Michael Rabice - Page 2

Some classic musicals will live on forever thanks to that perfect blend of book, musical score,and dance. Cole Porter's ANYTHING GOES continues to enchant audiences 90 years after it's Broadway debut. Multiple versions have taken to the stage and silver screen, cementing such classics as 'You're The Top,' 'Anything Goes, ' Friendship,' and 'It's De-Lovely.'

The 1980’s were a great era for blockbuster movies..TOOTSIE, MRS DOUBTFIRE, PRETTY WOMAN, and DIRTY DANCING, to name a few. And who doesn't want to capitalize on a beloved classic. Broadway producers love a familiar title and composers have taken a shining to transform these gems of yesteryear into Broadway musicals.

Living a lifestyle beyond one's means and being prone to excesses in all aspects of life often may catch up with you (especially if there is no money in the family vault) . That is unless a long lost relative leaves you everything in their will, and they day is saved. Therein gives just a glimpse into the super silly premise of the delightful farce, TONS OF MONEY, now playing at the Royal George Theatre of the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake.

Fasten your seat belts and prepare for a theatrical ride that no one could truly predict. A new play in the style of Grand Guignol takes to the stage in Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre's gripping production of CROCODILE FEVER by Meghan Tyler.

LEGALLY BLONDE:THE MUSICAL has everyone shouting “Omigod You Guys” in true Valley-girl fashion as it takes to the Shea’s 710 Theatre stage. Presented in it’s new home, Musicalfare seems like to have found the perfect sized theatre  for all of it’s future productions.

Grief, love and personal life challenges are all examined with fascinating detail in the engrossing production of  Lanford Wilson's  play BURN THIS now on stage at Road Less Traveled Theatre.

That brilliant murder mystery author Agatha Christie is universally praised and beloved, but one of her first successes is not  well known to American readers. Happily the the stage adaptation by Heidi Armbruster of  that early work, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, now playing at Buffalo's Alleyway Theatre ,will change that for Western New York audiences.

The trend continues of bringing a musical superstar's life to the Broadway stage in a jukebox bio-musical style. We've had Cher, Tina Turner, Gloria Estefan, Michael Jackson, and now Neil Diamond in THE NEIL DIAMOND MUSICAL: A BEAUTIFUL NOISE. The flashy and often heartfelt Broadway tour settled onto the stage of Shea's Buffalo Theatre last night to an enthusiastic ovation.

The personal life and writings of Oscar Wilde have been so inextricably linked that the new play DORIAN has woven  Wilde's journey into that of one of his best known characters, Dorian Gray. In an everything old is new again fashion, Wilde's' 1891 play  THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY has been freely adapted by  Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley into something remarkably fresh and creative.

Every now and then there is a musical that is near universally loved for it score, treasured by cast recording collectors, and infamous to many,  BUT is rarely ever produced. Most were failures soon after theirs debuts. My personal desert island treasured flop  from that category is Jerry Herman's DEAR WORLD. For others it was Stephen  Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (  considered a flop for almost 40 years, but now a triumph). Which brings us to the rarely produced, but often recorded musical CHESS, now being presented at the Lancaster Opera House.

Murder, greed, blackmail, love affairs and a potential hanging are just some of the many dark subjects that form the fabric of the fabulous production of DIAL M FOR MURDER now playing at Shea's 710 Theatre. Who doesn't love a good old fashioned murder mystery? Alfred Hitchcock turned this nail biter into a classic film with Grace Kelly and Ray Miland in 1954. But everything old is new again, as playwright Jeffrey Hatcher has updated and adapted the original play by Frederick Knott into something equally intriguing and possibly even more salacious for current audience sensibilities. 

Broadway's great leading lady  Elaine Stritch once corrected herself when talking about musicals, when she was describing a Broadway show as a 'musical comedy.'  'Every musical was called a musical comedy in my day,' she quipped. Well, times have changed, and the Pultizer Prize winning musical NEXT TO NORMAL most certainly would not be categorized as a musical comedy, but rather a musical drama.

Everything OZ continues these days. L Frank Baum would be flabbergasted to think that his 1900 novel 'THE  WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ' would be as popular, if not MORE popular, in 2025. The endless fascination  with the story of young Dorothy being whisked away by a twister from her home in Kansas to the mystical land of Oz has always been a favorite of young and old. The beloved MGM musical starring Judy Garland continues to be a perennial favorite. And in 1975 a little musical called THE WIZ took Broadway by storm, updating the story to present day with an all Black cast. In 2003, the prequel musical WICKED opened and  has been dazzling Broadway audiences ever since, to say nothing of the blockbuster movie version in 2024. The 2025 Academy Awards included 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow,'  2 songs from THE WIZ and 1 from WICKED. The fascination continues....

When worlds collide, drama ensues. And in the new play THE LOVED ONES by Erica Murray, 4 women meet under the most unusual of circumstances. Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre is presenting the North American Premiere of this 2023 play. And as can be expected, the dark subjects of death, remorse, unwed mothers and lives lived full of heartbreak are no stranger to the often brooding stories that have been told in the Irish Theatre genre.

CATS…Now and Forever. That catchphrase of marketing served the blockbuster Broadway musical well. The show ran for over 18 years, and although often maligned, is indelibly chiseled into the canon of classic musicals. It introduced countless tourists to an immersive theatrical experience, never seen before. In 1982 the Winter Garden Theatre was literally transformed into a larger than life sized back alley, with actors dressed as cats crawling through the audience and climbing across the mezzanine rails. The hit song “Memory” earned Betty Buckley a TONY Award for her portrayal of Grizabella, and Andrew Lloyd Weber cemented his role as blockbuster composer. He was fresh off of the success of EVITA and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA would be his next huge hit.

What did our critic think of BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART at Bellissima Productions At Alleyway Theatre?

Everything old is new again. That saucy playwright William Shakespeare continues to ignite audience's imagination, with two separate shows in Buffalo this month alone. But wait, not really his own plays, but plays based on the Bard's own writing. SOMETHING ROTTEN at Musicalfare has would be competitors trying to out-write him, while & JULIET, now playing at Shea's, aims to pit Mrs. Shakespeare (Anne Hathaway) against her own husband to write a better version of ROMEO AND JULIET.