the craptacular

As the extensive wreckage in our Twitter feed last night will testify, we attended a Spring Awakening cast reunion last night at Atlantic Theater. It was pretty fun. Jonathan Groff and John Gallagher, Jr. and Lea Michele were all there, but only one of them was wearing an awesome black hat. Also in attendance: Remy Zaken, Lauren Pritchard, Brian Charles Johnson, Lilli Cooper, Gideon Glick, Phoebe Strole, and some other folks. The event was a kind of kickoff for a series called ATCUncovered, a program of backstage events and Q&As with artists performing at Atlantic.

The general gist of last night? It wasn’t open to the public. We were the only people in the room that no one knew, which was kind of awkward, but also kind of fun. And Jonathan Groff nearly died when his shoelace got caught on a metal step.

Oh yeah, a few more things about the marquee attendees, before we recount for you the tale of Jonathan’s valiant rescue: Jonathan’s very tall and handsome, he was wearing tennis shoes and a hoodie, and he appears to give great hugs, although neither of us can testify to this personally except for what our eyes tell us, and goodness knows our eyes tell us lots of things. But we think this is reliable information. Lea Michele wore all black, head-to-toe, was carrying a Birkin which made us kind of jealous and sad because that bag costs more than the sum total of both of our lives, and she is really an extremely tiny person, in person.

And John Gallagher, Jr.? Well he continues to be your Chuck-Taylor-wearing, skinny-jeaned, cardigan-and-stubble-sporting boyfriend of all ages and times forever and ever, and that’s all there is to say about that.

But then Jonathan got his shoelace stuck on some metal stairs and The Mick, who has possibly made it her life mission to protect this beautiful person from all danger and harm, only she didn’t really know it until last night, was standing right behind him and kindly un-stuck the shoelace from its place of stuck-edness and Jonathan was… FREE. FREE, I tell you. Then he turned around, smiled, and introduced himself to her, thus saving her life right back and also nearly terminating it in one two-second gesture. It was pretty sweet.

Other highlights? Seeing Phoebe Strole and Lea Michele snuggle up for photos. Seeing Brian Charles Johnson and Johnny Gallagher catch up and joke about some things. Seeing the cast tour their old digs at the Atlantic, including the single dressing room that they all shared.

My favorite part, though, was when the Atlantic’s artistic director Neil Pepe invited the cast back to act in plays in the newly renovated theater. They responded enthusiastically indeed, but then Lea Michele piped up, “But what about musicals?!” Amen to that, sister. And plus, it seems like the Atlantic did pretty well with a musical once upon a time…

photo: Bruce Glikas, Broadway.com

HAHA LOL Remember that time at the dinner table on Thanksgiving when your uncle pretended he was about to make an hilarious joke, but instead he jabbed you with a condescending comment about  the sentence structure in your recently published memoir?

Oh. Wait. That wasn’t Thanksgiving. And it wasn’t your uncle having a go at you. No. It was yesterday. And it was Broadway’s former Green Goblin, Patrick Page, taking swipes at scribe Glen Berger while doing a ‘dramatic reading’ of an excerpt from his tell-all Song of Spider-Man.

No, but seriously. What the fuck was going on up in there?! Was this supposed to be a joke?

Because before we even hit the minute mark everything had fallen apart. Things went from “OMG, the Spider-Man team is totally in on the joke of their own fraught existence! This is genius!” Directly to “Holy shit. This isn’t funny, it’s mean.”

Page went from simply reading for us — so faux-earnest and resonant that it’s hilarious — to judging the material for us, too. And he was judging it harshly — sneering at Berger’s sentence structure and commenting on his use of italics.

The tone had shifted.

But… how? How did Patrick Page, such a champ through the whole Spider-Man process — greeting fans outside cancelled shows, vamping to save everyone’s lives while computers spluttered to a halt and actors dangled from the rafters, behaving graciously in the press — end up here?

Was this his choice? Or was he directed to act this way? Did the production team — all clearly in on the joke — just not hear how things were sounding? Or was this petty nastiness the whole point? Am I losing my mind? And would this have been better, or worse, if it was someone besides Patrick Page, who we hear Berger paints like a hero in the book?

