Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - Finding Neverland at the American Repertory Theatre

Quick quiz:

1. What musical is the following lyric from? 
2. Which character is singing?
3. What is this character singing about? 

All that matters now
Is where we go from here.
There's an easier way
If we live for today.
The singing in my heart 
Is all that matters.

Well, you can probably tell from the title of this review, as well as the accompanying artwork, that we're talking about the new Broadway-bound musical Finding Neverland. The character singing is named Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, played memorably by Kate Winslet in the 2004 movie of the same name. And the character is singing about...well...I really have no idea. Therein lies one of the major liabilities of Finding Neverland in its current form: You could hear the entire score and still not really understand what was going on in the show.

When the first announcements appeared about Finding Neverland becoming a musical, the composer and lyricist were to be Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, respectively. After multiple readings and productions, Frankel and Korie were suddenly no longer attached. We may never know how the show would have fared with Frankel and Korie, but based on my experience with their previous work (Grey Gardens, Happiness, Far From Heaven), I have to conclude that the show would have been significantly more intelligent, tuneful, integrated, and original than the uninspired concoction that is currently playing at the American Repertory Theatre.

As anyone who's seen the original movie knows, Finding Neverland concerns playwright J.M. Barrie and his relationship with a young widow and her four boys, who inspire him to write his best-known work, Peter Pan. It's a wonderful idea for a musical, and there are brief moments in the current show that hint at the magic that could have been. Most of these come in the form of stagecraft, as at the end of the show when Sylvia makes her most significant transition. Powerful fans emerge in a circle in the center of the stage, which create a whirlwind of golden glitter, a gorgeous moment that brings the stories of the musical and Peter Pan together in a stunning coup de théâtre. 

In between these rare moments of wonder, we must contend with an inferior score and a merely serviceable book. Producer Harvey Weinstein replaced Frankel and Korie with musical-theater neophytes Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy (music and lyrics together). Their lack of musical-theater experience shows, partly in the overabundance of slant rhyme, poor scansion, and forced extra syllables, but also in their tin-eared, derivative contemporary musical style. The only decent song in the entire score is "Neverland," although you'd never know it from Jennifer's Hudson's riffando version on the Tony Awards. Add in James Graham's bald-faced dialogue and ham-fisted plot exposition, and we have a musical that would seem more fitting for The Disney Channel than the legitimate Broadway stage.  

Barlow and Kennedy also show their inexperience in their choice of moments to musicalize. The third number in the show, when I saw it in previews, was a rather odd number for J.M. Barrie's wife, called "Rearrange the Furniture," which is pretty much as it says on the box. The number is superficial character work at best, and the character doesn't really warrant a number in the first place. On the other hand, we have a major moment in the second act, when J.M. Barrie brings the entire cast of Peter Pan to recreate the show in the bedroom of an ailing Sylvia, a moment that would seem to cry out for a musical number, but all we get is a stylized retread of Barrie's play. 

Another problem with Finding Neverland is a rather bizarre mismatch of styles. The generic pop score is at odds with the Victorian time frame, which would be fine if not for the rather literal period costumes and sets. We also get a series of jarringly angular and jerky dance sequences from choreographer Mia Michaels, a self-aggrandizing style that disappears about a quarter of the way through the show, never to return. (Michaels' most significant credit would seem to be So You Think You Can Dance. Yeah, that's who I'd hire for a 19th Century period piece.)  

Director Diane Paulus seems to be struggling with how to bring the material to life, and a number of sequences reflect this uncertainty. There's a dinner-party number that's meant to show how the kids, Sylvia, and Barrie occupy one world, while Barrie's wife and Sylvia's mother are in another world entirely. It's a good idea, but as currently staged the number has no focus. There's so much going on, it's hard to know what to pay attention to, an issue exacerbated by a spate of mugging chorus members continually trying to pull focus.

Another number, called "Believe," is meant to be inspirational, with Barrie encouraging the Llewelyn boys to let their creativity take flight, but Paulus fleshes out the number with a rather bizarre admixture of buskers and bees. As I sat watching the show, I kept thinking of Big Fish, another show that wanted to celebrate story-telling and imagination, but wound up demonstrating very little of either. 

One thing that Finding Neverland has in its favor is a stellar cast of first-rate Broadway performers, including Jeremy Jordan as Barrie, Laura Michelle Kelly as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and Carolee Carmello as Madame du Maurier, Sylvia's mother. They all get their chance to belt their brains out, if that's your idea of great theater, but I had to feel sorry for Carolee for having to deliver the reprise of "All That Matters," generic lyric and all. Also in the cast is Tony winner Michael McGrath as theatrical impresario Charles Frohman, and I swear I could sense McGrath gritting his teeth while trudging through a show that is decidedly beneath his talent. 

On a final note, why is such a manifestly commercial show even playing at the ART to begin with? Other than money, that is? I suppose it's possible to argue that All The Way, The Glass Menagerie, Porgy and Bess, and even Pippin might in some way intersect with the artistic mission of a major nonprofit theater at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. But Finding Neverland? Such a patently mercenary venture feels like filthy lucre, and nothing more. 

Review - The Visit at Williamstown Theatre Festival With Chita Rivera

John Waters writes in one of his books (I think it was Crackpot) that he wishes that someone would discover an unpublished Jean Genet novel. He's read everything extant by Genet, he says, and longs for that special feeling of experiencing something truly great for the first time. 

That's how I felt watching The Visit, the hauntingly satisfying "new" musical with music by John Kander and lyrics by the late Fred Ebb: thrilled to experience something genuinely ambitious and frequently wondrous, and yet sad that most of the genius involved in crafting this stunning show is either gone or in its dotage.  

The Visit was one of four musicals that Kander and Ebb were working on upon Ebb's death in 2004. Two of these shows have subsequently made it to Broadway: Curtains and The Scottsboro Boys. One has yet to see any significant exposure: a musical version of Thorton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, called All About Us. 

And then there's The Visit, which had a well-received run in 2008 at The Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, although talk of bringing that production to New York never bore fruit, purportedly because of the 2008 recession. Thankfully, The Visit is now enjoying a stunning production, significantly revised and shortened from previous versions, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, playing now through August 17th. 

The musical is based on the eponymous 1956 play The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and the musical sticks fairly close to its source. The story concerns one Claire Zachanassian, who returns to her hometown after becoming the richest woman in the world. She offers to save the town from its ruinous state, but with one chilling proviso: the town must kill her former lover, Anton Schell, now an indigent shopkeeper with a wife and two children. 

If that conceit seems static -- I mean, once the horrifying condition is revealed, where do you go from there? -- both the play and the musical follow up with an intriguing series of developments and revelations that add layers to the seemingly inert premise. The musical is by turns arresting, poignant, and darkly humorous. It also manages to paint a balanced portrait of horror and justice: Claire is clearly a deeply wronged woman, and yet Anton makes for a penitent and sympathetic foil. When we discover exactly what Anton did to Claire, we almost accept the righteousness of her demands, the justice inherent in her savage proposal. 

I've seen many musicals attempt to balance dark subject matter with a satisfying sense of entertainment and humor, and it's a really difficult task to pull off. (Just ask the authors of Lestat, Bare, Heathers, The People in the Picture, Scandalous, Soul Doctor, etc.) Librettist Terrence McNally finds just the right balance of the edgy and the enjoyable in The Visit, something he was unable to do for Catch Me If You Can.

Composer John Kander matches McNally's balance with a lush and soaring score with numerous complex contrapuntal passages. Kander and Ebb together crafted songs that can easily stand among their classics, including "Love and Love Alone," a triumphant 11 o'clock number for Claire, and "You, You, You," a soaring love duet for Young Claire and Young Anton, who act as mostly silent witnesses throughout the entire show. (Young Anton is played here by golden-voiced Boston Conservatory grad, John Bambery. Full Disclosure: John is a former student of mine, but trust me, the guy's got the pipes. Yowza.) 

The Visit benefits greatly from the sensitive direction of, and stark presentation by, director John Doyle. (And, in case you're wondering: No, the performers are not required to play instruments here.) In concert with scenic designer Scott Pask (who creates a gasp-inducing unit set) and costume designer Ann Hould Ward, Doyle has fashioned a hauntingly expressionistic, black, white, and gray production, punctuated with increasing accents of vibrant yellow, a symbol of the avarice that overcomes the townspeople as they gradually turn against Anton. 

For many people, the big draw of this production will be the first-rate cast, lead by the irreplaceable Chita Rivera, so fluid and sharp, even at age 81. Roger Rees fares considerably less well as Anton: he's more than up to the acting challenge, but his singing voice is sadly lacking in strength and sustain. Also notable are Judy Kuhn, laser-sharp as always as Anton's beleaguered wife, and Jason Danieley, positively heartbreaking as the schoolmaster, and Anton's last remaining ally.  

If The Visit never finds the thematic cohesion of, say, Cabaret or even The Scottsboro Boys, it still has much to reveal about the dark side of human nature and the artistic ambitions of musical theater. I'm not sure The Visit has much of a commercial future, but it would be great to see one of the Broadway nonprofits like the Roundabout or Lincoln Center scoop it up for a limited run. 

Review - The Hills Are Alive at the New York Fringe Festival

Because I spent so much time at NYMF this summer, I didn't really have plans to take in any shows at the NY Fringe Festival. I think it's partly because I'm kind of over the four-hour bus ride to NYC, but also there's just too much choice at the Fringe: nearly 200 shows this year. What's a theater blogger with ADD to do? Last year I had my first Fringe experience, but only because two shows really stuck out for me last year: Yeast Nation and The Legend of Julie.

But last weekend I was going down to catch New Girl in Town and Bring It On (read my review of the former here, and watch for my review of the latter early next week), and I didn't have anything to see on Sunday. I happened to notice an invitation in my inbox for a Fringe show called The Hills Are Alive, which claimed to be a darkly comic sequel to "The Sound of Music." Hey, what the hell, right? I figured, good or bad, the show would be something my readers would be interested in hearing about.

The Hills Are Alive asks the pressing question: "What happened to the Von Trapp family members after they escaped from the Nazis and set out on their hike to Switzerland?" The show has book and lyrics by Frankie Johnson, music by Eric Thomas Johnson, and it essentially wants to be a perversely madcap romp across the Alps, with shades of the Donner Party and a heavy dose of And Then There Were None. What it winds up being, at least in the current production, is a reasonably good idea trapped inside a book, score, and production that don't fully do that idea justice, at least not at present. 

