Monday, May 25, 2015

Review - Lost in the Stars at Encores by Ccaggiano

Yeah, I know. I've been greatly remiss in my blogging duties. Mea culpa. I'm wearing a hair shirt even as I type. But the semester is in full swing here at The Boston Conservatory, and this …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM

The Most Underrated Musical - Spring 2011 by Ccaggiano

Ah, spring break. Time for me to catch up on some long-overdue blogging. Towards the start of each semester, the students in my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory emba…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM

Review - Fela "Live" From the National Theater by Ccaggiano

Certain musicals just keep coming back into my field of vision, offering me opportunities to consider the shows afresh. Most of the time, I see new things to appreciate, if not always enjoy.…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM

The Bestest Musical Ever - Spring 2011 by Ccaggiano

Snow day here at the BoCo. Gives me a chance to catch up on some blogging. Here goes... Each semester, I begin my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory by asking students…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM

The Most Overrated Musical - Spring 2011 by Ccaggiano

Papers, papers, papers. I recently sat down to calculate how many pages I would be reading and grading this semester. I have 79 students, who will engage in a total of 15 writing projects. T…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM

Commentary - The Broadway "Bloodbath" by Ccaggiano

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 …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM
Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Review - Rocky on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

I've seen a lot of boxing puns in the reviews of the new Broadway musical Rocky, based on the 1976 film of the same name. Rocky is a "contender," some contend. Others say Rocky "goes the dis…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:36PM
Saturday, April 5, 2014

Review - Aladdin on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

The Walt Disney Company continues to comb its catalog for stage-musical candidates. You can hardly blame them: The Lion King has become a license to print money, Newsies is still going stron…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:21PM
Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Review - The Bridges of Madison County on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

I somehow made it through the '90s, the '00s, and nearly half of the '10s without reading The Bridges of Madison County. Nor have I seen the 1995 film of the same name, despite an abiding pa…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:52PM
Friday, February 7, 2014

Review - Beautiful - The Carole King Musical on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

Here are three things that I learned from seeing Beautiful: The Carol King Musical: 1. Jukebox musicals don't automatically have to be atrocious 2. Pandering to baby boomers isn't necessaril…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:59PM
Monday, January 27, 2014

Contest - Two Free Tickets to Murder for Two Off-Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

You may have heard that the new musical Murder for Two, now playing at the New World Stages, announced today that the production is now selling tickets through July. Take it from me, that's …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:12PM
Sunday, January 12, 2014

The Worst Musicals of 2013 by Christopher Caggiano

As I pointed out in my recent post of The Best Musicals of 2013, it was a darned good year for musicals, but it was also a doozy for not-so-great musicals. Try as I might, I just couldn't ge…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:41PM
Saturday, January 11, 2014

The Best Musicals of 2013 by Christopher Caggiano

Hey, you know what? The year 2013 was a pretty good one for musicals. And I'm not even talking about the crowd-pleasers that seemed to please everyone in the crowd except me (Kinky Boots, He…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:50PM
Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Review - Working at Boston's Lyric Stage by Christopher Caggiano

The musical Working has always held a sort of fascination for me. Opportunities to see it staged live are somewhat rare, but it's one of those shows that, when I listen to the original cast …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:59PM
Monday, January 6, 2014

Review - A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

Every few seasons or so, a musical comes to Broadway that just warms the cockles of my heart. (And as Woody Allen says in Love and Death, "Nothing like hot cockles.") Avenue Q was …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:50PM
Saturday, January 4, 2014

Review - A Night With Janis Joplin on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

If any of you happened to be in the Times Square area on the night of Saturday, December 14th, 2013, you may have heard some blood-curdling screams emanating from the Lyceum Theatre. But it …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:23PM
Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Review - Murder for Two Off-Broadway at the New World Stages by Christopher Caggiano

OK, now I can breathe. It has been one busy semester here at The Boston Conservatory, let me tell you. Of course, amid the hullabaloo, I continually remind myself that I'm teaching what I lo…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:22PM
Sunday, December 8, 2013

Review - Little Miss Sunshine at the Second Stage by Christopher Caggiano

The end-of-the-semester crush is upon me, and I find myself scrambling to grade papers, plan finals, meet with students, and yet still keep up with my blogging backlog. As Tevye said, "…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:52PM
Saturday, November 23, 2013

Review - After Midnight on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

One of the great unexpected pleasures of the new Broadway season is After Midnight, an effervescent tribute to the joys and spirit of Harlem in the 1920s and '30s, in particular the fabled C…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:49PM
Monday, November 11, 2013

Review - Fun Home at The Public Theater by Christopher Caggiano

Every once in a while, a musical comes along that restores my faith in the art form. Fun Home, the shattering new musical now playing an extended engagement at The Public Theater, is one of …

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:21PM
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Review - Big Fish on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

If you're going to create a musical about the magic of storytelling, you had better have some genuine magic on display, either in the piece itself, or in the presentation. Unfortunately, the…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:00PM
Saturday, October 26, 2013

My 1,000th Blog Post by Christopher Caggiano

When I started this blog in April of 2006, it was really just an effort to find an alternate outlet for my theatrical rants and ravings. My friends were sort of sick of my posturing and peda…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:07PM
Monday, September 30, 2013

Review - The Jungle Book at Boston's Huntington Theatre by Christopher Caggiano

The Huntington Theatre Company in Boston announced today that its current production of The Jungle Book is now the highest-grossing production in the company's history, with three weeks stil…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:58PM
Friday, August 16, 2013

Review - Soul Doctor on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

Every few seasons or so, Broadway seems to attract a WTF musical. You know, as in, "WTF were they thinking bringing this to Broadway?" The kind of show that, even if it was any good, just di…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:12PM
Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Review - Love's Labour's Lost in Central Park by Christopher Caggiano

One thing I've noticed lately is that my tolerance for flaws in a musical depends on the overall feeling that I'm developing as I'm watching a performance. When a musical, overall, is well-c…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:14PM
Thursday, August 8, 2013

Review - First Date the Musical on Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

I'm going to be honest. When I first heard that the new musical First Date was coming to Broadway, I was beyond dismissive. The show wasn't really on my radar prior to the announcement, desp…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:59PM
Monday, August 5, 2013

Review - Hello, Dolly! at the Goodspeed Opera House by Christopher Caggiano

I have a confession to make: before last week, I had never seen Hello, Dolly! on stage. Oh, I had read the libretto, and listened to the cast recording countless times. And I've seen the mov…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:17PM
Thursday, August 1, 2013

Reviews - New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) - Part 4 by Christopher Caggiano

This past month, I saw 25 musicals in 17 days. Even for me, that's a lot. Eighteen of those shows were at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). As one might expect, many of those sho…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:02PM
Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Review - Nobody Loves You at Second Stage Off-Broadway by Christopher Caggiano

I had the opportunity to see the new musical Nobody Loves You a few years ago while it was still under development. Some backstory: For the past three years, a handful of students from the B…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:52PM
Saturday, July 27, 2013

Reviews - 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) - Part 3 by Christopher Caggiano

Here's round-up number three, out of four, of my reviews of the shows at this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). As in my previous review round-ups, there's a fairly wide range…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:34AM
Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Reviews - 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) - Part 2 by Christopher Caggiano

A few days ago, I published my first of four batches of capsule reviews from the 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). At this point, I have seen 13 NYMF shows in all, and I will be…

SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:38PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards