I Got Life, Mother (And Grandma)

This summer's Shakespeare in the Park presented by The Public Theatre brings us a production of the "tribal-rock musical" Hair.

Hair opened in New York 41 years ago at the Public and this mounting is a fleshed out production of the 40th anniversary concert version that was presented last year. The show is firmly rooted in experimental and political theatre of the sixties as it tells a loose story about a group of hippies, students and social outcasts living in New York. The "tribe" faces a new set of issues when one of their own, Claude (played by Jonathon Groff) decides not to burn his draft card and he is subsequently drafted and goes off to fight in Vietnam.

In between all that, the show deals with sexuality, drugs, relationships, race, and everything else under the sun. It's almost plotless, but it's not quite a review. It's more like a collage of scenes and songs that have characters and little plot thrown in for some fun.

What's interesting about Hair is how fresh it still is today, while still being firmly rooted in it's own time. No literal attempts have been made at putting modern flourishes on the show. Of course we are looking at the show through the eyes of 2008, and when someone talks about war, we can't help but remember the fact that we are going through one and people are dying still today, even after all this anti-war activism.

Personally, the ideals behind Hair seem, well... idealistic. As a young person today, I can't quite grasp how these people believed so passionately in their causes. My generation of 20-somethings seems to lack the general know how to host a classy cocktail party let alone attempt to change the world. And of course, we in 2008 know that the hippies didn't change the world. Their revolution never actually happened.

But at the shows finale, the uplifting yet harrowing benediction that cries out "Let the Sunshine In", you can't help but be swept up in the show's message of peace and love, and want to do something about the state of the world.

[clever title that uses an aspect of the show but twists it a little]

Tonight was the last preview of the first musical of the 2008-2009 Broadway season. [title of show] opens on the Great White Way, Thursday July 17th at the Lyceum Theatre after a start at the New York Musical Festival, development at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center and a run at the Vineyard Theatre off-Broadway.

I mention the shows production history because it's at the core of what the show is all about. The musical is about "two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical." Got that?

Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, who wrote the music and lyrics respectively, play Jeff and Hunter in the show. Basically the two authors play themselves for a musical journey of them writing the very play they are performing in as the 90 intermission-less minutes pass. Also along for the ride are Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, "lady friends" of Jeff and Hunter who are there to help them with the show. We are taken from the idea of writing a musical, through the musical festival, through the run at the Vineyard, and end on opening night of Broadway.

If this is all confusing to you, it's because it is. When watching a show as an audience member we understand that the actor playing the character isn't really saying those words, or actually feeling those emotions. But of course the most effective performances are ones where those lines between actor and character are blurred; you can't tell where the actor ends and the character begins.

In [title of show], since everyone is essentially playing themselves, when the actors/characters start talking about deeply personal moments, the effect is profound. Here we have a play where honest to God real people are telling us how they really feel. Because of this sort of post-modern meta-effect, the show has an authentic feel that you rarely get with a musical.

The show is full of theatre insider humor. It is not so much a backstage musical, although all of those conventions are there, but more a musical about fans of theatre. Not the people who leave their Playbill behind, but the people who not only save it but buy Playbills of shows they haven't seen on eBay to add to their collection. Not the people who moan when they see an understudy slip in their program, but those who drop everything to go see the matinee performance of Wicked, because the third replacement stand by is finally going on for Galinda.

It's definitely that kind of theatre lovers show. But fun can be had for all, like a Saturday Night Live skit that is spoofing a movie you haven't seen yet, you can still relate and find humor. You may not get everything, but you understand it enough.

The show has a strong appeal to artists as Jeff and Hunter struggle at first to find inspiration for their work, then as it begins to become more popular, they have to deal with outside forces wanting to "clean up" or "fix" their show.

Of course we know the ending as the show opens Thursday on Broadway. But it's has a unique "little show that could" feel that not every backstage musical possesses. It gives out the kind of American dream hope that, yes, two "nobodies" can just write a show, and then one day, maybe it'll be on Broadway. Thursday will be a dream come true for these performers and writers.

It makes me want to grab some friends, a piano, and a barn and put on a show!

Saved the musical

Another musical adaptation of a movie is set to open in New York. Saved the musical, currently in previews at Playwrights Horizon, is based on the MGM movie of the same name. It revolves around Mary (Celia Keenan-Bolger) and her fellow students at a private Christian high school. The school seems to be a wonderfully pleasant and static place where students run from morning service to social pray circles to pray for those less fortunate. But slowly we begin to see the truth.

Dean (Aaron Tveit) the captain of the basket ball team and Mary's boyfriend, admits to her that he thinks he is gay. Mary and Dean then proceed to try and save him and turn him straight by exploring sexual activities. Without giving away too much, when word gets out about Dean's questioning, life for Mary and Dean in this close knit Christian school family gets much more complicated.