The songs represent a series of pastiches of the songs from The Sound of Music, including "Do Re Mi," "So Long, Farewell," "The Lonely Goatherd," and the title song, complete with the female lead twirling with her arms in the air. There's also the Captain von Trapp counterpart singing an "Edelweiss"-like song by the campfire, complete with guitar accompaniment. The ideas for the songs are sound; it's just that too many of them are unappealing, featuring strange dissonant intervals and a droning, dirge-like pace. (You can listen to some of the songs from the show here and judge for yourself.) Also, the lyrics fall victim to far too many of the traps of the lazy lyricist, including poor scansion, slant rhyme, and unnecessary melisma.

Much of the humor from The Hills Are Alive, which is fairly abundant, comes from the recognition of various people and elements from "The Sound of Music," the movie version in particular. Props to the game cast members who give these iconic characters their own particular sardonic spin, including Ashley Ball as Fraulein Mathilde (the Julie Andrews part), Skylar Saltz as the snotty Ludwiga, and Frankie Johnson herself as Gerdy, the youngest child.

The story to The Hills Are Alive could use some clarification and some trimming. The plot features a number of devices that are never fully explained, including an anthropomorphic tree that haunts one of the characters throughout the show, only to meet with a rather underdeveloped payoff at the end. Also, the show feels overly long at present: parodies rarely have any business being longer than 90 minutes, and The Hills Are Alive is about two hours, with intermission. Some of my perception of excess length might be attributable to the rather glacial pace with which author Frankie Johnson has directed the current production, complete with enervating pauses between scenes and dialog.

But, in sum, there's a decent amount of comic potential in the idea for The Hills Are Alive. With stronger comic direction, faster pace, and a few more tuneful songs, the show might have a future.

Reviews - New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) - Part 4

Here's the fourth and final installment of my capsule reviews from this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Click here to read my first, second, and third installments. My sincere thanks to the good folks at NYMF for allowing me such open and ready access to all of the NYMF shows.

It's thanks to NYMF and the other new-works projects around the country that so many people who are interested in writing new musicals are able to find the support they need to bring their ideas to the stage. Whenever someone trots out that tired old bit about musical theater being dead, or on its last legs, I think of the hundreds upon hundreds of submissions to NYMF, the National Music Theater Conference at the O'Neill Theater Center, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Festival of New Artists at the Goodspeed, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), not to mention the numerous regional and nonprofit companies that actively seek and nurture new works. The economic model may have changed since the "golden age" of musicals, but there's still plenty of interest not only in creating musical theater, but in attending it as well.

Sure, most of these shows won't make it to Broadway, or even anywhere close to it. But if it weren't for these programs, we might never have seen such interesting and entertaining new works as Urinetown, Next to Normal, [title of show], Altar Boyz, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Gutenberg! The Musical, Yank!, Avenue Q, Nine, In the Heights, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Children of Eden, The Drowsy Chaperone, Songs for a New World, I Love You Because, and Striking 12.

I can't wait until next year's festival.

Zapata is a rather curious concoction with music and lyrics by Peter Edwards, book by Peter and Ana Edwards. The show attempts to draw a parallel between the revolutionary activities of Emiliano Zapata and the Occupy Wall Street movement. The result, while well-meaning, is strident, clumsy, and forced. It feels as though the show had been in development long before the Occupy protests, and then the authors, spying an opportunity to give the show modern resonance, tacked on a present-day prologue and epilogue. The connection seems tenuous: Zapata's story is one of violent uprising against brutal oppressors. At one point in the show, one of the characters says, "Violence is unavoidable. It's the only language these dogs understand." So, how exactly is the Occupy movement supposed to use Zapata's story as inspiration? The best that the writers can seem to come up with is the lame blandishment to "keep on fighting." The show even gives one of the characters a ludicrous "vision" of a future righteous struggle (i.e. Occupy), along with the exhortation that "our fight made it possible." Beyond the questionable nature of the message, the show itself is a bit of a mess. The story itself is compelling, but it gets mired in clunky expository dialog, manufactured drama, contrived resolutions, and plot threads that seemingly appear out of nowhere. The characters are mostly two-dimensional, and frequently make choices that have scant justification in the events as described. The lyrics are rife with cliches ("I'd rather die a thousand deaths than let my people down") and uninspired proclamations ("Children make this life worth living"). The show's music is not without merit, reflecting a stirring sense of the Mexican musical idiom, and the movement and battle sequences (choreographed by Luis Salgado) have a certain dramatic effectiveness, including the neat theatrical device of a rhythmic dancer who appears to portend significant moments of violence and death. But Zapata has quite a few rewrites ahead of it if the show is going to have any sort of commercial future.

Another NYMF show that has a rewrite or two ahead of it is The Groove Factory, with book by Chad Kessler and David James Boyd, music and lyrics by David James Boyd. The story involves a sort of Willy Wonka-inspired quest to win tickets to the big 1999 New Year's Eve party at the titular Groove Factory, a New York City dance club. The show's central character is Chazz Goodhart (groan), a young gay man who wants to escape from the trailer park and find fame and success as a club DJ. What really kills the buzz of The Groove Factory is the whiplash-inducing change of tone at the end of the show. The first 70 minutes or so seems to celebrate the drug-fueled, superficial club lifestyle, but then, as if to expiate its hedonistic sins, the show tries to shoehorn in a tragic, cautionary tale at the end. The Groove Factory wants to have its crystal meth and eat it, too. It starts as a sort of campy romp, which is not completely without humor or appeal, and there are some interesting characterizations along the way. But once we get to the club, the show degrades considerably. We then witness a tiresome parade of songs celebrating various drugs: ecstasy, methamphetamine, Special K, etc. The show then concludes with its baleful twist and some bland moralizing ("Music is the only drug I need"), followed by an artificially upbeat final number about this being the "best of times," despite the dire proceedings we've just witnessed. Let me be clear here: I'm not objecting to the apparent message of the show. I'm taking issue with the way the show is currently executed, which doesn't come near to doing its let's-get-high-on-life credo any justice.

One of the most powerful and promising shows to emerge from NYMF this year was Shelter, with book and lyrics by Brittany Bullen, music by Brittany Bullen and Newell Bullen. As the name might suggest, the show takes place in a women's homeless shelter and weaves together the stories of a number of different women, both those who populate the shelter and those who work there. At this stage in the show's development, its key assets are the passion and power of these women and their stories, and some dynamite character ballads. The story is strong and the characters are compelling, and there's a great deal of very real, very raw writing at the center of the show. Shelter definitely needs some shaping and streamlining: there are a few too many characters for the show to adequately develop, the dramatic intent of some of the songs is unclear, and the character motivations don't always make sense. There were also some significant tone problems in the NYMF version of the show, including the character of the shelter's cook, who seemed like an artificial attempt at comic relief. Also, the number that opened act two, in which a trio of two-dimensionally perky saleswomen try to recruit the shelter women into selling Avon-like cosmetics, wasn't working at all. (The authors tell me that both the cook character and the cosmetics song have been cut.) But there's a really powerful piece at the core of Shelter, and I'm very eager to see not only how the show develops, but also how the Bullens continue to develop as musical-theater artists.

 

Reviews - New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) - Part 3

Here's my third of what will be four installments of capsule reviews from the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Click here for my first and second installments.

One of the break-out hits of NYMF this year, at least in terms of attendance, was Re-Animator: The Musical. The show's festival popularity was likely based on the name recognition of the H.P Lovecraft title, the 1985 cult film based on the book, and the presence in the cast of "Cheers" alum George Wendt. Re-Animator is yet another in a line of intentionally campy musicals trying to recapture the magic of Little Shop of Horrors or Bat Boy. Instead, we get something a bit closer to Evil Dead: The Musical or The Toxic Avenger, at least in terms of the quality of the writing (i.e. low). Re-Animator got off to a shaky start with an opening number of which I wasn't able to understand a word. Perhaps this was a sound-level issue, or the loud, lifeless synthesizer accompaniment, but the dull drone of the tuneless music itself wasn't helping. The score by one Mark Nutter exhibits little if any compositional flare, although some of the songs did occasionally approach something resembling a melody. There were a few numbers that exhibited periodic flashes of wit and tunefulness, for instance one involving a medical student accusing his professor of plagiarism, and another involving an autopsy. But, as the show stands, its main assets lie in some reasonably funny set pieces and in the potential for special effects, some of which were already quite impressive, in particular a zombified mad scientist carrying his own severed head. One final note of irritation, there were clear and obvious shills in the audience emitting painfully obvious forced laughter. (Note to once and future writers: Please don't do this. If your show works, the audience will provide the approbation. If it doesn't, you're only embarrassing yourself when the one person laughing is your Aunt Marie.)

Foreverman, with book, music and lyrics by Brett M. Bolles, was among the more sweepingly ambitious NYMF shows this year: a gothic romance with a heavy dose of science fiction, involving two doctors who discover an elixir that grants immortality and the cautionary tale that results. The story has merit, and the show holds a decent amount of promise, particularly in terms of the pleasant, melodic score. But the libretto is full of holes, particularly with respect to the time frame. The show bounces back and forth between the 17th and 19th centuries, relying on supertitle projections to keep the audience temporally oriented. Much of the dialog is of the ploddingly expository kind, but perhaps in most need of fixing are the character motivations, which are downright inscrutable at times. It's not always clear who knows what, about whom, and how they found out about it. For instance, the two central central doctors have a falling out at the end of act one, which is supposed to drive the rest of the story. But it's not entirely clear why they're mad at each other. At various times, characters catch on to what's going on with the whole immortality thing, and the explanations often strain credulity. In fact, there are so many unexplained coincidences and unmotivated character choices that the name of the show could be Wait, What!? The lyrics are bland at best, at worst inscrutable, with an overabundance of clichés and tortured metaphors. One of the doctors sings about his lady love, "I would trade it all for a vial of her name...I'd give up everything for a single drop of her." I guess this has something to do with the elixir at the center of the plot, but I'll be damned if I can parse that sentence. If Foreverman has any future, it's going to need a fairly significant rewrite. Perhaps Mr. Bolles should stick to the music, which again is fairly strong, and bring someone else in to help with the words.

