Have you had enough of celebrity biographical musicals yet? Spurred on by the success of Jersey Boys, Broadway has served up show tributes to Carole King, Donna Summer, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson and, this week at the Kravis Center, the national tour of The Cher Show, a flashy look at the up and down career of Cherilyn Sarkisian, a/k/a, well, you know who. Dividing her … [Read more...]
Broadway Review 1: Four new musicals contend in Tony season
Following a very busy April, in which two dozen new shows opened to end the Tony Award-eligible season, a host of new musicals by debuting composers arrived, many of them adaptations of popular novels and their subsequent movie versions. * Water for Elephants — Who wouldn’t want to run away and join the circus, even one so ramshackle and cash-strapped as the … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway No. 2: ‘Elephants’ is a big winner
I arrived in a bracingly chilly New York this afternoon after an uneventful flight — always a plus. My first show of the trip was a solid winner, an unlikely stage musical version of Water for Elephants, based on the cult favorite 2006 novel by Sara Gruen and the subsequent 2011 movie version. I call it unlikely because a crucial character is a huge pachyderm named Rosie, … [Read more...]