belizedeservesbetter - Tumblr blog

[belizedeservesbetter]

[belizedeservesbetter]

In case anyone was wondering, HERE WE ARE was a failure on almost every level and somehow found time to fit in a large amount of lesbophobia in its already bloated runtime and plot

Like clearly this is an incomplete work that producers are only putting up as a cash grab from a dead artist who had no say in the matter

[belizedeservesbetter]

it’s difficult to listen to the parts of hadestown where everyone’s questioning whether orpheus is good enough to succeed in his role, knowing that in real life, reeve carney was not good enough to succeed in his role

[belizedeservesbetter]

[belizedeservesbetter]

Just got out of White Girl in Danger and unfortunately I think I need to revoke Michael R. Jackson’s Pultizer

[belizedeservesbetter]

Shucked is the Cream of the Crop!

It has the juice! 

Guys it is Shucked season and we all best get on board. 

My slight disclaimer for this review is that I’ve been on the Shucked train for almost a year now when I saw a staged reading with most of the cast that has stayed with the show to the Broadway production. But even then, as I was walking through the door and asked what this musical was about, I was a bit skeptical when I was told the answer was “corn.” 

But this show is the real deal and I know I’ll be making many more trips down to Cob County real soon. This musical is hilarious and full of heart all at once, filled to the brim with top notch performances by people you can tell genuinely care about this show, and I already know Shucked will be a new favorite of mine. 

To start things off, this is probably one of the best written books of a musical in a long, long time. Robert Horn (Tony Award winner for Tootsie) has written the funniest show on Broadway, hands down. The jokes keep coming and never stop, and what I found particularly cool was that each character had their own style of comedy, and slight spoilers but it makes sense which characters end up with who they do purely based on complementary comedic styles. Gordy and Lulu’s comedy styles align perfectly, so of course they had to end up together. 

But the book isn’t just funny, it’s also full of heart. These are fully developed characters who are genuine and earnest in what they want and need. The story is ultimately about loving others and finding the hero within yourself, which surprisingly worked really well in a show filled with jokes coming at you from all sides. 

What also keeps the story grounded is Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s score. It’s a folksy country score, which beautifully complements the high octane comedy by keeping it in focus. And surprisingly all the songs are bangers. The opening number sets the tone perfectly, while ballads such as “Walls,” “Maybe Love,” and “Woman of the World” are beautiful songs that drive home the story’s themes. Every character gets a moment to shine, and the boys’ big song, which I’m not totally certain what the name is because there is no song list in the playbill but I’d wager is titled “Hee Haw” is a standout. I’ve also had the Tampa song stuck in my head since seeing the show. 

And of course “Independently Owned,” Alex Newell’s big number, brought the house down. There was a full standing ovation afterwords. They were absolutely excellent as Lulu, a sharp as nails whiskey entrepreneur who loves her family and will protect them with everything she has. Newell also has one of my favorite lines in the show, which is “These eyebrows may not be my children, but I’m about to raise them.”

All of the performances are uniformly excellent, with my standouts being Kevin Cahoon as Peanut, Grey Henson & Ashley D. Kelly as Storytellers 1 & 2, and Caroline Innerbichler as Maizy. 

Kevin Cahoon plays the most out there character I’ve ever seen in the American theatre canon, and he is absolutely fantastic. Peanut goes on insane non sequiturs and completely nails. But the real glue of his character are his more quiet moments. There is a moment when he’s comforting his brother Beau (Andrew Durand) and he could’ve played it off as a huge joke but he played it completely earnest which worked so incredibly well and gave more layers to the character. 

Grey Henson and Ashley D. Kelly play the Storytellers, and yes, they’re very aware that their characters’ names are Storyteller 1 & 2. They are both an absolute delight and I loved every moment they were on stage. They play a narrator role, but also join in when needed. My absolute favorite moment in the show involves Grey Henson when they’re playing the classic mafia style gangsters and the Tampa jewelers. 

