My Quest to see EVERYTHING on Broadway

I spent 8 weeks in Manhattan this fall and one of my goals while there was to be able to leave the city being able to say that I had seen absolutely everything playing on Broadway.

Number of Shows on Broadway Nov/Dec 2012 (or starting previews) :  36
Number of Shows I had already seen before arrival:  13
Number of Shows that remained unseen:  6

If you're doing the math you might assume that I saw 17 shows during my little sojourn.  But no, all told, I saw 25 shows in my 8 weeks in New York.  My original goal just kept getting derailed by intriguing off broadway or one-off charity performances.

Here are some thoughts about some of the ones that I saw...

Most unexpected delight:  The Mystery of Edwin Drood (which I saw twice) stars broadway legend Chita Rivera, Stephanie J Block, Will Chase and Jim Norton.  This musical revival based on the last unfinished novel by Charles Dickens is structured as a play within a play and leaves the ending up to the audience, who get to choose whodunnit among other options.

Most Inexplicable Early Closing:  The Performers starring Henry Winkler, Cheyenne Jackson, Alicia Silverstone and Ari Graynor, which closed 5 days after its opening night.  I managed to catch the final performance for this one and found it pretty funny with a couple of great performances by Graynor and Jackson.  I guess broadway just wasn't ready for a show about the porn industry.

Most Easily Understood Early Closing:  The Anarchist starring Patti Lupone and Debra Winger in a new play written by David Mamet.  Winger played a parole officer evaluating longtime inmate Lupone.  They talk, and talk, and talk in circles.  And then it ends.

Laziest Performance:  Matthew Broderick in Nice Work if You Can Get It.  I get that the character is supposed to be a bit of a lazy dilettante but there were many times during the performance that Broderick seemed to be phoning it in.  If not for the supporting performances of Kelli O'Hara, Judy Kaye and Michael McGrath I may have considered it a bust of an evening.

Best Dancing on Broadway:  The fantastic group of boys in Newsies. Who knew that a Disney flop of a movie could turn into such a fun show? The energy of these guys is amazing.

Most interesting stage set up:  The theatre for Once, where the bar on stage becomes functional at intermission allowing theatre patrons to jump up on stage and belly up to the bar.  The show is pretty good too.

Best Makeunder:  The gorgeous Jessica Chastain in The Heiress somehow managed to come across as dowdy and awkward in her portrayal of an uptight spinster caught up in a whirlwind romance (or is that a con game) with a dashing suitor (Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens).

Best Bang for my Buck:  If you've been to the theatre in the late spring or fall you are likely familiar with the annual fundraising drive for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.  The cast mades a post curtain call announcement about the charity, usually there are cast members at the doors with buckets as you exit to collect donations and every once and a while you get a bigger fundraising effort from the cast (I watched Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig auction the shirts off their backs after a performance a few years ago).  The Gypsy of the Year Awards is the show that serves as the finale of this fundraising effort, with performances by many of the current productions, some special guests and performances and announcement of the winners of the fundraising awards.   In one afternoon I saw performances from the casts of The Lion King, Bring it On, Newsies, Once, Mary Poppins, Chicago, Mamma Mia and several others.

Most Against-type Performance:  Laurie Metcalf was incredible starring as a brilliant woman slowly losing her mental faculties in The Other Place.  If she isn't nominated for a Tony I will be really surprised.

Most interesting 'Couple' comparison:  Over the period of a few days I saw two preview performances of plays centred around a young couple and all the problems surrounding them.  The first was Picnic, starring Maggie Grace and Sebastian Stan.  The second was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Scarlett Johansson and Benjamin Walker.  Picnic was more enjoyable for the fantastic supporting cast, including Mare Winningham and Ellen Burstyn, but the central couple really lacked chemistry.  In comparison I was completely impressed by Johansson and Walker (who I fell in love with in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson a few years ago) as Maggie and Brick.

Best Example of a Star Performer overcoming the material:  Carolee Carmello, who starred in Kathie Lee Gifford's quickly closed Scandalous blew the roof off the theatre.  It didn't matter that the story, about the first and most famous female evangelist, wasn't that compelling to me.

Favourite performances by 'Hollywood Stars':  Jake Gyllenhaal in If There Is I Haven't Found it Yet, Paul Rudd and Michael Shannon in Grace, Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale in Glengarry Glen Ross, Neil Patrick Harris in the one night concert performance of Assassins and Jessica Chastain, Dan Stevens and David Strathairn in The Heiress.

