“scattershot,” with a “meandering and seemingly endless storyline” with a
“convoluted, padded and eventually tiresome” plot and “pleasant but
generic” songs; Matt Windman in amNewYork noted the “sappy and
sanitized” production was nonetheless “polished, peppy and pleasantly old-
fashioned in style” with “workmanlike and forgettable” songs; and Frank
Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said the “bloated extravaganza” offered
a “proficient and yet totally unmemorable” score and felt like “an elongated
Honeymooners episode,” and the evening raised “the terrifying question of
whether an all-singing, all-dancing Seinfeld could be next.”
The advertising world of Madison Avenue evoked memories of Frank
Loesser’s How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961), and
Trixie’s profession brought to mind another Loesser musical (1950’s Guys
and Dolls). Windman said the musical needed “witty, New York-savvy
writers” like Loesser and the team of Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and
Jule Styne (he mentioned the team’s respective 1956 and 1960 musicals
Bells Are Ringing and Do Re Mi, and noted that the latter’s plot evoked The
Honeymooners “in a lot of ways”).
The Honeymooners had a long television life, and while the “Classic
39” episodes are the most remembered, the show was seen on and off from
1951 to 1978, sometimes as full episodes and other times as sketches within
variety shows. Some might question the rationale of a musical
Honeymooners, but it’s noteworthy that The Honeymooners was
occasionally presented in musical-comedy format (and with original songs)
during part of the show’s marathon TV run.
On television, Ralph and Alice’s drab apartment made Lucy and Ricky’s
look like Buckingham Palace. But this viewer saw one of the “Classic 39”
episodes filmed at the Adelphi Theatre (formerly the Craig and later the
54th Street and George Abbott Theatres, and now demolished) and can
attest that what was dreary on black-and-white television was on the
Adelphi stage an explosion of Technicolor, including Alice’s apron and the
colorful dish towels hanging near the kitchen sink.
ROMAN HOLIDAY (2017)

After a preview period that began in May 2017, Roman Holiday opened at
the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco, California, on June 6
and closed on June 18. As of this writing, the musical hasn’t been
presented on Broadway. (See entry for the earlier 2012 version of this
adaptation.)
Book: Kathy Speer, Terry Grossman, and Paul Blake
Based on the 1953 Paramount film Roman Holiday (direction by William
Wyler and screenplay by John Dighton and Ian McLellan Hunter).
Direction: Marc Bruni; Producers: Paul Blake and Mike Bosner, Richard A.
Smith, Jeffrey A. Sine, Jeremiah J. Harris & Darren P. DeVerna, Kit
Seidel, Patty Baker/Good Productions, Walter Schmidt, Timothy Hogue,
Larry Magid, Margaret McGetrick, Terry Schnuck, John Cefaly, Gene
and Maxine Rosenfeld, and Brooklyn Boy; Choreography: Alex
Sanchez; Scenery: Todd Rosenthal; Projection Design: Sven Ortel;
Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical
Direction: Todd Ellison
Cast: Stephanie Styles (Princess Anne), Drew Gehling (Joe Bradley),
Georgia Engel (Countess), Jarrod Spector (Irving), Sara Chase
(Francesca Cervelli), Michael Mulheren (Hennessy); Ensemble:
Brandon Block, Kevin Duda, Donna English, Rick Faugno, Andrew
Kober, Alison Jantzie, Marissa McGowan, Kevin Munhall, Khori
Michelle Petinaud, Wayne Pretlow, Shannon Rugani, Tommy Scrivens
The action takes place in Rome in 1953.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Why Shouldn’t I?” (Jubilee, 1935) (Stephanie Styles); “You Do
Something to Me” (Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929) (Sara Chase,
Ensemble); “Take Me Back to Manhattan” (The New Yorkers, 1930)
(Drew Gehling, Jarrod Spector, Ensemble); “Let’s Step Out” (added
during run of Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929) (Stephanie Styles); “Let’s
Step Out” (reprise) (Stephanie Styles); “Experiment” (Nymph Errant,
1933 [London]) (Drew Gehling); “Experiment” Ballet (Stephanie
Styles, Drew Gehling, Ensemble); “Look What I Found” (Around the
World, 1946) (Drew Gehling, Stephanie Styles, Ensemble); “Night and
Day” (Gay Divorce, 1932) (Jarrod Spector, Sara Chase); “Look What I
Found” (reprise) (Stephanie Styles, Drew Gehling, Jarrod Spector);
“Ridin’ High” (Red, Hot, and Blue, 1936) (Drew Gehling, Stephanie
Styles, Ensemble); “Why Shouldn’t I?” (reprise) (Stephanie Styles)
Act Two: “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love” (Leave It to Me!, 1938)
(Sara Chase, Ladies); “Night and Day” (reprise) (Jarrod Spector); “Use
Your Imagination” (Out of This World, 1950) (Stephanie Styles, Drew
Gehling); “Begin the Beguine” (Jubilee, 1935) (Sara Chase, Men); “You
Do Something to Me” (reprise) (Jarrod Spector, Sara Chase); “Easy to
Love” (1936 film Born to Dance) (Drew Gehling); “Goodbye, Little
Dream, Goodbye” (dropped during tryout of Red, Hot, and Blue, 1936;
later in year was used in London play O Mistress Mine) (Stephanie
Styles); “Just One of Those Things” (Jubilee, 1935) (Stephanie Styles,
Drew Gehling); “Experiment” (reprise) (Stephanie Styles)
The current musical adaptation of the 1953 film Roman Holiday was a
reworked version of a production that played at the Guthrie Theatre
(Minneapolis, Minnesota) in 2012 (see entry, which also references an
earlier 2001 production).
This time around, Paul Blake’s book was credited to both Blake and to
Kathy Speer and Terry Grossman; Alex Sanchez returned as choreographer,
as did set designer Todd Rosenthal; and the new version tossed seven Porter
songs heard in the previous production and added four others.
Dennis Harvey in Variety said the evening was a “generic excuse” for
presenting a number of Porter songs, and the “innocuous” enterprise was
“quaintly passé rather than charming” and lacked the “star power to distract
from the general mediocrity.” The story was “wafer-thin,” the characters
“stock” types, and the musical arrangements “pedestrian,” but Rosenthal’s
decor was “handsomely awash in Mediterranean colors.” Overall, Roman
Holiday was a “cut-rate package tour,” and Porter was “too elegant for this
company.”
Lily Janiak in the San Francisco Chronicle noted that Georgia Engel
played a countess whose “sweet-seeming delivery” was “acridly inflected”
and “so assiduously timed” that you wished Roman Holiday would “refocus
itself as The Countess Show.”
SOFT POWER
“A PLAY WITH A MUSICAL”
The musical Soft Power played at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles
for the period May 3–June 10, 2018 (with an official opening on May
16), and at the Curran Theatre, San Francisco, for the period June 20–
July 8 (official opening on June 21). The musical was later presented
Off-Broadway (see below).
Book: David Henry Hwang
Lyrics: David Henry Hwang; additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori
Music: Jeanine Tesori
Direction: Leigh Silverman; Producers: Center Theatre Group (Michael
Ritchie, Artistic Director) in association with East West Players and the
Curran Theatre; Choreography: Sam Pinkleton; Scenery: David Zinn;
Costumes: Anita Yavich; Lighting: Mark Barton; Musical Direction:
David O
Cast: Francis Jue (DHH), Alyse Alan Louis (Zoe, Hillary), Conrad
Ricamora (Xue Xing), Jon Hoche (Tony Manero, Chief Justice), Kendyl
Ito (Jing), Austin Ku (Bobby Bob), Raymond J. Lee (Randy Ray, Veep),
Maria-Christina Oliveras (Campaign Manager); Ensemble: Billy
Bustamante, Jon Hoche, Kendyl Ito, Austin Ku, Raymond J. Lee,
Jaygee Macapugay, Daniel May, Paul HeeSang Miller, Kristen Faith
Oei, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Geena Quintos
The action takes place in Los Angeles during the early twenty-first century
and in Shanghai, China, in the early twenty-second century.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers.
David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s Soft Power was a self-
described “play with a musical,” and it looked at the concept of “soft
power” (as opposed to “hard power”), a theory that espouses gentle
persuasion (often through cultural means) as a way to effect change.
The evening began as a short play in which American playwright DHH
(as in David Henry Hwang) (Frances Jue) and Chinese television executive
Xue King (Conrad Ricamora) discuss the best way to represent China to the
United States (and the world), and they decide that propaganda dressed and
sweetened as a television spectacular is the best means. The show then
morphs into DHH’s musical dream which dissects American culture and
politics. The Asian-American cast don blonde wigs, speak in Southern
accents, and carry guns, and according to Lily Janiak in the San Francisco
Chronicle, the show’s politics decide that Hillary Clinton (Alyse Alan
Louis) is “a beacon of hope” even though she lost the election. Janiak also
reported that the show kidded Broadway conventions, and so the Chinese
“get musical theatre wrong” and blend Grease’s hand jive with a “break
dance, a kick line and bucking bronco riding à la Agnes de Mille.”
Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times found the evening “smart,
splashy, wonderfully funny and excessively complicated,” and Jordan Riefe
in the Hollywood Reporter noted that the “bold” and “satirical” musical
offered “loopy” songs and was “strong on theme,” but was “thin on plot and
occasionally hard to decipher.” Riefe suggested the work “might be the
most creatively and intellectually ambitious musical of the year” but
nonetheless lacked “coherence.” Further, Tesori’s score included “top-
notch” songs (“Good Guy with a Gun”) as well as “clunkers” (“Fuxing
Park”), and Hwang’s lyrics alternated between “prosaic and inspired.”
The musical was presented Off-Broadway at the Public’s Newman
Theatre for an engagement of sixty-two performances during the period
September 14–November 17, 2019. The cast album was recorded by
Ghostlight Records, and individual songs are available on MP3.
THE STING
The Sting played at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey,
during the period March 29–April 29, 2018, with an official opening
night of April 8. As of this writing, the musical hasn’t been presented on
Broadway.
Book: Bob Martin
Lyrics and Music: Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis; additional lyrics and
music by Harry Connick Jr.; additional music by Scott Joplin and Louis
Chauvin
Based on the 1973 Universal Pictures’ film The Sting (direction by George
Roy Hill and screenplay by David S. Ward).
Direction: John Rando; Producer: The Paper Mill Playhouse (Mark S.
Hoebee, Producing Artistic Director); Choreography: Warren Carlyle;
Scenery: Beowulf Bortitt; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Japhy
Weideman; Musical Direction: Fred Lassen
Cast: Kevyn Morrow (Luther), J. Harrison Ghee (Johnny Hooker), Peter
Benson (The Erie Kid), Drew McVety (Mottola, Jameson, Polk),
Sherisse Springer (Gloria), Robert Wuhl (Lieutenant Snyder), Michael
Fatica (Floyd), Tom Hewitt (Doyle Lonnegan), Kate Shindle (Billie),
Harry Connick Jr. (Henry Gondorff), Richard Kline (Kid Twist),
Christopher Gurr (J. J. Singleton), Britton Smith (Supplier), Matt Loehr
(Englishman, Train Conductor, Mr. Harmon), Janet Decal (Loretta),
Kevin Worley (Clayton, Sheet Writer), Luke Hawkins (Lombard), Lara
Seibert Young (Receptionist); Ensemble: Lucien Barbarin, Darius
Barnes, Keely Beirne, Michael Fatica, Luke Hawkins, Tyler Huckstep,
Matt Loehr, Erica Mansfield, Drew McVety, Ramone Owens, Tyler
Roberts, Angie Schworer, Christine Shepard, Britton Smith, Sherisse
Springer, Diana Vaden, Kevin Worley, Lara Seibert Young
The action takes place during 1936 in Joliet and Chicago, Illinois.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “You Can’t Trust Nobody” (Kevyn Morrow, J. Harrison Ghee,
Peter Benson, Ensemble); “The Thrill of the Con” (J. Harrison Ghee,
Kevyn Morrow, Peter Benson, Ensemble); “Lonnegan’s Revenge” (Tom
Hewitt); “Ragtime Rip” (Harry Connick Jr., J. Harrison Ghee); “We’re
Back” (Harry Connick Jr., Kate Shindle, Richard Kline, Christopher
Gurr, Ensemble); “Some Say” (J. Harrison Ghee, Janet Decal); “The
Chase”; “The Card Game” (Harry Connick Jr., Tom Hewitt, Poker
Players); “I Roll Bones with the Devil” (J. Harrison Ghee); “The First
Race” (Christopher Gurr, Peter Benson, J. Harrison Ghee, Tom Hewitt,
Ensemble)
Act Two: “This Ain’t No Song and Dance” (Harry Connick Jr., Ensemble);
“Don’t Treat Your Friends Like Marks” (Harry Connick Jr., J. Harrison
Ghee); “Nighttime Is Better” (Janet Decal); “Show Me the Man” (Kate
Shindle, Peter Benson, Matt Loehr); “Confidence” (J. Harrison Ghee,
Kevyn Morrow); “Tough Guy” (Harry Connick Jr.); “Sometimes” (Kate
Shindle); “This Ain’t No Song and Dance” (reprise) (Harry Connick
Jr.); “Ain’t Nothin’” (Harry Connick Jr.); “The Second Race”
(Company); “The Thrill of the Con” (J. Harrison Ghee, Harry Connick
Jr.)
Note: A program note indicated the following music was also heard in the
production: “The Entertainer,” “The Easy Winners,” “Solace,” “The
Strenuous Life,” “The Chrysanthemum,” “The Cascades,” “A Breeze
from Alabama,” “Rose Leaf Rag,” and “The Ragtime Dance” (all music
by Scott Joplin) and “Heliotrope Bouquet” (music by Scott Joplin and
Louis Chauvin).
The Sting was based on the popular 1973 film of the same name, and
like the movie it focused on smalltime Chicago con men Henry Gondorff
(Harry Connick Jr.) and Johnny Hooker (J. Harrison Ghee) who take on
slick and ruthless New York gangster Doyle Lonnegan (Tom Hewitt) in
order to pull the ultimate sting.
The musical reunited director John Rando and the lyricist-composer
team of Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis, who performed similar duties with
their Tony Award–winning hit musical Urinetown in 2001. Connick also
contributed lyrics and music to the show, and the production utilized rags
by Scott Joplin (as did the 1973 film, which re-popularized Joplin’s music
some sixty years after it was originally composed).
Alexis Soloski in the New York Times liked the “jaunty entertainment”
with its “charming” book by Bob Martin and “blissful” choreography by
Warren Carlyle, but while the songs were “likable enough” you could
predict “the rhymes from the next town over.” Matt Windman in
amNewYork said Martin’s adaptation was a “dud,” and the production was
directed “without coherence,” with “silly gags and tenderhearted moments”
as well as piano solos for Connick. While the dances had “flare,” there were
“awkwardly” inserted and “un-motivated” tap dance numbers, all of which
caused a “stop-and-start momentum.” And Joe Dziemianowicz in the New
York Daily News said the performances, score, and script weren’t “quite
there yet” and the laughs were “missing in action.”
2018–2019 Season
HEAD OVER HEELS

Opening Date: July 26, 2018; Closing Date: January 6, 2019
Performances: 188
Book: Conception and original book by Jeff Whitty; book adaptation by
James Magruder
Lyrics and Music: The Go-Go’s
Based on the late sixteenth-century novel The Arcadia aka The Countess of
Pembroke’s Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney.
Direction: Michael Mayer (Austin Regan, Associate Director); Producers:
Christine Russell, Louise L. Gund, Donovan Leitch, Rick Ferrari,
Gwyneth Paltrow, Scott Sigman, Hunter Arnold, Tom Kirdahy, Jordan
Roth, Julie Boardman, Broadway Strategic Return Fund, Vikram
Chatwal, John Gore Organization, Networks Presentations, Insurgent
Media, Robert Kravis, Art Lab, LLC, Marc Bell, Maria Burros-Sandler,
Carrie Clifford, Eric Cornell, Adam Gorgoni, Carole Shorenstein Hays,
Marguerite Hoffman, Dr. Michael Mintz, Sandi Moran, Paramount
Pictures, Van Horn Doran Group, and Jonathan and Nancy Glaser/Lucy
Fato and Matthew Detmer; IOI Productions, Ltd., and Red
Awning/Nicole Kastrinos, Executive Producers; Choreography: Spencer
Liff (Ellenore Scott, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Julian Crouch;
Projections: Andrew Lazarow; Costumes: Arianne Phillips; Lighting:
Kevin Adams; Musical Direction: Kimberly Grigsby
Cast: Jeremy Kushnier (Basilius), Rachel York (Gynecia), Bonnie Milligan
(Pamela), Alexandra Socha (Philoclea), Tom Alan Robbins (Dametas),
Taylor Iman Jones (Mopsa), Andrew Durand (Musidorus), Peppermint
(Pythio); Ensemble: Amber Ardolino, Yurel Echezarreta, Ari Groover,
Tanya Haglund, Gregory Liles, Samantha Pollino, Justin Prescott,
Ricardo A. Zayas
The action takes place during the Elizabethan era in Arcadia and environs.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “We Got the Beat” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey)
(Company); “Beautiful” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey and
Regina aka Gina Schock) (Bonnie Milligan, Ensemble); “Vision of
Nowness” (lyric and music by Kathy Valentine and Craig Ross)
(Peppermint, Ensemble); “Get Up and Go” (lyric and music by
Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin) (Jeremy Kushnier, Company); “Mad
about You” (lyric and music by Paula Jean Brown, James Francis
Whelan, and Mitchel Young Evans) (Andrew Durand, Male Ensemble);
“Good Girl” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin)
(Alexandra Socha, Taylor Iman Jones, Bonnie Milligan); “Vision of
Nowness” (reprise) and “Beautiful” (reprise) (Andrew Durand,
Peppermint, Female Ensemble); “Automatic Rainy Day” (lyric and
music by Regina Schock, Steve Plunkett, and Jane Wiedlin) (Bonnie
Milligan, Taylor Iman Jones); “Cool Jerk” (lyric and music by Donald
Storboll) (Company); “Vacation” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey,
Kathy Valentine, and Jane Wiedlin) (Taylor Iman Jones, Female
Ensemble); “How Much More” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey
and Jane Wiedlin) (Bonnie Milligan); “Our Lips Are Sealed” (lyric and
music by Jane Wiedlin and Terence Edward Hall) (Andrew Durand,
Alexandra Socha, Bonnie Milligan, Taylor Iman Jones, Peppermint,
Ensemble)
Act Two: “Head Over Heels” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey and
Kathy Valentine) (Andrew Durand, Alexandra Socha, Taylor Iman
Jones, Bonnie Milligan, Company); “This Old Feeling” (lyric and music
by Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin) (Rachel York, Jeremy Kushnier);
“Turn to You” (lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin)
(Taylor Iman Jones, Bonnie Milligan, Ensemble); “Heaven Is a Place on
Earth” (lyric and music by Richard Nowels Jr., and Ellen Shipley)
(Peppermint, Rachel York, Jeremy Kushnier, Ensemble); “Lust to Love”
(lyric and music by Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin) (Jeremy
Kushnier, Ensemble); “Here You Are” (lyric and music by James
Vallance, Charlotte Caffey, and Jane Wiedlin) (Alexandra Socha,
Company); “Mad about You” (reprise) (Company); Finale (Company)
Head over Heels was another jukebox musical, and this time around the
songs were ones mostly written by The Go-Go’s, a punk rock band
consisting of five women. In case you’d never heard of The Go-Go’s, the
program reported that the group was an “integral part of the L.A. punk
scene,” their 1981 album Beauty and the Beat “remains one of the most
successful debut albums of all time,” and the group has “a place in history
that no other band can claim.” And for those who wondered about cast
member Peppermint, the program identified her as “the first transgender
woman to create a principal role” in a Broadway musical, and said her fans
knew her from Season 9 of the series RuPaul’s Drag Race.
As for the story itself, Head over Heels was based on the Elizabethan
Arcadia aka The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney
(Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia, which opened in London in 1993 and on
Broadway in 1995, isn’t related to Sidney’s work). Ben Brantley in the New
York Times described the plot as “sexually polymorphous,” and perhaps that
was the least of it. The show mixed Elizabethan sensibility with “plenty of
sex—straight, gay and otherwise” (per Michael Riedel in the New York
Post), but perhaps there was a limited niche market of Go-Go’s fans who
were also English graduate students. The show collapsed after some five
months on Broadway. Michael Paulson in the Times reported that the “flop”
had “consistently struggled at the box office” and “remained open largely
thanks to the generosity of its producers.” When it closed, it hadn’t
recouped its $14.5 million capitalization.
The action takes place in the confused (and confusing) kingdom of
Arcadia, where lives a princess who discovers her inner Sappho; a shepherd
who loves another princess and for musical comedy reasons dresses like an
Amazon (and immediately becomes an object of desire for both the king
and queen); and an oracle played by the “transgender woman” Peppermint.
Brantley said the “timid and awkward” musical lacked the “courage of
its convictions”; it “mutter[ed] deferentially when what you want is a rebel
yell.” He viewed the pastoral world of Sidney’s Arcadia and the punk music
of The Go-Go’s as a “shotgun wedding.” Johnny Oleksinski in the Post said
the familiar story blended bits of Twelfth Night, Into the Woods, and Xanadu
and offered “grating” and “extremely tedious” dialogue of the “olde English
speak” variety. As a result, “Go-Go’s fans will want to get up and go.”
Although not part of the program’s song list, two numbers in the
program’s music credits were “Skid-marks on My Heart” (lyric and music
by Belinda Carlisle and Charlotte Caffey) and “This Town” (lyric and
music by Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin), and the latter was included as
a bonus track on the Broadway cast album released by Sony Classical
Records.
GETTIN’ THE BAND BACK TOGETHER

Opening Date: August 13, 2018; Closing Date: September 16, 2018
Performances: 40
Book: Ken Davenport and The Grundleshotz
Lyrics and Music: Mark Allen
Additional Material: Sarah Saltzberg
Direction: John Rando (Dan Barron, Associate Director); Producers: Ken
Davenport, Hunter Arnold, Roy Putrino, Scott Abrams, Sandi Moran,
Carl Daikeler, Broadway Strategic Return Fund, Rob Kolson, Marie
Barton Stevenson, J. Richard Hopper, Richard Roth, Marguerite
Hoffman, Diego Kolankowsky, Gary Nelson, Brian Cromwell Smith,
Witzend Productions/David Bryant, Darrell Hankey/Trevor Coates,
Ladybug Productions/Jim Wagstaffe/Laura Z. Barket, Judith
Manocherian/John McGrain/Steve Reynolds, Sal Buscemi/Douglas K.
Atamian/Rich Battista, and Frederic J. Siegel/BF Investments/Sean
Attebury; Kayla Greenspan and Valerie Novakoff, Associate Producers;
Choreography: Chris Bailey (Beth Crandall, Associate Choreographer);
Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes: Emily Rebholz; Lighting: Ken
Billington; Musical Direction: Sonny Paladino
Cast: Mitchell Jarvis (Mitch Papadopoulos), Jay Klaitz (Bart Vickers), Paul
Whitty (Sully Sullivan), Manu Narayan (Rummesh “Robbie” Patel),
Brandon Williams (Tygen Billows), Marilu Henner (Sharon Papa-
dopoulos), Kelli Barrett (Dani Franco), Garth Kravits (Ritchie Lorenzo),
Tamika Lawrence (Roxanne aka Roxy Velasco), Becca Kotte (Tawney
Truebody), Sawyer Nunes (Ricky Bling), Noa Solorio (Billie Franco);
Ensemble: Ryan Duncan, Nehal Joshi, Becca Kotte, J. Elaine Marcos,
Rob Marnell, Jasmin Richardson, Tad Wilson
The action takes place during the present time in New York City and
Sayreville, New Jersey.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Mitchell Jarvis); “Jersey” (Mitchell Jarvis, Company);
“How Does Your Mouthfeel?” (Brandon Williams, Mouthfeel); “One of
Those Guys” (Mitchell Jarvis, Company); “Jersey” (reprise) (Brandon
Williams, Mouthfeel); “Gettin’ the Band Back Together” (Mitchell
Jarvis, Jay Klaitz, Paul Whitty, Manu Narayan, Company); “Find the
One” (Manu Narayan, Juggernaut, Company); “Best Day of My Life”
(Mitchell Jarvis, Kelli Barrett, Company); “WWJPD” (that is, “What
Would Joe Perry Do?”) (Marilu Henner, Juggernaut, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Hava Nagila” (Sawyer Nunes, Company);
“Second Chances” (Ryan Duncan); “I Just Want Real” (Kelli Barrett);
“Life without Parole” (Paul Whitty, Company); “Battle of Your Life”
(Tamika Lawrence, Juggernaut, Mouthfeel, Company); “Bart’s
Confession” (Jay Klaitz); “Best Band in the World” (Mouthfeel); “One
of Those Guys” (reprise) (Mitchell Jarvis); “Do Over” (Mitchell Jarvis,
Company); “Jersey” (reprise) (Mitchell Jarvis, Company); “Gettin’ the
Band Back Together Finale” (Company)
Getting’ the Band Back Together boasted that it was an original musical
not based on an old movie, but Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter
assured his readers that they’d “seen it all before,” and Jesse Green in the
New York Times said “Broadway math” could describe the show because it
was “School of Rock plus The Full Monty divided by The Wedding Singer—
and multiplied by zero.”
As a result of unenthusiastic reviews and sparse audience attendance,
the musical closed after five weeks with a reported loss of $12.5 million.
The familiar story looked at a group of generally disillusioned and
disappointed middle-aged guys who hope to earn money and regain their
self-respect by entering a band contest. They don’t pull a full monty, and
instead try to recapture their high school days when they were members of
their garage band Juggernaut. All this comes about because Wall Street
broker Mitch (Mitchell Jarvis) has been fired at the age of forty and has left
New York for New Jersey, where he now lives with his mother Sharon
(Marilu Henner), who is threatened with eviction by Mitch’s high school
rival Tygen Billows (Brandon Williams). Billows’s band Mouthfeel had
competed with, and lost to, Juggernaut back in high school days, and now
our villain owns most of the town’s real estate. Billows proposes a battle of
the bands between Juggernaut and Mouthfeel, and Mitch agrees only if
Billows won’t foreclose if Juggernaut wins. Of course, Juggernaut
triumphs, and with the exception of Billows a happy ending is had by all. In
fact, Sara Holdren in New York reported that at evening’s end there was
“salvation” for Mitch, his mother, and his friends because a “big check [is]
delivered out of the blue, in the ultimate deus ex rockina” (apparently
Juggernaut lands a big record contract).
Green said the musical offered “icky material” that consisted of “old
ingredients randomly cooked.” Further, the jokes were “groaners” (a
character calls a “hedge fund” a “shrub fund”) and the songs were “so rote
they’re textureless.” But there was one “immortal” bit of lyric in a scene at
an Orthodox Jewish wedding when in a rap version of “Hava Nagila” we’re
advised to “make a ruckus with your tuchis.” Scheck said “what happened
in Jersey should have stayed in Jersey,” noted there were “no small number
of cooks” in the musical’s “creative pot,” and “to say that the humor is
unsophisticated is an understatement.” (But there seems to have been at
least one good joke. Jonathan Mandell in DCTheatreScene reported that one
of the original Juggernaut band members is dead, and the words on his
tombstone are: “I told you I was sick.”)
Holdren said the show might be “original,” but it was “nothing we
haven’t been sold before” with “cheap stuff” that was “stale.” There were
“mediocre” running gags, dancers costumed “as a parade of tired
stereotypes,” cliché characters on the order of an always-angry grandmother
and a “swishy” drama teacher outfitted with a beret and scarf, and “upbeat
if not particularly memorable rock anthems.” Elisabeth Vincentelli in
Newsday said the evening was a “seemingly endless series of sentimental
plot points, clichés and groan-inducing jokes.” But she reported that at one
point, T-shirts were shot from a cannon and into the audience (perhaps this
was a subtle homage to the previous Broadway season when SpongeBob
SquarePants and Escape to Margaritaville rained beach balls on the
audience and Frozen showered everyone with paper snowflakes).
But Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the script was “funny without being
hilarious,” and it felt “so good to laugh real laughs on Broadway.” The
music was “utilitarian,” but the lyrics were “punchier,” and “Hava Nagila”
was played “as you have never heard it played before—scorching hot and
wicked good.”
The musical had been first presented at New Jersey’s George Street
Playhouse on September 24, 2013, with Mitchell Jarvis and Alison Fraser,
and a recording of the production was released. The Broadway cast album
was issued by Ghostlight Records.
Note that Ken Davenport and The Grundleshotz were credited with the
musical’s book. The program explained that the latter were a group of some
twelve performers and writers who helped in the development of the show
through a series of improvisational rehearsals.
PRETTY WOMAN
Opening Date: August 16, 2018; Closing Date: August 18, 2019
Performances: 420
Book: Garry Marshall and J. F. Lawton
Lyrics and Music: Bryan Adams and Jim Villance
Based on the 1990 Touchstone Pictures’ film Pretty Woman (direction by
Garry Marshall and screenplay by J. F. Lawton).
Direction and Choreography: Jerry Mitchell (DB Bonds, Associate
Director; Rusty Mowery, Associate Choreography); Producers: Paula
Wagner, Nice Productions, LPO, New Regency Productions, Caiola
Productions & Co., James L. Nederlander, Roy Furman, Hunter Arnold,
Graham Burke, Edward Watson, deRoy Kierstead, Michael Cassel
Group, Stage Entertainment, Ambassador Theatre Group, and John
Gore Organization; Wendy Orshan and Jeffrey M. Wilson, Executive
Producers; Sara Bottfeld, Associate Producer; Scenery: David
Rockwell; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Kenneth Posner and
Philip S. Rosenberg; Musical Direction: Will Van Dyke
Cast: Samantha Barks (Vivian Ward), Andy Karl (Edward Lewis), Orfeh
(Kit De Luca), Eric Anderson (Happy Man, Mr. Thompson), Jason
Danieley (Philip Stuckey), Ezra Knight (James Morse), Matthew Stocke
(Landlord), Anna Eilinsfeld (Susan, Scarlett), Jennifer Sanchez (Rachel,
Erica), Tommy Bracco (Giulio); Hotel Staff: Jake Odmark, Matthew
Stocke, Alex Michael Stoll, and Alan Wiggins; Ellyn Marie Marsh
(Amanda), Robby Clater (David Morse), Brian Cali (Fred, Alfredo),
Jake Odmark (Mr. Hollister), Alan Wiggins (Senator Adams), Allison
Blackwell (Violetta); Ensemble: Allison Blackwell, Tommy Bracco,
Brian Cali, Robby Clater, Anna Eilinsfeld, Lauren Lim Jackson, Renee
Marino, Ellyn Marie Marsh, Jillian Mueller, Jake Odmark, Jennifer
Sanchez, Matthew Stocke, Alex Michael Stoll, Alan Wiggins, Darius
Wright
The action takes place “once upon a time in the 1980s” in Hollywood.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Welcome to Hollywood” (Eric Anderson, Orfeh, Company);
“Anywhere but Here” (Samantha Barks); “Something about Her”
(“preamble” version) (Andy Karl); “Welcome to Hollywood” (reprise)
(Eric Anderson); “Something about Her” (reprise version) (Andy Karl):
“I Could Get Used to This” (Samantha Barks); “Luckiest Girl in the
World” (Samantha Barks, Orfeh, Tommy Bracco); “Rodeo Drive”
(Orfeh, Company); “Anywhere but Here” (reprise) (Samantha Barks);
“On a Night Like Tonight” (Eric Anderson, Company); “Don’t Forget to
Dance” (Eric Anderson, Anna Eilinsfeld, Company); “Freedom” (Andy
Karl); “You’re Beautiful” (Andy Karl, Samantha Barks, Company)
Act Two: “Welcome to Our World (More Champagne)” (Jason Danieley,
Company); “This Is My Life” (Samantha Barks); “Never Give Up on a
Dream” (Eric Anderson, Orfeh, Company); “You and I” (Andy Karl,
Brian Cali, Allison Blackwell, Company); “I Can’t Go Back”
(Samantha Barks); “Freedom” (reprise) (Andy Karl); “Long Way
Home” (Samantha Barks, Andy Karl); “Together Forever” (Andy Karl,
Samantha Barks, Eric Anderson, Orfeh, Company)
Pretty Woman was based on the popular 1990 film about a slightly
obsessive and uptight billionaire temporarily in Hollywood on a business
deal who hires a prostitute to spend the week with him. But what begins as
a purely sexual relationship blossoms into romance. The Cinderella-like
story soon joined the parade of successful films adapted for the lyric stage,
and although the critics were underwhelmed, audiences kept the reportedly
$17 million musical in business for a year (in a New York Times article
about the show’s closing, Nancy Coleman reported that the producers
“declined” to disclose the amount of the production’s capitalization).
Some critical bluenoses frowned on the very notion of a romantic love
story that revolved around a john and his paid prostitute, and so one
suspects a Broadway revival of Irma la Douce won’t happen anytime soon.
A few critics were also unhappy because the musical embraced the
acquisitive, materialistic, and dare-we-say capitalist culture of the 1980s,
and they no doubt cringed when they were subjected to such songs as
“Rodeo Drive” and “Welcome to Our World (More Champagne).”
Bob Verini in Variety said the “sanitized” adaptation was “stubbornly
inconsequential,” and the two “sizzling” leads (Andy Karl and Samantha
Barks) were given “bland” characters who sang songs “with nothing much
at stake”; David Finkle in the New York Stage Review found the score
“serviceable” and decided that “on the Cinderella-o-meter” Pretty Woman
fell short of My Fair Lady but was “perhaps pretty fair enough as these
things go”; and David Cote in the Village Voice complained that because the
musical retained its 1980s timeframe and refused to update the material by
introducing a “meaningful female perspective,” it resulted in a story in
which the two characters teach each other “about intimacy, trust, and the
value of designer dresses.”
Charles Isherwood in BroadwayNews said the “latest Broadway movie
night” was “tedious and pedestrian” with lyrics that felt “like a thick
thesaurus of banalities” and music mostly “bland and repetitive.” Adam
Feldman in Timeout commented that the true romance in the musical was
that of “conspicuous consumerism” in which “joyful self-actualization”
only comes from a “spending spree.” He also noted that the lyrics were
“utterly, almost senselessly generic,” and instead of songs that “heighten
key moments” they instead “grind those moments into mush.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the production “lowers the
already ground-scraping bar for literal-minded” musical adaptations of old
films. He said the plot was “uncomfortable,” noted that director and
choreographer Jerry Mitchell was on “automatic pilot,” that Barks came
across as a “peppy, tomboyish cutup from a sitcom,” and that Karl looked
“as if he would rather be anywhere but here.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the
New York Post found the story “icky” and out of place in 2018, and
although the score was “pleasant” with “soft rock and smooth grooves,” the
evening was little more than a “singing rerun.” Terry Teachout in the Wall
Street Journal didn’t mince words. The musical was a “dull clunker” and
“mediocre, albeit to a mind-boggling degree,” and “rarely in the history of
Broadway has a bigger, staler nothingburger been served.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter advised that the “cut-and-
paste” musical adaptation should be enjoyed as a “retro pleasure” whose
“chief reason to exist is as a nostalgia exercise.” If anyone was ready to get
“lathered up over gender stereotypes,” then they were “at the wrong show,”
and if the evening was “more rehash than reinvention” it was “still pretty
fetching after all these years.” He also noted that the Pygmalion-via-My-
Fair-Lady show mirrored a couple of numbers from the Alan Jay Lerner
and Frederick Loewe masterpiece: the sequence “On a Night Like
Tonight”/“Don’t Forget to Dance” was Pretty Woman’s musical
“counterpart” to the Embassy Ball scene in My Fair Lady, and “Welcome to
Our World (More Champagne)” corresponded to “The Ascot Gavotte.”
During the tryout, Steve Kazee created the role of Edward, and was
succeeded by Andy Karl. The songs “Money Makes the Man” and “Look at
Me Now” were cut prior to the Broadway opening.
The cast album was issued on CD and on a two-record vinyl set by
Atlantic Records.
The 1964 hit song “Oh, Pretty Woman” (lyrics and music by Roy
Orbison and Bill Dees) was used in the 1990 film Pretty Woman but wasn’t
heard in the musical version until June 2019, when the song was
interpolated as part of the show’s finale sequence.
MARNIE
Libretto: Nicholas Wright
Music: Nico Muhly
Based on the 1961 novel Marnie by Winston Graham (which was the basis
of the 1964 Universal Pictures’ film Marnie, direction by Alfred
Hitchcock and screenplay by Jay Presson Allen).
Direction: Michael Mayer; Producers: The Metropolitan Opera Company
(Peter Gelb, General Manager) in a coproduction with the English
National Opera; Choreography: Lynne Page (Thomas Herron, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery and Projections: Julian Crouch and 59
Productions; Costumes: Arianne Phillips; Lighting: Kevin Adams;
Choral Direction: Donald Palumbo; Children’s Choral Direction:
Anthony Piccolo; Musical Direction: Robert Spano
Cast: Marie Te Hapuku (Miss Fedder), Anthony Dean Griffey (Mr. Strutt),
Isabel Leonard (Marnie), Christopher Maltman (Mark Rutland);
Shadow Marnies: Deanna Breiwick, Disella Lárusdóttir, Rebecca Ringle
Kamarei, and Peabody Southwell; Gabriel Gurevich (Little Boy),
Denyce Graves (Marnie’s Mother), Jane Bunnell (Lucy), Stacey Tappan
(Dawn), Iestyn Davies (Terry Rutland), Ian Koziara (Derek), Ashley
Emerson (Laura Fleet), Will Liverman (Malcolm Fleet), Janis Kelly
(Mrs. Rutland), James Courtney (Doctor Roman); Chorus and Dancers:
The Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Ballet
The action takes place in England during 1959.
Musical Sequences
Note: The program didn’t provide a list of musical sequences.
Nico Muhly’s Marnie was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera

Company and was based on Winston Graham’s 1961 novel of the same
name, which was later filmed in 1964 by Universal Pictures with direction
by Alfred Hitchcock and screenplay by Jay Presson Allen (Tippi Hedren
was Marnie and Sean Connery played Mark Rutland). The opera’s world
premiere by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum on
November 18, 2017, with Sasha Cooke in the title role, and the first U.S.
presentation was given at the Met eleven months later.
Marnie (Isabel Leonard) is a compulsive liar and thief who changes her
looks and identity after each crime, and when she’s interviewed for a
position with a new company she’s recognized by Mark Rutland
(Christopher Maltman), who had briefly met her when she worked for a
different firm where a theft of funds had occurred. In order to ensure Mark’s
silence, Marnie agrees to marry him, but on their honeymoon she refuses to
have sexual relations. When he tries to rape her, she attempts suicide and
eventually agrees to see an analyst. During these sessions she recalls
memories of her past, including the memory of a dead baby brother, and she
discovers she’s innocent of his murder because it was her mother who killed
the child. Although she’s arrested for earlier thefts, she now feels she’s
“free.”
Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times said Nicholas Wright’s
libretto was “effective,” but Muhly’s score “seldom plumbs the darkest
strands of this psychological drama” and seemed like an “accompaniment”
to the story instead of a “realization” of it. Many of the characters lacked
“dramatic definition and depth,” and the words written in a “slow-moving
style” became “ponderous.” Justin Davidson in New York said the “deluxe
production” rested on “wispy” music, but the “emotive heart” of the opera
occurred in the office of Marnie’s therapist when her “fragmented psyche”
joins four of her alter egos (the “Shadow Marnies”), all of whom are
“blonde,” “poised,” and all but “indistinguishable” as they took turns “lying
on the couch” and “then cluster[ing] on it together.”
Richard Sasanow in BroadwayWorld noted that the often “fascinating”
opera “delivered the goods,” and the therapy scene was the work’s “most
brilliant” invention in its depiction of the five Marnies, each wearing “a
different colored version of the same outfit” and each “conveying the
splintering of her personality.”
Anna Midgette in the Washington Post found the opera “a colossal
waste of talent and opportunity” that tried to be “poetic” and was instead
“merely sophomoric.”
The first Met performance of Marnie was broadcast live on radio and
was streamed; the sixth showing was also broadcast live on radio; and the
seventh performance was shown theatrically via HD transmission. For the
Met’s premiere, Tippi Hedren was in attendance and she appeared on stage
with the company during the final bows. Sasanow said her appearance was
“the evening’s coup de theatre.”
Besides the novel, the 1964 film, and the current opera, Marnie was also
dramatized by Sean O’Connor and his play was seen in at least two British
productions.
THE FERRYMAN
Opening Date: October 21, 2018; Closing Date: July 7, 2019
Performances: 296
Play: Jez Butterworth
Music: Nick Powell; also see list of musical sequences below.
Direction: Sam Mendes (Tim Hoare, Associate Director); Producers: Sonia
Friedman Productions, Neal Street Productions, Ronald Frankel, Gavin
Kalin Productions, Roy Furman/Ben Lowy, Scott M. Delman, Stephanie
P. McClelland, Tulchin Bartner Productions, Ron Kastner, Starry Night
Entertainment, Kallish Weinstein Creative, Scott Landis, Steve Traxler,
Richard Winkler, Rona Delves Broughton/William Damaschke, 1001
Nights, Burnt Umber Productions, Rupert Gavin, Scott Rudin, Jamie
deRoy/Catherine Adler, Sam Levy/Lauren Stevens, and Ramin
Sabi/Christopher Ketner; Choreography: Scarlett Mackmin; Scenery
and Costumes: Rob Howell; Lighting: Peter Mumford
Cast: Dean Ashton (Frank Magennis), Paddy Considine (Quinn Carney),
Charles Dale (Father Horrigan), Laura Donnelly (Caitlin Carney), Justin
Edwards (Tom Kettle), Fra Fee (Michael Carney), Fionnula Flanagan
(Aunt Maggie Far Away), Tom Glynn-Carney (Shane Corcoran), Stuart
Graham (Muldoon), Mark Lambert (Uncle Patrick Carney), Carla
Langley (Shena Carney), Matilda Lawler (Honor Carney), Conor
MacNeill (Diarmaid Corcoran), Rob Malone (Oisin Carney), Michael
Quinton McArthur (Declan Corcoran), Willow McCarthy (Mercey
Carney), Dearbhla Molloy (Aunt Patricia Carney), Genevieve O’Reilly
(Mary Carney), Brooklyn Shuck (Nunu aka Nuala Carney), Glenn
Speers (Lawrence Malone), Niall Wright (James Joseph aka JJ Carney),
Bobby Carney (Sean Frank Coffey, Theo Ward Dunsmore, Cooper
Gomes, Rafael West Valles)
The play with music was presented in three acts.
The action takes place in rural County Armagh in Northern Ireland during
the late summer of 1981 (the prologue takes place in Derry, one or two
days earlier).
Musical Numbers
Note: The list of musical numbers is taken from the music credits’ page.
“Street Fighting Man” (lyric and music by Mick Jagger and Keith
Richards); “Loving Cup” (lyric and music by Mick Jagger and Keith
Richards); “Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K.550, III” and “Menuetto
Allegretto—Trio” (music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart); “Teenage
Kicks” (lyrics and music by John Joseph O’Neill); “Ashes to Ashes”
(lyric and music by David Bowie); “Kids in America” (“Writers: Marty
Wilde; Ricky Wilde”); “Couldn’t Love You More” (lyric and music by
Iain aka Ian David McGeachy aka John Martyn); “Solid Air” (lyric and
music by John Martyn)
Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman was a highly acclaimed, award-

winning British drama that opened at the Royal Court Theatre on April 24,
2017, and then transferred to the West End at the Gielgud Theatre on June
29 of that year. Like the British production, the Broadway import was
directed by Sam Mendes and starred the British cast.
Although the story took place in rural Northern Ireland during the late
summer of 1981, it was epochal in feel, as it depicted the lives of the large
Carney family, who celebrate the harvest with a traditional feast. For the
Carneys, the world seems solid and safe. Quinn Carney (Paddy Considine)
looks after his brood of children and extended family members, and
although his mostly unseen and ailing wife Mary (Genevieve O’Reilly)
hovers over the proceedings in an upstairs bedroom, Paddy can depend
upon the help and support of his widowed sister-in-law Caitlin (Laura
Donnelly) whose husband (and Paddy’s brother) Seamus mysteriously
disappeared ten years earlier.
The almost three-and-a-half-hour drama virtually encompassed the
history of Ireland as it looked at the Irish Troubles, from Dublin’s Easter
rebellion of 1916 against the British to the seemingly never-ending battles
between British soldiers and the Irish Republican Army. The characters,
haunted by both the living and the dead, talked of ancient Ireland’s kings
and queens, told ghost stories, conjured up the long-ago world of faeries
who populated the island, and sang and danced. And it is the dead past that
infects the present when Seamus’s preserved body is found by chance in a
nearby bog, a discovery that causes past and present to collide and bring
tragedy and horror to the heretofore happy family.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “thrilling” play and
“shivery suspenser” had a “generosity of substance and spirit rarely seen on
the stage anymore,” and the story never stopped “churning forward” as it
kept “looking backward” in a “cyclical nightmare.” David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter stated the drama shook up the Broadway season “with
tornado-like force,” and while Sara Holdren in New York noted that the
evening evoked a “super-Irish Ireland” with “overripe cultural stereotypes”
that sometimes slipped “towards blarney,” the evening “hooks us by the
gills and pulls us along.”
The drama’s background music was composed by Nick Powell, and the
play itself was punctuated by rock music and (per Brantley) “sprightly
Celtic fiddle music” as well as “show-off knees-up and step-dancing
moves” (the choreographer was Scarlett Mackmin). Brantley also
mentioned a song not listed in the music credits (“A Row in the Town,”
which was sung a cappella and was an “Irish song of rebellion”).
The play was published in paperback by Nick Hern Books in 2017.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Play (The Ferryman); Best Direction
of a Play (Sam Mendes); Best Leading Actor in a Play (Paddy
Considine); Best Leading Actress in a Play (Laura Donnelly); Best
Featured Actress in a Play (Fionnula Flanagan); Best Scenic Design of a
Play (Rob Howell); Best Costume Design of a Play (Rob Howell); Best
Lighting Design of a Play (Peter Mumford); Best Sound Design of a
Play (Nick Powell)
KING KONG
“BREAKING FREE ON BROADWAY”

Performances: 322
Book: Jack Thorne
Lyrics and Music: Per the program, “score composed” by Marius de Vries
and “songs” by Eddie Perfect
No source was credited in the program, but the musical was based on the
1933 Radio Pictures’ film King Kong (direction by Merian C. Cooper
and Ernest B. Schoedsack and screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman
and Ruth Rose, from a concept by Cooper and Edgar Wallace).
Direction and Choreography: Drew McOnie (Johanna McKeon, Associate
Director; Ellenore Scott, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Carmen
Pavlovic, Roy Furman, Gerry Ryan, Len Blavatnik, Edward Walson,
Benjamin Lowy, Bob Boyett, Harmonia Holdings, Peter Ivany, Bruce
Robert Harris/Jack W. Batman, Peter May, Liebowitz/Grossman/Shields
Productions, Iris Smith, Triptyk Studios, Robert Appel, Lynne and
Marvin Garelick, The Shubert Organization, The Nederlander
Organization, Jujamcyn Theatres, Audrey Wilf, Aleri Entertainment,
Sandy Robertson, Jennifer Fischer, Fantaci/Carusi/Lachowicz, Darren
De-Verna, Jere Harris, The John Gore Organization, 42nd.Club, Hello
Entertainment, Independent Presenters Network, and Global Creatures;
Barbara Darwall, Executive Producer; Scenery and Projections: Peter
England; Costumes: Roger Kirk; Creature Design: Sonny Tilders;
Kong/Aerial Movement Director: Gavin Roberts (Leigh-Anne Vizer,
Associate); Video and Projection Imaging Content: Artists in Motion;
Lighting: Peter Mumford; Musical Direction: Michael Gacetta
Cast: Christiani Pitts (Ann Darrow), Eric William Morris (Carl Denham),
Erik Lochtefeld (Lumpy), Rory Donovan (Captain Englehorn), Harley
Jay (Barman), Casey Garvin (Fake Carl), John Hoche (Voice of Kong);
King’s Company and Ensemble: Mike Baerga, Rhaamell Burke-
Missouri, Jovan Dansberry, Casey Garvin, Gabriel Hyman, Marty
Lawson, Roberto Olvera, Khadija Tariyan, Lauren Yalango-Grant, and
David Yijae; Voodoo Operators and Ensemble: Jon Hoche, Danny
Miller, and Jacob Williams; Ensemble: Chloe Campbell, Leroy Church,
Peter Chursin, Kayla Davion, Rory Donovan, Harley Jay, James T.
Lane, Brittany Marcell Monachino, Jennifer Noble, Eliza Ohman,
Jaquez Andre Sims
The action takes place during 1931 in New York City, at sea aboard the S.S.
Wanderer, and on Skull Island.
Musical Numbers
Act One: Prologue (lyric and music by Marius de Vries, Eddie Perfect, and
Justice) (Company); “Dance My Way to the Light” (lyric and music by
Eddie Perfect) (Female Ensemble); “Queen of New York” (lyric and
music by Eddie Perfect) (Christiani Pitts, Company); “Building the
Boat” and “Setting Sail” (lyric and music by Marius de Vries, Eddie
Perfect, and Robert Del Naja) (Eric William Morris, Orchestra); “Cabin
Soliloquy” (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect) (Christiani Pitts,
Company); “Pressure Up” (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect) (Rory
Donovan, Male Ensemble); “The Mutiny” (lyric and music by Marius
de Vries and Eddie Perfect) (Eric William Morris, Rory Donovan, Male
Ensemble); “Skull Island” (music by Marius de Vries) (Orchestra); “The
Ascent” (music by Marius de Vries and Justice) (Orchestra); “The
World” (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect) (Eric William Morris); “The
Cobra Fight” (music by Marius de Vries and Justice) (Orchestra); “Full
Moon Lullaby” and “Shine” (lyric and music by Marius de Vries,
Michael Mitnick, Amanda Ghost, and Ian Dench) (Christiani Pitts);
“The Descent” (music by Marius de Vries and Justice) (Orchestra);
“Kong’s Capture” (music by Marius de Vries and Justice) (Orchestra)
Act Two: Entr’acte: “The Voyager Returns” (music by Marius de Vries and
Justice) (Orchestra); “It’s a Man” (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect)
(Eric William Morris, Christiani Pitts, Company); “The Wild and
Perilous Sea” (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect) (Company); “Last of
Our Kind” (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect) (Christiani Pitts); “Last of
Our Kind” (reprise) (Female Ensemble); “Scream for the Money” (lyric
and music by Eddie Perfect) (Christiani Pitts, Company); “Dance My
Way to the Light” (reprise) (Orchestra); “Broadway Nightmare” (lyric
and music by Marius de Vries and Eddie Perfect) (Christiani Pitts,
Female Ensemble); “NYC Chase” (music by Marius de Vries and
Justice) (Orchestra); “Empire Ascent” (music by Marius de Vries and
Justice) (Orchestra); “The World” (reprise) (Eric William Morris); “Air
War” (music by Marius de Vries and Justice) (Orchestra); “The
Wonder” (lyric and music by Marius de Vries, Amanda Ghost, Ian
Dench, and Eddie Perfect) (Christiani Pitts, Company)
Well, the big guy visited New York City again, and just as before, all
did not go well when he took his date to the Empire State Building. But
those pesky guns and airplanes were pussycats compared to those fearsome
and frightening New York theatre critics, and, yes, ’twas critics killed the
beast, who landed with a thud on Broadway.
And quite a beast he was, and the only performer in the $36.5 million
musical that walked off with good reviews. Robert Hofler in The Wrap
noted that Kong had an “advantage” over the human actors because he
didn’t have to sing the songs and speak the dialogue. All he had to do was
look good: he was twenty feet high, weighed at least one if not two tons,
and he required some fourteen puppeteers to bring him to life.
Otherwise, the evening lacked memorable songs or interesting
characters, and like many of the musicals of the era it offered a spunky
feminist. Yes, Ann Darrow (Christiani Pitts) proclaims she’s no man’s
“property,” and no doubt believes that she and Kong are victims along with
the oppressed masses of the world.
Hofler reported that once the “dazzle” of the special effects wore off,
the musical “behemoth” felt “pretty small.” The dialogue was a “jammy jar
of howlers,” the score grew “cheesier and cheesier,” and the show sunk into
the “quicksand of its own banality.” There was “traffic-cop” direction, the
choreography offered “dazzling clunkiness,” and ultimately King Kong
could join Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark and Paramour in the “scrap-
heap” where “effects were given priority over people.” Hofler also noted
that the score offered a few “female-empowerment anthems lifted from the
‘Defying Gravity’ school of musical songwriting,” and Elysa Gardner in the
New York Stage Review said the production used “excess” to rail against
“money and power” (as embodied by the Carl Denham character), and this
“heavy-handedness” made her feel “manipulated” by the show’s “feminist
implications.”
Jesse Green and Ben Brantley in the New York Times joined forces for a
review with a headline that warned that “King Kong Is the Mess That
Roared.” Brantley found the musical “spirit-crushing” and strongly
suspected the performers somehow knew they weren’t the “main
attraction.” Green said the “hodgepodge” was a “car wreck of clichés” that
“not very convincingly” attempted a “feminist angle.” Brantley said the
evening was enough to make him “long for a margarita, with Jimmy Buffett
melodies on the side,” and Green replied that heretofore he’d considered
Escape to Margaritaville his “musical theatre low point of 2018,” but now
“Jimmy, I take it all back.”
During previews, “Bringing the King” for Denham, Darrow, and
company (lyric and music by Eddie Perfect) was replaced by “It’s a Man”;
“Empire Soliloquy” for Darrow (also by Perfect) was cut; and the finale
“Free” for Darrow and company (Perfect) was replaced by “The Wonder.”
Added during previews was “Shine.”
The musical was first presented at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne,
Australia, on June 15, 2013, with a mostly different creative team: Daniel
Kramer (direction), John O’Connell (choreography), Craig Lucas (book and
lyrics), Michael Mitnick (lyrics), Marius de Vries (music), and Justice, 3D,
Sarah McLachlan, Guy Garvey, and the Avalanches (additional music). The
cast included Esther Hannaford (Ann Darrow) and Adam Lyon (Carl
Denham). The production also included the standards “I Wanna Be Loved
by You” (Good Boy, 1928; lyric by Bert Kalmer, music by Herbert Stothart
and Harry Ruby) and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (New
“Americana,” 1932; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Jay Gorney). It
appears that just two musical sequences were carried over for the Broadway
production (“The Ascent” and “Full Moon Lullaby”).
Eddie Perfect was back on Broadway later in the season with his songs
for Beetlejuice.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Peter England);
Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Peter Mumford); Best Sound
Design of a Musical (Peter Hylenski); a special Tony Award was
presented to Sonny Tilders and his Creature Technology Company
for the musical’s creature designs.
THE PROM
“BROADWAY’S NEW MUSICAL COMEDY WITH ISSUES”

Performances: 309
Book: Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin
Based on an original concept by Jack Viertel.
Director; John MacInnis, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Bill
Damaschke, Dori Bernstein, Jack Lane, James and Catherine Berges,
Nedla Sue Yaw, Natasha Davison, Joe Grandy, Kimberlee Garris, Lisa
Morris, Terry Schnuck, Jane Dubin, Rosalind Productions Inc., Fahs
Productions, Seth A. Goldstein, Mike Kriak, Don and Nancy Ross,
Pamela Hurst-Della Pietra and Stephen Della Pietra, Cliff Hopkins,
Masie Productions, Vivek Shah, Three Belles & a Bob, Armstrong-
Manocherian, Fakler-Silver, Fox Theatricals-Mosbacher-Lonow, Palitz-
Stern-Smedes, Nancy and Ken Kranzberg/David Lyons, Larry and
Elizabeth Lenke/Elizabeth L. Green, Instone Productions/Arment-
Tacakel, Kuhlman-Ketner/Wallace-ATxRandomProductions, The John
Gore Organization, and The Shubert Organization in association with
Independent Presenters Network, Margot Astrachan, Darren P. Deverna
and Jeremiah J. Harris, and Reagan-Silber; Scenery: Scott Pask;
Costumes: Ann Roth and Matthew Pachtman; Lighting: Natasha Katz;
Musical Direction: Meg Zervoulis
Cast: Courtney Balan (Olivia Keating), Beth Leavel (Dee Dee Allen),
Teddy Toye (Second Reporter, Nick), Josh Limon (Sheldon Saperstein),
Brooks Ashmanskas (Barry Glickman), Angie Schworer (Angie),
Christopher Sieber (Trent Oliver), Caitlin Kinnunen (Emma), Courtenay
Collins (Mrs. Greene), Michael Potts (Mr. Hawkins), Becca Lee
(Kaylee), Kalyn West (Shelby), Isabelle McCalla (Alyssa), Drew
Redington (Kevin), Josh Franklin (Motel Clerk); Ensemble: Mary
Antonini, Courtney Balan, Jerusha Cavazos, Shelby Finnie, Josh
Franklin, Sheldon Henry, Fernell Hogan, Joomin Hwang, Becca Lee,
Wayne “Juice” Mackins, Vasthy Mompoint, Anthony Norman, Drew
Redington, Teddy Toye, Kalyn West, Brittany Zeinstra
The action takes place during the present time in New York City and
Edgewater, Indiana.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Changing Lives” (Beth Leavel, Brooks Ashmanskas,
Ensemble); “Changing Lives” (reprise) (Beth Leavel, Brooks
Ashmanskas, Angie Schworer, Christopher Sieber); “Just Breathe”
(Caitlin Kinnunen); “It’s Not about Me” (Beth Leavel, Brooks
Ashmanskas, Angie Schworer, Christopher Sieber, Ensemble); “Dance
with You” (Caitlin Kinnunen, Isabelle McCalla); “The Acceptance
Song” (Christopher Sieber, Beth Leavel, Brooks Ashmanskas, Angie
Schworer, Ensemble); “You Happened” (Caitlin Kinnunen, Isabelle
McCalla, Ensemble); “We Look to You” (Michael Potts); “Tonight
Belongs to You” (Brooks Ashmanskas, Caitlin Kinnunen, Courtenay
Collins, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Zazz” (Angie Schworer, Caitlin
Kinnunen); “The Lady’s Improving” (Beth Leavel); “Love Thy
Neighbor” (Christopher Sieber, Ensemble); “Alyssa Greene” (Isabelle
McCalla); “Barry Is Going to the Prom” (Brooks Ashmanskas); “Unruly
Heart” (Caitlin Kinnunen, Ensemble); “It’s Time to Dance” (Caitlin
Kinnunen, Isabelle McCalla, Company)
At first blush, it looked as if The Prom was going to be one of those

teachable-moment musicals determined to wear its social message on its
sleeve and liberate Broadway audiences from their ignorance. It took place
in a small town in Indiana where high schooler Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen)
causes waves when she wants to take her girlfriend Alyssa (Isabelle
McCalla) to the senior prom, and one feared that the show would be another
put-down of those supposedly ignorant masses who live in flyover country.
It also depicted a group of self-obsessed show-business types who decide to
embrace Emma’s cause, because who better to whip America into
politically correct shape than a gaggle of grandstanding celebrities?
But The Prom had more on its mind, much more. It turns out the locals
aren’t a bunch of yahoos, and Emma’s school principal, her fellow students,
and others in the town support her right to take Alyssa to the prom. And the
school board is just about to rule in favor of Emma’s request when the
pushy celebs invade the town and inadvertently make things harder for
Emma. By evening’s end we can hope those smug and supercilious
celebrities have learned a thing or two about middle America and perhaps
realize that average folk aren’t a bunch of mindless and bigoted rubes.
And did we say “celebrities”? Well, maybe not quite. It seems that our
Broadway quartet is undergoing rough patches in their careers, and they
decide a dip into the pool of social causes will garner them much-needed
publicity. Two-time Tony Award-winning Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel)
carries her awards in her purse and brandishes them in the hope of getting a
good hotel room, and she and gay actor Barry Glickman (Brooks
Ashmanskas) have just starred in the one-performance Broadway bomb
Eleanor!, a political musical about Mrs. Roosevelt which sports songs of
the rap and hip-hop variety. Moreover, Angie (Angie Schworer) has been
stuck in the chorus of the long-running Broadway revival of Chicago for
twenty years, and not once has she gone on in the role of Roxie Hart. And
poor Trent Oliver (Christopher Sieber), a Juilliard graduate who once
appeared in a 1990s sitcom, is now reduced to waiting tables in a restaurant
(not that there’s anything wrong with that!). So the meddlesome
humanitarian hams shuffle off to Red State territory when they’re able to
share a ride with a (non-Equity) bus-and-truck company of Godspell.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “enjoyable” and
“old-fashioned” musical would never “go down as a classic,” but it
delivered “sweetness and laughs” and “delicious theatrical in-jokes,”
including Leavel in a “Patti LuPone-meets-Judy Garland” performance.
Jesse Green in the New York Times praised the “joyful hoot” with its
“kinetic” choreography, “broad mugging,” and “belty anthems,” all of
which made “you believe in musical comedy again.” Greg Evans in
Dateline Hollywood said the “razzle-dazzle show-biz love fest” offered
songs “more than clever and entertaining enough, sometimes laugh-out-
loud funny, [and] other times moving,” but he wished the book had “pushed
things even further.” And Frank Rizzo in Variety said the “21st century Bye
Bye Birdie” was “joyous, funny, and sweet,” and Leavel gave a “deliciously
grand performance.” But Matt Windman in amNewYork said the evening
was overrun with “lame humor, under-whelming songs and ultra-happy
performances” and was “so flimsy, tacky and amateurish that it leaves you
wondering how it got to Broadway in the first place.”
The musical played over 300 performances and closed without
recouping its $13.5 million capitalization.
The cast album was released on CD and on a two-record vinyl edition
by Masterworks Broadway. As of this writing, a film version produced by
Netflix is scheduled for release in Fall 2020 with a cast that includes
Awkwafina, James Corden, Keegan-Michael Key, Nicole Kidman, Andrew
Rannells, and Meryl Streep.
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (The Prom); Best Book (Bob
Martin and Chad Beguelin); Best Score (lyrics by Chad Beguelin and
music by Matthew Sklar); Best Direction of a Musical (Casey
Nicholaw); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Brooks Ashmanskas);
Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Caitlin Kinnunen); Best Leading
Actress in a Musical (Beth Leavel)
THE ILLUSIONISTS: MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS (2018)

Performances: 56
Music: Evan Jolly
Direction: Neil Dorward (Jenn Rapp, Associate Director; Mark Kalin,
Illusion Director); Producers: Simon Painter, Tim Lawson, MagicSpace
Entertainment, and Kilburn Live; Andrew Spencer, Simon Painter, and
Tim Lawson, Executive Producers; Jonathan Sanford, Producer; Video
Design: 4u2c; Costumes: Angela Aaron; Lighting: Paul Smith; Musical
Direction: Uncredited (possibly Evan Jolly)
Cast: Colin Cloud (The Deductionist), Chloe Crawford (The Sorceress),
Shin Lim (The Manipulator), Darcy Oake (The Grand Illusionist),
Adam Trent (The Futurist), Light Balance (Special Guest)
The Illusionists were back for their fourth of five limited Broadway
Witness the Impossible). The magic show played for fifty-six
performances, some of which were ninety-minute family matinees. Their
fifth visit of the decade was in effect a new edition of the current
production, and it opened in 2019 (see entry).
The present company included five magicians and a “special guest,” the
Ukrainian dance company Light Balance, which performed two dance
sequences (the program noted that Light Balance was a “hi-tech neon and
LED dance group”).
Most if not all of the music heard during the production was
prerecorded, but there may have been a few live musicians in the company.
The evening included four songs, some of which may have been
instrumentals without lyrics: “Throwback” (by Dawin Polanco); “24K
Magic” (by Peter Gene Hernandez, Christopher Brown, and Philip Martin
Lawrence); “Get Ugly” (by Jason Desrouleaux, Sean Douglas, Jason
Evigan, Ricky Reed, and Eric Frederic); and “Mind Heist” (by Zack
Hemsey).
Greg Evans in Deadline Hollywood said “perhaps the production’s
greatest trick is that it never feels like a rip-off or a TV show padded out for
Broadway prices.” Although the “kid-friendly” evening could be a “bit
hokey,” it offered “razzle dazzle” and the dance group was “entertaining.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter noted that the show “more than
delivers” but said the “cheesiness factor” was “more redolent of Vegas than
Broadway.” As for Shin Lim (“The Manipulator”) who performed sleight-
of-hand card tricks, his “fluid movements” were “beautifully choreographed
and executed” and he achieved “a near poeticism enhanced by his slyly
confident manner.” Evans agreed, and said Lim’s style was “a thing of
elegant beauty.”
CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON BROADWAY

Performances: 3
Concept: Created by Eugene Pack and developed by Pack and Dayle Reyfel
Producers: MagicSpace Entertainment, Angelo Fraboni, Carl Pasbjerg, EP
Productions, and Dayle Reyfel
Cast: Mario Cantone, Rachel Dratch, Eugene Pack, Dayle Reyfel; Guest
Performers: Lewis Black, Matthew Broderick, and Tate Donovan
(November 26 performance only), Cecily Strong (November 26 and
December 10 performances only)
Celebrity Autobiography on Broadway was given on three Monday

evenings (November 26, December 10, and December 17) at the Marquis
Theatre when the venue’s regular tenant The Illusionists: Magic of the
Holidays was dark. The production was originally announced for four
performances, but the December 3 showing was canceled. The guest
performers included Lewis Black and Matthew Broderick, and while Alec
Baldwin and Susan Lucci had been announced as other guest performers,
it’s unclear if they appeared in the production.
The premise of the evening was that celebrities would read from the
autobiographies of other celebrities. The show premiered in Los Angeles in
1998, was later a television special on Bravo on December 5, 2005, and
then on January 28, 2008, began a three-year run at Off-Broadway’s Triad
Theatre as Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words with such guest
stars as Alan Cumming, Cheyenne Jackson, Donna Murphy, and Karen
Ziemba. There were also special performances of the show at the Zipper
Factory Theatre on September 10 and October 13, 2007, and March 3,
2008, and these showings included guest stars Tony Roberts and Mary
Testa. Celebrity Autobiography: The Next Chapter opened at Stage 72
(formerly the Triad) on January 14, 2013, and the cast included Tony Danza
and Mario Cantone, who read from the autobiographies of such luminaries
as Patti LuPone, Madonna, Tiger Woods, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Diana Ross,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Vanna White.
THE CHER SHOW

Opening Date: December 3, 2018; Closing Date: August 18, 2019
Performances: 295
Book: Rick Elice
Lyrics and Music: For information, see list of musical numbers below.
Direction: Jason Moore; Producers: Flody Suarez, Jeffrey Seller, and Cher;
Roger Davies, Lindsay Scott, and Larry Poindexter; Choreography:
Christopher Gattelli; Scenery: Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis;
Video and Projection Designs: Darrel Maloney; Lighting: Kevin Adams;
Musical Direction: Andrew Resnick
Cast: Stephanie J. Block (Cher as Star), Teal Wicks (Cher as Lady),
Micaela Diamond (Cher as Babe), Jarrod Spector (Sonny Bono), Emily
Skinner (Georgia Holt), Michael Berresse (Bob Mackie, Robert Altman,
Frank), Matthew Hydzik (Gregg Allman, John Southall), Michael
Campayno (Rob Camilletti, Lee), Carleigh Bettiol (Bridget), Marija
Juliette Abney (Colleen), Michael Fatica (Phil Spector, Top of the Pops
Host, Sid the Censor, Infomercial Director); Studio Singers: Tiana
Okoye and Alena Watters; The Cherelles: Tiana Okoye, Angel Reda,
Jennifer Rias, and Alena Watters; Dave Clark Five: Michael Graceffa,
Blaine Alden Krauss, Sam Lips, Christopher Vo, and Charlie Williams;
Blaine Alden Krauss (Steve the Scribe), Christopher Vo (Digby the
Writer), Taurean Everett (Bob Mackie’s Assistant), Ashley Blair
Fitzgerald (Dark Lady), Angel Reda (Female ET Reporter), Sam Lips
(Male ET Reporter); Ensemble: Marija Juliette Abney, Carleigh Bettiol,
Taurean Everett, Michael Fatica, Ashley Blair Fitzgerald, Michael
Graceffa, Blaine Alden Krauss, Sam Lips, Tiana Okoye, Jennifer Rias,
Angel Reda, Christopher Vo, Alena Watters, Charlie Williams
The musical is an account of the performer Cher’s life (born 1946).
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t provide a list of musical numbers and the names
of performers who sang specific songs. The following is taken from the
musical credits’ section of the program.
“A Different Kind of Love Song” (lyric and music by Johan Par Aberg,
Michelle Robin Lewis, and Sigurd Heimdal Roesnes); “A Dream Is a
Wish Your Heart Makes” (1950 film Cinderella; lyric and music by
Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston); “Ain’t Nobody’s
Business If I Do” (lyric and music by Porter Grainger, Robert Graham
Prince, Clarence Williams, and James Witherspoon); “All I Ever Need
Is You” (lyric and music by Jimmy Holiday and Eddie Reeves); “Baby
Don’t Go” (lyric and music by Sonny Bono); “Bang Bang” (lyric and
music by Sonny Bono); “Be My Baby” (lyric and music by Jeff Barry,
Ellie Greenwich, and Phillip aka Phil Spector); “Believe” (lyric and
music by Paul Michael Barry, Brian Thomas Higgins, and Steven
Torch); “Da Doo Ron Ron” (lyric and music by Jeff Barry, Ellie
Greenwich, and Philip Spector); “Dark Lady” (lyric and music by
Johnny Durrill); “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” (lyric and music by
Bob Stone); “Half Breed” (lyric and music by Al Capps and Mary
Dean); “Heart of Stone” (lyric and music by Andrew Gerard Hill and
Peter John Sinfield); “I Found Someone” (lyric and music by Michael
Bolton and Mark Mangold); “I Got You Babe” (lyric and music by
Sonny Bono); “It Don’t Come Easy” (lyric and music by Richard
Starkey); “I Like It Like That” (lyric and music by Christopher Kenner);
“If I Could Turn Back Time” (lyric and music by Diane Warren); “Just
Like Jessie James” (lyric and music by Desmond Child and Diane
Warren); “Little Man” (lyric and music by Sonny Bono); “Living in a
House Divided” (lyric and music by Tom Bahler); “Midnight Rider”
(lyric and music by Gregg Allman and Robert Payne); “Ramblin’ Man”
(lyric and music by Richard Betts); “Save Up All Your Tears” (lyric and
music by Desmond Child and Diane Warren); “Song for the Lonely”
(lyric and music by Paul Michael Barry, Mark Taylor, and Steve Torch);
“Strong Enough” (lyric and music by Paul Michael Barry and Mark
Taylor); “Take Me Home” (lyric and music by Michele Aller and Bob
Esty); “The Beat Goes On” (lyric and music by Sonny Bono); “The
Shoop Shoop Song” (lyric and music by Rudy Clark); “The Way of
Love” (lyric and music by Jacques Dieval, Al Stillman, and Mariano
Ruiz); “Vamp” (lyric and music by Walter Earl Brown); “When the
Money’s Gone” (lyric and music by Bruce Roberts and Donna Weiss);
“Woman’s World” (lyric and music by Matt Morris, Paul Oakenfold,
Anthony “TC” Crawford, and Joshua “J.D.” Walker); “You Better Sit
Down Kids” (lyric and music by Sonny Bono): “You Haven’t Seen the
Last of Me” (lyric and music by Diane Warren)
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical offered three performers in the

title role, the opera Marnie included Marnie along with four “Shadow
Marnies,” and The Cher Show followed with three singing Chers. So when
the Temptations’ musical Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the
Temptations was announced for a Broadway production, no doubt many
potential theatergoers were frightened by the dizzying thought of fifteen
potential Temptations on the stage.
The Three Chers depicted three sides of the performer, Star (Stephanie
J. Block), Lady (Teal Wicks), and Babe (Micaela Diamond), and other
characters in the musical included various people in Cher’s life, including
first husband Sonny Bono (Jarrod Spector), second husband (Gregg
Allman), dress designer Paul Mackie (Michael Berresse), and songwriter
Phil Spector (Michael Fatica).
The production was yet another jukebox bio musical, and it was met
with the usual complaints about the genre, mainly too many songs relegated
to just a few bars of music, the use of pop songs shoehorned into the action
and forced to carry the weight of book songs, and a story that sidestepped
any controversial aspects of the star’s life. Because Cher was one of the
show’s producers, one assumes she approved of the production as it was
written.
Greg Evans in Deadline Hollywood said the new jukebox musical was
“as skimpy as a Mackie dress” and dragged Cher “where Donna Summer,
Gloria Estefan and even Janis Joplin have already been” with a “lack of
creative ambition and innovation” that was “dispiriting.” Frank Rizzo in
Variety decided the evening never rose above the “clichés, corn and cheese”
of Sonny and Cher’s 1970s variety TV show, and he noted that the script
never found a “satisfying style—or a genuine heart.” Sara Holdren in New
York said the “garish, obvious pastiche” was an “unabashedly soulless
explosion of wigs and trite memoir wisdom” that was “extravagantly,
almost triumphantly not good.” Adam Feldman in Timeout was more
positive, saying the show fell “a bit shy” but was “strong enough,” Block
was “terrific,” and Spector-as-Sonny was the “crowd favorite.”
Jesse Green in the New York Times found the “maddening mishmash” a
“dramatically threadbare” and “surprisingly unrevealing” evening that was
“all gesture” and “no craft,” and for those “traps inherent” in jukebox
musicals, The Cher Show fell “into all of them.” The production got “whiny
just when you want it to get fierce,” and “a biomusical divided against itself
cannot stand.”
The following songs were listed in the music credits of the Chicago
tryout program, but weren’t included in the New York program’s music
credits: “After All” (lyric and music by Dean Pitchford and Tom Snow);
“All or Nothing” (lyric and music by Paul Michael Barry and Mark Taylor);
“Cowboys’ Work Is Never Done” (lyric and music by Sonny Bono);
“Dov’e l’amore” (lyric and music by Paul Michael Barry and Mark Taylor);
“I Hope You Find It” (lyric and music by Stephen Paul Robson and Jeffrey
Steele); “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week” (lyric by
Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne); “Superstar” (lyric and music by
Bonnie Bramlett, Delany Bramlett, and Leon Russell); and “We All Sleep
Alone” (lyric and music by John Bongiovi aka Jon Bon Jovi, Desmond
Child, and Richard Sambora).
The musical ran slightly short of 300 performances, and when it closed
hadn’t recouped its $19 million capitalization.
The cast album was released on CD and vinyl formats by Warner
Brothers Records.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical
(Stephanie J. Block); Best Costume Design of a Musical (Bob
Mackie); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Kevin Adams)
RUBEN & CLAY’S FIRST ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CAROL

