Broadway and Beyond

[ikmccall]

Elf: The Musical

[forever1267]

well, I did like Titanic but I did note several people who left at the end of the first act. The songs weren't that memorable, and the whole thing has a melancholy feel to it, despite the uplifting songs about America and a new life and a new chance. You just know that 2/3 of the cast singing the songs will drown by the end of the show.

Still, I enjoyed it, or I just enjoyed being at the Muny in St. Louis for the first time since the 80's.

[trifle]

OK, I'm a little late but I am glad to see some Muny love here! When I was a teen in the 80's my friends and I would camp out in the free seats and move down after the intermission. Good times.

Re: Titanic, I got free tickets to see it in NYC and I thought it was the dullest show I'd ever seen. The music was totally unmemorable; The only characters I remember are Isidor Straus and his wife (and I knew all about them before I saw it). However, the set was terrific!

[mariposalabrown]

I saw Promises, Promises the other night with Kristin Cheno and Sean Hayes. It was entertaining, the story is really dated, but Hayes was amazing and so great at improv. The role of the nurse was a surprise cameo by Ellen Degeneres, who was hilarious and beautiful. Loved the song Cheno played on the guitar, but boy is she skinny. Still adorable.

[incognito]

My friends and I 'won' lottery rush tickets to see West Side Story today! I put 'won' in quotes because for some reason, only a few people entered the lottery - the theater employee said that it's rare that fewer than 50 people sign up, but this time I think only 10 - 15 of us at the most entered. So we all got front-row tickets! It was fun, although I got a stiff neck during the balcony scene. And the attempted gang rape of Anita at the drugstore was jarring and made me want to just kill all of the Jets. I know that both the Jets and the Sharks had been violent throughout the movie, but to me there's a difference between fighting each other as fairly evenly matched opponents, and attacking en masse a defenseless woman. So that scene made me go .

[chiquita]

It's been a long time since I've seen a stage production of WSS, but I used to watch the movie frequently when I was a teenager (and cried every time). While the outcome was terrible, I couldn understand why Anita lied after what she'd been through. How was the mix of English & Spanish in the new stage version?

[incognito]

There was a lot of Spanish throughout this version. That said, I can't speak with any authority on how good the Spanish was, since I don't know the language.

[Deleted]

Someone over at ONTD just posted a YT clip of Nick Jonas singing one of my favourite Les Mis songs at the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Mis in London. I knew he played Marius over the summer but hadn't dared to listen to any of the various clips so far. I'm shocked. He doesn't sound awful .

[ikmccall]

I went to see "Million Dollar Quartet" yesterday in NYC. It was very good but not as energetic as "Jersey Boys". I could see JB more than once and not get tired of it for a long time. The last 15 minutes of MDQ were awesome. I saw Lance Guest's name in the Playbill but couldn't place the name until I came home and checked imdb. He was the lead in "The Last Starfighter". His speaking voice for Johnny Cash was so spot on, he gave me the chills. And the actor who portrayed Jerry Lee Lewis deserves any award he has or may get for this.

[incognito]

I saw The Addams Family for the second time this weekend. This time, I had front-row tickets! Seriously, I think that having front-row seats for both this and West Side Story (as mentioned in a previous post) has spoiled me in terms of seating arrangements. Now whenever I'm trying to get tickets, I'm like, "First five rows or GTFO, bitch."

Anyway, the music really grew on me the second time around, although I still don't like how the iconic Addams theme is only ever used at the very beginning (before the curtain even goes up) and end of the show.

I heard that West Side Story is ending its Broadway run in January, and am wondering whether I should try seeing it again before then. It's not like I was that much in love with the story, but it might be worth seeing again just for the fabulous dancing.