These Queens Have "Something Extra"

Review: Pageant

The glamorous ladies of the Miss Glamoresse pageant are sure to entertain.

Between the runaway success of Broadway's Kinky Boots and the continually growing popularity of RuPaul's Drag Race (which is incidentally the best reality show on television, and something you should binge watch *immediately* if you aren't familiar with it), drag is definitely having a cultural moment. Which is why it makes perfect sense to bring back the 1991 Off-Broadway musical Pageant, a hysterical sendup of beauty pageant culture featuring (what else?) men in drag. This 90 minute gem is one of the most giddily entertaining shows in town, and is must-see viewing for anyone with even the mildest interest in musical theatre and/or drag.

The setup of Pageant is simplicity itself: six contestants, having already won their regional beauty pageants, convene onstage to vie for the title of Miss Glamoresse and the accompanying spokeswoman job. They compete in staple categories like the Eveningwear, Swimsuit, and Talent portions, along with Glamoresse-specific areas like Spokeswoman and the aptly named Beauty Crisis Counseling. Adding an element of unpredictability to the show, five audience members are chosen at random to act as judges, meaning the final outcome changes each night.

The entire affair is a lovingly tongue in cheek mockery of high stakes pageants like Miss America, howling funny in its satire without ever coming across as judgemental or mean spirited. I haven't laughed this much at a show in years, and at one point I was literally crying from laughing so hard. For all the absurdity on display - and there is plenty of it - the contestants play things remarkably straight. Outside of a few throwaway lines there is little acknowledgement that these ladies are actually men, which prevents the show from becoming self-aware commentary and ensures the laughs come from character and situation rather than overly clever metatheatrics. The zinger-filled book by Frank Kelly and Bill Russell keeps everything moving at a breezy pace, and while Albert Evans' score isn't particularly memorable it gets the job done and is an excellent framework for Kelly and Russell's cheeky lyrics.

All of the Miss Glamoresse contestants do a fabulous job crafting fully formed personas based on wonderfully evocative regional titles like Miss Great Plains or Miss Bible Belt, and every audience member will surely have a favorite. Alex Ringer's Miss Texas is especially beguiling, an old-school pageant queen channeling the poise, beauty, and barely disguised disdain often attributed to old southern money; to use drag parlance, she is "serving Dallas realness." Ringer's talent portion is the real deal, a delightfully kitschy and athletic tap routine complete with six shooters and a toy pony. And should it become clear that Miss Texas won't be winning the night's competition (as happened at the performance I saw), Ringer's underplayed, slow burn reaction is pure comedic genius.

As the aforementioned Miss Bible Belt, Curtis Wiley brings the house down with his gospel-influenced number "I'm Banking on Jesus." Wiley perfectly modulates his God-loving, "praise him" shtick, heightening it enough to elicit deep belly-laughs without crossing the line into abject mockery. Seth Tucker plays Miss West Coast as a blonde bombshell with minimal understanding of what's happening, and her Spokeswoman segment (too good to spoil here) is one of the night's biggest laughs. Swing Fred Odgaard was on in the role of Miss Great Plains the evening I attended, with a "you betcha" persona clearly inspired by the great Midwest-set pageant film Drop Dead Gorgeous. (Pageant actually shares a lot of comedic sensibilities with that cult classic film.) Odgaard wasn't quite as comfortable in his role as the rest of the performers - understandable given his minimal rehearsal time - but his interpretive poetry "talent" still had me in stitches.

Nic Cory is underutilized as Miss Industrial North East, although he milks what he has for all its worth. Marty Thomas' Miss Deep South suffers from too much overlap with the other contestants (Miss Texas and Miss Bible Belt cover similar territory in a more defined, specific way), although Thomas scores big points for his patently ridiculous ventriloquist act. And as the ringmaster of the entire spectacle, John Bolton is suitably charming even if his stage time steadily decreases as the evening goes on.

You would be hard pressed to find a more entertaining 90 minutes than Pageant, and the show has thankfully been extended into the New Year, giving you plenty of chances to see these beauties for yourself. There's a wholesome sweetness to this pageant that belies a simpler time, yet the show feels as fresh and hilarious as if it were written yesterday. Come prepared to laugh, heartily and often, at one of the best theatrical productions of the year. As Bolton's host character sings towards the beginning of the show, these queens definitely have "something extra."

