2022 Oscar Short Lists

Posted on December 22, 2021 by boz

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled the shortlists in 10 categories of the 94th annual Academy Awards: Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, International Feature Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, Music (Original Score), Music (Original Song), Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Sound and Visual Effects.

Of the 136 scores eligible this year, 15 advanced in the Original Score category, which Music Branch members will vote on to determine the final nominees. The composers include former Oscar nominees Kris Bowers (King Richard), Nicholas Britell (Don’t Look Up), Carter Burwell (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Alexandre Desplat (The French Dispatch), Alberto Iglesias (Parallel Mothers), Daniel Pemberton (Being the Ricardos), and the doubly listed Hans Zimmer (Dune; No Time to Die) and Jonny Greenwood (The Power of the Dog; Spencer). The remaining composers are Germaine Franco (Encanto), Harry Gregson-Williams (The Last Duel), Daniel Hart (The Green Knight), Lichens (Candyman), and Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall).

Of the 84 songs eligible this year, 15 advanced in the Original Song category, which Music Branch members will vote on to determine the final nominees. The list includes all five Golden Globe nominees: Van Morrison for “Down to Joy” (Belfast), Lin-Manuel Miranda for “Dos Oruguitas” (Encanto), Beyoncé and Dixson for “Be Alive” (King Richard), Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for “No Time to Die” (No Time to Die), and Jamie Hartman, Jennifer Hudson, and Carole King for “Here I Am” (Respect). 

Other songwriters from musical films are Sparks and Leos Carax for “So May We Start?” (Annette), Brian Wilson and Jim James for “Right Where I Belong” (Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road), Idina Menzel and Laura Veltz for “Dream Girl” (Cinderella), Amandla Stenberg for “The Anonymous Ones” (Dear Evan Hansen), and U2 for “Your Song Saved My Life” (Sing 2). 

The writers from nonmusical films are Van Hunt, Brittany Hazard, and H.E.R. for “Automatic Woman” (Bruised), Nick Baxter, Siân Heder, Marius de Vries, and Matt Dahan for “Beyond the Shore” (CODA), Ariana Grande and Scott Mescudi for “Just Look Up” (Don’t Look Up), Diane Warren for “Somehow You Do” (Four Good Days), and Scott Mescudi and Jay-Z for “Guns Go Bang” (The Harder They Fall).

Nominations voting begins January 27 and ends February 1, with the slate for all Oscar categories announced February 8. The winners will be revealed in the March 27 awards ceremony at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, which will be televised live on ABC.

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Los Angeles Times: Best Theater of 2021

Posted on December 21, 2021 by boz

This week, Los Angeles Times critic Charles McNulty offered “ten reasons to be grateful in another sputtering theatrical year.” He noted some “memories that cry out for commemoration,” since “ranking of the best productions of 2021 makes little sense in light of what we’ve been through.” His “personal record of gratitude for the productions, performers, visionaries and venues that have kept the art form dazzlingly alive on our stages and screens during yet another impossibly difficult year” included a handful of musicals. 

First is the Los Angeles premiere of the 2016 Tony-winning The Band’s Visit, which stopped for a three-week run at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre in November during the show’s first national tour. McNulty found the production “renewed my flagging spirit.”

Next is the L.A. return of the 2015 Tony-winning Hamilton, whose Eliza company opened in August at the Pantages, where the Angelica company had premiered the show in 2017, and “delivered what everyone in the room had for too long been missing.”

Third is the production of the 2018 musical Head over Heels at Pasadena Playhouse, which reopened in November with this jukebox musical of Go-Go’s hits in “a high voltage shock of communal joy.”

The final show is the original Lizastrata, a mashup of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Liza Minnelli, which Troubadour Theater Company brought to the Getty Villa in September, “motored by the music hall pizzazz of the show’s Lizastrata (Cloie Wyatt Taylor).”

Cloie Wyatt Taylor and cast. (photo by Craig Schwartz)

Rounding out McNulty’s commemoration of theatrical memories is the Broadway community’s gathering on November 28 in Times Square to sing “Sunday” (from Sunday in the Park with George) in honor of the late Stephen Sondheim, which “has become 2021’s 11 o’clock number.”