And of course Caroline Innerbichler as Maizy, the main character of our story. She sings beautifully and is absolutely hilarious and plays Maizy so earnest that you can’t help but root for her. I feel like in any other musical the classic leading lady wouldn’t be “allowed” to be super funny but Innerbichler is hysterical while still being the show’s beating heart. 

This review is already getting long but I don’t want to leave out the other two leads. John Behlmann, one of my faves in Tootsie, was also excellent. Andrew Durand, who I famously disliked in Head Over Heels, has completely won me over in this. He was absolutely wonderful in Shucked. 

I need to talk about the Storytellers for a second, because a narrator concept usually doesn’t work for me but in this it was one of my favorite parts. They were genuinely so funny and so self aware about it all, and when the twist about them comes at the end, their more tender moments make more sense and is absolutely lovely all around. 

Anyways I really loved this show and want it to be a hit. It’s very much “the little show that could” right now and I hope it has a long life on Broadway. It’s so seldom we get an original musical and this one is really stellar. 

[belizedeservesbetter]

&Juliet spoiler but Juliet spends 90% of Act Two saying “no” to Romeo and singing like six songs about not wanting to get back together with him but is still forced back together with him by the end for no good reason 

[belizedeservesbetter]

Review coming soon but SHUCKED was genuinely fantastic 

[belizedeservesbetter]

on the wikipedia page for love never dies

[belizedeservesbetter]

Shocked to hear that they added a moment to the new Sweeney Todd revival where he says, “It’s Groban time!” and then he grobes all over the stage

[belizedeservesbetter]

Jinkx Monsoon was EXCELLENT as Mama Morton in Chicago but oh boy the rest of the show is in really bad shape 

[belizedeservesbetter]

Merrily We Roll Along is a Hit!

featuring career best performances from Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe!

Merrily We Roll Along has always been called one of Sondheim’s problem musicals and yet it remains a beloved classic. Whenever a new production is announced, there’s always talk of if this will be the production to “fix it,” or the one to solve the problems of the musical and make it a bonafide hit. 

Personally, I’ve never really seen it as a true “problem musical.” I understand each and every complaint about the show’s book, but for the most part, George Furth’s book really works for me. I still have my complaints about it, mainly the way Beth and Gussie are a bit too one dimensional, but overall I’ve never thought the show needed “fixing” per say. 

I suppose that’s because I’ve always really connected with it? Three young artists wanting to make it in their respective fields and struggling with what to do with fame and change and growing up always seems to hit me very hard. 

And of course the score is absolutely gorgeous. 

With all that being said, I absolutely loved the new production of Merrily We Roll Along currently playing at New York Theatre Workshop, directed by Maria Friedman and starring Jonathan Groff as Franklin Sheppard, Daniel Radcliffe as Charley Kringas, and Lindsay Mendez as Mary Flynn. 

Let’s get right to it - the performances are phenomenal. 

Jonathan Groff is truly giving a career best performance in this show. He was absolutely fantastic and the perfect Franklin Shepard. He hit every emotional beat perfectly and sang the hell out of all his songs. It is hard to sell Franklin as a character to root for since he’s fallen and tumbled into the Hollywood abyss at the top of act one and is a complete asshole, but Groff really sells that underlying desperation to be loved that still makes you feel for him. He’s also Jonathan Groff, who literally everyone loves, which honestly really helps. 

There is also a moment where he’s lying face down on the stage absolutely sobbing, which was really wonderful and moving.

Lindsay Mendez was absolutely wonderful and played Mary Flynn with an ambitious bite. She also has this deadpan delivery of a lot of her jokes that was really fantastic. Her performance in this felt really mature and really grounded, and completely different than her Carrie in Carousel. 

