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Several As-Yet Unanswered Questions About Broadway on Broadway

We came. We stood. We got yelled at by the cops for standing in the wrong place. We watched the poorly-synched TV monitors. And as the afternoon wore on, we wondered all of the following:

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1. Why are we even standing here right now?

To see replacement actors and understudies from shows we’ve already seen sing one number and then disappear? Or Kelsey Grammer struggling to stay awake, let alone deliver his lines?

2. Who exactly is this event for, again?

Surely not us, as we were majorly outnumbered. Below are the (semi)official results of our (in)formal poll:

The Broadway on Broadway Crowd

And finally:

3. What would have helped Kelsey Grammer most during his hosting stint?

Your choice:

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It was the first Tuesday of class for us NYU Freshmen.  The night before it had rained so hard it seemed like the world was ending.  (The kind of thought only a child who’d grown up exclusively in peacetime would dare to consider.)  And that morning I woke to a series of phone calls, crying parents and what appeared to be a small fire on our tiny television screen.  Then the cameras panned out.  And everything, everything, everything changed.

September 11, 2001. Nine years ago, today.

Sometimes it seems selfish to even allow myself the pain.  To think about how my life is divided into before and after.  To feel any right to cry every year, like my chest is being pulled apart, as I try and avoid the memories—not just the ones on my TV screen, but the ones I carry inside me always.

I didn’t lose any family members or friends.  I was not hurt.  But perhaps I did lose a piece of myself, that morning.  In those fragile days when I had just moved out on my own, just started college, just leapt blindly into a whole new, adult life, I suffered tragedy alongside this nation.  It will never leave me.

In the days and weeks that would follow, there were all kinds of new fears.  I had my own feelings, and the ones the media was trying to tell me were mine, too.  Everything felt so heavy.  I tried a great many things to help me cope—crying, writing, talking, getting far too close to bags of Peanut M&Ms—but the one thing that stands out now, is theater.

I clung to the theater like it was my last lifeline, the last tie to who I was before and who I had wanted to become.

I grew up close enough to the city to come in several times a year to see shows—with my family, with school—and for almost as long as I could remember theater had been a part of my life.  But never, never had the theater felt as important to me as it did in those quiet, mournful days after September 11th.

I was terrified that Broadway might somehow end.  It was silly, perhaps, to worry this way.  To give in to that ridiculous fear.  There were bigger problems in the world, clearly, than the state of New York Theater.  Besides, the Great White Way had weathered generations of tragedy, war and economic hardship and it stood strong.  It would not leave us.  But then…buildings don’t collapse into dust, either, and hadn’t I just watched that happen?  Who could count on anything anymore?

So I binged.  On RENT, specifically.  To be honest with you, I don’t even remember how many times I saw that show in the immediate aftermath of September 11th.  It was probably something like four times in two weeks.  Maybe more.  So much of that time is a blur.

Somewhere along the line, though, things shifted.  I was no longer just trying to see a show I feared might close—to give them my meager ticket money and get in one last viewing, just in case—I was trying to heal myself, too.  It started with tears.  It was safe to cry there, in that dark, cool theater.  I didn’t have to hold to the tears anymore, the ones I had grown so tired of crying for myself, or for terrorism and loss on the streets of my life.  I still had so many.  And in the Nederlander, with Marc and Mimi and Angel, I could let them go.

It was more than just the tears, though.  More than just the safe emotional release.  RENT was the life I had dreamed of before—the very dream that had brought me to New York City in the first place.  On September 11th, the world had shifted under my feet, changed irrevocably.  But sitting in the Nederlander I could remember, again, what my life had been like once and what I had dreamed of for my future.  I could hold onto the things I was most afraid of losing.  And I could start to see my dreams again, to rebuild them.  I could patch myself back together.

That first semester I would see RENT almost once a week.  More than fifteen times, all told, but probably closer to twenty.  I survived my freshman year, sifted through the aftermath of tragedy, and came out stronger.  RENT survived too.  Seven long years later I sat in the Nederlander again, days before the anniversary, and bade the show a final farewell.  It was different, seeing it again so many years later, but I will never forget what that show carried me through.  In that way, just like September 11th, RENT will always be with me, always be a part of who I am.