The show is still in previews, and apparently the night I saw the show some major changes to the end had just been implemented that afternoon. So the show is still in flux, but it still has some major problems. Mainly it just lacks focus.

The show starts with Mary speaking to the audience telling us that she's going to tell us her story and how she got to where she is. But along the way we spend way too much time with various sub plots to justify it being solely Mary's story. The show could stand some major cutting, with some characters being reduced and some songs trimmed and others cut, mostly those concerning the peripheral characters.

There is enormous potential in the story. It's characters are very quirky. An overly self-righteous lead singer to a Christian girl group, her atheist wheelchair bound brother, a Jewish rebel who's forced to go to the Christian school because she's been kicked out of every other high school, among others. And when they are all at their comic best, the show is extremely fun and smart. But unfortunately it falls a little flat when it tries to be a little more serious. It needs to find the right balance between parodying Christian stereotypes and portraying them with sincerity. Which can be (to borrow a word young white Christians, much like those in Saved like to use) awesome if done correctly. The Off-Broadway hit Altar Boyz is an example of how one can be making fun of and celebrate at the same time.

I feel like there may be some life for this show after it's limited engagement at Playwrights Horizon. It is currently in previews and opens June 3rd through June 22nd. Hopefully, unlike Mary trying to save a gay man from being gay, this show can actually be saved.

PS... What is with the artwork for the show? I think I saw that "heart with the wings and halo" in a clip art library in Word Perfect.

Good Boys and True at 2ST

In Mariah Carey's latest single, "Touch My Body" the chorus goes: If there's a camera up in here/Then it's gonna leave with me when I do/ ...I'd best not catch this flick on YouTube.

We live in an over documented world. Every little thing we do is captured by cameras. Often, before I even get home from a party, the pictures are somehow posted and tagged on Facebook. There is very little that we do, that we don't have a record of. And as we let this kind of documentation into our lives, it doesn't end with just drunk party shots, but begins to exploit deeply personal moments in our lives for everyone to consume.

This issue is at the center of Good Boys and True, a new play at Second Stage Theatre by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. In it we're introduced to students at a prep school where a scandal involving a sex tape between two unknown students is about to burst. I won't reveal a lot as the play revolves around the mystery of the scandal itself, but the more the scandal is investigated and we learn the identities of the students in the tape, the more we learn about the dark history of the school and their families, in influence of class and privilege.

The play is set in the suburbs of Washington DC in 1989. So when I say sex tape, I really do mean tape as in VHS. (Where did they manage to find that prop?! I didn't know they still had those.) But it was this tape that made me think about our over documented world today. Isn't amazing how a sex tape is sort of a PR blessing in that it gives it's participants instant notoriety. That's exactly what happens in this play, as more and more people see the video and get involved. But we can't all be Paris Hilton, and in the play we're shown the horrible personal side effects that occur for this sort of fame.

It's currently running in previews and opens May 19th and runs through June 1st. While the play's 90 intermission-less minutes are captivating, it can lose it's focus and flounders back and forth between one of the students involved in the scandal and his mother, and I wondered at time whose story is actually being told. But the play is just starting previews, so it's more then possible that that will change.

While the play may show the possible dangers of documenting and sharing every aspect our lives, I'm not going to be giving up my photobucket or facebook accounts anytime soon... well on second thought, maybe I'll just take them private.

No Pare! Sigue, Sigue!!!

In the Heights opened last year around this time Off-Broadway. It got pretty rave reviews, and despite not being able to find a strong audience way out in a theatre on 37th and 10th, the producers decided to take it to Broadway, where it started previews on Feb 14th. It opens officially on March 9th.

I saw the production early in it's run Off-Broadway, and instantly fell in love with it. It was exactly the kind of show that I loved. The music was fresh and fun, I laughed and cried, and I felt like a part of a community when I left the show. I urged all my friends to go see it, and even took some friends to see it (mostly so I could see it again myself!)

The show is one of the freshest, coolest things out there right now, and the composer/lyricist, and star of the show, Lin-Manuel Miranda can be considered a major force among young up and coming composers today.

Now, this is the first show that I've seen where I've seen it make the transfer from Off to the Great White Way. So it was exciting for me to see it on Broadway because I heard there were a few changes to the score and book, and of course some costume and set changes.

But what is interesting is, what time will do to the memory of a show.



As I've mentioned before, seeing a show again changes your opinion of it. When I saw Next to Normal a second time, I loved it. Legally Blonde was different for me this time too, and I actually was able to like it more for some reason.

But with this, I had such fond memories of the show, I wonder if it could have lived up to them.

