The 2017 San Francisco run of Hamilton, for about 4 months, sold out quickly. Then partial and obstructed view tickets were offered, and they went fast. It wasn't impossible to get tickets, even good ones, if you played it smart. But you had to act fast.
Thus far, ticket sales for the longer 2019 run, from February to September, are going a lot more slowly. Most of the center orchestra is sold out, but there ar
Got 2 orchestra tickets. right side (not listed as partial or obstructed view) in Row J. Once everything is added, it came to $219 a seat. Decided not to buy more as the cast is unknown, I've seen it 3 times before, and it's not impossible to get extra tickets.
I saw the show on its San Francisco tour stop Saturday night (first week of four). Christine Dwyer is Jenna, and she was good as an actor and singer. Jeremy Morse stole the show for a while as Ogie. While Dwyer has a strong voice and enunciated clearly, I had trouble understanding the words of others a fair amount of the time. (The Golden Gate Theatre can have this problem, but it's usually more of an Orpheum issue, and my rush seats were fine - Row R, center orchestra). It doesn't se
It seems pretty clear that the 2019 San Francisco run is not open-ended.
The ticket prices listed are $214, $111, and $686 for a "select number of prime seats." If it's like the last time, there won't be that many "prime seats," just a few rows. Yes, the $214 price is a little higher than last year's run, which is annoying. It's not like we would get Michael Luwoye and Joshua Henry again.
Have you seen something indicating that they would try
Here are some of the raves for the Berkeley Rep production of Fairview. They like it more than I did. So did most of the audience members who stuck around afterward to discuss it:
MarilynMonroeSmash said: "UPDATE: I spoke with someone today that knows Lucas, and apparently he completely rewrote the play. It's the same title, but a new work."
Can the play keep the cast and have it not be about Hillary Clinton at all? I've seen one of those already, Soft Power, and it was really irritating by the end. On the bright side, it had music and dancing.
The play has moved west, to the Berkeley Rep. I saw it the other night. The local critics loved it. I respectfully dissent. There's no way to describe what I think didn't work without spoiling the play.
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There wasn't the audience drama described above, or in Sara Holdren's review. Instead, it wa
I saw Sweat last month at ACT in San Francisco, and while I understand Brantley's critique, I can't agree with it. The play is one long tragedy about a way of life that was taken away from people, told from a variety of perspectives, and thankfully grounded in reality. (The comparison between this play and the too-clever-by-half A Doll's House Part 2, which is playing at the Berkeley Rep, was striking when I saw both recently.)
The Distinctive Baritone said: "Great Comet is a fantastic musical, but the average person would have no interest in seeing it without a celebrity in it. It’s really for theater and opera buffs only.
Hadestown however, might seem “cooler” to mainstream audiences because of the title. Everyone knows that Hades is the Greek equivalent of the devil. Also, most people know the gist of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. No one has read War and Peace.
I enjoyed Head Over Heels in its out-of-town tryout, as did my wife and daughter, but its chances of surviving until January on Broadway seem pretty close to zero, unless the producers want to keep losing money for reasons that escape me. I'm glad the cast and crew have kept their jobs for longer than I expected, based on the box office returns, but there's no reason to think there will be a magical turnaround in its fortunes. The show simply never found an audience from
My problem with most jukebox musicals is that, because the main or central characters are still alive and the show is based on one of their accounts, is that they tend to feel whitewashed and less interesting than the actual story might be. Jersey Boys succeeds in spite of this because it's well-crafted, but others haven't worked as well for me. I tend to judge the based-on-a-true-story shows differently than original shows and can find pleasures in the pe
Is the Curran going to be dark between the close of the Dear Evan Hansen tour stop and Harry Potter? I know there's some work to be done to prepare for the latter show, but that seems like a waste of a nice theater for a very long time.
I saw it at the Berkeley Rep, so I can't comment on the changes since then. Some of the criticisms are fair, and Ain't Too Proud had a disappointing book and too many songs, leaving little room for a compelling story. The lead character, while well acted, is kind of a bore. And it's a paint-by-numbers jukebox musical that left me somewhat disappointed that it didn't try to be more than that.
I really enjoyed the San Francisco Playhouse's production of Sunday in the Park with George. John Bambery and Nanci Zoppi were both excellent as George and Dot, and Zoppi was especially good. My wife didn't like the musical as much as I did, but she agreed about the performances.
Edited since I butchered the spelling of Zoppi's name the first time
NYfanfromCA said: "We are seeing this on Sunday. I've never been to this venue, so am not sure where to park, but we will figure it out. Glad you enjoyed the singing. The reviews I read panned the costumes and set."
My wife and I are also going to the musical on Sunday. We're seeing the evening show. Street parking isn't too awful, depending on your patience or willingness to walk a bit. It might be tougher if you're seeing the matinee.
SomethingPeculiar said: "There's no chance in heck that Olivo or Tveit is getting replaced after that love-letter from Ben Brantley."
I'm not being snarky about this. I'm honestly curious. Does the enthusiastic blessing of The New York Times lead theater critic matter that much? I guess it used to, and perhaps the decline in the number of critics might makes the Times more important. But the musical is based on a known quantity, albeit one
bear88 said: "Jeff Whitty, who wrote the original Head Over Heels before parting ways with the production under murky circumstances, is decidedly unhappy with Sara Holdren's rave reviewof the show in Vulture for what he says are "ugly sneers" in her portrayal of his hypothetical pitch (clearly written as a joke), an allegedly inaccurate characterization of the original show's lackof iambic pentameter (Whitty says his opening night script of the sho
