Profile for AC126748

I saw the penultimate performance on Saturday night. This musical is just not ready for prime time. It has none of the wit, charm or sweet sadness of the original play. Most of the score is not memorable and, with the exception of Rita's song "I Haven't Slept in Years," it doesn't really do much to define characters. The production looks clumsy and cheap, and some of the choreography was downright laughable. Chris McCarrell deserves some slack because he came in at the e

I'm a theater critic. Not for a publication on the magnitude of the NYT, but I've regularly had my reviews excerpted for ad copy. And often those excerpts have been misrepresentations of what I wrote. Either comments are taken out of context or invented from whole cloth by stitching words and phrases together. It's frustrating, and on several occasions, I've pointed it out to the press teams -- and their attitude is almost always a shrug and "that's just the way we do

Owen22 said: "It's a beautiful production. I saw Graham play George last year at Pasadena Playhouse (in the Sarna Lapine production), and his performance has deepened since then (in between he played Nick in Virginia Woolf with Calista Flockhart and Zachary Quinto which may have had something to do with it). Was not, however, a fan of the recent Bway Elphaba who played Dot/Marie. However, I seemed to be in the minority (she did sing it well).

Eamon Foley is a director/

I saw Courtney on one of her last tour stops, and it was one of the most bland professional performances I've ever seen. Nonexistent acting, weak vocals, and a general sense that she didn't want to be there. (And she was appearing with John Cardoza, who sang the crap out of the score, so you couldn't blame it on her being partnered with a weak costar.) I assumed at the time that she was just checked out after being on the road for over a year, but friends who saw her on earlier st

Obviously theater is not meant to moralize, but I found something slightly icky about the plot: a man who drags his partner into the depths of alcoholism, then saves himself while she flounders. And although Kelli O'Hara sings beautifully and does the best she can on the acting front, the character of Kirsten felt very one-dimensional in comparison to Joe. I think the score has a lot of Guettel's unique signatures -- the musical language reminded me more of his early work than PIAZZA

inception said: "Also, this isn't Cecil6 Strong's stage debut. She did a revival of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universeat The Shed and then later in Los Angeles."

Cecily was a professional actor in Chicago theater as a child and teenager, and she went to college for theater at CalArts. She didn't get involved in improv until after she graduated with a BFA. She has a deep background in theater; she didn't just wake up one

TaffyDavenport said: "From the MCC website:

Beginning Tuesday, March 5, Ashley Pérez Flanagan will assume the role ofROBIN MARTINEZand Joanna Carpenter will join the performing ensemble. Hannah Cruz’s final performance will be on Sunday, March 3."

Thanks for that. (Must be relatively new -- I didn't see any such message when I checked the website earlier today.) I'm actually going on March 3, so I guess I'll be at

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "AC126748 said: "Roundabout is a subscription-based, nonprofit theater. Questions of whether or not Amy Ryan is a "draw" are really moot."

Subscribers make up a small percentage of the audience over the run of the show, and "nonprofit" is a tax status. They require single-ticket sales to sustain their business, and though a show isn't capitalized individually like a commercial production, they no doub

Roundabout is a subscription-based, nonprofit theater. Questions of whether or not Amy Ryan is a "draw" are really moot. But she was recently a star of a popular, still-running TV show, and she had a notable role on one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. People know who she is.

 

As for Isabel Keating: she's an old pro whose worked consistently in this business for 40 years. This isn't her first standby gig, and I doubt she had any impression that sh

It's not Broadway, but when the Roundabout revived Tennessee Williams's THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE in 2011, a male actor (Edward Hibbert) played The Witch of Capri, a traditionally female role.

An older example is the play WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY?, which opened on Broadway with a male actor (Tom Conti) in the leading role. The part was then rewritten to allow Mary Tyler Moore to replace him. The play now essentially exists in two versions -- one with a male main chara