The show follows a group of people in the Upper, Upper West Side neighborhood of Washington Heights. The title In the Heights, takes on different meanings, with the image of flight or being in the sky comes up often and also in referring to the neighborhood name itself.

It uses a mix of Latin beats and melodies, Hip-Hop and Broadway Pop as the basis for the score. Quite simply, this score is one of the best I have heard in a very, very long time. The lyrics are always interesting. Miranda uses rhymes that are simple but come off as unexpected, and often reference other literary or pop culture items. ("You probably never heard my name/Reports of my fame/Are greatly exaggerated")

I think what happened with myself was I hyped it up in my head. It's basically the same show. But I was looking for the same experience on Broadway as I got Off, and it was impossible to get. (For one, sitting in the Mezz of the Richard Rodgers is not the same as the intimate 37ARTS, the theatre where In the Heights played Off-Broadway.) I should have known better then to do this to myself.

I recommended this show like crazy last year, and will continue to do so this year. Despite whatever little dislikes of the show that I have in it's current Broadway incarnation, this show is wonderful, and better then most of the stuff out there! GO!

Crimes of the Heart

For me, Crimes of the Heart holds an awkward place in my own heart. Right next to Steel Magnolias.

Not only because they are simple, kitchen sink, explorations into the southern women's lives, but because I think every girl in high school was forced to do a scene from these shows in acting class at some point.

As a result, I was forced to watch way too many scenes from Crimes of the Heart. And with all due respect to the ladies whose scenes I watched, I hated watching them.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the show last night and liked it!

Watching the scenes out of context, the characters seemed silly, and the situations absurd. But seeing the whole story it made what was torture into a sweet story about sisters. Or rather... only slightly tortuous.

The sweet, sentimental, southern family slice of life serio-comic play is not my thing. But for what is was, it was a nice evening out.

Now just to be clear, when I say I "liked it", I do mean it in the most condescending way possible. It was overly sweet, overly sentimental, and overly southern for me. But I am a sucker and will fall for that stuff despite my better judgement.

It revolves around three sisters. One sister is just turning 30 and one has returned home after moving to LA to pursue a singing career. She comes home because the third and youngest sister just shot her husband, and they come to help her.

I wish the play went deeper and darker then it does, but that's not the style. It's about people who make coffee (on the stove mind you) for every guest who comes to their house and who leave their doors unlocked all day and night and where gossiping and catching up is the night life.

The set was great and overly detailed and decorated. I could have stared at it for ever, and whenever my attention wained, the set was there to hold my attention.

My favorite detail was a cellar door that was never used. And looks like it hasn't been used in years, as there is a bunch of furniture and a lamp in front of it, as if it isn't even a door, but part of the wall. Of course we find out later that the girls mother hung herself down there, and while its never spoken about, it served as a reminder of the sadness that these sisters felt for their mothers suicide.

I saw an understudy for the role of Babe, Jessica Cummings. She was great. I'm assuming she had little time to rehearse as they just started previews and understudy rehearsals don't start until then, if not after opening. Kudos to her!

Speech & Debate and Next To Normal

GROWING up in California, Broadway was a far away place... literally. So I would see every touring show that came through town, and try as much as I could to coax my family into seeing shows that came to San Francisco or LA.

After moving here and seeing so much theatre, it was a small milestone for me to sit down and watch the Tony's and have seen virtually every show!!! I was finally in a place where I could do that!

(Cleaning out my house for the new year, I went through all my playbills, and in 2007 I had seen over 40 shows!)

So, I've been trying to start this year off right. On the 8th I saw Speech and Debate at Roundabout's Underground Black Box Theatre and last night I saw the final dress of Next to Normal at Second Stage.

The fact that I saw Speech and Debate in January is laughable, because it's been extended like 20 times, and I've never gotten around to seeing it, despite hearing great things, and with HipTix being able to get in cheap! But I finally got around to it, and was more then happy that I did.

Speech and Debate follows three high school seniors, all outcasts in their own right, who through a series of events involving alleged student/teacher sexual relationship and the formation of a Speech and Debate club on campus, become unlikely friends.

The play featured some hilarious scenes that revolved around IMs (where there was no speaking, only IMs projected on screens behind the actors.) Also of note are some very funny musical sequences that were part of the speech and debate performance given by the seniors, played by Jason Fuchs, Gideon Glick and Sarah Steele.

Susan Blackwell ([title of show]) is hilarious in her supporting roles as a teacher and a NPR author.

Unfortunately before I saw the show, I read a piece of promotional material that quoted a review saying this a "play for the facebook generation."

That bothered me for a number of reasons.