 

A Letter to Harvey Milk was one of the big winners this year of the 2012 NYMF Awards for Excellence, including the award for best book, a shared award for best lyrics, and performance awards for stars Leslie Kritzer and Jeff Keller. For the most part, the show deserved these awards. The show has a book by Jerry James, music by Laura l. Kramer, lyrics by Ellen M. Schwartz, and is based on a short story by Lesléa Newman. The story involves a retired kosher butcher (Keller) who takes up a writing class and the relationship that he develops with his writing teacher (Kritzer). In the course of the show, we discover things about both characters in a way that draws a profound parallel between the gay-rights struggle of the 1970s and the Jewish experience in the Holocaust. This may sound ponderous, but Harvey Milk is extraordinarily moving, if a tad flawed in its current form. The characters are charming and sympathetic, and the show works really well when it's heartfelt. It's during the moments of abundant hoary humor that the show sometimes falters, although in this production the masterful performers usually find ways to make even the clumsiest material work. Keller is simply outstanding as Harry Weinberg, the butcher, particularly at the very end of the show when all the story threads come together and we witness a devastating episode from Harry's past. Leslie Kritzer makes for a wonderfully understated but emotionally rich foil for Harry. The score features some remarkably lovely songs, including "Frannie's Hands," in which Harry describes the charms of his late wife. The score goes a tad awry in some of the comic numbers, particularly "Turning the Tables," a number in a Jewish deli, complete with an overdose of hoary Yiddish jokes. Some of the dramatic moments in the show need better setup, and one crucial reveal at the end of the show was met with unintended laughter from the audience the day I saw the show. But, overall, A Letter to Harvey Milk is one of two shows from this year's NYMF (the other being He's Not Himself) that I'm most eager to see advance to the next stage, wherever that might be.

Reviews - New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) - Part 2

Here's installment number two of my capsule reviews for the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Click here to read my first set of reviews. Watch for at least one additional installment, probably two.

The program note for Trouble promises "a show about love, finding it and loosing [sic] it." Yeah, not a very promising way to start. The show has a book by Michael Alvarez, music and lyrics by Ella Grace, and is as bland and unfocused as its title. Trouble comes off as a sort of low-rent Rent, but without the compelling drama or credible characterizations. Like Rent, Trouble wants to capture the voice of its generation. Unlike Rent, Trouble doesn't earn its pathos. Instead of life-and-death stakes, we just get hormones and personality flaws run amok. The show features four teenage couples, three straight and one gay. But these people aren't so much characters as characteristics, with manufactured plot turns to keep the them busy between power ballads. The songs are mostly generic, and often feature unclear dramatic intent, although there are a couple decent attempts at character numbers, one involving one of the gay characters who admits to stalking his class crush, and another about how one of the females sublimates her hostility though baking. The plot basically involves the four couples getting together and breaking up, or breaking up and getting together, and ultimately everything gets resolved in a forced, artificial manner. Characters far too easily forgive genuinely reprehensible acts on the part of their supposed loved ones, and make final choices that seem inconsistent with their character development and that are blissfully unconstrained by reality. In short, Trouble needs a lot of work if it's going to have any life after NYMF.

Stuck isn't quite the mess that Trouble is. The book and the songs by Riley Thomas reflect a lot more skill than those of Trouble, but the story for Stuck is forced and preachy. The show features six people stuck on a New York subway between stations. Over the course of the show, we discover essentially one big thing about each of the characters, with a lot of pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo along the way. Like Trouble, Stuck is populated with types rather than people, and before the end of the show, seemingly everyone makes a dark revelation: pregnancies, suicides, rotten childhoods, addiction, etc. These developments come off not so much as character motivation as they do convenient pieces of dramaturgical shorthand. There are certainly a few interesting songs and moments along the way, but the show reflects far too many tired tropes (including "Oh, isn't New York City dirty, smelly, and heartless?" and "Aren't we all a little crazy?") to be truly effective. Also, the pacing of the show is rather jarring. For instance, the drama peaks way too early with interactions and musical passages about the racism inherent in us all, even minorities. Then, immediately after, we have an upbeat comic number called "The Subway Samba" about the irritations and idiosyncrasies of the New York City subway system. The lyrics range from borderline inspired to trite, with such questionable aphorisms as "Strangers or lovers, the only difference is time." (Um...really? So, if I wait long enough, Jeremy Northam will eventually be mine?) Other lyrical groaners include exhortations to "listen not with your ears but with your heart" and inquiries as to "who completes your rhyme?" Then the show ends with pat resolutions and bromides, including the observation that "everyone wants what everyone wants." Um...OK...

He's Not Himself is easily the most promising NYMF show I've seen so far this year. (I still have seven more to go this weekend.) The show has book, music, and lyrics by Marc Silverberg, who also plays one of the five characters in this mostly amiable and madcap noir romp. The plot involves a male meter maid who dreams of the exciting life of a gangster. And whenever he gets hit on the head - which, of course, is frequently - he switches back and forth between his meek and malicious personalities. Yeah, the multiple personalities schtick is rather overused as a plot device, but Silverberg manages to find ways to keep it fresh. The Jekyll and Hyde scenario sets the stage for some rather raucous physical comedy, expertly staged by director Michael Pantone. The farcical set piece involving all five characters in a diamond heist from the local museum was downright masterful. The songs feature just a tad too much slant rhyme and faulty scansion for my taste, and I noticed at least one dangling modifier: "Dressed as a cop, she won't think something's wrong." In this scene, it's not the "she" who's dressed as a cop, but rather the "he" who is singing. But, with a little more development, He's Not Himself could become a comic gem.

Another promising show is Himself and Nora, with book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Brielle. The piece concerns the relationship between James Joyce (played here by Matt Bogart) and his long-time lover and eventual wife, Nora Barnacle (Jessica Burrows). One of the primary plot devices involves Joyce's refusal to marry Barnacle as a protest against the Catholic church. "Marriage is a plot of the church to keep the spirit down," Joyce says at one point in the show. But the constant specter of Joyce's inner conflict with his religious indoctrination is represented by the character of a Catholic priest, visible only to Joyce. The priest provides contrapuntal commentary on Joyce's every move. But Himself and Nora is essentially a love story. Make that a lust story. Part of what makes this particular production engaging are the robust and bawdy performances from Bogart and Burrows, who bravely commit to the leering innuendo and outright vulgarity in Brielle's book and lyrics. The bawdiness gets a bit much after a while, but thankfully at that point we move on to Joyce's struggles with censorship and his sixteen-year quest to find a publisher for Ulysses. Brielle gives Bogart and Burrows reasonably vivid and compelling characters to embody, and the story flows in an engaging fashion with spirited, authentic-sounding dialog. The music is idiomatic Irish, percussive and vibrant, with a certain modern flair in the orchestrations. I was, however, unfortunately reminded of February House, another recent musical that adopts the superficial aspects of the lives of major literary figures without really giving them anything profound to say, although Himself and Nora is somewhat more successful in this respect. Even so, with a bit more work on some plot holes here and some tonal inconsistencies there, Himself and Nora could eventually make for a satisfying musical work.

Reviews - New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) - Part 1

It will probably come as a surprise to many of my readers that I have never been to the New York Musical Theatre Festival(NYMF) before this year. I mean, I've been almost singularly devoted to musical theater for well over 30 years. I've been teaching musical theater for almost ten years. And I've been blogging about it for over six years. It would seem like a natural fit for me, right?

Well, all I can say is, when I go to New York, it's usually for the purpose of seeing a particular show. I usually decide what I'm going to see before I make my travel plans, and the shows that I see are usually ones that are already on my radar, whether because they're opening on Broadway, or because the shows have people involved who pique my interest. And theater festivals, such as NYMF and the Fringe, are very frequently populated with shows by people who haven't quite made it onto my radar yet.

Plus, there are usually so many shows at these festivals that it's hard to get focused on one or a handful of works worth seeing. So the festivals have always seemed kind of overwhelming to me. And, since I live in Boston, it's kind of hard for me to pop into a show on impulse, as I would be able to do if I lived a little closer to New York.

But this year, I was invited by the good folks at NYMF to speak on a panel about theater criticism, and while I was in New York, I decided to grab a NYMF schedule and just dive right in. This was partly because I've seen everything I want to see on Broadway, and almost everything I could want to see Off Broadway. But I also wanted to cast a net for shows to consider as part of our new-works program at the Boston Conservatory. I was hoping to contribute to in a more meaningful way to this program by lining up some shows in development to consider for a workshop, staged reading, or even a full-blown production.

So, I picked two weekends and set about creating a schedule that would allow me to see as many shows as possible. I just returned from my first weekend, and will be headed back down two weekends hence. Below are capsule reviews of some of the shows that I've seen so far. I'm currently scheduled to see about 16 shows in total. Stay tuned for more batches later this month.

Rio bills itself as a sort of modern-day version of Oliver Twist. The show has book, music and lyrics by Mitch Magonet and Joey Miller, and is an ambitious, if still somewhat inchoate, musical set in Brazil. The show focuses on the street urchin Pipio in his search for his mother amid the hard and violent streets of Rio de Janeiro. The show starts on a bit of a fuzzy note with a maddeningly opaque opening number. In fact, it's not really until 2 to 3 numbers into the show that the story really kicks into gear. Once it does, the narrative is strong and compelling, although the book and lyrics vacillate between harsh truth and stilted cliché. The NYMF production features spirited and dynamic staging, and the show itself is not without talent or promise. The music has a certain buoyant appeal, although the tone of the show is inconsistent: it doesn't really know if it wants to be entertaining or hard-hitting. Perhaps most damning, the show currently features a rushed and pat resolution that ends the show on a falsely positive note that's inconsistent with the setting and tone of the rest of the piece. But there's enough promise here to warrant another draft or two.

 You'd never know it from reading the title, but How Deep is the Ocean is a would-be comedy that centers around a man who has been obsessed with chlorine and pool maintenance since childhood. When the beaches on the Jersey Shore have to close due to the pollution levels, our hero attempts to save the day by chlorinating the ocean. Yeah, kind of ridiculous, but intentionally so. The book here is by Pia Cincotti, and the music and lyrics are by Peter Cincotti, and the main problem with the show in its current form is that the score and the book seem to be from two very different shows. The book has a madcap tone, but the score is overly ballad-heavy and comes off far more earnest that the show seems to be aiming for. The situation has comic promise, but the book is only intermittently funny, and the songs rarely are. The show seems to want to be The Great American Trailer Park Musical, but the humor factor is nowhere near high enough to put in in league with that charmingly dotty little show. The essential structure of the story seems sound, although the second act drags on a bit. The show has a sweet disposition, reasonably strong characterizations, and many memorable melodies. But it needs a sure-handed comic director, like a Christopher Ashley or a Scott Schwartz to pump up the humor. (Oh, and the NYMF production features a surprise celebrity guest. I won't spoil the surprise; you can check below in the comments section if you want to know who it is. But, as fun as this moment was, it's unlikely to be sustainable. A guest star of this stature is unlikely to follow the show on its intended journey. This felt like a one-time stunt, and nothing more.)

Quite a few of the shows at NYMF this year seem to be aiming for the quirky-but-endearing mantle, and Flambé Dreams, with book and lyrics by Matthew Hardy and music by Randy Klein, is most assuredly both quirky and endearing. It's the story of a young man who want to become a maitre d' in honor of his father, who died in a freak Bananas Foster incident. For the most part in these NYMF reviews, I'm going to focus more on the works themselves than on the productions, but a lot of what made Flambé Dreams appealing was the extraordinary cast of Broadway pros: Jarrod Spector as the young man, Catherine Cox as his mother, and Jillian Louis, J. Elaine Marcos, and Kevin B. McGlynnas the various people who come in and out of the young man's life as he attempts to become a maitre d' who specializes in flaming desserts, like his father. The show provides strong and memorable characters for these able performers to embody, and gives them a number of genuine laughs and appealing songs. The show loses steam a bit at about 11 o'clock, as it were, but on the whole I'll be interested in watching how this show progresses, and what its creators produce in the future.

Most of the shows at NYMF that I've seen so far have been fairly conventional book shows. The main exception was Show Me Real, a sort of musical theater/dance/film hybrid conceived and choreographed by Clare Cook, and featuring music and lyrics by Amy Burgess, book and lyrics by Gena Oppenheim. The show concerns three female modern dancers as they work together on a dance piece, creating connections between these performers and three Ziegfeld Follies girls in the past. The result was refreshing in its execution, if a tad jejune in its conception. The themes that emerge are about how, despite the different eras that the women exist within, there are strong undercurrents of overlap regarding the struggle, the uncertainty, and the passion for performing. But what made this uninspired concept come to life were the freshness and honesty of the performers, the spirited and visually varied dance segments, and the sense of dramatic balance and closure that Cook brings to the piece. It also made me wonder why we don't see more of this kind of boundary-pushing work. Or, perhaps more to the point, why I don't seek more of it out. I guess that's what's so great about my expanding my focus beyond Broadway and Off-Broadway. Sure, the cream rises to the top. But there's a lot to be enjoyed beneath that commercial surface.

Contest - Win Two Tickets to Leap of Faith on Broadway

So, you didn't win the tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar? Well, here's another chance to catch a brand new Broadway show absolutely free.

We've been hearing for a few years now about the stage adaptation of "Leap of Faith," the 1992 movie starring Steve Martin. Now the musical Leap of Faith has finally made it to Broadway, with lyrics by Glenn Slater, music by Alan Menken, and a book by Warren Leight and Janus Cercone. The show is directed by Christopher Ashley and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo. Performances begin at the St. James Theater in New York on April 3rd.

But, of course, as with all my contests, there's a certain price of admission. A trivia contest! Below are some questions regarding the cast as crew of Leap of Faith and their respective theatrical careers. If you'd like to be entered for the drawing, please answer the questions as best you can and submit your answers below via the comment function at the bottom of this post. (Don't worry: I won't publish anyone's answers until the contest is over.)

The voucher is good for two tickets for weekday/matinee performances of Leap of Faith through Sunday, May 6. The contest ends Monday, April 2nd.

Good luck!

[The contest is over and the winner has been notified. Thanks to everyone who entered. -C.C.]

1. Alan Menken and Glenn Slater are certainly no strangers to Broadway. In fact, they already have another show currently running on Broadway. What's the name of this show? And what's the name of the first show that they worked on together that played Broadway? [ANSWER: Sister Act and The Little Mermaid, respectively.]

2. Raul Esparza is one of only two actors who have been nominated in all four male actor categories for the Tony Awards. What were the shows for which he received nominations in the categories for Best Actor in a Musical and Best Featured Actor in a Musical? [ANSWER: Best Actor in a Musical: Company Best Featured Actor in a Musical: Taboo]

3. Jessica Phillips will play the role of Marla in Leap of Faith. Phillips replaces which iconic actress who played the role when the show played its out-of-town tryout in Los Angeles? [ANSWER: Brooke Shields]

4. Co-librettist Warren Leight is yet another in a series of award-winning playwrights who have been called upon to pen musical librettos. For which of his plays did Leight with the Tony Award? [ANSWER: Side Man]

5. Director Christopher Ashley has a long list of Broadway credits to his name. For which currently running Broadway musical did he receive his second Tony nomination for Best Direction of a Musical? [ANSWER: Memphis]

Review – Fifty*Four*Forever at The Jerry Herman Ring Theatre

Dear Reader: The following is a guest blog posting from one of my most loyal readers, and newest friends, Dr. Geoffrey Greene (@Elder_Greene) from Tampa. Enjoy. -- C.C.

Just where has Tommy Tune been all these years?  He disappeared from Broadway in self-imposed exile following the failure of The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public in 1994 and the abrupt out-of-town closure of the Broadway-bound Busker Alley in 1995. Given his dazzling gifts as performer and director, such exile seems wasteful, if not downright criminal. I’ve long admired Tune’s magic touch - be it the choreographed chairs of Grand Hotel or the Ziegfeldian glitz of The Will Rogers Follies – and hoped for the day he would return to Broadway with a new musical.

And now Tommy Tune is back with a new show, although Fifty*Four*Forever is definitely still under construction. The production I saw featured student actors, ran a scant 70 minutes, and lasted for only a 10-day limited engagement at The University of Miami’s Jerry Herman Ring Theatre. Figuring that even bare-bones Tune is better than no Tune at all, I lept at the opportunity.

The show’s concept sounds like musical-theater gold: a celebration of the riotous party haven that was Studio 54 during its 1970s heyday. There’s ample opportunity for stylized dance in kitschy costumes; a little sex and drugs will add spice; nostalgia should draw an older audience; and who doesn’t secretly relish a titillating glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous? It’s a bit surprising this milieu, to my knowledge, has not been mined for its stage potential before.

Why then, is Fifty*Four*Forever such a bust?

For starters, Tune has chosen to build the entire show around the character of his friend and former NYC neighbor Steve Rubbell, the chief architect and proprietor of Studio 54. In life, Rubbell was an unsavory entrepreneur jailed for tax evasion and released early only for “naming names” of other club owners involved in tax fraud. This kind of dramatic choice lands us squarely in the province of the antihero, an eminent starting point for an ambitious musical drama, but a perilous choice when staging a disco spectacular. For such a choice to work, the creators must have an audience empathize with the character and share his journey. Unfortunately, Fifty*Four, at least as currently configured, never accomplishes this feat, choosing instead to substitute glitz for content and stereotype for individuality.

Bookwriter Mark Saltzman (The Tin Pan Alley Rag) concocts a hackneyed tale of corrupted innocence, a sort of “How did you get there from here, Mr. Shepard?” only without the benefit of a Sondheim score.  The plot is bookended with scenes depicting Rubbell’s trial for tax evasion during which he intones Peter Allen’s “All I Wanted Was The Dream” as his defense. The remainder of the story is told in a lengthy flashback. In broad, swift strokes we are shown Rubbell forming his first dance club, meeting his future collaborators, converting an abandoned theatre into the fabled Studio 54, and throwing a wild opening night debauch populated by the likes of Liza, Liz, and Tru. The Studio is awash in sex, drugs, and gobs of money - literal Hefty bags stuffed with cash and crammed into the club walls.

Naturally, the IRS becomes interested in all this filthy lucre. Enter Agent Brown, a smoldering Cuban shown trysting with his equally sensuous female boss in a mesmerizing dance of seduction…on the stripper pole conveniently located in her office. The “Pole Seduction” is the closest this show comes to an actual Tommy Tune signature moment and it’s a dilly: about as tasteful a pole dance as you’re likely to encounter, but still - a pole dance at the IRS?

Saltzman conjures a love triangle when Agent Brown is dispatched to Studio 54 as an undercover agent intent on obtaining access to Rubbell’s books. Brown intends to use his chiseled looks to seduce Rubbell and gain access, but guess what? They fall in love and consummate their passion in a crude orgy bathed in flashing red lights and fueled by the throbbing strains of “I Love To Love You, Baby.” Despite the hedonism, Rubbell is portrayed as an innocent, blithely unaware of the powers with which he is meddling.

Here’s the problem with this claptrap: I didn’t care a tinker’s cuss about these characters, mere underwritten marionettes spouting platitudes in rhymed couplets. Oh, did I forget to mention that? This is a verse play and everybody speaks in childish nursery rhymes (which might be described as Seussian if they displayed any intellect or wit). A verse play can work handily if your librettist is Molière, but rhymes like “Truman Capote, self-promotey” only reinforce an atmosphere of amateur juvenilia.

Predictably, Agent Brown is reluctant to give up his lover until his jealous boss fires and banishes him, but not before he suddenly and inexplicably betrays Rubbell. At this point I kept thinking how, in the right hands, this moment might have been dramatized in song and we could have identified with a character facing a difficult choice. Instead we were subjected to another disco party sequence set to “How High The Moon” featuring the iconic Man in the Moon wall sculpture that featured prominently on the wall of the Studio dance floor, complete with animated cocaine spoon. Who cares if your lover just betrayed you and you’re about to be arrested?  Life’s a party. Come to the Cabaret…uh, I mean the Studio.

The show, as currently written, is about as welcome as a migraine headache. The characters are unsympathetic and the story lacks dramatic focus. Additionally, the absence of an original score is damaging. Generic disco hits may work wonders in establishing a sense of time and place, but when used to propel dramatic action, they fall tediously flat. The show contains one original song, “Lament for Three Jersey Girls” concerning a trio of schlubs forever denied access to Studio (music by Jeffrey Saver, lyrics by Stephen Cole), which is funny, theatrical, and highly effective. Why not an entire score like this?

