You know the drill by now. Sunday night’s Tony Awards ceremony will do its best to put a happy face on the Broadway season, but in fact, this was the worst year for musicals in a long time. Note the Best Score category, which could only find two musicals to nominate and had to settle for singling out two plays for their incidental music. Of the four shows nominated for Best … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 8: ‘Race’
I had a 6:30 p.m. flight home Saturday, so I wasn’t going to see a matinee, the first time a play would be on that I was not in a theater seat. But a press agent recommended I see David Mamet’s latest play, Race. It’s only 100 minutes long including intermission and I’d heard good things about it, so why not, I figured. Well, one reason is Mamet’s most recent output, a couple … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 7: ‘Fela!’
My season-end Broadway visit is coming to a close, and it is fair to say it has been a surprisingly strong year for plays and a pretty disappointing one for musicals. Tony Award nominations get announced Tuesday and the committee is going to have to be pretty creative to fill some of the musical categories. (There are only two musicals with original scores, so the eligibility … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 6: ‘Come Fly Away’
Eight years ago, Twyla Tharp won the Tony Award for choreography, using the music of Billy Joel for her quirky, alternately graceful and clumsy leaps and lifts in a show called Movin’ Out. The Playbill program for it contained a three-paragraph synopsis of the plot -- something about couples drifting apart as the guys went off to the war in Vietnam and then eventually coming … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 5: ‘Sondheim’ and ‘A Behanding’
It is the rare New York season that does not see a production of an existing Stephen Sondheim musical, but the brilliant composer-lyricist has not had a new show on Broadway since 1994’s Passion. So those of us who remain in awe of his abilities to push the boundaries of the musical theater have had to content ourselves with revivals, such as the current A Little Night Music … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 4: ‘The Addams Family’
After another downpour Tuesday morning, the rains ended but it got even colder. Don’t the weather gods realize that it is almost May? Nor did I have much luck with theater. I can be fairly Pollyanna-ish when it comes to refusing to believe the prevailing opinion about a bad show until I see for myself. And since Nathan Lane, Bebe Neuwirth and Kevin Chamberlin seem so perfectly … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 3: ‘The Temperamentals’
More rain Monday and still way too cold for the end of April. Since it was a Monday, most Broadway theaters were dark, but there is a complex of converted discount movie houses at West 50th Street that has a handful of auditoriums -- an off-Broadway multiplex, if you will -- and an engrossing new play by Jon Marans (Old Wicked Songs) called The Temperamentals, which turns out … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 2: ‘Enron’ and a Busch-Halston cabaret
Well, so much for the nice weather. I had another great day Sunday in all respects except meteorologically. It rained most of this gray, dreary day and even when the rains halted briefly, it was cold and raw. Fortunately, I had excuses to stay inside for most the time. I went to a matinee of Enron, Lucy Prebble’s epically theatricalized chronicle of the Houston energy company … [Read more...]
Bulletin from Broadway No. 1: ‘Red,’ ‘Promises, Promises’
Oh, the sacrifices I make for you, my readers. I am currently in New York City, enduring a week of theater, to fill you in on the season here, either as a guide for your future visits to Broadway or to whet your appetites for potential touring editions to South Florida. Or, OK, just because I craved an immersion into good theater for my own sake. So I will be seeing 10 shows … [Read more...]
Cast, audience deserve better than limp ‘Love Is Love’
It is a terrible mindset, but when hearing that a musical revue by a two-time Tony Award winner with a cast boasting several Broadway veterans is having its world premiere in South Florida, the first thought that comes to mind is, “Really? What’s wrong with it?" Unfortunately, with Love Is Love, written by Annie’s Martin Charnin with music by Richard Gray, starring the likes … [Read more...]