1) I prefer myspace to facebook.
b. It's patronizing to say something like that.
Third - I prefer myspace to facebook. And feel very strongly about it! :)

The play was so much fun, and quirky, and spoke to me directly which I loved. But I couldn't help but hear that quote in the back of my head throughout the show, and was mad at myself for laughing at jokes about what ROFL means...

I wish I had seen it in previews so I wouldn't have had that annoying tag line in the back of my head nagging at me whenever something contempory came up... That said this was a play for people my age and younger (the fact that I have a myspace vs. facebook argument unfortunately proves the quote!) And while the older gentleman who sat next to me, did not laugh or even crack a smile once, I do think anyone could enjoy it.



NEXT to Normal, which begins previews tonight and opens February 15th, is a play that is also trying to speak to a younger generation.

I saw the final dress rehearsal, so I'm more then sure that what I saw will change and continue to grow into something stronger as rewrites are applied and things tighten.

But from what I saw, I liked it. I don't know if it will be the "next big thing" as talk on the boards (and it's own advertising) claim it to be, but it is a nice addition to the contemporary musical theatre canon.

Next to Normal revolves around a suburban family who is far from normal (or "next to?") but wants to have the Leave it to Beaver "normal" life.

The matriarch of the family (Alice Ripley) is bi-polar and possibly schizophrenic. (Despite some painfully clinical dialogue and songs we are never actually told what is wrong.) We also meet her husband, played by Brian D'Arcy James, who is loving and cares, but unable to keep up with his wife and increasingly distant daughter (Jennifer Damiano.)

We find out the family has a deep secret that haunts them, and they all try medicating the problem away with everything from pot, to Valium to electric shock therapy. If this all sounds bleak and bizarre, it is. But it's very interesting and I hope it continues to evolve into something beautifully tragic.

I don't want to give away too much, as there are some M. Night Shyamalan style surprises, but this is definitely a show you want to catch. Although I do feel the stories of suburban kids who have everything yet hate their parents, husbands who aren't there, and wives with a pharmacopoeia of self destruction in their purse are a little played out, the music saves it and makes it a story that you can sit through.

Word on the street is that it's vying for the Great White Way, and will more then likely play the Circle in the Square Theatre where Spelling Bee is closing this month. (Spelling Bee also debuted at Second Stage then moved to Broadway.)

I'm glad that I was able to start 2008 with two shows that were fresh and appealed to people my age (or at least marketed that way.) I just wonder what all the blue haired season subscribers (who are a main source of revenue for both non-profits Roundabout and Second Stage) think of them...

Striking 12: The new GrooveLily Musical

Like every year, I was looking for something to do on New Year's Eve (on the 30th mind you) when I came across a playbill.com article that mentioned that it would be returning for a special holiday engagment at the Zipper Theatre. So I figured that seeing a play on New Year's Eve would be a lot of fun. And it was called Striking 12, so I figured it would be New Year's themed...
The first time I heard of Striking 12, was when Amazon.com "recommended" it to me as I was shopping. And it always pops up as a "recommended item."

I've been very cautious of blind recommendations from websites or other media, when I had the weird experience of going through some extras of the Cabaret DVD where I was told "If you loved Cabaret, you'll love Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me"

Of course the same movie company just happened to own both properties, and Michael York is featured in both, but when one thinks of Cabaret, Austin Powers is no where to be found.

But I gave Striking 12 a chance since I wanted something to do on New Year's Eve and Amazon was so insistent.

I knew nothing of it except that it was some sort of retelling of "The Little Matchgirl" by Hans Christian Anderson and was written by a New York area band called GrooveLily.

Amazon was right.

The story is simple, on the last day of the year, a grumpy office worker (Brendan Milburn) wants to be left alone on New Years Eve when a young girl (Valerie Vigoda) selling "extra bright holiday bulbs that are designed to cheer people up" shows up at her door. When he starts to shut the door on her, she tells him that people have been rude to her and yell "get out of here little light bulb girl." Which he explains to her is a literary reference to "The Little Matchgirl."

Not needing any lights, the man closes the door on her still, then decides to read "The Little Matchgirl." and the story has a profound effect on him and makes him reconsider his life in the upcoming new year.

The simple story of "The Little Matchgirl" takes over and packs a heavy emotional punch when GrooveLily's music is added.

The play is half concert and half theatre piece. It is performed by the three member band as they simoaltaniously play the keyboard (Milburn), electric violin (Vigoda) and drums (Gene Lewin).

The show seamlessly switches back and forth between the present day and the story of "The Little Matchgirl".

It was a great show and I had a great time. I managed to laugh and (almost) cry which I think is essential to a great night out (what is a night out with out some drama!!! it can't be all laughs)

Striking 12 really struck a chord with me and I went home and immediatly bought the CD on iTunes. (Sorry amazon, I couldn't wait for shipping.)