Profile for GroupAGroup1

David Cote of the Observer calls BAD CINDERELLA a "garish, braindead riff on the fairytale":

https://observer.com/2023/03/review-bad-cinderellas-glass-slipper-more-like-a-moldy-croc/

 
Also: "It amazes me, frankly, that after decades in the business, Lloyd Webber still has no ability—or desire, perhaps—to write a bona fide musical-theater number okay I'm gonna stop you right there

As someone who knows how kitschy Lloyd Webber's work can be, and as a connoisseur and expert on Sh***y Lyrics in Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals COME ON MAN IT'S NOT THE EIGHTIES ANYMORE YOU CAN'T KEEP GATEKEEPING LLOYD WEBBER AWAY FROM THE GENRE YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP THIS FIGHT EVENTUALLY

Has the creative team made any changes to the score for Broadway? Have numbers been removed/added?

Matt Windman of AMNY: "‘1776’ is reconceived for 2022 with extremely mixed results"

https://www.amny.com/entertainment/theater/review-1776-is-reconceived-for-2022-with-extremely-mixed-results/

Frank Rizzo of Variety:

"The opening moments of this exuberant, thought-provoking and radical revival of “1776” makes it clear who was missing from John Trumbull’s famous painting of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

As the female, transgender, non-binary and racially and ethnically diverse cast arrives on stage, exchanges street clothes for period waistcoats and literally steps into the black buckled shoes of this country’s forefathers, we know immediately that this will be a theatrical re-imagining not only of history, but the acclaimed Tony Award-winning 1969 musical.

Co-directors Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page apply a bold Brechtian brush to this picture with its casting, staging, musical arrangements and design. Without changing the narrative, it adds layers of context that offer further shadings to the musical, even though at times the results are somewhat crude, clunky or overdone."

https://variety.com/2022/legit/reviews/1776-review-broadway-musical-1235394093/

David Gordon of Theatermania is Negative:

"Progress isn't casting Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone's Tony-winning musical 1776 with a BIPOC or gender-expansive company. It's casting 1776 with people who don't look like the Founding Fathers and not drawing attention to it. In that regard, Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus's Roundabout Theatre Company revival at the American Airlines Theatre takes a door left ajar by Hamilton and runs right through it. But this new Broadway mounting (which originated last summer at American Repertory Theatre and will embark on a national tour next spring) wants to have it both ways — they're simultaneously hoping we notice how progressive it's trying to be, but also not really, while emphasizing the wrong things along the way. The result, while enjoyable, shows a fundamental lack of trust and understanding in material that they would see already does the work for them, if they just stopped to listen."

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/review-1776-broadway-2022_94387.html

Here's something I enjoy doing: I have a document on my computer where I write Musical Haikus - as in, haikus about musicals. So I thought I'd put this out on the board, if anyone wants to contribute any of their own!

A few favorites of my own:

- ALLEGRO -
Message: City Bad
That may not be what you meant
But that's what you got

- ASPECTS OF LOVE - 
Lloyd Webber: "This is
A show about human beings"
Me: Oh honey no

Theatermania is Negative:

"I'm sort of baffled by the stage adaptation of The Kite Runner at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Not that it exists; the dramatic bones within Khaled Hosseini's beloved and bestselling novel are strong and worthy. But Matthew Spangler's script is just so clumsy, and Giles Croft's production (which originated at the Nottingham Playhouse and Liverpool Everyman in England in 2013 before moving to the West End years later) is just so bland, that I couldn't help but wonder why this is the theatricalized version of the material that a group of more than two-dozen producers chose to take to Broadway."

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/review-the-kite-runner-broadway_94063.html

Time Out New York gives the production 4 out of 5 Stars:

"...DeBessonet hits these serious points movingly and gracefully at the end of the show, without sacrificing the many pleasures that the musical offers along the way. Into the Woods’s legion fans are well-served by this revival, and at both the Encores! performance and the Broadway press performance that I attended, the audience response was overwhelming. The show, for all its thorniness, engenders the bliss of re-encountering an old friend who is holding up great. What more, in the end, could you wish?"

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/into-the-woods-broadway-review-revival-sara-bareilles-stephen-sondheim

Deadline is a Rave:

"Even in a second- or third-rate production, Into the Woods is delightful, big and lovable and accessible and loaded with some of Stephen Sondheim’s most gorgeous and endearing songs.

