Marilyn Stasio — Theater Critic

There's an audience out there for 'Amazing Grace,' flawed as it is, but they may not get to see this religious-uplift musical if the $16 million show's marketing machine doesn't reach its target audience. Christian congregations and other faith-based groups should respond to this epic-scaled saga of how John Newton, an 18th-century British slave trader played byJosh Young, experienced a 'miraculous' religious conversion, became an Anglican minister, and went on to write 200 church hymns, including the stirring title piece. But ye of little faith will find it tough sledding.

They really know how to throw a party in New Orleans. The rowdy bash in Lisa D'Amour's 'Airline Highway' is a real blowout, and the disorderly partygoers seem to be having great fun. But like a lot of all-night parties, this one doesn't stand up to the light. The scribe has installed a well-observed group of misfits and losers in the Hummingbird Motel, a haven for social outcasts. But aside from throwing her makeshift family that state-of-the-art shindig, she doesn't give them much to do - or let them do anything for themselves.

The show is more literary piece than conventional musical. But it has a dark, sinister beauty -- and who could resist a visit from Chita?...And what a commanding figure she strikes...Like the play, McNally's musical treatment of the central dilemma doesn't add much tension to what seems a foregone conclusion. And, like the play, it begins well and ends well, but sags in the middle. The real problem, it seems, is the inadequacy of Anton's soul-searching about his own guilt. Rees looks very much like someone who's going through hell, and he expresses it well in 'Fear.' But this morally shabby character hasn't got an ethical leg to stand on. Kander just can't help himself. Even in what may well be his darkest work, he writes beautiful romantic melodies.

This shamelessly silly parody of Broadway musicals -- and outrageous spoof of all things Shakespeare -- was hatched from the fevered brains of brothers Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick...Although comic desperation descends on the second act, it's still a deliriously funny show...That synthesis of highbrow/lowbrow humor is what makes the show so irresistible. The cockeyed creative style works brilliantly in that showstopper, 'A Musical,' which simultaneously celebrates and sends up everything we hold dear about this peculiar art form, from the 'jazzy hands' of Bob Fosse to the synchronized line dancing of the Rockettes...And that's all the plot you need to know, because there's entirely too much of it in the messy second act. But by that time, the show is steaming ahead, fueled by the bold-as-brass music, the ingenious lyrics and the sheer lunacy of the whole enterprise.

This shamelessly silly parody of Broadway musicals -- and outrageous spoof of all things Shakespeare -- was hatched from the fevered brains of brothers Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick...Although comic desperation descends on the second act, it's still a deliriously funny show...That synthesis of highbrow/lowbrow humor is what makes the show so irresistible. The cockeyed creative style works brilliantly in that showstopper, 'A Musical,' which simultaneously celebrates and sends up everything we hold dear about this peculiar art form, from the 'jazzy hands' of Bob Fosse to the synchronized line dancing of the Rockettes...And that's all the plot you need to know, because there's entirely too much of it in the messy second act. But by that time, the show is steaming ahead, fueled by the bold-as-brass music, the ingenious lyrics and the sheer lunacy of the whole enterprise.

The echoes of 'Les Miserables' are so intrusive that it takes a firm act of will to shake off impressions of 19th century France and reset the mental clock for a later generation and a different country...Lara may be too vigorous a presence in Barrett's hearty performance, but Mutu's Doctor Zhivago isn't forceful enough. Which is actually rather strange, because the other actors tend to sing at top pitch, perhaps to make themselves heard over the gunfire, explosions and cannon booms from the never-ending wars being played out in the background. Helmer Des McAnuff...gives quite a lot of play to these bombastic war scenes...by the time the red flags are waved to signal victory, we seem to be back in 'Les Miz.'