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Bring It On Review Roundup

Posted on December 19, 2021 by boz

Critics have given generally positive reviews to the London revival of the 2012 musical Bring It On, based on the 2000 film, which runs at Southbank Centre through January 22, before embarking on a UK tour. The creative team includes Jeff Whitty (book), Lin-Manuel Miranda (music, lyrics), Tom Kitt (music), Amanda Green (lyrics), Guy Unsworth (direction), Fabian Aloise (choreography), Libby Watson (sets), Susan Kulkarni (costumes), Matt Daw (lights), Ross Portway (sound), Mark Crossland (music supervision), Sarah Burrell (music direction), and Danny MacDonald (acrobatic direction). 

The cast includes Amber Davies (Campbell), Louis Smith (Cameron), Vanessa Fisher (Danielle), Alicia Belgarde (Eva), Georgia Bradshaw (Nautica), Connor Carson (Randall), Marvyn Charles (Twig), Chelsea Hall (Bridget), Jal Joshua (La Cienega), Chloe Pole (Skylar), Biancha Szynal (Kylar), and Samuel Wilson-Freeman (Steven), with ensemble members Oliver Adam-Reynolds, Paris Green, Sergi Ibanez, Jordan Isaac, Bethany Kate, Gareth Moran, Ayden Morgan, Kenedy Small, and Zinzile Tshuma.

Evening Standard (Alice Saville): Spilling across the stage in an immaculately choreographed tumble of lithe limbs, blinding lights and bewildering plot twists, Bring It On is a wonder to behold. If musical theatre performers are normally triple threats, its cast are quadruple threats, capable of basket tosses and backflips alongside singing, dancing and acting. … Guy Unsworth excels at creating a pacy production that’s slick as a cheerleader’s ponytail, aided by Fabian Aloise’s brilliant choreography. … However hollow its story might feel, it’s hard to beat this musical for puppyish energy and teenage (high) kicks. 3 out of 5 stars.

Guardian (Chris Wiegand): The casting of Olympian Louis Smith in a supporting role highlights its particular combination of gymnastics, choreography and cheer-ography. … Davies, who has lines that chime with her Love Island success, gives Campbell a spirited sense of determination and gradual depth, though her romance with Randall (Connor Carson) never catches fire. Vanessa Fisher richly delivers Danielle’s songs, Chloe Pole impresses as a fabulously self-involved queen of snark and Chelsea Hall is a riot as Bridget. … Making her professional debut, Hall has charisma to spare in a performance that really does makes you cheer. 3 out of 5 stars.

London Theatre (Sophie Thomas): When the whole cast is dancing in unison, there’s a palpable electricity around the auditorium. The Bring It On cast have drilled their routines within an inch of their life. … Having played the role during her professional training, Davies plays Campbell like seeing a homecoming queen return to her rightful position. There’s also an appearance from Olympian and Strictly winner Louis Smith, who delivers a solid musical theatre debut. … Forget festive cheer this winter, Bring It On puts cheer sport firmly on London’s map, and I defy anyone to leave Bring It On without a big smile. 5 out of 5 stars.

Telegraph (Clare Allfree): The original film, in which an all-white high school team nicks an all black squad’s hip-hop moves, wrapped a disarmingly breezy plot around an early if superficial look at cultural appropriation. … Yet the point of this musical is not the politics, but the routines … with Olympic gymnast turned performer Louis Smith adding some additional silver medal athleticism to the Jackson squad. It’s technically brilliant and effortlessly cool. And if the characters are largely two dimensional, the cast radiate plenty of compensating charisma. … There are better YA shows out there right now, but none provide such easy cheesy fun as this. 3 out of 5 stars.

WhatsOnStage (Alex Wood): For the most part, it’s bland, beat-for-beat high school musical fare, a more physical, less edgy Heathers with some fun one-liners and catchy tunes. … The production has a few tricks up its sleeve — namely choreographer Fabian Aloise. … [Davies] is a note-perfect Campbell (there’s even a fun Love Island gag there for the fans). Vanessa Fisher … provides drive and sits squarely at the emotional heart of the conflict. … There are enough high-octane experiences to keep the whole thing buzzing along with respectable pace. … If you let yourself go with the flow and hop onto the bandwagon, there’s definitely some festive cheer to be had. 3 out of 5 stars.