Broadway and the Burden of Unrealistic Expectations

Tony-nominee Andrew Rannells dons Hedwig's wig and high heels through October 12th, at which point Michael C. Hall takes over.

For the third week in a row, Playbill.com has felt the need to take thinly disguised digs at Andrew Rannells' box office performance in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And while nothing they have reported has been untrue, the way they are spinning the story is indicative of a problem in the way they and many others view Broadway grosses, and the unrealistic expectations placed on most shows.

In case you somehow hadn't heard, Tony-winner Neil Patrick Harris brought in ridiculous amounts of cash during his 5 month stint as the German transgendered rocker. The show was routinely sold-out, set various house records at the Belasco Theatre, and spent most of the summer grossing more than $1 million per week. Obviously, the producers of the revival were wise to wait until Harris' schedule allowed him to do the show before mounting a Broadway production, which recouped its entire investment in mid-July. It was a given that the show would see a decrease in box office receipts when Harris departed (it was mildly surprising the producers decided to keep the show running without him), but I think spinning Rannells' run thus far as a financial disappointment is a disservice to Rannells, the show, and Broadway in general.

Last week, Hedwig made $514,411 (59% of its potential gross) and played to 70% capacity crowds. That is a large step down from last week's 81% potential gross and 93% full houses and an even bigger drop from Harris' heyday, but every single show on Broadway saw significant (often six figure) drops in grosses following the Labor Day holiday. The one exception to this is the Nathan Lane-Matthew Broderick led It's Only a Play, which managed to buck the trend by having 8 performances instead of the 5 it had the week before. Hedwig is still doing better, gross-wise, than the much more expensive Cinderella, Best Musical winner Once, and the Diane Paulus-helmed Pippin.

Considering that Hedwig is a cult musical which until a few months ago no one was sure could succeed on the Great White Way and has lost its main selling point, I'd call those numbers just fine. As a small show with low running costs which has already recouped (there aren't many costumes or pricey technical elements, and you can bet that Rannells' salary isn't anywhere near what Harris was being paid), Hedwig likely has a very low bar to clear in order to remain profitable. And while Rannells is popular within theatre circles, he doesn't have nearly the mainstream appeal or drawing power as Harris. Viewed in that light, the fact that he and the Hedwig brand can fill the Belasco to 70% capacity during a notoriously slow time of year is something to be celebrated.

The fact that many people view these numbers as disappointing points to a larger problem in the unrealistic expectations producers and the public have for Broadway shows. Because shows like Wicked and The Lion King have done so well for so many years, they have erroneously become the yard sticks by which a potential hit is judged. This is akin to saying that an athlete is no good because they aren't performing at Olympic medal levels, which is absolutely ridiculous. The last place finisher at the Olympics is still better than a huge percentage of the population, and the fact that Hedwig continues to run (and has just announced an extension into January 2015) while other spring shows have already closed is a testament to how well the show is doing financially. Just because a show isn't making $1 million a week doesn't mean it's doing poorly, and we shouldn't consider shows a disappointment if they don't run for 10+ years.

But unfortunately, many people do use those metrics as the measure of a show's success, which is unfair to the industry and all the very talented people working in it. It casts the industry in a poor light and makes the theatre seem much less healthy than it actually is; as I have stated before, I think the current model of more shows with shorter runs is ultimately better and more exciting for the industry artistically. And while I am not privy to any budgeting meetings for Broadway shows, I think too many shows are budgeted in a way that they have to do sell-out business to be financially viable, since that is what is expected of a "successful" show.

So let's try to focus on the positive. If a relative unknown like Andrew Rannells can retain such a large percentage of certified star Neil Patrick Harris' box office numbers, that is a win. It shows that audiences are in fact interested in the show and not just the lead actor, something that should be encouraging to all the people who decry Broadway's current obsession with celebrity vehicles. And if numbers continue to decline and Hedwig closes before the new year, who cares? By every metric that matters, the production is an unqualified success, and exposed a great piece of contemporary musical theatre to a much larger audience than could ever fit in the show's original Off-Broadway home and the small spaces it is traditionally performed in. To borrow the famed Gershwin lyric, "who could ask for anything more?"

2014 Fall Preview: The Musicals

Erin Davie and Emily Padgett are set to reprise their roles as conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton in the Broadway transfer of the acclaimed Kennedy Center production of the cult musical Side Show.