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Weekend Agenda: GTFO Summer Edition

As we say goodbye to summer and hello to a boatload of new shows, here’s what’s on our list of topics to discuss (ad nauseum!) this weekend.

  • Barara Cook becomes something we surely never expected–a total bitch.
  • Constantine Maroulis ended his run in Rock of Ages this week. We’re sure that at least 35 people both noticed and cared.
  • D-Lister Molly Shannon will replace Katie Finneran in Promises, Promises, thereby ensuring that the audience starts paying more attention to the actual stars of the show.
  • Next to Normal may be on its last crazy leg. You know, if secret insider sources and one very obvious marketing flier can be believed.
  • The Book of Mormon, terrified that it will be upstaged in the over-the-top-contemporary-idiom-political-farce department by Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, books a theater and chooses an opening date.
  • Women on the Verge shifts its first preview. Because you know, we all were in the mood to call LCT’s customer service line today.
  • Spider-Man himself, Reeve Carney, shows his pretty face on GMA. Every teenage girl in the world is now excited for this show. Next question, do they have the disposable income necessary to buoy the box-office?
  • Yank! delays until next season, which is kind of sad.  Only, it does give us hope that there’s enough time to “rework” one of the tap numbers and at least half the dream-ballet into non-existence.
  • In one fell swoop Michael Riedel takes out the entire fall season.  We only wish we could be that cold.
  • Broadway on Broadway is this Sunday.  We know we’re supposed to be all excited, but really, there’s only one thing that could get us pumped, and he won’t be there.  (It’s Andrew.  Mr. Jackson if you’re nasty.)
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Jonathan Groff & Simon Russel Beale in Deathtrap

That's one good looking potential corpse.

If you visit London’s West End these days, you will notice one thing: That Jonathan Groff’s face is everywhere. If you can tear your eyes away from the ubiquitous Deathtrap posters long enough, though, you may remember that it’s a play and not a spread in the September issue of Men’s Vogue.

It’s easy to see why the show’s marketing team went for The Groff Shot over and over again. He’s so camera-ready that having him around almost requires the taking of an oversaturated, moodily-lit photo or two. And his corrupted-choirboy good looks do actually have a point in the show—as they do in anything starring Jonathan.

A perfect face doesn’t guarantee a perfect performance, though, even when looks are so much a part of an actor’s whole equation. In this engaging revival of Ira Levin’s 1978 play, Jonathan gets to play—don’t be shocked—a guy who seems really sweet but is actually really evil. Of course, this could describe any character in Deathtrap, a black comedy about two playwrights who plot to kill each other over one great idea.

But as much as Simon Russel Beale owns the stage as the elder, more experienced playwright—he gets all the good lines and delivers them with throwaway panache—Groff’s role is the more intriguing of the two. Beale starts off shifty and stays that way. (There is something ominously and distinctly off about the elaborate collection of weapons adorning his Connecticut home, after all. In this case, there isn’t just one gun on the mantle. There are four, plus several knives, a crossbow, and axes of all sizes.) But Groff’s character–a promising young writer looking for a mentor–devolves more slowly into complete depravity. He looks gorgeous, but the same really can’t be said for his uneven performance here. In the show’s early scenes, he seems forced. Of course, the character’s attempts at being a nice, honest guy are in themselves an act, but mostly it just sounds like Groff is speeding through the script on too much espresso. It’s only later in the show, when the character’s true (and truly conniving) colors emerge, that he seems more convincing and more at ease. He sure is good looking, though. And he physically dominates the stage to the extent that all of his costars seem to scramble around him, as though they were racing to get out of his shadow.

The play itself is pulpy and fun; its swift, endlessly looping plot (there are no fewer than five attempted, successful, and half-successful murders over the course of the show) never gets old or loses its punch. At the performance I attended, the audience literally gasped in horror at every turn. It makes for an entertaining night at the theater, for sure. The show makes insinuations about deeper meaning—is Deathtrap about competition between artistic rivals, or about the true roots of greed and evil, or about the finer points of playwriting itself? But by the end, all of that is obliterated by the outlandish plot.

American audiences will undoubtedly get to see this version of Deathtrap in the near future. With its shiny leading man and a winning story, it seems instantly transfer-ready. Besides, the show might not be perfect, but it sure is easy on the eyes.