FAMILY FUN PAGEANT SPECTACULAR REUNION
SHOW
Performances: 24
Dialogue: Ken Arpino and Jesse Joyce
Direction: Jonathan Tessero; Producers: Jeffrey Chrzczon, Side Effects
Include, and Josh Pultz/Amplified Entertainment; Choreography:
Musical staging by Lisa Shriver; Scenery: Rob Bissinger; Projections:
Jason Lee Courson; Costumes: James Brown III; Lighting: Paul Miller;
Musical Direction: Ben Cohn
Cast: Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Farah Alvin, Ken Arpino, Julian Diaz-
Granados, La’nette Wallace, Khaila Wilcoxon; Ben Cohn (Keyboards),
Jacob Yates (Cello), Brian Holtz (Bass), Dillon Kondor (Guitar), Sean
McDaniel (Drums)
The variety-styled show was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
alphabetical list of some of the songs performed in the concert is taken
from newspaper reviews.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” (lyric and music by Mariah Carey and
Walter Afanasieff); “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1949 film Neptune’s
Daughter; lyric and music by Frank Loesser); “The First Noel”
(traditional); “Frosty the Snowman” (lyric and music by Walter “Jack”
Rollins and Steve Nelson); “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
(traditional); “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (lyric and
music by Meredith Willson); “Jingle Bells” (lyric and music by James
Lord Pierpont); “O Come, All Ye Faithful” (traditional); “Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer” (lyric and music by Johnny Marks); “Santa Claus
Is Coming to Town” (lyric and music by John Frederick Coots and
Haven Gillespie); “Silent Night” (traditional); “Silver Bells” (1951 film
The Lemon Drop Kid; lyric and music Jay Livingston and Ray Evans);
“This Christmas” (lyric and music by Donny Hathaway aka Donny Pitts
and Nadine Theresa McKinnor); “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
(traditional); “We Need a Little Christmas” (Mame, 1966; lyric and
music by Jerry Herman); “Winter Wonderland” (lyric by Richard B.
Smith and music by Felix Bernard)
Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken had been contestants on American Idol
in 2003. Studdard was the winner, and Aiken the runner-up, and the running
gag of their limited-engagement Christmas specialty Ruben & Clay’s First
Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show
was that of a mockrivalry between the two as they celebrate the holiday
season. The evening was presented in the format of an old-time television
variety special (with a notable nod to Laugh-In) with songs and comedy
sketches. The first act emphasized comedy and secular holiday songs on the
order of “Frosty the Snowman” and “Winter Wonderland” while the second
offered traditional Christmas carols and a somewhat more introspective
tone, including a tribute by Studdard to his late brother. Studdard and Aiken
were backed by five singers and five musicians.
Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Times decided the “true” miracle
of Christmas was “the lowering of critical standards” because the evening
was “effective any time of the year” and within the first few minutes it was
clear the show was “already ahead” of the previous season’s “dreary” Home
for the Holidays. Overall, the first act was “zippy,” but the second half had
a “tougher time dealing with the reflective, spiritual side of the holidays.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter suspected no one was particularly
“clamoring” for this reunion, but its attempt to re-create the spirit of old-
time TV variety shows captured the “cheesiness of such endeavors” and
featured “high school–worthy production values.” However, the evening
lasted some two-and-a-half hours, and so the “theatrical eggnog” had “long
since curdled.”
Greg Evans in Dateline Hollywood said the show offered “intentionally
cheesy” comedy and “corny” dialogue, but unfortunately the “odd couple
schtick” of the two leading performers was “forced and under-cooked.” If
this was to be the “first annual” holiday show for Studdard and Aiken,
Evans had some advice: cut the intermission and “trim the hokum and carol
to your hearts’ content,” all at “ninety minutes tops.”
Charles Isherwood in BroadwayNews noted “there’s cheesy and there’s
cheesy,” and this show’s “mostly witless badinage and engorging seasonal
cheer” was enough “to send even the most lactose-tolerant fleeing up the
aisles.”
The production included a video about the National Inclusion Project,
an organization devoted to bringing special-needs children into activities
and programs open to other children. A portion of the show’s proceeds was
donated to the project.
DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS!

Book and Lyrics: Timothy Mason
Music: Mel Marvin
Based on the 1957 book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Theodor
Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), which was also published in the December 1957
issue of Redbook.
The action takes place at Christmas Time in Whoville.
Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was
first published in 1957, and the 1966 CBS animated television special
directed by Chuck Jones became a popular holiday perennial. An early
stage musical of the current production was first presented in November
1994 by the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a
later adaptation conceived and directed by Jack O’Brien premiered in 1998
at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California, where it was revived
every Christmas season. This version included new songs with lyrics by
Timothy Mason and music by Mel Marvin and two interpolations from the
1966 telecast (“Welcome, Christmas” and “You’re a Mean One, Mr.
Grinch,” both with lyrics by Geisel and music by Albert Hague).
The first Broadway production opened at the Hilton (now Lyric)
Theatre on November 8, 2006, for 107 performances, and a revival was
given at the St. James Theatre on November 9, 2007, for 96 showings (the
2006 production featured Patrick Page as The Grinch, John Cullum as Old
Max, and Rusty Ross as Young Max; for 2007, Page and Ross reprised their
roles and Ed Dixon was Old Max). In 2013, Masterworks Broadway
released a recording of the score which included 2006 cast members Page,
Cullum, and Ross.
The cast for the current revival included Gavin Lee (The Grinch), Ken
Land (Old Max), and Aleksa Kurbalija (Young Max). The original
respective direction and choreography by Jack O’Brien and John DeLuca
was re-created by Matt August and Bob Richard; John Lee Beatty and
Robert Morgan’s original set designs and costumes were used; and Charlie
Morrison was credited as the lighting designer (which may have been based
on Pat Collins’s original design).
Elysa Gardner in New York Stage Review said Lee “clearly” had a
“swell time” as The Grinch and was “determined that audience members of
all ages have just as much fun watching him.” The show was a “family-
friendly fantasy” and offered “ideals we should all aspire to.”
The 2006 and 2007 productions are discussed more fully in the author’s
The Complete Book of 2000s Broadway Musicals.
CHOIR BOY
Theatre: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Opening Date: January 8, 2019; Closing Date: March 10, 2019
Performances: 72
Play: Tarell Alvin McCraney
Music: Jason Michael Webb; Fitz Patton
Direction: Trip Cullman; Producer: Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne
Meadow, Artistic Producer); Choreography: Camille A. Brown; Scenery
and Costumes: David Zinn; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical
Direction: Jason Michael Webb
Cast: Nicholas L. Ashe (Junior Davis), John Clay III (Anthony Justin “AJ”
James), Chuck Cooper (Headmaster Marrow), Caleb Eberhardt (David
Heard), J. Quinton Johnson (Bobby Marrow), Austin Pendleton (Mr.
Pendleton), Jeremy Pope (Pharus Jonathan Young); Ensemble: Daniel
Bellomy, Jonathan Burke, Gerald Caesar, Marcus Gladney
Musical Numbers
The play included original music by Jason Michael Webb and Fitz Patton.
Four songs were listed in the program: “Autumn Leaves” (original
French lyric by Jacques Prevert, English lyric by Johnny Mercer, and
music by Joseph Kosma); “Boys to Men” (lyric and music by Terry
Lewis); “Love Ballad” (lyric and music by Skip Scarborough); and
“Visions” (lyric and music by Stevie Wonder). Various print reviews
also referenced two other songs heard in the production, “Trust and
Obey” (which was apparently written for the production) and the
traditional spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
Tarell Alvin McCraney’s drama-with-music Choir Boy was produced by

the Manhattan Theatre Club for a limited engagement at the Samuel J.
Friedman Theatre. As noted above, the production utilized both original
music and popular songs (the latter included “Autumn Leaves”). The songs
were performed a cappella, and sometimes were accompanied by dance
movements choreographed by Camille A. Brown.
The story takes place during the present time at the prestigious Charles
R. Drew Prep School for Boys and was a coming-of-age story about how
the various students interact with one another and how they cope with their
problems. The central character is Pharus Jonathan Young (Jeremy Pope)
who is openly gay, slightly effeminate, and proud to be the head of the
school’s famous choir. There’s also the class bully Bobby Marrow (J.
Quinton Johnson), whose uncle is also the Headmaster (Chuck Cooper), the
class cut-up Junior Davis (Nicholas L. Ashe), the friendly jock Anthony
Justin “AJ” James (John Clay III), and the closeted David (Caleb
Eberhardt). Another major character was the well-meaning if somewhat
ineffectual history teacher Mr. Pendleton (Austin Pendleton).
Sara Holdren in New York noted that despite the characters’ individual
struggles, their music “broadens and transcends” their personal issues and
unites them. When they sing, they’re “no longer frightened, fronting kids”
and instead “they are the music” and “for a moment, they are free” of their
youthful doubts and anxieties.
Holdren noted that the “quick-witted and humane” drama was
sometimes more “episodic” than “propulsive,” and while Jesse Green in the
New York Times felt that some of the “plot points” were “obvious and
false,” the work was “far more powerful than its flaws might indicate.”
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter praised McCraney’s “sharp ear
for dialogue and his observations on class, race and sexuality,” and these
strengths brought to the drama “distinctive qualities that outweigh its more
conventional aspects.”
Jeremy Pope walked away with the reviews. Green found the “swish
and swagger” of his performance “spectacular,” Marilyn Stasio in Variety
said he was “sensational,” and Rooney praised the “galvanic” actor. Later in
the season, Pope played one of the Temptations in Ain’t Too Proud: The
Life and Times of the Temptations.
The original production of Choir Boy was presented by the Manhattan
Theatre Club at The Studio at Stage II on June 18, 2013. The play has been
published in two paperback editions, one by Faber & Faber in 2012 and the
other by Dramatists Play Service in 2014.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Play (Choir Boy); Best Leading Actor
in a Play (Jeremy Pope); Best Sound Design in a Play (Fitz Patton);
Best Choreography (Camille A. Brown)
BE MORE CHILL
Performances: 177
Book: Joe Tracz
Lyrics and Music: Joe Iconis
Based on the 2004 novel Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini.
Direction: Stephen Brackett; Producers: Gerald Goehring, Michael F. Mitri,
Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Marc David Levine, Marlene and Gary Cohen,
42nd.Club, The Viertel Routh Frankel Baruch Group, Jenny
Niederhoffer, Ben Holtzman and Sammy Lopez, Jenn Maley and Cori
Stolbun, Joan and Robert Rechnitz, Chris Blasting/Simpson G.
Longthorne, Koenigsberg/Federman/Adler, YesBroadway Productions,
Kumiko Yoshii, Bruce Robert Harris and Jack W. Batman, Jay and
Cindy Gutterman/Caiola Productions, Phil Kenny/Jim Kierstead,
deRoy/Winkler/Batchelder, Jonathan Demar/Kim Vasquez, Brad
Blume/Gemini Theatrical Investors LLC, Alisa and Charlie Thorne,
Fred and Randi Sternfield, Connor Tinglum/Andrew W. Hendrick,
Ashlee Latimer and Jenna Ushkowitz, and Two River Theatre;
Choreography: Chase Brock (Alicia Lundgren, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: Beowulf Boritt; Projection Design: Alex
Basco Koch; Costumes: Bobby Frederick Tilley II; Lighting: Tyler
Micoleau; Musical Direction: Emily Marshall
Cast: Will Roland (Jeremy Heere), Jason Sweettooth Williams (Mr. Heere,
Mr. Reyes, Scary Stockboy), Britton Smith (Jake Dillinger), Katlyn
Carlson (Chloe Valentine), Lauren Marcus (Brooke Lohst), Gerard
Canonico (Rich Goranski), Stephanie Hsu (Christine Canigula), Tiffany
Mann (Jenna Rolan), George Salazar (Michael Mell), Jason Tam (The
Squip)
The action takes place during the present time in suburban New Jersey.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “More Than Survive” (Will Roland, George Salazar, Ensemble);
“I Love Play Rehearsal” (Stephanie Hsu); “The Squip Song” (Gerard
Canonico, Ensemble); “Two-Player Game” (Will Roland, George
Salazar); “Be More Chill” (Jason Tam, Ensemble); “Do You Wanna
Ride?” (Lauren Marcus, Katlyn Carlson); “Be More Chill Part 2” (Jason
Tam, Will Roland, Ensemble); “Sync Up” (Ensemble, including Jason
Tam); “A Guy That I’d Kinda Be Into” (Stephanie Hsu, Ensemble);
“Upgrade” (Lauren Marcus, Jason Tam, Britton Smith, Stephanie Hsu,
Will Roland, Ensemble); “Loser Geek Whatever” (Will Roland)
Act Two: “Halloween” (Ensemble); “Do You Wanna Hang?” (Katlyn
Carlson); “Michael in the Bathroom” (George Salazar); “A Guy That
I’d Kinda Be Into” (reprise) (Stephanie Hsu, Will Roland); “The
Smartphone Hour (Rich Set a Fire)” (Tiffany Mann, Katlyn Carlson,
Lauren Marcus, The Girls); “The Pants Song” (Jason Sweettooth
Williams, George Salazar); “The Pitiful Children” (Jason Tam,
Ensemble); “The Play” (Ensemble); “Voices in My Head” (Will Roland,
Ensemble)
Be More Chill was based on the 2004 novel of the same name by Ned
Vizzini, which became popular among tweens and teens. A musical
adaptation opened at the Two River Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey, on
May 30, 2015, and the score was released on CD by Ghostlight Records
(which later issued the cast album in a two-record vinyl special edition;
Ghostlight also released a two-CD recording of the Broadway production).
The album became a sensation and was reportedly streamed some 150
million times, and an eventual Off-Broadway production played at the Irene
Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center for a two-month,
sold-out engagement during the period July 26–September 30, 2018. The
novel, the two stage productions, and the cast album added up to a cult hit
among knowing pre-teens and teens, and the inevitable Broadway mounting
joined such shows as Wicked, Dear Evan Hansen, Mean Girls, and The
Prom, which pursued the same demographic.
The fan base knew what to expect, and the opening number “More Than
Survive” by the show’s hero Jeremy (Will Roland) didn’t disappoint the
target audience: because Jeremy’s computer is too slow in downloading his
porn du jour, he decides to postpone masturbating. And when his schlocky
and lonely friend Michael (George Salazar) makes his first entrance, the
audience cheered him on.
Jeremy wants to be popular (something his Wicked spiritual sister
Glinda would clearly understand), and he discovers that a magic pill called
Squip can turn him into the life of the high school party. The pill includes a
microcomputer that takes over the brain and allows the user to become the
person he wants to be, and the pill itself materializes into Squip himself
(Jason Tam), whom only the user can see. Jeremy becomes popular, but
soon discovers that Squip has nefarious plans to take over the world.
Happily, the world is saved and Jeremy learns a life lesson that It’s Better to
Be Yourself Than Try and Be Someone Else. The characters also included
the usual high-school types (the jock, the bully, the nerd, the insecure one).
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said Be More Chill was “the
perfect musical for anyone whose acne hasn’t yet cleared up,” Chris Jones
in the New York Daily News said the show was the “Next to Normal for
teenagers,” and Adam Feldman in Timeout said the “comfortingly familiar
hybrid” could be called “Little Shop of Mean Girls.”
Jones found the evening “overplayed” and “overwrought,” and noted it
was “difficult” to “pull off weird Little Shop of Horrors-style satire” when
we lived in a “moralistic moment” in which “every show has the same thing
to teach.” Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times said the show’s
“relentlessness is wearying and the hyperbolic style is at odds with the
protagonist’s predictable emotional arc.” He added that the score’s
“clobbering effect is potent yet monotonous.” And Scheck said the
“sophomoric humor and clichéd situations feel more appropriate to MTV
than Broadway,” and it was “hard not be depressed by a theatre scene
which, like popular culture in general, seems determined to become ever
more infantilizing.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “latest entry in the puberty
musical sweepstakes” was “the worst of the lot” with “repetitive” music,
“painfully forced” rhymes, and “cartoonish” acting, but this “ostensible
amateurishness” might “be exactly what sells Be More Chill to its young
target audience.” The Broadway version added a new song (“Sync Up” for
Squip), and while Greg Evans in Deadline Hollywood said the number
“crucially and beneficially” gave the character a chance to comment about
the innermost secrets of high schoolers, Scheck said the new song was
“catchy enough” but “inconsequential.”
The scenic design was by Beowulf Boritt and the projections by Alex
Basco Koch, and McNulty noted the overall visuals gave “the impression
that we’re viewing the action on an app,” and in his review of the Off-
Broadway production Scheck mentioned that the projections “infuse[d] the
proceedings with an appropriate video game-style aesthetic.” Scheck
commented that the musical looked “out of place in the elegant
surroundings” of the Lyceum Theatre, and Feldman decided the “heat” was
“off” in the Lyceum, which was “much larger” than the show’s Off-
Broadway venue and made the musical look as though it were “playing in
the wrong league” with the Lyceu m looming over the proceedings “like a
judgment.”
Awards
Tony Award Nomination: Best Score (lyrics and music by Joe Iconis)
KISS ME, KATE

Theatre: Studio 54
Opening Date: March 14, 2019; Closing Date: June 30, 2019
Performances: 125
Book: Sam and Bella Spewack
Based on the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
(written circa 1594).
Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd
Haimes, Artistic Director; Sydney Beers, Executive Producer);
Choreography: Warren Carlyle (Jason A. Sparks, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: David Rockwell; Costumes: Jeff Mahshie;
Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani
Cast: Adrienne Walker (Hattie), James T. Lane (Paul), Mel Johnson Jr.
(Harry Trevor, Baptista), Stephanie Styles (Lois Lane, Bianca), Corbin
Bleu (Bill Calhoun, Lucentio), Kelli O’Hara (Lilli Vanessi, Katharine
aka Kate), Will Chase (Fred Graham, Petruchio), John Pankow (First
Man), Lance Coadie Williams (Second Man), Terence Archie (Harrison
Howell), Will Burton (Gremio), Rick Faugno (Hortensio); Ensemble:
Darius Barnes, Preston Truman Boyd, Will Burton, Derrick Cobey,
Jesmille Darbouze, Rick Faugno, Haley Fish, Tanya Haglund, Erica
Mansfield, Marissa McGowan, Justin Prescott, Christine Cornish Smith,
Sherisse Springer, Sam Strasfeld
The action takes place in Baltimore during June 1948.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” (Company); “Why Can’t You
Behave” (Stephanie Styles, Corbin Bleu); “Wunderbar” (Will Chase,
Kelli O’Hara); “So in Love” (Kelli O’Hara); “We Open in Venice”
(Kelli O’Hara, Will Chase, Corbin Bleu, Stephanie Styles); “Tom, Dick,
or Harry” (Stephanie Styles, Corbin Bleu, Will Burton, Rick Faugno);
“I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua” (Will Chase, Men); “I Hate
Men” (Kelli O’Hara); “Were Thine That Special Face” (Will Chase);
“Cantiamo d’Amore” (Ensemble); “Kiss Me, Kate” (Will Chase, Kelli
O’Hara, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Too Darn Hot” (James T. Lane, Corbin
Bleu, Adrienne Walker, Ensemble); “Where Is the Life That Late I
Led?” (Will Chase); “Always True to You in My Fashion” (Stephanie
Styles); “From This Moment On” (Terence Archie, Kelli O’Hara);
“Bianca” (Corbin Bleu, Ensemble); “So in Love” (reprise) (Will Chase);
“ Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (John Pankow, Lance Coadie Williams);
“Pavane” (Stephanie Styles, Corbin Bleu, Ensemble); “I Am Ashamed
That People Are So Simple” (Kelli O’Hara); “Kiss Me, Kate” (reprise)
(Will Chase, Kelli O’Hara, Company)
Of the classic musicals that opened during Broadway’s Golden Age,

Burton Lane and E. Y. Harburg’s Finian’s Rainbow (1947) and Cole
Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (1948) were probably the most overlooked during
the following decades. After Kate’s original production, there was a brief
return engagement in 1952 and two limited runs in 1956 and 1965 by the
New York City Center Light Opera Company. And then it took almost
thirty-five years for another major New York production to open when a
revised 1999 version premiered with uncredited changes by John Guare.
Twenty years later, the current revival was given by the Roundabout
Theatre Company.
Roundabout used Guare’s adaptation and also enlisted Amanda Green
for what the program identified as “additional material.” Porter was still
credited with the score, and Sam and Bella Spewack for the book, but there
was no mention of Shakespeare on the program’s title page. Because his
comedy The Taming of the Shrew was the basis for the musical, you’d think
he’d rate a nod, but perhaps he’s too politically incorrect for today’s
Broadway. (And how dare he use such a word as shrew!) A program note
referenced Shakespeare, and then quickly noted the revival would resurrect
“all the magic” of Kate’s 1948 premiere while promising (or perhaps
threatening) to rise “to the responsibility of a 2019 revival.”
For all its flaws, the 1999 revival managed 881 performances, won five
Tony Awards (including Best Revival of a Musical), and according to
Michael Riedel in the New York Post closed with a profit of $1 million. But
that revival dragged and was in need of faster pacing and judicious
trimming, and Guare’s decision to expand the role of Harrison Howell was
a misfire. The character had previously functioned as a necessary plot
device, but now his role included the interpolation of “From This Moment
On,” and so it prolonged an already lengthy evening. Kathleen Marshall’s
choreography allowed the impressive dancer Michael Berresse to show off
some stunning turns, but otherwise her dances were serviceable and
uninspired. And “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” was a portent of the
long evening ahead with staging that came across like a protracted dumb-
show. The sequence would have been more effective had it been cut in half,
and it was anyone’s guess why a dirge-like feel was imposed on what is one
of the most explosive and joyous opening numbers in all musical theatre.
The 1999 revival’s leads were the somewhat miscast Brian Stokes
Mitchell and Marin Mazzie, both of whom lacked the over-the-top comic
skills required of their plummy characters. Mitchell is essentially of the
stalwart leading-man variety and seems most at home in serious roles, and
the revival forced him to push too hard for comic effect (happily, he
bounced back three years later in the 2002 revival of Man of La Mancha).
Mazzie fared a bit better than Mitchell, but she too didn’t seem natural in
her farcical scenes, and ultimately Mitchell and Mazzie’s vocals on the cast
album were more enjoyable than their stage performances.
In general, both the 1999 and current revivals followed the Spewacks’
book, which was reportedly inspired by the backstage bickering of the
legendary acting couple Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, who appeared in a
1942 Broadway revival of Shrew. Kate depicts a similar couple, the once-
married Fred Graham (Will Chase in the current revival) and Lilli Vanessi
(Kelli O’Hara), who are now appearing together in the respective roles of
Petruchio and Kate at Ford’s Theatre in Baltimore during the pre-Broadway
tryout of a musical adaptation of Shrew titled Kiss Me, Kate. The musical-
within-the-musical mirrored Petruchio and Kate’s onstage hostility with
Fred and Lilli’s backstage battles.
The current Kate retained Guare’s changes for the earlier revival, and so
Howell was back with “From This Moment On,” and there was “additional
material” by Amanda Green. It isn’t clear if some of the additional changes
were by director Scott Ellis or by Amanda Green, but either way the
tinkering seemed wrongheaded in its determination to be politically correct.
Producers, directors, and adaptors need to credit an audience with the
maturity and ability to put into perspective a work that was written decades
earlier and doesn’t reflect present-day sensibilities. But even some critics
applauded the changes, and the peculiar headline of Jesse Green’s review in
the New York Times proclaimed that “A Fair Fight Makes Kiss Me, Kate
Lovable Again.” “Again”? For many, the musical was always “lovable,”
and as for the “fair fight,” it seems the overreaction to empower Kate
resulted in unfair and abusive treatment to Petruchio.
The revival saw to it that Petruchio no longer spanks Kate, but
apparently it didn’t bother the creators that Kate now physically abuses
Petruchio. Is there a double standard here? Even the revival’s program
cover and window card were offensive: its image depicted Kate towering
over seven men, and it showed her high-heeled shoes digging into
Petruchio’s shoulder. A gender reversal of this photo would be
unacceptable, and so why should the photo as it stands be tolerated?
Jesse Green said “you could call the show Kick Me, Kate,” given that
the revival went “a long way toward defanging the usual impression of
violence from only the other direction.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New
York Post said the tweaking was “not always for the better,” and he reported
that Kate gives Petruchio “plenty of swift kicks in the rump” (Petruchio
may not spank Kate, but it’s OK for her to kick him?). David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter noted that while Kate is no longer spanked, she “doles
out as much, or more, physical punishment as she receives” (although it’s
unclear just what kind of “physical punishment” she “receives” in the
revival). Charles Isherwood in Broadway News wondered if it was “really
necessary” to “soften or subvert” the original text. And as for Amanda
Green’s “additional material,” Jeremy Gerard in Theatre News Online
cautioned that “purists” would find her “tweaking” even “more sore-
thumby than the similar but smoother surgery” performed by Guare in the
1999 revival.
Perhaps the most eye-rolling change was that of Kate’s climactic song
“I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple,” which Porter based on
Shakespeare’s words and which here became “I Am Ashamed That People
Are So Simple.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal noted the change
was done to “spare the tender sensibilities of the aggressively woke,” and
thus managed to insult Shakespeare, Porter, and “every literate person in the
audience.” Teachout noted that O’Hara was “miscast,” that she and Chase
had “all the romantic chemistry of a pair of squabbling siblings,” and Ellis’s
direction looked as though he’d been “thinking about something else,”
possibly the upcoming Tootsie.
The critics didn’t always see eye-to-eye in regard to the performances.
Rooney noted that O’Hara sang “I Hate Men” with “feisty spirit,” but the
role’s “campy self-intoxication” was “largely missing,” and Isher-wood said
she needed “to turn on the hell-hath-no-fury feistiness.” However,
Dziemianowicz noted she “radiates command every step and note of the
way” with “wry comedy, physical abandon and rapturous singing,” and
Jesse Green said her “So in Love” was “sung so gorgeously it almost melts
the theatre.” Isherwood praised Chase, who sang with “blooming vitality”
and brought “easygoing virility” to his performance, Dziemianowicz said
the actor was “convincingly pompous,” and Gerard liked his “swaggering
40s style.” Although Jesse Green found Chase “charmingly vain” in his
book scenes, the performer otherwise lacked “the effortlessness necessary
to ace his numbers.”
According to Gerard, Stephanie Styles (Lois/Bianca) seemed to be “in a
different comedy” and didn’t bring “resonance” to “Tom, Dick, or Harry”
and “Always True to You in My Fashion.” But Isherwood said she made a
“smashing” Broadway debut with her polished singing and her “bushelful
of slyly demure wit.” As for Corbin Bleu (Bill/Lucentio), he was “too
wholesome” for his character but shined in an “elaborate” tap routine, and
Gerard said he offered “the most pulse-enhancing explosion of tap-dancing
in years.”
Overall, Gerard said the production was a “good” revival of a “great”
musical; and while Jesse Green praised Warren Carlyle’s “often thrilling”
choreography, he noted that the “overall staging” seemed “to run out of
invention” by the middle of the second act.
The original production of Kiss Me, Kate opened at the New Century
Theatre on December 30, 1948, for 1,077 performances with a cast that
included Alfred Drake (Fred/Petruchio), Patricia Morison (Lilli/Kate), Lisa
Kirk (Lois/Bianca), and Harold Lang (Bill/Lucentio). As one stop on its
post-Broadway tour, the musical opened on January 8, 1952, for a limited
run at the Broadway Theatre, a run cut short due to indifferent reviews (Best
Plays reported the version was “dreadfully shabby”), and no doubt would-
be ticket-buyers weren’t clamoring for a chance to revisit a show that had
closed just five months earlier. As a result, the tour played for just eight
performances before taking to the road again; the cast included Robert
Wright (Fred), Holly Harris (Lilli), Marilyn Day (Lois), and Frank Derbas
(Bill).
The first City Center revival opened on May 9, 1956, for twenty-three
performances with David Atkinson (Fred), Kitty Carlisle (Lilli), Barbara
Ruick (Lois), Richard France (Bill), and in a minor role the future
celebrated club singer Bobby Short. The second revival opened on May 12,
1965, and it too played for twenty-three showings. The cast included Robert
(now Bob) Wright, Morison in a reprise of her original Broadway role,
Nancy Ames (Lois), and Kelly Brown (Bill). Besides Morison, two others
from the original Kate company were on board: choreographer Hanya Holm
brushed up her dances for the revival and conductor Pembroke Davenport
was back at the podium.
The first London production opened at the Coliseum on March 8, 1951,
for 501 performances with Bill Johnson (Fred), Morison, Julie Wilson
(Lois), Walter Long (Bill), Adelaide Hall (Hattie), and Archie Savage
(Paul).
The 1953 MGM film adaptation (released in 3-D!) was a mixed
blessing. The cast was solid: Howard Keel was a virile Fred, Ann Miller an
energetic Lois, and Bianca’s suitors were no less than Bob Fosse
(Hortensio), Bobby Van (Gremio), and Tommy Rall (Lucentio). Even
Kathryn Grayson (Lilli) was splendid; this was her finest screen
performance, and she never looked more chic and beautiful. Given the
censorship rules of the era, one understands the necessity for the laundered
lyrics (in his review of the original Broadway production, Brooks Atkinson
in the New York Times noted that Porter’s lyrics would shock even the
editorial staff of the Police Gazette). But the meandering screenplay was
sometimes tiresome, and early in the film there was some strange business
involving a songwriter named “Cole Porter” (played by Ron Randell). The
film interpolated “From This Moment On,” which had been cut during the
tryout of Porter’s 1950 Broadway musical Out of This World, and of course
this song was also added to the 1999 and current Broadway revivals of
Kate. The DVD of the film was issued by Warner Brothers Home Video,
including a 3-D edition.
There have been four television adaptations of the musical. On
November 20, 1958, NBC’s Hallmark Hall of Fame presented original cast
members Drake and Morison as well as Julie Wilson (in a reprise of her
Lois from the London production) and Bill Hayes (Bill Calhoun); also from
the original cast was Lorenzo Fuller (Paul), and other members of the
television adaptation included Harvey Lembeck (First Gunman), Jack
Klugman (Second Gunman), Lee Cass (Gremio), Eve Jessye (Hattie), and
Lee Richardson (Ralph). Franz Allers conducted, George Schaefer directed,
and Ernest Flatt choreographed. This color telecast inspired a studio
recording of the score in stereo by Capitol Records with the four television
leads as well as Fuller and Davenport. The color print of the telecast
appears to be lost, but a black-and-white copy was released on DVD by
Video Artists International.
A second version was shown by the BBC on April 20, 1964, with
Howard Keel and Patricia Morison, and a third adaptation was produced by
ABC on March 25, 1968, for the Armstrong Circle Theatre. Directed by
Paul Bogart and choreographed by Lee (Becker) Theodore (and with
costumes by Alvin Colt), the leads were Robert Goulet (Fred), Carol
Lawrence (Lilli), Jessica Walter (Lois), and Michael Callen (Bill), and
others in the cast included Jules Munshin, Marty Ingels, Russell Nype,
Tony Hendra, and David Doyle. The soundtrack was released by Columbia
Records. (See below for information concerning the fourth televised
version.)
In the early 1950s, a radio adaptation of the musical was heard on The
Railroad Hour with Gordon MacRae and Patrice Munsel.
In 1953, the script was published in hardback by Alfred A. Knopf; was
later published in the January 1955 issue of Theatre Arts magazine; and was
included in the hardback collection American Musicals published by the
Library of America in 2014, which also offers the scripts of fifteen other
musicals. The lyrics for all the used and unused songs are included in the
hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter.
There are numerous recordings of the score, some more complete than
the original 1948 Broadway cast album, but no matter; the only one you
really want is that indispensable recording (Columbia Records; later issued
on CD by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records). Two recordings of
special interest are studio cast albums, both released on two-CD sets (EMI
Records and Jay Records). The former includes the dance music of “Rose
Dance” (part of the “Tom, Dick, or Harry” sequence); “Tarantella” (part of
the “I Sing of Love” sequence); “Pavane”; and six unused songs (“It Was
Great Fun the First Time,” “A Woman’s Career,” “We Shall Never Be
Younger,” “I’m Afraid, Sweetheart, I Love You,” “If Ever Married I’m,”
and “What Does Your Servant Dream About?”). The latter recording
includes “Rose Dance,” “Tarantella,” “Pavane,” and the overtures of three
Porter musicals, Jubilee (1935), Out of This World (1950), and Can-Can
(1953).
The cast album of the 1999 revival was released by DRG Records, but
doesn’t include the interpolated “From This Moment On,” reportedly
because the Porter estate didn’t want a non-Kate song on the recording (if it
was deemed undesirable for the number to appear on the cast album in
performance order with the Kate songs, then why wasn’t it offered as a
bonus or hidden track?). (Similarly, the cast album of the current revival,
which was released by Ghostlight Records, also omits “From This Moment
On.”) The London production of the 1999 revival opened at the Victoria
Palace Theatre on October 20, 2001, with Brent Barrett and Marin Mazzie
in the leads (the latter was succeeded by Rachel York). During the run, a
live performance with Barrett and York was filmed and shown on British
television (and for the United States was presented on the PBS series Great
Performances). The telecast was later released on DVD by Image
Entertainment. The cast includes Michael Berresse in a reprise of his New
York role, and the DVD includes “From This Moment On.”
To sum up Morison’s appearances in Kiss Me, Kate: she appeared in the
original 1948 Broadway production; the original 1951 London production;
the 1958 NBC television adaptation; the 1964 BBC television version; and
the 1965 City Center revival. She also recorded her role three times, for the
original New York and London productions and for Capitol’s 1958
recording.
As for the “forgotten” Finian’s Rainbow, it too received a belated full-
fledged Broadway revival when it opened (and quickly closed) at the St.
James Theatre on October 29, 2009, for ninety-two performances. Like
Kate, it had also been revived by the New York City Center Light Opera
Company (for three limited engagements in 1955, 1960, and 1967, and the
1960 production briefly transferred to Broadway as a commercial revival
for a disappointing run of twelve performances).
Awards
Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Kiss Me, Kate); Best
Leading Actress in a Musical (Kelli O’Hara); Best Choreography
(Warren Carlyle); Best Orchestrations (Larry Hochman)
AIN’T TOO PROUD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE

TEMPTATIONS
31, 2019
Book: Dominique Morisseau
Lyrics and Music: Per program, “Music and Lyrics from The Legendary
Motown Catalog” (see list of musical numbers for lyricist and composer
credits)
Based on the 1988 memoir Temptations by Otis Williams with Patricia
Romanowski
Direction: Des McAnuff; Producers: Ira Pittelman and Tom Hulce,
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, EMI
Entertainment World, Inc., Josh Berger, Ken Schur, Ron Simons,
Stephen Byrd, Alia Jones, Ruth and Stephen Hendel, Cheryl
Wiesenfeld, Harriet Newman Leve, Jeffrey Finn, Stephen and Nancy
Gabriel, Darren Bagert, David Binder, Wendy Federman, Susan Quint
Gallin, Mickey Liddell, Robert Ahrens, Christopher Maring, David
Mirvish, Stacy Jacobs, Marianne Mills, Loraine Alterman Boyle,
Deroy-Winkler, Karmazin-McCabe, Koenigsberg-Krauss, Zell-
Kierstead, Deborah Barrera, Robyn and Larry Gottesdiener, The Araca
Group, Rashad V. Chambers, Mike Evans, Hani Farsi, John Gore
Organization, Mike Karns, Willette and Manny Klausner, Gabrielle
Palitz, No Guarantees, Sheldon Stone, Stuart Weitzman, Universal
Music Theatrical; Otis Williams and Danielle Brooks, Executive
Producers; Melanie Bafitis, Associate Producer; Choreography: Sergio
Trujillo (Edgar Godineaux, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Robert
Brill; Projections: Peter Nigrini; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting:
Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Kenny Seymour
Cast: Derrick Baskin (Otis Williams), James Harkness (Paul Williams),
Jawan M. Jackson (Melvin Franklin), Jeremy Pope (Eddie Kendricks),
Ephraim Sykes (David Ruffin), E. Clayton Cornelious (“Gloria” Soloist,
Richard Street), Jarvis B. Manning Jr. (Al Bryant, Norman Whitfield),
Nasia Thomas (Mama Rose, Florence Ballard, Tammi Terrell), Taylor
Symone Jackson (Johnnie Mae, Mary Wilson), Jahi Kearse (Berry
Gordy), Christian Thompson (Smokey Robinson, Damon Harris),
Candice Marie Woods (Diana Ross), Rashidra Scott (Josephine), Joshua
Morgan (Shelly Berger), Saint Aubyn (Dennis Edwards), Shawn
Bowers (Lamont); Ensemble: Saint Aubyn, Shawn Bowers, E. Clayton
Cornelious, Taylor Symone Jackson, Jahi Kearse, Jarvis B. Manning Jr.,
Joshua Morgan, Rashidra Scott, Nasia Thomas, Christian Thompson,
Candice Marie Woods
The action takes place mostly in Detroit during the 1960s and 1970s.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program listed the musical numbers in alphabetical order and
didn’t credit specific singers.
“Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and
Edward Holland Jr.); “Baby Love” (lyric and music by Brian Holland,
Edward Holland Jr., and Lamont Herbert Dozier); “Ball of Confusion
(That’s What the World Is Today)” (lyric and music by Norman J.
Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “Cloud Nine” (lyric and music by
Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “Come See about Me” (lyric
and music by Brian Holland, Edward Holland Jr., and Lamont Herbert
Dozier); “Don’t Look Back” (lyric and music by Smokey Robinson and
Ronald White); “For Once in My Life” (lyric and music by Orlando
Murden and Ronald N. Miller); “Get Ready” (lyric and music by
Smokey Robinson); “Gloria” (lyric and music by Ester Navarro); “I
Can’t Get Next to You” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and
Barrett Strong); “I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)”
(lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “(I Know)
I’m Losing You” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield, Edward
Holland Jr., and Cornelius Grant); “I Want a Love I Can See” (lyric and
music by Smokey Robinson); “I Wish It Would Rain” (lyric and music
by Barrett Strong, Norman J. Whitfield, and Rodger Penzabene Sr.); “If
I Could Build My Whole World around You” (lyric and music by
Harvey Fuqua, Johnny Bristol, and Vernon Bullock); “If You Don’t
Know Me by Now” (lyric and music by Kenneth Gamble and Leon
Huff); “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” (lyric and music by Gregg
Crockett, Skip Batey, and Gregg America); “In the Still of the Night”
(lyric and music by Fred Parris); “Just My Imagination (Running Away
with Me)” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield, Barrett Strong,
Armique Wyche, Anthony Fontenot, and Troy Carter); “My Girl” (lyric
and music by Ronald White and Smokey Robinson); “Papa Was a
Rollin’ Stone” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett
Strong); “Runaway Child, Running Wild” (lyric and music by Norman
J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “Shout” (lyric and music by Ronald
Isley, Rudolph Isley, and O’Kelly Isley); “Since I Lost My Baby” (lyric
and music by Smokey Robinson and Warren Moore); “Speedo” (lyric
and music by Ester Navarro); “Superstar (Remember How You Got
Where You Are)” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett
Strong); “The Way You Do the Things You Do” (lyric and music by
Smokey Robinson and Robert Rogers); “War” (lyric and music by
Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong); “What Becomes of the
Brokenhearted?” (lyric and music by James Dean, Paul Riser, and
William Weatherspoon); “You Can’t Hurry Love” (lyric and music by
Edward Holland Jr., Brian Holland, and Lamont Herbert Dozier);
“You’re My Everything” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield,
Cornelius Grant, Rodger Penzabene Sr., Helga Penzabene, and Carl
Christiansen)
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations was yet another
in the seemingly endless cycle of jukebox bio musicals, and was the third
such show directed by Des McAnuff and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo,
who had previously given the world Jersey Boys (2005) and Summer: The
Donna Summer Musical. The current presentation looked at the career of
the five-man singing group The Temptations, played by Derrick Baskin
(Otis Williams), James Harkness (Paul Williams), Jawan M. Jackson
(Melvin Franklin), Jeremy Pope (Eddie Kendricks), and Ephraim Sykes
(David Ruffin), and the musical focused on the singers and songs of both
Motown and Motown, the latter of which was not directed by McAnuff and
not choreographed by Trujillo.
Motown had played on Broadway for almost two years and then later
returned for a brief engagement. It was based on Motown founder and
producer Berry Gordy’s memoir To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The
Memories of Motown, which looked at his personal and professional
relationship with Motown singer Diana Ross as well as with many of the
singers and the creative team who were part of the record company’s
heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. Of course, the earlier Dreamgirls (1981)
had also looked at the same era and the same people, but didn’t name names
and instead presented thinly veiled portraits of the Motown crowd.
Motown focused on Gordy and Ross, but The Temptations were also
part of its story, and so it was only fair that while Ain’t Too Proud was about
The Temptations, it also brought in Gordy and Ross as supporting
characters. In fact, Ain’t Too Proud and Motown overlapped and shared no
less than eight of the same characters and seven of the same songs,
including “Ain’t Too Proud.” There must be a dozen more Motown singers
who are destined for their own jukebox bio musical, and so the characters
of Gordy, Ross, The Temptations, and others, as well as the Motown
catalog, can figure into all of them, and perhaps one day The Motown Cycle
will be produced in repertory with a rotating company and in approximate
chronological order.
Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Post said the show was “a paint-by-
numbers evening” that was narrated by Williams (Baskin), the group’s
founder and the last living member of the original quintet (over the years
there were some two-dozen singers who at one time or another were part of
The Temptations). The narration “unfold[ed] efficiently, if mechanically, in
an ‘and then we did this’ fashion,” and overall the production evoked “a
dull sense of déjà vu” with “a fog of familiarity” surrounding McAnuff’s
direction.
Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted the narrative moved forward
“with the relentlessness of a conveyor belt in an auto-making assembly
line” and it honored “all the expected biomusical clichés”; David Rooney in
the Hollywood Reporter complained that the show was “more narrated than
dramatized” and seemed “like a hits compilation with commentary”; Adam
Feldman in Time Out suggested that “as musical theatre” the show “could
generously be described as shameless”; Alexis Soloski in the Guardian said
the production had a “shrink-wrapped heart” which was both “thrillingly
performed and dramatically static”; Chris Jones in the New York Daily
News said the show’s ”wholly conventional structure” bypassed fascinating
and complex issues by “quickly and awkwardly” dismissing them, and he
noted “such are the perils of doing legacy-creating shows about living
people with ownership interests in the material”; and Terry Teachout in the
Wall Street Journal decided Ain’t Too Proud was “a Broadway musical for
people who don’t like Broadway musicals—or maybe for people who like
only jukebox biomusicals,” and he mentioned that the “projection-heavy”
design was “ploddingly dull” and Dominique Morisseau’s book sounded
“as though a roomful of ad executives wrote it.”
But the critics liked the cast and the choreography. Dziemianowicz said
Pope (who earlier in the season appeared in the play-with-music Choir Boy)
was “phenomenal,” Rooney noted that Sykes’s voice was “heavenly,” and
Robert Hofler in The Wrap said Sykes’s performance was a “superstar-
making turn.” Although Teachout found the dances “way too slick,”
Brantley praised the “sensational” choreography, and Rooney said Trujillo
balanced “one foot in the period and the other in electrifying reinvention.”
Rooney indicated the “briskly paced” show was done “with intelligence
and taste” and generated “the excitement of a terrific concert,” Matt
Windman in amNY liked the “slick, straightforward, tuneful and altogether
pleasant entertainment,” and Frank Rizzo in Variety praised the “polished”
performances. Although Brantley found the evening occasionally “strained”
and “bizarrely perfunctory,” he was happy to note Morisseau’s script didn’t
use the songs to “reflect the plot in literal ways” and instead the numbers
registered “as a rippling, liquid mirror of societal and personal flux.”
The Broadway cast album was issued on CD and on a two-record vinyl
edition by Ume Records. The musical was first presented at the Berkeley
Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre during the period August 31–October 8,
2017, and for that production Jared Joseph played the role of Melvin
Franklin.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and
Times of the Temptations); Best Book (Dominique Morisseau); Best
Direction of a Musical (Des McAnuff); Best Leading Actor in a Musical
(Derrick Baskin); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Jeremy Pope); Best
Featured Actor in a Musical (Ephraim Sykes); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (Robert Brill and Peter Nigrini); Best Costume Design of a
Musical (Paul Tazewell); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Howell
Binkley); Best Sound Design in a Musical (Steve Canyon Kennedy);
Best Choreography (Sergio Trujillo); Best Orchestrations (Harold
Wheeler)
OKLAHOMA!
Performances: 328
Based on the 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs.
Direction: Daniel Fish (Jordan Fein, Associate Director); Producers: Eva
Price, Level Forward, Abigail Disney, Barbara Manocherian and Carl
Moellenberg, James L. Nederlander, David Mirvish, Mickey Liddell
and Robert Ahrens; BSL Enterprises and MagicSpace Entertainment,
Berlind Productions, John Gore Organization, Cornice Productions,
Bard Fisher/R. Gold, Lamf/J. Geller, T. Narang/ZKM Media, R/F/B/V
Group, Araca/IPN, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and Tamar Climan; A Bard
Summerscape Production; Tamar Climan, Consulting Producer; Square
1 Theatrics, Associate Producer; Choreography: John Heginbotham;
Scenery: Laura Jellinek; Projection Design: Joshua Thorson; Special
Effects: Jeremy Chernick; Costumes: Terese Wadden; Lighting: Scott
Zielinski; Musical Direction: Nathan Koci
Cast: Damon Daunno (Curly McLain), Mary Testa (Aunt Eller), Rebecca
Naomi Jones (Laurey Williams), James Davis (Will Parker), Anthony
Cason (Cord Elam), Patrick Vaill (Jud Fry), Ali Stroker (Ado Annie),
Will Brill (Ali Hakim), Mallory Portnoy (Gertie Cummings), Mitch
Tebo (Andrew Carnes), Will Mann (Mike), Gabrielle Hamilton (Lead
Dancer)
The action takes place in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) just after the
turn of the twentieth century.
Musical Numbers
list of songs (given in performance order and including the names of the
characters who sang and/or danced the numbers) is taken from the
program of the original 1943 production.
Act One: “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” (Curly); “The Surrey with the
Fringe on Top” (Curly, Laurey, Aunt Eller); “Kansas City” (Will, Aunt
Eller, Boys); “I Cain’t Say No” (Ado Annie); “Many a New Day”
(Laurey, Girls); “It’s a Scandal! It’s a Outrage!” (Ali Hakim, Boys,
Girls); “People Will Say (We’re in Love)” (Curly, Laurey); “Pore Jud Is
Dead” (Curly, Jud Fry); “Lonely Room” (Jud Fry); “Out of My
Dreams” (Laurey, Girls); Ballet: “Laurey Makes Up Her Mind”
(Dancers)
Act Two: “The Farmer and the Cowman” (Andrew Carnes, Aunt Eller,
Curly, Will, Fred, Ensemble); “All er Nothin’” (Ado Annie, Will);
“People Will Say (We’re in Love)” (reprise) (Curly, Laurey);
“Oklahoma” (Curly, Laurey, Aunt Eller, Ike Skidmore, Fred,
Ensemble); “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” (reprise) (Laurey, Curly,
Ensemble); Finale (Ensemble)
There was almost no middle ground in regard to the revival of Richard

Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Oklahoma! Some critics found it a
pretentious piece of claptrap, and others swooned and gushed.
Judith Miller in the City Journal offered a thoughtful analysis of the
current production. Clearly, the director wanted to emphasize a certain
inherent darkness in the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, but instead he
turned the musical’s “celebration of the American spirit” into a “sanguinary
condemnation” of that spirit. The revival looked at “sexual politics, class
discrimination, and a corrupt system of justice,” and the director focused his
“ire” on the country’s “gun culture” by displaying racks of rifles that hung
on the set’s plywood walls. This “attack” on guns led to a “rewrite” that
perverted the confrontation scene between Curly (Damon Daunno) and Jud
(Patrick Vaill). Jud hands Curly a gun, Curly fires point blank at him, and
blood splatters all over the faces and wedding outfits of Curly and Laurey
(Rebecca Naomi Jones). This “artifice” may have had “an overtly political
purpose,” but it was dramatically unconvincing. (Johnny Oleksinski in the
New York Post found the scene “inane,” and Frank Scheck in the Hollywood
Reporter said it was “ridiculously overwrought.”)
Moreover, Agnes de Mille’s ground-breaking ballet “Laurey Makes Up
Her Mind” (which originally closed the first act and here opened the
second) was now an “interminable” solo dance for Gabrielle Hamilton, who
sported a shaved head and wore a sequined T-shirt emblazoned with the
words “Dream Baby Dream.” Miller reported that Hamilton “jumps, lunges,
and bounces aimlessly” about while cowboy boots drop “with a thud” from
the stage ceiling, and the critic wryly noted that the sequence belonged “in a
different musical—say, Rent.” Rex Reed in the Observer decided that
Hamilton was “imitating a horse”; Oleksinski said the whole thing was “an
overlong, gymnastics floor exercise”; Marilyn Stasio in Variety said the
dance was “allowed to go on ad nauseam”; and Scheck said that “worst of
all” was this “horrific” dance that went on “seemingly forever,” came
across “like a Twyla Tharp reject,” and was accompanied by “a screeching
punk rock-style rendition” of Rodgers’s music.
In his review of the revival’s earlier 2018 production, David Rooney in
the Hollywood Reporter said the number went on “way too long,” but he
decided the choice of having two black women play the role of Laurey (the
lead female dancer in the traditional ballet is usually known as the “Dream
Laurey”) was “significant” because Laurey must “struggle to figure out
where she fits into the community.”
Oleksinski also noted that for virtually the entire performance the
theatre’s auditorium was brightly lit and individual scenes didn’t seem “any
different from the next.” However, two scenes were played in darkness.
One was between Curly and Jud, and according to Rooney (who found the
revival “audacious” and a “revelation”) the two men are together in
“homoerotic intimacy” while a video camera records them and projects
their images on a black-and-white screen (Scheck observed that the video
projections of the two men were “in such close-up that Ingmar Bergman
would be embarrassed”). A second black-out scene between Laurey and Jud
led some to deduce that the two were having sex. Stasio (who found the
“ambitious” revival a “winner”) stated that the staging of the two scenes in
darkness was “a stroke of directorial invention,” and Greg Evans in
Deadline Hollywood said the “stunning” and “explosive” revival was an
“astonishing reimagining” of Oklahoma!, and because the house lights were
usually on, the audience was “complicit” in the action.
Reed noted that “miserable fools” were “hell bent” on “destroying”
musical theatre classics by trying to make them “relevant, trendy and
politically correct,” and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization
“should be ashamed for giving permission to produce this gimmicky
travesty” because Oklahoma! was now “cheapened and vulgarized” by this
“lunkheaded” and “misguided” production.
Scheck said the revival seemed more “like a doctoral thesis than a
theatrical event,” and while there was nothing wrong in stressing the darker
aspects of the plot, the production did so in “tedious fashion.” The
performers often mumbled their dialogue to the “point of being
unintelligible,” the pacing was “deadly slow,” and when the director
imposed himself on the material you wanted “to run screaming for the
exits.”
Oleksinski said the “pretentious” revival was a “bag of tricks and a
thesis on gun control and westward expansion,” not to mention a criticism
of “a culture of violence and toxic masculinity” (Rooney, by the way, stated
that Curly exuded “aggressive male entitlement”). Oleksinski decided the
evening’s message was to “have a lousy time,” and the entire show was a
“mostly joyless chore” that made you want to put the revival “out to
pasture.”
Miller said Jones lacked a “strong” singing voice, Chris Jones in the
New York Daily News mentioned that she played her role as if she were
“unhappy throughout” the evening, and Charles Isherwood in Broadway
News said she “skims along the surface of her character.” But Rooney said
she sang “with tremendous feeling” and Scheck noted that she sang
“gorgeously” and acted “movingly.” Isherwood reported that Jones and
Daunno lacked mutual rapport; Miller said Vaill looked like a “refugee from
Haight-Ashbury, circa 1968,” and Reed felt that Jud now belonged in a
“motorcycle gang.” For Miller, the wheelchair-bound Ali Stroker (Ado
Annie) wasn’t “funny” or “subtle,” and Reed said the character’s “comic
relief” found in other productions was here “sadly missing.” Reed also
commented that Mary Testa’s Aunt Eller was the “most charmless” he’d
ever seen (but Evans liked her “biker chick” attitude).
Jones said the revival was “shockingly brilliant” but also “a deeply
depressing dissection” of American “ideals,” and he was “profoundly
saddened” because of the production’s “disavowal of the power of love” (it
seems Curly and Laurey’s marriage won’t “save America from its sins”)
and its “cynical degradation of all-American optimism.”
The production emphasized food as metaphor, and Isherwood noted that
“phallic ears” of corn were shucked during the evening, and at intermission
the audience was invited onstage to partake of chili and corn bread (Scheck
said the chili would have been a “nice touch” if only it hadn’t been “so
bland and tasteless”). As for the picnic-box social scene (where the men bid
for the women’s picnic baskets, the proceeds of which go to charity), some
clueless audience members saw this as an example of toxic masculinity in
which the winning male bidder thus “owns” the woman, who in effect
becomes his “slave.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the “astonishing” revival
“jolting and altogether wonderful.” James Davis’s Will Parker was
“deliciously dumb,” Stoker rode her wheelchair like a “prize bronco,” Will
Brill’s Ali Hakim was “refreshingly unmannered,” Testa was “splendid,”
and all the performances were “Broadway-size” with “infectious
exuberance.” For Brantley, the controversial ending was “disturbing” for all
the “right” reasons, the dream ballet was “newly varied and paced” and
Hamilton was no less than “undiluted id incarnate” who was “stimulating
and frightening.” For Brantley, the revival wasn’t “an act of plunder” but
one of “reclamation.” But clearly others found the production an act of
desecration.
The original Oklahoma! opened at the St. James Theatre on March 31,
1943, for a then record-breaking 2,212 performances. Including the current
production, the work has been revived on Broadway ten times. A return
engagement by the original national touring company played at the
Broadway Theatre on May 29, 1951, for 72 performances, and was
followed by five productions by the New York City Center Light Opera
Company at City Center on August 31, 1953 (40 performances), March 19,
1958 (15 performances), February 27, 1963, with a return engagement on
May 15, 1963 (for a total of 30 performances), and December 15, 1965 (24
performances). The musical was then produced by the Music Theatre of
Lincoln Center at the New York State Theatre on June 23, 1969, for 88
performances, a Broadway revival on December 13, 1979, at the Palace
Theatre played for 293 performances, and another Broadway revival on
March 21, 2002, at the Gershwin Theatre ran for 388 performances.
The 1979 revival was splendid and may well be the finest of all because
it was a blend of the traditional and the innovative with its slightly dark
tone, and the director William Hammerstein respected the text and didn’t
try to politicize the work. Christine Andreas was a memorably restless and
brooding Laurey, and the stellar cast included Laurence Guittard (Curly),
Martin Vidnovic (Jud Fry), Christine Ebersole (Ado Annie), Harry Groener
(Will Parker), Mary Wickes (Aunt Eller), and Bruce Adler (Ali Hakim). For
this production, the somewhat tedious ballet “Laurey Makes Up Her Mind”
was really about something: Laurey must choose Curly or Jud Fry.
Normally, there’s no contest, and in traditional stagings Jud is completely
out of Laurey’s league. But Vidnovic’s Jud was one we’d never seen before,
a sexy stallion who makes Curly seem positively coltish. Vidnovic’s
galvanic performance was charged with frustrated sexual energy, and it was
clear from his performance that when Jud was alone in his shack, he did
more than just look at the racy French postcards nailed to the wall next to
his bunk. He was darkly and dangerously attractive, and it was
understandable why Laurey considers and then consents to go to the box
social with him. Like Carousel’s Jigger, Jud always seemed like a
somewhat intrusive but necessary secondary-character plot device. But here
Jud was a presence, and Vidnovic’s achingly sung “Lonely Room” made
this generally overlooked song a powerful and memorable statement about
his outsider status.
The cast album of the 1943 production was released on a 78 RPM set by
Decca Records and was the first commercial Broadway cast album. It was
later issued on LP format, and then on a CD by MCA Classics, which
includes both an alternate take and a complete version of “Pore Jud Is
Dead.” The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1943,
was included in the 1959 Modern Library hardback collection Six Plays by
Rodgers and Hammerstein, was issued in paperback by Applause Theatre &
Cinema Books in 2010, and was included in the 2014 hardback collection
American Musicals by Library of America (which includes the scripts of
fifteen other musicals). All the lyrics for the used and cut songs are
included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Oscar
Hammerstein II, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2008. Max Wilk’s Ok!
The Story of ‘Oklahoma’! was published in hardback by Grove Press in
1993 and was republished in paperback by Applause Books in 2002.
The first London production opened at the Drury Lane on April 29,
1947, for 1,548 performances. The 1955 film version (which cut “It’s a
Scandal! It’s a Outrage!” and “Lonely Room”) was filmed twice, for both
the Todd-AO and CinemaScope screen processes; the Todd-AO road show
release was distributed by Magda Theatre Corporation, and the
CinemaScope version by RKO Radio Pictures. The film was released on
home video by Twentieth Century-Fox, and a recent two-disk DVD set
includes both the Todd-AO and Cinema-Scope versions. The 1979 revival
was recorded by RCA Victor Records, and while there wasn’t a Broadway
cast album of the 2002 revival, its earlier 1998 London production was
recorded by First Night Records and a DVD was issued by Image
Entertainment. A Japanese production by the Takarazuka company was
released on DVD by Takarazuka Creative Arts Co. Ltd. The cast album of
the current production was released on CD by Decca Broadway/Verve
Records.
The current revival had been around for a few years, first at Bard
College’s Richard B. Fisher Center in July 2015, and then in a production
by St. Ann’s Warehouse and Eva Price at Brooklyn’s Joseph S. and Diane
H. Steinberg Theatre in 2018.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival of a Musical (Oklahoma!);
Best Direction of a Musical (Daniel Fish); Best Leading Actor in a
Musical (Damon Daunno); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Ali
Stroker); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Mary Testa); Best Scenic
Design of a Musical (Laura Jellinek); Best Sound Design in a Musical
(Drew Levy); Best Orchestrations (Daniel Kluger)
HADESTOWN
“THE MYTH. THE MUSICAL.”

Opening Date: April 17, 2019; Closing Date: Still playing as of December
31, 2019
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Anais Mitchell
Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Direction: Rachel Chavkin; Producers: Mara Isaacs, Dale Franzen, Hunter
Arnold, Tom Kirdahy, Carl Daikeler, Five Fates, Willette and Manny
Klausner, No Guarantees, Sing Out, Louise! Productions, Stone Arch
Theatrical, Benjamin Lowy/Adrian Salpeter, Meredith Lynsey Schade,
42nd.Club, Craig Balsam, Broadway Strategic Return Fund, Concord
Theatricals, Laurie David, Demar Moritz Gang, Getter Entertainment,
Deborah Green, Harris Rubin Productions, Sally Cade Holmes,
Marguerite Hoffman, Hornos Moellenberg, Independent Presenters
Network, Jam Theatricals, Kalin Levine Dohr Productions, Phil and
Claire Kenny, Mike Karns, Kilimanjaro Theatricals, Lady Capital, LD
Entertainment, Sandi Moran, Tom Neff, MWM Live, Patti Sanford
Roberts and Michael Roberts, Schroeder Shapiro Productions, Seriff
Productions, Stage Entertainment, Kenneth and Rosemary Willman,
Kaylavlek Theatricals, Tyler Mount, Jujamcyn Theatres, The National
Theatre, The New York Theatre Workshop; Choreography: David
Neumann; Scenery: Rachel Hauck; Costumes: Michael Krass; Lighting:
Bradley King; Musical Direction: Liam Robinson
Cast: Reeve Carney (Orpheus), Eva Noblezada (Eurydice), Amber Gray
(Persephone), Patrick Page (Hades), Andre De Shields (Hermes); Fates:
Jewelle Blackman, Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer, and Kay Trinidad; Workers’
Chorus: Afra Hines, Timothy Hughes, John Krause, Kimberly Marable,
and Ahmad Simmons
The action takes place during an unidentified era (perhaps the 1930s) and in
two cities, one unidentified (but not unlike New Orleans) and the other
Hadestown.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Road to Hell” (Andre De Shields, Company); “Any Way the
Wind Blows” (Eva Noblezada, Fates); “Come Home with Me” (Reeve
Carney, Eva Noblezada, Andre De Shields, Workers); “Wedding Song”
(Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada, Workers); “Epic I” (Reeve Carney,
Andre De Shields); “Livin’ It Up on Top” (Amber Gray, Andre De
Shields, Reeve Carney, Company); “All I’ve Ever Known” (Eva
Noblezada, Reeve Carney); “Way Down Hadestown” (Company); “A
Gathering Storm” (Andre De Shields, Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada,
Fates); “Epic II” (Reeve Carney); “Chant” (Company); “Hey, Little
Songbird” (Patrick Page, Eva Noblezada); “When the Chips Are Down”
(Fates, Eva Noblezada); “Gone, I’m Gone” (Eva Noblezada, Fates);
“Wait for Me” (Andre De Shields, Reeve Carney, Fates, Workers);
“Why We Build the Wall” (Patrick Page, Company)
Act Two: “Our Lady of the Underground” (Amber Gray); “Way Down
Hadestown” (reprise) (Andre De Shields, Fates, Eva Noblezada,
Workers); “Flowers” (Eva Noblezada); “Come Home with Me”
(reprise) (Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada); “Papers” (Patrick Page,
Company); “Nothing Changes” (Fates); “If It’s True” (Reeve Carney,
Andre De Shields, Workers); “How Long?” (Amber Gray, Patrick
Page); “Chant” (reprise) (Company); “Epic III” (Reeve Carney,
Company); “Promises” (Eva Noblezada, Reeve Carney); “Word to the
Wise” (Fates); “His Kiss, the Riot” (Patrick Page); “Wait for Me”
(reprise) (Andre De Shields, Company); “Doubt Comes In” (Reeve
Carney, Eva Noblezada, Fates, Workers); “Road to Hell” (reprise)
(Andre De Shields, Company)
Hadestown was a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus (Reeve

Carney) and Eurydice (Eva Noblezada). The two fall in love, and when she
visits the underworld of Hadestown ruled by Hades (Patrick Page) she’s
condemned to remain there for eternity. Orpheus follows her to Hadestown
and is ultimately allowed to take her to the world above on condition that he
agrees to not gaze upon her until they’re out of Hadestown. As they near
freedom, he worries that she might not be following him, and he looks
back. She’s been there all the time, but because he’s broken his agreement
Eurydice must remain in Hades forever and Orpheus must live out his life
without her. The musical utilized three narrative devices: Hermes (Andre
De Shields), the three Fates, and a Greek chorus of sorts.
Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post noted that for a show “about
hell,” the musical lacked “heat.” It sounded “pleasant” and looked
“expensive,” but it was “sluggish” and “too slick and sterile” for the
audience “to give a damn” about Eurydice’s “damnation.” The score itself
was “bluesy” and “quite beautiful” but seemed “a better fit for a Starbucks
than a Broadway theatre,” and the evening took “one of the world’s greatest
love stories” and turned it “into a concert at the back of a West Village wine
bar.” But Jesse Green in the New York Times found the musical
“sumptuous” and “hypnotic” if “somewhat hyperactive,” and the score
combined such styles as folk, pop, and Dixieland “with rhythmic work
shanties” and “ethereal arias.” Unfortunately, the leads were “blandly”
written and performed, and the evening became “somewhat abstract” with
its “several layers of narration” in which “feelings” were more “described”
than dramatized.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter praised the “utterly fabulous”
and “seamless theatrical experience,” which arrived on Broadway “with a
furnace-like blast of creativity” that included a score of jazz, blues, gospel,
and “ethereal folk balladry,” in effect resulting in a “musical palette” that
ranged from “country to Kurt Weill.” Matt Windman in amNewYork liked
the “stunning” decor and “distinctive and authentic” score. And Michael
Sommers in New York Stage Review said the musical evoked a “handsome
ancient statue that is missing its head” because despite its “terrific” look
and sound there was little “heat” in the relationship between the two leading
characters and there were “lapses” in the plot’s “motivation.”
The musical gestated for thirteen years. It was first given in scattered
performances in Vermont during 2006 and 2007; a 2010 concept album by
the lyricist and composer was recorded by Wilderland Records; a New York
Theatre Workshop production with Damon Daunno and Nabiyah Be opened
on May 13, 2016, and was recorded live by Rhino Warner Classics; a
Canadian production opened at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta,
on November 11, 2011; and a London presentation at the National Theatre’s
Olivier Theatre opened on November 2, 2018. The Broadway cast album
was released on a two-CD set and a three-disk vinyl edition by
Atlantic/Sing It Again Records.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Hadestown); Best Book
(Anais Mitchell); Best Score (lyrics and music by Anais Mitchell); Best
Direction of a Musical (Rachel Chavkin); Best Leading Actress in a
Musical (Eva Noblezada); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Andre De
Shields); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Patrick Page); Best
Featured Actress in a Musical (Amber Gray); Best Scenic Design of a
Musical (Rachel Hauck); Best Costume Design in a Musical (Michael
Krass); Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Bradley King); Best Sound
Design of a Musical (Nevin Steinberg and Jessica Paz); Best
Choreography (David Neumann); Best Orchestrations (Michael
Chorney and Todd Sickafoose)
TOOTSIE
“A NEW COMEDY MUSICAL”

