Broadway and Beyond

[clementine74]

Company is pretty great--catch that if you can.

[jecelli]

I watched Hugh Jackman in "Oklahoma!" at the Royal National Theatre when it played on PBS a few months ago. He was terrific as Curly.

I wish I could have seen him in The Boy From Oz on Broadway.

[jynni]

I have got all the songs from "The Full Monty" stuck in my head. I saw a tour of it several years ago and really enjoyed it. One of the community theaters here is doing it and I was cast as Pam (too young for Vickie) so I bought the CR and now the songs won't leave my brain.

My co workers are going to think I'm nuts when they walk by my cube and hear me mumbling lyrics to "Big Black Man".

[WitchyPoo]

In the last two days I've seen the Spring Awakening cast on Letterman and The View. They were wondeful. I wish I could afford to go to NYC and attend shows and plays for two weeks. I would love to see Grey Gardens. Being broke sucks.

[Deleted]

I saw Spring Awakening on my work trip. Here's my mini-review:

The songs rock. I loved practically every one. The lead guy is fantastic--his acting is understated and he rolls with the weirdness of the show with ease and his voice is phenomenal. I was not as thrilled with the second lead guy (I'm sorry--I'm so bad with character names). His voice was awesome but his acting was a bit spastic and his energy was always at 11 if that makes sense. The lead girl had beautiful voices but they weren't as easygoing with the rather stilted script and at times it made them seem like they were in a high school play.

The play itself is just odd--I know that it was written in 1891 and I don't believe they changed any of that (just added the songs) but it was odd and at the end became all Lifetime movie-ish. Which I know that it preceeded Lifetime movies but still . . . Plus, the text is so melodramatic and then sometimes they'd blast straight into a rock song and sometimes it was jarring to jump between the two.

That being said the crowd seemed to love it and everyone stood and they got three bows. However while leaving I heard a lot of negative remarks from the crowd--not against the talent but against the play. I think the nudity was shocking to a lot of the older folks who didn't know what they were seeing and that it was about sexual awakening.

So I'd give it two thumps up for music and talent and only one thumb for script.

[Peggy Lane]

As for other shows, I've heard good things about Grey Gardens, but haven't heard the cast recording yet.

The cast recording is from the off-Broadway run, and is pretty amazing. I would really like to see it.

Hugh Jackman in TBFO? Good god. I've never seen such a performance. He is an AMAZING stage talent.

[proper stranger]

I know it was a couple of weeks ago, but thanks for posting that review of Spring Awakening, jensational. Sounds like I'll definitely have to catch it when (if?) it goes on tour.

jensational said:

However while leaving I heard a lot of negative remarks from the crowd--not against the talent but against the play. I think the nudity was shocking to a lot of the older folks who didn't know what they were seeing and that it was about sexual awakening.

Sometimes Broadway audiences crack me up--I would think that advertising images like this[/color] should make the subject matter fairly clear. Still, for better or worse, the older (and family) crowd are a large part of the Broadway audience and I wonder if that will affect the show's longevity. What was attendence like when you went?

[Deleted]

I know---you'd think the poster would be a tip off but nope. I was going into it at about 70% awareness. I knew that it was about teen sexual awakening and the music was by Ducan Sheik but other than that I wasn't aware of the play's history or anything more detailed. So that being said the nudity was a bit jarring because the cast did look young and there was an American Idol vibe to the singing and when the sex scene happened it was like "Wow, she's only 15!" and then I had to take myself out of the show and be like "Well, the character is that old but the actress is probably in her 20s so this isn't nearly as illegal as it feels. . . "

But the guy next to me was young and he was a big Duncan Sheik fan (we chatted at intermission) so I think he bought the tickets purely because of that. The three guys behind me were also friendly and bought tickets becuase a friend of theirs was in the show. Everyone else was in the 20-65 age range. The theatre was mostly filled. There were a few empty seats here and there but it was a Thursday night . . .

I got my ticket from TKTS in Times Square and most of the people around me were buying tickets for Grey Gardens or Avenue Q so I don't know that it's getting a lot of tourist traffic.

[pollywog]

Went to a high school production of "Into the Woods" last week. It turned out to be one of those strange beasts known as a "junior" production. I didn't even realize it until the lights went up for intermission (after "The First Midnight") and I was like, "Wha-? This is very early for an intermission!" Then I checked the program and realized that their entire show was just the first act of the actual show. Then I started noticing that they were cutting lyrics out of the songs and whatnot as well. It made for a very short musical.

It's one thing to cut out some songs and simplify the storyline (which I think is how they do other "junior" shows) but if you cut the whole second act, it's not even "Into the Woods" anymore, you know?

[Deleted]

My all-time favorite musical is Phantom of the Opera - the music gets to me every time. My mom took me to Chicago to see it for my 16th birthday many years ago, and even got us box seats. As soon as "Music of the Night" started, I was a blubbering idiot.

I also liked the movie version of it - it was just neat to watch how far they could go with the set without the stage limitations. Having listened extensively to both the movie and original London cast, I have to say, and I'm sure I'm going to get blasted for this, but I much prefer the movie soundtrack over the original London soundtrack. After listening to Gerry Butler's Phantom, Michael Crawford's voice grates on me. Gerry's voice is deeper and I think more suited to the role, while Michael's tenor just isn't "intimidating" to me anymore. Technically, Crawford is a much better singer than Butler, but I just like the sound of Butler's voice in the role. Same goes for Christine. I think I like Emmy Rossum better than Brightman - Rossum's voice is much more innocent sounding than Brightman and suits the role.

Closely following POTO is Les Miz - I saw it in high school, also in Chicago. I just checked out the original London cast CD from the library and damn, the first time "On My Own" came on, I got all choked up again. Same with "Little Fall of Rain" and "I Dreamed A Dream." High school chorus, we did a medley of Les Miz songs, AND Phantom songs and surprised myself with remebering a lot of the words (I haven't listened to Les Miz in YEARS!).

I hope that both of these shows tour my way again soon - I really want to see them. Otherwise, I may just have to rope a friend into a NY weekend to catch one of the both of them. I now wish we had gone to see Phantom when we were in London 2 years ago instead.