2018 Tony Awards Final Thoughts

Well that certainly didn't go down as expected. The 2018 Tony Awards managed to be simultaneously surprising and rather uninteresting in a night that saw The Band's Visit essentially sweep with 10 wins (its only loss was Best Scenic Design to SpongeBob SquarePants). I have lots of thoughts about last night's ceremony, which for organization's sake will be broken into two broad categories: the telecast itself and the actual winners.

The Tony Telecast

Broadway alumni and 2018 Tony hosts Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles

While I have major qualms about the actual results of this year's Tonys, I have to say that overall I thought it was a well produced event. Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles proved to be excellent hosts, smartly playing up their musical skills while maintaining an easygoing, slightly self-deprecating vibe. Their opening number poking fun at their own "loser" status and name checking other famous Tony also-rans instantly diffused some of the tension in the room and allowed everyone to just enjoy the ceremony for what it was. The pair had some clever bits - including a rewritten, vocal fatigue focused take on Sia's "Chandelier" - and were fairly quick witted during the inevitable snafus of a live event (I was particularly amused by Bareilles' "magic delay" quip during the Harry Potter inspired bit).

When it came to the performance numbers from this season's shows, there were more good than bad, although not every show was a home run. The Mean Girls cast in particular seemed slightly terrified, an understandable case of nerves for a group where a high percentage of the cast was making their Tony Award debut. My Fair Lady also did itself a disservice by trying to cram 3 separate songs into their allotted time, which caused Norbert Leo Butz's normally showstopping "Get Me to the Church on Time" to appear unnecessarily manic and chaotic (Lauren Ambrose was in fine voice for her abridged "The Rain in Spain/I Could Have Danced All Night"). There were some odd sound issues with the Frozen number, although it still showcased the production well and demonstrated how surprising it was that neither Patti Murin or Caissie Levy netted even a nomination (Murin in particular is utterly charming).

On the positive side, Once On This Island absolutely *killed* it. From the recreation of the show's unique environmental staging to the phenomenally talented cast, they were easily my favorite performance of the night and would be the show I'd most want tickets for after the telecast (even before their Best Revival win). Tony nominee Hailey Kilgore was particularly luminous in her highlighted section, and Alex Newell just reaffirmed my assertion that he was robbed of a Best Feature Actor nomination. The divisive revival of Carousel also looked great with the surprising choice to do "Blow Low, Blow High;" in retrospect it was a brilliant choice that allowed them to highlight the show's strongest assets, Joshua Henry's glorious baritone and Justin Peck's Tony-winning choreography. And even the most cynical audience member had to be at least a tad charmed by Gavin Lee's tap-tastic "(I'm Not a) Loser" from SpongeBob SquarePants, proving the Nickelodeon adaptation didn't get all those Tony nods by accident.

The show also moved at a good clip, although that occasionally came at the expense of the winners' acceptance speeches. The telecast producers sure seemed to arbitrarily enforce the acceptance time limit, allowing certain (usually famous) winners to ramble on while others were cut off entirely. It seemed particularly egregious that they didn't let Jack Thorne, author of the Tony-winning Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, utter a single word while allowing John Leguizamo's rambling introduction of an equally rambling underscored monologue by Bruce Springsteen.

And while I have begrudgingly accepted that a lot of the "lesser" awards will be given out off air, they *really* couldn't make time for Broadway ROYALTY Chita Rivera and Andrew Lloyd Webber to receive their Lifetime Achievement awards on air?!? It's as if to say, "Thank you for dedicating your entire life to the theatre, but you're not as important as the Hollywood celebrities and recording artists that pop by once a decade or so." For shame, CBS. For shame.

The Winners

Lead producer Orin Wolf accepts the Best Musical Tony on behalf of The Band's Visit.

No point in mincing words: I was incredibly wrong about the way this season's awards would shake out (you can see just how wrong here). In my defense I don't think anyone expected The Band's Visit to do as well as it did, even those who expected it to win Best Musical. With 10 wins it becomes one of the most awarded productions in Tony history, and while I try to take a positive spin on this blog the fact of the matter is the show simply doesn't deserve a lot of them.