According to a recent article in The New York Times, Tommy Tune hopes to someday mount Fifty*Four*Forever at the real Studio 54 in New York. He even invited producers to the Miami run hoping to generate interest. If the show is to have a Broadway life, however, a major overhaul is in order. The current production is simply not worthy of Mr. Tune’s talent and does nothing to enhance his legacy as one of the great Broadway showmen.

Fringe Reviews - Yeast Nation and The Legend of Julie

Well, Hurricane Irene seems to have officially landed ashore in the Boston area, so much of the city has rightly shut down to keep the populace safe. In particular, all events have been canceled at the Boston Conservatory, which has given me the chance to catch up on some of my blogging backlog.

It seems oddly appropriate that I should use this weather-induced respite to finish up my report on the shows I was able to catch at the New York Fringe Festival, as Irene also precipitated the cancellation of the Festival's last day of performances and closing festivities.

This was actually my first excursion to the Fringe. I'm not really sure why I've never ventured south before (most of the shows tend to take place downtown), but I think the sheer amount of choice available usually seemed rather overwhelming. (There were 194 separate shows in the Fringe this year alone. Yikes.) Plus, the productions tend to play at odd times, like 5 PM and 11 AM. Since I don't live in the city, it's harder for me to pop by a show on a whim. I would usually need to make specific plans, and with the scattered nature of the Fringe schedule, it requires a bit more planning than seeing a show on the main stem, or even Off-Broadway.

But, more to the point, I never really knew about any of the Fringe shows beforehand. Somehow, this year, a couple of high-profile productions caught my attention: Yeast Nation and The Legend of Julie Taymor, Or The Musical That Killed Everybody. It also didn't hurt that two outstanding recent graduates of the Boston Conservatory were involved in said productions: Steven Cardona and Stephanie Gandalfo, assistant choreographers for Yeast Nation and The Legend of Julie, respectively. The combination of these enticing shows and two beloved former students proved irresistible, and I decided the take the Fringe plunge.

The runaway hit of the Fringe this year was Yeast Nation, which quickly sold out before it had even had one performance. This was due mostly to the pedigree of the creators. Greg Kotis (book, lyrics, direction) and Mark Hollmann (music and lyrics) were responsible for Urinetown, which from what I understand is the most successful musical to emerge from the Fringe in its 15-year history.

Urinetown has become a modern classic in the minds of many theater aficionados, and, I believe, rightly so. Yeast Nation is the much-anticipated follow-up to Urinetown, and has been aborning for a few years now, including an engagement at Chicago's American Theatre Company two seasons back. After Chicago, Kotis and Hollmann were unable to secure financial backing for Yeast Nation, so they decided to give the Fringe, which had worked so well for Urinetown, another try.

It's easy to see why no one deigned to open their checkbooks for Yeast Nation: it's a pale offspring of Urinetown, too similar in all the wrong ways, and not enough like it in the ways that made Urinetown exceptional.

Yeast Nation takes place three billion years ago, and concerns the first supposed life forms on earth: salt-eating yeast. The yeast are running out of food, and the ruling powers have set down rules to conserve the community's precious resources. Those who transgress the rules are destroyed. Sound familiar? Yeast Nation even includes the droll narrator and the precocious child who acts as the narrator's foil. Add in some meta references to musical theater and self-conscious jokes about the ridiculousness of the scenario, and you essentially have Urinetown redux.

What Yeast Nation fails to replicate, however, is everything that made Urinetown fresh and entertaining. The music to Urinetown is catchy Kurt Weill manqué. The music for Yeast Nation is bland, uniform, mediocre rock. And the lyrics aren't funny. At all. The songs exhibit little of the comic inspiration that makes listening to the cast recording of Urinetown almost as enjoyable as watching the show live. I can't imagine wanting to listen to any of the songs from Yeast Nation again, with the notable exception of "Stasis," a rousing mock anthem to maintaining the status quo. The song hints at what Yeast Nation could have been, and perhaps might someday become, but as currently configured the score is almost entirely expendable.

The show almost works during the book scenes, although most of the jokes are, again, recycled. Harriet Harris, who is almost always a source of pleasure onstage, is sadly underused here as the narrator. She seemed to sense this and to respond by exaggerating her line delivery to the point of making much of what she said incomprehensible. Also, toward the end, the tone of the show seemed to lose whatever focus it may have had. My best guess is that the denouement had something to do with the power of love. I'm assuming this was ironic on the part of the creators, but in performance it wasn't clear whether it was meant to be a put on. In fact, the show toward the end unraveled to the point of bewilderment.

(Although the guy seated behind me was clearly enjoying the proceedings far more than I was, in fact far more than anyone else in the audience. His hardy, forced laughter was ubiquitous, which gave me the sneaking suspicion that he was somehow involved in the production and/or was planted to "sweeten" up the audience. If so, boo.)

The other high-profile Fringe show that I took in was The Legend of Julie Taymor, Or The Musical That Killed Everybody, which boasts a different kind of cultural cachet from that of Yeast Nation. I'm sure you won't be surprised to discover that The Legend of Julie is a satirical version of the much-publicized and disastrous events leading up to the long-delayed Broadway opening of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

The Legend of Julie seemed to be aiming for the same comedic territory as Silence - The Musical, a Fringe hit from another season that is now playing an extended run Off Broadway. (Read my review.) The shared formula: Take a story that everyone presumably knows and have a lot of fun making fun of everything and everyone involved.

But, as with Silence, the joke in The Legend of Julie is only funny for so long, and then we're stuck slogging through the details of the story. And slog we do, through all of the various plot twists and turns of events, rather slavishly and without much of a point of view, except perhaps for, "Gee, weren't these people arrogant?" The book doesn't add much of anything new or surprising to the narrative until about 80% of the way through the show, and then it rushes at breakneck speed to the finish. The final scene features some rather pretentious speechifying, then segues into a closing number that is every bit as incomprehensible as anything in Spider-Man, before or after Taymor's departure.

The book for The Legend of Julie is by Travis Ferguson, and although much of the content is mildly to moderately amusing, the show came off like a really professional student-written production rather than a legitimate contender for the professional stage. (Ferguson sat in front of me mouthing the words to every song throughout the entire show. That certainly didn't add much to my perception of the professionalism of the proceedings.)

That's not to say that The Legend of Julie is totally without its charms. The number in the second act about the first preview of Spider-Man, in which everyone in the audience was tweeting his or her impressions, was quite funny and well executed, but it seemed more like the kind of thing that would work better as a stand-alone number in a revue like Forbidden Broadway than as the justification for an entire two-act show.

But the real nail in The Legend of Julie's coffin is the fact that, by definition, the show is mired in events that have already started to recede from the public consciousness. The show was selected to become part of the FringeNYC Encore Series, in which the most popular or well-received Fringe productions get a chance at an encore. I could be wrong here, but I really don't see either Yeast Nation of The Legend of Julie having much of an afterlife.

Preview - Now. Here. This. at the Vineyard Theater

This is not a review. I repeat: This is not a review.

As you may know, the fine, talented, and delightful crew that gave us [title of show] are hard at work on a follow-up, previously titled And Now This Is Happening, and now bearing the moniker Now. Here. This. I had a chance to see a "developmental lab production" of the show last Friday at the Vineyard Theatre, which was the home of [title of show]'s Off-Broadway run.

Now, technically, critics are not invited to these developmental workshops, and I think rightly so. Artists deserve the chance to work out the kinks in their shows away from the glaring eye of the critical press. In the past, I've reviewed things that were in development, under the supposition that I wasn't really a critic, and that if they were charging admission, that I was free to propagate my views of the shows in question. But now that I'm a member of the Outer Critics Circle, it's sort of hard to continue to make that argument. I am a critic, and I need to comport myself in a manner befitting same.

But I thought my readers might appreciate a dispassionate, objective account of the show, and a sense of what the authors are trying to do with it. I will do my level best to keep all of my evaluative impulses at bay. Stop me if I get too critic-y.

If you've seen [title of show], you'll no doubt recall that it's essentially the story of putting that show together. As such, it's a fairly linear account, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now. Here. This. is decidedly non-linear, a 90-minute collage of narrative threads and snapshots. The content is autobiographical, exploring certain formative experiences from the lives of each of the four performers on-stage.

As you may know, Hunter Bell's book for [title of show] received the show's only Tony nomination for that effort. Here, Bell shares libretto credit with Susan Blackwell, although I get the sense that both shows represent the collaborative efforts of all the creative and performance staff, including composer/lyricist Jeff Bowen and performer Heidi Blickenstaff, not to mention pianist/music director Larry Pressgrove and director Michael Berresse.

Jeff Bowen's score for Now. Here. This. is a lot more complex than the one he wrote for [title of show]. Whereas the [title of show] score featured mostly discrete songs, the score for Now. Here. This. consists of more extended sequences, with dialog and action interwoven into the mix. I've made mention in the past of the distracting amount of poor scansion in Bowen's lyrics for [title of show], and I'm happy to report that that doesn't seem to be as much of an issue in his current score, at least at its current stage of development. (Is that too review-ish?)

The main attractions of [title of show] were Bell's witty and joyful book, as well as the four performers radiating excitement and camaraderie. Now. Here. This. has the potential to replicate those charms, as well as add in a few more of its own. I greatly look forward to seeing how the show progresses.

Now. Here. This. runs through June 19th. The run is mostly sold out, but tickets are still available at the Vineyard Web site for a benefit performance on the 19th. 

Review - Prometheus Bound at the A.R.T.

Pardon me if I start with a wee digression here, but I happen to be personally acquainted with a couple of the cast members of the new musical Prometheus Bound, which is currently running at the Zero Arrow Theater, the secondary venue for the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.

One of those cast members came up to me after Prometheus Bound to see if I liked it. I didn't. "Well," this person said to another audience member, "This isn't really his kind of music." I didn't say anything at the time, but I took considerable exception to such a pat dismissal of my reaction to the show. I suppose the comment is understandable: this person was simply reflecting an unfortunate tendency that some people have of validating their own views by discrediting someone else's. (Cough, cough...Republican Party...cough, cough...)

