Tomorrow I fly to New York to sample the Broadway season, which accelerated in April just before the Tony Awards deadline. I'll be seeing eight shows in six days, including new musicals based on bast-selling novels that became popular movies and now stage shows. Among them are The Notebook, The Great Gatsby … [Read more...]
Strong performances in Wick’s ‘Buddy’ hampered by show’s weak script
In 1989, long before the onslaught of singer-songwriter biographical musicals — of Frankie Valli, Carole King, Tina Turner, Neil Diamond, to name a few — hit Broadway, a show about bespectacled, 1950s rock ‘n’ roller Buddy Holly was created in England, where it ran an unfathomable 14 years. A year later it crossed the pond, as they say, and lasted a more modest six months … [Read more...]
World premiere ‘What’s Best for the Children’ aims for laughs before message
When Idris Goodwin was commissioned by the Boulder (Colo.) Ensemble Theatre, he was drawn to writing about the challenge of education today, but he had no idea what shape the script would take. Eventually titled What’s Best for the Children, the play grew out of a performance piece he had written years earlier after reading an article about Texas and the power that state has … [Read more...]
‘Hamilton’ just as dazzling as original with national tour cast at Kravis
For the past 10 years, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop history lesson Hamilton has been enthralling audiences on Broadway, on tour and in productions around the world. So it is probably old news that it is a brilliantly original breakthrough work of musical theater. That it is, but by now the question on potential ticket buyers’ minds has shifted to the quality of the road show … [Read more...]
Cast members agree: There’s nothing like ‘Hamilton’
Playing immigrant founding father Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury secretary, in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical phenomenon can be challenge enough. “First of all, ‘Hamilton’ has the most words of any musical ever. And the character himself says the most words ever said on the American stage,” according to Blaine Krauss, who will be playing the role … [Read more...]
54 Below cabaret comes south to the Kravis with ‘Jersey Boys’ star Lloyd Young
By Sharon Geltner Big Broadway stars who have played the storied 54 Below cabaret in Manhattan are performing for the first time at the Rinker Playhouse, the first arrangement of its kind in the country. Georgina Young, vice president of marketing and programming at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, proposed the partnership at a chance meeting in a Fort … [Read more...]
‘Death of a Salesman’ shows Dramaworks at its best
In its 25 years of existence, Palm Beach Dramaworks has gradually altered its emphasis toward the development of new work. But seeing its current, emotionally shattering production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman reminds us that what it does best is tackle the major classics of the American theater, particularly the Pulitzer Prize winners. Seventy-five years ago, … [Read more...]
At GableStage: Absorbing ‘Lehman Trilogy’ is a triumph for its actors, company
It all begins unassumingly with a purchase and sale of cotton. That is how three immigrant brothers — German Jews Henry. Emanuel and Mayer Lehman — arrive in the United States penniless in the 1840s and build a renowned investment empire. Collectively known as Lehman Brothers, their business model evolved from commodities trading to pure finance, money making … [Read more...]
‘Six’ may not be accurate history, but it sure is fun
At a brisk 80 minutes running time, Six: The Musical may not feel like a full evening’s meal, but it packs more entertainment value than any show in less than an hour and a half. Perhaps you might think of it as the appetizer before next month’s main course, Hamilton, for they have much in common. Both, of course, relate history lessons – English for Six and American for … [Read more...]
Big, beautiful ’42nd Street’ at Maltz is dazzling triumph for local theater
At one point in 42nd Street, the production number-heavy backstage musical about a Depression-era Broadway tryout, Julian Marsh, the director of Pretty Lady — the fictional show-within-the-show — calls it “the biggest musical this town has seen in two decades.” While that is true, he could also be referring to what the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has lovingly assembled on a … [Read more...]