Best Actor is probably the most egregious mistake. First of all, Tony Shahloub was nominated in the wrong category, as his performance is a featured one and he was clearly only upgraded to leading status due to his fame. More importantly, his merely adequate performance in no way deserved to triumph over truly sensational work by Joshua Henry in Carousel or Henry Hadden-Paton in My Fair Lady. David Cromer's Best Direction win also feels exceedingly generous considering the superbly inventive work done by people like SpongeBob SquarePants' Tina Landau or Once On This Island's Michael Arden. And while I don't claim to be an expert in sound design, SpongeBob has a live Foley pit that produces the cartoon sound effects live each night; how is that not enough to win a Tony? And finally, I would like to point out that even the CBS producers clearly expected Tina Fey to win Best Book, which would explain why that category merited inclusion on the actual telecast instead of being relegated to the Tony preshow like Best Score (an award The Band's Visit both won and deserved).

The most common explanation offered for The Band's Visit's surprisingly strong showing is that Tony voters were rebelling against a season they felt was too overtly commercial. Which may well be true, but would also be a somewhat erroneous justification on voters' part as it is also based on a movie just like the rest of this year's Best Musical nominees. I guess the fact that it's an obscure movie makes it more palatable to voters? Regardless, it is not a show I foresee having a long life either in New York or afterward, nor do I think it will be much remembered or performed in 5-10 years' time.

In happier news, I was positively thrilled for Once On This Island's Best Revival win. While I would have been more than happy for expected winner My Fair Lady to take the crown, Once On This Island is the most heartfelt production of the current season and more than deserves the recognition. And Broadway baby Lindsay Mendez is another well deserving winner for her performance in Carousel, whose acceptance speech was equal parts charming and inspiring. Her speech is also a sobering reminder the recent discussions around diversity onstage are sorely needed, as whoever advised the now 35 year old Mendez to change her last name to get more work clearly did so in the past 10-15 years.

Overall, after some exceptional recent seasons this past year's crop of Broadway shows were a bit of an artistic letdown, particularly when it comes to new works. Yet it was also the highest grossing and best attended season on record, which provides little incentive for producers to change what they're doing. (Although it should be pointed out a good portion of that money comes from past seasons' blockbusters like Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, Hello, Dolly! and of course Hamilton.) It will be interesting to see if The Band's Visit's massive Tony haul affects what gets produced in the coming years, or if Broadway continues down the path of adapting relatively safe/known properties.

Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments, and keep an eye on this space for more reviews and opinions about all things Broadway!

2018 Tony Predictions: Best Play and Musical

After a month of celebration and speculation, the 2018 Tony Awards are almost upon us! All that's left to predict are Best Play and Best Musical, the two awards most likely to positively impact a show's success on Broadway and beyond. Best Musical in particular can make or break a show; Wicked was going to run regardless, but does anyone think Avenue Q would have had the life it's had without the boost provided by its surprise Best Musical win?

So which shows will triumph at Sunday night's ceremony? And do they actual deserve to win? Read on to find out!

Best Play

The Broadway cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Nominees: The Children; Farinelli and the King; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Junk; Latin History for Morons

I could expend a lot of mental energy trying to concoct scenarios where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child loses this award, but its win feels so assured that it would be a waste of time. Like Best Revival of a Play frontrunner Angels in America, Cursed Child is an epic two-part play that by all accounts has expertly translated JK Rowling's Wizarding World to the stage, including reportedly jaw dropping feats of stage magic (Potter is almost certain to sweep the design categories). Lovingly crafted and beautifully acted, the consensus is the play actually deserves the massive financial success its enjoyed since before previews even started, when it amassed a staggering $20 million in advanced ticket sales. Cursed Child is also the only show in this category currently running, which has always been a massive advantage when it comes to winning Tonys. The only real negative for the show is that a win here can't really boost the already sky high box office for a show that remains sold out for many months to come.

Will & Should Win: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Best Musical

Ethan Slater and the Broadway cast of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Nominees: The Band's Visit; Frozen; Mean Girls; SpongeBob SquarePants

Now this is an interesting race. The only show I feel comfortable completely ruling out is Frozen, a competent stage adaptation of Disney's blockbuster film that failed to make much of an impression on Tony nominators or the theatre community at large. That's not to be confused with outright failure, as the $1.8 million in weekly grosses attests, but it certainly hasn't captured the imagination in the way The Lion King did back in 1998. And without at least some passionate supporters in your camp, it is very difficult to win Best Musical.

The conventional wisdom is The Band's Visit will win this award, but there are some important caveats that need to be taken into account. It is not the most nominated show of the season - both Mean Girls and SpongeBob got more total nods - and while that doesn't always correlate with a Best Musical win leading the nomination pack certain helps a show's overall chances. The Band's Visit is clearly the *critic's* favorite musical (see all the "Best of the Year" mentions it loudly trumpets in its marketing campaigns), but the critics haven't been able to vote for the Tonys since the 2009-2010. Not coincidentally, that was the season clear critical favorite and most nominated musical Fela! was bested by the more accessible and crowd pleasing Memphis for Best Musical, a particularly relevant piece of Tony history as The Band's Visit is similarly so concerned with being Art that it sometimes forgets to be entertaining.