Photo: Hugo Glendinning

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Next to Normal 2.0

Next to Normal's New Cast

Lately, there’s been a lot of discussion about replacement casts, but I must confess, up until about five minutes ago, you couldn’t have asked me to care about it.  Honestly.  As a kid growing up on Long Island, when we made trips into the city to see a show, every actor who set foot on the stage seemed like a star to me.  Like the biggest star I’d ever set eyes on.  It made no difference to me whether or not they were the original star of the show.

But as my access to the theater has increased over the last few years, I’ve had the privilege of watching shows evolve over time.  I’ve become familiar with the phenomenon of replacement casts, and what they can mean to a theater fan.  And while I’ve had some pretty depressing recent experiences with the replacement cast—in March, Hair’s  new cast failed to live up to the revival cast I’d loved so much—I’ve also had some pretty awesome experiences, too.

Last month, on a random free night when no one else wanted to do anything, I took myself on a little solo theater date.  There was a new cast at Next to Normal and it involved Marin Mazzie—OMG!—and her very dashing real-life husband Jason Danieley.  Clearly, I needed to see this.

Still, I entered the theater with trepidation.  To me, Next to Normal is more than just a show.  It is an experience and when performed properly it has transformative power.  Next to Normal can make you forget you are in a theater, observing, and turn you into another family member there at that table, powerless, watching it all fall apart around you and in you.

So when a full 50% of the six person cast changes suddenly, there is a real risk that the material could suffer.  Greatly.  I was nervous.

After the show, I lay in bed and thought about ways to review it.  Should I compare performances directly?  Flat out state whom I preferred when it came to Ripley/Mazzie, Spencer/Danieley and Damiano/Fahy?  Even just thinking through those questions made me feel uneasy.  It wasn’t that simple.

The show was different, with this different cast.  (Shocking, I know.)  Diana Goodman was Diana Goodman, still, but she carried herself differently, shared herself differently.  It was the same with Dan and Natalie Goodman.  Actors make choices.  Not every single change felt right to me, but then, not every single choice felt right to me when I first saw the production with its original cast.

At the end of the day, the story is this: I cried again.  Harder than I’d cried the last time I saw the show, and almost as hard as I did the first time I saw it.  (To give you some perspective, at intermission the first time I saw the Next to Normal, a stage manager came out, leaned over my front row seat to hand me tissues and promised “It’s going to be okay.”)  I was transported and transformed again.  The experience of Next to Normal was intact, the sum of its parts far more important than some small thing here or there that was better or worse this time around.

Mazzie and Danieley and Fahy were wonderful.  Kyle Dean Massey pulled some insane high B out of his chest at the end of “I’m Alive” that made me gasp aloud.  Louis Hobson and Adam Chanler-Berat were as perfect as ever.  All in all, Next to Normal survived the transition.  I credit the cast, of course.  What they brought to the stage made the show as emotional an experience as ever.  But maybe it’s bigger than that, too.  Maybe it was never about better or worse with this piece of theater, maybe it’s about how Next to Normal resonates with you.  And how, when performed with passion and love (and some of Broadway’s finest) it’s almost guaranteed to knock you sideways.

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Once More With Feeling: A Final Hair-well

Gavin Says Goodbye

You knew we'd find a way to get those abs in here...

Oh, Hair. No show in the last couple of years has captured our fancy or beckoned the cash out of our wallets so quickly. Maybe it was the sublime cast or the accessible songs or the fact that seeing it once a week was cheaper than therapy. But oh, how we loved it. And how we get sentimental pangs as its progresses through its revival-y life—from Broadway to London and Beyond. As it closes on the West End and hits the road in America, here’s a look back:

  • So when the New York closing was announced, we gave the show a very Craptacular bon voyage. Peace out, Hair.
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If there were a rule book out there for new musicals, surely this would be covered in the first chapter:

The cast must be awesome.

Both burdened and blessed with the job of creating a piece for the first time, it’s their job to usher people through unfamiliar territory. It’s also on their shoulders to do something bigger than that—to convince a modern audience that their money is best spent on an artform that is significantly more time consuming, expensive, and demanding than say, watching Jersey Shore.