Then we have Daniel Radcliffe, who was a surprisingly amazing Charley Kringas. He got the “anxious and eccentric playwright on the verge of a breakdown” down perfectly. He isn’t the best singer, but makes up for it in acting and honestly I think it works for Charley. Charley isn’t the music guy, he’s the story guy. But Radcliffe did have two of the highlights of the show, both “Franklin Shepard, Inc” and “Good Thing Going.” I’ll talk about the latter later, but “Franklin Shepard, Inc” brought the house down. Radcliffe hit every emotional beat and every joke in that song absolutely perfectly and really showed that he is absolutely perfect for this part. 

Shoutout to Katie Rose Clarke as Beth and Krystal Joy Brown as Gussie - both were lovely. Clarke delivered a lovely “Not a Day Goes By” and Brown had a really nice take on “Growing Up.” 

I know director Maria Friedman has done this production of Merrily before, but I wanted to go in blind to her take on the show. Overall, I really loved it and might have interpreted something deeper than she intended, but I’ll get into that as we go along.

For starters, the whole show was staged really beautifully, particularly “Opening Doors” and “Good Thing Going.” 

“Opening Doors” is definitely a song any young artist relates to and I thought it was staged perfectly in this production. It was totally simple, with Frank at his piano and Mary and Charley at typewriters. The focus was on the three friends, which is representative of the entire show. Everything revolved around Frank/Charley/Mary, and a lot of the rest was pushed to the side, quite literally actually. The three main friends are the core of the story, and the most developed characters, so it makes sense to squarely focus on them. Even their costumes reflected this, but we’ll get into that in a second. 

“Good Thing Going” is one of my favorite songs in the show, particularly because it’s essentially the thesis statement of the show. Again, Friedman went for simple here. There was a simple spotlight on Daniel Radcliffe with a soft glow on Jonathan Groff at the piano. It was stunningly beautiful and you could almost see Charley picturing his entire future in front of him. 

I thought the costumes were really cool! This is a show that reflects a lot of time period changes, especially a lot of drastic changes in fashion. The ensemble kept a basic color palette but continuously changed styles to reflect the time, which I really liked. Gussie and Beth had a similarly muted color palette. 

What was interesting to me is that throughout the entire show, Frank wore the exact same outfit. Occasionally he would have a jacket on, but he always had the same base outfit on. Likewise, while Mary and Charley had different costumes (and a distinctly different color palette than the rest of the ensemble), they wore the exact same shoes for the entire show, except for the very very last scene. I thought this was a really nice choice and feeds into what I interpreted Friedman’s concept as. 

Now the set is going to be the thing most people will have differing opinions on. No one can deny how spectacular Groff, Mendez, and Radcliffe are, but they sure can have wildly different opinions on the set. Many will think it is ugly. Many will think it looks unfinished. I liked it, and the only way I can really describe it is, “Malibu Barbie Dream House” 

All this to say, I interpreted Friedman’s direction as Frank kind of replaying his life in almost a dollhouse kind of setting trying to retrace his steps as to where he went wrong. The Malibu Barbie Dream House (though I don’t think Friedman would quite appreciate me referring to it as such) is the backbone for every single scene, with slight changes to denote different times and locations. But it’s always Frank’s house, it’s always his world.

Even the costumes - while the ensemble and small characters change into flashy new outfits, he always stays the same and Mary and Charley never change shoes. They are the core Frank is trying to work with and trying to see through. 

I like this concept for the show, and it even “fixes” parts of the book - at least I think so. In this way, you could almost say Beth and Gussie are only one dimensional/almost comicly foils of each other because that’s how Frank has posed them in his attempt to understand why his life is in shambles. And maybe people constantly telling Mary how visible it is that she’s in love with Frank is a projection on his own feelings instead. Frank is smart, surely he isn’t dense enough to not have known she was in love with him/would have said something by now. 

Which I guess makes my one complaint of this production that Friedman could’ve pushed this concept a bit more. The show ends with the final “Merrily We Roll Along” as the ensemble brings us back to the present with Frank in the center of it all. Frank who has not changed costumes once. So I guess my one wish would’ve been to have him more involved in these multiple transitions throughout the show. 

