It Shoulda Been You, is a musical comedy for anyone with parents. The bride is Jewish. The groom is Catholic. Her mother is a force of nature, his mother is a tempest in a cocktail shaker. And when the bride's ex-boyfriend shows up, the perfect wedding starts to unravel faster than you can whistle "Here Comes the Bride!"
The cast of It Shoulda Been You includes Tony Award-winner Tyne Daly, Tony Award-winner Harriet Harris, Sierra Boggess, Lisa Howard, David Burtka, Tony Award nominee Montego Glover, Chip Zien, Josh Grisetti, Adam Heller, Michael X. Martin, Anne L. Nathan, Nick Spangler, and Edward Hibbert, along with Farah Alvin, Gina Farrell, Aaron Finley, Mitch Greenberg, and Jillian Louis.
'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.
...It Shoulda Been You, which plays like vintage dinner theater infused with a Borscht Belt sensibility. That it nonetheless manages to be truly amusing is a testament to the talent both on and offstage: such comic pros as Tyne Daly, Harriet Harris and Edward Hibbert manage to make the hoariest of jokes uproarious, while director David Hyde Pierce has staged the proceedings with a brisk expertise that makes the 100 intermissionless minutes fly by. It's the sort of show that practically redefines the term 'guilty pleasure'...The score by composer Barbara Anselmi...and book writer-lyricist Brian Hargrove (Hyde Pierce's real-life husband) is utterly negligible, and the show would probably have worked just fine without it...The characters and situations are hopelessly contrived and formulaic...and the plot twist late in the show will only seem shocking to Middle Americans...But for all its obvious deficiencies, It Shoulda Been You...is the sort of shamelessly lowbrow comedy too often missing from Broadway these days, Larry David's Fish in the Dark notwithstanding.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Featured Actress in a Musical | Sierra Boggess |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical | Lisa Howard |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Josh Grisetti |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Tyne Daly |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tyne Daly |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Lisa Howard |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | It Shoulda Been You |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical | Tyne Daly |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | It Shoulda Been You |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | David Hyde Pierce |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Josh Grisetti |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | It Shoulda Been You |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Score | It Shoulda Been You |
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