My Broadway Review

The Tony Awards were given out last night in New York City. It was one of the most watched awards in several years. The biggest awards went to “Billy Elliott”, including Best Musical, the musical about rock stars from England. The three young men who play the lead role are sharing the best actor award. Elton John, however, did not win best score, being edged out by a less well-known musical. Meanwhile, God of Carnage took home “Best Play” and a few others. The play that came over from France earlier last year has become one of the most discussed shows on Broadway. It deals with social conflicts on many different levels and is incredibly entertaining. People will keep seeing these shows on through this year, and they both deserve it!

If you have kids and you want to take them to a great show, then I have just the right show idea for you! Get some Playhouse Disney Live tickets and you will get the opportunity to see one of the best family shows around right now. Featuring all your favorite Disney characters from the best preschool shows in the world, you can take your kids on a great adventure through the world of Mickey and his friends. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse will be having a big party and you’re invited. But Mickey is looking for the best music for the party. He enlists the help of the Little Einsteins, as well as Pooh, Tigger and Darby and Handy Manny and they end up finding the best music around! It’s a great show and you shouldn’t miss it when it comes to your town!

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is one of the newest shows in the off-Broadway world and it’s also one of the most unusual. It is a concert version of the life of Andrew Jackson, president of the US back in the 1830s. He is regarded as a strong president, but also a scourge for lots of people in the world. This production does an interesting job of battling out against the character, who seems to be reduced to a caricature of a person. He acts a lot like the way that American culture expects a hero to be, only weak in a way that we can accept and otherwise always virtuous. It’s a tough character to portray, but the creators clearly don’t like him at all, showing this with the costuming and sets that make it seem that he lives in a ridiculous world. A caricature of the world of the pioneers. Check out the full review!

     The play titled, “The Philanthropist” stars actor Matthew Broderick has received mediocre reviews. Many say the feeling of the play reminds them of a “stuffy room,” that is filled with pompous characters in which the actors play. The play depicts the story of a truth binding man-hater who can’t stand the debutant aristocratic society in which he is apart of. At time the play can be gently funny to watch and has an erotically young student playwright. Since the play stars actor Matthew Broderick I would recommend to people to go see this play because at least you can get a chance to see a movie star do theater. 

This entry makes people think that this blog is only for products of serious or sad things, but this is one of the most interesting productions of the year.  It is the production of Wagners “Die Walküre”, the opera. The man who plays Wotan, James Morris, may be a little too old for the role, with his voice failing him at times. It’s also possible to think that this sound made him even more believable in the role, which shows that it’s not enough to have absolute power, but you must also have wisdom. In other words, the character has power but is also quite fallible at the same time. Similarly, his characterization fit that perfectly. Keep an eye on this production: it is at the Met and it’s one of the best.

The new play at Yale is an adaptation of Notes from Underground, the short novel by Dostoevsky. The work itself is very sad and despairing. It has a lot of disappointment and the main character clearly hates himself greatly. But he also doesn’t care that he feels that badly about himself. This interpretation of the show fits that style very well. It drags you down to see the dark depths of his soul and it will also give you a good sense of the feelings that the guy has. Diminutive it is. But it’s well done. Variety really enjoyed this show and decided that the show was fitting into the normal work by the director Robert Woodward. If you get a chance, and need to be brought a little down, then you can see this show and really experience something big.

To Kill a Mockingbird is back on the regional circuit. And the new production is breath of fresh air in a theater world that isn’t always the best place for good plays. Many plays try to do too much interesting stuff with their subjects. They will try to add extra technology or unusual characterizations. All very postmodern in a way, but also not the best way to do some shows. This show is a tough one, in which you are stuck with a fantastic film version that you have to measure up to without imitating it. But in this version, they are able to do good characters, fitting to the material involved and well-made. Simple staging. Good acting. It’s a very solid show!

The newest production of Our Town is playing in New York and it’s a very new kind of production. Some people go for it on the expectation that they will get a nostalgic feel that they don’t get from most other plays and movies. The new version is more of a modern feel with new kinds of people: it’s much more like a newer kind of town, rather than a 1950’s small town. It seems to work. Plus the audience is put in a place with the rest of the production. They sit pretty much on the stage, with actors in the audience at times, weaving in and out, or sitting down. Don’t worry though, they wont force you to play along the way some shows do. This is a great new interpretation of Wilder’s older show, a little edgy, but it still works for children and families as it always has.

It’s been awhile since we brought up the weekly grosses of the Broadway world. And things have turned around a little bit, at least if you look at the numbers only. But if you look at the particular shows that are doing well, a lot of the ones that are selling better are the same as those selling well back in November and December. But there are a lot more shows up than down. Our guess is that the reason for this is that a lot of the shows that were flailing at that time have since closed their productions. As a result, it doesn’t look so bad. Plus there are fewer shows to compete with one another, so people who visit to see a Broadway show, no matter what, have only x number of shows to choose from. Thus, the shows that remain will go up a little bit. The top two were Chicago and Speed the Plow.

The new musical “The Story of My Life” has been lauded again and again as one of the best shows of the year. But it was kind of odd that people aren’t really noticing what the show actually is. Some of the reviewers really don’t like this show. It has two people in the show, one of whom is an author that went to New York to pursue his career, while the other one is a friend from back home who hoped that he could be friends with the author still. But it didn’t work. But this is about all there is. The reviewers seem to think that the the characters are hard to believe and also just don’t accept very much in the way of the plot pieces. The actors are good, but the material is bad. Read more about Story of my Life.