2022 Tony Nominations

Posted on May 9, 2022 by boz

This morning, Tony winner Adrienne Warren and three-time nominee Joshua Henry announced the nominations in the 26 competitive categories of the American Theatre Wing’s 75th annual Antoinette Perry Awards, which will be hosted by Tony nominee and Oscar winner Ariana DeBose at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 12 on the CBS-TV and Paramount+. As previously announced, Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre will be presented to the Asian American Performers Action Coalition, Broadway For All, music copyist Emily Grishman, Feinstein’s/54 Below, and United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, IATSE. In addition, the Isabelle Stevenson Award will be presented to Robert E. Wankel and a Special Tony Award will be given to James C. Nicola, artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop since 1988. 

Leading the field, with 11 nominations is the Pulitzer winner A Strange Loop, followed by MJ and Paradise Square, which each earned 10 nods. The citations for A Strange Loop include best musical, book (Michael R. Jackson), score (Michael R. Jackson), actor (Jaquel Spivey), featured actor (John-Andrew Morrison), featured actress (L Morgan Lee), scenic design (Arnulfo Maldonado), lighting design (Jen Schriever), sound design (Drew Levy), direction (Stephen Brackett), and orchestrations (Charlie Rosen).

The nominations for MJ include best musical, book (Lynn Nottage), actor (Myles Frost), scenic design (Derek McLane, Peter Nigrini), costume design (Paul Tazewell), lighting design (Natasha Katz), sound design (Gareth Owen), direction (Christopher Wheeldon), choreography (Christopher Wheeldon), and orchestraions (Jason Michael Webb, David Holcenberg).

Paradise Square earned notices for best musical, book (Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas, Larry Kirwan), score (Jason Howland, Nathan Tysen, Masi Asare), actress (Joaquina Kalukango), featured actor (Sidney DuPont), featured actor (A.J. Shively), scenic design (Allen Moyer), costume design (Toni-Leslie James), lighting design (Donald Holder), and choreography (Bill T. Jones).

The three other best musical nominees include Girl from the North Country, Mr. Saturday Night, and Six, which earned additional notices for score (Toby Marlow, Lucy Moss), costume design (Gabriella Slade), lighting design (Tim Deiling), sound design (Paul Gatehouse), direction (Lucy Moss, Jamie Armitage), choreography (Carrie-Anne Ingrouille), and orchestrations (Tom Curran).

Girl from the North Country earned additional nods for book (Conor McPherson), actress (Mare Winningham), featured actress (Jeannette Bayardelle), sound design (Simon Baker), direction (Conor McPherson), and orchestrations (Simon Hale); while Mr. Saturday Night also earned nominations for book (Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel), score (Jason Robert Brown, Amanda Green), actor (Billy Crystal), and featured actress (Shoshana Bean). 

The best revival nominees include Caroline, or Change, The Music Man, and Company, which earned additional nods for featured actor (Matt Doyle), featured actress (Patti LuPone), fetured actress (Jennifer Simard), scenic design (Bunny Christie), lighting design (Neil Austin), sound design (Ian Dickinson for Autograph), direction (Marianne Elliott), and orchestrations (David Cullen).

Caroline, or Change earned additional nods for actress (Sharon D Clarke) and costume design (Fly Davis), while The Music Man also earned nominations for actor (Hugh Jackman), actress (Sutton Foster), featured actres (Jayne Houdyshell), costume design (Santo Loquasto), and choreography (Warren Carlyle).

The original Flying over Sunset earned four nominations, including score (Tom Kitt, Michael Korie), actress (Carmen Cusack), scenic design (Beowulf Boritt and 59 Productions), and lighting design (Bradley King).

Musicals with one nomination each include Mrs. Doubtfire for actor Rob McClure, Funny Girl for featured actor Jared Grimes, and Diana for costume designer William Ivey Long. The revival of the choreopoem for colored girls … earned seven nominations in total, including one for its choreography by Camille A. Brown.

