The competition of all competitions is underway at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC) this summer. Under the arrangement of the Really Useful Group, and the inspired direction of Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, a talented 23-member cast are strutting their stuff in Cats: The Jellicle Ball. This is a radical revisiting of the musical…
The cast of Empire, with Kaitlyn Davidson center in red (Photo: Matthew Murphy) Empire By Fern Siegel The Empire State Building, completed in 1931, is 102 stories high – and a stunning example of Art Deco architecture. The sheer majesty of the structure has awed generations. Lewis Hines famously shot photos of its construction…
The company of Encores! Titanic (Photo: Joan Marcus) Titanic By Deirdre Donovan The Tony award-winning musical Titanic closed out the Encores! 30th anniversary season at New York City Center on a high note. Under the direction of Anne Kauffman, and with Maury Yeston’s brilliant music and lyrics intact, this sung-through concert staging of the original…
Jenna Rose Husli, Wren Rivera, Alyse Alan Louis, Phoenix Best, and Helen J Shen (Photo: Chelcie Parry) Teeth By David Schultz Who could have guessed that a grade B horror flick could be transmogrified into a musical? With Teeth, Anna K. Jacobs (Book & Music) and Michael R. Jackson (Book & Lyrics) have done just…
Illinoise By Deirdre Donovan 0 The Cast of Illinoise. (Photo: Stephanie Berger) What better time to reimagine the American musical than now? On March 2, Illinoise, the theatrical adaptation of Grammy- and Oscar-nominated Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 concept album Illinois, arrived at the Park Avenue Armory’s capacious Wade Thompson Drill Hall as a new kind…
The Cast (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) A Sign of the Times By Julia Polinsky A show focusing on a sweet young woman from the boonies who comes to New York to find herself and make a difference: groundbreaking? Nope. But the way it’s done is so engaging, A Sign of the Times at New World…
Joy Woods and Santino Fontana (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) I Can Get It For You Wholesale By Marc Miller If Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey Evans were to hop the 20th Century Limited from Chicago to New York and trek a few blocks up from Penn Station to the heart of the 1930s Garment District, you…
Ruthie Anne Miles (Photo: Joan Marcus) Light in the Piazza By Deirdre Donovan The new Encores! concert staging of the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza breezed in and out of New York City Center in June, leaving audiences enchanted. Directed by Chay Yew, and starring the incomparable Ruthie Ann Miles as Margaret…
Constantine Maroulis (Photo by Joan Marcus) Rock and Roll Man By Cammy Paglia The excellent Off-Broadway musical Rock and Roll Man tells the devastating tale of legendary Alan Freed (impeccably played by Constantine Maroulis), the innovative DJ destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover (Bob Aria) in a corset and a woman’s wig….
The cast of Dear World at Encores! (Photo: Joan Marcus) Dear World By David Schultz The Encores! Spring season started in earnest with this brief look back on composer Jerry Herman’s rare misstep. This book-troubled tuner had a shockingly brief three month run circa 1969. Coming on the heels of his two blockbuster musicals,…