Theatre "Tops" of 2011

As 2011 draws to a close I am left reflecting on my favorite productions, performances etc. of this season. There were so many amazing new productions this year as well as events that I loved every minute of. So I have compiled a list of “Tops” for the year ranging from events, performances, productions and other little bits here and there.

Top 5 Productions:

5. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

What an incredible revival! Absolutely spectacular and a very talented cast! I will have to admit that I was a bit wary about the casting of Daniel Radcliffe but I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought that he was going to be a “star vehicle” for the show as a moneymaker but it is the total opposite. He has a wonderful voice, an excellent American accent and his dancing was flawless!

4. Catch Me If You Can

An amazing show based on the true story that had me laughing the entire way through. Norbert Leo Butz deserved the Tony for his comedic performance. Aaron Tveit sings the incredibly catchy music like a dream throughout the entire show that you can’t take your eyes off of him!

3.Bonnie and Clyde

While unfortunately this show just closed I was lucky enough to be at the first preview and what a treat it was. I mentioned in my review about the show (Bonnie and Clyde Broadway’s New Love Affair) how I love Frank Wildhorn. He again went for something that was very different and for me it worked. Filled with upbeat and infectious music and a marvelous cast I fell in love with this incredible show that had a very premature closing.

2.Follies

The divas over at the Marquis theatre make it impossible for you not to love them. With so much love and passion on the stage not to mention legends. Through this production you are swept away into the fabulous and luscious world that is Stephen Sondheim.

1.Rent

Words can’t even describe my love for this production. At first I was skeptical about this revival but I was wrong! By the end of the first act I was in love with this production and the company. They are all so young and bring a fresh look to this iconic show!

Top 3 Events:

3. “New York New York” in Duffy’s Square

2.Broadway Flea Market

1.Rent Christmas Spectacular Extravaganza

Top 5 Performances:

5.Tyne Daly Master Class

Brilliant riveting performance given by Ms.Daly. Thoroughly enjoyed.

4.Bernadette Peters Follies

Again Sondheim’s amazing musical muse Ms.Peters succeeds in captivating and moving the audience to tears with her beautiful rendition of Losing My Mind and her Tony worthy performance as Sally Durant Plummer.

3.Annaleigh Ashford Rent

While it seems everyone was a bit skeptical of the unconventional casting for Maureen Johnson in this year’s revival of Rent, Ms. Ashford blows the audience away with her perfect comedic timing by bringing a different take to Maureen and the song Over The Moon

2.Jan Maxwell Follies

Ah, what a stupendous performance by Ms.Maxwell. She is a badass and makes it show through her portrayal of Phyllis Rogers Stone. She delves into her music and brings the audience along with her. I dare you not to say that you didn’t feel anything for her character during Could I Leave You?

1.MJ Rodriguez Rent

This years Clive Barnes Award winner for acting gives the best performance of Angel! He is funny, charismatic and brings the house down every night with his rendition of Today For You (and he can walk and dance in heels better than me!)

Biggest Surprise of the Year:

*Insert Spiderman joke here-just kidding!

First revival of Funny Girl postponed indefinitely. As a big fan of the musical I was somewhat shocked to here that it had been cancelled.

That’s it for 2011 everyone! I’ll see you next year!

Bwaygirl828

Bonnie and Clyde-Broadway's New Love Affair

I’ve always wanted to go to the first preview of a Broadway show, especially a new musical one that audiences have never seen. Last night I saw the first preview of the new anticipated Franck Wildhorn musical Bonnie and Clyde. As I previously stated, I had never been to the first preview of any Broadway show and this was an experience that I won’t forget. While I have heard the stories of first (and other early) preview mishaps, hello Spiderman’s first preview which clocked in at four hours I have to say I was a bit skeptical, you never know what could happen at a first preview (or any show for that matter! This is theatre it’s live!). Rest assured nothing awful happened and the show went off without a hitch. The show is brilliant and it was amazing to be a part of the first house to experience this new piece of theatre. I’ve said to people many times and I will say it on here for the record that Frank Wilhorn is a genius!

The show, centers on the true story of the notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, their dangerous life of crime and passionate love affair. The show begins with their tragic end and continues in a flashback manner, illustrating their story that was so concise with some of my pre-show reading while interweaving pictures, news clippings and clips of and about this notorious duo. They had done their research and it was evident. Even Bonnie’s well-known red dress with a stripped top and sleeves was almost precisely copied for actress Laura Osnes to wear.

The cast is spectacular! Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes are the perfect Bonnie and Clyde! They have such a sizzling chemistry that melts the walls of the theatre. They play these well-known people with so much passion that it’s oozing out of them whenever they are onstage. They embody these famous outlaws full on and as actors do, bring something of their own to the characters, giving them an extra level of dimension.  Clyde’s dimwitted brother and partner Buck and sister-in-law Blanche are played by the incredible Claybourne Elder and Melissa van Der Schyff. Those two have so much passion that spills out of them when they are onstage. They scenes that they have together click so well and flow seamlessly and beautifully with the story of the two leads.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the phenomenal performances by the cast what I loved most about the night was the incredible lyrics and score by Don Black and Frank Wildhorn. The music for this show is addictive that you can’t stop tapping your foot along to the beat of the infectious songs. The music has many elements of show tune music but it has a bit of a western twang to it, one that is most likely similar to the music of the 1930’s. It definitely isn’t conventional music but then again when has Wildhorn ever written a score that followed the standard formula-never! He is always trying something different (hello Wonderland), wanting to see how far he can push or even break his own limits and it’s amazing to see what he comes up with.

However, there were a few small gaffes in the production. For one, they really didn’t fully explain how, when or where Bonnie and Clyde were caught and killed in the show. While there is a news clipping projected onto the stage that covers that fateful day, it is up to the audience to pick up on how they were caught. The only onstage mishap that I saw was during the first act when Buck is being baptized by the priest in a real onstage pool of sorts, I noticed that Claybourne’s (Buck’s) arm was cut from the part of the set. However, the moment or gaffe sticks out in my mind the most was during Act 1 in the song “Raise a Little Hell” when Clyde takes a metal rod and begins to bang of the bars of jail cell. His character has just been badly beaten by another inmate and there was a lot of stage blood on or in the rod that since Jeremy was swinging the rod so vigorously that lots of the stage blood got on myself and my friend who were sitting a mere few feet from that point onstage! While sticky, it was something that I will look back on and laugh at and to add to incident- when we talked to Jeremy after the show he had no clue that some of the stage blood had splattered all over us!

That was just the funny, yet interesting topping to a wonderful night. Bonnie and Clyde is an amazing and delicious show that you will be having your own love affair with it by the time the curtain goes down!

An Evening With Spidey

It’s the show that has made headlines in both the theatre and pop culture world. It’s the butt of every joke and for a while no one knew when it would actually open. They went through cast changes, on stage injuries and over 100 previews until it finally opened last June at Foxwoods theatre. Yup, I’m talking about Spiderman. I’ll admit, I was hesitant about this show and skeptical about purchasing a ticket once I had learned of all the mishaps that were happening at the theatre. But, a few weeks ago, I finally broke down and bought a ticket.  It’s one of the few shows that I have yet to see and my friend and I thought that it would be interesting to just go and give it a try.

That evening we went to the theatre wondering what the show would be like, how would the effects be etc. When the show started, I wasn’t exactly blown away to start.

The book isn’t so great. It’s hard to tell if they were trying to write it like a comic book or if it just flat out sucked. But, I’m not going to be a Brantley so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they were trying to capture the essence of comic book writing.

I really wasn’t a fan of the music either as I felt that it didn’t reach it’s full potential and at times I felt that it was too loud. I felt that at times there was no volume control. Some of the songs were in fact pretty good, like “Bullying By Numbers” but love songs between Peter and MJ seemed too forced. The actors seemed tense and it really didn’t feel like a love song, as there was no passion or emotion in their voices.

The costumes were nothing absolutely spectacular with the exception of Arachne and the Sinister Six. Their costumes were amazing and they really brought out the essence of the characters.

Visually, it was spectacular. The sets are very reminiscent of a comic book but at times there is just too much going on that it would drive me crazy. If I was working backstage on that show I don’t know how I could make it through it 8 times a week. The video sequences in the second act were really interesting.

I wasn’t very impressed with the some of the casting however there were a few standouts. Patrick Page who played The Green Goblin, T.V. Carpio who plays Arachne and one of the bullies Matt Caplan were incredible! I love T.V. and Matt’s voices as I was so drawn to them when they were onstage. Patrick Page is just incredible, he not only has a great voice but he has good comedic timing and made an awesome villain!