Performances: 285
Book: Robert Horn
Based on the 1982 Columbia Pictures’ film Tootsie (direction by Sydney
Pollack and screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal from a
story by Don McGuire and Gelbart).
Direction: Scott Ellis (Dave Solomon, Associate Director); Producers:
Scott Sanders, Carol Fineman, Unibal-Rodamco-Westfield, Columbia
Live Stage, Sally Horchow, James L. Nederlander, Benjamin Lowy,
Cindy and Jay Gutterman/Marlene and Gary Cohen, Judith Ann Abrams
Productions, Robert Greenblatt, Stephanie P. McClelland, Candy
Spelling, Jam Theatricals, Roy Furman, Michael Harrison/David Ian,
Jamie DeRoy/Catherine Adler/Wendy Federman/Heni Koenigsberg,
JAA Productions/Stella LaRue/Silva Theatrical Group, Toho Co. Ltd.,
Jonathan Littman, Peter May, Janet and Marvin Rosen, Seriff
Productions, Iris Smith, Bob Boyett, Thomas L. Miller, Larry J.
Kroll/Douglas L. Meyer, Victoria Lang/Scott Mauro,
Brunish/Caiola/Fuld Jr./Epic Theatricals, Ted Liebowitz/Lassen Blume
Baldwin, The John Gore Organization, Ronald Frankel, Char-Park
Productions, Chris and Ashlee Clarke, Fakston Productions, The
Woodland Hills Broadway Group, ZJS and An A. Inc., Tom
McGrath/42nd.Club, Drew Hodges and Peter Kukielski, Jim Fantaci,
Frederike and Bill Hecht, Brad Lamm, Independent Presenters
Network; Choreography: Denis Jones (Barry Busby, Associate
Choreographer); Scenery: David Rockwell; Costumes: William Ivey
Long; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Andrea Grody
Cast: Santino Fontana (Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels), Lilli Cooper
(Julie Nichols), Sarah Stiles (Sandy Lester), John Behlmann (Max Van
Horn), Andy Grotelueschen (Jeff Slater), Julie Halston (Rita Marshall),
Michael McGrath (Stan Fields), Reg Rogers (Ron Carlisle); Ensemble:
Paula Leggett Chase, Britney Coleman, Leslie Donna Flesner, John
Arthur Greene, Drew King, Harris Milgrim, Shina Ann Morris, James
Moye, Katerina Papacostas, Nick Spangler, Diana Vaden, Anthony
Wayne
Musical Numbers
Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Opening Number” (Ensemble, Santino
Fontana); “Whaddya Do” (Santino Fontana); “What’s Gonna Happen”
(Sarah Stiles); “Whaddya Do” (reprise) (Santino Fontana); “I Won’t Let
You Down” (Santino Fontana); “I’m Alive” (Lilli Cooper, Reg Rogers,
John Behlmann, Santino Fontana, Ensemble); “There Was John” (Lilli
Cooper, Santino Fontana); “I Like What She’s Doing” (Julie Halston,
Lilli Cooper, Stuart [performer unknown], Suzie [performer unknown],
Reg Rogers, John Behlmann, Santino Fontana, Ensemble); “Who Are
You?” (Santino Fontana, Lilli Cooper); “What’s Gonna Happen”
(reprise) (Sarah Stiles); “Unstoppable” (Santino Fontana, Ensemble)
Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Jeff Sums It Up” (Andy Grotelueschen,
Santino Fontana); “Gone, Gone, Gone” (Lilli Cooper, Female Trio);
“Who Are You?” (reprise) (Lilli Cooper); “This Thing” (John
Behlmann); “Whaddya Do” (reprise) (Andy Grotelueschen, Santino
Fontana); “The Most Important Night of My Life” (John Behlmann,
Suzie [performer unknown], Stuart [performer unknown], Julie Halston,
Reg Rogers, Ensemble); “Talk to Me, Dorothy” (Santino Fontana);
“Arrivederci!” (Santino Fontana, Lilli Cooper, John Behlmann,
Ensemble); “What’s Gonna Happen” (reprise) (Sarah Stiles); “Thank
You” (“Talk to Me, Dorothy” reprise) (Santino Fontana)
Reportedly capitalized at $19.5 million, Tootsie was based on the hit

1982 film comedy of the same name. The story focused on the impossibly
difficult New York actor Michael Dorsey (Santino Fontana), who never
makes the big time because of his querulous personality. New York
programs included a flyer of Michael’s head shot along with a list of his
acting credits which include performances at the Pickle Barrel Dinner
Theatre and Bate N’ Tackle, the Cul-de-Sac Community Club House, the
Boar and Barn Dinner Theatre, the Apalachiola Beach Club Theatre, and, if
all these weren’t impressive enough, he also appeared in a production given
by the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League.
When Michael hears about Juliet’s Curse, a new musical and a sequel to
Romeo and Juliet in which we discover that Juliet has been miraculously
resuscitated and is now involved with Romeo’s brother Craig, Michael dons
drag as an actress named Dorothy Michaels and auditions for the role of
Juliet’s nurse. The show is clearly destined to join Joe Allen’s wall of flops,
but once Michael gets the part, he influences the creative team and the other
actors, and pretty soon he’s the center of the show, which is now set in the
present instead of the Renaissance and has been retitled Juliet’s Nurse.
Along the way, Michael has discovered much about himself, and his newly
found maturity has made him a better man in all his relationships. (Note
that the musical updated the story to the present time, and in the film
Michael’s acting job was that of a player on an afternoon television soap
opera.)
Matt Windman in amNewYork found the musical “substandard” and
“busy but empty and uninspired” with “generic” songs and a book “chock-
full of one liners straining hard for laughs without much wit.” Fontana
lacked the “necessary obnoxious edge,” and while the supporting players
brought “personality and comic sensibility” to their characters they weren’t
able to save the show. But Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post said
Tootsie was funnier than the movie and in many respects was less a
“razzmatazz” musical than a “sitcom in its prime.” David Yazbek’s score
didn’t match his work for The Band’s Visit but there were some “really
terrific” numbers, and Robert Horn’s “extraordinary” book delivered “the
finest collection of character actors on stage right now.”
Marilyn Stasio in Variety noted that Tootsie was “old-fashioned and
proud of it” and was “a surefire crowd pleaser,” and David Rooney in the
Hollywood Reporter praised the “madly entertaining” show with its “fresh
and funny” jokes, “exuberantly cheesy” dances, and a “brilliant”
performance by Santana, all of which combined into a “sassy riot” that was
“the kind of big, brash Broadway musical that gives audiences what they
paid for.”
Jesse Green in the New York Times said Fontana got “just about
everything right” and had “impeccable” comic timing, and Yazbek could
“set jokes to music and make them pay” with a score that had an “angular,
brassy sound” like “Frank Loesser in a traffic jam.” But the direction and
physical production were “trite and vanilla,” and the show’s “gender
politics” were pushed “too insistently” (he noted that three jokes, two
speeches, and one song about the subject were “nearly a comedy killer”).
The Broadway cast album was released on CD by Decca
Broadway/Verve Records.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Tootsie); Best Book (Robert
Horn); Best Score (lyrics and music by David Yazbek); Best Direction
of a Musical (Scott Ellis); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Santino
Fontana); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Andy Grotelueschen);
Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Lilli Cooper); Best Featured
Actress in a Musical (Sarah Stiles); Best Costume Design of a Musical
(William Ivey Long); Best Choreography (Denis Jones); Best
Orchestrations (Simon Hale)
BEETLEJUICE
“THE MUSICAL. THE MUSICAL. THE MUSICAL.”

Performances: 366
Book: Scott Brown and Anthony King
Lyrics and Music: Eddie Perfect; incidental music by Kris Kukul
Based on the 1988 Warner Brothers’ film Beetlejuice (direction by Tim
Burton, screenplay by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren, and
based on a story by McDowell and Larry Wilson).
Direction: Alex Timbers (Catie Davis, Associate Director); Producers:
Warner Brothers Theatre Ventures, Langley Park Productions, Jeffrey
Richards, Jam Theatricals, IMG Original Content, Rebecca Gold, Ben
Lowy, James L. Nederlander, Warner/Chappell Music Inc., and Zendog
Productions in association with DeRoy Federman Productions/42nd.
Club, Latitude Link, Mary Lu Roffe, Terry Schnuck, Marc Bell and Jeff
Hollander, Jane Bergere, Joanna Carson, Darren Deverna and Jere
Harris, Mark S. Golub and David S. Golub, The John Gore
Organization, Ruth and Steve Hendel, LHC Theatrical Fund, Scott H.
Mauro, Networks Presentations, No Guarantees, Gabrielle Palitz, Pierce
Friedman Productions, Iris Smith, and Triptyk Studios; Mark Kaufman
and Kevin McCormick, Executive Producers; Choreographer: Connor
Gallagher (Nancy Renee Braun, Associate Choreographer); Scenery:
David Korins; Projection Design: Peter Nigrini; Special Effects Design:
Jeremy Chernick; Magic and Illusion Design: Michael Weber; Puppet
Design: Michael Curry; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting:
Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Kris Kukul
Cast: Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice), Sophia Anne Caruso (Lydia), Kerry
Butler (Barbara), Rob McClure (Adam), Adam Dannheisser (Charles),
Leslie Kritzer (Delia, Miss Argentina), Jill Abramovitz (Maxine Dean,
Juno), Danny Rutigliano (Maxie Dean), Kelvin Moon Loh (Otho), Dana
Steingold (Girl Scout); Ensemble: Tessa Alves, Gilbert L. Bailey III,
Johnny Brantley III, Ryan Breslin, Abe Goldfarb, Elliott Mattox, Mateo
Melendez, Ramone Owens, Presley Ryan, Kim Sava
Musical Numbers
information is taken from the cast album.
Act One: Prologue: “Invisible” (Sophia Anne Caruso, Alex Brightman,
Ensemble); “The Whole ‘Being Dead’ Thing” (Alex Brightman,
Ensemble); “Ready Set, Not Yet” (Rob McClure, Kerry Butler, Alex
Brightman); “The Whole ‘Being Dead’ Thing” (reprise) (Alex
Brightman, Kerry Butler, Rob McClure, Ensemble); “Dead Mom”
(Sophia Anne Caruso, Ensemble); “Fright of Their Lives” (Alex
Brightman, Rob McClure, Kerry Butler, Ensemble); “Ready Set, Not
Yet” (reprise) (Rob McClure, Kerry Butler); “No Reason” (Leslie
Kritzer, Sophia Anne Caruso); “Invisible” (reprise) (Alex Brightman);
“Invisible” (reprise) and “On the Roof” (Alex Brightman, Sophia Anne
Caruso); “Say My Name” (Alex Brightman, Sophia Anne Caruso, Kerry
Butler, Rob McClure); “Day-O” (aka “The Banana Boat Song”) (lyric
and music by Irving Burgie and William Attaway) (Leslie Kritzer,
Adam Dannheisser, Sophia Anne Caruso, Kerry Butler, Rob McClure,
Alex Brightman, Ramone Owens, Jill Abramovitz, Danny Rutigliano,
Ensemble)
Act Two: “Girl Scout” (Dana Steingold, Sophia Anne Caruso, Ensemble);
“That Beautiful Sound” (Alex Brightman, Sophia Anne Caruso,
Ensemble); “Barbara 2.0” (Kerry Butler, Rob McClure); “What I Know
Now” (Leslie Kritzer, Ensemble); “Home” (Sophia Anne Caruso, Adam
Dannheisser, Ensemble); “Creepy Old Guy” (Sophia Anne Caruso, Alex
Brightman, Rob McClure, Kerry Butler, Adam Dannheisser, Leslie
Kritzer, Ensemble); “Jump in the Line” (aka “Shake, Senora”) (lyric and
music by Harry Belafonte, Ralph de Leon, Gabriel Oller, and Steve
Samuel) (Sophia Anne Caruso, Rob McClure, Kerry Butler, Adam
Dannheisser, Leslie Kritzer, Ensemble)
Like so many musicals of the era, Beetlejuice was based on a popular

film (the $21 million production followed three other hit movies that were
adapted as musicals during the season, Pretty Woman, King Kong, and
Tootsie). The title character (whose actual name is Betelgeuse) was played
by Alex Brightman, who had impressed critics and audiences when he
starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock, another musical based
on a hit film.
The story focused on teenager Lydia (Sophia Anne Caruso) who with
her widower father Charles (Adam Dannheisser) and his girlfriend and self-
styled “life coach” Delia (Leslie Kritzer) have moved into a mansion
previously owned by Barbara and Adam Maitland (Kerry Butler and Rob
McClure). The Maitlands were clueless in life (they died during a DIY
home project), and now are equally clueless ghosts who resent the
newcomers. They join forces with Lydia (who must deal with Delia’s
determination to help her accept the loss of her mother by mouthing empty
platitudes), and the three summon up the other-worldly Beetlejuice to
exterminate the unwelcome Charles and Delia.
The musical used a wise-guy approach to the proceedings which seems
to have worked rather well. Beetlejuice’s opening number is “The Whole
‘Being Dead’ Thing,” and he runs rampant throughout the show as a pushy
emcee. He warns the audience that if you die during the performance, the
show will not stop, and if your cell phone rings, he’ll kill you. He describes
the Maitlands as “a little on the Pottery Barn and dry white wine side,”
drops references to Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, and other musicals,
and complains when a song is coming on (“Holy crap! A ballad already!”).
Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post labeled Beetlejuice “one of the
worst Broadway musicals in years.” The show was “dismal and gross,” the
score (by Eddie Perfect, who also wrote the songs for King Kong) was
similarly “dismal,” the book was “jumbled,” the direction “hyperactive,”
and the decor “huge-but-ugly.” And you got “sick” of Brightman, whose
character snorted cocaine “off his forearm,” made “erection jokes,” and
dropped “F-bombs.” Chris Jones in the New York Daily News said the
production was “the most cacophonous and ill-conceived musical of the
season—in fact, for several seasons.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times decided that because of its “sensory
overload” and “anything-for-a-laugh intensity,” the “absolutely exhausting”
musical was a lesson that “when anything goes, nothing much registers.”
And so at the “drop of a punch line” there materialized “ghostly”
cheerleaders, gospel singers, a dead football team, and “really big puppets.”
The songs were mostly “a loud, undifferentiated blur,” and Brightman
channeled the cast from the early years of Saturday Night Live along with a
touch of Jerry Lewis and Robin Williams “at their most frenzied.” But the
decor featured a “jaw-droppingly well-appointed gothic funhouse set” with
“spooky surprises” such as “armies of bats” that periodically flew above the
audience, thanks to projection designer Peter Nigrini.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter noted that some would find
the musical’s “eccentric excess tiresome,” but others would enjoy the
“demented extravagance” with its “mischievous sense of fun,” “eye-
popping design” (including the Winter Garden’s chandeliers, which were
“tinged a ghoulish green”), “spectacular production values” (including
“outlandish” costumes, “lurid spook house” lighting, and a visual
perspective that “gave everything an off-kilter look”), “rapid-fire” jokes,
and “full-throttle” performances, including the “indefatigable” Brightman
who made Beetlejuice “a sick, twisted dead creep who’s easy to love.”
Sara Holden in New York said the show was “a pretty fun time” and
noted the book didn’t tell its story with “progressive” attitudes and instead
was “too rude, too gleefully irreverent to preach.” And the musical was “at
its best” when the “growling” and “grinning” Brightman was onstage as a
“wickedly entertaining force of chaos.”
Two songs from the production, “Day-O” (aka “The Banana Boat
Song”) and “Jump in the Line” (aka “Shake, Senora”), had been heard in
the film Beetlejuice. Songs cut from the score during its pre-Broadway
tryout are: “Children We Didn’t Have,” “The Box,” “Mama Would,”
“Everything Is Meh,” and “Emily Would.”
The Broadway cast album was released on CD and on a two-record
vinyl edition by Ghostlight/Warner Brothers Records.
Awards
Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Beetlejuice); Best Book
(Scott Brown and Anthony King); Best Score (lyrics and music by
Eddie Perfect); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Alex Brightman); Best
Scenic Design of a Musical (David Korins); Best Costume Design of a
Musical (William Ivey Long); Best Lighting Design of a Musical
(Kenneth Posner and Peter Nigrini; note that the program credited
Posner with the lighting design and Nigrini with the projection design);
Best Sound Design of a Musical (Peter Hylenski)
MORRISSEY
Opening Date: May 2, 2019; Closing Date: May 11, 2019
Performances: 7
Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for lyricist and composer
credits
Production Stage Manager: Julia P. Jones; Lighting: Mike Baldassari;
Producers: Live Nation Entertainment, EBG (Entertainment Benefits
Group), The Araca Group, and Andy Gershon
Cast: Morrissey (aka Steven Patrick Morrissey); The Band: Jesse Tobias
(Guitar), Matt Walker (Drums), Martin “Boz” Boorer (Guitar), Gustavo
Manzur (Keyboards), Mando Lopez (Bass)
Musical Numbers
songs are given in performance order and are taken from various
newspaper reviews.
“On Broadway” (lyric and music by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in
collaboration with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller); “That Joke Isn’t
Funny Anymore” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Johnny Marr);
“Suedehead” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Stephen Street); “Alma
Matters” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Alain Whyte); “Hairdresser
on Fire” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Stephen Street); “Is It
Really So Strange?” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Johnny Marr);
“I’m Throwing My Arms around Paris” (lyric and music by Morrissey
and Boz aka Martin James Boorer); “How Soon Is Now?” (lyric and
music by Morrissey and Johnny Marr); “I Wish You Lonely” (lyric and
music by Morrissey and Boz aka Martin James Boorer); “World Peace
Is None of Your Business” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Boz aka
Martin James Boorer); “Morning Starship” (lyric and music by Jobriath
aka Bruce Wayne Campbell); “If You Don’t Like Me, Don’t Look at
Me” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Jesse Alejandro Tobias);
“Munich Air Disaster 1958” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Alain
Whyte); “Back on the Chain Gang” (lyric and music by Chrissie
Hynde); “The Bullfighter Dies” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Jesse
Alejandro Tobias); “Trouble Loves Me” (lyric and music by Morrissey
and Alain Whyte); “Jack the Ripper” (lyric and music by Morrissey and
Boz aka Martin James Boorer); “Seasick, Yet Still Docked” (lyric and
music by Morrissey and Alain Whyte); “Everyday Is Like Sunday”
(lyric and music by Morrissey and Stephen Street); “Quando, Quando,
Quando” (lyric by Alberto Testa and music by Tony Renis); “What She
Said” (lyric and music by Morrissey and Johnny Marr); “Rubber Ring”
(lyric and music by Morrissey and Johnny Marr); “Let Me Kiss You”
(lyric and music by Morrissey and Alain Whyte)
The concert by British singer and songwriter Morrissey (aka Steven

Patrick Morrissey) was the first in a series of limited engagements to play at
the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre under the umbrella title of In Residence on
Broadway. The series continued into the 2019–2020 season; for more
information about the guest artists who appeared in the series, see In
Residence on Broadway.
Morrissey was one of the original members of The Smiths, a post-punk
rock group that flourished in the 1980s, and he later went solo with
numerous albums and concerts. The current production opened a few weeks
before the release by Etienne/BMG Records of his latest album California
Son, which was devoted to songs written and popularized by other singers
(the concert included one song from that album, “Morning Starship”).
For the concert, Morrissey was backed by a five-man band and the
songs were punctuated by videos, strobe lights, and smoke effects
(including smoke and red lighting for “Jack the Ripper”). Preceding
Morrissey’s entrance, the evening began with thirty minutes of video clips
that according to Jon Pareles in the New York Times were a salute to the
singer’s “influences and kindred spirits” and included such diverse names
as Edith Piaf and David Bowie.
Pareles said Morrissey’s “self-pity, self-mockery, self-righteousness,
self-loathing, [and] self-defense” were part and parcel of the singer’s
mystique, and he “turned constant self-absorption into a blood sport.” For
Broadway, he was “true to his persona,” and for such a song as “Seasick,
Yet Still Docked” he seemed “as frozen and friendless as the song’s
narrator.” Kory Grow in Rolling Stone praised the singer’s “natural
dramatic flair,” and Glenn Gamboa in Newsday noted that unlike Bruce
Springsteen, Morrissey’s Broadway debut wasn’t a “radical reimagining” of
his songs because perhaps for Morrissey “simply being there” on Broadway
was “radical enough.”
DAVE
The musical opened on July 27, 2018, at Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theatre in
Washington, D.C., and closed there on August 19. As of this writing, the
musical hasn’t been presented in New York.
Book: Thomas Meehan and Nell Benjamin
Lyrics: Nell Benjamin
Music: Tom Kitt
Based on the 1993 Warner Brothers’ film Dave (direction by Ivan Reitman
and screenplay by Gary Ross). Direction: Tina Landau (Kenneth
Ferrone, Associate Director); Producers: Arena Stage (Molly Smith,
Artistic
Director) by arrangement with Warner Bros. Theater Ventures, The
Donnors’ Company, and Larger Than Life; Choreography: Sam
Pinkleton (Mayte Natalio, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Dane
Laffrey; Projection Design: Peter Nigrini; Costumes: Toni-Leslie James;
Lighting: Japhy Weideman; Musical Direction: Rob Berman
Cast: Jenny Ashman (Reporter, Ensemble), Jared Bradshaw (Reporter,
Harding, Ensemble), Josh Breckenridge (Duane Bolden), Dana Costello
(Reporter, Montana Jefferson, Ensemble), Trista Dollison (Reporter,
Harrison, Ensemble), Sherri L. Edelen (Tour Guide, Mrs. Smit, Taft,
Ensemble), Rachel Flynn (Randi Hagopian, Ensemble), Kevin R. Free
(Murray Stein, Adams, Ensemble), Drew Gehling (Dave Kovic, Bill
Mitchell), Adam J. Levy (Mr. Wheeler, Ensemble), Bryonha Marie
Parham (Susan Lee), Mamie Harris (Ellen Mitchell), Erin Quill
(Reporter, Hayes, Ensemble), Jonathan Rayson (Gary Nance, Johnson,
Ensemble), Jamison Scott (Reporter, Buchanan, Ensemble), Douglas
Sills (Bob Alexander), Vishal Vaidia (Paul, Ensemble)
The action takes place in Washington, D.C.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “There’s Always a Way” (Drew Gehling, Ensemble); “I’m the
President” (Drew Gehling, Bryonha Marie Parham, Douglas Sills, Josh
Breckenridge, Rachel Flynn, Ensemble); “Bad Example” (Douglas
Sills, Bryonha Marie Parham, Drew Gehling); “Hero” (Drew Gehling);
“The Last Time I Fake It” (Mamie Harris, Drew Gehling, Ensemble);
“Whole New Man” (Drew Gehling, Bryonha Marie Parham, Mamie
Harris, Ensemble); “Not My Problem” (Josh Breckenridge, Drew
Gehling); “Everybody Needs Some Help Sometime” (Mamie Harris,
Drew Gehling, Ensemble); “Sake of Argument” (Drew Gehling, Mamie
Harris)
Act Two: “Kill That Guy” (Douglas Sills, Bryonha Marie Parham); “Not
Again” (Mamie Harris, Drew Gehling); “Whole New Man” (reprise)
(Drew Gehling, Bryonha Marie Parham, Mamie Harris, Douglas Sills,
Ensemble); “Presidential Party” (Drew Gehling, Ensemble); “A Little
Too Late” (Mamie Harris, Drew Gehling, Josh Breckenridge); “History”
(Drew Gehling); “It’s on Us” (Mamie Harris, Drew Gehling, Ensemble)
Dave was based on the 1993 film of the same name about a political
deception when the unscrupulous President Dave Kovic (Drew Gehling)
has a stroke and becomes comatose. White House operatives discover that
local high school history teacher Bill Mitchell (also played by Gehling)
looks exactly like the president and they hire him to take his place. Of
course, they don’t realize Mitchell is idealistic and the polar opposite of the
incumbent president.
Paul Harris in Variety found the musical “enjoyably light-hearted” with
“delightful” music and a “hilarious” book and lyrics, liked the “versatile”
Gehling, and said Douglas Sills had the “role of a lifetime” as the
“villainous” chief of staff Bob Alexander. But Harris suggested the creators
rework the “overly maudlin finale,” and said the show overplayed its
“patriotic messages with a heavy-handed finale that undermines its good
intentions.” Harris noted that the musical was “enlivened” by “President’s
Party,” a dream in which Dave is visited by a “wacky” platoon of
nineteenth-century presidents, but Andre Hereford in Metroweekly observed
that if any one song should “get lost on the way to New York” it was this
“goofy” number. Otherwise, the musical had a “snappy” book but a score
that lacked “hummable appeal.”
THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BROADWAY

The musical The Royal Family of Broadway opened at the Barrington Stage
Company’s Boyd-Quinson Main-stage in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for
the period June 7–July 7, 2018 (with an opening night of June 13). As
of this writing, the musical hasn’t been produced on Broadway.
Book: Rachel Sheinkin
Lyrics and Music: William Finn
Based on the 1927 play The Royal Family by Edna Ferber and George S.
Kaufman and a later original book adaptation by Richard Greenberg for
William Finn’s score.
Direction: John Rando; Producers: Barrington Stage Company (Julianne
Boyd, Artistic Director), Cynthia and Randolph Nelson (A Production
of the Musical Theatre Lab; Sydelle and Lee Blatt, Musical Theatre Lab
Producers); Choreography: Joshua Bergasse; Scenery: Alexander
Dodge; Costumes: Alejo Vietti; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical
Direction: Vadim Feichtner
Cast: Harriet Harris (Fanny Cavendish), Laura Michelle Kelly (Julie
Cavendish), Hayley Podschun (Gwen Cavendish), A. J. Shively (Perry
Stewart), Alan H. Green (Gilbert aka Gil Marshall), Holly Ann Butler
(Della), Arnie Butler (Herbert aka Bert Dean), Kathryn Fitzgerald (Kitty
Dean), Chip Zien (Oscar Wolfe), Will Swenson (Tony Cavendish);
Ensemble: Michelle E. Carter, Tim Fuchs, Eli Goykhman, Tyler
Johnson-Campion, Lindsay Kraft, Sam Paley, Tyler Roberts, Patrick
Sharpe, Westley Strausman, Chiara Trenta-lange, Jake Vacanti, Noah
Virgile
The action for the first act takes place during Autumn 1927, and the second
act “a year and two hours later” in the Cavendish apartment “in the
center of New York in the center of the world.”
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Just Another Regular Night” and “Listen to the Beat” (Laura
Michelle Kelly, Chorus); “Marry a Man of the Theatre” (Harriet Harris,
Hayley Podschun, Laura Michelle Kelly); “Twenty Years of Questions”
(Alan H. Green); “Too Much Drama in My Life” (Will Swenson,
Chorus); “Baby, Let’s Stroll” (A. J. Shively, Hayley Podschun); “Stupid
Things I Won’t Do” (Harriet Harris); “How I Wanted” (Alan H. Green,
Laura Michelle Kelly); “The Girl I’ll Never Be” (Hayley Podschun);
“The Royal Family of Broadway” (Harriet Harris, Laura Michelle
Kelly, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Hayley Podschun, Will Swenson, Arnie
Butler, Chip Zien, Chorus); “Absolutely Not” (Laura Michelle Kelly)
Act Two: “Avaunt, Avaunt” (Arnie Butler, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Chorus);
“Nobody’s Left in the Theatre” (Harriet Harris, Will Swenson, Hayley
Podschun, Laura Michelle Kelly, Chip Zien, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Arnie
Butler, Company); “I Have Found” (Laura Michelle Kelly); “More
Drama” (Will Swenson, Chorus); “I Couldn’t Want More” (Hayley
Podschun); “If You Marry an Actress” (Arnie Butler, A. J. Shively, Alan
H. Green, Will Swenson, Chip Zien); “Gloriously Imperfect” (Chip
Zien); “Civilization Won’t Die” (Laura Michelle Kelly); Finale
(Company)
Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman’s hit comedy The Royal Family
opened on December 28, 1927, at the Selwyn Theatre for a run of 345
performances (the opening occurred the night after the premiere of Jerome
Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s musical adaptation of Ferber’s 1926
novel Show Boat).
The classic comedy laced with a bittersweet touch or two was inspired
by the theatrical lives of the Drew and Barrymore families (here, the
Cavendish clan). The play has enjoyed three Broadway revivals, including
the splendid 1975 production that played 233 performances and included
one of the most dazzling casts of its era (Eva Le Gallienne, Rosemary
Harris, George Grizzard, Sam Levene, Mary Louise Wilson, and Rosetta
LeNoire), and even offered background music by Claibe Richardson, the
composer of the 1971 cult musical The Grass Harp. The film version of the
play was released by Paramount in 1930 as The Royal Family of Broadway
with direction by George Cukor and Cyril Gardner and a cast led by Fredric
March (Tony) and Ina Claire (Julie).
Jesse Green in the New York Times said the “hot, hectic mess” of a
musical went “in every direction,” and the “actual direction” by John Rando
could “hardly be called” direction. With “way too much happening onstage
at all times,” only “mania” prevailed, and the creators downgraded the
“high-middlebrow” Cavendish family into “lowbrows” who came across as
both “pretentious” and “delusional.” And what kind of “grandeur” did these
characters miss? Because “when Cavendishes are Kramdens, what’s so
royal?” The musical needed “wit and clarity,” and William Finn’s
“scattershot lyrics” didn’t help.
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal noted that although Finn’s
score was “somewhat uneven in quality,” you would have to be “blind and
deaf not to know” that the musical had “the right stuff in abundance,” and
he suggested you “see it now and spread the word” because “the show is
going far.”
In his review, Green summarized the long twenty-year gestation of the
musical. Once Tommy Tune decamped, the 1998 workshop was directed by
Jerry Zaks with a book by Richard Greenberg (who received program credit
for the current production) and a cast that included Eileen Heckart (Fanny)
and Donna Murphy (Julia). Two years later in either another workshop or
possibly a reading these roles were assumed by Elaine Stritch and Carolee
Carmello, and a year later a reading featured a new book by James Lapine.
Finn eventually lost the adaptation rights, but about a decade later the rights
were restored to him.
2019 Season
IN RESIDENCE ON BROADWAY
In Residence on Broadway was a series of short limited-engagement

bookings at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre that featured solo entertainers, many
of whom weren’t associated with Broadway. The series kicked off at the
end of the 2018–2019 season with Morrissey, which opened on May 2,
2019, and played for seven performances. The concert marked the first
appearance on Broadway by the British singer and songwriter Morrissey
(aka Steven Patrick Morrissey).
Six more solo engagements were presented from late May to late July,
and these are grouped into this entry: Pure Yanni, Mel Brooks on Broadway,
Regina Spektor on Broadway, Criss Angel Raw: The Mindfreak Unplugged,
Dave Chappelle, and Manilow Broadway. All the productions in the In
Residence on Broadway series were produced by Live Nation
Entertainment, EBG (Entertainment Benefits Group), and The Araca
Group.
Pure Yanni
Opening Date: May 28, 2019; Closing Date: June 2, 2019
Performances: 5
The Greek-born pianist and composer Yanni (aka Yanni Chryssomallis)
here made his Broadway debut in an evening of music. Matt Bailey in The
Music Universe reported that Yanni confided to the audience of “mostly
Yanni loyalists” that the evening was “more living room conversation than
international pop concert,” and during the concert the entertainer revealed
“the heart behind his music.”
Mel Brooks on Broadway

Performances: 2
Broadway Baby Mel Brooks’s career includes musicals (the fondly

remembered if cheesy 1962 flop All American and the 2001 mega-hit The
Producers, based on his 1968 cult film of the same name) and movie spoofs
such as Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), High Anxiety
(1977), Spaceballs (1987), and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).
Brooks’s visit included stand-up comedy routines, personal anecdotes,
and film clips.
Regina Spektor on Broadway

Performances: 5
The Russian-born singer offered an evening of songs, and one was a

salute to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre itself when she performed Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “My Favorite Things” from The
Sound of Music, which had premiered at the theatre in 1959 and holds the
record as the venue’s longest-running production.
Criss Angel Raw: The Mindfreak Unplugged

Performances: 7
The popular magician Criss Angel offered sleight-of-hand street magic,

mentalism, and other illusions from his repertoire (along with what was
announced as a “revolutionary closing illusion” eighteen years in the
making). Alexis Soloski in the New York Times noted the evening was both
“a preternatural and occasionally icky reality,” and the star was backed by
“underdressed” assistants and two guest illusionists, the “card-ician” Stefan
and the comic Mike Hammer. Angel also offered a tribute to the late Doug
Henning, whose Doug Henning and His World of Magic had played at the
Lunt-Fontanne in 1984.
Dave Chappelle
Performances: 10
The controversial stand-up comedian didn’t disappoint his fan base, and
Jason Zinoman in the New York Times cautioned his readers not to leave
their seats “too quickly” at the end of the show because the comedian
returned to the stage for a full hour of impromptu comedy based on
suggestions from his audience. Zinoman reported that this part of the
evening “was looser, more surprising and funnier than what preceded it.”
And talk about impromptu: When on July 13 a blackout occurred that
affected the theatre district and other parts of Manhattan, that evening’s
performance was rescheduled but Chappelle proceeded to move his act
downtown to a comedy club and at the Gramercy Theatre he joined other
entertainers in two sets that began at 1:00 a.m.
Manilow Broadway
Opening Date: July 26, 2019 (opening night performance on August 4);
Closing Date: August 17, 2019
Performances: 17
Singer and songwriter Barry Manilow returned to Broadway for a