Posted in Awards, Stage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oklahoma! London Review Roundup

Posted on May 7, 2022 by boz

The London transfer of the 2019 Broadway revival of the 1943 musical Oklahoma! has received near universal acclaim from critics. The creative team includes Oscar Hammerstein II (book, lyrics), Richard Rodgers (music), Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein (direction), Daniel Kluger (orchestrations, arrangements), John Heginbotham (choreography), Laura Jellinek and Grace Laubacher (sets), Terese Wadden (costumes), Scott Zielinski (lights), Drew Levy (sound), Joshua Thorson (production design), Nathan Koci (arrangements), and Tom Brady (music direction).

The cast includes Marisha Wallace (Ado Annie), Stavros Demetraki (Ali Hakim), Liza Sadovy (Aunt Eller), Arthur Darvill (Curly), Patrick Vaill (Jud), Anoushak Lucas (Laurey), and James Davis (Will Parker) with Greg Hicks (Andrew Carnes), Ashley Samuiels (Cord Elam), Rebekah Hinds (Gertie), Marie-Astrid Mence (Lead Dancer), and Raphael Bushay (Mike). The production runs at the Young Vic through June 25.

Evening Standard (Nick Curtis): The big numbers … still come across beautifully. But the themes of awkward young love, poisonous jealousy, exuberant celebration and the hard pragmatism of forging a new state are thrown into sharp relief. … Overall, it’s a stunning reinvention by directors Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein, although their radicalism very occasionally feels laboured. … The stark ending is powerful, if a little forced. I still can’t totally get my head around a musical where the titular anthem insists that a fairly boring US state is “ok” and “doing fine.” But this Oklahoma! has an urgency and zest that beats any other version I’ve seen, including the 1998 National Theatre revival that featured Hugh Jackman as Curly. 4 out of 5 stars.

Guardian (Miriam Gillinson): How to rewrite Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical without changing a word? It turns out all you need do is make us really watch, and really listen. … Directors Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein have created a modern, sexy and unsettling show. And as for the music? The score sounds so revitalised it might’ve been written yesterday. … The physicality and proximity of this production make us think about the show differently. … It doesn’t all work. … But this is still a brave and invigorating show that effortlessly unearths the ugliness that has always glimmered beneath Oklahoma!’s beautiful morning. 4 out of 5 stars.

London Theatre (Suzy Evans): The genius of Fish’s concept for the revival is in the role reversal of the two male leads: Jud and Curly. … Traditionally, Curly is the strapping hero who wins the girl, while Jud is the conniving farm hand. However, without changing a word of the text, Fish highlights just how wrong we’ve been. … It seems like a cliché to say that this show couldn’t be more timely, but unfortunately, its relevance just keeps getting, well, more relevant. As a story about a divided territory with classes at odds, struggling to find common ground to become a unified state, the parallels with our divided world are painfully clear. 5 out of 5 stars.

WhatsOnStage (Sarah Crompton): It is the most thorough rethinking of Rodgers and Hammerstein that you are ever likely to see, a sensational reassessment of a classic show. … I think it is a masterpiece. … It is a dark version of Oklahoma! but it is also supremely funny and life-enhancing. It is political about the world we live in. … But it doesn’t allow any overall message to dominate. It pays each scene, each song and each character the courtesy of treating them as if they were freshly minted, revealing their complexities and contradictions. In this sense, it is truly Shakespearean— and absolutely revelatory. 5 out of 5 stars.

Posted in London, Shows | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Old Friends Review Roundup

Posted on May 5, 2022 by boz

London theater critics have given universally positive reviews to Old Friends, the all-star memorial concert for composer Stephen Sondheim, presented at the West End’s Sondheim Theatre and simulcast on the nearby Prince Edward stage. The creative team included Maria Friedman (direction), Matthew Bourne and Stephen Mear (choreography), Stephen Brooker (music supervision), Stephen Metcalfe (arrangements), George Reeve (projections), Matt Kinley (sets), Warren Letton (lights), Mick Potter (sound), and Alfonso Casado Trigo (music direction).