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The Streets of New York Review Roundup

Posted on December 16, 2021 by boz

The Off-Broadway revival of the 2002 musical The Streets of New York, adapted from Dion Boucicault’s 1857 play The Poor of New York, itself based on the 1856 Les Pauvres de Paris by Edouard-Louis-Alexandre Brisbarre and Eugene Nus, has received generally positive reviews. The creative team includes Charlotte Moore (adaptation, songs, direction), Mark Hartman (music direction), Barry McNabb (choreography), Hugh Landwehr (sets), Linda Fisher (costumes), Michael Gottlieb (lights), M. Florian Staab (sound), Deirdre Brennan (props), and Robert-Charles Vallance (hair & wigs). The cast includes Amy Bodnar (Susan Fairweather), Amanda Jane Cooper (Alida Bloodgood), Richard Henry (Dermot Puffy), David Hess (Gideon Bloodgood), Ben Jacoby (Mark Livingston), Justin Keyes (Brendan Badger), Daniel J. Maldonado (Patrick Fairweather / Duke Vlad), Polly McKie (Dolly Puffy), Jordan Tyson (Dixie Puffy), Ryan Vona (Paul Fairweather), Price Waldman (Edwards), and DeLaney Westfall (Lucy Fairweather). The production continues its limited engagement at Irish Rep through January 30.

Amanda Jane Cooper (photo by Carol Rosegg)

New York Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): Directed by Moore on an agile, stylized set by Hugh Landwehr, it’s a pleasurable escape, for a tuneful two-plus hours, into a quasi-cartoon version of old New York, where the virtuous struggle and the villainous thrive. … For the most part, the show deftly balances dark and light even as it retains Boucicault’s social critique of the rich nonchalantly crushing the poor. But the ending teeters into treacle with would-be uplift aimed at the audience, which feels out of joint with the rest. That is a minor point, though, in a production that is otherwise wonderfully done. … This is an old-fashioned, get-your-mind-off-things kind of show. Grab your vaccine card, put on a good mask and go.

Talkin’ Broadway (David Hurst): Despite a talented cast who throw themselves into the story with grit and gusto, audiences may have a hard time buying into an old-fashioned production that’s more sigh-inducing than charming. … The pacing is often sluggish and there are vacillations in tone which are problematic. Everyone isn’t working in the same style, which can spell disaster for a melodrama. Fortunately, the cast sings quite well. … As our ingenue leads, Ben Jacoby and DeLaney Westfall both have lovely voices, and they make the most of ballads. … But at two and a half hours, The Streets of New York may be too melodramatic by half.

Theater Mania (Pete Hempstead): The original version of Dion Boucicault’s 1857 play The Poor of New York … lacks plot surprises, character development, and believable dialogue. … Even with song and dance added in, the show is still a hard sell. But thanks to a talented cast that, for the most part, leans into the camp potential inherent in the play’s absurdly artificial language, this current revival avoids going completely up in flames. … Moore’s music is not especially memorable either, but it keeps the otherwise languorous plot trotting along. … By the end, the cast really gets the camp fire crackling. If only it had been going the whole time.

Time Out (Adam Feldman): Just in time for the holiday season, the Irish Rep has cooked up a chestnut. … This play doesn’t stint on old-timey dastardy, reversals of luck, virtuous sacrifice and sentimental romance. Its pot boileth over. Moore’s adaptation embraces the play’s quaint sensationalism and sententiousness with open arms and a wink. … It takes a while for the show to properly settle its tongue into cheek. But it clicks in with “Oh How I Love Being Rich,” a spoiled-brat aria sung by … the marvelous Amanda Jane Cooper. … It’s mostly good, silly fun from then on, buoyed by a talented cast of 12. 4 out of 5 stars.

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Flying over Sunset Review Roundup

Posted on December 15, 2021 by boz

New York theater critics have given mixed reviews to the new musical Flying over Sunset, which plays a limited engagement through February 6 at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater. The creative team includes James Lapine (book, direction), Tom Kitt (music), Michael Korie (lyrics), Michelle Dorrance (choreography), Beowulf Boritt (sets), Toni-Leslie James (costumes), Matthew Armentrout (hair & wigs), Bradley King (lights), Dan Moses Schreier (sound), 59 Productions (projections), Michael Starobin (orchestrations), and Kimberly Grigsby (music direction).

The cast includes Hary Hadden-Paton (Aldous Huxley), Carmen Cusack (Clare Boothe Luce), and Tony Yazbeck (Cary Grant), with Kanisha Marie Feliciano (Ann / Judith), Nehal Joshi (Dr. Harris / Cary’s Father), Emily Pynenburg (Rosalia / Sophia), Michele Ragusa (Austin / Handmaiden), Robert Sella (Gerald Herad), Laura Shoop (Maria Huxley), and Atticus Ware (Archie Leach).

Broadway News (Charles Isherwood): Other people’s dreams are boring to hear about, so you would assume that other people’s acid trips are equally if not more eye-glazing. And yet the ambitious and frequently moving musical Flying over Sunset defies such assumptions. … Among the primary pleasures of Flying over Sunset is the sumptuous, symphonic score, which attempts to channel through music the rapturous experiences the characters go through. … It’s a valiant and intriguing journey into uncharted territory. This musical attempts to expand the possibilities of musical theater, just as its characters were intent on expanding their consciousnesses.

New York Times (Jesse Green): Though sometimes mesmerizing, Flying over Sunset … is mostly bewildering, and further proof that transcendence can’t be shared. It admits as much in its structure, which throws into one scenario (by James Lapine) three famous seekers who never actually got high together. … Lapine, who also directed the show, steers Flying over Sunset in some very strange and ultimately tiresome directions. … The second act, with its nonstop LSD sequences, goes quickly downhill. … If the drug offers access to a shared consciousness that can help humans connect, neither the show nor the subsequent lives of its real-life characters demonstrate it. … Some mysteries, this musical among them, are too interior to be understood.

Theater Mania (David Gordon): The description almost sounds like a joke. … Unfortunately, I don’t have a punchline, and neither, it seems, do the creators of the new Broadway musical Flying over Sunset, who take this one-line synopsis and stretch it out to nearly three unsustainable hours. … While I’ll give Flying over Sunset some well-earned points for its originality (the theatrical equivalent of an A for effort, I guess, but that and a dollar will get you on the subway), the show ultimately commits the cardinal sin of entertainment: It’s just boring. There are people who will get more out of this abstract musical about grief than I did, and I hope they do. As for me, I’m just gonna take an edible and watch North by Northwest.

Time Out (Adam Feldman): If you’ve ever been cornered at a party by someone describing at length how high they are, when you yourself are not high, then you have some idea what awaits you at Flying over Sunset. … Most of the show is disappointingly old-fashioned: Hair, but square. … This, alas, is not musical theater on acid; this is acid on musical theater. The Lincoln Center production has real pleasures. … And the staging is very handsome indeed. … But these elements can only distract so much from a show that would probably make more sense as a one-act in a smaller space. What a long, strange trip it is. 3 out of 5 stars.

Variety (Marilyn Stasio): In the midst of the deadly dull 1950s, Hollywood celebs Cary Grant, Claire Booth Luce and Aldous Huxley escape their ennui by dropping acid. No serious sex is involved and no one rushes out on a frantic candy run but much witty chitchat ensues in Flying over Sunset, a stylish new Broadway musical. … The show’s trippy sensibility is strikingly displayed on Beowulf Boritt’s spare, highly stylized cycloramic set and under Bradley King’s luscious lighting. … There’s also a terrific scene of Grant, Huxley and Heard gamboling in the ocean in swimsuits. Although cleverly staged by choreographer Dorrance, it would have been more terrific — and more theatrically appropriate — if they’d been naked.

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AP Breakthrough Entertainers of 2021

Posted on December 15, 2021 by boz

Yesterday, the Associated Press named its eight Breakthrough Entertainers of the Year, the fifth annual list from the American news agency. This year’s honorees include “Todo de Ti” rapper Rauw Alejandro, Outside the Wire actor Damson Idris, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings actor Simu Liu, “Best Friend” rapper Saweetie, Squid Game actor Anupam Tripathi, and White Lotus actress Sydney Sweeney, plus musical actresses Adrienne Warren and Rachel Zegler, the first theater performers named since Beanie Feldstein made the AP’s inaugural list in 2017.