performance of old favorites, including his hits “Mandy” and
“Copacabana.” Matt Windman in amNewYork noted that with “glow sticks,
singalongs and nostalgia to spare” there was nothing “quite like” a Manilow
concert. The singer was backed by wide-screen video projections as well as
a band and a piano, and he made his entrance in a “glittery blue jacket (the
first of several flashy ensembles)” and talked up his new recording This Is
My Town: Songs of New York. Windman was surprised that Manilow didn’t
mention his long-in-development musical Harmony, which might make its
Broadway premiere in 2020, and the critic suspected the current concert
would have been the “ideal” moment to sing a selection from the show.
For more information about Manilow’s theatre career, see Manilow on
Broadway, and for more information about Harmony see the author’s The
Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals (pp. 316–18).
STONEWALL
Performances: 5
Libretto: Mark Campbell
Music: Iain Bell
Direction: Leonard Foglia; Producer: The New York City Opera Company
(Michael Capasso, General Director); Choreography: Richard Stafford;
Co-Fight Directors: Rick Sordelete and Christian Sordelete; Scenery:
Riccardo Hernandez; Costumes: David C. Woolard; Lighting: Ken
Billington; Musical Direction: Carolyn Kuan
Cast: Lisa Chavez (Maggie), Brian James Myer (Carlos), Andrew Bidlack
(Andy), Joseph Charles Beutel (Troy), Jessica Fishenfeld (Leah), Justin
Ryan (Edward), Jordan Weatherston Pitts (Renata), Michael Corvino
(Sal), Liz Bouk (Sarah), Marc Heller (Larry), Darlene Love
(Prerecorded Vocals); Ensemble, including Kristin Renee Young
(Williams), Julia Snowden (Economides), Michael Boley (Principal,
Hennessey), Michael Kuhn (Romano), Rocky Eugenio Sellers (Valerie),
John Allen Nelson (Giordano), Peter Kendall Clark (Cahn), Andrew
Wannigman (Andrews)
The opera was presented in one act.
The action takes place on June 28, 1969, in New York City.
Note: The program didn’t include a complete list of musical sequences; the
following prerecorded songs performed by Darlene Love (with
background vocals by Milton Vann, Keesha Gumbs, and Brianna
Turner) were credited in the program, “Today’s the Day” (lyric by Mark
Campbell, music by Iain Bell, Darlene Love, and Jeff Levine) and
“Better Days Ahead” (lyric by Mark Campbell, music by Iain Bell and
Jeff Levine).
The opera Stonewall was presented by the New York City Opera
Company as part of its annual Pride Series. The story looked at the events
that occurred at Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn on the night of June 28,
1969, when police raided the gay dance club. A spontaneous confrontation
between the police and the club’s patrons erupted, and the event is generally
considered a turning point in the history of gay rights because it marked the
first time that members of the LGBT community (a phrase which of course
was not used at that time) rebelled against discrimination and openly
protested the denial of their constitutional rights.
The opera was divided into three parts. The first introduced a cross
section of LGBT characters on the day of the raid; the second depicted the
raid itself; and the third took place in the early morning hours after the raid
when the characters wonder what the future holds.
David Wright in the New York Classical Review found Mark Campbell’s
libretto “tightly focused” and Iain Bell’s score “serviceable,” and James
Jorden in the Observer said the libretto was “lively and informal” and the
music “extremely user-friendly.” Jorden noted that the opening montage
when the characters are introduced in musical monologues sounded like
“what the ‘Tonight’ ensemble might have been if West Side Story had been
composed by Burt Bacharach,” and the critic commented that the “obvious
model” for the music in the final sequence was Bernstein’s “Make Our
Garden Grow” from Candide (1956). Jorden also singled out two
prerecorded songs (performed by Darlene Love) that he had first assumed
were “actual” late 1960s rock-and-blues pop but which were actually “note-
perfect pastiches” by Campbell and Iain.
Joshua Barone in the New York Times praised the “plain-spoken and
lucid” libretto, but noted that the “baldfaced emotionality” of the “otherwise
sophisticated” music “often abandons a human scale for something more
like hagiography.” He also mentioned that the montage sequence recalled
the “Tonight” quintet (but was “a whole lot gayer”), and the “jukebox
songs” performed by Love were “wonderfully fun.” However, the “overly
sunny finale” felt “premature.”
The highlight of the evening was the choreographed confrontation
between the police and club patrons. Barone reported this was “a stage-
wide battle” in which the opera became a dance piece with “cinematic”
music. Wright praised the “fast and scary fight choreography,” and Jorden
said the sequence was “close to a quarter hour of sleek chaos.” (Rick
Sordelete and Christian Sordelete were credited as the “co-fight directors,”
and Richard Stafford was the production’s choreographer.)
Jorden noted that at the time of the Stonewall riot no one really
understood its “importance,” and he hoped “the same will not have to be
said” about the opera, which “played to a half-empty” house at the
performance he attended.
MOULIN ROUGE!
Opening Date: July 25, 2019; Closing Date: Still playing as of December
31, 2019
Book: John Logan
Lyrics and Music: “additional” lyrics by Justin Levine; see list of musical
numbers below.
Based on the 2001 Twentieth Century-Fox film Moulin Rouge! (directed by
Baz Luhrmann and screenplay by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce).
Direction: Alex Timbers (Ashley Rodbro, Associate Director); Producers:
Carmen Pavlovic, Gerry Ryan, Global Creatures, Bill Damaschke,
Aaron Lustbader, Hunter Arnold, Darren Bagert, Erica Lynn
Schwartz/Matt Picheny/Stephanie Rodenberg, Adam Blanshay
Productions/Nicolas and Charles Talar, Iris Smith, Aleri Entertainment,
CJ ENM, Sophie Qi/Harmonia Holdings, Baz & Co., AF Creative
Media/International Theatre Fund, Endeavor Content, Tom and Pam
Faludy, Gilad-Rogowsky/Instone Productions, John Gore Organization,
Mehr-BB Entertainment GmbH, Spencer Ross, Nederlander
Presentations/IPN, Eric Falkenstein/Suzanne Grant, Jennifer Fischer,
Peter May/Sandy Robertson, Triptyk Studios, Carl Daikeler/Sandi
Moran, DeSantis-Baugh Productions, Red Mountain Theatre
Company/42nd.Club, Candy Spelling/Tulchin Bartner, Roy Furman,
and Jujamcyn Theatres; Choreography: Sonya Tayeh (Katie Spelman,
Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes:
Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Justin Townsend; Musical Direction: Cian
McCarthy
Cast: Jacqueline B. Arnold (La Chocolat), Danny Burstein (Harold Zidler),
Robyn Hurder (Nini), Holly James (Arabia), Reed Luplau (Pierre),
Jeigh Madjus (Baby Doll), Tam Mutu (The Duke of Monroth), Sahr
Ngaujah (Toulouse-Lautrec), Karen Olivo (Satine), Ricky Rojas
(Santiago), Aaron Tveit (Christian); Ensemble: Jacqueline B. Arnold,
Olutayo Bosede, Kyle Brown, Sam J. Cahn, Max Clayton, Aaron C.
Finley, Paloma Garcia-Lee, Bahiyah Hibah, Ericka Hunter, Holly
James, Reed Luplau, Jeigh Madjus, Morgan Marcell, Brandt Martinez,
Jodi McFadden, Kevyn Morrow, Fred Odgaard, Khori Michelle
Petinaud, Benjamin Rivera
The action takes place in 1899 at the Moulin Rouge and in various parts of
Paris.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a traditional song list with singer credits.
The following is taken from the music credits’ section of the program
where the songs are given in alphabetical order.
“Amores como el nuestro” (by Omar Alfanno); “Bad Romance” (by Stefani
Germanotta and Nadir Khayat); “Because We Can” (by Quentin Cook);
“Brick House” (by Lionel Ritchie, Milan Williams, Walter Orange,
Ronald La Pread, Thomas McClary, and Williams King); “Burning
Down the House” (by David Byrne, Christopher Frantz, Jerry Harrison,
and Martina Weymouth); “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (by Luigi
Creatore, Hugo Peretti, and George David Weiss); “Chandelier” (by Sia
Kate Furler and Jesse Samuel Shatkin); “Children of the Revolution”
(by Mark Bolan); “Come What May” (by David Baerwald and Kevin
Gilbert); “Crazy” (by Brian Burton, Thomas Callaway, Gian Piero
Reverberi, and Gianfranco Reverberi); “Diamonds” (by Mikkel Storleer
Eriksen, Sia Kate Furler, and Tor Erik Hermansen); “Diamonds Are a
Girl’s Best Friend” (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1949; lyric by Leo
Robin, music by Jule Styne); “Diamonds Are Forever” (1971 film
Diamonds Are Forever; by John Barry); “Don’t Speak” (by Gwen
Stefani and Eric Stefani); “Don’t You Want Me” (by Jo Callis, Philip
Oakey, and Philip Wright); “El Tango de Roxanne” (by Baz Luhrmann,
Marianito Mores, Craig Pearce, and Gordon Sumner); “Everlasting
Love” (by Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden); “Every Breath You Take” (by
Gordon Sumner); “Fidelity” (by Regina Spektor); “Firework” (by Ester
Dean, Mikkel Storleer Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Katy Perry, and
Sandy Julien Wilhelm); “Galop Infernal” (by Carl Davis and Jacques
Offenbach); “Gimme Shelter” (by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards);
“Heroes” (by David Bowie and Brian Eno); “Hey Ya!” (by Andre
Benjamin); “I Don’t Want to Wait” (by Paula Cole); “I Love You
Always Forever” (by Donna Lewis); “I Wanna Dance with Somebody
(Who Loves Me)” (by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam); “I Will
Always Love You” (by Dolly Parton); “It Ain’t Me Babe” (by Bob
Dylan); “Jungle Boogie” (by George Brown, Donald Boyce, Claydes
Smith, Dennis Thomas, Ronald Bell, Robert Mickens, Robert Bell, and
Richard Westfield); “L’amour est oiseaux” (by Georges Bizet); “La vie
en rose” (by Edith Piaf aka Edith Gassion and Louiguy aka Louis
Guglielmi); “La complainte de la butte” (by Jean Renoir and Georges
Van Parys); “Lady Marmalade” (by Kenny Nolan and Robert Crewe);
“Let’s Dance” (by David Jones); “Love Hurts” (Boudleaux Bryant);
“Love Is a Battlefield” (by Michael Chapman and Holly Knight);
“Material Girl” (by Peter Brown and Robert Rans); “Milord” (by
Marguerite Monnot and Georges Moustacchi); “Money (That’s What I
Want)” (by Janie Bradford and Berry Gordy Jr.); “Mr. Big Stuff” (by
Joseph Broussard, Carrol Washington, and Ralph Williams); “Nature
Boy” (by Eden Ahbez); “Never Gonna Give You Up” (Matt James
Aitken, Peter Alan Waterman, and Mike Stock); “One More Night” (by
Phil Collins); “Only Girl (in the World)” (by Mikkel Storleer, Tor Erik
Hermansen, Crystal Nicole Johnson, and Sandy Julien Wilhelm); “Play
the Game” (by Frederick Mercury); “Pride (in the Name of Love)” (by
Paul David Hewson, Dave Evans, Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton);
“Raise Your Glass” (by Max Martin, Alecia B. Moore, Johan Karl
Schuster); “Rebel Rebel” (by David Bowie); “Rhythm of the Night” (by
Diane Warren); “Ride wit Me” (by Eldra DeBarge, William DeBarge,
Jason Epperson, Cornell Haynes, Etterlene Jordan, and Lavell Webb);
“Rolling in the Deep” (by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth); “Roxanne”
(by Gordon Summer); “Royals” (by Joel Little and Ella O’Connor);
“Seven Nation Army” (by John Anthony White); “Shut Up and Dance”
(by Benjamin Berger, Eli Maiman, Ryan McMahon, Nicholas Petriccia,
Kevin Ray, and Sean Waugaman); “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”
(by Thaddis Harrell, Beyoncé Knowles, Terius Nash, and Christopher
A. Stewart); “So Fresh So Clean” (by Andre Benjamin, Antwan Patton,
and David Sheats); “Such Great Heights” (by Benjamin Gibbard and
James Tamborello); “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” (by Dave
Stewart and Annie Lennox); “Sympathy for the Devil” (by Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards); “Tainted Love” (by Edward Cobb); “Take on Me”
(by Magne Furuholmen, Morten Harket, and Pal Waaktaar); “The
Sound of Music” (The Sound of Music, 1959; lyric by Oscar
Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers); “Torn” (by Scott Cutler,
Anne Preven, and Philip Thornalley); “Toxic” (by Catherine Dennis,
Henrik Jonback, Christian Karlsson, and Pontus Winnberg); “Up Where
We Belong” (by Will Jennings, Jack Nitzsche, and Buffy Sainte-Marie);
“We Are Young” (by Jack Antonoff, Jeff Bhasker, Andrew Dost, and
Nathaniel Ruess); “What’s Love Got to Do with It” (by Terry Britten
and Graham Lyle); “Where It’s At” (by Beck Hansen, John Robert
King, and Michael S. Simpson); “You Can’t Always Get What You
Want” (by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards); “You Spin Me Round” (by
Pete Burns, Steve Coy, Wayne Hussey, Tim Lever, and Mike Percy);
“Your Song” (by Elton John and Bernie J. P. Taupin)
Moulin Rouge! was based on the 2001 film directed and co-scripted by
Baz Luhrmann, and for the Broadway production he and his wife Catherine
Martin were credited for their “creative services.” The musical might best
be described as a New Age valentine to old-time musicals. Set in the Paris
of 1899 at the famed Moulin Rouge night club, the story included all the
usual suspects, penniless hero and composer Christian (Aaron Tveit in the
stage production), heroine and show-business wannabe Satine (Karen
Olivo), villain Duke of Monroth (Tam Mutu), and a visiting celebrity or two
such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Sahr Ngaujah).
Instead of original songs, the score included numerous pop hits of the
late twentieth century, including “Material Girl,” “Children of the
Revolution,” “Your Song,” “Lady Marmalade,” and “I Will Always Love
You,” some seventy numbers in all (many sung in snippets, some in
complete renditions). Two traditional show tunes were used, “Diamonds
Are a Girl’s Best Friend” (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1949; lyric by Leo
Robin and music by Jule Styne) and the title song from The Sound of Music
(1959; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Richard Rodgers).
The most impressive aspect of the $28 million production was the
colorful and dazzling environmental decor by Derek McLane, who turned
the Al Hirschfeld (formerly Martin Beck) Theatre into a Technicolor
wonderland that captured the look of the Moulin Rouge. On one side of the
proscenium was a giant reproduction of the red windmill itself, replete with
lights and moving sails, and on the other was a huge papier-mâché elephant
(which was the centerpiece of the original club in Paris). The stage designs
were a visual feast dominated by bloody reds and hot pinks, and besides the
windmill and the elephant there were winding staircases, huge cut-out
valentines, chandeliers, red lights, and neon signs proclaiming “L’amour”
(Jesse Oxfeld in the New York Stage Review said that McLane should get
the Tony Award for best scenic design “right now”).
The story itself was a hybrid of familiar themes. The supposedly
decadent club and its smarmy impresario and Master of Ceremonies Harold
Zidler (Danny Burstein) evoked the world of Cabaret’s Kit Kat Klub and its
M.C.; club entertainer Satine brought to mind Sally Bowles; and Christian’s
outsider status as both a composer and a foreigner (an American in Paris
from Lima, Ohio!) recalled Clifford Bradshaw, the British writer who visits
Berlin during the era of the Weimar Republic.
Because the Moulin Rouge is facing financial difficulties, the world of
Mickey-and-Judy’s series of Let’s-Put-on-a-Show movies came to mind
when the characters decide to present a musical at the club in order to
ensure its financial solvency (and fame). Christian will of course compose
the music, and Satine will star in the floorshow.
But when Satine coughs and her handkerchief turns blood-red, it’s clear
the consumptive heroine is fated to join Camille and Mimi in the sisterhood
of Those Who Die Young by Consumption (note that Luhrmann’s lavish
stage adaptation of La bohème played at the Broadway Theatre in 2002 for
228 performances).
Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post said the “fabulous” musical
gave Broadway a “‘Rouge’ awakening,” and while the production was “as
subtle as Liberace’s toy poodle,” the Broadway “glitter bomb” was “the
finest show of its kind since Mamma Mia!” (of course, this comparison
might send some potential ticket-buyers fleeing into the night). Oxfeld
noted that for the musical “spectacle is king,” and otherwise the “plot
machinations” offered “little” to hold one’s interest.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter said the “intoxicating and
exhausting” show “defies you not to be entertained,” and its “sumptuous
design elements induce whiplash as you try to take them all in.” The “lush
sensory overload” offered a “fantasia” of color, and if the musical was a
“patchwork,” it nonetheless had “knockout visuals” and was a “postmodern
La Bohème on hallucinogens.” (Rooney commented that the audience gave
into a collective “karaoke impulse” to clap and sing along to the familiar
pop songs, and this was the result of the “millennial need” to become part
of the performance.)
Matt Windman in amNew York said the musical’s film source was
“hyperactive and overstuffed” and “evoked contemporary music videos,”
and so “despite an ornate and environmental visual design” the stage
production was “not unlike other earlier botched, inherently problematic
attempts” to bring “visually distinct” movies to the stage. The show was
“clumsy, overcooked and pointless” with a “leaden” book, “flat” and “long-
winded” dialogue, and choreography that was “surprisingly garish and
tacky.” Sara Holden in New York found the “hot mess” an uninteresting
“Broadway blow-out that’s all dressed up with nowhere to go.” There was a
“shapelessness” about the production that came across like a “product” that
had been “assembled by committee, even by algorithm,” and so the
“singularly unsatisfying smorgasbord” offered “no real main courses” and
was “two and a half hours of karaoke on a multimillion-dollar budget.”
Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the “euphoric” musical and
stated the “radio-wallpaper” score wasn’t performed as “karaoke
throwaways.” The production was directed with “witty savvy” by Alex
Timbers, choreographed by Sonya Tayeh as a “perpetual motion machine of
often bruising sensuality” with new takes on the traditional can-can and
apache dances, and given a “strategically clichéd” book by John Logan.
Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the “altogether conventional”
musical offered “epic lavishness” but was otherwise “emotionally
undernourished,” and he suggested that if you’d fallen “in love” with the
film you would fall “in like” with the stage production.
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal said the “horrible” musical
had a book reminiscent of a “college skit” and choreography that was “as
anonymous-looking as a slice of $1 pizza.” But “every cent” of the
musical’s huge budget was “visible,” and McLane was the “real” star of the
show.
The cast album was released on CD and on a two-record vinyl set by
House of Iona/RCA Records.
BAT OUT OF HELL
Theatre: City Center Mainstage Theatre
Opening Date: August 8, 2019; Closing Date: September 8, 2019
Performances: 38
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Jim Steinman (additional book material by Stuart
Beattie)
Direction: Jim Scheib (Benita de Wit, Associate Director); Producers:
David Sonenberg, Michael Cohl, Tony Smith, Bob Broderick, and
Lorne Gertner; Meat Loaf, Associate Producer: Jonathan Uda,
Associate Producer; Glenn Orsher, Executive Producer; Choreography:
Choreography adapted by Xena Gusthart from the original
choreography by Emma Portner; Scenery and Costumes: Jon Bausor
(Meentje Nielsen, Original Costume Designer); Video Designer: Finn
Ross; Lighting: Patrick Woodroofe; Musical Direction: Ryan Cantwell
Cast: Andrew Poleck (Strat), Christina Bennington (Raven), Bradley Dean
(Falco), Lena Hall (Sloane), Avionce Hoyles (Tink), Tyrick Wiltez
Jones (Jagwire), Paulina Jurzec (Videographer), Danielle Steers
(Zahara), Will Branner (Ledoux), Lincoln Clauss (O’Dessasuite), Kayla
Cyphers (Kwaidan), Jessica Jaunich (Valkyrie), Adam Kemmerer
(Markevitch), Harper Miles (Scherzzo), Erin Mosher (Vilmos), Aramie
Payton (Denym), Andres Quintero (Hollander), Kaleb Wells (Hoffman)
The action takes place in the future in Obsidian, formerly known as
Manhattan.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program provided an alphabetical list of songs that didn’t credit
singers.
“All Revved Up with No Place to Go”; “Bat Out of Hell”; “Dead Ringer for
Love”; “For Crying Out Loud”; “Heaven Can Wait”; “I’d Do Anything
for Love (but I Won’t Do That)”; “I’m Not Allowed to Love”; “It’s All
Coming Back to Me Now”; “Love and Death and the American Guitar”;
“Making Love Out of Nothing at All”; “Objects in the Rear View
Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are”; “Out of the Frying Pan
(and into the Fire)”; “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”; “Rock and Roll
Dreams Come Through”; “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”; “Wasted
Youth”; “What Part of My Body Hurts the Most”; “Who Needs the
Young”; “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer
Night)”
Note: The following is the correct running order of the songs.
Act One: “Love and Death and an American Guitar”; “All Revved Up with
No Place to Go”; “Wasted Youth”; “Who Needs the Young”; “Out of
the Frying Pan (and into the Fire)”; “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”;
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light”; “Making Love Out of Nothing at
All”; “Bat Out of Hell”
Act Two: “Heaven Can Wait”; “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May
Appear Closer Than They Are”; “For Crying Out Loud”; “You Took the
Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)”; “I’m Not
Allowed to Love”; “What Part of My Body Hurts the Most”; “Dead
Ringer for Love”; “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through”; “It’s All
Coming Back to Me Now”; “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do
That)”
Jim Steinman’s recording of Bat Out of Hell was released in late 1977
with the singer Meat Loaf, and was based on his musical Neverland, a
twisted look at the Peter Pan story set in the post-apocalyptic city of
Obsidian, formerly known as Manhattan (as Steinman developed and
expanded the musical over the years, the Peter Pan story was all but
dropped due to legal issues with James S. Barrie’s estate). The album was
followed by two others (Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell and Bat Out of
Hell III: The Monster Is Loose), and reportedly all three recordings have
sold over forty-three million copies.
Eventually the musical Bat Out of Hell opened in London at the
Coliseum on June 20, 2017, and played for two months, and later reopened
on April 19, 2018, at the Dominion Theatre for a run of almost nine months.
The London cast album was released on a two-CD set by BOOH/Dais
Music/Fontana North Records. The current limited-engagement production
marked the musical’s New York debut.
Neverland was Steinman’s first version of the story, and its opening at
the Kennedy Center in April 1977 preceded the release of the album Bat
Out of Hell by six months. See below for full particulars on Neverland.
The score of the current production of Bat Out of Hell included four
songs that had been heard in Neverland: “All Revved Up with No Place to
Go,” “Who Needs the Young,” “Bat Out of Hell,” and “Heaven Can Wait.”
And, oh, yes, the story, the story. We’re in a post-apocalyptic dystopian
future, specifically the city of Obsidian, a not-so-wonderful town formerly
known as Manhattan that is now a wasteland ruled by the evil dictator Falco
(Bradley Dean) and his controlling wife, Sloane (Lena Hall), who would
seem more at home as a bickering couple in a sitcom you’d never watch.
They keep their daughter, Raven, locked up in their palatial tower (she’s a
“rock ’n’ roll Rapunzel,” according to Johnny Oleksinski in the New York
Post), but fear not, because our hero Strat (Andrew Polec) rescues her from
imprisonment and the two get to sing quite frequently. Moreover, Strat and
his tribe of lost boys possess eternal youth (of the age-eighteen variety)
because their DNA is frozen (don’t ask). The boys spend most of their time
underground, and they find that subways are always for sleeping.
Most of the critics enjoyed the familiar songs, and although they were
generally dismissive of the production itself, they nonetheless seemed to
enjoy the evening as a guilty pleasure.
Adam Feldman in Time Out said the show revved up its engines and
rode “full-throttle straight off a cliff,” and while a crash like this was a
“fail,” the crash was nonetheless “epic” and included duets that seemed
“roughly as long as Act II of Tristan and Isolde.” As for Polec, Tim Teeman
in the Daily Beast reported that the actor sometimes stripped down to his
“tight purple undies,” and Feldman noted that the “frequently shirtless”
actor wore leather pants and eyeliner and seemed to have “wandered in
from the world’s weirdest production of Pippin.” Oleksinski found the
“radioactive Romeo and Juliet” more like “a smoky, big-budget music
video” complete with “massive” sets and video cameras that projected the
action onto screens. Matt Windman in amNewYork considered the
“bombastic, over-the-top jukebox musical” to be “as bewildering as it is
strangely entertaining.”
A.D. Amorosi in Variety noted that the choreography was “more
awkward” than “Footloose performed by a pack of drunken hippos”;
Teeman found the evening a “bizarre mess” but noted you might leave the
show with a smile, albeit a “baffled” and “stunned” one; and Elysa Gardner
in the New York Stage Review noted that Bat was a “sad” spectacle and “a
bit of a turkey.”
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said the “bloated,” “seemingly
interminable,” and “overblown” and “laborious exercise” made Wagnerian
opera seem “subtle by comparison,” and his answer to the musical question
“What Part of My Body Hurts the Most” was his brain. The story made
“almost zero sense” and the music was played in “deafeningly loud”
arrangements in order for “aging baby boomers at the beginning stages” of
deafness to hear, the “musical equivalent of sending text messages in all
caps.” Alexis Soloski in the New York Times said the “salacious mess” was
“served lukewarm” with a book like a “banquet laden with cheese” (and, to
continue the cheese metaphor, Dean’s performance was “pure Velveeta”).
Soloski said the decor, costumes, and video designs managed to lower her
IQ, and she noted that Polec’s hair did “a lot of the acting for him.”
Amorosi noted that Tink (Avionce Howles) brought a dash of
“homoerotic tension” to the story because of his jealousy when Strat
becomes involved with Raven, but this subplot went “nowhere.” Teeman
said this aspect of the production was an example of its “homophobia” or
perhaps its “utter gay cluelessness.” Tink becomes “psychotically jealous”
of Raven, and his eventual murder causes Strat to be “visibly devastated for
about 7 seconds.”
The Bat Out of Hell program was in the form of a newspaper called The
Obsidian Times, and was dated August 2030. The edition was ominously
numbered volume 13, issue 666.
As noted, Neverland opened at the Kennedy Center in April 1977. The
show played for a limited engagement of two weeks in a workshop
production from April 26 through May 8 at the Musical Theatre Lab, and a
program note indicated that the performances were free and that all Lab
productions should be considered as works-in-progress. The program also
requested that the production not be reviewed.
The following information is taken from the original Neverland
program, which includes the complete lyrics of the “Bat Out of Hell”
number.
NEVERLAND
“A ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY”
Book, Lyrics, and Music: Jim Steinman

Direction: Barry Keating; Producers: The Musical Theatre Lab at the
Kennedy Center (Edward Berkeley, Artistic Director; Craig Impink,
Managing Director; Scott Rudin, Casting Consultant; Jim Kramer,
Production Supervisor; Jules Fisher Associates, Theatre Consultant); A
Joint Project of the Stuart Ostrow Foundation and The John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts; Choreography: Edmond Kresley;
Scenery: Daniel Leigh; Entrance Maze (to the theatre): Designed by
Donna Dennis; Costumes: Bosha Johnson; Lighting: Martin Tudor;
Musical Direction: Paul Jacobs
Cast: Barry Keating (Historian), Richard Dunne (Baal), Larry Dilg (Tink),
Baxter Harris (Max), Johanna Albrecht (Emily), Ellen Foley (Wendy);
Lost Boys: Mark Kapitan, Tim Millett, Toby Parker, Rodney Reiner,
and Robert Rhys; Obsidianites: Brian DeStazio and Don Swanson;
Dance Assistants: Con Errico, J. Geils, Mark Hammond, Brian Lee
Peterson, and Hilary Wright; Orchestra Luna: Rick Kinscherf
(Keyboards, Vocal), Bob Brandon (Keyboards), Chet Cahill (Bass
Guitar), Steve Perry (Lead Guitar), Karla deVito (Vocal), Liz Gallagher
(Vocal), Peter Barrett (Vocal), Ace Holleran (Drums); a special program
note indicated that a character named Girl was played by Belinda
Bashore, and that musical director Paul Jacobs made “a guest
appearance on piano” with the Orchestra Luna.
The action takes place in the “long and distant future” on the coast of
Southern California and in the metropolis of Obsidian.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “The Formation of the Pack (All Revved Up with No Place to
Go)” (Richard Dunne, Lost Boys, Larry Dilg); “City Night” (Ellen
Foley, Baxter Harris, Richard Dunne, Johanna Albrecht, Larry Dilg);
“Midnight Serenade (Come with Me)” (Richard Dunne, Larry Dilg);
“Bat Out of Hell” (Richard Dunne, Larry Dilg, Ellen Foley); “Heaven
Can Wait” (Ellen Foley); “The Hunt” (Company); “The Assassins’
Song (Who Needs the Young?)” (Baxter Harris, Johanna Albrecht);
“Gods” (Company)
Act Two: “Dance in My Pants” (Company); “The Malediction (Hushabye)”
(Johanna Albrecht); “Kingdom Come” (Larry Dilg, Lost Boys, Ellen
Foley); “The Annihilation” (Ellen Foley, Lost Boys, Larry Dilg,
Obsidianites)
Steinman’s musical The Dream Engine was performed at Amherst
College in 1969, and although later projected productions at the Public
Theatre’s Newman Theatre and Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage never
came to fruition, a workshop was given at Arena Stage. The Dream Engine
was later developed into Neverland.
Steinman was represented Off-Broadway with the musical More Than
You Deserve, which opened at the Public Theatre’s Newman Theatre on
November 21, 1973, for sixty-three performances. The cast included Meat
Loaf, Maybeth Hurt, Stephen Collins, Graham Jarvis, Kim Milford, Larry
Marshall, Terry Kiser, and Fred Gwynne, and the book was by Michael
Weller, the lyrics by Weller and Steinman, and the music by Steinman. The
antiwar musical took the My-Lai massacre as the basis of its story and also
referenced characters from South Pacific (including Nellie Forbush, Bloody
Mary, and Liat). The score included “Come with Me . . . We Know Love”
and “Midnight Lullabye”; these may have been later reworked as
Neverland’s “Midnight Serenade (Come with Me).”
Steinman also wrote the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle
Down the Wind, which had its world premiere at Washington, D.C.’s
National Theatre in December 1996. The musical closed after its D.C. run
and has never been performed on Broadway, but a later London production
met with success with a run of over one thousand performances. Steinman
later wrote the lyrics and music and cowrote the book for Dance of the
Vampires, which opened on Broadway in 2002 for fifty-six performances (it
was adapted from the hit musical Tanz der Vampire, which opened in
Vienna in 1997 and was based on Roman Polanski’s 1967 film The Fearless
Vampire Killers). Dance of the Vampires holds a special place in the hearts
of Broadway disaster lovers who fondly remember the song “Garlic” (sung
by merry villagers who extol the virtues of the vegetable that makes you
young and well hung) and the special gift of a penis-shaped sponge that
head vampire Count Krolock (Michael Crawford) gives to his male guest.
DERREN BROWN: SECRET

Theatre: Cort Theatre
Performances: 106
Script: Andy Nyman, Derren Brown, and Andrew O’Connor
Direction: Andrew O’Connor and Andy Nyman; Producers: J. J. Abrams,
Thomas Kail, Jeffrey Seller, Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, Derren
Brown, Paul Sandler for Vaudeville NY Limited, Atlantic Theatre
Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director), Mirvish Productions, Spencer
Ross, Oliver Roth; Maggie Brohn, Executive Producer; Scenery:
Takeshi Kata; Projection Design: Caite Hevner; Lighting: Ben Stanton
Cast: Derren Brown
British magician Derren Brown here made his Broadway debut in an

evening of mind-reading and psychological illusion. The production had
earlier been given Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company’s Linda
Gross Theatre on April 21, 2017, for a two-month run.
Frank Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter was happy to report that the
audience was “all the more delighted” when Brown made them “thoroughly
befuddled,” and noted that “you’ll be thrilled you’ve been so oblivious to
the evening’s devilish machinations that you somehow didn’t see a man in a
gorilla suit snatching a banana from a podium onstage in plain view,” and
“not once, but twice.” Charles Isherwood in Broadway News praised
Brown’s “mind-exploding feats of psychological manipulation” and asked
the eternal question, “Where did that infernal banana go?”
Elysa Gardner in the New York Stage Review said you watched Brown
with “a disarming sense of wonder,” and Greg Evans in Deadline stated
Brown was a “master with unfathomable expertise” who presented himself
as “so honest and forthright that he’s even honest and forthright about his
occasional dishonesty.”
PORGY AND BESS

Opening Date: September 23, 2019; Closing Date: October 16, 2019
Note: The Met’s revival returned later in the season and played seven more
performances in repertory between January 8 and February 1.
Libretto: DuBose Heyward
Lyrics: DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin
Based on the 1927 play Porgy by Dorothy and DuBose Heyward (which in
turn had been adapted from DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel Porgy).
Direction: James Robinson; Producer: The Metropolitan Opera Company;
Choreography: Camille A. Brown; Scenery: Michael Yeargan;
Projection Design: Luke Halls; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting:
Donald Holder; Musical Direction: David Robertson
Cast: Eric Owens (Porgy), Angel Blue (Bess), Frederick Ballentine
(Sportin’ Life), Alfred Walker (Crown), Golda Schultz (Clara), Ryan
Speedo Green (Jake), Latonia Moore (Serena), Chauncey Packer
(Robbins, Crab Man), Errin Duane Brooks (Mingo), Reginald Smith Jr.
(Jim), James McCorkle (Peter), Tichina Vaughn (Lily), Denyce Graves
(Maria), Damien Geter (Undertaker), Chanae Curtis (Annie), Arthur
Woodley (Frazier), Leah Hawkins (Strawberry Woman), Grant Neale
(Detective), Bobby Mittelstadt (Policeman), Michael Lewis (Coroner),
Neo Randall (Scipio); Ensemble; Note: At certain performances during
the Fall 2019 and Winter 2020 run of the opera, the following singers
occasionally alternated with the opening-night performers: Kevin Short
(Porgy), Elizabeth Llewellyn (Bess), Janai Brugger (Clara), and
Donovan Singletary (Jake).
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers; for a list of the
musical numbers, see entry for the 2012 revival.
The action takes place in the 1930s in Catfish Row, Charleston, South
Carolina, and on nearby Kittiwah Island.
The current revival of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess marked the
opera’s fourth presentation by the Metropolitan Opera Company. The
previous three productions were given during the 1984–1985, 1989–1990,
and 1990–1991 seasons, and these revivals along with the current one were
given for a total of sixty-eight performances, including those that were
presented during the latter part of the 2019–2020 season.
Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times praised the “splendid”
revival: Eric Owens was an “ideal” Porgy, Angel Blue a “radiant” Bess, and
all the singers were “outstanding,” including an “impressive” chorus of
sixty. The performances were “authoritative and gripping,” and with David
Robertson at the podium the production had the “finest conducting” of the
opera that he’d ever heard. James Jorden in the Observer found the
conducting “pedantic,” said Owens’s “flinty” bass-baritone and “grim”
acting “distanced” him from both the audience and his Catfish Row
neighbors, and for the most part the show “seemed to crawl in slow
motion.” Justin Davidson in New York said Owens brought “hard-earned
Wagnerian majesty” to Porgy, Blue sang with “polished radiance,” and
Robertson had the orchestra “whipping up Verdian Gales and caressing
Puccini-esque arias.”
David Salazar in OperaWire noted the revival compressed the action
into two acts instead the traditional three, and the restructuring caused the
work to “drag a bit.” There were four curtain drops that broke up the
pacing, and the second act felt “a bit long.” Further, the appealing decor of
the first act began to feel “redundant” in the second, and the choral
sequences began “to look the same with similar choreography centered
around a static group.”
The current production was part of the Met’s Live in HD series and was
shown theatrically in 2020.
For more information about the opera, see entry for the 2012 Broadway
revival.
FREESTYLE LOVE SUPREME

Theatre: Booth Theatre
Performances: 117
Direction: Thomas Kail (Patrick Vassel, Associate Director); Producers:
Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jenny and Jon Steingart, and Jill
Furman; Andy Jones and James Hickey, Executive Producers; Scenery:
Beowulf Botitt; Costumes: Lisa Zinni; Lighting: Jeff Croiter; Musical
Direction: Arthur Lewis
Program Note: Production “conceived” by Anthony Veneziale and
“created” by Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Anthony
Veneziale.
Cast: Utkarsh Ambudkar (UTK the INC.), Andrew Bancroft (Jelly Donut),
Arthur Lewis (Arthur the Geniuses), Chris Sullivan (Shockwav),
Anthony Veneziale (Two Touch)
Musical Numbers
Note: Because of the improvisational nature of the production, musical
numbers weren’t listed in the program.
Freestyle Love Supreme was an evening of improvisational rap songs

and hip hop dances, and during the program the audience was invited to
participate by suggesting topics for impromptu songs. The production
played for a limited engagement of sixteen weeks.
The dance group Freestyle Love Supreme was created in 2004, and the
program noted that the founding members were Christopher Jackson,
Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bill Sherman, Chris Sullivan, and
Anthony Veneziale, and over the years the troupe were seen in national and
international venues as well as on television in a limited 2011 series and in
a 2012 made-for-television movie. The show was given Off-Broadway in
early 2019 at the Greenwich House Theatre. Besides its company of six
performers and musicians, the Broadway production included occasional
guest performers (Miranda, Christopher Jackson, James Monroe Iglehart,
Wayne Brady, and Daveed Diggs).
Greg Evans in Deadline described the production as “an energetic,
insistently likeable mash-up of rap, improvisational comedy, hip hop, R&B
crooning and, crucially, audience participation.” Frank Scheck in the
Hollywood Reporter liked the “inventive, fast-paced,” and “wildly
entertaining” show, and Thom Geier in The Wrap noted that the
performance he saw was a “mixed-bag” with both “genuinely clever
rhymes” and “plenty of verbal stumbles and stalling-for-time riffs.” The
documentary We Are Freestyle Love Supreme chronicles the group’s history
and as of this writing is scheduled for streaming on Hulu.
THE LIGHTNING THIEF

“THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL”

Performances: 87
Book: Joe Tracz
Lyrics and Music: Rob Rokicki
Based on the 2005 novel The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.
Direction: Stephen Brackett; Producers: Martian Entertainment, Victoria
Lang, Lisa Chanel, Jennifer Doyle and Roy Lennox, Van
Dean/Meredith Lucio, O’Hara/Rae/Zurcher, Wei-Hwa Huang, Cara
Talty, Fisher/Jacobs Baker/Masotti/Prince, and TheatreWorksUSA;
Choreography: Patrick McCollum; Scenery: Lee Savage; Puppet
Designs: Achesonwalsh Studios; Costumes: Sydney Maresca; Lighting:
David Lander; Musical Direction: Wiley DeWeese
Cast: Jorrel Javier (Grover, Mr. D), Ryan Knowles (Chiron, Others), Chris
McCarrell (Percy Jackson), Sarah Beth Pfeifer (Clarisse, Others), James
Hayden Rodriguez (Luke, Others), Jalynn Steele (Sally, Others), Kristin
Stokes (Annabeth)
The action takes place during the present in Long Island, New York, Los
Angeles, and places in between.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Prologue” and “The Day I Got Expelled” (Chris McCarrell,
Company); “Strong” (Jalynn Steele, Chris McCarrell); “The Minotaur”
and “The Weirdest Dream” (Chris McCarrell, Company); “Another
Terrible Day” (Jorrel Javier); “Their Sign” (Ryan Knowles, Chris
McCarrell, James Hayden Rodriguez); “Put You in Your Place” (Sarah
Beth Pfeifer, Kristin Stokes, Company); “The Campfire Song”
(Campers, Ryan Knowles); “The Oracle” (The Oracle, Company);
“Good Kid” (Chris McCarrell, Company); “Killer Quest” (Chris
McCarrell, Kristin Stokes, Jorrel Javier, Company)
Act Two: “Lost!” (Chris McCarrell, Kristin Stokes, Jorrel Javier); “My
Grand Plan” (Kristin Stokes); “Drive” (Chris McCarrell, Kristin Stokes,
Jorrel Javier, Ares, Company); “The Weirdest Dream” (reprise) (Chris
McCarrell); “The Tree on the Hill” (Jorrel Javier, Company); “D.O.A.”
(Ryan Knowles, Company); “Son of Poseidon” (Chris McCarrell,
Kristin Stokes, Jorrel Javier, Ares, Company); “The Last Day of
Summer” (Chris McCarrell, James Hayden Rodriguez, Company);
“Bring on the Monsters” (Company)
Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief was the first in a series of young
adult novels that featured the character Percy Jackson. An early one-hour
version of the musical was presented in 2014 by TheatreWorksUSA, and a
full-length production was presented Off-Broadway on March 23, 2017, at
the Lucille Lortel Theatre. From there, the musical embarked on a national
seven-month tour that included a booking at New York’s Beacon Theatre.
The current Broadway production played for a limited run of sixteen weeks.
The story looked at sixth-grader Percy (ten years old in the book, but
twelve for the stage and played by twenty-eight-year-old Chris McCarrell)
who discovers that his father is a Greek god. At an otherworldly summer
camp, he joins forces with kids like himself who have angst issues and they
undertake adventures where they encounter war and monsters and learn
Life Lessons about inclusion and diversity.
Jackson McHenry in New York thoughtfully provided a catalog of what
to expect when attending the current Broadway theatre scene: confetti was
thrown at you at Beetlejuice and Moulin Rouge, fake snow came down in
Frozen, and streamers flew at the Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of
Horrors. But The Lightning Thief outdid them all, and so rolls of toilet
paper were propelled at the audience courtesy of leaf blowers. McHenry
was quick to report that this chandelier moment caused the show’s target
audience of pre-teens to cheer “like the ball was being dropped on New
Year’s Eve.”
But according to Frank Rizzo in Variety, non-initiated audiences would
find the “bare-bones” production “simply myth-begotten,” and Frank
Scheck in the Hollywood Reporter said the “utterly wan” and “tacky
bargain-basement” musical was little more than “glorified children’s
theatre” with a score “higher on energy and volume than musical
inventiveness” and that included the “obligatory female empowerment
anthem” (here, “My Grand Plan”).
The New York Times said the “overblown and underproduced” musical
had “all the charm of a tension headache” with “inflated material” and a
“hectic and monotonous” story and score. The so-called effects were
“cheesy and anticlimactic,” and the show about “whiny teenagers” seemed
“to be written by them as well.”
The cast album of the 2017 production was released on CD by
Broadway Records, and was later reissued in a “deluxe” edition that
included five cut songs. A karaoke edition of various songs from the score
was issued by Broadway Records for digital download.
AMERICAN UTOPIA
“A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME BROADWAY EVENT”

Opening Date: October 20, 2019; Closing Date: February 16, 2020
Performances: 106
Concept and Music: David Byrne
Direction and Choreography: Annie-B Parson with Alex Timbers,
Production Consultant (Elizabeth Dement, Associate Choreographer)
(Chris Giarmo, Additional Choreography); Producers: Kristin Caskey,
Mike Isaacson, Patrick Catullo, Todomundo, Hal Luftig, Jonathan
Reinis, Shira Friedman, Annapurna Theatre, Elizabeth Armstrong,
Thomas Laub, Steven Rosenthal, Erica Lynn Schwartz and Matt
Picheny, Steve Traxler, Len Blavatnik, Nonesuch Records, Warner
Chappell Music, Ambassador Theatre Group Productions; Allan
Williams, Executive Producer; Bee Carrozzini for ATG Productions;
Costumes: Costume “Construction” by Martin Greenfield Clothiers;
Lighting: Rob Sinclair; Musical Direction: Karl Mansfield and Mauro
Refosco
Cast: David Byrne, Jacqueline Acevedo, Gustavo Di Dalva, Daniel
Freedman, Chris Giarmo, Tim Keiper, Tendayi Kuumba, Karl
Mansfield, Mauro Refosco, Stephane San Juan, Angie Swan, Bobby
Wooten III
Musical Numbers
list is taken from the Music Copyrights section of the program.
“Here” (lyric and music by David Byrne and Daniel Lopatin); “Don’t
Worry about the Government” (lyric and music by David Byrne);
“Lazy” (lyric and music by David Byrne, Darren Rock, Ashley Beadle,
and Darren House); “I Zimbra” (lyric and music by David Byrne);
“Slippery People” (lyric and music by David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina
Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison); “I Should Watch TV” (lyric and music
by David Byrne, Annie Clark, and Walt Whitman); “Everybody’s
Coming to My House” (lyric and music by David Byrne and Brian
Eno); “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” (lyric and music by
David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison); “Once
in a Lifetime” (lyric and music by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris
Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison); “Toe Jam Mix” (lyric and
music by David Byrne and Norman Cook); “Born under Punches” (lyric
and music by David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, Jerry
Harrison, and Brian Eno); “I Dance Like This” (lyric and music by
David Byrne and Brian Eno); “Bullet” (lyric and music by David Byrne
and Brian Eno); “Every Day Is a Miracle” (lyric and music by David
Byrne and Brian Eno); “Blind” (lyric and music by David Byrne, Chris
Frantz, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, and Yves N’Djock); “Burning
Down the House” (lyric and music by David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina
Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison); “Road to Nowhere” (lyric and music
by David Byrne); “Hell You Talmabout” (lyric and music by Janelle
Monae and Jidenna Mobisson); “One Fine Day” (lyric and music by
David Byrne and Brian Eno)
Like Bat Out of Hell and Jagged Little Pill, David Byrne’s concert-like
American Utopia was based on a popular recording, in this case Byrne’s
American Utopia (the production also included songs from his Talking
Heads recording). The cast album was issued on a two-CD set by Nonesuch
Records, and the New York limited engagement was the final stop of a one-
year tour. As of this writing, an ebook of the show’s lyrics (and
words/dialogue) is scheduled for release by Bloomsbury in late 2020.
David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter praised the “exhilarating”
concert, and said it was “pure bliss,” and Ben Brantley in the New York
Times said that the “dazzlingly staged” production was a “cloud-sweeping
upper,” that Byrne sang with “solemn wonder,” and the choreography was
“exacting, exultant and altogether astonishing.” A film version is scheduled
to premiere on HBO in December 2020.
TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL

Opening Date: November 7, 2019; Closing Date: Still playing as of
December 31, 2019
Book: Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins
Lyrics and Music: See song list for information
Direction: Phyllida Lloyd (Ola Ince, International Associate Director;
Zhailon Levingston, U.S. Associate Director); Producers: Stage
Entertainment, James L. Nederlander, Tali Pelman, Feste Investments
B.V., David Mirvish, Nattering Way, Teg Dainty, Katori Hall, Mark
Rubinstein Ltd., Warner Chappell, Peter May, Eva Price, No
Guarantees, Caiola Productions, Jamie deRoy, Wendy Federman, Roy
Furman, Independent Presenters Network, John Gore Organization,
Marc Levine, Carl Moellenberg, Al Nocciolino, Catherine Adler, Tom
Perakos, Iris Smith, Candy Spelling, Anita Waxman, Daryl Roth,
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group in
association with Tina Turner; Tina Turner and Erwin Bach, Executive
Producers; James Triner, International Executive Producer;
Choreography: Anthony van Laast (Simone Mistry-Palmer,
International Associate Choreographer; Janet Rothermel, U.S. Associate
Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Mark Thompson; Projection
Design: Jeff Sugg; Lighting: Bruno Poet; Musical Direction: Nicolas
Skilbeck
Cast: Adrienne Warren (Tina Turner), Nkeki Obi-Melekwe (Tina Turner at
certain performances), Daniel J. Watts (Ike Turner), Dawnn Lewis
(Zelma Bullock), Myra Lucretia Taylor (Gran Georgeanna), Steven
Booth (Phil Spector, Terry Britten), Gerald Caesar (Raymond); The
Ikettes: Holli’ Conway, Kayla Davion, Destinee Rea, and Mars Rucker;
Charlie Franklin (Roger Davies), Matthew Griffin (Craig), David
Jennings (Richard Bullock), Ross Lekites (Edwin Bach), Robert Lenzi
(Carpenter), Gloria Manning (Young Alline), Jhardon Dishon Milton
(Ronnie), Mars Rucker (Alline), Jessica Rush (Rhonda Graam); Jayden
Theophile and Antonio J. Watson (Young Craig), Skye Dakota Turner
(Young Anna-Mae); Ensemble: Steven Booth, Nick Rashad Burroughs,
Gerald Caesar, Holli’ Conway, Kayla Davion, Charlie Franklin,
Matthew Griffin, David Jennings, Ross Lekites, Robert Lenzi, Jhardon
Dishon Milton, Destinee Rea, Mars Rucker, Jessica Rush, Carla R.
Stewart, Katie Webber
The action takes place in various locales, including Nutbush, Tennessee; St.
Louis, Missouri; Las Vegas, Nevada; London; and Brazil.
Musical Numbers
Act One: “Etherland—Song of Mystic Law” (lyric and music by Tina
Turner, Dechen Shak-Dagsay, Regula Curti, Gunther Mende-Kim, and
Pit Loew) (Adrienne Warren, Myra Lucretia Taylor); “Nutbush City
Limits” (lyric and music by Tina Turner) (David Jennings, Skye Dakota
Turner, Ensemble); “Don’t Turn Around” (lyric and music by Albert
Hammond and Diane Warren) (Adrienne Warren, Myra Lucretia Taylor,
Ensemble); “Shake a Tailfeather” (lyric and music by Verlie Rice,
Andre Williams, and Otha Hayes) (Mars Rucker, Girlfriends, Adrienne
Warren, Company); “Rocket 88” (lyric and music by Jackie Brenston)
and “Matchbox” (lyric and music by Ike Turner) (Daniel J. Watts); “She
Made My Blood Run Cold” (lyric and music by Ike Turner) (Daniel J.
Watts, Adrienne Warren, Ensemble); “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” (lyric
and music by Rose Marie McCoy and Sylvia McKinney) (Dawnn
Lewis, Daniel J. Watts, Mars Rucker, Adrienne Warren, The Ikettes);
“A Fool in Love” (lyric and music by Ike Turner) (Adrienne Warren,
The Ikettes); “Let’s Stay Together” (lyric and music by Al Jackson Jr.,
Willie Mitchell, and Al Green) (Gerald Caesar, Adrienne Warren);
“Better Be Good to Me” (lyric and music by Mike Chapman, Nicky
Chinn, and Holly Knight) (Adrienne Warren, Ensemble); “I Want to
Take You Higher” (aka “Higher”) (lyric and music by Sylvester
Stewart) (Adrienne Warren, Ensemble); “River Deep—Mountain High”
(lyric and music by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich)
(Adrienne Warren, Ensemble); “Be Tender with Me, Baby” (lyric and
music by Albert Hammond and Holly Knight) (Daniel J. Watts,
Adrienne Warren, Ensemble); “Proud Mary” (lyric and music by John
Fogerty) (Adrienne Warren, Daniel J. Watts, The Ikettes, Ensemble); “I
Don’t Wanna Fight No More” (lyric and music by Billy Lawrie, Lulu
Kennedy Cairns, and Stephen DuBarry) (Adrienne Warren, Ensemble)
Act Two: “Private Dancer” (lyric and music by Mark Knopfler) (Adrienne
Warren); “Disco Inferno” (lyric and music by Leroy Green and Ron
Kersey) (Adrienne Warren, Ensemble); “Open Arms” (lyric and music
by Ben Barson, Martin Brammer, and Colette van Sertima) (Jessica
Rush, Adrienne Warren, Matthew Griffin, Jhardon Dishon Milton,
Ensemble); “I Can’t Stand the Rain” (lyric and music by Bernard
Miller, Don Bryant, and Ann Peebles) (Adrienne Warren, Daniel J.
Watts, Ensemble); “Tonight” (lyric and music by David Bowie and
James Osterberg) (Skye Dakota Turner, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Adrienne
Warren, Charlie Franklin); “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” (lyric and
music by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle) (Adrienne Warren,
Ensemble); “Don’t Turn Around” (reprise) (Dawnn Lewis, Adrienne
Warren); “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (lyric and music by Terry
Britten and Graham Lyle) (Adrienne Warren, Skye Dakota Turner,
Ensemble); “(Simply) The Best” (lyric and music by Holly Knight and
Mike Chapman) (Ensemble)
The London import Tina: The Tina Turner Musical was yet another
jukebox musical, this one from the bio-jukebox subset in the tradition of
Jersey Boys (2005), Motown, Beautiful, On Your Feet!, Summer: The
Donna Summer Musical, The Cher Show, and Ain’t Too Proud: The Life
and Times of the Temptations. In this case, the subject was singer Tina
Turner and her trials, tribulations, tears, and triumphs.
The musical opened in London at the Aldwych Theatre on April 17,
2018, and closed there a year later. The London cast album was released on
CD by Ghostlight Records.
Warren created the title role in London, and reprised the character for
New York. The headline of Johnny Oleksinski’s review for the New York
Post said Warren gave “a towering Broadway performance”; Greg Evans in
Deadline emphasized that she was “the show”; and Adam Feldman in Time
Out found her “hugely talented.”
Otherwise, the critics said the evening was a paint-by-the-numbers
affair. Oleksinski noted the show embraced the “usual biomusical formula”;
Evans said the “unsurprising by-the-books book” included “one-
dimensional side characters” and “expository dialogue”; and Feldman noted
that “mediocrity” surrounded Warren with an “overstretched narrative” that
felt “both rushed and overlong,” a timeline that was “often confusing,” and
dialogue “rarely more than functional when it doesn’t sink into corn.” Jesse
Green in the New York Times reported that the book was “so thin it’s see-
through” and the songs were “bent into improbable shapes to serve a story
they weren’t designed for.” The musical lacked a “coherent point of view,”
and Warren was forced “to swap emotions even faster than costumes.”
AKHNATEN
Libretto: Philip Glass in association with Shalom Goldman, Robert Israel,
Richard Riddell, and Jerome Robbins
Music: Philip Glass
The text was taken from original sources by Shalom Goldman.
Direction: Phelim McDermott; Producer: The Metropolitan Opera
Company; Choreography: Sean Gandini; Scenery: Tom Pye; Costumes:
Kevin Pollard; Lighting: Bruno Poet; Musical Direction: Karen
Kamensek
Cast: Anthony Roth Constanzo (Akhnaten), J’Nai Bridges (Nefertiti),
Dísella Lárusdóttir (Queen Tye), Richard Bernstein (Aye), Aaron Blake
(High Priest of Amon), Zachary James (Amenhotep III, Professor), Will
Liverman (Horemhab), Lindsay Ohse (Bekhetaten), Karen Chia-Ling
Ho (Meretaten), Chrystal E. Williams (Maketaten), Annie Rosen
(Ankhesenpaaten), Olivia Vote (Neferneferuaten), Suzanne Hendrix
(Sotopenre), Oscar Rempe-Hiam (Young Tutankhamun); Skills
Ensemble: Sean Gandini, Kelsey Strauch, Sean Blue, Doreen
Grossmann, Liza van Brakel, Inaki Fernandez Sastre, Michael Karas,
Kim Huynh, Shane Miclon, Kati Yla-Hokkala, Christian Kloc, Brian
Koenig
The opera was presented in three acts.
The action takes place circa 1370 BCE in Thebes and Akhetaten.
Musical Numbers
is taken from the Stuttgart State Opera recording (for more information,
see below).
Act One: “Prelude: Refrain, Verse 1, Verse 2”; “Funeral of Amenhotep III”;
“The Coronation of Akhnaten”; “The Window of Appearances”; “The
Temple”; “Akhnaten and Nefertiti”
Act Two: “The City”/“Dance (Beginning)”; “The City”; “The City”/“Dance
(Conclusion)”; “Hymn” (aka “Hymn to Aten”)
Act Three: “The Family”; “Attack and Fall”; “The Ruins”; “Epilogue”
Akhnaten was the third of Philip Glass’s three “portrait” operas, and it
followed Einstein on the Beach (Albert Einstein; 1976) and Satyagraha
(Mahatma Ghandi; 1980). The world premiere of Akhnaten was given by
the Stuttgart State Opera on March 24, 1984. The first U.S. production was
presented by the New York City Opera Company and the Houston Grand
Opera Company, and the New York opening took place at the New York
State Theatre on November 4, 1984 (Christopher Keene conducted, and
Christopher Robson sang the title role).
The work was sung in three languages (Egyptian, Hebrew, and
Arcadian), and one sequence in the opera (“Hymn to Aten”) was sung in the
language of the current audience.
The story focused on Akhnaten (Anthony Roth Costanzo), who
murdered his father, had an affair with his mother, and married Nefertiti.
When Donal Henahan in the New York Times reviewed the City Opera
production, he reported that the evening was boring and monotonous and he
complained that Glass’s score offered “going-nowhere music” that “flutters
its wings but does not try to fly.”
David Salazar in Opera Wire said the current production was “the best
Met performance of the 2019 calendar year,” and he noted the work was
more “ceremonial” in nature and thus allowed Glass’s “repetitive trance-
like music to truly take effect.” The “immersive if somewhat draining”
production offered “visual splendor,” and in the title role Costanzo had
“incredible stage presence.” Justin Davidson in New York indicated the
“lacquered evocation” of court life in ancient Egypt was a blend of
“decadent blitheness and high-minded spectacle” with characters who
glided across the stage “as if through a pool of caramel” while Glass’s score
smoothed “the day’s ragged edges” and lifted “spirits on a burbling tide.”
The current production was part of the Met’s Live in HD series and was
shown theatrically in 2019. The opening night was broadcast and streamed
live.
The Stuttgart production was recorded by the Stuttgart State Opera,
Orchestra, and Chorus on a two-CD set released by Sony Classical Records.
The opera is the subject of the 1986 documentary film A Composer’s Notes:
Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera directed by Michael Blackwood;
the DVD was released by Orange Mountain.
Akhnaten and Nefertiti were the subjects of the 1977 musical Nefertiti,
which closed during its 1977 tryout at Chicago’s Blackstone Theatre. The
book and lyrics were by Christopher Gore, the music by David Spangler,
the direction by Jack O’Brien, and the cast included Andrea Marcovicci
(Nefertiti), Robert LuPone (Akhnaten), Michael Nouri, Marilyn Cooper,
Jane White, and Ann Crumb. Glenna Syse in the Chicago Tribune said the
“artsy-craftsy historical portrait” was at war with itself in trying to decide if
it was Hair or Porgy and Bess, and she urged the show’s creators to “get out
the papyrus and start writing.” She also regretfully noted that some of
LuPone’s unfortunate costumes looked distressingly like diapers or tutus,
and later Aaron Gold in the same newspaper reported that the musical was
undergoing revision, including replacements for “some costumes that didn’t
work” (one presumes they changed the diapers).
KRISTIN CHENOWETH: FOR THE GIRLS

Performances: 8
Lyrics and Music: The program didn’t include a traditional list of musical
numbers; see text below for more information.
Direction: Richard Jay-Alexander; Producer: James L. Nederlander;
Choreography: Tyler Hanes; Costumes: “special dress design” by
Christian Siriano; Lighting: Matt Berman; Musical Direction: Mary-
Mitchell Campbell
Cast: Kristin Chenoweth; Vocalists: Crystal Monee Hall, Marissa Rosen
The limited engagement concert Kristin Chenoweth: For the Girls was a
tie-in of sorts for Chenoweth’s new compact disk of the same named
released by Concord Records. The recording was a salute to various female
singers and the songs they popularized, and the disk included guest singers
on the order of Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire.
For the stage concert, Chenoweth was joined by two back-up vocalists
(Crystal Monee Hall and Marissa Rosen) and occasional guest singers, and
while the program apparently varied from performance to performance,
many of the song selections were from the new recording.
The songs on the recording were as follows (song title followed by both
the name of the singer who popularized the song and the name[s] of the
songwriter[s]): “The Way We Were” (Barbra Streisand;1974 film The Way
We Were; lyric by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, music by Marvin Hamlisch);
“You Don’t Own Me” (Leslie Gore; lyric and music by John Madara and
David White); “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” (Eva Cassidy; lyric and music
by Paul Anka); “I Will Always Love You” (Dolly Parton; lyric and music
by Dolly Parton); “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” (Dinah Washington;
lyric and music by Stanley Adams and Maria Grever); “When I Fall in
Love” (Doris Day; lyric by Edward Heyman, music by Victor Young);
“Crazy” (Patsy Cline; lyric and music by Willie Nelson); “The Man That
Got Away” (Judy Garland; 1954 film A Star Is Born; lyric by Ira Gershwin,
music by Harold Arlen); “I’m a Woman” (Peggy Lee; lyric and music by
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller); “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (The
Shirelles; lyric and music by Gerry Goffin and Carole King); “I Wanna Be
Around” (originally popularized by Tony Bennett, and later by Terri Gibbs;
lyric and music by Johnny Mercer and Sadie Vimmerstedt); and
“Desperado” (Linda Ronstadt; lyric and music by Glenn Frey and Don
Henry).
Charles Isherwood in Broadway News said the “quirky but enchanted
evening” was “punctuated” by Chenoweth’s “endearing wit and sweet, silly
self-mockery,” but noted that her “cute pooch upstaged her” with “well-
timed yawns and [a] slightly disdainful room-ranging stare.” Isherwood
reported that for the performance he attended the guest singers were Julie
James and Jean Gambatese, and the program included “The Song
Remembers When” (lyric and music by Hugh Priestwood), “Beautiful
Dreamer” (lyric and music by Stephen Foster), “I Have Confidence” (1965
film The Sound of Music; lyric and music by Richard Rodgers), “Sing
Happy” (Flora, the Red Menace, 1965; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John
Kander), “Popular” (Wicked, 2003; lyric and music by Stephen Schwartz),
“Smile” (music [not the later added lyric] was first heard in 1936 film
Modern Times; lyric by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, music by
Charlie Chaplin), and “Over the Rainbow” (1939 film The Wizard of Oz;
lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen).
The presentation marked Chenoweth’s second Broadway concert of the
decade, following Kristin Chenoweth: My Love Letter to Broadway in
2016.
SLAVA’S SNOWSHOW
Performances: 35
Created and Directed by Slava Polunin; Producers: David Carpenter and
John Arthur Pinckard, Hunter Arnold, Curt Cronin, Carl Daikeler, John
Joseph, Gary Nelson, Van Kaplan/Jeff Wald, David and Susan
Buchanan/Michael T. Cohen/Gerry Ohrstrom; production by
arrangement with Slava Polunin and Gwenael Allan; Scenery:
“Scenography” by Slava Polunin and Viktor Plotnikov; Special Effects:
J & M Special Effects (Special Effects Consultant); Lighting: Jenn
Burkhardt (Lighting Consultant)
Cast: Note—The program indicated that while the company consisted “of a
number of clowns,” it was “rarely known in advance which clowns will
perform at which performances.” The audience was advised to “check
the cast board in the lobby” for the players in the current performance.
Slava Polunin, Francesco Bifano, Spencer Chandler, Georgiy Deliyev,
Alexandre Frish, Vanya Polunin, Robert Saralp, Nikolai Terentiev,
Elena Ushakova, Aelita West, Bradford West, Artem Zhimo
The production was presented in two acts.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a traditional list of musical sequences, but
the music credits section of the program provided a list of the
(prerecorded) music heard during the performance (title followed by
name of lyricist and/or composer).
“Blue Canary” (Vincent Fiorino); “Bolero: Conclusion” (Maurice Ravel);
Concierto de Aranjuez (Joaquin Rodrigo); “Edges of Illusion” (John
Douglas Surman); “Illusion” (Lakshminarayana Subramaniam);
“Kaleb” (Ivan Volkov); “Krasivaya” (Roman Dubinnikov); “La petite
fille de la mer” (Evanghelos Papathanassiou); “Le soldat Tufaiev se
marie” (Jean-Marc Zelwere); “Mas que nada” (Jorge Duilio Lima
Menezes); “O, Fortuna” (Carl Orff); Theme from Peter Gunn (Henry
Mancini); Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor (“Moonlight”)
(Ludwig van Beethoven); “Stalakdrama” (Boris Blank and Dieter
Meier); “Via Con Me” (Paolo Conte); “Yumeji’s Theme” (aka “In the
Mood for Love”) (Shigeru Umebayashi)
The current visit of Slava’s Snowshow was a limited engagement that

played almost two months. Russian clown-meister Slava Polunin, who in
1979 founded his theatre company for clowns, which he named Litsedei,
put together an evening of highlights from the company’s repertoire in 1993
in a show titled Yellow, which played in Moscow. The production was later
re-titled Snowshow and was given in 1996 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Slava later toured in the Cirque de Soleil’s Alegria, which included excerpts
from Snowshow.
Slava’s Snowshow played Off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre
for 1,004 performances beginning on September 8, 2004, and Best Plays
described the evening as “part Cirque de Soleil, part Beckett.” The first
Broadway production opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on December 7,
2008, for thirty-five performances.
Like the earlier presentations, the evening utilized prerecorded
background music, and because the company of twelve rotated, the program
alerted audience members to check the cast board in the theatre lobby for
specifics regarding which players were in the current performance.
Charles Isherwood in Broadway News reported that the cast performed
“diversions” that were “odd” and “whimsical” and set against a “mostly
empty winterscape” in a mood more evocative of “Samuel Beckett than
Barnum & Bailey.” Except for occasional “gibberish,” these sad clowns
didn’t “really speak,” and sometimes they interacted with the audience in
“more traditionally clownish ways” by climbing over seats and spraying
water. The evening’s “most dazzling moment” occurred toward the end of
the show when “a storm-burst of snow” showered the theatre and turned the
playhouse into a “swirling snow globe” of white confetti.
Naveen Kumar in Time Out warned that “such icecapades are not for
everyone,” but if one embraced the “logic of nonsense” and surrendered
one’s “personal boundaries to the spirit of the season,” the “blizzard” could
be a “blast.” Holli Harms in New York Theatre Guide said Slava’s
Snowshow should be at the “top of your holiday list of shows” because it
was the “epitome of empathy, vulnerability, and childlike wonderment.”
WE WILL ROCK YOU

Performances: 6
Book: Ben Elton
Lyrics and Music: Queen (Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and
John Deacon [the Queen singers and songwriters])
Producers: MSG Live and Annerin Theatricals; Musical Direction: Stuart
Morley
Cast: The company included Krystle Chance (Killer Queen), Brian
Christensen (Brit), Trevor Coll (Galileo), Kevin Doe (Buddy), Alysee
Ernewein (Oz), Kyle Gruninger (Khashoggi), and Keri Kelly
(Scaramouche)
Musical Numbers
The current edition of the musical included approximately twenty-four
songs by Queen, including: “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Bohemian
Rhapsody,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “I Want to Break Free,” “Killer
Queen,” “Radio Ga Ga,” “Somebody to Love,” “Under Pressure,” “We
Are the Champions,” and “We Will Rock You.”
We Will Rock You was a jukebox musical in which songs by the British
rock group Queen (Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John
Deacon) were used to tell a story set in a future when people are forced to
conform and where music is forbidden. Galileo (Trevor Coll) and
Scaramouche (Keri Kelly) rebel and join forces with the outcast Bohemians
in a plan to save iPlanet (and rock and roll) from the rule of Globalsoft,
which is led by the Killer Queen (Krystle Chance).
The musical premiered in London at the Dominion Theatre on May 14,
2002, for a ten-year run with direction by Christopher Renshaw and
choreography by Arlene Phillips. The London cast album was released by
Parlophone Records.
A U.S. tour in 2013 was later followed by the current one in 2019,
which played in New York for a limited engagement of six performances at
the Hulu Theatre at Madison Square Garden. This production was
announced as a new and updated edition of the musical.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Performances: 49
Play: Jack Thorne
Lyrics and Music: The score included traditional Christmas carols as well as
original music by Christopher Nightingale
Based on the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Direction: Matthew Warchus (Jamie Manton, U.K. Associate Director;
Thomas Caruso, U.S. Associate Director); Producers: Tom Smedes,
Heather Shields, Nathan Gehan, Jamison Scott, Catherine Schreiber,
Peter Stern, Cornice Productions, Xin Wen, Jack Lane, Instone
Productions, Nancy Gibbs/Joseph Longthorne, Mark Lonow and
JoAnne Astrow, Chase Thomas/Yael Silver, J. Scott and Sylvia G.
Bechtel, Walport Productions, Propaganda Productions/42nd.Club,
HKL Productions/Louise H. Beard and Seriff Productions, Mark
Lippman, Fiona Howe Rudin/Sammy Lopez, Brian Mutert and Derek
Perrigo/Gary and Reenie Heath; Peter Cusick, Associate Producer; An
Old Vic Production; Choreography: Movement by Lizzi Gee; Scenery
and Costumes: Rob Howell; Lighting: Hugh Vanstone; Musical
Direction: Michael Gacetta
Cast: Campbell Scott (Ebenezer Scrooge), Andrea Martin (Ghost of
Christmas Past), LaChanze (Ghost of Christmas Present, Mrs.
Fezziwig), Erica Dorfler (Mrs. Cratchit), Dashiell Eaves (Bob Cratchit),
Hannah Elless (Jess), Brandon Gill (Fred), Evan Harrington (Fezziwig),
Chris Hoch (Father, Marley), Sarah Hunt (Belle), Matthew LaBanca
(Nicholas), Alex Nee (Ferdy), Sebastian Ortiz or Jai Ram Srinivasan
(Tiny Tim), Dan Piering (Young Ebenezer, George), Rachel Prather
(Little Fan)
The action takes place in London during the mid-nineteenth century.
Musical Numbers
Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The score
consisted of traditional Christmas carols (including “It Came Upon the
Midnight Clear,” “Joy to the World,” and “Silent Night”) and new
music composed by Christopher Nightingale.
Jack Thorne’s version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol played a

limited engagement of six weeks during the holiday period. The import had
first been produced by London’s Old Vic on November 20, 2017.
The plot followed Dickens’s basic story, but some aspects of the stage
Scrooge (played by Campbell Scott) might have alarmed purists. Helen
Shaw in New York noted Dickens’s social concerns were “shifted” aside to
favor an “unconvincing self-realization tale” about Scrooge, and as a result
“the already high-sugar-content” of Dickens’s original story turned into
“goo” and was “boneless without its moral armature.” In the original,
Scrooge’s conversion resulted from his realization that others matter, but
here his “pity” was for his youth. Moreover, the casting was curious
because the appearances of Andrea Martin and LaChanze were “one step
removed” from cameos, and their “‘Tony-winners-just-drop-by’ quality”
brought a “merrily community-theaterish” feel to the proceedings.
Both Bob Verini and Michael Sommers reviewed the adaptation for
New York Stage Review: Verini said Scrooge’s “This-Is-Your-Life pity
party” reveals that he “was victimized from an early age by his father,” and
Sommers said the production was “something of a finger-wagging drag”
with “dreary business” to show how the new version was “somewhat
different than the countless other stage adaptations before it.” Adam
Feldman in Time Out found the “large, classy, rather gloomy” production
“attractively dark” with “lovely moments and atmosphere,” but suggested
the show’s “joyous climax” had “a faint sense of effort” and the evening
could have used more “cheer.”
Meanwhile, strolling singers and musicians sang Christmas carols, stage
fog added atmosphere, and the decor consisted of seemingly hundreds of
glowing lanterns. There were also audience participation moments, and,
according to Feldman, the work’s “prettiest touch” was a chorus of
handheld bells. Shaw noted the show included a snowfall (touches of
Slava’s Snowshow) and handouts of clementines and bags of cookies to the
audience (shades of Oklahoma!), and she knew she was “ungrateful”
because “they threw oranges at us, [and] now I’m throwing tomatoes.”
THE ILLUSIONISTS: MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS (2019)

Performances: 48
Dialogue: David Regal
Music: Evan Duffy
Creative Direction: Neil Dorward (Jenn Rapp, Associate Director); Magic
Direction: Mark Kalin; Producers: Simon Painter, Executive/Creative
Producer; Tim Lawson, Executive Producer; MagicSpace
Entertainment, and The Works Entertainment; Jacob Harvey, Associate
Producer; Scenery: Vincent Schonbrodt; Video Design: Philippe Dumas;
Costumes: Angela Aaron; Lighting: Hugo Bosseny
Cast: Eric Chien (The Manipulator), Chris Cox (The Mentalist), Dom
Chambers (The Showman), Paul Dabek (The Trickster), Kevin James
(The Inventor), Enzo Weyne (The Unforgettable)
The Illusionists were back for their fifth and final limited Broadway
engagement of the decade (for more information, see The Illusionists:
Witness the Impossible). The current production was in effect less a return
engagement than a new edition of the 2018 presentation (also titled The
Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays; see entry) because all the current 2019
Illusionists (see cast list above) hadn’t appeared in the 2018 production.
Note that during the run some performances were one-act, ninety-minute
family matinees.
Michael Sommers in New York Stage Review found the show “a nice
enough event” but said the ending was flat and would have benefited from a
conclusion where all the artists joined forces for a “magical throw down or
grand finale.” And despite the title, there wasn’t much that was
“particularly holiday-ish” about the presentation, save for a video design
that utilized snowflakes, candy-cane colors, and “similar seasonal images.”
There was also prerecorded music on hand that “rearrange[d] traditional
carols.”
JAGGED LITTLE PILL

“OUR NEW MUSICAL”