The concert cast included Michael Ball, Helena Bonham Carter, Rob Brydon, Petula Clark, Rosalie Craig, Janie Dee, Judi Dench, Daniel Evans, Maria Friedman, Haydn Gwynne, Bonnie Langford, Damian Lewis, Julia McKenzie, Julian Ovenden, Bernadette Peters, Siân Phillips, Jon Robyns, Clive Rowe, Jenna Russell, Imelda Staunton, Charlie Stemp, Gary Wilmot, and Michael D Xavier, with Shan Ako, Christine Allado, Holly-Anne Hull, Ashley Campbell, Anna-Jane Casey, Desmonda Cathabel, Josefina Gabrielle, Louis Gaunt, Amy Griffiths, Rob Houchen, Bradley Jaden, Ian McLarnon, Jeremy Secomb, Jordan Shaw and Matthew White. Below is the finale of the concert.

Guardian (Mark Lawson): This was a glorious memorial service, each of the tunes a eulogy, every eulogist either a current star (Judi Dench, Bernadette Peters, Imelda Staunton, Clive Rowe) or a likely future one. … In anthology shows, as in sport, selection is central. Some of the 41 songs demanded inclusion. … There are also surprises, such as “Live Alone” and “Like It” (written for the movie Dick Tracy) performed by Clive Rowe. … There will be obvious frustration at the two-off nature of this evening but it would be a surprise if a recording or streaming does not spread the remarkable magic. 5 out of 5 stars.

London Theatre (Matt Wolf): “He’s left us with an impossible choice.” So the impresario Cameron Mackintosh told an entirely rapt crowd near the start of Old Friends. … “Impossible” because the legendary composer-lyricist left behind a capacious back catalogue. … “Sunday” brought the first half to a resounding conclusion, as it does the musical of that name. That left the evening to close on a massive wall of sound, a hefty lineup of drama students included. The musical of choice, as it had to be, was Merrily We Roll Along and that show’s ringing reminder of the profound connections we make to life and art — and, on this occasion, to the bequest of a man whose talent will hold pride of place in the musical theatre pantheon for keeps.

WhatsOnStage (Sarah Crompton): In the end, they all stood on the stage under golden lights, linking arms, and watching the young singers from drama schools who formed the choir singing “Our Time.” … Bernadette Peters, Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie, Imelda Staunton, Michael Ball, Daniel Evans, Maria Friedman among them. … The people on stage had lost a friend; the people watching them felt they had lost one. … It was a night to remember, a warm and wonderful riffling through the back catalogue of someone whose astonishing variety and constant exploration changed musical theatre forever— and will … go on inspiring future generations.

Posted in Concert, London, Shows | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mr. Saturday Night Review Roundup

Posted on May 4, 2022 by boz

The Broadway premiere of Mr. Saturday Night, adapted from the 1992 film, has received generally favorable reviews from New York theater critics. The creative team includes Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel (book), Jason Robert Brown (music, orchestrations, arrangements), Amanda Green (lyrics), John Rando (direction), Ellenore Scott (choreography), Scott Pask (sets), Paul Tazewell and Sky Switser (costumes), Kenneth Posner (lights), Kai Harada (sound), Jeff Sugg (projections), and David O (music direction). The cast includes Billy Crystal (Buddy), Randy Graff (Elaine), David Paymer (Stan), Shoshana Bean (Susan), and Chasten Harmon (Annie Wells), with Jordan Gelber, Brian Gonzales, and Mylinda Hull.

Entertainment Weekly (Andrea Towers): It keeps the things that made [the film] fun and unique, such as the references to famous comedians and the many Jewish in-jokes. But it almost goes too heavy on both those elements, which at times can make you feel like you’re sitting in a Catskills recreation hall rather than a Broadway theater. … All do their best to bring to life a show that at times feels bogged down with mediocre songs and lackluster staging. But what the show has trouble selling, the intimate cast mostly makes up for. … For those looking for a Broadway show that’s livelier than a Catskills performance, you might have a hard time finding it. Grade: B-

N.Y. Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): As a piece of theater, the show is a bit of a mess; the jokes, even some of the hoary ones, work better than the storytelling, and the acting styles are all over the place. Still, it makes for a diverting evening. … Crystal is utterly in his element performing live. … Buddy does want to evolve, at least a little. If his epiphany about his need to change seems to arrive out of nowhere, buoyed by piano and brass in a lovely, impassioned solo, we root for his redemption anyway. This is a musical that wants its guy to get a happy ending. Despite all of the show’s faults, and all of Buddy’s, it turns out that so do we.