Many of these shows have since closed as Broadway gets ready for a slew of openings in the next few months prior to the Tony nomination cut off.  Lucky for me, I'm heading back to the city for another spell and will once again attempt to see everything before I go...stay tuned!

10 Reasons to love Kristin Chenoweth

How cute is she?

Her acceptance speech (as best supporting actress in a comedy for Pushing Daisies) at the Emmy's on Sunday night was adorable and heartfelt and funny all at once. She's either an even better actress than I thought or was truly surprised and overwhelmed by the win. The plug for employment on her favourite shows was my fav part of the whole thing.

Her book: A Little bit Wicked is crazy entertaining and funny. She's open and engaging without coming off as self absorbed or vain with stories about her career path (beauty pagents, schooling and broadway), relationship with Aaron Sorkin (including a discussion about the character of Harriet on Studio 60), family life and even her weave.

She does 'Christian' right...not to be confused with 'the Christian Right'. Her faith seems to be important to her but I don't get a preachiness vibe from anything I've read or seen of her onscreen. And she seems generally tolerant and open minded.

"Taylor the Latte Boy" has brought me much enjoyment.

Wicked. Chenoweth was involved in the production from workshop to Broadway to the Tony stage. Every Galinda that follows her will be compared to her performance. The musical is one of the best I've seen and I love the fact that it's about 2 strong but very different women and how they become their best selves. I will be in line to see the movie they eventually get around to making.

She's a pretty versatile actress and singer, moving from opera and classical music to broad based broadway musicals to physical comedy and even drama (catch her turn on The West Wing if you don't believe me).

She's guest starring on next week's episode of Glee, one of several theatre and broadway vets who have lined up to appear on the show. I'm sure it's only going to make me love the show (and her) more.

She's a great talk show guest with multiple entertaining appearances with Letterman and Ellen and the rest of the lot.

Seriously, how cute is she??

Hey there...what up?

So I've clearly managed to be very lazy and haven't posted anything in a while (for the 4 of you reading :-) ) Here's what's been going on in my life for the past few months...

- I have a nephew. He's adorable. And my brother and sister-in-law seem to be adjusting to the parenting thing pretty well. It was a fun Christmas with the family with a new little one around. I've made the trip back home more in the past three months than I have in the last couple of years it seems to see him.

- Speaking of babies, I have 5 friends who have either just had or are about to have a baby in the next few months. Good thing I love to play Auntie.

- I had a great vacation on the 'Ships & Dip' cruise for the third year seeing fantastic music and great all around entertainment. Unfortunately the weather wasn't as accomodating but at least there were a lot of great distractions. This year's "find" is Butterfly Boucher, an artist from Australia...you should totally check her out.

- I'm thinking i need to go on another vacation soon.

- I can't believe it's already March.

- I am really, really enjoying the third season of Friday Night Lights (why aren't more people watching this show??). I want a man like Coach Taylor.

- Am also enjoying the ride on 'Lost'. Please, please J.J. don't disappoint me with the wrap up. If you do, I'm going to hear "I told you so" from a few naysayers who insist you're making it up as you go along.

- I fall a little more in love with Jon Stewart every week.

- I'm looking forward to seeing Spring Awakening on it's pass through Toronto. Saw it on Broadway a few years ago and loved it. It remains to be seen whether I'll get there more than once while it's in town.

In Theatre news this week

Avenue Q had the serious potential to be a let down. Only because I've been waiting to see it for so long! The first time I tried to get tickets was in New York in 2005, but I wasn't really surprised when there were none available at the TKTS booth since it had just surprisingly won the Tony the year before. But surely, when we where there in April of 2007 there would be tickets available, right?? Well, I went up to the board to see what was up for grabs and of course I was out of luck. I came back to my friends in line and said I apparently wasn't meant to see this musical at which point the gentleman behind us in line informed me that it was "always" there and had been available just the day before...so not helping! Anyway, just after we arrived back in T.O. last spring Dancap Productions announced it's line up and lo and behold it was coming to Toronto! After purchasing the tickets almost a year ago, I finally got to the show last night.

And I'm seriously happy to report that even with my (admitedly) high expectations the show did not disappoint. Funny, raunchy and surprisingly sweet with great performances across the board. I wasn't sure how the whole puppet thing was going to come off but the actors performing (often with their faces right next to the puppets they were playing) were great. The dual movements actually seemed to add to the experience. And if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed that some of the folks were playing the multiple roles on the stage.

