These two shows, while released a few years apart from each other, had much in common. Both had distinctly Pop-flavored scores and beautifully stylized visuals. Both were retellings of the lives of famous historical figures that had almost nothing to … [Continue reading]
Man of La Mancha
Given that this show happens to be not only my favorite musical, but my favorite work of art in any medium, I’m not entirely sure I’m capable of assessing its merits with any degree of objectivity, but I intend to do my best. It helps that the work … [Continue reading]
Mean Girls
This musical, based on the endlessly quotable hit movie of the same name from 2004, doesn’t seem as significant at first glance as such other musicals from the same season as The Band’s Visit and Spongebob Squarepants: The Musical, but there’s more … [Continue reading]
War Paint
This show had some of the most enviable casting in modern Broadway history…a dual star turn by two living legends of the theater, Patti Lupone and Christine Ebersole. And yet, despite that luminous level of star power, it barely lasted out … [Continue reading]
Head Over Heels
This is the most gloriously insane show Broadway has seen in ages…indeed, possibly in the entire course of its history. Who would have thought anyone would even come up with the idea to combine Elizabethan poetry, Eighties Girl-Group New-Wave, and … [Continue reading]
Double Feature Review: Matilda/A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
I have been planning for some time to do a series of Double Feature reviews of Broadway hits from the current decade that have themes, techniques or background elements in common. To inaugurate this series, I thought I’d look at the standout hits of … [Continue reading]
The Not-So-Golden Side of the “Golden Age”
For all the positive developments in Musical Theater during the Forties and Fifties, the era was far from perfect. Theater snobs like to imagine these decades (particularly the Fifties) as some kind of theoretically perfect alternative to the … [Continue reading]
An excerpt from the manuscript of “An Honest History of Musical Theater”: The Baroque and Classical eras
I was planning to do a history of musical theater (an honest one, rather than the nostalgia-blinded laments for a supposedly dead Broadway you generally get in published histories of the form). However, I realized that to start with the beginning of … [Continue reading]
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