Time Out (Adam Feldman): By Broadway standards, Mr. Saturday is a modest little show. … Everything about it is resolutely old-fashioned — in some ways it’s a celebration of oldness itself — and it’s not long on drama. … But it delivers exactly what it promises: Crystal, completely in his element, with a crowd that is more than happy to buy what he’s selling. He’s the cream in the borscht, the schmaltz in the gribenes, and his prodigious charm makes Mr. Saturday Night a very haimish experience. If you have a taste for this sort of thing, the show is — o Lord of old comics, forgive me for what I’m about to write — the show is a Crystal ball.

Variety (Frank Rizzo): The end result is certainly the funniest show on Broadway in years, if not the most likable. Look for a healthy run, at least with headliner Crystal. … It knows what it is: A great comic vehicle with a solid-though-unsurprising story — with a little love, if not schmaltz, thrown in for good measure. … It’s clearly not a show about size, scope and production values. It’s about the music, the performances and, ultimately, the comedy. … The uniformly fine cast plays it for laughs, but they also play it for real. … But the show is Crystal’s and he’s earned it, having lived with the character for decades. … Crystal makes us see that even with flawed heroes, there still can be music in the laughs.

Posted in Broadway, Shows | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

¡Americano! Review Roundup

Posted on May 3, 2022 by boz

The new Off-Broadway musical ¡Americano!, based on the true story of undocumented immigrant Tony Valdovinos, has received mixed reviews from New York theater critics. The creative team includes Michael Barnard (book, additional lyrics, direction), Jonathan Rosenberg (book, additional lyrics), Fernanda Santos (book), Carrie Rodriguez (music, lyrics), Sergio Mejia (choreography), Caesar F. Barajas (fights), Jonathan Ivie (music direction, arrangements), Sergio Mendoz (arrangements), Robert Andrew Kovach (sets), Adriana Diaz (costumes), Jamie Roderick (lights), and Kevin Heard (sound). 

The cast includes Sean Ewing (Tony), Legna Cedillo (Ceci), Alex Paez (Martin), Johanna Carlisle-Zepeda (Felicita), Ryan Reyes (Fro), Carolina Miranda (Jessica), Lucas Coatney (Joaquin), and Justin Figueroa (Carlos Ledesma), with Yassmin Alers, Lucas Coatney, Juan Luis Espinal, Anne-Lise Koyabe, Alessandro J. Lopez, Robbie Serrano, and Pablo Torres. The production plays a limited engagement through June 19 at New World Stages. Below is the song “Dreamer” performed by Ewing and company in rehearsal.

Talkin’ Broadway (Howard Miller): There is a cast of 15 playing 18 named characters, all having their own piece of the story to tell … a lot of ground to cover in a little over two-and-a-half hours, which leads to what amounts to a hasty slideshow of a narrative. … ¡Americano! is a personal story that becomes increasingly insistent on being seen and heard. … If as the extensiveness of its creative elements suggests, this show has an eye on a Broadway transfer, it would help oodles to simplify pretty much everything, from the multiple plot elements which introduce and then dismiss far too many characters and situations, to the too-many songs and dance numbers that fill the stage.

Theater Mania (Zachary Stewart): This is an unapologetically sincere flag-waving American musical — and that feels like a breath of fresh air in an age of snark and cynicism. The first act goes down better than the second, when Tony sets about solving his problem through activism. … We cannot help but feel like Tony — that a big secret is being kept from us … a dissonance neither they nor the director were able to resolve. That major-ish problem aside, ¡Americano! proves to be a delight. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and it doesn’t pretend to. It’s just a good old-fashioned musical about a promise America really ought to keep already.