Adrienne Warren made her Broadway debut in the 2012 musical Bring It On and received a 2016 Tony nomination for her performance in Shuffle Along. Her breakthrough came when she was cast in the title role of the 2018 West End production of Tina, for which she received an Olivier nomination. She reprised that role in the 2019 Broadway premiere and received a Tony Award. Below is Warren at the 2019 Oliviers.

High school student Rachel Zegler performed Maria in West Side Story at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in 2017, so when director Steven Spielberg posted an open casting call in 2018 for a new film adaptation of the muscial, the 16-year-old Zegler sent in videos of herself singing the show’s “Tonight” and “I Feel Pretty” — and beat out 35,000 hopefuls to win the film role. Below is Zegler and Ansel Elgort in a clip of “Tonight.”

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2022 Golden Globe Nominations

Posted on December 14, 2021 by boz

Yesterday, Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Helen Hoehne and rapper Snoop Dogg announced the nominees for the 79th Golden Globe Awards to honor the best in film and American TV from 2021. You can watch the livestream below. The most nominated films were Belfast and The Power of the Dog, with seven nods each, and the most nominated TV program was Succession, with five. The winners will be revealed at a ceremony on January 9, 2022, though numerous media organizations (including regular TV broadcaster NBC), actors, and others plan to boycott the event over HFPA’s inadequate efforts to address its membership diversity.

Three musicals are in the running for Best Musical or Comedy Motion Picture, all of which were adapted from stage productions. In addition to their nods for best film, Cyrano and Tick, Tick … Boom! also received notice for their leading actors, Peter Dinklage and Andrew Garfield, respectively, while West Side Story also received nods for director Steven Spielberg, lead actress Rachel Zegler, and supporting actress Ariana DeBose. 

Lead actress Marion Cotillard was the lone nominee from Annette, and lead actor Anthony Ramos received the only nod for In the Heights. The sole musical nominee among the TV categories is lead actress Cynthia Erivo for the TV film Genius: Aretha.

In the running for original score are Alexandre Desplat (The French Dispatch), Germaine Franco (Encanto), Jonny Greenwood (The Power of the Dog), Alberto Iglesias (Parallel Mothers), and Hans Zimmer (Dune). The musical Encanto is also in consideration for animated film and its original song “Dos Oruguitas” by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The other contenders for original song are “Be Alive” (King Richard) by Dixon and Beyoncé, “Down to Joy” (Belfast) by Van Morrision, “Here I Am” (Respect) by Carole King, Jennifer Hudson, and Jamie Hartman, and “No Time to Die” (No Time to Die) by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell.

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In Memoriam: Leonard Soloway

Posted on December 14, 2021 by boz

Tony-winning producer Leonard Soloway died December 11 in Palm Springs. Born May 9, 1928, in Cleveland, Soloway began his theatrical career during his teens, working both onstage and backstage at Cleveland Play House. He graduated from Shaker Heights H.S. and studied acting at Carnegie Tech, but he clashed with his teachers and dropped out, moving to New York in 1947. He soon was hired as assistant stage manager for the ANTA production of Brecht’s Galileo starring Charles Laughton. Though Soloway hoped he might become an actor, as he became more involved behind the scenes, he realized there was more money in producing than in performing. In 1954, he earned his first Off-Broadaway program credit as stage manager for the Henry Street Settlement production of Giraudoux’s Electra. 

In 1961, Soloway had his first Broadway program credit as house manager at the 46th Street (now Richard Rodgers) Theatre, then home to the Pulitzer-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Over the next few years, he quickly rose through the ranks, serving as company manager for the revue New Faces of 1962, before landing a long-time gig as theater manager of Broadway’s Lunt Fontanne Theatre in 1965, then home to the musical Skyscraper. He produced his first Broadway show in 1966, the Hal Holbrook solo Mark Twain Tonight!, which you can sample below.