Mostly I’m just left with a thousand questions. And a bad taste in my mouth. Which is  shame, because this could have been so, so fun.

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So I wandered into a Twitter conversation the other day with our noble Twitter friend, @Adam807, about the impending demise of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. His basic position: That the show accomplished something because it had some keepable moments and a respectable run, and that it made a lot of kids happy along the way. There was a lot of other stuff in there, too, including the stellar moment wherein I lowballed the capitalization costs of the show by a solid $50 million dollars — perhaps because my brain is unable to process how any Broadway show — flying or no flying — could cost that much goddamn money.

But this got me thinking about a pretty basic thing: How I just don’t believe that a Broadway show has value simply because it exists. I really don’t. I don’t believe that shows fundamentally “deserve” to stay open. I don’t believe that every moment of theater that happens on Broadway is a perfect flower of entertainment history that struggles for precious existence in a toxic world of DirectTV, Sports Center, and bounce houses. I don’t believe this any more than I believe that stupid TV shows should continue to air, or that I’m not allowed to laugh my face off at Plato’s School in the Musee d’Orsay, or that the crappy Italian restaurant on my block should continue to sit there empty on Friday nights. Unsuccessful stuff dies. Fin.

And Broadway is a business, baby, one that makes a shitton of money. And to me, the math with Spider-Man is blindingly simple, and accessible even to my poor brain, which still struggles to split the check at Chelsea Grill on a Wednesday night: The show is a failure. It is a failure on every possible front.

There are only three ways for a show to be successful on Broadway. It can be a financial success, an artistic success, or both. It cannot be successful by other paremeters, say, in pie making or swimming. Those things do not exist in the universe of Broadway, just like Hermione hooking up with Harry does not exist in the universe of Harry Potter. It is not real, except in your mind and in your fun, but ultimately strictly unofficial fanfiction.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is not a success by any parameter that matters in the universe of Broadway. None. It is, by all accounts, a complete financial disaster, and it sucked — a double whammy that means, in very simple terms, that it sucks at everything. It will be remembered not for its flying tricks (they were cool) or its lovely cast (Reeve Carney!) or its ambition (Julie Taymor — high five, my sister; stay strong) or for the limited scads of sweet young children that it delighted. It will be remembered as the biggest fucking Broadway disaster of the century wherein people nearly died, everyone of import got sued or fired, and the show’s much-touted magic tricks didn’t consistently work three years into its run. 

That’s not good, you guys.

And now that Spidey is going home — to Broadway Heaven, otherwise known as Las Vegas — the show still doesn’t have a clean shot at new success. Every subsequent production, after all, will incur its own capitalization costs, on top of the incredible debt that’s already come from its Broadway run. My guess? That won’t be cheap. The flying tricks alone undoubtedly require an intense level of customization, depending on the space. So Spider-Man is far from an an easy transfer, and it is many (many) years from financial success.

Can a failing business turn around? Certainly. But there’s very little at this point I’m guessing, that can fix lyrics like, “DNA is the way.” Or make the show not about… spiders. That part of Spider-Man‘s perfect storm of failure — that the show is mind-numbingly bad — will live on and on, in Vegas and in countries around the world. But hey, maybe that’ll work to its benefit. Maybe Arachne makes more sense in German or Mandarin…

So yesterday we found out this guy is playing Enjolras on Broadway, which we’re sure is all fine and dandy but it still kind of broke our hearts.

Because why, you ask? Because over the last few months, sources had been whispering in our ears that Derek Klena was set to don the xylophone on Broadway and clearly now that is not a real thing.

You guys, we already had a hashtag! OUR BODIES WERE READY. We were using glitter-glue and oak-tag to make signs to hold up at the stage door offering to cosplay as France so Enjolras could finally lose his virginity without breaking that vow about being faithful to France or whatever clearly ridiculous thing Enjolras said, because how can you be the best character in this musical and not share your ‘charms’ with the heaving bosoms of fangirls the world over? HOW CAN YOU DENY US, ENJOLRAS?!