If I was a Tony voter, I would vote for Mean Girls, the show that best combines sheer entertainment value with theatrical craft and some emotional depth. Tina Fey's adaptation of her iconic film is a blisteringly funny satire of teen cliques that genuinely has something to say about the way people treat one another. It keeps everything that made the movie enjoyable while finding new and interesting takes on the familiar plots and characters, including an extended metaphor about predator and prey and more nuanced investigations of many of the side characters. Add an appealing young cast and director Casey Nicholaw's trademark energy and you have a surefire crowd pleaser whose only real fault is that it tries so hard to make you like it.

But while Mean Girls has been consistently nominated for big awards, it has struggled to win most of them, often losing to fellow Best Musical nominee SpongeBob SquarePants. Admiration for the Nickelodeon adaptation has been steadily growing throughout the spring, including strong showings at both the Outer Critic's Circle and Drama Desk Awards, where it took home top honors. It has successfully capitalized on its underdog status to become a major contender, and the more I think about it the more I expect a "surprise" upset for this little show that could on Sunday night. The Band's Visit, perhaps a victim of its own hype, has proven disappointing and/or alienating to a fair number of people, while SpongeBob has consistently impressed by being a lot better than it has any right to be. If Memphis can beat Fela! and Kinky Boots can beat Matilda, SpongeBob can certainly beat The Band's Visit, and honestly probably deserves to.

Will Win: SpongeBob SquarePants
Should Win: Mean Girls

And that's it for this year's Tony predictions! Tune in to the Tony telecast on Sunday, June 10th to find out how I did, and check back early next week to get my final thoughts on this season's winners! In the meantime, make your voice heard in the comments, and check out the rest of my Tony coverage by clicking below:

Tony Nominations React
Book and Score
Direction and Choreography
Featured Actor
Featured Actress
Actor
Actress
Revival

2018 Tony Predictions: Best Actress

The 2018 Tony Awards are just over a week away, and we are continuing full speed ahead with our annual Tony predictions. Today we finish up the acting races with the Leading Actresses, breaking down who will win and pointing out who deserves to win while we're at it. Read on below!

Best Actress in a Play

Glenda Jackson as A in Three Tall Women.

Nominees: Glenda Jackson, Three Tall Women; Condola Rashad, Saint Joan; Lauren Ridloff, Children of a Lesser God; Amy Schumer, Meteor Shower

This is the easiest Tony category to predict; in fact, I'll go so far as to call it a lock. Glenda Jackson has already won multiple awards for her leading turn in Three Tall Women, including the hyper competitive Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League, which is only awarded to one performer per year and can only be won once in a performer's lifetime.

As if that wasn't enough of an advantage, Jackson also faces less competition than normal with only three other nominees, none of whom have inspired much fervor among Tony voters. Amy Schumer is a somewhat surprising nominee from the long-shuttered Meteor Shower, and I don't know anyone who expects her to win. Meanwhile, Condola Rashad looks set to continue her streak as a perpetual Tony bridesmaid, with Saint Joan barely limping through its limited run with half-empty houses and zero buzz, either positive or negative. And while I'm sure Tony voters will love the story of Children of a Lesser God's Lauren Ridloff - a first time actress who was brought in as a consultant on Deaf culture and won the role of Sarah after being asked to play it during a reading - the show's early closing certainly hasn't helped her chances. If anyone can unseat Jackson it's probably Ridloff, but that seems about as likely as Hamilton closing anything this decade.

Will Win: Glenda Jackson, Three Tall Women
Should Win: Abstain

Best Actress in a Musical

Katrina Lenk as Dina in The Band's Visit.

Nominees: Lauren Ambrose, My Fair Lady; Hailey Kilgore, Once On This Island; LaChanze, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical; Katrina Lenk, The Band's Visit; Taylor Louderman, Mean Girls; Jessie Mueller, Carousel

As with Best Featured Actress in a Musical, there are some bizarre choices and omissions here. How Tony voters overlooked Patti Murin's luminous, star-making turn as Princess Anna in Frozen is beyond me, as I would rank her work above several of the nominated actresses without hesitation. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Jessie Mueller's inclusion for Carousel feels like a force of habit nomination more than something the Tony-winning actress earned. The Rodgers and Hamemrstein revival is far from Mueller's best work, not helped by the fact she is saddled with a problematic "leading" role which has failed to result in even a Tony nomination for those who've played it before her. It's also a bit of a stretch to argue that Taylor Louderman's take on Regina George in Mean Girls belongs in the leading category, although its harder to begrudge the first time Tony nominee her time in the spotlight.

