The Ensemble of The Big Gay Jamboree (Photo: Matthew Murphy) The Big Gay Jamboree By Fern Siegel Those who grew up on classic musicals will appreciate their send-up in The Big Gay Jamboree, now off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theater. Marla Mindelle, the show’s star and co-creator, gives an LGBTQ+ sensibility to the traditional musical, which…
Max Wolkowitz, Marilyn Caserta. (Photo: Dorice Arden Madronero) The Sabbath Girl By Fern Siegel Romantic comedies work best when opposites attract. That’s the case for The Sabbath Girl. Finding love is hard — overcoming cultural and religious differences is harder. But as the new musical, now off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters suggests, love is the great…
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…