Theater Pizzazz (Marilyn Lesyter): ¡Americano! is an ambitious work, full of energy and zesty music — with hats off to a cast that works hard and with intense commitment to deliver maximum impact … a boon to a piece that’s very much hit or miss. … Barnard’s work is sound, keeping the energy up and action flowing — a positive for a weak book that’s often expository (as are the lyrics) and wanders from the central theme. … ¡Americano! is often too heavy-handed and simply isn’t very compelling. All’s the pity, for there is an important story in Tony Valdovinos’ journey; it’s just not the one being portrayed.

Time Out (Regina Robbins): ¡Americano! is full of lessons about community, family, love and resilience. This new musical’s good intentions are obvious. Unfortunately, so is a lot of the writing. … Ironically, the show is most engaging when its characters are doing everyday, all-American things like prepping for a picnic or dancing in a high school gym — which runs against the message the show tries so passionately to convey. ¡Americano! wants us to take its immigrant characters’ real problems seriously, but the more serious they become, the less real they seem. 2 out of 5 stars.

Posted in Off-Broadway, Shows | Tagged | Leave a comment

A Strange Loop Review Roundup

Posted on April 27, 2022 by boz

New York theater critics have given universally positive reviews to the Broadway transfer of the Pulitzer-winning musical A Strange Loop. The creative team includes Michael R. Jackson (book, music, lyrics), Stephen Brackett (direction), Raja Feather Kelly (choreography), Charlie Rosen (orchestrations), Arnulfo Maldonado (sets), Montana Levi Blanco (costumes), Jen Schriever (lights), Drew Levy (sound), and Cookie Jordan (hair & makeup). The cast includes Jaquel Spivey (Usher) with Antwayn Hopper, James Jackson, Jr., L. Morgan Lee, John-Michael Lyles, John-Andrew Morrison, and Jason Veasey.

N.Y. Times (Maya Phillips): This musical … forgoes the commercial niceties and digestible narratives of many Broadway shows, delivering a story that’s searing and softhearted, uproarious and disquieting. … A Strange Loop pulls off an amazing feat: condensing a complex idea, full of paradoxes and abstractions, into the form of a Broadway musical. … The paradox at the center of it all, of course, is Usher himself, whose brazen theatricality and caustic wit lies beneath his meek exterior. Though a newcomer … Spivey gives an earnest, lived-in performance. … It’s already won the Pulitzer. And yet, it seems as if there is no measure of praise that could be too much; after all, this is a show that allows a Black gay man to be vulnerable onstage without dismissing or fetishizing his trauma, desires and creative ambitions. Now that’s some radical theater.

Talkin’ Broadway (Howard Miller): A Strange Loop … is a perfect fit for Broadway. It is a big tuneful show, a satire with heart that is smartly directed, performed by an exceptionally talented cast, and one that boasts great choreography, a terrific set design, and a wonderful array of costumes. Its content may be focused on a specific individual’s inner turmoil as he struggles to find his place in the world, but the struggle itself is a universal condition. … For all its sometimes rough language and interactions, A Strange Loop has a sense of humor about itself, and it definitely has a big heart. … It is clear that the creative team has worked in close harmony in support of this show, and the payoff is a huge one for an audience craving original new musicals.

Theater Mania (Zachary Stewart): [Jackson] brings a much-needed rebel spirit to Broadway, pushing against the boundaries of acceptable discourse to show us that, like borders, they are only an illusion — a limitation on our free expression to which we all too often consent. The result is a triumphant assertion of individuality in a world that increasingly defines us by demography, largely for the purpose of selling us products and politicians. That makes A Strange Loop the best new musical of the Broadway season. … There’s something in A Strange Loop that will probably offend you; there’s likely also something that will deeply resonate with you, that you didn’t think could be expressed onstage, but is now being shared nightly.

Time Out (Adam Feldman): A Strange Loop is a wild ride. In a Broadway landscape dominated by shows that often seem designed by corporations for audiences of focus groups, Michael R. Jackson’s musical is the defiant product of a single and singular authorial vision. This wide-ranging intravaganza takes a deep dive, often barely coming up for breath, into a whirlpool of ambition and frustration as Jackson’s seeming alter ego … struggles to define himself amid traps of sex, race, family, body image, religion and entertainment. It’s screamingly funny and howlingly hurt, and it’s unmissable. … “I’m into entertainment that’s undercover art,” sings Usher of his ambitions for A Strange Loop. Jackson’s musical delivers on that promise. 5 out of 5 stars.