I suppose my ideal production of Merrily has Frank never leaving the stage at all, but that’s for another time. 

Before I wrap it up, a quick lightning round of comments: 

This production uses “That Frank” as the second song instead of “Rich and Happy” -- the Roundabout/Fiasco Theatre Company production a couple years back used “Rich and Happy” 

There is truly not a bad seat in the house 

I won lotto tickets for this show, and they were front row four seats in from the left. From what I gather, those four seats are the only lotto seats TodayTix is giving out, but I could be wrong there. 

it is always glorious to hear this score live 

I understand this production is sold out for the entirety of its run - NYTW only has like 200 seats in that space so it was always going to be a hard ticket to get - but I did notice Sonia Friedman’s name attached as a producer and she’s smart enough to know not to have a one month only production of a show starring Harry Potter himself. So it’s definitely not if this production is transferring to Broadway but when. 

Anyways, this production is an absolute delight and reminded me how much I love this show and how hard it continues to hit no matter how many times I see it. It reminded me that Jonathan Groff is a true leading man, Lindsay Mendez is an absolute powerhouse of a performer, and that Daniel Radcliffe truly belongs on stage above all else. It reminded me that this isn’t a “problem musical” at all and has remained a classic for a reason. 

Right?

[belizedeservesbetter]

KPOP Completely Misses the Mark

It is with deepest regrets that I must say the book is absolutely atrocious 

A couple years ago, KPOP was the hottest ticket Off-Broadway. It was presented as an immersive tour through a “KPOP Factory” where you the audience traveled to different rooms, where the show played out before you. It had critical raves across the board and was seen as this really cool show that showed how cool Off-Broadway can be when you don’t have to follow the constraints of a Broadway house.

And then some producer thought he should bring it Broadway and realized you can’t do a walk through immersive show that critiques the kpop industry and still sell tickets. So the show was completely changed and completely rewritten, which brings us to current iteration of KPOP on Broadway.

Listen, part of my literal job is reading and analyzing weekly Broadway grosses and I’ve seen the abysmal numbers KPOP is pulling. Like the fact that Gabriel Byrne’s one man show Walking With Ghosts is somehow making more money is truly astonishing. 

So I don’t mean to kick a show when its down when I say this, but KPOP is a mess. 

It’s little more than a glorified concert with a couple (poorly written) scenes here and there that make up a barely coherent story that neither critiques nor celebrates kpop. Unfortunately, this show fails at being both a concert and a story. 

Let’s start with the book, which, to be blunt, is probably one of the worst written books I’ve ever seen on the Broadway stage. It felt like a high school student wrote this. Every second of it felt amateurish. The characters were one dimensional and the story was almost nonexistent. 

To break it down a bit more, KPOP tells the “story” of three different KPOP groups on the verge of their label being introduced to an American audience. There is boy band F8, girl group RTMIS, and solo star MwE. 

You can tell bookwriter Jason Kim is mostly doing TV now, because this show is clearly divided into A Plot, B Blot, C Plot. 

A Plot revolves around MwE, the superstar of the record label. Like 60% of the show is weird backstory about her overly traumatic childhood and rise to becoming a KPOP star. Every time the show cuts to a flashback, they shine a strobe light directly in your face and play a clip of the ocean on the backdrop as a piece of set rises from the floor. Each of her scenes basically say the same thing, which is MwE likes music and works so hard and yet can never do good enough to impress record label owner/mother figure Ruby. This happens over and over and over again until the end where MwE threatens to leave and dumps her boyfriend (not even worth getting into this to be honest) and Ruby is like “I will not make your life better or do anything you have asked but I would like you to stay” and MwE is just like “sure” and that’s it.

I understand MwE’s plot was supposed to critique the hardcore nature of the KPOP industry and how young kids are basically raised in KPOP land completely isolated from their peers, but the show doesn’t commit to any real critique, and kind of ends in a celebration of stardom? Nothing is accomplished here. It almost felt like Kim was afraid to commit to having a point of view on this and potentially alienate potential ticket buyers.