Of course you can’t talk about Spiderman without mentioning the flying. It’s incredible and a spectacle in and of itself! It was really interesting to see the characters actually flying and having a battle over the audience!

All in all, I feel that Spiderman is more of a tourist show/attraction as is seemed that was the majority of the audience. But it was a successful night as no one was injured during the show!

Glee Season 3

This September marked the return of the FOX’s smash Glee for its third season! Seeing as some of our favorite glee clubbers are seniors and are graduating at the end of the season, we have been promised an amazing season! It’s only been three episodes in and I’m eagerly awaiting episode four in November. The creative team was right, this season Glee is going back to basics. It’s all about the New Directions and their struggles than focusing more on big-name guest stars and lavish(although amazing) tribute episodes.

Season 3 began with the episode The Purple Piano Project. We find out who’s a senior, junior etc as well as some other things that happened over the summer. Finn and Rachel are back together, Kurt and Blaine as well as mike and Tina are still going strong. Puck and Lauren and Mercedes and Sam(he moved to a different state) have broken up but Mercedes has a new boyfriend now, football player Shane. Quinn has left New Directions and the Cheerios joining a group of girls called the Skanks. Will places purple pianos around the school for the kids to play and sing as a way to recruit new members. Sue announces that she is running for congress and her platform is to cut arts education. Kurt convinces Blaine to transfer to McKinley and he and Rachel to a mixer for Ohio students interested in applying for a top-notch arts school in NYC. While they are shocked at the talent, they vow to persevere. In the end, Santana is banned from New Directions as she and a bunch of other Cheerios throw lighter fluid on a purple piano that bursts into flames once Quinn flicks her cigarette on it.

The second episode titled I Am Unicorn focused on auditions for the school musical(directed by Emma Beiste and Artie), West Side Story as well as the return of Shelby Corcoran(Idina Menzel). Rachel and Kurt audition for the lead roles and Kurt announces that he is running for class president. He accepts help from Brittany, who wants to highlight his sexuality by comparing him to a unicorn in every poster. Kurt, irritated, “fires” Brittany than after a talk with his dad changes his mind only to discover that Brittany is running for president now too.  Meanwhile, Shelby returns(remember her!?) to coach a rival glee club at McKinley because Will rejected wealthy girl Sugar Motta because she can’t sing for the life of her. Shelby reaches out to Rachel, Quinn and Puck who sees his daughter for the first time since her birth. Quinn, recruited by Sue, stars in an anti-arts ad her campaign in which she blames Will for her bad girl image. He tells her how the glee club has been there for her as well as to grow up. Quinn also decides that she is going to seek full custody of her child after seeing a picture of a happy Puck and Beth. The episode ends with Blaine auditioning for a supporting role in the musical so he won’t have to go up against Kurt only to be asked to read for Tony instead.

The third episode Asian F focuses on Mike Chang who receives an A- on a chemistry test. His father upset that his son is getting too distracted and it will hurt him at getting into Harvard. He insists that Mike give up glee and his girlfriend Tina. After begging for another chance with a tutor, Mike decides to skip tutoring and follow dreams by auditioning for the part of Riff in the musical. He is confronted by his mother and admits to her that he wants to be a dancer. She confides to her son that she too gave up dreams of being a dancer and does not want him to do the same. In order to promote her campaign Brittany performs the song “Run the World (Girls).”  Will meets Emma’s parents who mock her OCD and their extreme obsession for red hair causing Emma to relapse a bit. Rachel and Mercedes get a call back for the part of Maria and after an amazing diva-off the two are offered to split the role, each doing half of the performances. Mercedes, angry and upset, thinking that she deserved to win the part for herself quits the musical. After quitting glee earlier in the week because of what she views as favoritism for Rachel she goes and joins Shelby’s glee club. Rachel begins a last minute campaign for class president to improve her chances at college leaving Kurt and Finn angry and upset. The episode ends with the posting of the cast list. Rachel as Maria, Blaine as Tony, Santana as Anita, Mike as Riff, and Kurt as Officer Krupke.

Hope you are all enjoying the new season of Glee as much as I am! Till next time Gleeks!

New Posts...finally!

Hello, my lovlies! I know this is long overdue but I have been working on a bunch of new posts for the blog over the past few months! I'm so sorry for such the long wait! Over the next week, look for new posts on here or through my twitter about Glee, shows and other happenings here in the New York theatre world!