Posted in Broadway, Shows | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Islander Review Roundup

Posted on April 27, 2022 by boz

The Off-Broadway premiere of the two-hander, a cappella musical Islander, which premiered in 2019 at the Edinburgh Fringe, has received generally positive reviews from New York theater critics. The creative team includes Amy Draper (concept, direction), Stewart Melton (book), Finn Anderson (music, lyrics, music direction), Simon Wilkinson (lights), Sam Kusnetz and Kevin Sweetser (sound), and Hahnji Jang (costumes). The cast includes Kirsty Findlay (Arran) and Bethany Tennick (Eilidh). The production is currently running at Playhouse 46 (formerly St. Luke’s).

Daily Beast (Tim Teeman): Because of when it is opening … this shimmeringly impressive musical … may be overlooked. It should absolutely not be. It has no celebrities (although its two leads Kirsty Findlay and Bethany Tennick should/will be stars). It is so good it deserves to open on Broadway, if its simplicity and ingenuity can be preserved. … Islander is played with the best kind of heart and earnestness — exacting, not cloying or didactic. … The preservation of nature and community is the underlying theme of Islander, but laced with very personal truth into the personalities and stories of Eilidh and Arran. … Islander is really gorgeous — sharp, moving, funny, and one of the best musicals in New York right now that no one (yet) knows about.

Theater Mania (Zachary Stewart): Melton’s subtly charming book, which cleverly declines to fully reveal the mysteries it allows us to glimpse, is set to an original score by Finn Anderson that exudes an a capella pop sensibility (think Pitch Perfect) with inflections of Enya. … Tennick and Findlay make it all look much easier than it is. The two performers are the driving force behind the production, easily slipping in and out of every role. … They are both gifted actors and they always seem to find the right note, with nary a pitch pipe in sight. Under the direction of Amy Draper (who conceived the show), Islander unfolds with a nimbleness that doesn’t sacrifice clarity.

Theaterly (Joey Sims): A ton of new, often daring work is hurriedly opening across New York City stages right now. But few could claim a bolder move than the new musical Islander’s fearless refusal to tone down heavy Scottish accents for New York audiences. … It forces one to truly lean in and focus, to hear the language and feel out every bit of intent. Which for this delightful new show proves very, very rewarding. …Islander is a two-hander, but a vast tale. … Islander is a sorrowful reflection on the destructive consequences of climate change, but never underlines that message, letting the story of a depleted island and forgotten young people get the point across.

Posted in Off-Broadway, Shows | Tagged | Leave a comment

Funny Girl Review Roundup

Posted on April 25, 2022 by boz

The first-ever Broadway revival of Funny Girl has received generally negative reviews from New York theater critics. The production’s creative team includes Isobel Lennart (book), Harvey Fierstein (adaptation), Jule Styne (music), Bob Merrill (lyrics), Michael Meyer (direction), Ellenore Scott and Ayodele Casel (choreography), David Zinn (sets), Susan Hilferty (costumes), Kevin Adams (lights), Brian Ronan (sound), and Chris Walker (orchestrations). The cast includes Beanie Feldstein (Fanny Brice), Ramin Karimloo (Nick Arnstein), Jared Grimes (Eddie Ryan), Jane Lynch (Mrs. Brice), Toni diBuono (Mrs. Strakosh), Debra Cardona (Mrs. Meeker), Martin Moran (Tom Keeney), and Peter Francis James (Florenz Ziegfeld).

Guardian (Adrian Horton): Feldstein brings an endearing everygirl to Fanny. Her crisp comedic timing adapts well to the show’s slapstick. … But this is a musical, one with some full-tilt belting, and her singing just isn’t up to par. … Which is a serious problem when a show hinges on the story of one woman’s undeniable talent. … The rest of the production … seems to be hustling to compensate for this lack. … There are high points to this new Funny Girl — moments of comedy and genuine laughs. But this is Broadway; the bar is higher than that. Funniness alone didn’t make Fanny Brice, the musical character, a star. 3 out of 5 stars.

