Patrick Honoré - Page 5

A Madonna Juke Box Musical in Paris. In the sub-genre of the juke box musical that doesn’t tell the story of the star from whose oeuvre the songs are taken, but rather works those songs around an original story, comes Holidays on the heels of several predecessors, notably Broadway’s Mama Mia and Jagged Little Pill. 

After venturing into British musicals with Blood Brothers in 2021 and Viennese musical theater with Elisabeth last year, the Bruxellons! Festival is getting back to Broadway with a completely new take on West Side Story, arguably the best musical ever—certainly the best-known and most well-loved one in Europe.

With seven nominations for the French Trophées de la Comédie Musicale (Best Musical, Direction, Book, Score, Leading Man, Leading Woman), Égo-Système is bound to be among the winners during this year's ceremony at the Casino de Paris on June 12th.

Just when the Broadway flop Bonnie and Clyde is about to come back to the West End for the 2nd time, trying to build a popular hit off a cult following, a new musical about another famous criminal, Al Capone, one of the most infamous personalities from America's prohibition era, arrives in Paris.

French actress, singer, and dancer, Prisca Demarez made fruitful use of her time in lockdown during the initial stages of Covid to create an autobiographical show, part standup routine and part solo concert, called Coquelicot (French for poppy flower), which debuted earlier this month at the Théatre de la Contrescarpe in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

For the 2nd year, the Châtelet Musical Club is growing, inviting artists from different countries and backgrounds to share their love and talent for musical theater in the intimate grand foyer of the Théâtre du Châtelet, which, under the helm of Jean-Luc Choplin, has for the past decade been the new temple of musical theater, introducing the French to the genius of Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein (among others) and serving as the home for the first ever tryout in Paris with An American in Paris in 2014.

AMT Live presents a tribute to the young Broadway composers Pasek and Paul as part of their ongoing Broadway Chez Nous series.

The fifth edition of '42ème rue fait son show !' celebrates one of Paris's favorite Americans.

Isabelle Georges' Broadway concert at the Bal Blomet and Oh là là ! at La Nouvelle Eve

A new production of the classic musical for a limited run in Paris. Don't miss in

After two postponements, the revival of the 2016 Châtelet production of 42nd Street is finally on till January 15th, with a brand-new cast but the same creative team as the original. Stephen Mear had already directed and choreographed the piece for the Parisian public six years ago. In the meantime opened a London revival of the first Broadway version with the original staging and choreography of the late Gower Champion, brilliantly enhanced by Randy Skinner, which took the work to another level of spectacular, so grand was the scale of the production value and money spent! That particular once-in-a lifetime and never-to-be-seen-again production was luckily preserved on video for posterity, but it doesn't take away from the qualities of this more intimate Châtelet version.

Silvano Jo performs multiple roles in this one-man cabaret, a journey through the hidden gems of French café and cabaret songs.

In sync with the off-Broadway revival currently playing in New York until 2024 comes to the Opéra Comique the first legitimate Paris revival of the 1986 French adaptation of The Little Shop of Horrors by the late Alain Marcel, which first opened at the Théâtre Dejazet in June and then transferred to the Théâtre la Porte St-Martin. A previous French revival, also at the Dejazet in 2001, starring Hervé Lewandowski as Seymour and Franck Vincent as the plant, was cut short because the rights didn't allow for the vegetal monster to be played by a human! Of course, this has now changed. As in the excellent Maria Aberg production at Regent's Park Open Air in 2018, the plant appeared in the human form of American drag queen Vicky Vox! In this new production, the plant made bigger and sensibly more frightening, is a giant puppet manipulated by Daniel Njo Lobé whose powerful voice gives the vegetal its identity.

The worldwide hit about the Austrian Empress performed in French at the Bruxellons! Festival in Belgium.

What did our critic think of LOVE SONGE THÉRAPIE at Lucernaire?

What did our critic think of LES TROPHÉES DE LA COMÉDIE MUSICALE at Casino De Paris? After two years of absence, Les Trophées de la comédie musicale are getting bigger and bigger, from no live audience at the Trévise Theatre in its first annual production, to the first live version three years ago, to the packed Casino de Paris this year for its 4th annual ceremony.

What did our critic think of JE VAIS T'AIMER at La Seine Musicale? Originally set to open in fall 2021, the Michel Sardou juke-box musical is the first French big spectacular to hit the capital since Covid. Following a brief tour, it is playing a limited season at the huge Seine Musicale Auditorium in Boulogne, in the close outskirts of Paris. Unlike the Mike Brant biopic musical, Je vais t'aimer follows the path of Mamma Mia and the most succesful French juke-box musical to date, Resiste, bilt around the repertoire of France Gall.

American Musical Theater Live continues to carry Broadway's flame in Paris.

18 years after his successful musical revue Zapping at the Théâtre du Gymnase before transferring to the Olympia and the Trianon, Bruno Agati is back with another off the wall production, this time focusing on gender ambiguity and digging more deeply into the inner psyche of its writer-director-choreographer. Always oscillating between first and second degrees of humor, whereas Zapping stayed exclusively on the latter, Mixity is essentially more of a drag show than a dance show even if every act is thoroughly choreographed, exploring the diversity of drag, man to woman, woman to man, and in between!