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SUFFS Will Play Final Broadway Performance In January

All the photos on A View From Seat and Seatplan made it look like the stage is very high, so I went with a few rows back on the side. I'm guessing that's why the first row isn't for sale--because they're using it for lottery since it's below the stage.

https://aviewfrommyseat.com/venue/Lunt-Fontanne+Theatre/Orchestra+C/

https://seatplan.com/new-york/lunt-fontanne-theatre/seating-plan/

Based on the set from the Chicago run, would anyone recommend orchestra left or right, or are they the same? (I know the set could be different but since previews haven't started it's all we have to go on.)

Mellony, your posts are more interesting than anything JSquared2 has ever contributed to these boards, so please continue.

Anyone go tonight(/last night)? So far one negative review on Show Score that says it's "a play one would only find believable in America" (interesting since it's based on a foreign film that has been remade around the world...) and one on Reddit that says it's "equally funny, uncomfortable, and provocative." Curious to hear more.

Slant

https://www.slantmagazine.com/theater/the-hills-of-california-our-town-review/

"Leon has admirably made Grover’s Corners into an inclusive utopia beyond the monochromatic Vermont idylls that Wilder would have imagined 85 years ago. But in doing so, he also seems to have smoothed out not only the conflict that would prevent a diverse town from thriving in 1938 but also eliminated too much of the drama that ripples throughout any community. Until death strikes, late in the play, few scenes feel loaded with enough specificity in characterization to generate much tension at all, making for a placid but not very gripping first half."

Theatermania

Review: Our Town Returns to Broadway With Jim Parsons, a Diverse Cast, and Onstage Seating

Kenny Leon invigorates Thornton Wilder’s classic at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-our-town-returns-to-broadway-with-jim-parsons-a-diverse-cast-and-onstage-seating_1752331/

NY Sun

Under the Direction of Kenny Leon, Broadway Revival of ‘Our Town’ Is a Plea for Harmony in Our Time

Leon’s aim, clearly, is to make us wish for a better world, and as it’s relayed here, that goal doesn’t seem at all incongruous with Thornton Wilder’s vision.

https://www.nysun.com/article/under-the-direction-of-kenny-leon-broadway-revival-of-our-town-is-a-plea-for-harmony-in-our-time

Holdren in Vulture:

Stage, Managed: A TV-Star-Driven Our Town

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-jim-parsons-kenny-leon-our-town.html

"That fundamental drive — that feeling of questing clarity, of the necessity of returning to an old play to excavate its glowing, undiminished heart — is what Kenny Leon’s new Broadway production lacks. It’s not painful, but it’s far from revelatory. In certain ways it treads safely down the middle of the road — gets in, gets on with it, gets it over with, and gets out. But Leon (like many post-Cromer directors of the play) also seems to be reaching for gestures to make this visit to Grover’s Corners new and different, and the flourishes wind up feeling tentative or hodgepodge-y, never coalescing. At the end of the show, he goes so far as to pipe the smell of bacon into the auditorium — the Cinnabon version of Cromer’s innovation. Wilder was adamant that his play needed “only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.” The man knew what he was about. Start adding icing and you’d better know, too."

The Wrap

‘Our Town’ Broadway Review: Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes Walk Different Paths

Kenny Leon’s production adds a lot of diversity to Thornton Wilder’s classic

https://www.thewrap.com/our-town-broadway-review-jim-parsons-katie-holmes/

Hofler mostly hates the play but has some nice things to say about the cast

"In addition to Parsons’ pitch-perfect Stage Manager, Billy Eugene Jones and Richard Thomas bring real authenticity to the play’s two fathers, as does Ephraim Sykes in the role of the groom-widower George Gibbs. An extreme condescension, however, enters into the picture with several of the female actors’ performances thanks to the costumes, by Dede Ayite, which are dreadful. Katie Holmes’ mother wears earrings that are diamond studs. Michelle Wilson’s mother wears gold drop earrings. Zoey Deutch’s daughter wears a lace miniskirt. And Julie Halston’s town gossip hasn’t changed her coif or clothes since she last played Bitsy von Muffling in “And Just Like That.” If there’s a dramatic logic to these displays of money, it escapes me. Halston somehow manages to escape the burden of her appearance to deliver a credible performance."

Theatrely

A Haunting Jim Parsons Leads OUR TOWN — Review

https://www.theatrely.com/post/a-haunting-jim-parsons-leads-our-town-review

Washington Post:

Katie Holmes and Jim Parsons lead an ‘Our Town’ aimed at swing states

The Broadway revival presents an inclusive vision of who’s considered ordinary in America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2024/10/10/our-town-broadway-katie-holmes-jim-parsons/

"Leon’s staging is lovely, but I found myself craving a daring challenge to the idea of convention rather than simply an inclusive version of it. Why should the picture of a “typical American life” remain so narrow? Why stuff it with more types of people rather than pull it apart? That’s a job for other storytellers — whose repudiation of norms will hopefully become the new one."