Although I am vehemently opposed to our nation's obsession with pumpkin everything and the attendant rush to have it be fall RIGHT NOW, there's no denying that the summer is coming to a close. The coming months will see a bevy of new Broadway productions begin performances, and since I've already examined the fall's crop of plays it's time to turn our attention to the type of theatre that is most synonymous with the Great White Way: the Broadway musical. While there aren't nearly as many musicals as plays premiering in the coming months, the industry seems to have collectively decided on a quality-over-quantity approach. (Almost) Every single musical, new or revived, sounds like an enticing evening at the theatre, and I am legitimately excited for them. So without further ado, here are the upcoming shows that will hopefully have us singing and dancing in the aisle this coming fall.

On the Town
Previews begin 9/20; Opening Night 10/16

While I'm not convinced the current Broadway economy can really support a big budget, old school song-and-dance fest like On the Town, I'm sure glad some producers have decided to give it a try. The Bernstein-Comden-Green musical perfectly fits my criteria for shows that merit a full scale revival (it's a well-liked musical that was a huge hit during its original run that isn't produced very often anymore), and it will be nice to see another dance musical on the Great White Way now that Newsies has ceased carrying the banner. I'm concerned On the Town has booked Spider-Man's old theatre (the freshly renamed Lyric), because I don't think the musical has the kind of drawing power to consistently sell a house that size, but hopefully the producers keep running costs low so it won't need to be a sell-out hit to survive.

The Last Ship
Previews begin 9/30; Opening Night 10/26

This is the one musical I am not interested in seeing, thanks mostly to the snooze-inducing preview performance on this year's Tony telecast. Multiple Grammy-winner Sting tries his hand at writing showtunes for this semi-autobiographical show about a shipbuilding town in England struggling to stave off financial ruin. As Bono and the Edge proved with their disastrous Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, success and acclaim in the recording industry doesn't always translate to the stage, and quite honestly the entire affair sounds dull and uninteresting. In fairness, The Last Ship received encouraging (but by no means stellar) reviews during its out of town tryout, but it's going to need really strong buzz to convince me I want to sit through 2 1/2 hours of the same type of low-key material showcased on the Tonys.

Side Show
Previews begin 10/28; Opening Night 11/17

It took longer than I initially expected, but the well-reviewed Kennedy Center production of this 1997 cult-musical is officially coming to Broadway, and I couldn't be more excited. While the original production of Side Show only ran for a couple of months, the musical's reputation has only grown since its premature closing thanks to an intriguing premise - it tells the story of real-life conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton - and a fantastic score. The show has been retooled, rethought, and rewritten by original authors Henry Krieger and Bill Russell along with the revival's director, Bill Condon (an Oscar winner who is also responsible for the fantastic film version of Krieger's Dreamgirls). I'm concerned about the show's financial prospects - dark musical dramas are a hard sell these days - but I will certainly be in attendance, and I hope this new production is the beginning of a long and prosperous second life for the ambitious property.

Honeymoon in Vegas
Previews begin 11/18; Opening Night 1/15/15

While I couldn't begin to tell you why a show The New York Times' Ben Brantley practically demanded transfer to Broadway has a two month preview period, the important thing is Honeymoon in Vegas is coming to bless us with another glorious Jason Robert Brown score. While this is the first full-fledged comedy the three-time Tony-winner has written, his previous works are rife with inventive lyrics and fun, uptempo melodies in songs like The Last 5 Year's "Summer in Ohio" or Songs for a New World's "Surabaya-Santa." It also marks the Broadway return of rising star Rob McClure, who will hopefully find a vehicle more worthy of his talents than the misguided Chaplin a few years back. If the show is as good as early buzz suggests, Honeymoon may give Brown his first commercial success, something that should help ease the sting of the criminally chilly reception his brilliant Bridges of Madison County received earlier this year. (Sidenote: both the show and leading lady Kelli O'Hara were *robbed* of Tony Awards this year!)


And there you have it! Those are all 16 productions scheduled to premiere on Broadway this fall. Which shows are you most excited about? Don't be afraid to let me know in the comments!

And in case you missed it, here are the previous two parts of my Fall Preview:

2014 Fall Preview: Play Revivals
2014 Fall Preview: New Plays