Soloway’s first Broadway musical production was the 1971 revue To Live Another Summer, To Pass Another Winter. Below is the original cast in the opening number, “Son of Man.” In 1973, he added general manager to his resume, serving in that capacity for the 1975 revue Rodgers & Hart and 1976 musical Rockabye Hamlet. He ended the decade with his first Drama Desk nomination and Tony Award win as producer of the 1977 Pulitzer-winning play The Shadow Box.

In the 1980s, Soloway continued as both producer and general manager on numerous shows. He produced the Cole Porter jukebox musical Happy New Year (1980) on Broadway and the Harlequinade Off-Broadway musical Head over Heels (1981). His Broadway general management credits during the decade include the Loesser revue Perfectly Frank (1980), Barbara Cook’s Concert for the Theatre (1987), and the Tony-winning revue Jerome Robbins’ Broadway (1989), which you can watch below at the 1989 Tony Awards.

During the 1990s, he was general manager of the Broadway musicals Those Were the Days (1990), Metro (1992), and The Goodbye Girl (1993) and was producer of the Off-Broadway plays Gross Indecency (1997), which earned him a Lortel Award, and As Bees in Honey Drown (1998), which earned him a Drama Desk nomination, as well as the Broadway play The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1998), which brought him a Tony nomination and Drama Desk win, and the Dame Edna solo The Royal Tour (1999), which brought him a special Tony Award. Below is The Goodbye Girl at the 1993 Tonys.

His productions in the 2000s included Tommy Tune’s Off-Broadway revue White Tie & Tails (2002), the Broadway musical Urban Cowboy (2003), the Off-Broadway musical From My Hometown (2004), and Whoopi Goldberg’s Broadway solo Whoopi (2004), which earned him a Tony nomination. He also served a general manager for the Broadway musicals Hot Feet (2006) and The Story of My Life (2009). His most recent producing credit was the Maurice Hines Off-Broadway revue Tappin’ Thru Life (2015), which brought Soloway a Lortel nomination. His life and career were showcased in the 2019 documentary Leonard Soloway’s Broadway.

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2022 WhatsOnStage Nominations

Posted on December 13, 2021 by boz

On a livestream from the Off West End’s The Other Palace, Labour of Love playwright James Graham and Get Up, Stand Up! performer Gabrielle Brooks announced the nominees for the 22nd annual WhatsOnStage Awards. The West End transfer of Frozen earned the most nods (13), matching a record set by the musical & Juliet in 2019, while the Almeida production of The Tragedy of Macbeth scored the most nominations for a play (5). London theatregoers can vote now through January 21, and the winners will be revealed on February 27 during the awards ceremony at the Prince of Wales Theatre, co-produced by Paul Taylor-Mills and Sita McIntosh.

The 13 nominations for Frozen include musical, direction (Michael Grandage), choreography (Rob Ashford), female (Samantha Barks), female (Stephanie McKeon), supporting male (Oliver Ormson), supporting male (Obioma Ugoala), sets (Christopher Oram), costumes (Christopher Oram), lights (Neil Austin), music direction (Stephen Oremus), video (Finn Ross), and graphic design (Bob King Creative).

The Bob Marley jukebox musical Get Up, Stand Up! earned 10 nods for musical, direction (Clint Dyer), choreography (Shelley Maxwell), male (Arinzé Kene), supporting female (Gabrielle Brooks), costumes (Lisa Duncan), lights (Charles Balfour), musical direction (Sean Green), video (Tal Yarden), and graphic design (Michael Nash Associates). The musical adaptation of Back to the Future received nine nominations, including musical, male (Roger Bart), male (Olly Dobson), supporting male (Hugh Coles), supporting male (Cedric Neal), sets (Tim Hatley), lights (Tim Lutkin), sound (Gareth Owen), and video (Finn Ross).

Seven nods went to Cinderella, including musical, male (Ivano Turco), female (Carrie Hope Fletcher), supporting female (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt), supporting female (Rebecca Trehearn), costumes (Gabriela Tylesova), and lights (Bruno Poet). And seven nods went to Moulin Rouge!, including musical, choreography (Sonya Tayeh), sets (Derek McLane), costumes (Catherine Zuber), lights (Justin Townsend), musical direction (Justin Levine), and sound (Peter Hylenski). 