But I will say that the remark got me thinking. As a critic and a teacher of musical theater, I think it's important that I constantly question my motives in liking or not liking a particular piece or production. I like to think that I'm not too hidebound by tradition to accept new forms of storytelling, and that artistic quality ultimately transcends idiom.

Well, maybe I am, and maybe it doesn't, but whatever the cause, I was left unmoved and rather irritated by Prometheus Bound. Director Diane Paulus goes to Herculean lengths to imbue the piece with a sense of forward motion, but she's hampered by the work itself, an atmospheric but facile exploration of tyranny, with supposedly rife yet unexplored modern resonance. The show is based, of course, on the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound, the story of a god who has been punished by Zeus for bringing fire to, and preventing the destruction of, the human race.

Various signs and fliers throughout the auditorium heralded the partnership that the folks at the ART had struck with Amnesty International for this production, in the hopes of bringing attention and aid to the victims of various forms of modern-day tyranny throughout the world. A laudable effort, to be sure, and one with a clarity of message that the show itself lacks.

[SPOILER ALERT: I basically reveal the entire plot below. Not that there's much to reveal...]

Librettist Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) adheres fairly closely to the framework of the original play, and therein lies part of the problem. Not a lot really happens in the play, or the musical. Zeus essentially has Prometheus chained to a rock, and for the rest of the current show's 75 minutes, characters visit upon poor Prometheus and either sympathize with his plight or taunt him in his misery. The end. No development, no resolution. Oh, at one point, Prometheus starts discussing a prophecy that concerns Zeus bringing about his own undoing. Zeus will apparently be having a child by a mortal woman named Io and one of the child's descendants will grow up to set Prometheus free. But just when this tantalizing plot complication seems to arise, the show abruptly ends.

I realize that these would seem to be elements inherent in the original play, but I seem to recall that whatever joys are to be found in the original work lie in the language through which Aeschylus (or whoever actually wrote it) brings Prometheus & Company to life. Sater's libretto doesn't quite replicate that feat. The spoken dialog here comprises a lot of plodding speechifying and ham-handed exposition. And then the lyrics only ever seem to talk *about* what's going on rather than actually add anything to the story.

When I could actually understand the lyrics, that is. And trust me, I'm not complaining about the decibel level here. I had my earplugs at the ready but found that, for the most part, I didn't need them. And, for what it's worth, I actually liked the music, which had a compelling drive and a surprising lyricism. (The composer here is one Serj Tankian, the lead vocalist for the awkwardly named rock group System of a Down.) The real problem was that the song lyrics got lost in the acoustics of the auditorium, the density of the rock orchestrations, and to plain old poor diction. But even when I could understand the lyrics, it turned out they really didn't tell me much anyway.

I must admit that, thanks to Diane Paulus, Prometheus Bound was a heck of a lot more dynamic than you'd expect from a show about a man tied to a rock for all eternity. Paulus finds numerous ways to liberate Prometheus, albeit temporarily, from his perch, giving the show both visual and emotional variety. Paulus is abetted handily by a razor-sharp cast, headed by an astonishingly nimble Gavin Creel, in terms of his vocal, physical, and emotional contortions throughout the course of the show. Matching Creel, if not in stage time, then most assuredly in intensity was Uzo Aduba as Io, who commanded my attention the second she entered the playing area, and scarcely gave me chance or motive to look elsewhere for the duration. A truly remarkable performer.

I think Steven Sater is a talented man, with fantastic intentions, and excellent taste in source material. I just wish his songs progressed the plot. Granted, I'm only familiar with Spring Awakening and Prometheus Bound, but from where I sit, Sater's songs are either stop-and-sing internal monologues or obliquely defiant anthems. I'd like to make a deal with Mr. Sater. I'll pledge to continue to question my own preconceptions when it comes to new forms of musical theater if he'll make an effort to write songs that are more integrated and dramatically compelling. I think that's more than fair.

Commentary - The Broadway "Bloodbath"

On Twitter yesterday, you'd think someone had died. Or lots of people. Or perhaps there had been a bloody massacre of unprecedented proportions.

But what really happened was that nine shows closed on Broadway, all on the same day: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Elf, The Pee-wee Herman Show, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Promises, Promises, Brief Encounter, Fela, West Side Story, and Donny & Marie: A Broadway Christmas.

Yeah, that list looks pretty scary when you look at the sheer volume, and contemplate the number of currently empty theaters on Broadway.

But, upon closer inspection, the situation isn't nearly as depressing as it might seem. Two of those shows were specific to the holiday season (Elf, Donnie & Marie). Two were intended as limited runs and ran out their full engagements (The Pee-wee Herman Show, Brief Encounter). Two were shows that are going to be taped for broadcast (The Pee-wee Herman Show, Fela). And, yes, two of these shows were limited engagements that closed earlier than originally planned (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). But this particular production of West Side Story had the longest continuous run of any Broadway version of that show, including the original production. 

True, there are still more closings to come in the month of January: La Bête, A Free Man of Color, In the Heights, A Little Night Music, Next To Normal, and Time Stands Still. But what a lot of the boo-hoo-ers fail to point out is that some 23 new shows are scheduled for Broadway in 2011, 21 for the spring alone. What's more, currently only four Broadway theaters out of 40 have no confirmed bookings for the spring. Here's a list of what's coming, or hasn't yet officially opened:

NEW MUSICALS:
Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark
Sister Act
Wonderland
The Book of Mormon
Catch Me if You Can
Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
The People in the Picture

MUSICAL REVIVALS:
Anything Goes
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Godspell

NEW PLAYS:
Ghetto Klown
Jerusalem
Good People
War Horse
The Motherfucker With the Hat
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

PLAY REVIVALS:
The Importance of Being Earnest
That Championship Season
House of Blue Leaves
Master Class
Arcadia

FALL PLAYS:
Death of a Salesman
Old Masters

I'm certainly sympathetic to the actors and other folks who are losing their jobs. But that's how theater works. And that's how it's always worked. To paraphrase Curtains, it's a business, folks. Some of those people will be cast in some of those new shows. Some won't. To paraphrase A Chorus Line, nobody gets into theater because they're looking for a steady job.

From the audience perspective, you'd think that Broadway stalwarts would, to a certain extent, actually appreciate when shows that have moved past their sell-by date make room for fresher shows. Remember, turnover means we have more shows to see. Wouldn't Broadway be dull if *every* show ran for 20 years?

Review - James and the Giant Peach at the Goodspeed

When new musicals are in their formative stages, one of the most common maladies they suffer from is the dreaded "second-act trouble." All too frequently, authors have a strong sense of how to set the show in motion, but they lose steam when it comes to bringing the show to a close.

The new musical James and the Giant Peach has the opposite problem. The show concludes its run this weekend at the Norma Terris Theater, which is the secondary venue for the venerable Goodspeed Opera House, where it presents productions of musicals under development. As currently configured, James and the Giant Peach has a first act that's an unfocused mess, but a second half that reveals just enough talent and heart to mark this work as a show of great promise.

James and the Giant Peach was one of my favorite childhood books, even more so than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is also by author Roald Dahl. I was excited to hear about a musical version in the works, particularly when I heard that the folks at Pilobolus,one of my favorite dance companies, would be involved in the process.

Unfortunately, the show doesn't currently make full or even adequate use of the Pilobolus dancers. In fact, a good deal of the time when the Pilobolus troupe are supposed to be miming some particular action, or representing a specific animal/vegetable/mineral of storytelling import, the effect is vague and inscrutable. One notable exception is a thrilling and inventive sequence in Act 2 in which the dancers bring to vivid life a shark attack on the eponymous peach as it floats across the Atlantic. The show could really use a few more of these moments of imaginative synthesis.

The main problems with the show on paper are insufficient character establishment and a rather forgettable score. Librettist Timothy Allen McDonald makes a number of interesting choices in terms of opening the show up beyond the book. For instance, the show starts with a good deal of back-story to introduce us to James and his parents. Anyone who's read the book (or seen any Disney movie) will know that the parents aren't long for this world, but the book only mentions their fate in passing.

McDonald expands the character of the strange little man who provides James with the magic that creates the giant peach. Here the man becomes Marvo the Magician, and he figures prominently in the reconfigured plot. McDonald also weaves Aunts Spiker and Sponge more evenly throughout the story. But, for all his seeming improvements, McDonald has some work ahead of him with respect to setting these characters up in a believable and consistent way.

As for the score, for years I've been hearing songs by the up-and-coming writing team Pasek and Paul (AKA Benj Pasek and Justin Paul), although this is the first book show of theirs that I've encountered. Their work here is certainly lively, but much of it is generic, particularly "On Your Way Home," a by-the-numbers "wanting" song. Their lyrics seem moderately clever, but much of their meaning was lost to rapid-fire tempi that made them difficult to discern.

The direction and staging here are surprisingly static for Graciele Daniele, who's usually a very reliable, if somewhat uneven, director and choreographer. The cast features an impressive array of Broadway-caliber performers, including Jim Stanek, Steve Rosen, and Kate Wetherhead, an extremely appealing performer whom I last saw in the otherwise desultory Ordinary Days. The main hole in the cast, alas, was James himself, one Justin Lawrence Hall. I might have seen the show on an off day, but Hall was consistently and distractingly flat throughout the show, sported a very uneven British accent, and most important didn't really to seem to embody the character on an emotional level.

A note in the program for James and the Giant Peach, by librettist McDonald, points out that the minimal sets and costumes for this particular production were deliberate, in order to allow the authors a chance to focus on the storytelling and make sure the show was working dramatically. That's a wise choice, and I sincerely hope that the authors have a chance to take a big step back and discover a way to make this beloved and worthy property work as a musical.

Paradise Found - A Lost Cause?

Sometimes I marvel at the human capacity for self-delusion. In a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, storied theater director Harold Prince spoke about his recent production of Paradise Found at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. And some of Prince's comments really got me scratching my head. Most of them in fact.

As you may know, Paradise Found was by all accounts an unmitigated disaster. Granted I didn't see it, but we're not talking mixed reviews here, but outright hostile pans. The fabulous West End Whingers were unrestrained in their disdain. "We're still a wee bit shell-shocked, to be honest..." The delightful SarahB at Adventures in the Endless Pursuit of Entertainment wondered at the end whether it was just an "elaborate joke."