That leaves us with four viable candidates to actually win, and I think we can safely rule out LaChanze's diva-riffic performance in Summer. I'm sure the previous Tony-winner is doing great work as late disco star Donna Summer, but the musical is so reviled by critics a win for her seems borderline impossible. I think both Hailey Kilgore and Once On This Island in general have ardent supporters among the community, but for whatever reason that show hasn't quite ignited Tony voters the way I thought it would (and should). My best guess as to why is the show opened just *slightly* too early in the season, and voters have been distracted by the newer productions that have premiered since then.

The Band's Visit actually opened prior to Island, but the difference here is that many people consider it the frontrunner for Best Musical, and so it is continually on people's minds. Katrina Lenk is quite bewitching as Dina, the sole female presence of any consequence in the show and the closest thing the ensemble piece has to a lead. If more of Visit lived up to her performance of the haunting ballad "Omar Sharif" I would probably like it a lot more than I currently do, but I still find her hobbled by the piece's frustratingly restrained, understated tone that is subtle to the point of being nonexistent.

Meanwhile Lauren Ambrose is giving the most fully realized musical characterization of the season in My Fair Lady at the Vivan Beaumont Theatre. Her Eliza is also heavily reliant on subtext and acting between the lines, but Ambrose manages an emotional accessibility Lenk lacks without sacrificing the latter's nuance. The only real criticism I have of Ambrose's performance is that while her sweet soprano can sound a bit small in that cavernous theatre, and you have definitely heard the role of Eliza sung better. What you likely *haven't* seen is a better acted version, and her singing is strong enough that you can forgive those times her voice is merely good instead of great.

As far as I'm concerned, Ambrose has more than earned this award. She may well win it, as demonstrated by her victory at the Outer Critics' Circle Awards over largely the same field of competitors. But the objective part of me suspects that Tony voters will go with Lenk due to their love for Band's Visit (and residual love for last season's Indecent, also starring Lenk).

Will Win: Katrina Lenk, The Band's Visit
Should Win: Lauren Ambrose, My Fair Lady
Should Have Been Nominated: Patti Murin, Frozen



Keep checking this space for more 2018 Tony Award predictions in the weeks ahead! In the meantime, make your voice heard in the comments, and check out the rest of my Tony coverage by clicking below:

Tony Nominations React
Book and Score
Direction and Choreography
Featured Actor
Featured Actress
Actor

2018 Tony Predictions: Book and Score

And just like that, it's Tony season! As always, I will be doing my best to predict this year's winners, and pointing out any discrepancies between who I think *will* win and who *deserves* to win in my analysis. This season has not produced a Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen level juggernaut, which actually makes a lot of the races more interesting as there isn't a runaway smash to dominate the new musical categories like Best Book and Best Score. So how do I think these two prestigious categories will go down? Read on to find out!

Best Book

Erika Henningson as Cady Heron and Ashley Park, Taylor Louderman, and Karen Rockwell as the titular Mean Girls.

Nominees: Itamar Moses, The Band's Visit; Jennifer Lee, Frozen; Tina Fey, Mean Girls; Kyle Jarrow, SpongeBob SquarePants

No point in beating around the bush: this is Tina Fey's award to lose. Her book for Mean Girls is just as hysterically funny and endlessly quotable as the film, and although this is her Broadway debut she is a beloved comedy icon the Broadway community has welcomed with open arms. Her greatest competition is Itamar Moses for The Band's Visit, a critical darling of a musical character study which I found to be lacking in the character department. Understated to a fault, Moses' book does a poor job of transitioning into the musical numbers or sufficiently establishing the characters when they aren't singing, leaving the whole show feeling dramatically inert.

If anyone truly deserves to upset Fey it's Kyle Jarrow, who crafted an original narrative for SpongeBob SquarePants that for the most part seamlessly integrates the songs of over a dozen pop artists. He's a big reason SpongeBob feels like a proper musical and not a corporation-birthed Frankenstein monster, and he deftly balances appeasing the cartoon's massive fan base while keeping the show accessible to those who have never seen an episode in their life. As for Frozen's Jennifer Lee, she has admirable expanded her original screenplay for the stage, but will have to settle for the honor of being nominated (and the huge royalty checks Disney sends her each month).