No two shows we saw this year illustrated the art (and the pitfalls) of casting a new musical like ones we saw at the summer theater festivals in the Berkshires this summer, Pool Boy at Barrington Stage Company and The Last Goodbye at Williamstown.

These shows couldn’t possibly be more different in approach. Pool Boy is a frothy trifle—the tribulations of a young singer-songwriter who takes a job as a put-upon poolside waiter at a chic Los Angeles hotel. The Last Goodbye is Romeo and Juliet with Shakespeare’s text mostly intact and Jeff Buckley’s songs serving as its score.

Despite an overload of musical numbers—there’s a song about every eight seconds in Pool Boy—and an unknown story, the show largely succeeds. The story may be unknown, but its breezy charm is simple to follow and hard to resist (Pool boy serves drinks. Pool boy meets a girl…). The show’s stellar cast does the rest. Jay Armstrong Johnson is, as we’ve already mentioned, a major star. He’s in nearly every musical number (all 46 of them), and is tasked with carrying all of the show’s dramatic weight, but he hardly breaks a sweat. Sara Gettelfinger is equally strong as his glamorous, would-be seducer. And Sorab Wadia gets a plum role as The Sultan, one that requires endless comic vamping and at least two pairs of gold pants.

The cast in The Last Goodbye—and indeed, the show itself—is something else entirely. With both a well-known story and songs, and a style that borrows liberally from both Spring Awakening and American Idiot, it seems instantly familiar and Broadway-ready. There’s lots of youthful angst on that stage—and spray paint, tattoos, and premarital sex. Plus, this new musical doesn’t have the same problem that many new musicals have: its book is pretty much done. And has been done for several hundred years.

But even with all those familiar elements in place, this wailing, flailing show (Sonya Tayeh’s redundant choreography raises constant concern that someone might put out an eye) never quite gets off the ground. The problem? Romeo and Juliet themselves. And the nurse. And the friar. And basically everyone onstage. The performances are completely uneven, not just role to role, but within each role. Romeo, a character who still has a credibility problem after all these centuries, doesn’t benefit much from a semi-ironic portrayal by Damon Daunno. Yes, this production is supposed to be like, all modern and stuff. But giving the leading man an air of slacker-y cluelessness doesn’t exactly convince an audience that we–or the leading lady–should be falling in love with him. Kelli Barrett’s Juliet fares better, and starts off wonderfully, but a late-in-the-evening tantrum leaves you wishing not only for her demise, but also that she’d hurry it up.

It’s unfortunate, because otherwise, the show really works. Buckley’s songs are appropriately swoony and fiery, and work well to help tell the story. The modern take is a no-brainer. And Nick Blaemire is a bright spot as Benvolio–if only there were eight more of him on the stage to play every role. And indeed, with a different cast, The Last Goodbye could be amazing.

Whether either of these shows has a future beyond the Berkshires remains to be seen, but both seem like they would be at home on a New York stage–maybe with a few different names in the Playbill.

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Underbites of Broadway

Which Broadway underbite would you like to get to know better?

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Photo: Broadway.com

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Million Dollar Quartet

The cast of Million Dollar Quartet get down with their bad selves.

I saw Million Dollar Quartet for the first time last week.  And it was good!  I mean, there were moments I wanted Hunter Foster to put a sock in it and stop interrupting my rock show, but, that really wasn’t his fault.  And that didn’t even ruin anything for me!

Here’s why:  I think I’ve discovered the secret to enjoying Million Dollar Quartet and I’m about to share it with you in five neat bullet points.

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Check your expectations at the door.

If take your seat in the Nederlander Theater expecting a traditional Broadway Musical— you know, plot, character arc, resolution—you will be disappointed.  I mean, we’re talking about a show that, by comparison, makes Hair seem heavy on traditional substance.  But.  But!  If you go in expecting a fun rock concert, with awesome music that’s played really, really well…you’re basically guaranteed a good time.

Drink first.

Two beers at least, I’d say.  Or whatever it is that gets you to your happy, just-slightly-buzzed place.  I promise the booze will really enhance the experience in every way possible.  The boys will be cuter, the music will strike a deeper chord, even the jokes will be funnier.  And, to be frank, you’re far less likely to question the material when you’re a drink or two in.  You’ll be having too much fun.

