If I were delusional enough to think my scribblings could turn an unknown into a star overnight, then I'd be writing these words fully confident that by tomorrow morning every Broadway producer in town would want to sign a young musical comedy actress named Oakley Boycott. Yes, Oakley Boycott is her actual name and as a performer she's as unique as her moniker. I first saw her two years ago at one of Town Hall's Broadway's Rising Stars concerts, where she floored the place as a rhythmically-challenged singer awkwardly pounding her way through John Kroner's 'Where's The Beat.' Since then it seems her New York appearances have been limited to Scott Siegel's Town Hall concerts and doing concert musicals for Mel Miller's Musicals Tonight!
The year Avenue Q asked Tony Voters to 'Vote Your Heart.'
'That's me up there,' said the gentleman sitting to my right at Tuesday night's performance ofHairwhen I ask him at intermission if he was having a good time. I knew his response would be positive, as I could hear him obviously being moved by the production during the first act. He was a big guy, strong, maybe in his early 60s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and sporting a crew cut. To look at him you might think he was a retired cop or a Vietnam vet. For all I know, maybe he was. But in row K of the St. James Theatre there was a rush of memories passing through him of his youthful days as a hippie.
They look a little like Blue Man Group, they sound a little like Toxic Audio and they talk a lot like Andy Kaufman and Carol Kane playing Latka and Simka onTaxi, but while Voca People might give the appearance of being a bit too tourist trappy for we jaded New York theatre types, it's the kind of family friendly, good clean fun that's legitimately clever, catchly and often downright adorable.
The fact that Jonathan Larson won two posthumous Tony Award for writing and composing Rent is certainly bittersweet, but the fact that for one of those awards he bested the also posthumously nominated Rodgers and Hammerstein is just plain weird. But the last-minute addition of Rent to the 1995-96 Broadway season seemed to be the catalyst for one the oddest Tony nights ever.
Although there have been previous productions of The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World since the musical premiered in Los Angeles eight years ago, thanks to a 13-year-old girl's fondness for Friday, the show has never been more relevant.
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'Cute' is probably not the adjective that Robert Lopez, Matt Stone and Trey Parker were going for when they co-authored the book, music and lyrics of The Book of Mormon. Neither is 'cute' a word I'd expect to use when describing a musical where genital mutilation and the belief that having sex with an infant will cure an adult of AIDS figure significantly in the plot and the big Act I showstopper has a chorus of villagers happily singing, 'Fuck you, God!' But The Book of Mormon - which absolutely should be praised for its non-traditional material that, to borrow what Brooks Atkinson wrote of Pal Joey, attempts to draw sweet water from a sour well - sets us up for intriguing social satire and then settles for being well-structured, sharply mounted, terrifically performed innocuous entertainment.
Although performances of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark will be suspended from April 19th through May 11th while the cast and new creative team work on implementing major revisions to the show, ticket-holders will still have an opportunity to see the webbed superhero in a musical, as the Foxwoods Theatre will be housing a limited run of The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.
While BroadwayWorld follows a policy of not reviewing productions before they have officially opened, after careful consideration both this reporter and the editor-in-chief concluded that an exception must be made for 'The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.'
Having a credited new bookwriter added to make wholesale changes while a show is previewing has been done before with mixed results.
Why you won't see a review of Spider-Man from BroadwayWorld today.
Michael Dale names ten memorable theatre moments from some of New York's lesser known 2010 productions.
The only press night offered for the Public LAB's premiere production of playwright/director Richard Nelson's That Hopey Changey Thing was this past Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 at 7pm. Given that the play actually takes place on Tuesday. November 2nd, 2010 at 7pm (America's Election Night, for my plethora of foreign readers) I was rather hopey that the text might, in fact, wind up being changey, depending on the news of returns coming in during the play's 90 minutes. No such luck. But even in its frozen state, the piece is sharp, engrossing and superbly acted.
This past Friday afternoon I read that this person has been meeting with producers to consider the possibility of appearing on Broadway, in order to, 'expand her brand by taking to the stage.' That evening I heard the 82-year-old Marilyn Maye, after nearly ninety minutes of superlative interpretations of musical theatre classics from the likes of Jerry Herman, Frank Loesser and Kander and Ebb, tell her completely enthralled audience that it's still her ambition to one day be on Broadway, before emoting a beautifully vulnerable 'Losing My Mind' that segued into a classy and celebratory 'I'm Still Here' that brought just about the entire packed Metropolitan Room house to its feet in one of the most adoring ovations I've ever seen.
When Isaiah Sheffer first walked into the dilapidated movie house on Broadway and 95th Street in the late '70s he saw some kind of makeshift boxing ring on the creaky stage. But what he envisioned was a great center for the arts on the Upper West Side that filled the wide cultural gap between Lincoln Center and Columbia University.
Roundabout Theatre Company's Artistic Director Todd Haimes announced this morning that the company's Broadway production of Terrance McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart, which was postponed after the sudden departure of star Megan Mullally, will be replaced by a revival of the popular musical Les Misérables.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg became the first person ever issued a summons for violating the city's ban on cell phone use during public performances, a law he has openly opposed since its introduction in 2002.
Michael Dale names ten memorable theatre moments from some of New York's lesser known 2009 productions.
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