B Plot is F8, the boy group whose member Leo has mysteriously been kicked out and has been replaced with American boy Brad. They mention quite a bit that Leo was kicked out/removed/mysteriously disappeared from the group, so you’d expect them to tell you why, right? 

Right?

Spoiler alert but they do not tell you why! He has just mysteriously been kicked out and replaced by fun loving Brad who isn’t accepted by the rest of F8 because he’s new and from America, even though like four other members of F8 are also from America but whatever we’ll just ignore that. Main F8 Boy Whose Name is Never Said Out Loud (the playbill tells me his name is Jun Hyuk) is mean to Brad until F8 Boy Who Does Not Say a Single Other Line of Dialogue in the Show (playbill says his name is Lex) is like “maybe we shouldn’t fight anymore” and then everyone is like “yeah!” and that’s literally how B Plot is resolved. 

Jun Hyuk does have my favorite line in the show though, which was completely bonkers and compared Brad’s new dance moves to not putting parsley in a dish. 

Then we got C Plot with RTMIS, but unfortunately this would be more like a D Plot or even an unheard of E or F Plot because they quite literally have zero plot. They sing some fun songs and have one single scene halfway through Act Two where they’re basically like “gee it sure is hard to be a KPOP star! But I love stardom so much which makes it all worth it!”

I hate to do this but #justiceforRTMIS 

It was almost insulting to see the five members of RTMIS be so completely overlooked when there was so much there they could’ve explored. 

Then we’ve got the TV Director and the Camera Man plot, which was so bad and so terribly written that this sentence right here is going to be my only acknowledgement of it. 

Unfortunately the acting was pretty uniformly bad too, but I’m choosing to blame this on lack of coherent material and barely there directing.

However, the one bright spot was Luna as MwE. I don’t know much about KPOP as a whole but I could tell as soon as she stepped on stage that she is a star. She just has that star quality and stage presence that you can feel all throughout the theater. Her playbill bio mentions she was Elle Woods in the South Korean production of Legally Blonde, which I was so wish I could’ve seen instead of KPOP. Her big number “Super Star” was the highlight of the show. 

So anyway, that’s what made it a bad musical, but let’s go into what made it a bad concert! 

The music is fun but none of the songs are very distinguishable from each other. The choreography was good but not very tight and the whole cast needed a shot of adrenaline.

Oddly enough it was too quiet in the theater? They really needed to amp up the volume. And the lights were cool when they weren’t shining directly in your eyes. 

But what makes this a bad concert is that we don’t know who these people are. They are not real KPOP groups and their story doesn’t give them any depth to make you like them throughout the course of the show. What makes Six a good concert is catchy songs and a prior knowledge to who the six wives of Henry VIII are before walking into the theater. I say all this not really liking Six but it successfully did what KPOP is trying to do. 

I’m sure the producers are wondering why kpop fans aren’t running to the show en masse since kpop fan bases are notoriously passionate and honestly a bit overwhelming to anyone not in their circles. However, I can clearly see why they aren’t coming to the show. Kpop fans aren’t interested in fake Kpop groups. They love their idols and their biases (thank you to my passionate Kpop fan coworker for explaining the fandom lingo) because they are real people they have formed a sort of parasocial relationship with. They want to see the real thing, not a poor imitation of it. And besides, tickets to kpop concerts are absurdly expensive so it’s not like they can afford to see KPOP on Broadway anyway. 

All this to say, I wish this show was better. There’s a lot of potential here and every ounce of it is wasted.

[belizedeservesbetter]

hey everyone. a while ago i made a ton of moodboards based on shakespeare plays and made my friends guess which plays they're supposed to represent. now you can play along too, with my new uquiz! welcome to ap pinterest.

