Broadway Blogs - Let The Sun Shine In On Tom O'Horgan and More...

A Union Square Park bench, frequently occupied by the brilliant stage and screen director Tom O'Horgan, will be dedicated in his honor this coming Sunday, May 3rd at 1pm on the occasion of what would have been his 85th birthday. The only director ever to have four productions running simultaneous on Broadway (Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Lenny and Inner City) passed away in January of this year.

A memorial plaque will be dedicated by his close friend, Marc Cohen, with a memorial held at 8pm that evening at La Mama etc. (74 E. 4th Street); the theatre space where, along with the Caffe Cino, O'Horgan's creativity became an important force in the Off-Off Broadway movement.

That revolutionary creativity was first seen on Broadway in Hair, a project he joined after the musical's initial run at The Public Theater. His new ideas for the show are regarded as a major reason for the musical's success on Broadway. As Hair now enjoys new success on Broadway, we can be assured that the sun will shine in on Tom O'Horgan's old rest stop for years to come.

Photo by Steve Ladner

Don't miss this new musical comedy based on the classic hit movie! 9 to 5: THE MUSICAL features a brand-new score by seven-time Grammy Award® winner DOLLY PARTON that includes the blockbuster title song, plus a book by original screenwriter PATRICIA RESNICK, direction by two time Tony Award® winner JOE MANTELLO (directing his first new musical since Wicked), and choreography by Tony winner ANDY BLANKENBUEHLER (In The Heights). Emmy Award® winner and Tony Award nominee ALLISON JANNEY stars as Violet Newstead, the super-efficient office manager who joins her fellow co-workers - frazzled divorcée Judy Bernly (STEPHANIE J. BLOCK) and sexy secretary Doralee Rhodes (MEGAN HILTY) - to turn the tables on their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss, Franklin Hart, Jr. (Tony Award nominee MARC KUDISCH).

In a hilarious turn of events, Violet, Judy and Doralee live out their wildest fantasy - giving their boss the boot! While Hart remains "otherwise engaged," the women give their workplace a dream makeover, taking control of the company that had always kept them down. Hey, a girl can scheme, can't she?

David Rooney, Variety: "The principal asset in "9 to 5: The Musical" is unquestionably the beloved screen property on which this eager-to-please adaptation is based. The popular 1980 fem-powerment farce about three renegade secretaries who turn the tables on their chauvinistic boss was driven by three iconic performances, and the women who step into those heels here do dandy work re-creating those characters with enough freshness to rise above mere imitation. If the material showcasing the trio is an uneven cut-and-paste job that struggles to recapture the movie's giddy estrogen rush, plenty of folks will nonetheless find this a nostalgic crowd-pleaser."

Ben Brantley, New York Times: "Give some credit to "9 to 5" - the overinflated whoopee cushion lodged at the Marquis Theater - for bucking this spring's fashion trends. Can this gaudy, empty musical really be part of the same Broadway season that gave us the minimally decorated, maximally effective "Exit the King," "God of Carnage," "Next to Normal," "Hair," "Mary Stuart" and "Norman Conquests"?"

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "Durn. You kinda want "9 to 5: The Musical" to be better than it is. Not that you won't have fun at this stage version of the 1980 feminist revenge comedy that was a hit movie with an impossibly catchy title tune. It's a certified crowd-pleaser."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "At a recent preview, Block nearly stopped the show with a song called Get Out and Stay Out- directed at her ex, though she would have pleased the crowd equally belting it out to Hart. If seeing Y-chromosome-addled cartoon characters get their due is your idea of an empowering experience, or at least a good time, 9 to 5 has your number."

Two-time Tony Award® winner Nathan Lane, Tony Award® winner Bill Irwin, Golden Globe® winner John Goodman and Tony Award® winner John Glover star in Samuel Beckett's cryptic and comical play, Waiting for Godot, directed by Tony Award® winner Anthony Page.

David Rooney, Variety: "Aside from its title, there's no more perfect summation of "Waiting for Godot" than Estragon's complaint "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful." But there's no trace of that monotony in the perversely gripping non-drama and fine-grained emotional textures of this haunting revival. Samuel Beckett's 1953 play has been absent from Broadway for more than 50 years, and the current climate of pervasive anxiety makes the timing ideal for a comedy of existential despair -- even better when it comes wrapped in Anthony Page's transcendent production, showcasing four distinctive actors at the top of their game."

Ben Brantley, New York Times: "As a profound comedy, this "Godot" is deeply satisfying. As an emotionally moving work, it is less so, except when Mr. Goodman and Mr. Glover are onstage. That's because while Mr. Irwin and Mr. Lane have each mapped credible paths to their roles, mostly the paths are parallel and rarely intersect."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "It's not easy handling the comic absurdity and terrifying despair that snake hand-in-hand throughout "Waiting for Godot," but the Roundabout Theatre Company's striking revival does justice to both."

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: "Veteran theatergoers usually don't have to wait long for another production of the oft-performed "Godot." But one as special as this doesn't come along that often."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "In the new Roundabout Theatre Company production (* * * ½ out of four) at Studio 54, Beckett's hobos Estragon and Vladimir - Gogo and Didi, as they call each other - are played by Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, with John Goodman in a supporting role. But like the current revival of Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King, this Godot is noteworthy less for its cast members' marquee value than their ability to make the existential, universal questions posed by the text accessible to a mass audience.."

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: "In the end, as in the beginning, the show rightly revolves around Gogo and Didi. And Lane and Irwin are more than up to the task of capturing their characters' mutual friendship, antipathy, and befuddlement at their fate in life - as they ponder their circumstances with regard to an absent and seemingly indifferent Godot. B+"

Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record: "But Beckett's great work, ranging through most human emotions, and with lines and scenes open to multiple interpretations, allows for many choices. The ones in this presentation work very well for me."

David Sheward, Backstage: "In the current Roundabout Theatre Company production at Studio 54-the former disco is an ironic location for this desolate comedy-drama-director Anthony Page and his brilliant cast neatly sidestep that pitfall and dance a merry gig around it. Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, two of our most skilled stage clowns, find the zestful comic joy and soul-crushing despair in Beckett's sorrowful everymen. Dressed in rags by costume designer Jane Greenwood and covered with dirt, wounds, and scars, they look as if they've been through hell-in most productions, these facial details are overlooked, and the tramps appear to be neatly shaved actors in funny clothes."

More Reviews to Come in the AM!