Hollywood Reporter (David Rooney): [Feldstein] has a lovely, light singing voice in a part that often calls for big-belt power, and she reads girlish, never quite selling the consuming hunger that propels Fanny to stardom. … The revival’s shortcomings by no means rest entirely on Feldstein’s shoulders. … The hurdle with Funny Girl is that it has just two great songs. … Feldstein gives a spirited, highly enjoyable performance, and her freshness drew squeals of appreciation from what seemed like a large contingent of very vocal young female fans on a recent press night. But she never quite makes the material soar, and this is a rickety vehicle that needs a supernova to put gas in its tank.

N.Y. Post (Johnny Oleksinski): The audience members at Funny Girl are not the luckiest people in the world. … The mediocrity that salivating Fanny Brice fans are finally laying their eyes on isn’t particularly funny, or well sung, or well designed or well directed. This sorely lacking new production rains on the old musical’s parade. … We don’t expect any Broadway performer to match up to one of the greatest American vocalists of all time. Feldstein, however, barely muddles through the beloved songs. … From top to bottom, this Funny Girl needed different people. 1-1/2 out of 4 stars.

N.Y. Times (Jesse Green): Without a stupendous Fanny to thrill and distract, the musical’s manifold faults become painfully evident. To rip the bandage off quickly: Feldstein is not stupendous. She’s good. She’s funny enough in places, and immensely likable always. … Still, you can’t blame Feldstein for the show’s problems; that would be like blaming the clown for the elephants. The main elephant is the book, written by Isobel Lennart and fiddled with for this production by Harvey Fierstein, to no avail. … This could all have been predicted; over the years, many revivals have been attempted and defeated because the thing a revival is trying to revive is not to be found in the property itself. It’s in the personality of the necessary star.

Variety (Frank Rizzo): The problem with this uninspired revival of Funny Girl … is not simply the singular ghost of she who shall not be named. (Alright: It’s Barbra Streisand.) Rather, the issue here is the production’s inability to live up to its star-making potential that would have made us once again forgive the simplistic, sentimental and sanitized original book. … To make some kind of emotional sense of Fanny’s character calls for an actress of extraordinary charm, maturity and finesse, one who is able to show motivational shadings beyond the limits of the script. Oh, and sing the hell out of the score.

Posted in Broadway, Shows | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

For Colored Girls Review Roundup

Posted on April 25, 2022 by boz

New York theater critics have given universally positive reviews to the Broadway revival of the 1976 choreopoem For Colored Girls. The creative team includes Ntozake Shange (libretto), Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby (music, orchestrations, arrangements), Camille A. Brown (direction, choreography), Myung Hee Cho (sets), Sarafina Bush (costumes), Jiyoun Chang (lights), Justin Ellington (sound), Aaron Rhyne (projections), Cookie Jordan (hair & wigs), and Deah Love Harriot (music direction). The cast includes Amara Granderson (Lady in Orange), Tendyi Kuumba (Lady in Brown), Kenita R. Miller (Lady in Red), Okwui Okpokwasili (Lady in Green), Stacey Sargeant (Lady in Blue), Alexandria Wailes (Lady in Purple), and D. Woods (Lady in Yellow).

Hollywood Reporter (Lovia Gyarkye): The production .. takes the task of revival seriously — it’s a joy to witness. … With the help of her dynamic cast, Brown, who both directs and choreographs this revival, remixes for colored girls, manipulating sound and movement to reveal even deeper layers. … Stories, in the right hands, can be intoxicating, and for colored girls takes advantage of that. Brown’s cast possesses such an intimate understanding of their characters that even the least subtle of the performances captivates. … The magic of Brown’s version of for colored girls is that it fashions the choreopoem as an invitation.

