Joe Dziemianowicz

But after a steady diet of Broadway plays that are all about dysfunctional and sitcom-style families, 'The Nance' is a welcome departure.

There's no shortage of great tunes from which to choose. And if a batch of catchy classics with tasty harmonies and cool grooves like 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine,' 'Stop in the Name of Love,' 'My Girl' and 'ABC' were enough to make a jukebox musical click, the show would be an automatic hit. But it takes more. While the music catalog runs deep, the story is shallow. The book, penned by Gordy, who also produced the show, suffers from being sketchy, earnest and sometimes corny.

Multi-layered vocals go with the gobstopping staging by director Matthew Warchus ('God of Carnage,' 'Ghost'). There are laser beams, trampolines and confetti cannons. The production design is an eyeful, thanks to Rob Howell's clever costumes and scenery that's crammed sky-high with Scrabble tiles, blocks and books. Hugh Vanstone lights it with style.

Porter ('Dreamgirls') is a force of nature as Lola. Sands ('American Idiot'), in the tamer role, makes Charlie wonderfully appealing. Annaleigh Ashford ('Dogfight') turns her musical lament about choosing the wrong men into a sweet highlight. Andy Kelso is terrific as Charlie's old pal; it's too bad he has just one scene.

At its best, the drama cracks with the smoky and gritty atmosphere Ephron knew firsthand from her own days as a reporter. Her signature wry humor bites, as when an editor is lovingly needled: 'If you held the guy up to the light, you could see the olive.' That is 100-proof Ephron zing.

Loaded with a cabful of fine performers, this song-laced lament about surviving hard times offers a decent ride. So much so that you wish it were better, tighter and carried a more affecting payoff. As is, it's a bit of a missed opportunity.

Five days before the show's premiere, Sean Mathias sat in front of me at 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.' The British director had a pen in his hand and a notebook in his lap. By rights, Mathias should've been drafting an apology letter for stirring up this half-baked rehash of Truman Capote's singularly quirky book about Holly Golightly.

Fireworks light up the night sky during Big Daddy's birthday party in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' That's it for the sparks, unfortunately. Broadway's starry but misguided new take on Tennessee Williams' 1955 Pulitzer winner about secrets, lies and love is a dim and soggy affair.

Stan ('Gossip Girl,' 'Captain America') has the right rugged looks for Hal, played by William Holden in the '55 film. He's a character built to be objectified as beefcake and to sizzle in shirtless scenes. Beefy Stan rivals the porterhouses at Peter Luger's and he brings out Hal's vulnerable side. Even better is Grace, a coltish blonde known for movies, including 'Taken' and 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.' She's a natural onstage. Her work is assured and understated and brings an air of introspection to Madge.

The supporting cast is topnotch, including Daniel Stern as Juliana's beleaguered husband, Zoe Perry (Metcalf's real-life daughter), who plays a doctor and a bitter divorcee, and John Schiappa in a couple small roles. But it's really all about Juliana, a brittle individual who seems even tougher than she did during the first run. She's now caustic enough to come with a warning label. It's not a fluke, considering that Ian says to his wife: 'You know, what surprises me almost more than anything else is how cruel this thing has made you.' It's a harsh reality. And played by Metcalf, it hurts so good.

David Mamet's 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' about ruthless salesmen, can grab you by the throat and punch you in the gut. It's a powerful play. But the new Broadway production just gives you a nudge. That's better than nothing in this season of mostly meaningless Broadway plays, but you'd expect more from a production that delayed the opening a month. A lot of that has to do with Al Pacino, the star of the show. Pacino is a terrific actor and gave a riveting performance two years ago in 'The Merchant of Venice.' But as Shelly Levene, a dinosaur who can't close a deal, Pacino seems small and insignificant. As much as Pacino resorts to trademark tricks — bugging his eyes, talking in falsetto, sticking out his gut — he's not able to generate much empathy for Shelly, who represents the price of American commerce. As the result, the play simmers when it wants to boil.

Back on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, where it premiered 75 years ago, Clifford Odets’ boxing saga “Golden Boy” is a knockout, thanks to its 24-karat cast. The 19 actors in the Lincoln Center revival are so good that you look beyond creaks in the melodrama. So good they make up for lead-footed scene changes and sets that are too postcard-pristine for the tale of tangled desires.

Sounds juicy, but sadly it isn’t really so, despite the best efforts of Patti LuPone and Debra Winger. Between its structural ambiguity and heady philosophizing, this short, dense and dry drama at the Golden Theatre is often a head-scratcher. It starts abruptly and ends the same way.

In lieu of an engaging story, unseen people, including the sibs’ sick dad, are gabbed about while undeveloped thematic strands dangle. Ideas rise up about staying put in one’s hometown vs. leaving, buying into God vs. worshipping money and life in New York vs. the Midwest. After an hour, Jack’s wife, Jenny (Judy Greer, miscast as a model of urbanity), arrives and reveals that her soon-to-be ex has raided neglected bank accounts of dead people to the tune of $27 million. The huge sum is a device to reveal Jenny’s greed and to give Lorna an aria about why she can’t fret about banks getting screwed. Director Jack O’Brien can’t do much with the material, so he puts his energy into moody scene changes. And he cast Butz, who he guided to Best Actor Tony wins in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “Catch Me If You Can.”

There are also bright spots during the show’s 2 hours, including the bouncy “Ralphie to the Rescue!” The twangy tune finds Ralphie fantasizing about being a hero with his rifle. The best scene comes with the jazzy “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out.” Thanks to Warren Carlyle’s delicious tap-happy choreography and a gleaming gang of young hoofers, it’s great big fun. So much so you wish for more of the same. But not everyone’s as lucky as Ralphie — you can’t always get what you want.

Kathie Lee Gifford's musical about evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson is too bombastic for its own good.

There are huge boobs in the porn-themed play “The Performers,” which opened Wednesday at the Longacre. That’s not only a reference to one character’s Double-G fake jugs, but to all the dimwits dreamed up by playwright David West Read. Everyone in the limp comedy hails from the planet Stupid. Nothing wrong with that, but it takes real smarts to make dumb people funny. A string of easy puns and double entendres and faux XX-film titles like “Spontaneass” aren’t enough to elevate this beyond a raunchy extended skit. Don’t read that as prudishness. It’s disappointment that in his Broadway debut, Read (“The Dream of the Burning Boy”) comes up with so few surprises.

If this take seldom crosses the line into something must-see special (it doesn’t), even a simply good production of “Annie” offers rewards.

Despite a starry cast, numerous showy narrative devices and heady geek-speak about time and space, the production goes in circles as it questions God’s amazing grace. In the end, we’re left with all the illumination of “stuff happens.”

One word comes up more than a dozen times in the new Broadway revival of “An Enemy of the People”: “restraint.” Ironically, it’s exactly what’s lacking in this amped-up production of the Henrik Ibsen classic, which is broader than the Otra River.

In the musical “Chaplin,” sets and costumes come in black and white. Unfortunately, so does the storytelling in this cut-and-dried bio about the complicated silent-film legend Charlie Chaplin.

“Bring It On” doesn’t break new ground, but it kept me smiling. Sometimes pretty silly — and very acrobatic — is enough.

Jeez, even the climactic thunderstorm is a letdown in “Leap of Faith.” You can see the water jets — where’s the fun in that? Sorry if that’s a spoiler, but nothing happens in this frustrating and manipulative new Broadway musical based on a 1992 Steve Martin movie you don’t see coming a mile away. What is surprising is how infrequently songs by Alan Menken (music) and Glenn Slater (lyrics) make you sit up and take notice.

here are some dry patches, but veteran director John Tillinger keeps thing moving fairly lickety-split. One wishes he’d found a way to make more out of the country-house setting. Kayden, meantime, gets maximum laughs from Suzette as she tangoes, topples and tipples her way through the role. Each time Bernard or Robert impose upon Suze to keep up their charade, she obliges but first sticks out her paw for payment. It’s a fitting image for the actress who holds the show in her palm of her hand.

Death looms large in Nicky Silver’s Broadway play, “The Lyons,” a caustic and canny comedy about family dysfunction packed with surprises that are alternately hilarious, tragic and absurd. Emerging just as big as the Grim Reaper in her ferociously funny and constantly compelling star turn is Linda Lavin, who plays a wife (and soon-to-be-widow) and mother whose bark and bite can wreak havoc. And has.