Three Cheers for Not-Lea-Michele!

Erm, I mean, three cheers for Lauren Ambrose! Y'all, how great is FUNNY GIRL going to be? As evidenced by this utterly charming interview with New York Magazine, girlfriend is just the bees knees.

Also, this:

La Cage, Revisited

I am convinced that if you love broadway musicals, it is impossible not to adore La Cage Aux Folles. Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein created a damn near perfect musical that remains relevant in spite of having been written almost thirty years ago, when the gay landscape was so different than it is today - and in many ways, thankfully so. It's delightful, emotional, hysterically funny, and the songs are gorgeous. You don't need to know much of the show's history to love it, but my perspective was forever changed when I watched the great PBS documentary Words and Music by Jerry Herman, and learned that half of the original ensemble of La Cage didn't live to finish the run. What started as a mysterious plague became the AIDS crisis, and its stranglehold on the gay community incited homophobia with unprecedented intensity. Meanwhile, here was this one place in New York where drag queens were singing about love, hope, and acceptance. Now that's seeing things from a different angle.

With all of this in mind, it's pretty magical to see this spirited revival so lovingly embraced by a modern audience, and remarkable to see the show's own Tony-winning book writer in the lead role of Albin. Harvey Fierstein has hinted that this production is the most satisfying one to his taste, in part because the real love between the story's central couple can finally take the spotlight in a way that perhaps was less palatable for audiences in the past. To say that Fierstein shines in the role would be an insult to the sequin - he beams, he dazzles, and he delights. And though Fierstein's performance is the bigger news story, his counterpart Christopher Sieber deserves equal praise. Sieber's George is buoyant yet understated, and he holds the audience rapt in the quiet moments that reveal the true heart of La Cage, which is not really about a drag act but about the powerful bonds between members of a family who fiercely love each other.

A brief note to the Cagelles - Girl, you are fierce! Kick your face. Work!

It's also one of those musicals that gets filed under The Tao of Musical Theater Lyrics. I can personally guarantee that anyone who wakes up each morning and recites the following mantra will be at least a little bit happier.

The best of times is now.

What's left of Summer

But a faded rose?

The best of times is now.

As for tomorrow,

Well, who knows? Who knows? Who knows?

So hold this moment fast,

And live and love

As hard as you know how.

And make this moment last

Because the best of times is now,

Is now, is now.

Now, not some forgotten yesterday.

Now, tomorrow is too far away.

So hold this moment fast,

And live and love

As hard as you know how.

And make this moment last,

Because the best of times is now,

Is now, is now.

It Sucks to be Mormon

It's no secret that original Broadway musical offerings have been beyond limp lately. So when the guys behind South Park teamed up with the composer-lyricist of Avenue Q, the theater kids obligingly whipped themselves into a frenzy of anticipation. Early enthusiasm has now been corroborated by reviews that exalt The Book of Mormon as the savior of the Broadway Musical. I was at opening last night, and it's pretty great, and very funny - but my my, how contrast elevates the very good to genius heights.

Time Out NY:
As you laugh your head off at perky Latter-day Saints tap-dancing while fiercely repressing gay tendencies deep in the African bush, you will be transported back ten years, when The Producers and Urinetown resurrected American musical comedy...

The Hollywood Reporter:
One of the freshest original musicals in recent memory. It has tuneful songs, clever lyrics, winning characters, explosive laughs and disarmingly intimate moments.

NY Magazine:
Mormon chipperly shitcans all pieties … except the sacred, mystic conventions of musical theater. And therein lies the real miracle: ...Parker and Stone—the sincerest, most serious-minded of social comedians—have effectively closed an irony wormhole that opened with Urinetown, grandpappy of all millennial metamusicals. After Mormon, I like to imagine, the Broadway musical might be free to be a Broadway musical again—even if it is balls-out funny and relevant to audiences under 85.

NY Daily News:

It's a show where you catch yourself laughing one minute, mouth agape the next, eventually wiping away tears, and, finally, cheering.

Meanwhile, Terry Teachout at the Wall Street Journal has a less rapturous reaction, and it's one that I can't disagree with. I really, really wanted to full-stop LOVE this show. Sadly, I didn't, and I find his review pretty spot-on:

Don't let anybody try to tell you that "The Book of Mormon" is suitable for anyone other than 12-year-old boys who have yet to graduate from fart jokes to "Glee." A couple of reasonably effective production numbers notwithstanding, it's flabby, amateurish and very, very safe... The creators of "South Park" like to call themselves "equal-opportunity offenders," but if you think there's anything risky about "The Book of Mormon," you're kidding yourself. Making fun of Mormons in front of a Broadway crowd is like shooting trout in a demitasse cup.

mullally OUT

Nikki Finke reports that Megan Mullally is departing the Broadway production of Lips Together, Teeth Apart. Looks like her and Joe Mantello weren't seeing eye to eye - Finke says "Mullally simply had had enough of the abrasive manner of director Joe Mantello." The comments on Finke's post are pretty fun, including some rather spirited Wicked defenders that don't normally crop up on DHD.

La Cage Aux Conservatisme?

In this week's issue of New York magazine, Kelsey Grammer discusses his upcoming Broadway turn in La Cage Aux Folles, and the implications of being a Republican playing a gay role. From Adam Sternbergh's profile:

“It’s a great story about any couple. They all have the same dynamic: a heterosexual relationship, a homosexual relationship, a man-with-dogs relationship. There are universal events that take place: the differences, the angers, the insecurities, the histrionics. You would call it, I guess, a male-female dynamic. This just happens to be two boys.” I ask him about La Cage’s relevance today, given the Proposition 8 fight in California. He says, “Oh, right. Of course. You know I wasn’t even thinking of that. Isn’t it funny?” On the subject of gay marriage in general, he adds, “Why is the government involved at all? If two men marry or two women marry, fine, go ahead—it’s not my issue. But when governments get involved, it just becomes more confusing.”

Well! First off, the government is "involved" in the gay marriage issue because it is a legal issue. But Grammer surely knows that, and is just tiptoeing, quite deftly, around answering the question. Also... "man-with-dogs relationship"?? Really!?

It's tricky: being a pretty big supporter of gay rights, I want to support La Cage, buy tickets, and encourage others to do the same. The message is wonderful, I am what I am, blah blah blah. On the other hand, I don't particularly feel like turning out to see Grammer, an out "Republican in Hollywood" (and in my opinion, gigantic douche), play this role. I'm not saying his politics should have kept him from being cast - that would be a terrible road to go down. But in the power-of-the-consumer sense, this issue is really, really important to me, and the idea of watching this guy play that role feels all wrong. Thoughts?

Million Dollar Quartet

What can be said about Million Dollar Quartet? Where to begin? This is a musical experience that would cozily fit into the Vegas circuit, prompting smiles and nods of recognition from oldsters reliving the heyday of Elvis, Johnny Cash, et all. Alas, it does not fit so comfortably on Broadway.

There's very little story, and yet what little narrative the anemic book does provide is nonsensical. The cast, I'm sorry to say, can't provide the necessary energy and charisma to elevate the experience to the dynamite one-night-only event that the production insists you are witnessing. Instead it feels more like a warmed-over impersonator cabaret. Oh, and Hunter Foster is there to narrate, which unfortunately does not help matters. An icky feeling hangs over the whole affair, as if a producer saw Jersey Boys and thought they'd throw the same ingredients together and manufacture an easy money-making hit. They were mistaken.

As a friend lovingly dubbed these recent productions, "Guys & Suck," "Not-so-Brighton Beach", and now "Four Dollar Quartet" - is the Nederlander the new Biltmore?

Riedel Rags on Ragtime

Michael Riedel has some not-so-nice things to say about the Broadway revival of Ragtime, which is set to close on Sunday. I wanted so, so badly to love this production, but it's hard to disagree with much of what Michael Riedel says (aside from calling the cast Maryland locals, which is untrue and just mean). In spite of the ways that Ragtime failed to be what many of us had hoped for, there is one silver lining:

At least cute little Bobby Steggert got something out of this disaster. As Mother's Younger Brother -- a character name that's as bloated and pretentious as the show itself -- he caught the eye of a Times reporter, who gushed that the actor has "career breakout potential."

True dat. If Bobby Steggert doesn't get a tony nomination, I will eat my playbill.

Life is what happens when you're making plans to blog

So I've been a little busy, with not much time to blog. But just because I haven't been blogging does not mean that I haven't been paying attention. For example, how about Kelsey Grammer being cast in Fran & Barry's upcoming revival of La Cage Aux Folles? Fun Facts about Kelsey Grammer: He last tread the boards in the 2000 production of Macbeth, his recently axed sitcom Hank was his second failed series in two years, his first name is actually Allen, and he is a noted member of the Republican Party. I'm sure Broadway will embrace the poor sap though, because if nothing else, he's one jackass who knows how to make fun of himself.

I've been seeing a LOT of theater, so expect reviews soon for This at Playwrights Horizons and Ragtime. Neither show is perfect, but I still solidly recommend both. I also caught Finian's Rainbow recently, and was utterly charmed by the wacky musical theater throwback. It's Brigadoon meets Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, full of ridiculous whimsy and romance and quite a few gorgeous songs. I just started a youtube page where you can find a few worthwhile videos from the show.

I leave you with this. Happy Thanksgiving folks.

Broadway Backstage

The Wall Street Journal has a little piece on Broadway dressing rooms, since apparently Roundabout is now star-fucking not only their casts, but their star's dressing rooms as well. HGTV had a big designer do Carrie Fisher's dressing room for Wishful Drinking. Well oodleey-ooh. The NY Times also ran an article from a while back on some to-the-nines dressing rooms, but I prefer the simple photo above of Kelli O'Hara in her dressing room for South Pacific, and the below of Sean Penn in an 1983 production of Slab Boys. Both photos reveal the thing I really love about going backstage.

The backstage area of a Broadway house is a funny thing - it's usually strikingly plain, even grungy, but there's this undeniable sense of history pulsing from within the scuffed floors and chipped bulletin boards. You can't help but be struck by the ordinary-ness, the unflattering flourescent lights and normal, tired people just doing their job. The theater's lobby may be gilded and chandeliered, but backstage is shitty. Which is exactly what makes it magical in that quintessential old-New-York way - it's the quiet, persistent knowledge that legends put their feet up here, leaned on that wall, waited there to walk onstage, and so on. Who needs to dress that up?

Abigail Breslin and the Celebrity Casting Debacle

The casting of Abigail Breslin as Helen Keller in the upcoming Broadway production of The Miracle Worker has ruffled feathers far beyond the expected anti-celeb theater gossips. An advocacy group called Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts has strongly opposed the casting choice, on the grounds of "human and artistic issues" that trump the economic realities of needing a star to succeed on Broadway. Meanwhile, lead producer David Richenthal says it would be "financially irresponsible to approach a major revival without making a serious effort to get a star." His comment is sadly hard to argue with, with plays like A Steady Rain, Hamlet, Equus, and God of Carnage making major bank while Brighton Beach Memoirs, Oleanna, Superior Donuts and Reasons to be Pretty don't sell. If you take on Broadway without an A-list star, are you embracing economic failure with arms open wide for the sake of artistic integrity? Or, is it a game of risk, and better to just cast a star and hope that their gifts translate to the stage (a la Daniel Radcliffe), with the added insurance that even if they suck, tickets will still sell based on name alone. Then you have productions like the Roundabout's Bye Bye Birdie, with stars who are not starry enough to guarantee sales, who also happen to flatline onstage (to my previously-noted delight). The alternative seems to be hiring theater stalwarts, or just-pretty-famous actors who you know will kick ass (like Laurie Metcalf), and hoping they turn in a performance so staggeringly astonishing that it creates the kind of buzz that makes the out-of-towners actually take note. And August Osage County ain't an easy thing to achieve, folks.

To get back to the point of the "human and artistic issues", it would certainly be exciting to see a young hearing-impaired/visually-impaired actress take on Keller. It would be an incredible challenge, and if they pulled it off, it might actually make me interested in seeing the freakin Miracle Worker. But maybe such a challenge is too risky for Broadway these days.

The casting of A Behanding in Spokane, Martin McDonough's next Broadway venture, seems to be a fun alternative to the usual ickiness of stunt casting. Having read it, I have very little doubt that Chris Rock will be absolutely terrific, and I would watch Sam Rockwell and Zoe Kazan every day if I could. It's a ridiculous, scary and fun play, and absolute vintage McDonough. Get excited.

Brantley's Birdie Smackdown

The highly-anticipated revival of Bye Bye Birdie opened last night, and call me crazy, but I don't think Ben Brantley liked it very much!

If you get a chance, send a few dozen get-well cards to Henry Miller’s Theater... Flu season has arrived, and an especially mean virus appears to have attacked the cast of the revival of “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened Thursday night. I don’t think it’s the swine flu that has flattened Robert Longbottom’s production...

The symptoms in this case include tin ear, loss of comic timing, uncontrollable jitters and a prickly disorientation that screams, “Where am I?” and “What am I doing?” Theatergoers may feel an empathetic urge to rush home and bury their heads in their pillows.

Ouch! He goes on with a systematic take-down of the Roundabout's starry revival. The cast is a "painful example of misapplied talent". The director has "lost his sense of direction". The concept evokes "an old Old Navy or Nick at Nite ad" and not in the good way. Oh and John Stamos and Gina Gershon "tend to slide distractingly off key — not violently, but just enough to make you want to hit your ear." It goes on.

Aside from the comic effect of Brantley's purple prose, I have to confess a deep, sick appreciation for the big sloppy failures of star-fucked Broadway shows. When will they learn? These people cannot sing! And are not stageworthy! Do Stamos and Gershon really make such a difference in ticket sales that it's worth having a giant creative failure? I suspect not.

Sorry Spidey

Julie Taymor's big-concept, bigger-budget musical Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark is running into some significant misadventure. Michael Riedel reports that the musical, currently budgeted at a whopping $45 million, is "in chaos," of both the financial and managerial variety. The center of the problem seems to be failure of leadership on the part of producer David Garfinkle, who may be ousted by Sony and Marvel as soon as this weekend. Riedel has the whole saga of how Garfinkle, with little previous experience as a theatre producer, came to preside over what may turn out to be Broadway's most expensive musical ever. Oh and Bono and The Edge are pissed, too. You can read all the dirt here.

Now let me just say that I love a big, glitzy musical full of technical effects. Razzle-dazzle could be my middle name. But in spite of my appreciation of the flashy stuff, there's something about the idea of a 45-million dollar superhero musical that reminds me of a dude driving around hard-times Wall Street in his brand-new Maserati. It's gross. What's happened to us as theatergoers that we require this incredible level of spending to entertain us in a theater? What can you possibly put on a stage that costs 45 million, even if you're Julie Taymor? The current Broadway revival of HAIR cost an initial investment of 5.76 million, allowing it to recoup in about 6 months. It would seem that Spiderman would require years and years to break even, unless producers plan to supersize ticket prices.

I'd love to see what Taymor is plotting. But I hope she has the support to do it in a way that makes sense. The last thing we need is another Young Frankenstein, bursting with production and void of substance.

know what this is?

Why, it's a photo a spying pal just sent me from the Nederlander. Guys & Dolls looks packed, huh? Even those ladies in the foreground look apprehensive, as they whisper "Is Nathan Lane still in this?"

Speaking of Suckwatch, A Tale of Two Cities was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award, for Outstanding New Broadway Musical! No wonder those critics are in the outer circle, they'll never get inside at this rate!

Review: Next to Normal

Thanks to Alice Ripley's masterful, astonishing performance, Next to Normal is transporting from the first moment, and devastating to the last note. While it may not fit the picture of a buoyant broadway musical built for easy crowd-pleasing, this nuanced portrait of madness and grief provides more emotional payoff than most nights I've had in a theater.

The story tracks Diana (Ripley), wife, mother, and sufferer of mental illness. Her instability stems from events treated with such delicacy in the production that revealing them in a review would deplete one of the most thoughtfully achieved aspects of the production. As Diana's connection to reality slips through her fingers, her family becomes increasingly desperate to maintain their own connection to the wife and mother they love. Ultimately, the story is not only about madness - it's about the delicate nature of the human capacity for love, and both the destruction and the mending that love can do for the soul.

A long development period has paid off in spades for Next to Normal, which ran Off-Broadway at Second Stage before transferring to Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage, and finally venturing to Broadway. Creators Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, with director Michael Greif, have created a finely detailed picture of one family that's been fragmented by the past, each member isolated but desperate to connect. A fine cast treats the material with the requisite sensitivity and nuance, and the design elements actualize the world they live in - sometimes scary, sometimes full of warmth. But Alice Ripley is the crown jewel in the production, radiating pure emotion with every note and gesture. She's funny and loving in one moment, a terrified child the next, while remaining credible as the person whose family would stick with her in the very worst of times. Her portrait of Diane will surely join the ranks of Little Edie, Evita, and Mama Rose in the legion of great unhinged grand dames of musical theater.

Next to Normal is playing at the Booth Theater. Music by Tom Kitt; book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey; directed by Michael Greif; musical staging by Sergio Trujillo; sets by Mark Wendland; costumes by Jeff Mahshie; lighting by Kevin Adams; sound by Brian Ronan; orchestrations by Michael Starobin and Mr. Kitt; vocal arrangements by AnnMarie Milazzo; music director, Charlie Alterman; music coordinator, Michael Keller; technical supervisor, Larry Morley. Starring Alice Ripley (Diana), J. Robert Spencer (Dan), Aaron Tveit (Gabe), Jennifer Damiano (Natalie), Adam Chanler-Berat (Henry) and Louis Hobson (Dr. Madden/Dr. Fine).

Hair Makes Hippies Irresistible

The Onion recently ran an article entitled “Oh No, Performers Coming Into Audience”. The piece was a frighteningly detailed account of a theater performance in which the cast descended “previously unseen stairs” in a “horrifying breach of the fourth wall,” bringing their singing, dancing, and cavorting right into the laps of their (captive) audience. My mind touched on this article at a recent performance of Hair, as Will Swenson’s heinie shimmied mere inches away from my mortified face. Three songs in, I was flat-out terrified he was going to drag me up onstage. But he didn't - thank god! - and once I came around to the flower children who aren't afraid to hug a stranger, the show was a total delight. Bottom line: Hair is a lot of fun, but don’t sit on the fourth row aisle unless you’re looking for a lap dance.

Conceived by two hippie actors in 1964, Hair was created as an autobiographical piece that took almost every political and social issue of the moment and fused them into a wild tribal rock musical, played fast and loose in a way that was unprecedented in the world of traditional musical theater. Concept musicals like Company, Follies, and even A Chorus Line were all borne, in a sense, of the creative freedom that Hair established when it burst onto the scene almost 50 years ago.