[belizedeservesbetter]

A Man of No Importance is Really Important to Me

John Doyle really said “Let me show you how it’s done” 

In an age of musicals where Big Belting and screaming high notes are all the rage, I am so completely thrilled that the smaller and more modest A Man of No Importance gets a chance to shine - and shine it does over in Union Square at Classic Stage Company.

The shows tells the tale of Alfie Byrne (played by Jim Parsons but more on him later) who is a part time bus driver and full time leader of a small amateur theatre troupe in Dublin. Alfie is determined to stage Oscar Wilde’s Salome, despite objections from the church all the while straining against the homophobic society that has held him down for so long. The show is very charming on its surface but packs a real punch as well.

The show really made me remember just how good of a writer Terrence McNally was. The book is absolutely phenomenal. There are so many characters in this show and yet each feels fully realized. Alfie himself is such a wonderful character and his desperation to stage this play and how deeply in love he’s in with his best friend is so gorgeously written. Everything is so subtle and so perfectly heart breaking at just the right moments and really made me remember how good a musical can be. 

Of course the music is excellent, but I was also really blown away by the orchestrations. I know people are hit or miss about John Doyle’s having the actors also play instruments, but it worked so perfectly here. Bruce Coughlin’s orchestrations were so beautiful and brought out so many layers to the already beautiful score. 

Truly, this is a show about art and love and deep love for art and deep love for theatre and being gay and what you cling to when the world you live in won’t let you be who you are or love who you love. 

John Doyle’s direction perfectly highlights all of these themes and his style is so perfectly suited for this show. Stripping the show down to its bare essentials highlighted the raw emotion of the show and the feeling of Alfie being trapped but desperately trying to find his way out. Doyle also staged a lot of scenes in a way that I can only describe as like a near and far effect? It was really lovely and really captured Alfie’s loneliness and how often he is seen as an outsider. 

There was also such a deep theatricality to it that I found so beautiful. Doyle made the show feel like the poems Alfie loves. He created such beautiful stage pictures that will stick with me for a long time. 

Between this, last year’s Assassins and of course The Color Purple, I’m reminded that John Doyle is one of our most iconic directors for a reason. He’s able to get to the heart of the show and put it on full display. He pulls phenomenal performances from his actors and knows how to tell a damn good story.

The set, also designed by Doyle, was also very lovely. It set the whole show in the church basement where St. Imelda’s Players rehearses their plays and it fit Classic Stage Company’s space so perfectly. The back wall was covered in antique mirrors, which was a really lovely touch considering Alfie’s big song in Act One. 

Which of course brings us to the performances, which were all wonderful. Everyone was excellent, with Jim Parsons, Mare Winingham, AJ Shively and Mary Beth Peil being the highlights.

Peil is always a delight, and it was wonderful seeing her play an actress who takes her performance way too seriously. Shively was surprisingly very wonderful, though really I shouldn’t be too surprised as I thought he was great in last season’s Paradise Square as well. His Robbie grounded Parson’s Alfie very well and his “Streets of Dublin” was a highlight. 

Mare Winningham is Mare Winningham, which means of course she was excellent. Alfie and his sister Lilly are the emotional core of the show, and she was absolutely wonderful. 

Jim Parsons was also absolutely wonderful, which is no easy feat considering he is on stage for just about the entirety of the show. It is very clear how important this character is to Parsons, and he fills him with so much heart and so much want. He isn’t the best singer, but it somehow works in the show. Alfie isn’t a great artist, so Parsons doesn’t have to be a great singer. Likewise, where he lacks in singing (and occasionally the Irish accent), he makes up in heart and excellent acting. It was an absolute joy to see him on stage. 

All in all this show is so wonderful! If you’re able, definitely head down to Union Square to see this beautiful gem of a show. 

[belizedeservesbetter]

why dont you read angels in america to remind yourself that life is a gift & you should always aspire to have more of it & maybe youll calm down

[belizedeservesbetter]

I’ve been sitting on this “Beetlejuice is closing in January” news for MONTHS and am pretty excited about the new show that’s going in there