Profile for LucyEth

Katie Webber was fantastic last night.  I haven't seen any videos of Hurder in the role so can't make a comparison, but with only three hours of prep (as Stro explained to the audience in her pre-curtain speech), Webber was pretty much flawless.  But more than that, really: it felt like a fully developed character, one that she'd been performing for months.  Job very much well done. 

As for the show...I highly doubt that anyone who didn&#3

All in all a terrific evening.  I'm a huge fan, although I realized last night that this was the first time I'd ever seen her live!  On Drag Race she was an indisputable comic genius so I think I was expecting more comedy, more zaniness, so was slightly disappointed.   I wanted to laugh more, particularly in the second half, which got political (how could it not in these frightening times?) and oddly spiritual (when Jinkx brought out a practicing witch to

TheatreFan4, I respectfully disagree.  Given the political climate at the time of the original show, the Emcee would actually expect his audience to laugh at the joke.  And they would.  That's what makes it so chilling.  To step out of character and tell the audience (which is ostensibly the Kit Kat Club audience) not to laugh is absurd.  I wonder if more would be achieved if a modern Emcee were to laugh with the assholes in the audienc

I was in the audience for a performance of "The Buddy Holly Story" the night the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade.  When the actor playing Buddy came out for the final big concert, he brought a sign that read "Abortion is Healthcare."  Apparently he'd corralled the cast into "making a statement."  Needless to say, not something that would have ever happened in 1959.  The audience and management were not happy, to

Kad, I completely agree.  I find it hilarious that the original Facebook poster wrote that Lambert spoke to the audience "without breaking character."  As if an actual 1930s Berlin emcee would admonish his audience for laughing at a joke that, back then, they would have found quite hilarious.  No, this is an actor who's pissed off about the current political situation in 2025 America (and who can blame him, it's an unspeakable nightmare out there), and injecti

Attended the show last night and FULL DISCLOSURE, left at intermission because...well, there seemed absolutely no reason to stay for Act Two.  So do with these impressions what you will.  

My husband and I were super excited to see "Tammy Faye," having read the 2022 Variety review, which labelled it "terrifically entertaining," and Matt Wolf's NY Times anointment, which called it "spectacular entertainment."  We thought, "My God, th

Saw the show yesterday afternoon.  Thought it was hugely entertaining, an old-fashioned musical with modern-day smarts.  David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori have, remarkably, combined a hate crime and the aftershocks of the Trump election to create a funny, moving and important piece of political musical theater -- all the time paying homage to R&H and the great song and dance shows of the past.  It's an odd, relevant and unlikely master work that ends o

Saw this last night.  Close to three hours of sound and fury, signifying not much at all (and not wholly historically accurate).  We witness the birth of the worst kind of tabloid journalism possible, and while much of it resonates and reflects on what's happening in journalism and social media today, I can't say I ever had any "aha" moments.  It's an interesting play, beautifully performed and mounted, but I was never drawn into the st

SPOILERS AHEAD

JBroadway: Apologies for taking so long to get back to you, have been busy with Life!

For me, by cutting unnecessary characters and events -- no-one invents the phone machine, there's no Frank Jr., no lawyer Jerome -- this production clarifies what's important about the story, and that's the relationship between these three people.  There's a poignancy to the "Old Friends" section of "It's a Hit" that never hit me befor

I'm really surprised and disappointed by the negative comments here.  Obviously tastes differ, but I find this to be the only production since the original that justifies the story going backward.  It's always been the conceit, of course, but IMHO the Lapine version (and its subsequent iterations, some of which I have enjoyed very much) simply starts when it starts and goes back in time without ever explaining why.  By eliminating the high school gra

Full disclosure, I'm an original cast member, so this show is very dear to my heart, as you can imagine.  I was there last night and found it thrilling.  It's a complete top-to-bottom reinvention of the show, one that focuses solely on the six main characters, using some earlier book scenes and lyrics, most of which I've never heard before.  Locations are changed, songs are deconstructed, lyrics are reassigned -- and the whole thing works incredibly well.

OMG, saw this last night.  One of the most inept, amateurish evening I've ever experienced in the theater.  And I'm a native New Yorker who's been seeing theater for over 40 years.  (And no, I'm not too old to appreciate well-done fluff.)  Dove Cameron, was out, which might have contributed to the slapdash nature of things, but I can't imagine that her presence would have helped that much.  Truly, this was like a stale Hasty Pudding spoof. &nb

I know it's not fair to judge a show for what it's not, but I think this would have been so much more successful had they concentrated on how a small town deals with homophobia.  Had Beth Leavel and Chris Sieber played Emma's parents (she's too conveniently alone right now, IMHO -- where the hell is grandma?), the writers would have been able to really explore the whole conflicted family vs. town dynamic.  Even if they were accepting parents dealing with a

This was pretty much a total miss for me.  It just had no idea what it wanted to be.  One moment it was a sitcom (and a not very funny one at that), the next a Barbara Stanwyck mother/daughter weepy.  And then at the end we're asked to take it all super seriously.  The anachronistic dialogue drove me crazy.  Every time Glenn Close called Joan "Joanie," I kept thinking "...loves Chachi."  And when the high tone woman at the castle tells&nbs

Saw this tonight and have very mixed feelings.  On the one hand, it definitely takes a while to get going.  The songs don't really have anything to do with what's happening onstage beyond reflecting the moods of the characters.  And there is way too much exposition in Act 1 about people you don't really care about...and never do.  On the other hand, this is the most crazily talented ensemble I've had the privilege to watch since "Come From Aw