Speaking of the material… Ignore Hunter Foster.

I know, I know, we’re so mean to Hunter Foster.  It’s not his fault this time, though.  He’s working real hard up there, and even doing a good job with what he’s been handed.  It’s just…you’re going to get irritated with him several times, because he’s going to be forced to continue to interrupt your rock concert.  It’s cute a time or two. By the end, you’re really tired of hearing his story (which might explain why the show’s creators never actually seem to clarify what all happened to Sam Phillips).  So, just sip your drink, and keep staring at the cute boys.  The interruption will pass, and I’m pretty sure Levi Kreis likes the attention anyway.

And while we’re on the topic of attention: just keep giving it to the cute boys.

This is not just because Levi Kreis likes it.  This is because all those cute boys are doing important things up on that stage.  Like playing the shit out of their instruments and acting real good.  Looking at them is quite a nice experience, obviously.  And while it was actually important for a show about Rock Stars to be loaded with compelling cuties, these boys also happen to be real talented.  Robert Britton Lyons, especially, gives a sensitive, nuanced portrayal of Carl Perkins and the aforementioned Kreis didn’t win his Featured Actor Tony for this role by accident.

Get ready for some serious spangles.

And I don’t mean that the lone woman on the stage wears a sparkly costume—though her period-appropriate-down-to-the-undergarments costume is pretty great.  No, I mean, brace yourself for four overly bedazzled jackets to literally drop from the sky at the end of the educational portion of this musical.  When Johnny, Carl, Elvis and Jerry slip on these badass rejects from an N*Sync tour circa 2000, the real fun starts.  Now it’s just a concert, no pretense of anything else, and Elvis is about to fall to his knees and make the girls in the front row scream.  Prepare yourself for this, because it is awesome. You may even want to scream along.

Photo: Joan Marcus

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5 Confusing Things About The Capeman

Paul Simon. Gobble.

The Public Theater’s staging of Paul Simon’s 1998 musical The Capeman was a hit at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater over the weekend. But it’s original run closed after 68 performances. Here’s why, probably!

1. The score is like… really happy.
The score is sublime—all rousing Latin rhythms and sweet vintage harmonies. But it stands in direct contrast with the show’s dark subject. (Gang member Salvador Agron killed someone and went to jail and his mother mourned and supported him. And… that’s about it.) Very little about the story feels worthy of breathless celebration or a perky dance number, and that’s a lot of what happened in the park.

2. Salvador is a jerk. But you’re supposed to like him. A lot.
Here’s the thing with The Capeman: You can’t root for the hero. He killed someone, doesn’t appear particularly remorseful, tries to paint himself as the victim, tries to somehow blame the victim for getting himself killed, finds Jesus, recants and then dies. You can’t exactly put that on a t-shirt, you know?

3. Salvador is apparently the same age as his mom.
Natascia Diaz is supposed to be Ivan Hernandez’s mother? This takes ultra-youthful casting for women to a whole new crazy level of crazy, and bends my personal suspension of disbelief to its breaking point. Shes’ gorgeous—and otherwise a great selection for her forceful singing and pint-sized gravitas—but how old was she when she allegedly had him? Four?

4. Everyone onstage is lying. All the time. Maybe.
Our leading man seems pretty confused at times. First he’s unrepentant about murder. Then, out of nowhere, he’s denying that he killed anyone and pleading his innocence. By this point in the show, Salvador and the people around him have become such unreliable, tone-deaf narrators that it’s impossible to know who to believe. I don’t think this is an intentional way of telling this story; it’s just unclear.

5. A random guy shows up at the end.
During the curtain call of Paulus’s Capeman, the cast was joined onstage by legendary Puerto Rican singer Danny Rivera. He sang his lungs out, and soft-shoed, and the crowd loved it. But why? One lead character is a murderer, and the other is his admitted enabler. It seems kind of cheap, after going through that with the characters, to then turn the show into a quaint little party. Diane Paulus could get an audience out of its seats to dance even after Claude bit the big one in Hair. In The Capeman, however, the big-singing finale sounds gorgeous, but feels a little icky in practice.

Photo: last.fm

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