Patrick Honoré - Page 6

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!

Aurélien taps to classical music at the Châtelet Theater.

Quadruple threat Dalia Constantin in an initimate autobiographical one-woman show.

Cole Porter, the most Francophile of the big five American composers of the American songbook, with Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers, spent almost a decade in Paris just after World War I immersing himself French language and culture and developing his craft as a composer and lyricist of sophisticated and semi-autographical ditties full of double entendre, trying them out as a dilettante pianist in the party scenes of the roaring 20s not only in Paris but also in Venice, before taking on Broadway by storm the following decade.

The best French-language musical of the century so far.

November has been a very busy month for musical theater in Paris. On top of the big shows opening at Mogador, Théâtre du Gymnase, and Théâtre de Paris, the Auguste Théâtre has been hosting a very intimate musical entitled Simply Musicals: Manila, London, Paris. Produced by Pinoy Jam Paris in patnership with the association Paris Broadway Saigon in 2012, it is a cabaret show with a storyline showcasing the talented baritone Dennis Astorga and the delightful soprano Charley Magalit, accompanied by the magic fingers of musical director Thomas MacFarlane at the piano.

Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party in Paris

West End Hit Comes to Paris.

A week long celebration of Broadway in Paris.

Playing at the arthouse venue Le Lucernaire just off of Luxembourg Gardens until October 31st, you won't want to miss this wild, action packed, musical tribute to blaxploitation, soul, and funk.

After a cancelled season, Bruxellons! Festival briefly decided to go ahead with what for francophones will be a delicious discovery of a show, despite production uncertainties and a lack of support from the Belgian government. How brave! We have to be thankful to them for the bold choice of presenting a British musical which, in spite of being the third longest running in London, right after Phantom and Les Miz, is totally unknown in the French-speaking world.