State of the Art

OH. MY. GOD. I had no desire to see "Stranger Things: The First Shadow." It felt like another obnoxious cash grab in the "Which IP are we going to adapt for Broadway next?" catalogue. Up next: Netflix's offering. And of all the things to adapt - a retro sci-fi/horror show that was fantastic in it's first season but has gotten progressively worse (with some improvements in season four) leading up to the, as yet still unreleased, fifth season (due to be released imminently). Not a genre "born for the stage" as it were, even in the best of circumstances. And the T.V. show isn't currently in the "best of circumstances." But after seeing "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" (which I reviewed for State of the Art ( https://stateoftheartreview.blogspot.com/2025/10/harry-potter-and-cursed-child-on.html ) I wanted to see what else the brilliant illusion team had up their sleeve. At intermission for "Stranger Things" I texted...

  "The Queen of Versailles" is not a perfect musical. But it is, perhaps, the musical we need. The show is based on the film documentary of the same name, which chronicles Jackie Siegel and her insanely wealthy husband David's building of the "Biggest House in America" which they modeled after, and named "Versailles." The documentary lucked out in being filmed at just the right place and time to document the housing market bubble burst - which coincided with the Siegels being in the middle of construction and losing everything. Their story became a parable about our world and, particularly the U.S.'s hubristic obsession with wealth. The musical, however, lucks out in its own way by being able to chronicle what happened to the Siegels in the ten years (+) since the documentary came out. And what happened after is, in a way, poetic justice on the level of a master storyteller. There couldn't be a more poignant ending if it had been invented by th...

  "Cursed Child" has always been exactly what I expected - and that's both a wonderful and a...meh...thing. Warning: Spoilers Ahead (Though, in all fairness, the show has been out for years and the published script almost longer...) To sum it up: GO FOR THE TECH! In the early 2000's (just after "Wicked" opened) there was a huge backlash against "spectacle" on Broadway. Disney's "Little Mermaid" infamously made headlines when, in response to said spectacle criticism, they announced that when their show opened there would be "No water and no wires." The theater world was intrigued and excited. Ironically it was this dull, lackluster "Little Mermaid" that made the theater world rethink: "Actually we'd really love some water and wires...maybe spectacle isn't such a bad thing after all..."  The problem with spectacle isn't spectacle itself. It's with two sometimes adjacent things: 1.) Spectacle...

  "Liberation", the beautiful new play by Bess Wohl that just opened on Broadway, is the kind of timely piece we need in the commercial theater.  Framed right off the bat as a memory play, "Liberation" is an exploration by Wohl, through her onstage surrogate (played by the wonderful Susannah Flood) of the women's lib movement in America in the 1970's and, namely, why it not only never fully succeeded, but, just as importantly, how on earth we've come to find ourselves moving backwards forty years later. Her mother's generation fought for (and attained) Roe V. Wade. Her generation has watched it be taken away. Wohl's mother, Lizzy, was the catalyst for Wohl writing the play. In the 1970's Lizzie, also primarily played by Wohl, a struggling journalist relegated to weddings and obituaries (she had to fight for obituaries) and desperate to write about politics, started a women's lib group in the basement of an Ohio rec center. There she made ...

  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...