Kathleen Marshall helms this lightweight material with a properly playful touch...Sills...has Maestro's bravura moves down cold...Fleming's fans should be thrilled to hear that their idol is a natural, completely at her ease in the most ridiculously farcical situations and so personable she confirms her reputation as 'The People's Diva'...Chlumsky...knows the drills and executes them with flair. But O'Connell isn't playing in the same league, and his discomfort repeatedly throws off the comic rhythms...It's all very charming until the ill-advised saccharine payoff which has half the audience cheering and the other half wondering how long we have to put up with yet more shameless pandering to the social zeitgeist.

New! Fresh! Original! We toss those kudos around a lot in this business. (It's like calling everyone 'darling.') But 'Fun Home' really earns the praise. Lisa Kron, who wrote both book and lyrics, assembles words and images in unexpected ways to dramatize the bittersweet memoir (based on the 2006 graphic novel by Alison Bechdel) of a grown woman remembering the troubled father she loved in spite of himself. Sam Gold's direction brings lucidity to the complex mechanics of staging a story that takes place in three time frames. And Jeanine Tesori's haunting music doesn't sound a bit like anyone else's music.

In its heart of hearts, the extraordinarily deep and often underutilized thrust stage of Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater has probably always yearned to host an opera. That's pretty much what director Bartlett Sher has wrought with his sumptuous revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 musical, 'The King and I.' Broadway's darling, Kelli O'Hara, is ravishing as the English governess to the children in the royal household of the King of Siam, played by the powerfully seductive Japanese movie star Ken Watanabe. But the production itself, with its operatic sweep and opulent aesthetic, is the star of its own show.

There's not enough flying in 'Finding Neverland' -- metaphorical flying, that is, those giddy flights of wit and imagination that make us believe, if not in fairies, then at least that the American musical is still alive and well. Despite the technical marvels that director Diane Paulus brings to producer Harvey Weinstein's beloved obsession, this ambitious version...remains stubbornly earthbound. The lead in its feet has a lot to do with the ponderous lyrics, but at the heart of the matter, this material doesn't cry out to be a musical...Morrison ('Glee') is extremely well cast as the hypersensitive Scottish playwright, investing him with a stirring voice and a tender heart. But what can he do for a repressed character whose cerebral solo numbers are internalized thoughts?...In a way, the whole show seems to be holding its breath for this death scene, which Paulus ('Pippin') has staged with imaginative flair...It's just too bad that this magic is all in the service of transporting Sylvia Llewelyn Davies off to her death -- er, that is, to Neverland. Try explaining that one to the kids.

'It Shoulda Been You' is awfully funny. That's strange, because there's nothing especially clever about this musical comedy...The characters are broadly caricatured comic types you might find at a sitcom wedding (overbearing Jewish mother, high-strung bride, alcoholic mother of the groom, flamboyantly gay wedding planner, etc.), and instead of saying 'Comedy Tonight!' the music says 'Take a Nap!' But with impeccable instincts for finding their laughs, Hyde Pierce and his terrific ensemble players make this hokum seem terribly funny.

Fairchild and Cope are trained ballet dancers, so every move they execute in this pas de deux is poised, eloquent and technically flawless. But these stars prove equally credible as all-around Broadway performers who can sing and act on a professional level, too. Throughout their last dance, American G.I. Jerry Mulligan (Fairchild) and his beloved Lise Dassin (Cope) hold each other's gaze as closely as they hold each other's body, oblivious to the rest of the world.

There's plenty of juicy material to go around in Mantel's two books...But there's nothing bookish about the highly theatrical approach taken in director Jeremy Herrin's lucidly told, handsomely staged and emotionally charged production. In fact, it's not bookish enough...Miles is a subtle character actor, as well as a classical performer in the heroic Shakespearean tradition, and there's genuine grief as well as seething anger in his reaction to the royal court's humiliation of Wolsey...But that second play is still problematic...Parker is a protean actor, and he keeps finding fresh ways to keep King Henry interesting as he becomes increasingly petulant, impatient and intractable. But Leonard's initially compelling Anne Boleyn becomes increasingly shrill and grating as her power over the king begins to slip...But it's disappointing that the scribe fails to expand on the political issues he introduced early in the narrative...So, just when you expect the drama to move into deeper and darker political territory, it shrivels up and becomes what a lot of American kids took away from high-school history class -- the salacious story of a horny king who chopped off his wives' heads whenever he wanted a new bride.

There's plenty of juicy material to go around in Mantel's two books...But there's nothing bookish about the highly theatrical approach taken in director Jeremy Herrin's lucidly told, handsomely staged and emotionally charged production. In fact, it's not bookish enough...Miles is a subtle character actor, as well as a classical performer in the heroic Shakespearean tradition, and there's genuine grief as well as seething anger in his reaction to the royal court's humiliation of Wolsey...But that second play is still problematic...Parker is a protean actor, and he keeps finding fresh ways to keep King Henry interesting as he becomes increasingly petulant, impatient and intractable. But Leonard's initially compelling Anne Boleyn becomes increasingly shrill and grating as her power over the king begins to slip...But it's disappointing that the scribe fails to expand on the political issues he introduced early in the narrative...So, just when you expect the drama to move into deeper and darker political territory, it shrivels up and becomes what a lot of American kids took away from high-school history class -- the salacious story of a horny king who chopped off his wives' heads whenever he wanted a new bride.

There's nothing to offend their tender sensibilities in this antiseptic version of 'Gigi'...Rather than empowering Gigi, putting more years on her makes this young adult seem dimwitted instead of innocently naive. In the same blundering way, drastically dropping the age of her jaded older suitor incongruously forces the boyish Corey Cott ('Newsies') into the unconvincing guise of that sophisticated boulevardier Gaston Lachaille. Now that the kids are perfectly matched, there's no longer any intergenerational sexual tension between the principals. Further distorting the characters' original relationship, Hudgens ('High School Musical') has the clarion voice and aggressive delivery of an unabashed Broadway belter, which gives Gigi vocal dominance over Gaston's delicately voiced tenor...Who hasn't lost their minds in this ill-conceived adaptation? The designers, for sure, have held their own...But if the physical look of the show suggests Paris...whenever someone opens his mouth, we're dragged back to America, where nice people don't do naughty things.

God may have created the heavens and the earth and all living things - but the Devil surely created Tyrone, the filthy-minded, foul-mouthed sock puppet that has audiences howling at 'Hand to God.' Robert Askins' furiously funny comedy about adolescent rebellion against religious cant has made a smooth passage from workshop (at Ensemble Studio Theater) to Off Broadway (in an MCC production) to Broadway. Moritz von Stuelpnagel hasn't touched ahair on the head of his clever production and the original cast is still golden. At 800 seats, the intimate Booth proves extremely hospitable to this fiendish little satire of all things holy.

The fierce pas de deux of love and loss and anguish executed by Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy in 'Skylight' leaves you breathless -- and wondering how they can sustain this level of emotional intensity throughout the show's 13-week Broadway run. David Hare's 1995 drama, which floored West End audiences when director Stephen Daldry staged it last year with the same great cast, registers as a character-flaying study of ex-lovers whose lives and sensibilities have diverged since they parted. But deep down, it's a scathing censure of the Thatcher government's political legacy of social inequality and economic injustice...Whatever the takeaway for audiences hankering for a good political brawl, it's the tragic clash of human emotions that really stings.

A shoddy production can't dim the lights of this long-overdue revival of Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, 'The Heidi Chronicles.' On the page (and from recollections of previous productions), this 1989 play is the writer's bittersweet valentine to her generation of educated baby boomers who embraced the 1970s women's emancipation movement with gusto. Elisabeth Moss (waving goodbye to 'Mad Men') is effortlessly endearing - and wonderfully real - as the brainy, mixed-up heroine, and the thesps playing her male friends pass muster. But, under the direction of Pam MacKinnon, Heidi's girlfriends are an embarrassment.

Scott Ellis's dazzling production of 'On the Twentieth Century' looks like one of those legendary Broadway musicals that exists largely in our collective memory of great shows we never saw. Like those phantom productions, this 1978 tuner comes with a fine pedigree (book & lyrics by Comden & Green, music by Cy Coleman), has been mounted in high style and is performed with manic energy by a super cast toplined by charismatic stars Kirsten Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher. For a lot of us, this is the show of our dreams.

David may not be a convincing stage actor, but every word out of his mouth is funny. And he's even funnier when he's speechless -- falling to his knees and throwing out his arms in thunderstruck disbelief at the sheer absurdity of everyone else in the room but him. And to do him full justice, he seems to be sticking to the script (after all, he wrote it) and not giving in to any rash impulse to turn to the audience and start improvising...Helmer Anna D. Shapiro...has shrewdly surrounded her star with some of the best character actors in the business...to give master classes on how to time a laugh...Instead of sticking to a conventionally constructed plot, this 'Fish' swims from one comic situation to another -- which may not make it much of a play. But there are plenty of laughs in the play's minor comic questions...just watch Houdyshell savor the punch line to this cynical joke. Give him his due: David is generous enough not to hog all the best lines for himself.

'Honeymoon In Vegas' answers gloomy Gotham's crying need for some good old lowbrow farce -- the kind of show with silly songs, mindless physical comedy and towering showgirls in feather headdresses. Scribe Andrew Bergman has turned his not-quite-cult 1992 movie...into a not-quite-knockout Broadway musical. But with catchy tunes and clever lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, sweet comic turns from Rob McClure and Tony Danza, and a bevy of Elvis impersonators, this brassy little show might brighten up this town over the winter.

Short and sweet and strangely haunting. That's the quick take on 'Constellations'...Gyllenhaal has the charm and good looks of a leading man, but he's also got the acting chops of a chameleon character actor...Here he gets to play someone whose character changes from minute to minute, and he's pretty amazing. So is Wilson...Her style as the brilliant, desperately needy Marianne is mercurial -- and enchanting...The important point here is that the devilishly clever scribe is not playing games with either his characters or his audience, because with each iteration Roland and Marianne grow closer to one another -- and become more important to us. And by the end of the play (has it really been only an hour?), we're fully invested in their lives. All of them.

As Treves dispassionately drones on about his subject's twisted limbs and misshapen torso, Cooper stands stock still in a cone of light and silently contorts his own perfect body into an approximation of each deformity. The piece de résistance is his depiction of the 'wide slobbering aperture' that is Merrick's mouth. Shaping his own mouth into a fleshy oval, the thesp gives expressive voice to the sensitive and intelligent human being imprisoned in his own body. It's a stunning performance, deeply felt and very moving.

'A Delicate Balance' is no play for sissies...All these years later, it's still very disturbing to look this work in the eye...Close, with her fine bones, imperial manner and elegant wardrobe (by Ann Roth), is positively regal as Agnes...Although Agnes admits to the all-too-human fear of losing her marbles and becoming 'mad as a hatter,' she'll brook no challenge to her authority from husband Tobias, played in Lithgow's carefully calibrated perf as a worm of a man -- but a worm who will eventually turn and deliver a blistering reckoning of the family's alienation from the living...It takes guts to take on a role famously played by Marian Seldes in the original production and by Elaine Stritch in the 1996 Broadway revival. So hats off to Duncan for the devilish joy she takes in the spiteful humor of that social rebel, a colorful scandal to the whole family, but a real menace to her sister's domination of the household.

The new, improved 'Side Show' smells like a hit. Helmer Bill Condon's shrewd reworking of this short-lived 1997 cult musical by Henry Krieger and Bill Russell...is both darker in tone and lighter in theme than memory has it. Leading ladies Emily Padgett and Erin Davie are perfection as Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins in real life who were plucked out of a carnival midway by a rascal showman and transformed into vaudeville stars. A lot of things that didn't work in the original version still don't work now, but no question about it, this show has the best freaks on Broadway.