Will and Should Win: Tina Fey, Mean Girls

Bonus Prediction: After years of handing out Best Book during commercial breaks, the Tony telecast will magically find time to actually show this category and its presumed big name winner on air.

Best Score

The cast of The Band's Visit on Broadway.

Nominees: Adrian Sutton, Angels in America; David Yazbek, The Band's Visit; Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, Frozen; Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin, Mean Girls; Various Artists, SpongeBob SquarePants

A week hours ago this category seemed pretty cut and dry. David Yazbek, previously nominated in this category three times without winning, has written the score to the most critically lauded musical of the season. And his ethereal music for The Band's Visit is easily the most beguiling part of that production, so a Tony Award appeared to be in his immediate future. But then the Outer Critics' Circle awarded Best Score to the 17 recording artists behind SpongBob SquarePants, a show that increasingly looks like it could be a major dark horse contender during this year's awards season.

However, while SpongeBob's win is an interesting wrinkle, it probably won't affect the final outcome. Remember that Yazbek wasn't eligible for this year's OCCs since The Band's Visit premiered Off-Broadway last season and so competed in the 2017 awards (which it and Yazbek both won). I still consider him the front runner, but if there were to be an upset, SpongeBob now seems the most likely suspect. The merely serviceable score of unmemorable songs in Mean Girls poses no real threat. Meanwhile, husband and wife team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have beautifully augmented Frozen's score for the stage, but the Disney megamusical has left critics cold and no one can argue the multiple Oscar and Emmy winners *need* another award. And while its wonderful for Adrian Sutton that his Angels in America score was nominated, this is still at heart a musical songwriting category, and I cannot imagine Tony voters going against that with even semi-viable alternatives, which they have.

Will and Should Win: David Yazbek, The Band's Visit


Keep checking this space for more 2018 Tony Award predictions in the weeks ahead! In the meantime, make your voice heard in the comments, and check out the rest of my Tony coverage by clicking below:

Tony Nominations React

Here He Is Boys, Here He Is World

Hello hello hello! As you may have noticed, I've been on a bit of a hiatus lately. This was not a conscious choice, something that just happened as life got busier (I'm engaged now!). Also, if I'm being 100% honest, the current Broadway season hasn't been particularly inspiring to me. It's not that the shows have been bad - some were lovely - but for whatever reason I haven't felt compelled to write about them.

Anyway, for the time being at least, I'm back. I don't promise new posts with anything resembling regularity, and it's highly possible that I fall behind again. But a couple of people have expressed interest in hearing my thoughts on the current Broadway season, which is both encouraging and humbling, and if interest continues then I will do my best to keep things somewhat current.

Since I haven't been posting about this current season, I am obviously behind when it comes to reviews. There's no way I'll have the time to go back and write reviews for productions I saw months ago, so below I've compiled my brief thoughts about the Broadway shows I've seen since my last blog post.

The Play That Goes Wrong

An hysterically funny farce by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields, The Play That Goes Wrong has understandably been compared to the pinnacle of the genre, Noises Off. And while it isn't quite as airtight as that masterwork, this tale of the Cornley University Drama Society trying and failing to perform a murder mystery is comedy gold. Anything that can go wrong does, including missed cues, actor injuries, and a set that is literally falling apart at the seams (for which designer Nigel Hook rightly took home a 2017 Tony Award). I saw the show's now departed original cast, who all nailed the specific mix of desperation and naivety which would allow a group of amateur actors to keep going in the face of missed cues, concussions, and multiple mid-show cast replacements. And I have rarely seen slapstick executed with such effortless precision, recalling the screwball comedy of a Three Stooges short. I'm sure the current cast is just as delightful, and I'd highly recommend The Play That Goes Wrong for anyone in search of a laugh.

Once On This Island

Full confession: Once On This Island was the first show I ever performed in, and I would not have my love of theatre if not for that experience, which is a roundabout way of saying I'm a bit biased here. That said, director Michael Arden's stellar revival of Ahrens and Flaherty's very first Broadway musical does not disappoint. It thrillingly embraces everything that makes live theatre magical, presenting a gorgeously realized island fairy tale through the use of found objects and consistently excellent staging. (Arden is given a major assist by set designer Dane Laffrey and lighting designers Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer.) The performances are uniformly excellent, particularly Hailey Kilgore in her Broadway debut as leading lady Ti Moune, and Alex Newell's roof-raising performance as Asaka that culminates in a showstopping rendition of "Mama Will Provide." And a special shout out to the entire creative team for their willingness to think outside the box when it comes to casting the show's four gods, breaking racial and gender norms to find the absolute best collection of actors for those roles. The best thing I've seen so far this season.

