Saturday, June 8, 2013
Composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie really seem to like a challenge. The first musical of theirs to gain widespread attention was Grey Gardens, an admittedly flawed but nonethe…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:16PMTuesday, May 28, 2013
One of the most entertaining musicals I saw last year was Murder Ballad at the Manhattan Theater Club, Off-Broadway at City Center. (Read my review.) I found the show smart and sexy, and dra…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:02PMThursday, May 23, 2013
The 1920s was a heady and busy time for American musical theater. Musicals were still a relatively new art form, and the rules for creating them were only just emerging. That didn't stop com…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:23PMTuesday, May 21, 2013
Never let it be said that I won't give a show a second chance. I was considerably at odds with both critical and public opinion on the recent American Repertory Theater production of Pippin.…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:16PMMonday, May 20, 2013
As often happens with me at the end of the semester, I've got a bit of a blogging backlog to make my way through. Although some of these shows are still running, there have been some product…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:12PMWhat's that, my friend? You say that you love Gilbert & Sullivan, but you don't have the...er... patience to sit through an entire Savoy Opera? You're not alone. I mean, I love me some G&S, …
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:16AMMonday, May 6, 2013
In his review of the current Broadway revival of Jekyll & Hyde, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood referred to Frank Wildhorn musicals as "the crab grass of Broadway." Som…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:29PMSunday, May 5, 2013
There are some musicals that achieve cult status, despite - or perhaps because of - relatively short runs in their initial incarnations. Often these musicals live on through their cast recor…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:25PMThursday, May 2, 2013
Regular readers will know that I have a love/hate relationship with the Tony Awards, with all awards, in fact. On the one hand, I'm as interested and fascinated as the next showtune queen wh…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:00PMMonday, April 29, 2013
So, Motown: The Musical. OK, let's do this. Yes, it's bad. But we knew that was going to be true. But the genuinely surprising thing about Motown is that it's not entirely disastrous. Sure, …
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:05PMSaturday, April 27, 2013
Yeah, I don't get it. I saw the new musical Here Lies Love recently at The Public Theater, and found it reasonably diverting, if shallow and repetitive. But the reviews were overwhelmingly p…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:55PMI don't often get the chance to see Broadway shows twice. By the end of the season, I'm lucky if I have time to see things once. But I recently had the opportunity to see the current Broadwa…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:39AMSaturday, April 20, 2013
I don't know how my fellow critics feel about this, but I find it much harder to write a rave than to write a pan. I guess that says something about me as a person, but I think it's also...
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:27PMTuesday, April 16, 2013
Let dreamers dream what worlds they please; Those Edens can't be found. The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees Are grown in solid ground. We're neither pure nor wise nor good; We'll do the …
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:03PMFriday, April 12, 2013
I've been a bit disheartened of late by crowds going full-tilt bug-nutty during, and at the end of, shows that, at least from my perspective, are seriously deficient in quality. It happened …
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:50AMTuesday, April 9, 2013
One of the hottest tickets in New York right now is the Classic Stage Company revival of Passion, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine. (The show has been ext…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:54PMSaturday, April 6, 2013
Who turns documentaries into musicals? Why, Doug Wright does, that's who. In collaboration with Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, Wright trandformed the the cult documentary Grey Gardens into…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:47PMThursday, April 4, 2013
Dear Reader: My humblest apologies for my extended absence from the blogosphere. I've been caught up in teaching, and the semester has really gone into high gear. But one of the things that …
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:40PMSunday, February 17, 2013
A confession: I love Annie. Yes, it's sappy. Yes, the characters are two-dimensional. Yes, there are songs that serve no purpose except to cover a costume change. And yet it gives me joy. It…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:24PMSunday, February 3, 2013
One of my favorite theatrical experiences last season was One Man, Two Guvnors, a British import that rollicked at the good old Music Box Theatre for 159 performances, three at which I was i…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:46PMWednesday, January 30, 2013
Last week, the Off-Broadway production of the musical Bare announced that it would be closing this coming weekend after 21 previews and 65 regular performances. I wish I could say I was eith…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:32PMTuesday, January 15, 2013
Bad theater is a gift. I genuinely believe that. I know plenty of people who only go to see shows that they're already pretty sure they're going to like, or that have received strong reviews…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:06PMFriday, January 11, 2013
In the arts-criticism course that I teach at the Boston Conservatory, one of the DVDs that I've had my students watch almost every semester is Pippin. This isn't because I necessarily like t…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:48PMThursday, January 10, 2013
When I was in eighth grade, our class produced a little mimeographed yearbook, of which I was the editor. The yearbook contained individual student profiles, essays about class trips, a clas…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:44PMSunday, January 6, 2013
Dear Reader: With this post, I've finally caught up on my blogging backlog. I've still got some posts in the pipeline (including my Best and Worst Musicals of 2012, as well as my review of P…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:29PMTuesday, January 1, 2013
[Dear reader: The musical Giant played an extended run at the Public Theater from October 26th to December 16th, 2012. I saw the show twice, once in previews and once after it opened. Then I…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:50PMThursday, December 27, 2012
During the build-up to Christmas 2012, there was something very actively on the minds of theater fans across the country and around the world, and it didn't have anything to do with the usua…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:34PMThursday, December 20, 2012
I love blogging. I love teaching. But they do tend to conflict with each other. The two busiest times of the year for New York theater tend to be right before Christmas and then right before…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:25PMFriday, November 23, 2012
Shortly after I saw the new musical Scandalous on Broadway, I received an email asking me to "spread the word" about the show. Nothing strange there, I suppose. But the show was still in pre…
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 10:22PMTuesday, November 20, 2012
I guess we're running out of musicals worth reviving. That's what has been going through my mind recently as I've contemplated recent announcements of upcoming musical revivals on Broadway. …
Linked From Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 04:15PMWednesday, November 7, 2012