Yes. I did just write that. I published it, too.

Look. Maybe we’ll fall in love with Kyle Scatliffe. I mean. The odds are good. He’s cute and we are super fond of cute boys. It’s just… we need a minute to mourn our loss here…

Okay. Minute over. Now it’s time to start wildly speculating about what Derek is up to next. Aaaaand, go!

Steven Lotvak, Lauren Worsham, Bryce Pinkham, Jefferson Mays,Lisa O’Hare, Robert L Freedman

What? Opening night of the new musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Where? Performance at the Walter Kerr Theater, natch, and black-tie after-party at The Pierre.

With whom? Stars Bryce Pinkham and Jefferson Mays, Director Darko Tresnjak, Composer/Lyricist Steven Lutvak, Book Writer/Lyricist Robert L Freedman, Alex Timbers, David Hyde Pierce, Kate Baldwin, Patrick Page, Caissie Levy, Colin Hanlon, Katie Finneran, Darren Goldstein, Alison Fraser, Bobby Steggert, Daniel Breaker AND HIS ADORABLE SON, Tony Yazbeck, Jose Llana, Nathan Lane, Tyne Daly, Hunter Ryan Herdlicka, Jordan Roth, Judith Ivey, Kathleen Turner, Julia Murney, Laura Benanti, Jackie Hoffman.

Talking Points:

• OMG Daniel Breaker’s son. I caught site of the pair, front and center in the mezz, and not only was Daniel’s son looking like… cuter than a sack full of puppies, but he seemed SO EXCITED to be there it almost melted my uterus. THAT is the magic of theater, y’all.
• I have to say, black tie is the BEST, best, best. Why, you ask? Well. Because Alex Timbers in a tuxedo is a thing that I saw up close and personal several times. And I kind of never want to see anything again ever. He’s tall and skinny as fuck but like… I bet he could wrap those long limbs around you, and… I digress. Alex was breathtakingly handsome in that suit with those glorious Timberlocks tumbling over his forehead and I thought you should know.
• David Hyde Pierce for sure paired a baseball cap with that tux of his. Because you can do that if you’re David Hyde Pierce.
• After the show my date and I got separated on our way out of the theater. It took me ages to find him again and wouldn’t you know he was talking to Jordan Roth by the time I did. He didn’t even know who Jordan Roth was!! #cryingfromjealousy
• You should have heard the cast exclaiming excitedly about how close to the stage Nathan Lane had been seated. Because Broadway actors are still Broadway fans, team.
• Men in overcoats, and scarves, and small round black sunglasses roamed the party. Pretty sure this was done on purpose — can you imagine if it was just a coincidence? — but I feel like they must have been really warm.
• Patrick Page made many loops around the party (which was spread out across several luxuriously appointed rooms) and just looked dapper as fuck the whole time.
• You guys, the party had such good whiskey. Err. Whisky.
• Also good? The dessert table. Tiny baby cheesecakes, little apple crumbles, chocolate covered strawberries, macarons, bread pudding — my date and I tried them all. Mostly because Spring Awakening‘s Gabe Violett raved about the cheesecake, so we had to make a second trip back to the buffet and make sure we left no stone unturned.
• We first spotted Bobby Steggert being his dapper self not far from the dessert table. He was snapping selfies with Alison Fraser and we refrained from fangirling but only just barely.
• Kate Baldwin is stunning. That is all.
• Late in the evening we met the show’s fight director Jeff Barry. After terrifying him with my enthusiasm for blood choreography he taught me about how the body reacts to a stabbing. Not that there were many stabbings in Gentleman’s Guide, it was just my crazy that took the conversation to a dark place.
• Bryce brought his lady Emily Young as his date — remember when they were both in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson together?! — and even at the bitter end of the night, as we were all being kicked out of the joint, they looked ridiculously beautiful and glam. Not even fair.

Photo: Walter McBride

Even though Bob Fosse’s been dead longer than many of our readers have been alive, I can’t imagine that anyone here doesn’t have at least a passing familiarity with his work. After all, two of his signature shows (Pippin and Chicago) are currently running on Broadway, each in a hit revival received even more enthusiastically than the original. And what do those revivals have in common? Both took great pains to create choreography “in the style of Bob Fosse,” including recreating Fosse’s own steps for big numbers in each – “The Manson Trio” (the dance break in “Glory”) in Pippin and “Hot Honey Rag” in Chicago. With no disrespect to the other great choreographers of Broadway, while original dances from De Mille, Robbins, and Bennett have been recreated, no one else created a style so recognizable and enviable that people today still strive to work (and market their work as) “in the style of” anyone other than Fosse.

Given Fosse’s enduring popularity and fascinating personal life—more on that in a sec—I predict that Sam Wasson’s excellent new biography will be as in demand as Pippin tickets. The 700-page opus takes us from Fosse’s funeral back to his childhood dancing in the slimiest burlesque houses Chicago had to offer, through the romances and bromances of the showman who made history as the first (and still only) to win the best director Oscar, Tony, and Emmy awards all within a year.

Not convinced? Here are the “Five B’s” of Bob Fosse that most intrigued me in reading about his life.

Burlesque

Anyone familiar with Fosse’s choreography shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that he got his start in the burlesque houses of his native Chicago: the sexiness of seediness that forms the core of Fosse’s trademark style is a direct descendant of the bump-and-grind strippers and sad sack ex-vaudevillians he encountered there. What might be surprising is how young Fosse was when he started performing in these places. As a young teenager, Fosse and his friend Charlie Grass performed as “The Riff Brothers” pretty much from the moment puberty set in. Faced with both affection and humiliating ridicule from the strippers who shared their stage, Fosse emerged permanently scarred from the experience. Wasson makes the case that the rest of Fosse’s career was in some way or another trying to process his early burlesque trauma.

Babes

Fosse’s libido was legendary, as was the size of his instrument. According to Wasson, it seems like Debbie Reynolds is just about the only woman Fosse ever met who didn’t succumb to his charm. But the really interesting aspect of his romantic life is they way in which is overlapped. Fosse’s wives and girlfriends not only knew each other, they often took each other under their wings, offered advice, and formed something of an unconventional extended family. This is particularly true of Fosse’s third wife, Gwen Verdon, the mother of Bob’s daughter Nicole. Gwen remained a close artistic collaborator with Bob even after they split, and she retained a close working and personal relationship with Ann Reinking, Fosse’s most important girlfriend (and Gwen’s replacement in the lead of the original Broadway production of Chicago). The opening scene of the book describes Gwen, Ann, and Nicole dancing together in Bob’s memory at the dinner following his funeral — while his final girlfriend, Phoebe Ungerer wept in the corner. To love Bob was to share Bob, and while there were moments of tension, these women pulled it off with incredible grace.

Bisexuality?

All my life I had heard stories of Fosse’s bisexuality, driven by both his insatiable sexual appetite and his need to get close to his dancers in every way possible. Wasson’s book makes a case that Bob was too busy with women, and even so, he wasn’t interested in men like that. I’m not sure I’m convinced, but I’m also not entirely sure it matters. Regardless of what Bob did in bed, it’s pretty clear he didn’t identify as bisexual.

Bros

This doesn’t mean men weren’t important in Fosse’s life. On the contrary, for all of his complicated on again off again relationships with the women in his life, Bob’s tight friendships with the men in his life were constant. While Bob first began forming tight friendships with other men early on—Charlie Grass in his teens, Joe Papp during his military service, Neil Simon and Cy Coleman and other colleagues in his early days on Broadway—it was when he formed a triumvirate with writers Paddy Chayevsky and Herb Gardner that he really found his emotional rock. It’s interesting that all of Bob’s important relationships with women were with other dancers, with whom he both collaborated and competed, Bob’s male inner circle was all writers, whom he worshiped and attempted to emulate.

