google Oliver! By Edward Lieberman At first blush, there is nothing about Charles Dickens’ famous novel that one would think lends itself to musical treatment: unlike Annie (which coincidentally originated at the Goodspeed), wherein the heroine is an orphan adopted by a kindhearted billionaire and all is rosy (“The Sun Will Come Out…
Photos by Maria Baranova By Eugene Paul Let’s say that the musical Be More Chill now playing to sold out houses at its Off-Broadway Pershing Square Signature Center moved to the Palace Theatre, 1743 seats on Broadway, and sold out there for a year. That’s 517,088 tickets. Let’s fantasize, let’s sell…
Joshua Balan and Ruthellen Cheney (Photo: Ted Alcorn) Twelfth Night By Fern Siegel To keep Shakespeare fresh for 21st-century audiences, directors often set the plays in new locales. Whether Shakespeare’s works are grounded in a Nazi-like England (Richard Loncraine’s Richard III) or a prison (Edward Hall’s The Merchant of Venice), it clicks with…
Kyle Taylor Parker, Dwayne Cooper, John Edwards and Jelani Remy. Photo: Gary Ng Is It OK to enjoy a musical without a message? Yes!!! By Jeanne Lieberman Imagine you are home alone back in the 50’s or 60’s, your parents have gone out, you turn the radio to your favorite rock ‘n roll station…
by Julia Polinsky Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope would be a pleasure even if all you got was a terrific retro revue of marvelous songs and electrifying singing and dancing. But you get more; you get vignettes of African-American people’s lives, stories told without a word spoken. Evenly matched with their own…
Melissa Errico photos by Carol Rosegg By Eugene Paul Some years ago, a mysteriously wise lady of serious years told me that most assuredly in another life I had been a Chinese sage of equally mysterious wisdom. After she laid out her evidence I was not about to disagree. Famed lyricist, Alan Jay…
Solea Pfeiffer, Mykal Kilgore, Shoshana Bean, Colin Donnell by Julia Polinsky Jason Robert Brown made a name for himself with Songs for a New World, back in the day. It was an off-Broadway moment as they were crafted in the 90s: a collection of Rent-like music, put together by a talented, energetic…
by Deirdre Donovan Following a season with so many musicals suffering from elephantitis, the musical Lonesome Blues is refreshingly intimate. An homage to the legendary bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson, it breezed into the York Theatre on June 12th and will sojourn there for a brief run. Co-written by Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde and…
Christian Borle photos by Joan Marcus Me and My Girl by Julia Polinsky New York City is thick with exceptionally talented actors, the kind who can buff up a topnotch performance with only 10 days of rehearsal – the norm for Encores!. What a luxury, for director/choreographer Warren Carlyle — Encores! demands…
Zuri Washington and Company Photos by John Vecchiolla By Ed Lieberman Those in need of spiritual uplift should come to the newest church in Town: the Chapel of Soul, otherwise known as the Westchester Broadway Theatre For its 205th production, WBT is mounting a rousing and joyous production of Sister Act, based on the popular…