John Cameron Mitchell stars on Broadway in HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, Mitchell and Stephen Trask's landmark American musical, directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening). Heartbreaking and wickedly funny, this raucously entertaining show has inspired a generation.
Brilliantly innovative and raucously entertaining, Hedwig has inspired a generation. The show was called "the Best Rock Musical Ever" by Rolling Stone and "the most exciting rock score written for the theatre since, oh, ever," by Time Magazine.
Winner of the 2014 Best Musical Revival Tony Award.
Shaping all this, Mayer does his usual skillful work. He takes on Hedwig and the Angry Inch after putting Spring Awakening and American Idiot on their feet -- and on their feat. It's tempting to say -- and I'm giving in to the temptation -- that with his third obvious click, he's made himself our foremost director of rock musicals. Over the last several decades, too many of the so-called rock musicals have merely been ersatz. Mayer is expert at the real thing. The closing number 'Midnight Radio' exhorts everyone to 'lift up your hands.' Not only will many Hedwig and the Angry Inch audience members lift up their hands, they'll eagerly and happily put then together for sustained applause.
Do not be alarmed by recent reports that Neil Patrick Harris, an irresistibly wholesome television presence, has fallen deeply and helplessly into the gap that separates men from women, East from West, and celebrity from notoriety. There's no need to fear for his safety, much less his identity. Quite the contrary. Playing an 'internationally ignored song stylist' of undefinable gender in'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' Mr. Harris is in full command of who he is and, most excitingly, what he has become with this performance. That's a bona fide Broadway star, the kind who can rule an audience with the blink of a sequined eyelid...And while Mr. Harris may let you see him sweat as he struts, slithers and leaps through this shamelessly enjoyable show, rousingly directed by Michael Mayer ('Spring Awakening,' 'American Idiot'), he never makes it feel like heavy lifting.
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