Bombs

Although Fosse’s track record on Broadway and in Hollywood was close to flawless, he went out on sour notes in both arenas, with Big Deal on Broadway and Star 80 in the cinemas. Both projects appear to have suffered from Fosse’s growing singularity of vision, which might be a nice way to frame insatiable ego. Despite spending his career in collaborative endeavors, Fosse strove to be an auteur, and if he could have performed every task and every role in his later films and shows, he would have. And yet, despite their tepid reviews and disastrous audience receptions, I now want to see Star 80 (and however much of Big Deal one can see) because Wasson’s description of Fosse’s creative process was so vivid and enthralling, I have to see the results.

 That’s just a taste of the many pleasures of this book. Don’t let the page count put you off; after all, a good 100 of those 700 pages are notes and index. If you like to read on the go, this is definitely one for your e-reader, although I can’t complain about my newly toned biceps thanks to reading this in hardcover on the subway.

Direct and unedited from our cellphones.

Because there’s no such thing as too many photos of Alex Timbers.

Or a bad photo of Alex Timbers.

Also, here are some things you should know about what went down with Alex at this event. Presented in no particular order and extremely gushy language which probably lacks any kind of proper grammatical structure but who gives a fuck we’re in love:

• Timbers said the wallpaper was inspired by Trainspotting and he wanted the show to feel like a David Fincher film and his idea for integrating the boxing ring into the set was inspired by a lighting rig at a Nine Inch Nails concert and every time he made a new cultural reference The Mick slid further down into her seat and tried not to sob audibly from joy and Lucky asked, again and again, if she could die at his feet, because it would be a noble death.
• Alex talks with his hands.
• Lynn Ahrens totally has a crush on him and it was really cute and he was so like… adorably uncomfortable as she was sitting there beside him and gushing about him to the crowd that he just like… picked his cuticles and stared at his hands.
• Fact: Timbers wanted the Rocky job so bad he showed up to meet with Meehan/Ahrens/Flaherty in a suit. So, you enjoy that mental picture, team. Here’s a pin if you somehow foolishly need inspiration for that daydream.
• When he runs a hand through his hair, and those gorgeous Timberlocks just tumble back down across his forehead, A FUCKING ANGEL GETS ITS WINGS. Every. Damn. Time.
• He was drinking tea from Starbucks which is relevant to our interests and also, SWOON. Also, would he maybe come to high tea with us someday? And be excited and talk to us about theater and Roxette and boy bands and blood choreography?
• His shoes. There’s a picture down there. Slightly beat up, wingtip-y boots. Fuck yes.
• His lips are kind of perfect and basically stare back at you saying “Wait, why are you not kissing me right now?”
• He wears a ring on the middle finger of his left hand, which is very Isaac Hanson of him. This is an amazing thing.
• You should see the way the back pockets of his jeans are perfectly worn in.
• Good luck trying to be nearly as creepy and obsessed with every single fucking thing about Alex Timbers as we are. Ever.

And now, without further ado, SO MANY PICTURES:

Right now the good folks over at the Belasco are probably up to their eyeballs in glowing reviews. As they should be. Richard III and Twelfth Night, imported by Shakespeare’s Globe in London — playing in rep and staged as they would have been in Shakespeare’s time (that means all male casts) —  are absolutely fucking marvelous. Revelatory. Enlightening. Mark Rylance will change the way you think of Richard the III. Or Olivia, for that matter. Actually… he’ll change the way you think about everything if you watch closely enough.

Which is the thing I need to tell you about.

Before each show at The Belasco, the cast gather on stage to don their costumes, and where necessary, makeup. There is no curtain. The audience, or at least, anyone smart enough to arrive early, is privy to a scene normally hidden offstage, behind closed doors. Dressers and makeup artists abound as the men slip into period garb and chat, or pace, or drum on the tables along with the period music the band is playing. As they do their getting-ready-to-illuminate Shakespeare thing.

I could probably opine for hours on how amazing it is that not only does this experience not hinder the audience’s ability to suspend disbelief but it actually manages to enhance our connection with the material. As if our complicity in the act makes us more invested in the journey.