The final best musical nominee is Pretty Woman, which also earned a nomination for leading female Aimie Atkinson.

Leading the revivals was Cabaret, which was nominated for revival, direction (Rebecca Frecknall), male (Eddie Redmayne), female (Jessie Buckley), sets (Tom Scutt), costumes (Tom Scutt), and lights (Isabella Byrd). Next is Chichester Festival’s South Pacific, nominated for revival, regional production, choreography (Ann Yee), male (Julian Ovenden), supporting female (Joanna Ampil), and sound (Paul Groothuis). 

Hope Mill Theatre’s Rent earned nods for revival, regional production, supporting female (Millie O’Connell), music direction (Katy Richardson), and graphic design (Feast Creative). Anything Goes at the Barbican Centre was nominated for revival, choreography (Kathleen Marshall), supporting male (Robert Lindsay, and supporting female (Carly Mercedes Dyer). 

The Regent’s Park Carousel saw nods for revival, choreography (Drew McOnie), and musical direction (Tom Deering), while West Side Story at Curve, Leicester, earned nominations for revival and regional production.

Other regional shows on the list include the UK tour of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, noted for regional production, sets (Jamie Harrison), and costumes (Gabriella Slade), and Birmingham Rep’s What’s New Pussycat?, earning nods for regional production and video (Akhila Krishnan). The final regional nod went to Bloody Elle, seen at Manchester Royal Exchange.

The musicals vying for Off-West End production include Charing Cross Theatre’s Pippin and Southwark Playhouse’s The Last Five Years, which also earned nods for musical direction (Leo Munby) and sound (Adam Fisher).

Musicals earning their single nomination for best West End show include Come from Away, Hamilton, Les Misérables, Six, and Wicked. Other shows with one nominee include The Drifters Girl for female (Beverley Knight), Be More Chill for supporting male (Blake Patrick Anderson), and Hope Mill’s Manchester revival of The Wiz for graphic design (Christopher D Clegg).

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Cabaret Revival Review Roundup

Posted on December 13, 2021 by boz

The West End revival of the 1966 musical Cabaret has received universal acclaim from London theater critics. The creative team includes Joe Masteroff (book), John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics), Rebecca Frecknall (direction), Julia Cheng (choreography), Tom Scutt (sets, costumes), Isabella Byrd (lights), Nick Lidster (sound), and Jennifer Whyte (musical direction). The cast includes Eddie Redmayne (Emcee), Jessie Buckley (Sally), Omari Douglas (Cliff), Liza Sadovy (Fraulein Schneider), Elliot Levey (Herr Schultz), Stewart Clarke (Ernst), and Anna-Jane Casey (Fraulein Kost).

Redmayne and Buckley

Arts Desk (David Nice): Has there ever been a Cabaret as dangerous as this one? Rebecca Frecknall’s disorienting take on the Kander and Ebb classic pulls you in and spits you out in a reinvention that pushes or dissolves boundaries at every twist and turn. … Meticulously detailed, with a good eye for symmetries dark and light, and holding a fine balance between then and now — a cast with various gender identifications has, she says, brought its own experiences to bear — Frecknall’s production will surely repay several visits. Believe me, this is an experience well up to the standards of the very best you’d pay a lot for at Glyndebourne or the Royal Opera. So sell or tell your mama, papa, uncle, aunt, brother or sister to see it. 5 out of 5 stars.

Daily Mail (Patrick Marmion): John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical is really about the feisty singer Sally Bowles (Jessie Buckley) and Clifford Bradshaw, the young American writer who becomes her lover — a revelation here in the form of Omari Douglas. The other big star here though is Tom Scutt’s astonishing makeover of the Playhouse Theatre. … Some of the best, damn near show-stealing, moments, though, come from Liza Sadovy and Elliot Levey as the aging landlady and her gently saucy Jewish admirer. … This eagerly anticipated new staging of Cabaret certainly looks good, sounds good — and runs like clockwork. 4 out of 5 stars.