Ads for the show loudly proclaim that the material is inappropriate for children...muppet looking puppets aside. And anyone expecting anything different with songs like "Everyone's a little bit racist", "The internet is for porn" and "Sucks to be Me", not to mention the puppet nudity and a character named Lucy the Slut, would be in for a big surprise.

If you were giving thought to the idea of seeing it before it moves on at the end of the month I'd highly recommend getting off your ass and going. I'd hazard to say it may be one of the top 5 musicals on my list!

New York...the good stuff

Before the aforementioned travel debacle, the trip to New York was fantastically fun...here's what we managed to fit into four days...

Thursday

Late lunch at the Blue Fin upon arrival at the W hotel in Times Square. Every good vacation should start by drinking something blue. I don't think I'd want to stay right in Times Square if I was going to be in the city for any length of time but for one night it was quite fun. Comfy, sleep encouraging beds...cool lobby/lounge...Bliss beauty products...



The Daily Show taping!!! We very thankfully had VIP tickets which guaranteed us entry and got us out of the long line outside in the sun. The warm up guy was a bit abrasive but Jon was as wonderful as ever for the pre show question period and the show was funny, funny, funny. The Gitmo piece was classic. Mike Myers seemed a bit disgruntled by the timing of his clip and the lack of setup but I don't think people would have laughed with the best setup possible...The Love Guru looks positively awful.

Dinner at Stanton Social in the lower east side...thanks for the reco Sarah!! Food was amazing and the atmosphere was great. We walked through what looked like a pretty big film shoot on our way to the restaurant but I couldn't figure out what they were getting ready to film. Took the subway back to midtown and hit Sephora to stock up on products that are still way cheaper in the U.S...what's with that??


Friday

I couldn't convince any of the other three girls to get up early for a walk so I made my way up to Rockefeller center to pick up an OJ at Dean & Deluca and catch Rihanna's performance for the Today Show concert series. After getting back to the hotel to find my friends slowly waking for the day we did some shopping on 5th avenue for the morning, checked out of the hotel and grabbed some lunch and spent the afternoon at Macy's on 34th street doing a bit more shopping.

After grabbing a quick dinner we went back to midtown to see In The Heights. It had just won the Best Musical Tony less than a week before and the place was definitely packed. It didn't blow me away and immediately have me wanted to buy the soundtrack (like Spring Awakening had last year) but it was a very good show. Amazing to realize that Lin-Manuel had started writing it while still in school and that it was his broadway debut. Then we made our way back to the hotel to pick up our checked bags and got a cab to take us out to Brooklyn...

Saturday

Our home for the rest of the trip was D's friend Gillian's place in Park Slope just over the Brooklyn Bridge. She was heading out of town for the weekend and very graciously offered us her keys. Trust me, we used the 'we're not paying for accomodations' excuse to allow us to spend money many, many times. On Saturday morning we walked around her neighbourhood and stocked up on Bath & Body Works products, shoes and some other shopping.

Saturday afternoon we split up and while Shawna and Denise went out to check out the mermaid parade at Coney Island, Mel and I went back into Manhattan to catch a second show. It was Boeing-Boeing starring Bradley Whitford (one of my many, many TV boyfriends), Gina Gershon, Christine Baranksi, Mary McCormack and Mark Rylance (who had just one the Tony as best actor). We had the best seats that I'd ever had on Broadway and were in the third row right in the centre of the stage. You could see the makeup smudge on the ladies' eyes and the sweat trickle down from Brad's brow (and there was a lot of it). The play was a farce and I spent a good deal of the 2 1/2 hours laughing. Afterwards we went back to meet the other girls on a patio, picked up some snacks and relaxed in the backyard(!) before getting ready to walk through the neighbourhood for a nice low key dinner at a restaurant that Gillian had recommended. Then we had to face the challenge of trying to fit all of our shopping into our suitcases as we packed up to get ready to head home.

Sunday

Got ourselves packed up and got a car back into Manhattan where we checked them at the Sheraton and then had a nice patio brunch. Meandered up to Central park to relax and wander which was a good idea until it started to rain. Hit a couple more stores on 5th on our way back to 30 Rock where we decided on the indoor activity of taking the NBC studio tour. It was fun to see a bunch of studios including Conan's and SNL's even if it did get kicked off with getting our flight cancellation notice while we were about to start.