N.Y. Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): A Broadway homecoming celebration that you will not want to miss: the triumphant return of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls. … Triumphant, that is, because the director-choreographer Camille A. Brown’s thrilling and exuberant revival breathes warm, kinetic life into a canonical work that has been known to suffer from being treated … with a well intended but stifling reverence. Brown’s staging is so attuned to the words and cadences of Shange’s choreopoem, yet so confident in its own interpretive vision, that the characters blossom into their full vibrancy. … In Brown’s sublime and supple channeling, we hear Shange with exquisite clarity.

Time Out (Melissa Rose Bernardo): This rousing revival testifies to the magnitude of [Shange’s] imagination and the unyielding power of the female voice. Almost from the start, the show is in constant motion … stopping the flow only to underscore the text’s most serious moments, such as a still on-point sequence about “latent rapists.” … Though grounded in the experience of Black women in the 1970s, Shange’s poems have a timeless resonance. … When it comes to a heartbreaking end, mama-to-be Miller isn’t the only one in tears. 4 out of 5 stars.

Vulture (Helen Shaw): The seven Ladies don’t simply dance, they now move in spectacular ways. … Brown is one of our finest choreographers, and she is turning her movement-mind to the way women’s bodies carve and take up space — particularly the way these arrangements can actually make weight easier to bear. And there is a lot of weight to carry. … Not to get too mystical about it, but this impeccably performed, exquisitely choreographed revival manages the same for many of us out there in the dark.

Posted in Broadway, Shows | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In Memoriam: Robert Morse

Posted on April 21, 2022 by boz

Two-time Tony-winning performer Robert Morse died at his Los Ageles home on April 20. Born May 18, 1931, in Newton, Mass., Morse, moved to New York after graduating from Newton H.S., joining his older brother Richard, who was studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his TV debut on the series The Secret Storm (1954) and the following year made his Broadway debut as Barnaby Tucker in the original production of The Matchmaker, reprising his performance in the 1958 film.

He returned to Broadway in Say, Darling (1958), a play with songs written by Jule Styne with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, earning his first Tony nomination. The following year, he starred in the musical Take Me Along, earning another Tony nomination. Below, you can listen to Morse sing “Nine O’Clock.” He won his first Tony for the Pulitzer-winning musical How to Succeed … (1961), reprising his performance in the 1967 film. Below is Morse performing “I Believe in You.”

During the Sixties, Morse starred in a series of film comedies and showcased his musical chops in the drama The Cardinal (1963). Below, you can watch Morse perform “They Haven’t Got the Girls in the U.S.A.” He ended the decade with an Emmy nomination for his leading role in the TV sitcom That’s Life, which presented a new musical episode each week. Below is a rare promo of that ABC series.

In 1972, Morse voiced Dudley Pippin on the album Free to Be … You and Me  and starred in the Broadway musical Sugar, earning a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk Award. Below are Morse and Tony Roberts recreating “The Beauty That Drives Men Mad” in a 1999 Carnegie Hall concert. Morse also starred in the short-lived Broadway musical So Long, 174th Street (1976) and voiced Scrooge in the animated TV special The Stingiest Man in Town (1978). Below is “Golden Dreams” sung by Morse with Shelby Flint.

He returned to seasonal TV fare in the title role of Jack Frost (1979), from which you can watch “It’s Lonely Being One of a Kind” below. The following year, Morse headlined the national tour of Sugar Babies with Carol Channing. His other work in the 1980s includes the musical film The Emperor’s New Clothes (1987), from which you can watch “Weave-O” below, and the Broadway play Tru (1989), which brought Morse his second Tony and Drama Desk awards plus an Emmy for its 1993 PBS broadcast. In 1999, Morse was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

In 2003, Morse originated the role of the Wizard in Wicked, but he left the show before its Broadway opening. From 2007 to 2015, Morse had a recurring role the series Mad Men, which brought him five Emmy nominations. Below is Morse singing “The Best Things in Life Are Free.” From 2015 to 2019, he voiced Santa Claus in the animated series Teen Titans Go! Below (at 2:51) is Morse singing “It’s Not About the Parts.”

Posted in People, Performers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment