Have you ever seen Twitter blow up with excitement about some older star appearing at 54 Below only to find yourself asking, “Who?” Does the annual announcement of the Encores! season send you running to Google to figure out WTF is even going on? Did you get really excited about theater by way of Wicked or Next to Normal or Phantom and then stare down the gauntlet of theater’s 100 (+++++) year history and wonder what on earth you should check out? Friends, you are in the right place.
Think of REMEDIAL QUEENS as The Craptacular’s community service project, helping Broadway fans climb higher up the mountain of Broadway wonderfulness. Think of me as your sherpa on this journey. You may know me from my guest appearance on The Craptacular talking about Pipe Dream, or perhaps you’ve encountered some of my other projects, like Fuck Yeah Stephen Sondheim or Sondheim LOLCats. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a super-big Broadway nerd. Like, in high school I co-wrote the internet’s first (!) Stephen Sondheim FAQ. And just this past August I was part of the winning team at 54 Below’s inaugural Broadway Trivia Night. In between I’ve amassed a collection of thousands of cast albums (including a couple dozen I helped birth as part of the late, lamented Fynsworth Alley), seen hundreds of shows, read the scripts of hundreds more, and, well, you get the idea. So I’m really excited/ beyond tickled to share this all with you.
What can you expect in this column? Some weeks I’ll focus on the work of a particular person or team, sharing my love for the likes of Mary Martin, Wright & Forrest, and Goddard Lieberson (duh). Other weeks might feature primers on older shows currently on the boards (or in the works) as revivals. Sometimes we’ll go thematic, with playlists (“15 Favorite Codependent Love Songs from the 50s!”) or other kinds of silliness (Ethel Merman Power Hour anyone?). And I take requests, so if there’s something you’re dying to know more about, leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter (@itsdlevy, natch).
Don’t worry. I’m not the kind of guy who thinks that nothing new will live up to the past, and you won’t find me crapping on things you love to make the things I love seem better. Frankly, they don’t need my help, and either way, that sucks. If there’s one thing The Craptacular believes, it’s that things don’t have to be “good” to be amazing. REMEDIAL QUEENS is all about sharing things I love — whether earnestly, ironically, or more often than not, with a foot on either side of that line — and hoping you love them too.
And now, as Irving Berlin once wrote, let’s go on with the show!
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