But what I want to tell you is more specific. It’s about watching Mark Rylance before Twelfth Night as he puts on his Olivia costume and, layer by layer, sheds his entire self to become a woman. It will wreck your head.

Having seen Richard III in the afternoon, I knew that the cast would be getting into costume on stage before the show, and that evening I returned to the Belasco early so I could catch as much of the Twelfth Night costume change as possible. It was maybe the best decision I’ve made in my entire theater-going life. The costume change before Richard III was interesting. But, to be frank, Rylance is the guy to watch on that stage, and in Richard III he goes through a much less pronounced transformation. Not only is his costume less complex, but as Richard he remains a man, and a showman, at that. There is something that feels inherently Rylance-ian about Richard.

But Olivia — when he becomes Olivia. Oh. My god.

As Mark dons each layer of his costume — and lord, are there layers in those women’s costumes — some piece of the Mark Rylance you’ve seen and known disappears. The man changes everything about himself that can be changed. The way he holds his face. His posture. The way his wrists move. The way he walks. THE WAY HE BREATHES. I shit you not.

And watching each small change, from the way he aggressively flaps his hands as though he’s trying to break something in his wrists to change how they feel and work, to the way he inhales and exhales, so that his whole person feels different just there before your eyes, is insane. It wrecks your head. Because you are SEEING IT HAPPEN. Like. You know what he’s doing. And still, you cannot believe your eyes. Or even remember what Mark Rylance was like before, when he was Mark, or Richard III, or anyone but Olivia, the woman right there before you.

Of course, it takes more than a dress, or a posture, to be a woman. There is some spiritual and emotional vein of existence that Rylance taps into, and which you can see the beginnings of right there on stage. I wish I could explain that part to you. That transference of something otherworldly into his being. How Rylance’s understanding of Olivia is obviously so  much deeper than gender or performance.

But that’s the privilege of being there. Of seeing this. The greater understanding of his work, and maybe of humanity, too. I mean. To be totally ineloquent here, this shit fucking blew my mind into a thousand pieces and heightened my experience of Twelfth Night and made me want to see it again and again and again. I mean. It was so good I haven’t even mentioned how much more in love with Samuel Barnett I am (seriously, can we cuddle and drink tea and talk about books forever?), which, with me, is really, really saying something.

So just… go. The plays will change the way you think about Shakespeare. And get there early. Because the show before the show will change the way you think about theater and basically everything else, ever.

Photo: BBC 

…Is this: It’s bad. It’s so bad, so not even a real Broadway show, that it’s not worth hating.

Which isn’t to say there weren’t moments I considered hating it. There totes were. I resented the moment the audience gave FAKE Bessie Smith entrance applause so deeply I couldn’t contain the urge to lean over to Lucky and complain. And at one point in the second act, while struggling to maintain awake-ness, I actually facepalmed over some choice dialogue failure that I have since erased entirely from my brain. Because who has room for that kind of shit? I’d much rather leave more space for maintaining accurate records of Harry Styles’ underwear preferences.

But like… the idea of giving this show a full, fully nasty review, as if it were really a musical and not a thinly veiled Myrtle Beach tribute concert, is ridiculous. It’s not worth it. We’re talking about 2.5 hours of performance that never once addresses Janis’ addictions or love affairs. There’s no story arc here–the work has no soul of its own. And that’s… not really a show at all. Not in the Broadway sense.

Which sucks. Because that’s a tragic waste of Mary Bridget Davies’ not inconsiderable talent. Homegirl is wailing her pipes out up there, and putting on a pretty credible performance as well, you know, in the moment or two where she is actually given some acting to do.

So I guess what I mean is this– If you really love Janis Joplin, like, to the point you kind of still wish she was alive, then hie thee to the Lyceum and pretend it’s 1969 again. You’ll have a great time. The scads of (slightly drunk) post-menopausal women losing their minds in the seats all around us certainly did. Too bad there isn’t a House of Blues nearby where you can grab dinner after the show like you’re really in Myrtle Beach after all.

Photo: Jenny Anderson