Opening Date: December 5, 2019; Closing Date: Still playing as of
December 31, 2019
Book: Diablo Cody
Lyrics: Alanis Morissette
Music: Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard; additional music by Michael
Farrell and Guy Sigsworth
Direction: Diane Paulus (Mia Walker, Associate Director); Producers:
Vivek J. Tiwary, Arvind Ethan David, Eva Price, Caiola Productions,
Level Forward and Abigail Disney, Geffen Playhouse-Tenenbaum-
Feinberg, James L. Nederlander, Dean Borrell Moravis Silver, Stephen
G. Johnson, Concord Theatricals, Bard Theatricals, M. Kilburg Reedy,
42nd.Club, Betsy Dollinger, Sundowners, The Araca Group, Jana
Bezdek, Len Blavatnik, BSL Enterprises, Burnt Umber Productions,
Darren P. DeVerna and Jeremiah L. Harris, Daryl Roth, Susan Edelstein,
FG Productions, Sue Gilad and Larry Rogowsky, Harmonia/Sophie QI,
John Gore Theatrical Group, Melissa M. Jones and Barbara H. Freitag,
Jujamcyn Theatres, Stephanie Kramer, Lamplighter Projects, Christina
Isaly Liceaga, David Mirvish, Spencer B. Ross, Bellanca Smigel Rutter,
Iris Smith, Jason Taylor and Sydney Suiter, Rachel Weinstein, and
W.I.T. Productions/Gabriel Creative Partners; Tamar Climan,
Consulting Producer; An American Repertory Theatre Production;
Vivek J. Tiwary, Arvid Ethan David, and Eva Price; Choreography and
Movement: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Abbey O’Brien and Marc Kimelman,
Associate Choreographers); Scenery: Riccardo Hernandez; Video
Design: Lucy Mackinnon; Costumes: Emily Rebholz; Lighting: Justin
Townsend; Musical Direction: Bryan Perri
Cast: The Chorus (Annelise Baker, Jane Bruce, John Cardoza, Antonio
Cipriano, Ken Wulf Clark, Laurel Harris, Logan Hart, Max Kumangai,
Heather Lang, Ezra Menas, Nora Schell, Kei Tsuruharatani, and Ebony
Williams); Elizabeth Stanley (Mary Jane Healy), Sean Allan Krill
(Steve Healy), Derek Klena (Nick Healy), Celia Rose Gooding (Frankie
Healy), Lauren Patten (Jo), Kathryn Gallagher (Bella), Logan Hart
(Andrew), Antonio Cipriano (Phoenix)
The action takes place during the present time in a suburban town in
Connecticut.
Musical Numbers
Note: (*) = song from the 1995 recording Jagged Little Pill.
Act One: Overture (Company); “Right Through You” (*) (lyric and music
by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Company); “All I Really Want”
(*) (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Celia Rose
Gooding, Elizabeth Stanley, Sean Allan Krill, Derek Klena, Company);
“Hand in My Pocket” (*) (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and
Glen Ballard) (Lauren Patten, Celia Rose Gooding, Company);
“Smiling” (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and Michael Farrell)
(Elizabeth Stanley, Company); “Ironic” (*) (lyric and music by Alanis
Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Celia Rose Gooding, Antonio Cipriano);
“So Unsexy” (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette) (Sean Allan Krill,
Elizabeth Stanley, Company); “Perfect” (*) (lyric and music by Alanis
Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Derek Klena); “So Pure” (lyric and music
by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Company); “That I Would Be
Good” (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard)
(Antonio Cipriano, Celia Rose Gooding, Lauren Patten); “Wake Up” (*)
(lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Celia Rose
Gooding, Derek Klena, Company); “Forgiven” (*) (lyric and music by
Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Elizabeth Stanley, Company)
Act Two: Entr’acte and “Hands Clean” (lyric and music by Alanis
Morissette) (Company); “Not the Doctor” (*) (lyric and music by
Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Elizabeth Stanley, Sean Allan
Krill); “Head over Feet” (*) (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and
Glen Ballard) (Sean Allan Krill, Elizabeth Stanley, Antonio Cipriano,
Celia Rose Gooding); “Your House” (lyric and music by Alanis
Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Lauren Patten); “Unprodigal Daughter”
(lyric and music by Alanis Morissette) (Celia Rose Gooding,
Company); “Predator” (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and
Michael Farrell) (Kathryn Gallagher, Company); “You Oughta Know”
(*) (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Lauren
Patten, Company); “Uninvited” (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette)
(Elizabeth Stanley, Company); “Mary Jane” (*) (lyric and music by
Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Sean Allan Krill, Company); “No”
(lyric and music by Alanis Morissette and Guy Sigsworth) (Kathryn
Gallagher, Company); “Thank U” (lyric and music by Alanis Morissette
and Glen Ballard) (Company); “You Learn” (*) (lyric and music by
Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard) (Company)
Jagged Little Pill was a jukebox musical based on Alanis Morissette’s
1995 album of the same name. The recording included twelve songs, all of
which were retained for the stage production, which premiered at the
American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 2018.
The story focused on a dysfunctional family (mother, father, son, and
daughter, the latter black and adopted). Their issues include opioid
addiction, bisexuality, racism, date rape, and porn addiction (and gun
violence also found its way into the script). Greg Evans in Deadline said
their troubles were “bursting with hot-button issues” and they had “enough
problems, secrets and clichés to fuel three years of Lifetime movies.”
Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post said the “uneven” musical
addressed “more social issues” than “a Democratic presidential debate,” but
every issue got “short shrift” and the “overflowing buffet of controversial
subjects” bordered on the “ludicrous.”
Helen Shaw in New York noted that the production was “ridiculous” and
“resulted in confusion and occasional silliness,” not the least of which was
an overuse of the chorus, which resulted in the show’s “un-cooling.” Shaw
wondered just who these chorus members were, because the plot dealt with
a mostly white family and the chorus had been selected for “maximum
diversity” (Shaw decided maybe they all showed up for “a Rent audition at
the Westchester mall”). Chris Jones in the New York Daily News reported
that the “moralistic” show was “predictable” and “over-stuffed and
simplistic,” and he asked “How many personal crises can one jukebox
musical accommodate?”
Joe Dziemianowicz in Theatre News Online noted that the musical
delivered “desirable jolts to the head and heart thanks to vibrant
performances,” but “this Pill also produces unwanted side effects.” He
wondered if there was “a script doctor in the house?” because the “knotty
narrative” got “more serious by the minute” and spread “hot-button issues
on very thick.” Further, the songs didn’t “quite deliver the rocking
edginess” of the original twenty-five-year-old album and the lyrics were
sometimes “obscured.”
Oleksinski praised the “fabulous” numbers and “the best cast of singers
now on Broadway,” all of whom performed “genuinely and with passion”
and were “jam-packed with talent,” but unfortunately they were “propping
up an after-school special,” and because the second act emphasized sexual
assault, the show sometimes resembled “an informative high school
assembly.”
The Broadway cast album was released on CD by Atlantic Records. The
music credits’ page of the program included the song “Torch” (lyric and
music by Alanis Morissette and Guy Sigsworth), which wasn’t cited in the
program’s list of musical numbers. As of this writing, “Jagged Little Pill”:
The Stories behind the Iconic Album and Groundbreaking Musical is
scheduled for publication by Grand Central Publishing in late 2020; the
book includes photographs, interviews, and the libretto.
HARRY CONNICK JR.: A CELEBRATION OF COLE

PORTER
Performances: 21
Dialogue: Harry Connick Jr.
Lyrics and Music: Cole Porter; lyrics and music for additional songs by
Harry Connick Jr.
Direction: Harry Connick Jr.; Producers: Connick Performances, Inc.,
James L. Nederlander, and Grove Entertainment; Choreography:
Choreography for “Begin the Beguine” by Luke Hawkins; Scenery:
Beowulf Boritt and Alexis Distler; Projection Design: Beowulf Boritt
and Caite Hevner; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Andrew
Fisher
Cast: Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra, Luke Hawkins (Cole Porter on
film, Bartender), Aaron Burr (Cole Porter on stage, Usher, Policeman)
Musical Numbers
is taken from Connick’s CD devoted to Porter’s music, which was
released to coincide with the current concert.
“Anything Goes” (Anything Goes, 1934); “I Love Paris” (Can-Can, 1953);
“I Concentrate on You” (film Broadway Melody of 1940); “All of You”
(Silk Stockings, 1955); “Mind If I Make Love to You?” (1956 film High
Society); “Just One of Those Things” (Jubilee, 1935); “In the Still of the
Night” (1937 film Rosalie); “Why Can’t You Behave?” (Kiss Me, Kate,
1948); “Begin the Beguine” (Jubilee, 1935); “You’d Be So Nice to
Come Home To” (1943 film Something to Shout About); “True Love”
(1956 film High Society); “You’re Sensational” (1956 film High
Society); “You Do Something to Me” (Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929)
Other songs by Porter included in the concert: “It’s All Right with Me”
(Can-Can, 1953); “Love for Sale” (The New Yorkers, 1930); and “So in
Love” (Kiss Me, Kate, 1948). The concert also included some of
Connick’s own songs, such as “Take Her to the Mardi Gras” (Thou
Shalt Not, 2001).
Fittingly, one of the decade’s final shows was Harry Connick Jr.’s
tribute to one of Broadway’s master songwriters, Cole Porter. The concert’s
press release noted that the evening was “a modern multi-media
presentation of some of Porter’s most beloved songs in an unprecedented
and unique way.” A few weeks prior to the Broadway opening, Connick’s
CD collection True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter was released by
Verve Records.
Greg Evans in Deadline said Connick’s “superb musicianship” pushed
the music “from the comfort of classic pop into bolder, jazzier terrain,” and
Connick, the two dancers, and the twenty-five piece orchestra were backed
by “gorgeously designed” decor and lighting (the set was by Beowulf Boritt
and Alexis Distler, the projection design by Boritt and Caite Hevner, and
the lighting by Ken Billington).
The presentation was Connick’s second Broadway concert of the
decade, and it followed Harry Connick Jr. in Concert on Broadway.
’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE . . .

Performances: 28
Text: James Hadley
Lyrics and Music: Traditional Christmas songs (see list below); original
music by Jean-Phi Goncalves
Based on the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas (aka “’Twas the Night
before Christmas”) by Clement Clarke Moore.
Direction: James Hadley; Manuel Bissonnette; Acrobatic Performance
Direction: Edesia Moreno; Producers: Cirque du Soleil; Yasmine Khalil
and Marie Josee Adam, Executive Producers; Jayna Neagle, Producer;
The Madison Square Garden Company; Choreography: Vinh Nguyen
Kinjaz; Scenery: Genevieve Lizotte; Costumes: James Lavoie; Lighting:
Nicolas Brion; Musical Direction: Jean-Phi Goncalves
Cast: Michelle Clark (Isabella), Alexis Vigneault (Isabella’s Father),
Katharine Arnold. Nicole Faubert, Francis Gadbois, Guillaume Paquin;
Diabolos: Ming-En Chen, Tsung-Ying Lin, Ting-Chung Wang, and
Chia-Hao Yu; Chorus; Dancers
Musical Numbers
Note: The following is taken from information provided on the production’s
soundtrack (of prerecorded music). Each title is followed by
writer/composer credits (note that all songs were arranged by Jean-Phi
Goncalves).
“’Twas the Night Before” (Clement Clarke Moore); “God Rest You Merry,
Gentlemen” (traditional); “Jolly” (Jean-Phi Goncalves); “Up on the
Rooftop” (Benjamin Hanby); “The Spark” (Jean-Phi Goncalves); “O
Come, O Come Emmanuel” (traditional); “O Holy Night” (Adolphe
Adam); “Angels We Have Heard on High” (James Chadwick); “O
Christmas Tree” (Melchoir Franck and Ernst Anschutz); “Shchedryk”
(Mykola Leontovych); “Do You Hear What I Hear?” (Noel Regney and
Gloria Shayne); “Deck the Halls” (Thomas Oliphant); “Joy to the
World” (Isaac Watts)
Acts
Note: The production’s website lists the following acts performed in the
show.
“Acrobatic Table”; “Acro Lamp”; “Aerial Hammock”; “Aerial Cart”;
“Aerial Straps Duo”; “Block Balancing”; “Diabolos”; “Hoop Diving”;
“Hula Hoops”; “Inline Skating”
The Cirque du Soleil’s Christmas show ’Twas the Night Before . . . was
inspired by Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem “A Visit from St.
Nicholas,” and the evening focused on Isabella (Michelle Clarke), a jaded
child who has lost the true meaning of Christmas but finds it when her
adventures take her into the world of Moore’s poem. The production
included new music as well as traditional Christmas songs, all of which
were prerecorded.
Prior to the New York production of ’Twas the Night Before, the show
premiered in Chicago. Miriam Di Nunzio in the Chicago Sun Times said the
evening was “heavy on fiery acrobatics” and offered “some thrills,” but was
otherwise “surprisingly light on Cirque spectacle.” In his review of the New
York presentation, Michael Sommers in the New York Stage Review praised
the “happy new holiday gift for family audiences” which was an eighty-
minute “barrage of acrobatic and aerial sequences staged in visually stylish
circumstances.”
The production’s soundtrack (of prerecorded music) was released by
Cirque du Soleil Musique.
Appendix A:
Chronology (by Season)
The following is a seasonal chronology of the 240 productions discussed in

this book. Musicals that closed prior to Broadway are marked with an
asterisk (*) and are listed alphabetically at the end of the season in which
they were produced.
2010 (12)
All about Me
Come Fly Away
101 Dalmatians
The Addams Family
La Cage aux Folles
American Idiot
Promises, Promises
Enron
Everyday Rapture
*Nightmare Alley
2010–2011 (20)
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway
The Scottsboro Boys
Elf
The Book of Mormon
How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
Anything Goes
Catch Me If You Can
Wonderland
Séance on a Wet Afternoon
Sister Act
Baby It’s You!
*Robin and the 7 Hoods
*Sycamore Trees
2011–2012 (23)
Hair
Follies
Godspell
Hugh Jackman on Broadway
An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin
Bonnie & Clyde
Lysistrata Jones
Porgy and Bess
Once
Newsies
End of the Rainbow
Evita
Ghost
Leap of Faith
*The Boy Detective Fails
*Brother Russia
*The Hollow
2012–2013 (20)
Fela!
Bring It On
Chaplin
Lewis Black: Running on Empty
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
Annie
Elf
Scandalous
A Christmas Story
Manilow on Broadway
Cinderella
Kinky Boots
Matilda
Motown
Jekyll & Hyde
Pippin
*Roman Holiday
2013–2014 (23)
Forever Tango
Let It Be
First Date
Soul Doctor
Big Fish
Two Boys
After Midnight
A Christmas Story
Beautiful
Rocky
Aladdin
Les Miserables
If/Then
Violet
Cabaret
*Beaches
2014–2015 (21)
On the Town
The Last Ship
Side Show
The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible
Honeymoon in Vegas
It Shoulda Been You
Finding Neverland
The King and I
Gigi
Fun Home
Doctor Zhivago
Something Rotten!
The Visit
*Cloak and Dagger
*Diner
*Kid Victory
*Little Dancer
*Soon
2015–2016 (23)
Amazing Grace
Hamilton
Spring Awakening
Dames at Sea
On Your Feet!
Allegiance
The Illusionists: Live on Broadway
School of Rock
Elf
The Color Purple
Fiddler on the Roof
Disaster!
She Loves Me
Bright Star
American Psycho
Waitress
Tuck Everlasting
That Followed
Paramour
*Cake Off
*Girlstar
2016–2017 (28)
Motown
Cats
Lewis Black: Black to the Future
Holiday Inn
Falsettos
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on Broadway!
The Illusionists: Turn of the Century
A Bronx Tale
Dear Evan Hansen
In Transit
Candide
Sunset Boulevard
Come from Away
Miss Saigon
Amélie
War Paint
Groundhog Day
Hello, Dolly!
Anastasia
Bandstand
*Freaky Friday
*Sousatzka
2017–2018 (23)
Angels in America
Prince of Broadway
The Band’s Visit
Once on This Island
Elf
Frozen
Rocktopia
Mean Girls
Carousel
My Fair Lady
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles
Brokeback Mountain
*The Honeymooners
*Roman Holiday
*Soft Power
*The Sting
2018–2019 (23)
Head over Heels
Pretty Woman
Marnie
The Ferryman
King Kong
The Prom
The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays
The Cher Show
Choir Boy
Be More Chill
Kiss Me, Kate
Oklahoma!
Hadestown
Tootsie
Beetlejuic
Morrissey
*Dave
*The Royal Family of Broadway
2019 (24)
Note that Pure Yanni; Mel Brooks on Broadway; Regina Spektor on
Broadway; Criss Angel Raw: The Mindfreak Unplugged; Dave Chappelle;
and Manilow Broadway were part of the In Residence on Broadway series
that played during the period from late May to late July 2019; for more
information, see entry for In Residence on Broadway.
Pure Yanni
Stonewall
Dave Chappelle
Moulin Rouge!
Manilow Broadway
Bat Out of Hell
Porgy and Bess
The Lightning Thief
American Utopia
Akhnaten
Slava’s Snowshow
We Will Rock You
A Christmas Carol
The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays
Harry Connick Jr.: A Celebration of Cole Porter
Jagged Little Pill
Appendix B:
Shows by Classification
In this appendix, each one of the 240 productions discussed in this book is
listed under a specific classification (for more information about a
particular show, see entry). Some shows were produced more than once
during the decade, and their titles are followed by year of production.
Many of the shows fall under more than one category, and because of
occasional gray areas I’ve classified each production under what seems to
me the most “logical” category. For example, the 2017 revival of Sunday in
the Park with George originated in London and could be classified as both
an import and a revival, but for the purposes of this appendix I believe the
work’s revival status trumps its import status. Further, such musicals as
Rocky and Groundhog Day were first produced in Europe before their
Broadway presentations, and could be designated as imports. But I’ve opted
to include these as book musicals with new music rather than as imports.
Note that Finding Neverland was first produced in London and then
radically revised for New York, and I’ve classified the production as an
import.
Note that in the text of this book, the following shows are covered under
the In Residence on Broadway series: Criss Angel Raw: The Mindfreak
Unplugged, Dave Chappelle, Manilow Broadway, Mel Brooks on
Broadway, Regina Spektor on Broadway, and Pure Yanni.
BOOK MUSICALS WITH NEW MUSIC (61)

The following book musicals offered new lyrics and music.
The Addams Family

Allegiance
Amazing Grace
Amélie
American Psycho
Bandstand
The Band’s Visit
Beetlejuice
Be More Chill
Big Fish
Bonnie & Clyde
The Book of Mormon
Bright Star
Bring It On
A Bronx Tale
Catch Me If You Can
Chaplin
Dear Evan Hansen
Doctor Zhivago
Elf (2010)
First Date
Fun Home
Groundhog Day
Hadestown
Hamilton
Honeymoon in Vegas
If/Then
In Transit
It Shoulda Been You
Kinky Boots
The Last Ship
Leap of Faith
The Lightning Thief
Lysistrata Jones
Mean Girls
101 Dalmatians
Pretty Woman
The Prom
Rocky
Scandalous
School of Rock
The Scottsboro Boys
Something Rotten!
Tootsie
Tuck Everlasting
The Visit
Waitress
War Paint
Wonderland
BOOK MUSICALS THAT INCLUDE PREEXISTING MUSIC

(29)
The scores for the following shows offered mostly preexisting music.

Aladdin
American Idiot
Anastasia
Baby It’s You!
Beautiful
The Cher Show
Cinderella
Disaster!
Frozen
Gigi
Head over Heels
Holiday Inn
Jagged Little Pill
Motown (2013)
Moulin Rouge!
Newsies
Once
On Your Feet!
That Followed
Soul Doctor
OPERAS (7)
The following operas received their first New York productions during the
decade.
Angels in America
Brokeback Mountain
Marnie
Stonewall
Two Boys
PLAYS WITH INCIDENTAL MUSIC (2)

Choir Boy
DANCE MUSICALS (4)

The production of Forever Tango was the show’s third Broadway
presentation, and I’ve opted to include it as a revival for the purposes of this
book.
Come Fly Away

Paramour
PERSONALITY REVUES, CONCERTS, COMEDY STANDS,

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTIONS (36)
The productions in this category include personality revues (All about Me,
The Pee-wee Herman Show); concerts by well-known performers (Frankie
Valli, Hugh Jackman); comedy stands (Lewis Black, Alton Brown); and
miscellaneous productions (Celebrity Autobiography on Broadway, In
Residence on Broadway).
After Midnight
All about Me (Dame Edith/Barry Humphries, Michael Feinstein)
American Utopia
Dave Chappelle
Everyday Rapture (Sherie Rene Scott)
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on Broadway!
Manilow on Broadway
Manilow Broadway
Morrissey
Prince of Broadway
Pure Yanni
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway (2010)
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles (2018)
Rocktopia
MAGIC REVUES (8)

The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible (2014)
The Illusionists: Live on Broadway (2015)
The Illusionists: Turn of the Century (2016)
IMPORTS (18)
Bat Out of Hell
A Christmas Carol
Come from Away
End of the Rainbow
Enron
The Ferryman
Finding Neverland
Ghost
King Kong
Let It Be
Matilda
Sister Act
We Will Rock You
REVIVALS AND RETURN ENGAGEMENTS (52)

Akhnaten
Annie
Anything Goes
Cabaret
Candide
Carousel
Cats
The Color Purple
Dames at Sea
Elf (2012)
Elf (2015
Elf (2017)
Evita
Falsettos
Fela!
Fiddler on the Roof
Follies
Forever Tango
Godspell
Hair
Hello, Dolly!
Jekyll & Hyde
The King and I
Kiss Me, Kate
La Cage aux Folles
Les Miserables
Miss Saigon
Motown (2016)
My Fair Lady
Oklahoma!
Once on This Island
On the Town
Pippin
Promises, Promises
She Loves Me
Side Show
Slava’s Snowshow
Spring Awakening
Sunset Boulevard
Violet
PRE-BROADWAY CLOSINGS (23)

The following selected productions weren’t produced on Broadway during
the decade, although one (Kid Victory) was produced Off-Broadway.
Beaches
The Boy Detective Fails
Brother Russia
Cake Off
Cloak and Dagger
Dave
Diner
Freaky Friday
Girlstar
The Hollow
The Honeymooners
Kid Victory
Little Dancer
Nightmare Alley
Robin and the 7 Hoods
The Royal Family of Broadway
Soft Power
Soon
Sousatzka
The Sting
Sycamore Trees
Appendix C:
Discography
This alphabetical list represents musicals in this book that were recorded. In
some cases, the complete score may not have been recorded, but some
songs were included in a collection. The criterion for inclusion on the list is
that recordings were on sale to the public at one time or another.
The cast albums of some of the decade’s revivals (such as Cabaret and
Dames at Sea) weren’t recorded, but other recordings of these scores were
released at one time or another, and so these shows are included in the
discography. There were no cast albums for some personality concerts, but
the performers in question recorded songs from their concerts on various
collections.
For specific information about the recordings, see entries.
The Addams Family

After Midnight
Akhnaten
Aladdin
Allegiance
Amazing Grace
Amélie
American Idiot
American Psycho
American Utopia
Anastasia
Annie
Anything Goes
Baby It’s You!
Bandstand
The Band’s Visit
Bat Out of Hell
Beautiful
Beetlejuice
Be More Chill
Big Fish
Bonnie & Clyde
The Book of Mormon
Bright Star
Bring It On
A Bronx Tale
Cabaret
Candide
Carousel
Catch Me If You Can
Cats
Chaplin
The Cher Show
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Story
Cinderella
The Color Purple
Come from Away
Dames at Sea
Dear Evan Hansen
Disaster!
Doctor Zhivago
Elf
End of the Rainbow
Everyday Rapture
Evita
Falsettos
Fela!
Fiddler on the Roof
Finding Neverland
First Date
Follies
Forever Tango
Freaky Friday
Frozen
Fun Home
Ghost
Gigi
Godspell
Groundhog Day
Hadestown
Hair
Hamilton
Head over Heels
Hello, Dolly!
Holiday Inn
Holler If Ya Hear Me (reportedly recorded, but never released)
Honeymoon in Vegas
If/Then
In Transit
It Shoulda Been You
Jagged Little Pill
Jekyll & Hyde
Kid Victory
The King and I
Kinky Boots
Kiss Me, Kate
La Cage aux Folles
The Last Ship
Leap of Faith
Les Miserables
The Lightning Thief
Lysistrata Jones
Matilda
Mean Girls
Miss Saigon
Motown
Moulin Rouge!
My Fair Lady
Newsies
Oklahoma!
Once
Once on This Island
On the Town
On Your Feet
Paramour
Pippin
Porgy and Bess
Pretty Woman
Prince of Broadway
The Prom
Promises, Promises
Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway
Rocktopia
Rocky
Scandalous
School of Rock
The Scottsboro Boys
She Loves Me
That Followed
Side Show
Sister Act
Soft Power
Something Rotten!
Spring Awakening
Sunset Boulevard
Tootsie
Tuck Everlasting
Two Boys
Violet
The Visit
Waitress
War Paint
We Will Rock You
Wonderland
Appendix D:
Filmography
The following is an alphabetical list of film, television, and home video

versions of musicals discussed in this book; the list includes concert
versions and documentaries.
Some of these films were released decades before their stage versions
were contemplated (such as Gigi and Newsies). Note that for An American
in Paris, there is the original 1951 film as well as a limited-release film
version of the musical; also, Nice Work If You Can Get It was an adaptation
of the 1926 Broadway musical Oh, Kay!, which was filmed in a silent
version in 1928. For more information, see entries.
Allegiance
American Idiot (documentary as Broadway Idiot)
American Utopia
Annie
Anything Goes
Bandstand
Brokeback Mountain
Cabaret
Candide
Carousel
Cats
A Christmas Story
Dames at Sea
Elf (as Elf: Buddy’s Christmas Musical [2014]; also 2017 British television
adaptation)
End of the Rainbow (as Judy)
Evita
Falsettos
Fela!
Fiddler on the Roof
Follies
Forever Tango
Freestyle Love Supreme (documentary)
Freaky Friday
Gigi
Godspell
Hair
Hamilton
Hello, Dolly!
Holiday Inn
Jekyll & Hyde
The King and I
Kinky Boots
Kiss Me, Kate
The Last Ship
Les Miserables
My Fair Lady
Newsies
Oklahoma!
On the Town
Pippin
Porgy and Bess
The Pee-wee Herman Show (as The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway)
Rocktopia
She Loves Me
Appendix E:
Published Scripts
The following is an alphabetical list of musicals discussed in this book

whose scripts were published and officially on sale to the public at one time
or another (an exception is the script of Nice Work If You Can It, which
wasn’t officially published but was briefly made available [apparently to
Tony Award voters] in an oversized paperback edition with a color cover of
the show’s logo; because the script has surfaced on an auction site at least
one time, the reader is here alerted to the existence of the published script).
The list also includes published scripts of shows that were revived
during the decade as well as books that provide background information on
shows that opened during the period. For more information, see specific
entry.
Amélie
American Psycho
American Utopia
Anything Goes
Bandstand
The Book of Mormon
Cabaret
Candide
Carousel
Choir Boy
Cinderella
Come from Away
Dames at Sea
Dear Evan Hansen
End of the Rainbow
Enron
Evita
Falsettos
The Ferryman
Fiddler on the Roof
Follies
Fun Home
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder Hair
Hamilton
Hello, Dolly!
Jagged Little Pill
The King and I
Kiss Me, Kate
La Cage aux Folles
Les Miserables
Miss Saigon
My Fair Lady
Oklahoma!
Once
On the Town
Pippin
Porgy and Bess
Promises, Promises
Scandalous (as Saving Aimee)
She Loves Me
That Followed
Side Show
Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark (Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the
Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History)
Spring Awakening
Sunset Boulevard
Tuck Everlasting
War Paint
Appendix F:
Black-Themed Shows
The following is an alphabetical list of shows that opened during the decade
and focused on black stories, characters, subject matter, and performers.
The criterion for inclusion on this list is that the character’s color is an
integral part of the musical’s story and not an example of color-blind
casting.
After Midnight
The Color Purple
Dave Chappelle
Fela!
Motown
Once on This Island
The Scottsboro Boys
That Followed Sister Act
Appendix G:
LGBT-Themed Shows
This list also references shows not necessarily LGBT-themed but that
include male characters who for one reason or another wear drag.
Angels in America
Bring It On
Brokeback Mountain
Choir Boy
Cloak & Dagger
The Color Purple
Falsettos
Fun Home
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder Head over Heels
In Transit
It Shoulda Been You
Kid Victory
Kinky Boots
La Cage aux Folles
Matilda
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever The Prom
Spring Awakening
Stonewall
Sycamore Trees
Tootsie
Two Boys
Appendix H:
Theatres
For the productions discussed in this book, the Broadway theatres where
they played are listed in alphabetical order. Following each theatre’s name
is a chronological list of the musicals that opened at these theatres during
the decade (for a show that was produced more than once during the
decade, the title is identified by year; for a show that transferred to another
theatre during its run, a notation is made that the production was a transfer).
AL HIRSCHFELD THEATRE
Elf (2010)
Fela!
Elf (2012)
Kinky Boots
Moulin Rouge!
AMERICAN AIRLINES THEATRE

Everyday Rapture
Violet
AUGUST WILSON THEATRE

Groundhog Day
Mean Girls
BELASCO THEATRE
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown End of the Rainbow
BERNARD B. JACOBS THEATRE

Once
The Color Purple
Bandstand
The Ferryman
BOOTH THEATRE
BROADHURST THEATRE
Enron
Baby It’s You!
Tuck Everlasting
Anastasia
Jagged Little Pill
BROADWAY THEATRE
Promises, Promises
Sister Act
Cinderella
Doctor Zhivago
Fiddler on the Roof
Miss Saigon
Rocktopia
King Kong
BROOKS ATKINSON THEATRE

Rain (2010) (transfer)
After Midnight
It Shoulda Been You
Spring Awakening
Waitress
CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE

Godspell
Soul Doctor
Fun Home
In Transit
Once on This Island
Oklahoma!
CORT THEATRE
Bright Star
DAVID H. KOCH THEATRE

ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE

Chaplin
The Band’s Visit
EUGENE O’NEILL THEATRE
The Book of Mormon
FOXWOODS THEATRE
FREDERICK P. ROSE HALL/ROSE THEATRE/LINCOLN

CENTER
Candide
Angels in America
Brokeback Mountain
Stonewall
GERALD SCHOENFELD THEATRE

Bonnie & Clyde
American Psycho
Come from Away
HELEN HAYES THEATRE

Dames at Sea
HENRY MILLER’S THEATRE

All about Me
HUDSON THEATRE
Head over Heels
American Utopia
IMPERIAL
Les Miserables
Carousel
LONGACRE THEATRE
La Cage aux Folles
First Date
Allegiance
The Prom
The Lightning Thief
LUNT-FONTANNE THEATRE
The Addams Family
Ghost
Motown (2013)
Finding Neverland
Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons on Broadway!
Morrissey
In Residence on Broadway (Pure Yanni; Mel Brooks on Broadway; Regina
Spektor on Broadway; Criss Angel Raw: The Mindfreak Unplugged;
Dave Chappelle; and Manilow Broadway)
LYCEUM THEATRE
The Scottsboro Boys
The Visit
Be More Chill
A Christmas Carol
LYRIC THEATRE
(FORMERLY FOXWOODS THEATRE; SEE ABOVE)
On the Town
Paramour
MARQUIS THEATRE
Come Fly Away
Wonderland
Follies
Evita
Jekyll & Hyde
On Your Feet!
Tootsie
METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

Two Boys
Marnie
Akhnaten
MUSIC BOX THEATRE

Pippin
That Followed
Dear Evan Hansen
NEDERLANDER THEATRE
Newsies
Honeymoon in Vegas
Amazing Grace
Disaster!
Motown (2016)
War Paint
Pretty Woman
NEIL SIMON THEATRE

Rain (2010)
Catch Me If You Can
Scandalous
Big Fish
The Last Ship
Gigi
The Illusionists: Live on Broadway
Cats
The Cher Show
NEW AMSTERDAM THEATRE

Aladdin
NEW YORK CITY CENTER

Bat Out of Hell
PALACE THEATRE
Annie
The Illusionists: Turn of the Century
Sunset Boulevard
RICHARD RODGERS THEATRE

The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream If/Then
Hamilton
SAMUEL J. FRIEDMAN THEATRE

Prince of Broadway
Choir Boy
SHUBERT THEATRE
Matilda
Hello, Dolly!
STEPHEN SONDHEIM THEATRE

Anything Goes
Beautiful
Slava’s Snowshow
ST. JAMES THEATRE

American Idiot
Hair
Leap of Faith
Bring It On
Manilow on Broadway
Let It Be
Side Show
Something Rotten!
Frozen
STUDIO 54
Cabaret
She Loves Me
Holiday Inn
Kiss Me, Kate
THE THEATRE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN (LATER,

THE HULU THEATER AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN)
101 Dalmatians (The Theatre at Madison Square Garden)
Elf (2015) (The Theatre at Madison Square Garden)
Elf (2017) (Hulu Theatre)
Rain (2018) (Hulu Theatre)
Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Hulu Theatre)
We Will Rock You (Hulu Theatre)
’Twas the Night Before . . . (Hulu Theatre)
VIVIAN BEAUMONT THEATRE

The King and I
My Fair Lady
WALTER KERR THEATRE

Lysistrata Jones
Forever Tango
Falsettos
Amélie
Hadestown
WINTER GARDEN THEATRE

Rocky
School of Rock
Beetlejuice
Bibliography
For most of the productions discussed in this book, I used original source
materials, such as programs, souvenir programs, flyers, scripts, and
recordings. I also used brief excerpts from various print and online reviews.
In addition, many reference books and databases were helpful in providing
technical information and reality checks, and these are listed below.
American Film Institute. AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The First 100 Years
1893–1993. https://afi.com/Catalog/Showcase.
Bradley, Edwin M. The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography
of 171 Features, 1927 through 1932. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &
Company, 1996.
Fordin, Hugh. The Movies’ Greatest Musicals: Produced in Hollywood USA
by the Freed Unit. New York: Frederick Unger, 1975.
Hirschhorn, Clive. The Hollywood Musical: Every Hollywood Musical from
1927 to the Present Day. New York: Crown Publishing, Inc., 1981.
Hodges, Ben, and Scott Denny (eds.). Theatre World (Volumes 66, 67, 68,
and 69). Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2011,
2012, 2013, 2015.
The Internet Broadway Database. https://ibdb.com/.
The Internet Movie Database. https://www.imdb.com.
McHugh, Dominic, and Amy Asch. The Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay
Lerner. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
MetOpera Database. The Metropolitan Archives.
https://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm.
About the Author
Dan Dietz was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the University of Virginia, and
the subject of his graduate thesis was the poetry of Hart Crane. He taught
graduate and undergraduate courses in composition, world literature, and
the history of modern drama at Western Carolina University, and later
served with the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S.
Education Department. He is the author of Off-Broadway Musicals, 1910–
2007: Casts, Credits, Songs, Critical Reception and Performance Data of
More Than 1,800 Shows (2010), which was selected as one of the
outstanding reference sources of 2011 by the American Library
Association. He is also the author of The Complete Book of 1920s
Broadway Musicals (2019), The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway
Musicals (2018), The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals (2015),
The Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals (2014), The Complete
Book of 1960s Broadway Musicals (2014), The Complete Book of 1970s
Broadway Musicals (2015), The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway
Musicals (2016), The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals (2016),
and The Complete Book of 2000s Broadway Musicals (2017), all published
by Rowman & Littlefield.

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The Complete Book of 2010s

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

6 Tinworth Street, London, SE11 5AL, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dietz, Dan, 1945– author.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements

BROADWAY MUSICALS, 2010–2019

The Addams Family

Theatre: Henry Miller’s Theatre

COME FLY AWAY

Theatre: Marquis Theatre

101 Dalmatians (or, to be precise, The 101 Dalmatians Musical) played

THE ADDAMS FAMILY

Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET

An ominous trend emerged as Broadway’s new decade got under way.

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

American Idiot was a stage adaptation of the best-selling album of the

Musical Numbers as Listed on the Original Cast Album

The Roundabout Theatre Company’s limited run of Sondheim on

Burt Bacharach’s Promises, Promises was a groundbreaking musical for

Sherie Rene Scott’s semi-autobiographical Everyday Rapture was a

Nightmare Alley was based on William Lindsay Gresham’s dark 1946

HARRY CONNICK JR. IN CONCERT ON BROADWAY

Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES ON BROADWAY

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Theatre: Belasco Theatre

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown boasted one of the

THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW

DONNY & MARIE: A BROADWAY CHRISTMAS

Donny Osmond sang a medley of songs by Stevie Wonder as well as a

PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT

Theatre: Palace Theatre

The Australian-via-London import Priscilla Queen of the Desert was

THE BOOK OF MORMON

HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY

During the previous season, the revival of Promises, Promises altered

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland was yet another attempt to successfully

SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON

The New York City premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s opera Séance on a

Theatre: Broadway Theatre

BABY IT’S YOU!

THE PEOPLE IN THE PICTURE

ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS

The Old Globe Theatre’s production of director and choreographer

Ricky Ian Gordon’s memory musical Sycamore Trees looked at the

SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK

Theatre: Foxwoods Theatre

Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark had a punctuation-challenged title, but

Theatre: St. James Theatre

The return engagement of the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is not only his masterwork, it may well be

The revival of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell ushered in a mini-trend of