The big selling point of this new production of Hair is that it manages to manifest the untamed spirit of that era without appearing outdated or silly. The theater has been stripped down and decked out as a rainbow-infused hippie hideout, and the staging creates an intimate connection between the cast and audience from the get-go. Most importantly, the spirited cast shines as if ideas like peace and free love are things that they are creating right here and now. The urgency and innocence of their performances works in perfect harmony with the rich history of the piece to make Hair enchanting and irresistible.

HAIR The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. Book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado; music by Galt MacDermot; directed by Diane Paulus; choreography by Karole Armitage. WITH: Sasha Allen (Dionne), Allison Case (Crissy), Gavin Creel (Claude), Andrew Kober (Dad/Margaret Mead), Megan Lawrence (Mother/Buddahdalirama), Caissie Levy (Sheila), Darius Nichols (Hud), Bryce Ryness (Woof), Saycon Sengbloh (Abraham Lincoln), Kacie Sheik (Jeanie), Theo Stockman (Hubert) and Will Swenson (Berger).

words I never thought I'd read

"Bono mentioned that they first got the idea to do a musical from Andrew Lloyd Webber, and name-dropped Rodgers and Hammerstein in their opening remarks."

That's from Modern Fabulosity, who attended a recent presentation of the Spiderman Musical. Bono and The Edge previewed eight songs, and Julie Taymor presented video demos of sets, costumes, and the web-spinning technology that will allow Spidey to fly over the audience. If all this isn't exciting enough, a new villain has been created who will join the Green Goblin, Lizard, Kraven, and Swarm in a mass effort to take down Spiderman - the new baddy's name is Swiss Miss, and she's described as being "dressed in immaculate white dominatrix gear and multiple knives". Um, yes please!

Brighton Beach possibly not as somnolent as expected

Rumor has it that Laurie Metcalf will be seen on Broadway in the upcoming revivals of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound. Not only does this casting tidbit make perfect sense, it actually makes me a bit excited to see yet another production of Brighton Beach, a play that is typically the NyQuil of theater.

reasons to be pretty slims down

Above is a photo I snapped on the subway this morning, an little artistic addition to a poster for Neil LaBute's play reasons to be pretty, currently in previews at the Lyceum. According to this morning's Michael Reidel, the play may be going under the knife, with "people involved" thinking it might be better off at 90 minutes than in its current two-act form. I enjoyed the play downtown at MCC, but I wondered if a leaner meaner edit of the play could more effectively convey LaBute's tenaciously unflinching examination of America's obsession with attractiveness. If they can make it work in 90 minutes, odds are it will be one hell of a ride.

SuckWatch: Guys & Dolls - Update

A few weeks ago, I got an invite to Guys & Dolls. Despite my having listed it on Suckwatch, the marketing team wanted to give this little blogger a chance to change her mind, and I thought it was a bold, cool move on their part to reach out after being dissed. So I accepted, and decided to lay off the gloating "I was right" posts (mostly, at least) until after I'd actually seen the show. I tried to attend during the last week of February, but was told that tickets were no longer available for the original dates offered. No problem, I would go during the first week of March - oops, no availability then either. Try again in two weeks, I was told.

Here's where things get a bit funny. Marketing is telling me they have no availability, but my spies at the theater tell me that the mezzanine has been virtually empty every night - so empty, in fact, that "they might as well close it down and only seat the orchestra."

So what's the deal? Is the show simply best viewed from the orchestra, or are the producers of Guys & Dolls trying to discourage further criticism from bloggers by pulling a ticket offer bait and switch?

Things the World Does Not Need Want: Recession Edition

Did I like Katie Holmes in All My Sons? No. Do I want to see her in the musical version of Finding Neverland? No! Do we need Katie Holmes in another Broadway show? Unfortunately, much as it pains me to say so, maybe we do. All My Sons is one of the few shows that has done really well in spite of hard times, and if it takes Katie Holmes to get the butts in the seats... well... then... ugh, maybe we do need her, even if we don't want her.

Update: I have to add this delightful video of "Ms. Josephine Potter" singing On My Own. Thanks, Clint!