Well, according to Prince, the problems with the production stemmed from the fact that the theater and the cast were too small:

The material is great. But it should be big...Now I have to do it somewhere where there's a large chorus. We had wonderful actors...but everyone was doubling and tripling...That's not what the material demands...I'm meeting with the authors the week after next, and we’re going to aim for it.

Again, I didn't see the show, but none of the reviews that I read said that the venue or the cast size were at fault. No, most of them seemed to focus on the material itself, which one reviewer called "[A] pastiche Arabian Nights fable of unbelievable coarseness and vulgarity."

I know that some creators refuse to read reviews, but I can't imagine that Prince was completely insulated from the critical drubbing that Paradise Found received. But I was simply floored by his contention that the show just needed to be bigger. No, Hal. Great shows work in small paces and with small casts. John Doyle's recent productions of your Sweeney Todd and Company certainly come to mind. The idea that all you really need to do is throw some more money at Paradise Found for the project to work is ludicrous.

Of course, this is probably an academic discussion, because Prince is highly unlikely to find investors clueless enough to open their purse strings for a full-scale production of Paradise Found. Yes, this is the man who made millions on Phantom of the Opera. But he's also the man who gave us Lovemusik. And Roza. And Grind. And A Doll's Life. And Bounce.

You get the point.

My Blogging Vacation - The National Critics Institute

Just a heads-up to all of you wonderful people out there in the dark. I'll be taking a two-week hiatus from blogging, but thankfully not from theater. From July 5th to the 19th, I'll be participating in the National Critics Institute, an annual event sponsored by the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. For the next two weeks, I'll be hobnobbing with my fellow wizards, watching shows, discussing same, writing reviews, providing feedback on same, attending rehearsals, and just generally immersing myself in all things theatrical. I'm genuinely thrilled at the prospect.

For those of you unfamiliar with the O'Neill Center, it sits on a lovely spot in New London, Conn. overlooking the ocean, on the site of the actual O'Neill homestead, the spot where Eugene O'Neill and his family spent many of their summers. Of course, if you're at all familiar with Long Day's Journey Into Night, you doubtless know that these family summers were anything but homey and tranquil. The house is now a museum, dubbed Monte Cristo Cottage (see photo below) in honor of the role and the play that made O'Neill's father, James O'Neill, rich and famous. 

As part of my preparation for the event, I've been re-reading Long Day's Journey, as well as watching two of the filmed versions of the play: the 1962 version with Katherine Hepburn and Jason Robards, and the 1987 version with Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey. Each take is stellar in its own way, but, I mean, c'mon Kate Hepburn as Mary Tyrone? To die.

I also watched a filmed version of Ah, Wilderness!, which likewise takes place in New London, but is only autobiographical insomuch as it represented an idealized version of O'Neill's family background, what he in fact would have preferred his family to be like. 

As for the O'Neill Center, it was established in 1964, and has since become the home to numerous theater-development programs, including the National Playwrights Conference. Among the plays developed at the O'Neill are Agnes of God, Uncommon Women and Others, and a number of August Wilson's plays, including Fences, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Under the auspices of the National Musical Theater Conference, many significant tuners received workshops at the O'Neill Center, including Avenue Q, Nine, In the Heights, Take Flight, The Wild Party (Lippa), Violet, Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, and the upcoming Tales of the City. (The Story of My Life and title of show also had readings at the O'Neill, but as part of the Cabaret and Performance Conference.) In recognition of all the work the Center has done, it was awarded the 2010 Regional Theater Tony Award.

Expect a full report when I get back. I'm not allowed to write about any of the workshops that I'll be seeing at the O'Neill, but I'll be sure to report back to you about the experience, as well as on any non-O'Neill shows I may see as part of the bargain. (The critics "boot camp" includes field trips to local theaters, including the Ivoryton Playhouse and the Goodspeed Opera House.) Will I return with my analytical faculties sharpened to a finely honed edge? Or will the entire experience produce a sense of existential angst and ennui, prompting me to throw up my critical hands at the sheer pointlessness of it all? Tune in late July to find out.

Review - Johnny Baseball at the American Repertory Theatre

Exactly how populist should a regional non-profit theater become? That's the question that was going through my mind as I was watching Johnny Baseball, the disappointing new musical currently running at the American Repertory Theater. Johnny Baseball is part of a decidedly crowd-pleasing turn on the part of the A.R.T. under the reign of the A.R.T.'s new artistic director, Diane Paulus. 

In her inaugural season, Paulus presented the admittedly popular but artistically debatable production The Donkey Show, which has become a bit of a cash cow for both the A.R.T. and for Paulus herself, via her and her husband's financial involvement with the show. I'd rather not get into what seems to be a brewing controversy, but you can check out the lively debate over at The Clyde Fitch Report as to whether the financial arrangements that Paulus and her husband have with the A.R.T. amount to profiteering.

I'm frankly more interested in the artistic future of the A.R.T., whose upcoming season, while certainly featuring what seems to be a decent complement of adventurous productions, includes the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, a disappointingly pedestrian choice. Sure, it's an important show, but it's not exactly underperformed. And the recent Roundabout revival (justifiably) ran for 6 years, and toured extensively. It's not clear how Cabaret fits into the season of a theater company at one of the most august (not to mention well-heeled) universities in the world, other than it allows Paulus to continue to run The Donkey Show at the A.R.T.'s Zero Arrow Theater while Cabaret plays there as well. I'm hoping for more consistently imaginative programming from the A.R.T. in the future. 

But, back to Johnny Baseball, which is essentially a fictional speculation about why the Boston Red Sox didn't win a World Series from 1918 to 2004. There's been a considerable amount of chatter about whether a show about the Red Sox could move to, and play successfully in, New York City, given the team's longstanding rivalry with the New York Yankees. Well, Damn Yankees was a fairly significant hit in New York, despite the fact that the show was about someone who hated the Yankees and made a Faustian pact to bring about the team's defeat. Plus, native New Yorkers aren't the ones who make a Broadway show a hit, but rather the ticket-buying tourists. 

Alas, the point would seem to be moot, because it's not really a question of whether Johnny Baseball could play New York but rather whether it should. The show certainly features worthwhile subject matter, but as is all too often the case, that doesn't necessarily lead to compelling execution. The musical is based on the intriguing proposition that the 86-year fallow period for the Sox was based not on the famed Curse of the Bambino but rather institutional racism. Historically, the Red Sox were the last professional team to integrate blacks, some 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Again, an intriguing notion, but the show's book, by Richard Dresser (Good Vibrations), is musty and plodding, featuring clumsy dialog, hoary jokes, and maudlin sentimentality. 

Key among the book's failings is the unimaginative (but eventually justified) narrative device of having an old codger relate the story to a young kid at a pivotal Sox game. The story is told in flashback, with the focus switching between the 2004 World Series and the more distant past. The effect is jarring and deleterious to the show's effectiveness, with the present-day numbers coming off mostly as forced attempts at comic relief. It's as though Johnny Baseball can't decide which of two shows it wants to be, a lighthearted musical comedy or a searing musical play. And it winds up doing neither particularly well. 

The story features an interracial romance that becomes the motor for the rest of the plot. Colin Donnell gives a solid, sympathetic performance in the title role. As his love interest, Boston Conservatory graduate Stephanie Umoh is considerably more affecting and layered than she was in the recent Broadway revival of Ragtime. Broadway veteran Burke Moses delivers a detrimentally broad portrayal of Babe Ruth.

The score to Johnny Baseball is actually better than the book deserves, with music by Robert Reale and lyrics by Willie Reale (both of A Year With Frog and Toad). The songs are by turns tuneful, rhythmic, energetic, and -- at least in the case of most of the period numbers -- dramatically appropriate. But the book undermines the show's momentum at every turn, and not just with the present-day numbers. The story doesn't build, it flutters. In addition to the jarring back-and-forth, the show also takes a 30-year leap in the middle, which doesn't allow the drama of either time period to build properly.

Johnny Baseball is apparently a show that is still underdevelopment. There's enough promise in the premise and the score to justify continued work on the show, but there would need to be some fairly radical changes in the show's structure and dialog for there to be much hope for a sustainable future life for Johnny Baseball.

GRADE: C (Points for the ambitious subject matter, but major demerits for a diffuse and scattered book.)

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received complimentary press tickets to this performance of Johnny Baseball.

Upcoming Musicals - The 2010-2011 Broadway Season

In examining the past Broadway season, at least with regard to the new musicals, there's really only one word that sums up the general impact and quality of the offerings: meh.

But as Clarice once sang to Rudolph, there's always tomorrow.

Or rather, next season. Quite a few interesting shows are on the horizon, so as a service to my readers, I figured I'd provide a little preview, based on some of the new musicals that have been officially, and not-so-officially, announced for the upcoming Broadway season.

The Book of Mormon
Source: Well, in theory, it's based on the actual Book of Mormon. In reality, it comes from the warped and offensive minds of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the guys behind "South Park."
Staff: The aforementioned "South Park" guys, as well as Jason Moore and Robert Lopez, the director and co-lyricist/co-composer, respectively of Avenue Q.
Cast: None yet announced.
Status: Slated to start performances in March 2011, at a theater TBD.
My take: Some people are offended by the very nature of the project. I say, go for it. In my opinion, nothing is above ridicule. My one hesitation is the fact that the musical offerings on the "South Park" show, as well as the terrific movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut," tend to be rather pedestrian efforts, with bad prosody and forced rhyme. But the South Park/Avenue Q combination alone makes this one of the most intriguing possibilities for the new season.

Catch Me If You Can
Source: The 2002 Stephen Spielberg movie of the same name, based on the early life of con artist Frank Abagnale Jr.
Staff: Book by Terrence McNally, music and lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, direction by Jack O'Brien, choreography by Jerry Mitchell.
Cast: The show had a tryout run at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theater last August, and the cast featured Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz, Kerry Butler, Linda Hart, and Tom Wopat. No word yet on whether any or all will return.
Status: The Seattle tryout got middling reviews, and the show is apparently under revision. But CMIYC is reportedly on track for Broadway in the spring of 2011. Mitigating factor: O'Brien and Mitchell are also involved in Love Never Dies (see below), which is also coming in the spring of 2011, and which appears to be in need of some major changes. (To say the very least.) Can both men do both shows?
My take: I haven't been blown away by what I've seen of the show. (Check out this video of the number "Live in Living Color," featuring Aaron Tveit.) But count this creative team out at your peril.  