1 1/2 stars from NYP:

‘Our Town’ review: Bland Broadway revival starring Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes doesn’t hit home

https://nypost.com/2024/10/10/entertainment/our-town-review-revival-starring-jim-parsons-and-katie-holmes-doesnt-hit-home/

"Despite the random contemporary touches, the actors get so mired in “gee willikers!” nostalgia and drippy sentimentality Wilder’s script does not call for that playgoers cease to connect to anybody.

Scenes are, at once, overacted — like an olde tyme park — and underacted, with nary a believable or grounded moment to speak of.

The ensemble, including Katie Holmes as Mrs. Webb, Richard Thomas as Mr. Webb and Michelle Wilson as Mrs. Gibbs, all operate on different, conflicting levels of style and energy. Individually, nobody is bad, but collectively, they never cohere. This is less a town than a group of shut-in neighbors who’ve never met."

Daily Beast

Broadway Review: ‘Our Town’ Gets Lost Reaching for the Stars

FUTURE SHOCK

Thornton Wilder’s parable of small town America gets a starry but unfocused Broadway revival, featuring Jim Parsons, Katie Holmes, Billy Eugene Jones, and Richard Thomas.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/broadway-review-our-town-gets-lost-reaching-for-the-stars

"In a director’s note, Leon says the play, as well as being about time, is—in a play mainly devoid of props—about “love, daily life, family pain, joy, marriage.” The play reminds us of the good in us, writes Leon, and the community is “inclusive and embracing of the differences among us.” That is an admirably ambitious brace of themes, if not what the play itself seems to propose."

Deadline is mixed-to-positive

‘Our Town’ Broadway Review: Jim Parsons Leads A Thornton Wilder Classic Unstuck In Time

https://deadline.com/2024/10/our-town-broadway-review-1236109200/

"Leon, a top-notch director who has done recent work that is both more exhilarating (Purlie Victorious) and more revelatory (Home), here makes a few attempts at diversifying and era-defying Wilder’s classic without offering a complete re-think that might have brought fresher life to the theatrical chestnut."

"few of the cast members are on stage long enough to make overlarge impressions, and those that are – with the exception of Parsons – don’t always make the most of the opportunity. Holmes and Thomas are gentle presences but little more, Sykes and Deutch, as the childhood sweethearts who marry and, in the play’s heart-tugging final segment, face life’s final act, are better individually than together. (Deutch does fine, though, in her big scene at the end when, allowed a brief return to the earthly realm, her Emily learns the painful lessons of life’s fragility and swiftness.)"

WSJ

‘Our Town’ Review: Thornton Wilder, Back on Broadway

The new production of the canonical American play, directed by Kenny Leon, sees the classic through through a contemporary lens.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-town-review-thornton-wilder-back-on-broadway-23333989?st=Fu7Uck&mod=googlenewsfeed

"Without notably modifying the text, the director, Kenny Leon, nevertheless presents it through a contemporary lens. Dr. Gibbs and his wife and children are played by black actors, while their neighbors the Webbs are white, and the milkman Howie is played by a hearing-impaired actor. This kind of casting has become common—largely to the good—but it does pose unique problems for Wilder’s play, at least for this viewer."

Variety:

‘Our Town’ Review: Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes Charm in Reimagining of the Broadway Classic

https://variety.com/2024/legit/reviews/our-town-review-broadway-1236171471/

"there is also something to be said about inclusive casting. Adding more depth to a narrative originally written for white, able-bodied actors, Leon’s choice to cast deaf actor John McGinty as milkman Howie Newsome and Black actors in the production further showcase how timeless and universal Wilder’s words are. Despite our differences and the things that divide us, being alive is about the little things: coffee in the morning, a warm place to lay our heads or even hopes of the future. "

B from Entertainment Weekly.

Our Town review: Jim Parsons guides us through the magical simplicity of Thorton Wilder's timeless classic

https://ew.com/our-town-review-jim-parsons-broadway-8726106

"It's Parsons who is our constant, yet his performance is the most difficult to parse: his Stage Manager strikes the Wilder balance of dry yet sincere, but feels rather distanced. He leaves us wanting in some moments — for comfort, sentimentality, or perhaps just clarity — but when the time comes for his critical third act monologue, he has just the right words, just the right tone. "