The Band's Visit

The highbrow hit of the fall, I have to admit The Band's Visit left me cold. A slice of life drama following an Egyptian band who winds up stranded in a small Israeli town for one evening due to a scheduling error, I knew ahead of time it would be more of a character study than a plot-driven show and I still couldn't bring myself to care. The performances are all fine, including Katrina Lenk's much heralded performance as the female lead (although I would rate her as solidly "good" rather than "great"). And at 90 intermissionless minutes, it certainly doesn't have the bloat of some Broadway shows. But beyond David Yazbeck's beautifully ethereal score, I think people are mistaking novelty for quality with this one. It's really more of a play with music than a musical, and not a particularly groundbreaking play at that.

SpongeBob SquarePants

The surprise of the season. Despite its very corporate origins, SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the more inventive, whimsical, and just plain fun shows to arrive on Broadway in the past few years. As someone with only a peripheral knowledge of the TV show, I was still thoroughly amused by the denizens of Bikini Bottom and their zany antics. Book writer Kyle Jarrow capitalizes on the cartoon's particular charms, which gleefully insist you take whatever surreal flight of fancy the creators throw at you in stride, be it a megalomaniac plankton married to a literal computer or a Texan squirrel who lives underwater. David Zinn's costume and scenic designs reference the cartoon without literally recreating it, using found objects and simple stylistic choices to create the show's world. And director Tina Landua has coached her first rate cast to delightfully realized, lived in performances that honor their cartoon counterparts without feeling like slavish impersonations. Ethan Slater is perfectly cast as the titular sea sponge, and there are especially delightful scene stealing turns from Gavin Lee as a tap-dancing Squidward J. Tentacles and Wesley Taylor as the diabolical Sheldon Plankton. Mark my words, this will be a "surprise" Best Musical nominee come Tony time.

Frozen

Anna, Elsa, and the denizens of Arendelle have arrived on Broadway in Disney's big budget stage adaptation of their record setting animated smash hit. And while money clearly prompted the show's creation, I'm happy to report it's a fairly solid adaptation. The stage version adds plenty of new material without the disjointed feeling that sometimes plagues Disney musicals, probably due to Broadway's Frozen having the exact same creative team as the movie. The costumes and sets by Christopher Oram are gorgeous, with all of it beautifully lit by Natasha Katz. The performances are uniformly solid, with particularly standout work from Patti Murin as Anna; she manages to be at turns quirky, endearing, earnest, and even genuinely moving, all while singing like a dream and displaying excellent chemistry with her various costars. Cassie Levy nails all of Elsa's big numbers (the self-exiled queen gets several more Wicked-esque solos onstage), although she doesn't pop as much as Murin due to spending a good chunk of the show alone in her ice palace with no one to talk to. I will say Michael Grandage's staging is not particularly inspired, and the show could stand a few more "wow" moments when it comes to the special effects, which occasionally cross the line from "simple" into "cheap looking." But there are far worse ways to spend a night in the theatre, and the core audience of young girls will eat it up.

Mean Girls (DC Tryout)

I have not seen the Broadway production of Mean Girls, but I *did* make my way down to Washington DC for the show's out of town tryout last fall and found it to be sooo fetch. Tina Fey has adapted her now-classic teen comedy for the stage in a way that honors everything you love about the endlessly quotable film while also adding enough new material and modern updates to keep things fresh (the Plastics have cell phones and social media now). Fey's book is laugh out loud funny, both the lines you know  by heart and the abundance of new jokes and references. The high energy cast is a uniform treat, particularly Taylor Louderman, Ashley Park, and Kate Rockwell as the titular mean girls Regina, Gretchen, and Karen (Rockwell deserves a Tony nod for her especially riotous work). Casey Nicholaw has staged the show with his usual sleek production value, and if the songs by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin aren't the most memorable they definitely keep things moving. My biggest criticism out of town was that the show sometimes felt a bit manic, but I had a similar reaction upon first seeing Legally Blonde, a show I now find quite delightful. My current pick for Best Musical of the year.


If you have more specific questions about any of the above, let me know in the comments! And please share this blog with friends or family you think would enjoy it!