Love Never Dies
Source: Well, technically, the show derives from Gaston Leroux's original book, Phantom of the Opera. But Love Never Dies features what appears to be an "original" story. 
Staff: The book and lyrics are by Glenn Slater and Ben Elton, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The London production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, and they are slated to repeat this roles on Broadway.
Cast: London cast members Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess will reportedly recreate their roles in New York, playing the "The Guy With the Funny Mask" and "The Girl With the Funny Voice," respectively.
Status: The Broadway bow for Love Never Dies was reportedly pushed back from this coming fall due to an illness/injury that ALW is recovering from. Uh-huh. More likely, the delay is meant to accommodate a significant overhaul to the show. The London bow received decidedly mixed reviews, and Sir Lloyd Webber, who hasn't had a hit since...well, since The Phantom of the Opera (1988), has a lot riding on making sure the show works. 
My take: Oy. The show has been rather infamously dubbed Paint Never Dries by the fabulous West End Whingers. Other bloggers, including my friend Steve on Broadway, have panned the show as well. Hey, anything could happen, but things ain't looking good. 

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
Source: The fabulous 1994 movie "The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert."  
Staff: The book is by Broadway newcomers Stephan Elliot and Allan Scott. Direction by Simon Phillips. The score comprises such pop interpolations as "Go West," "I Love the Nightlife," and "I Will Survive."
Cast: Recent announcements indicate the cast will include major hottie Will Swenson and BoCo grad Nick Adams. Tony Sheldon will repeat his acclaimed London performance as Bernadette, the Terence Stamp role in the movie.
Status: The show will have a tryout run in Toronto in October before a Broadway bow at a theater TBD. (Vance, poodle, we expect a full report.)
My take: As always, I prefer an original score with my musicals. But I hear great things about the physical production, and I'm a big fan of the film. 

The Scottsboro Boys
Source: Based on the real-life case of the Scottsboro Boys, an infamous 1930s miscarriage of justice in the American south.
Staff: Direction and choreography by Susan Stroman, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, book by David Thompson.
Cast: TBD. But Brandon Victor Dixon, a standout among the Off-Broadway cast, will be appearing as Ray Charles in Unchain My Heart (see below) on Broadway this coming season, so he probably won't repeat his Scottsboro role on Broadway.
Status: The show premiered Off Broadway at the the Vineyard Theatre in February 2010 to very strong reviews. There was talk of bringing the show to Broadway this past season, but nothing came of it. Instead, the producers held off for the 2010-2011 season, and recently announced that the show will play the gorgeous and historic Lyceum Theatre. Prior to that, the show will play an eight-week run at the Guthrie Theater this summer. (Steve on Broadway, darling, we expect a full report)
My take: This was probably the best musical I saw all this past season. (Read my review of the Off-Broadway production.) I'm thrilled that the show will have a chance to reach a wider audience. And I can't wait to see it again.  

Spider-Man
Source: The Marvel comic Spider-Man.
Staff: Direction and design by Julie Taymor, score by Bono and The Edge. Book by Taymor and Glen Berger. (Um...who?)
Cast: Who knows? They've already lost Alan Cumming and Evan Rachel Wood due to the ridiculous production delays. Word has it Patrick Page may take Cumming's place as the Green Lantern, or Hornet, or Goblin, or whatever. And someone named Reeve Carney is supposed to be playing Spider-Man.
Status: Oy and double oy. Spider-Man is easily the biggest current joke on Broadway. Word on the street puts the budget at a laughable $50 million, which could eventually creep up to $60 million. ( Who are these producers? "A fool and his money...") That's more than twice the estimated budgets for such bloated would-be hits as Young Frankenstein, The Little Mermaid, and Shrek.
My take: Well, I can't say I'm looking forward to it. But whether it's a hit or a bust, it's a must-see. 

Unchain My Heart
Source: Based on the life of Ray Charles.
Staff: Libretto by Suzan-Lori Parks, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Topdog/Underdog. Music from the Ray Charles songbook. Directed by Sheldon Epps. Choreographed by Kenneth L. Roberson.
Cast: Brandon Victor Dixon will play Ray. Nikki Renee Daniels will play his wife Della.
Status: The show has booked the Barrymore Theatre. Performances begin in October.
My take: This show kinda came out of nowhere for me. I haven't heard anything about any workshops or regional productions, although I'm sure they've taken place. But the only things that interest me here are Suzan-Lori Parks and Brandon Victor Dixon. Otherwise, it looks like a mash-up of the jukebox/bio musical genres, and I'm a fan of neither. 

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Source: The 1988 film "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" by Pedro Almodovar.
Staff: Direction by Bartlett Sher. Music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Jeffrey Lane.
Cast: Possibly Jessica Biel, who took part in a recent reading under the auspices of the Lincoln Center Theatre. The reading also featured Paulo Szot, Tom Hewitt, and Patti LuPone. Also likely to appear in the show is Oscar Isaac, who is currently appearing as Prince John in the film "Robin Hood."
Status: The show is booked into the Belasco Theater, and is scheduled to start performances in October.
My take: I'm loving the creative staff. Sher is a pretty hot property right now, although I wasn't -- and still am not -- a fan of South Pacific. I am, however, a major proponent of Yazbek's previous Broadway shows, The Full Monty and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. So color me very intrigued, indeed. 

Yank
Source: To my knowledge, an original story: a fictitious love affair taking place between two soldiers during World War II. According to the show's Web site, all the characters are fictional. However, "all of the situations and viewpoints come directly from memoirs and oral histories of gay (and straight) service members who took part in WWII."
Staff: Book and lyrics by David Zellnik. Music by Joseph Zellnik. Director David Cromer will replace Igor Goldin, who has directed the show since its inception.
Cast: Bobby Steggert says that he is very likely to recreate his wonderful turn as the lead soldier, but that has not been confirmed.
Status: After a very successful run at the York Theatre, the show was announced for Broadway next season, but the theater and starting dates are TBD.
My take: In short, I'm thrilled. I was quite enamored of the show when I saw it at the York. (Read my review.) I'm not sure how long it will last on Broadway, but I greatly look forward to seeing it again. It's a gem.

American Idiot Will Play the St. James

Even in this economy, most Broadway theaters don't remain vacant for very long. (That's either a testament to the reinvigorated status of the Broadway musical, or the sheer idiocy on the part of producers and investors. Perhaps both.) The current revival of Finian's Rainbow will play its last performance on January 17th, but the venerable St. James Theater has already signed on its next tenant: America Idiot, the new rock musical based on the eponymous recording by the popular band Green Day. The show is scheduled to begin previews on March 24th and open on April 20th.

American Idiot features a number of Spring Awakening alumni, including producer Tom Hulce and director Michael Mayer, and during its recent two-month run at Berkeley Repertory Theater, it starred Tony-Award winner John Gallagher Jr. Mayer is collaborating with iconic Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong on the show's book. Although the Berkeley run sold out, and the run was extended twice, the reviews were rather mixed.

The Sacramento Bee deemed American Idiot "worthy," but said that, while the characters "do eventually grow, the production's weakness lies in their lack of compelling development." Robert Hurwitt of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the show "doesn't deliver much in the way of character or story" but said that it "packs plenty of excitement and entertainment into a remarkably theatrical rock concert." Leslie Katz of the San Francisco Examiner concurred that the book for the show "remains thin," but Karen D'Souza of the San Jose Mercury News called the show as "compelling as it is abstract," adding that the show reflected "the grungy spirit of punk while also plucking at the heartstrings."

So the consensus seems to be that there are the makings of a pretty powerful show here, but the book and characterizations could both use some fleshing out. Will Mayer and Armstrong be making any significant changes to the show before it hits New York? We shall see. In the meantime, anyone interested in getting a sense of how the show will sound can download the cut "21 Guns," recorded by the Berkley Rep cast and available on Amazon and iTunes.

Come Fly Away Will Play the Marquis

As closing announcements proliferate, and the remaining Broadway shows face the prospect of a bleak midwinter, we're also hearing about new musicals to step in and fill the void.

The new Twyla Tharp dance show, formerly titled Come Fly With Me, now bearing the moniker Come Fly Away, will begin performances at the Marquis Theater in March. Similar to Tharp's previous two efforts -- the successful Movin' Out and the disastrous The Times They Are a-Changin' -- Come Fly Away is a songbook show, this time featuring the music of Frank Sinatra.

Although the show itself is relatively new, Tharp actually has a long history with the music of Frank Sinatra, having created numerous pieces set to Sinatra recordings in the early 1980s, including Nine Sinatra Songs and Sinatra Suite, the latter with Mikhail Baryshnikov. But have no fear, musicians' union, for this won't be another Contact, a show that came under fire for eschewing an orchestra in favor of a piped-in jukebox soundtrack. Come Fly Away does indeed utilize recordings of the late Sinatra's voice, but the vocal tracks are backed by a live on-stage band playing some newly created orchestrations.

The show received some fairly solid reviews during its recent engagement at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, at which time it was still known as Come Fly With Me. Charles Isherwood of the New York Times called the show "exhilarating." Wendell Brock of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said "dazzling." And Frank Rizzo of Variety wrote that "even at this early stage" the show is "vibrant, engaging and, at times, thrilling." With notices like that, the producers would be fools not to bring the show to New York. Right?

Not so fast. As my friend Ken Davenport recently wrote about on his blog, The Producer's Perspective, out-of-town raves do not a Broadway blockbuster make. Ragtime got very strong reviews when it played DC, and now the Broadway production is closing at a significant loss. Finian's Rainbow got terrific notices during its Encores run last season, only to meet a similar fate to Ragtime. Perhaps the most extreme example is the now-legendary Glory Days, which came to New York almost entirely on the strength of Peter Marks' gushing review in The Washington Post. During previews, Glory Days struggled to garner an audience larger than 25% of the house, and then promptly folded on opening night. Whoops. 

Will Come Fly Away deliver on the promise of its advance notices? Will the new Twyla Tharp show be another Movin' Out or another The Times They Are a-Changin'? If it's the former, expect to see more from Twyla on Broadway. If it's the latter, well, it's probably back to the barre.