All in all, the mess of the trip home couldn't spoil what was a fabulous weekend. The final tally included 7 pairs of shoes, sunglasses, a few shirts, Sephora and Bath & Body Works stock ups, and of course very sore feet and a need for some sleep.

No day but today

I saw Rent for the 5th time last night. And yes, I know this pales in comparison to the count of the legions of "Rentheads" out there. I've mentioned how much I love musicals before and this is the one that kicked it off for me. I saw it for the first time in London at the start of my post university European tour and it was one of those hair standing on end, goosebump experiences. I proceeded to listen to the soundtrack so many times that I can sing the entire thing from beginning to end (and have subjected more than one friend to my 'performance' on road trips...sorry folks).

It was made even more fun last night for the fact that I was introducing it to a friend that had never seen it before. At our pre-show dinner, D and I were doing our best not to oversell our excitement for the show to Vicky who was our Rent virgin, though we couldn't stop ourselves from busting out a line or two...maybe it was the martinis...probably not. I thought it was a good production and Vic loved it (thankfully). For me the show is made or broken by whoever is playing Roger and he was fantastic (and played by South African Idol winner Heinz Winckler). Before the show last night I had said to myself (and others) that it would be my fifth and final time and now I'm not sure about that. It's closing in New York after running for 12 years and I'm thinking if I get there before June it might be worth seeing there before they shut it down ;-).

I can tell you that the soundtrack will definitely get a run through on the 3 hour drive to the cottage tomorrow.

Have a good long weekend people!

Dirty Dancing...a resounding meh

Well, I wish I could say that the 'Dirty Dancing: the Musical' was as fantastic as I was hoping it would be.

First, let me preface this by saying I love musicals. I mean, really love them. And I don't think there's a woman of my generation who doesn't have a soft spot for Dirty Dancing, even if they don't love it. I went to see the musical last night with my three theatre going friends, and all of us had a fairly vivid memory of our first viewing of the film. It was a birthday party, or a sleepover and 3 of the four of us remember rewinding scenes or even the whole film to watch it over and over again. So you definitely had 4 people who were predisposed to love the musical.

And really? It wasn't so good. It wasn't so much a musical as it was a reenactment of the movie onstage, with a mostly soundtrack backing of the action. And that's probably ok. In fact, it probably wouldn't work if they had scrapped the soundtrack that we all know so well and had new songs for Baby and Johnny to sing dialogue at each other. The three performers who actually sang some of the key songs in the production were very good, especially the final performance of "I've had the time of my life".


My biggest gripe with the production, no question, was that anytime there was a section of added dialogue or plot that wasn't in the movie it was jarring. That's not to say that they shouldn't have added to or changed the story, but if they were going to do it they needed to do a better job. The character of Baby's mom was given a trio of extra scenes with Baby, Jake (Baby's dad) and Penny (the knocked up dancer) which I think were supposed to give the character more depth or something, but she really didn't need to be more than the '60's mom' in order to drive the story. There was a whole added in storyline about racial equality that was an excuse for Baby and Johnny to have another argument to expand on their differences and to flash a picture of Martin Luther King on the screen (yes, you read that correctly) to which my only response was...Really?!? There was a bunch of added lines to stress the 'class' differences in the groups of people in the story...did they think we wouldn't get that?!?

My other issues were more minor. The actor playing Johnny Castle seemed to be a bit too pretty and polished (like a Disney prince come to life is how D put it). I think I had a different perspective on the inappropriateness of the relationship between the two seeing it fresh as a thirtysomething instead of a tween :-). There were a couple of moments that really weren't supposed to be funny that elicited laughter from the audience.

The good things? The set design was incredible...absolutely amazing to see how they managed to bring all the different locations to the stage. The log scene in the woods and lift practice in the water were among the moments that stood out. The final dance performance, kicked off with Johnny rushing to the stage from the back of the theatre, made you feel like you were living in the movie. The general nostalgic memories that kicked in with the opening bar on almost every song.


All that said, I know I'll end up seeing it again during it's run in Toronto (however long it lasts). As a musical it wouldn't make the top 20 list of productions I've seen, but as a night out with the girls involving some martinis and a chance to reminisce, it definitely delivers. We walked out of the theatre with plans to get together to watch the movie Saturday night.

But I really hope this isn't a sign as to how the rest of my top five are going to deliver.