State of the Art

  I'm so grateful that pro shots (professionally filmed live performances) are becoming more of the norm. The release of "Hamilton" on Disney+ did more than lift our spirits during the pandemic, it made great art easily accessible to the masses, and preserved the show, forever (on a much wider scale than the Lincoln Center Archives.) In recent years the trend is becoming more and more mainstream - with England's National Theater Live leading the charge with their cinema releases of their MainStage shows, which are now also available to stream on their website.  Theater always seems to be a bit on the back foot when it comes to "keeping up with the times" in terms of technology and PR tactics. Actors Equity, the American union for stage actors, while claiming (and I'll take them at their word), good intentions regarding protecting their performers, has done a huge disservice to the very art, and artists, they're supposed to be championing. Yes, the wa...

If "The Opposite of Love" doesn't make Ashley Griffin a star, there is no justice in the world.  I had the opportunity to see the off-Broadway premiere of the show last spring (though I did not review that production) and when I found out I would be in town for its L.A. debut, I had to make sure I saw it. This is a brand new production - the only hold over is Ashley Griffin (the author of the piece) reprising her role as Eloise.  I was (and am) a huge fan of the off-Broadway production. It was one of the best things I'd seen in a long time, and I'm still frustrated that it didn't transfer to a longer NYC run. I was nervous when I heard that the show would have a brand new team, but, I have to say, for me, this new production is, at least at the moment, the definitive one. As much as I loved the show off-Broadway, the L.A. production reveals elements of the original that weren't as strong as they could have been. I didn't think it could get much better ...

  All photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman  and feature Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen "Maybe Happy Ending" is the most charming musical to come to Broadway in a long time. Is it perfect? No. But what a breath of fresh air to have a beautiful, fully original new musical with a fantastic score that's sure to become a musical theater staple. It find it telling that, more and more, the best new musicals are no longer coming from the U.S., but from overseas. "Maybe Happy Ending", written by Will Aronson and Hue Park. Though Aronson is American, and Park was in America when he first got the idea for the show, it was originally produced in South Korea, in Korean (one wonders if, in the bureaucracy that is American commercial musical theater if such a gem ever would have gotten out of the development stage, as many brilliant shows never do.) Becoming a huge hit it is now on Broadway at the Belasco Theater starring Darren Criss and fantastic newcomer Helen J. She...

Thank goodness for this brilliant film adaptation.  There is so much that could have gone wrong with this film, in fact I avoided seeing it for quite a while because I was so worried it would hurt my heart. Like so many, "Wicked" has meant a great deal to me since it opened over twenty years ago. Indeed, with the exception of "Hamilton", one could easily argue that it is the most culturally impactful musical of the past two decades. And the piece is more relevant now than ever  - from the political under (and over) tones the musical does not shy away from (though it softens them from the book), and the idea of an ostracized but powerful young woman fighting against an all but worshipped leader who is destroying an entire population in the name of needing a "scapegoat" (pun intended by me and the show) to the fact that the Man Behind The Curtain never knew what he was doing in the first place, has gone from applicable to terrifyingly resonant. The film uses...

  Photos by Matthew Murphy Just give them all the awards. Thank God something truly good has opened on Broadway!  "The Roommate" is a brilliant example of the magic that can happen when a director gets out of the way and lets brilliant actors do their thing. This is not a jab at director Jack O'Brien, but a high compliment. Clearly O'Brien is a strong, intelligent captain of the ship... and the best captains know that their job is to help everyone else to THEIR job to the best of their ability... not let their ego get in the way and try to make it all about them. The best direction is the direction that doesn't advertise itself. The actual script of "The Roommate" (written by Jen Silverman) is...fine. And I don't mean that as a criticism either. If I picked it up in Drama Bookshop would I be captivated? No. But it does its job, which is far more than I can say for the majority of new plays I've seen recently.  The reason for this play's exist...

                                            The company of Swept Away , photo by Emilio Madrid "Swept Away", now playing at the Longacre Theater on Broadway is...frustrating. It's the kind of piece that annoys theatergoers, and especially industry insiders, to no end. A musical that seemingly came out of nowhere (it had a successful production at Arena stage just before opening on Broadway) with marketing that tells us less than nothing about the show except that the ocean is in someway involved. One hopes that it's vague origins equate to a "diamond in the rough" piece... that rare original musical that caught the attention of a talented, intelligent producer and got it's "big break." Sadly, that's not what I saw at the Longacre. Dig a little deeper and you'll find that "Swept Away" was simply a "bee in the bonnet" passion project of the lead producer. One need only look at the...

                                                                                             The cast of OUR TOWN , Daniel Rader I didn't know it was possible to make so many terrible decisions about this beautiful piece. OUR TOWN is widely considered not just one of the greatest American plays, but one of the greatest plays ever written. Experimental for its time, Thornton Wilder's piece, written in 1938, uses an all but bare stage and mimed action to examine the very nature of human existence. Divided into three "acts" (in practical terms the show is an hour and a half with no intermission... these "act" breaks do not denote actual breaks...) "Daily Life", "Love and Marriage" and "Death and Eternity", a Stage Manager takes us through the everyday lives o...