Hello, Again revels in its eccentricity, it’s the type of movie that makes a world where musicals are a popular genre seem plausible. The idea that this small, Off-Broadway chamber musical was getting adapted to the big screen made me incredulous whe …Read more
The first thing I thought about when I heard that Barbara Cook had died was her appearance at the 34th Kennedy Center Honors. To be fair, I think about (and listen to) that Barbara Cook tribute fairly often. It might seem ridiculous that my mind turn …Read more
Rachel Bay Jones and Gavin Creel picked up Featured Performer Tony Awards last Sunday for their supporting work in Dear Evan Hansen (Best Musical winner) and Hello, Dolly! (Best Musical Revival winner). Both performers are key standouts on their resp …Read more
About four years ago, I listened Betty Buckley’s An Evening at Carnegie Hall album for the first time. Two songs stood out among the excellence – a plaintive take on Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Come On, Come On” and Kurt Weill’s “Pirate Jenny”. To this …Read more
“Thank you, madam. Please call again. Do call again, madam,” is the rejoinder the staff at Maraczek’s Parfumerie sings each time a customer exits the shop. The line charmingly, simply, understatedly — and politely — sums up a lot of what works abou …Read more
In 1996 Jose Llana performed one of the most beautiful renditions of “We Kissed in a Shadown” on the revival of The King and I. It was his Broadway debut. In 2015 he returned to the show, this time as the King, and in 2016, two decades after his debu …Read more
The 2015-2016 theatre season saw us witnessing the fifth Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. This means it is now proceeded by Show Boat, The Threepenny Opera and Porgy & Bess as the musicals most revived on Broadway. There have been many mo …Read more
The latest Stephen Sondheim compilation album immediately courts scrutiny when it announces itself as The Essential Stephen Sondheim. For, as even the most cursory of musical theatre fans know, and as the digital booklet which accompanies the two dis …Read more
Polished. That’s the first word that comes to mind when I think of the New Broadway Recording of The Color Purple, which opened in theatres a few weeks ago. This revival holds an interesting place in 21st-century theatre musical history, being the fi …Read more
The 1970 Tony Award season was a real curio for the musicals in good ways and bad ways. It was a year of limited options: there were only three musicals nominated for Best Musical – the same three musicals dominating the major categories. But it was …Read more