Evening Standard (Nick Curtis): Wow. Rebecca Frecknall’s new revival of Kander and Ebb’s musical set in interwar Berlin is a stunning, breathlessly exciting theatrical happening. It feels loyal to the 1966 original yet astonishingly contemporary, and properly immersive. … The louche, gender-fluid ensemble, writhing in variations of lingerie and lederhosen to Julia Cheng’s sinewy choreography, and the female-led orchestra are impeccable. Again, just wow. … In this fine balance of spectacle and grit, decadence and despair, Frecknall proves herself one of our most exciting directors, and she draws superb performances from all involved. 5 out fo 5 stars.

Guardian (Arifa Akbar): Frecknall’s production on the whole lives up to its hype, magnetising us with flamboyant camp and then delivering menace that feels freshly charged. … Julia Cheng’s sinewy and soaring choreography is key to the tip from hedonism to hate: high-kicks start to resemble goose-steps and street violence is conveyed in a dance of outstretched limbs and a jacket balled in the fists of the performers. Redmayne creeps around the fringes of the stage when he is not performing, watching scenes from afar. If this show is sold on his star turn, we get more than our money’s worth with his blinding performance — in this blinder of a show. 4 out of 5 stars.

Hollywood Reporter (Demetrios Matheou): While Rebecca Frecknall’s offering bears a certain kinship to the Mendes/Marshall model … it confidently charts its own course. Transforming one of the West End’s smaller theaters into an intoxicatingly immersive space, and with its star pairing of Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley, this is spectacularly staged, fabulous fun — decadent, delightful and absorbing. … The phenomenally gifted Buckley is as much a sell for the production as Redmayne. … Buckley knocks the title song, “Cabaret,” out of the park, unleashing so much despair and anger and roaring defiance.

Independent (Alexandra Pollard): There is an air of dramatic secrecy around Rebecca Frecknall’s remarkable new production of Cabaret. … Redmayne is excellent, contorting his sinewy body and singing with a closed-throated vibrato and hammed-up German accent. The production belongs, though, to Jessie Buckley. … Buckley nails the nuances and jarring contradictions of Sally, who wears so many impenetrable layers of bluster and bravado that in lesser hands she could be hard to get a handle on. … Surely the most powerful moment — and perhaps the best musical-theatre performance I have ever seen live — is Buckley’s rendition of the title song. … Original director Hal Prince called Cabaret “a parable of contemporary morality.” In such capable hands, it’s a parable that still packs a punch. 5 out of 5 stars.

Telegraph (Dominic Cavendish): This is it. This is the one. At the end of the year, Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Cabaret … stands revealed as 2021’s kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph. It affirms the sensuous joy of performance after so much privation and brilliantly re-asserts the ability of Kander and Ebb’s 1966 classic … to send shivers down the spine; there are inevitable topical frissons too. … The intensified nature of Frecknall’s approach cleverly marries the work’s disparate worlds and, by degrees, the good times turn bad, the big-top sounds acquire a more militarised hue, and tenderness marches off. … Never mind “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome.” I’d say, dig like your life depended on it into your pockets, and Gehen, allez, go. 5 out of 5 stars.

Time Out (Andrzej Lukowski): Come to the cabaret, old chums, and see the stage performance of the year from Jessie Buckley! Gasp at the terrific supporting cast in Rebecca Frecknall’s luxury revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical masterpiece, foremost Omari Douglas’s passionate, tender, little boy lost Clifford! Be wowed by Tom Scutt’s literally transformative design! … It’s a lot. There’s the Hollywood superstar off doing his own thing. There’s the radical redesign of the theatre, and the bells and whistles that come with that. … And then the actual, brilliant, chilling story of Cabaret, superbly realised, with a performance from Jessie Buckley that deserves to win awards. 4 out of 5 stars.

Variety (David Benedict): The triumph — that’s not too strong a word — of director Rebecca Frecknall’s stunner of a production is that, despite piercing performances from Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne, her supremely intelligent, emotionally draining vision of the show turns it, enthrallingly, into “All About Berlin.” … Designer Tom Scutt hasn’t just re-routed the building; he’s re-conceived the auditorium. Out goes the proscenium arch and the entire fabric and texture. It’s now a dimly lit Art Nouveau palace of faded grandeur. … For once the overworked term “immersive” is entire justified and the mood feeds the interpretation.

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