Alessandrini’s last entry in this series was already excessively mean-spirited and pessimistic, but this is nothing more than a show-length, scream-down-the-house rant about how much he hates modern Broadway. Seriously, if you set Ethan Mordden’s The … [Continue reading]
Falsettos
This musical is actually two one-act musicals written a decade apart that deal with the same set of characters, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland. They were originally the second and third parts of a trilogy, but the first installment, In … [Continue reading]
Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey
Gerard Alessandrini is the man behind an ongoing series of off-Broadway parody revues known as Forbidden Broadway. The series has its share of devotees, and it was actually pretty funny in its early incarnations, but this was around the time that … [Continue reading]
The Color Purple
This show is a particularly frustrating one, as it was based on a classic novel and film that should have made a wonderful musical. But while there are those who enjoyed the show, the nearly unanimous verdict at the time was that it fell far short of … [Continue reading]
Les Miserables
Ah, here it is...next to perhaps Phantom of the Opera, the most beloved and popular musical of its era, and the one that the theater snobs have the most exaggerated disdain for. It is, obviously, based on Victor Hugo's labyrinthine novel of the human … [Continue reading]
Merrily We Roll Along
This show was one of the most famous cult flops of all time, possibly second only to Candide and perhaps Mack and Mabel, and yet it has achieved the rare Candide-like feat of coming back as a more-or-less successful part of the standard musical … [Continue reading]
Gypsy
Unlike most Broadway musical librettists, Arthur Laurents was an actual legitimate nonmusical playwright, and while three of his five musicals were flops (albeit admired ones), he created two of the genre’s greatest achievements with his books for … [Continue reading]
Kinky Boots
The 2005 semi-musical comedy film Kinky Boots was one of those films that, like School of Rock or Billy Elliot, seemed to be crying out for musicalization so openly that one is surprised it took as long as it did for someone to get around to … [Continue reading]
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