In a top-flight production, the 1986 musical is transcendent. And make no mistake: Whatever else this summer will be remembered for, we can say this: New Yorkers and visitors to this city currently have a chance to witness the transcendence of a musical theater masterpiece..."

https://deadline.com/2022/07/into-the-woods-broadway-review-1235061007/

Variety is a Rave:

"The revival that opened on Broadway Sunday night is not just a glorious lifeline for fans reawakening to the wonders of live performance after a long, dark hiatus. It’s a crystalline showcase for sensational performances from an all-star cast of marquee veterans, and a testament to the enduring genius of the beloved musical, now in its fourth Broadway incarnation since premiering in 1987. The biggest giant in the sky this time around is Sondheim himself, and exalting his legacy is the production’s unmistakable guiding principle..."

https://variety.com/2022/theater/reviews/into-the-woods-review-revival-sondheim-broadway-city-center-encores-1235312251/

Alexis Soloski of the New York Times is a Rave:

"After the woods and the wolf and the dark and the knife, Little Red Riding Hood has learned a thing or two. In the first act of “Into the Woods,” while modeling a cloak made from the wolf’s pelt, she shares her wisdom. Be prepared, she advises in “I Know Things Now.” Watch out for strangers. Stephen Sondheim’s bone-dry lyrics supply one more maxim: “Nice,” Little Red concludes, “is different than good.”

True. But isn’t it splendid when a work of musical theater is absolutely both?

Lear deBessonet’s superb production of the Sondheim and James Lapine modern classic “Into the Woods,” which originated at Encores! in May, has made the journey west and south to Broadway. Despite some cast changes, its humor, wonder and humanity have arrived intact. Indeed, they may glimmer even more brightly at the St. James Theater than they did at City Center. So if you saw that recent staging, should you go into the woods again? Unless your budget doesn’t run to Broadway prices, of course you should. To put it another way: Wishes come true, not free..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/theater/into-the-woods-review.html

The Hollywood Reporter is Very Positive:

"Of all the canonical musicals left behind by Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods perhaps more than any other lends itself to elaborate design treatment, with its pile-up of fairy-tale characters both high- and low-born and its forest setting yielding equal parts enchantment and disillusionment. Recent New York productions have painstakingly conjured that storybook environment with scenic splendor or crafty props, while Rob Marshall’s starry 2014 film was a sumptuous blend of Brothers Grimm and Disney aesthetics. But the 1987 show about the uneasy awakening that follows “happily ever after” works just as well in a stripped-down presentation, putting the emphasis on the questioning revisionism of James Lapine’s libretto and Sondheim’s lyrics.

That’s the case with Lear deBessonet’s gorgeous production..."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/into-the-woods-stephen-sondheim-broadway-1235177573/

AM New York is a Rave:

"If I had the time and money, I could happily sit through every single performance of the exceptionally cast, musically perfect, joyous and glorious Broadway revival of 'Into the Woods'..."

https://www.amny.com/entertainment/broadway/into-the-woods-revival-review-july-2022/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/queens-top-secret-jubilee-project-26884351

I think we all know what this means:

CRICKET (HEARTS AND WICKETS) ((THE SEQUEL)) or Bust

The Wall Street Journal is Mixed:

"I’m skeptical about the larger point of these changes [to modernize the show]. After all, the original “Company,” like “Angels in America,” is now a history play, a kind of theatrical time capsule in which Mr. Sondheim and George Furth, who wrote the book, show us what it was like to be a member of what Whit Stillman has called the “urban haute bourgeoisie” at the exact moment when Americans were starting to collectively renounce the concept of marriage for life, even as an ideal. Yet all the revivals of the show that I’ve reviewed on Broadway and elsewhere have updated it in one way or another, not trusting their audiences to be able to make the imaginative leap between past and present.[...]

What, conversely, is good about this production? To begin with, the “Getting Married Today” scene is phenomenally well-staged and sung, so much so that Mr. Doyle’s headlong sprint through Mr. Sondheim’s tongue-twisting, incomparably virtuosic patter song came within a hair of stopping the show at the preview I saw. On top of that, you never feel that same-sex marriage has been tacked onto “Company” as an afterthought: Instead, it appears to arise organically out of the original material [...]

So yes, I had sharply mixed feelings about this “Company,” but I still got much pleasure out of it—and it was a comfort to be able to see it at a moment when those of us who love Stephen Sondheim’s work are bereft at his passing. For that reason alone, it deserves a long, successful run."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/company-stephen-sondheim-george-furth-katrina-lenk-marianne-elliott-matt-doyle-11639084586#refreshed?mod=books_arts_minor_2_pos7

Hey, this is great: the lyrics for GRIND are now on Genius.com! https://genius.com/albums/Larry-grossman/Grind-original-broadway-cast-album

Does anyone know where one might find lyrics for the songs in GRIND, the 1985 musical directed by Hal Prince with a score by Larry Grossman and Ellen Fitzhugh?

It's a difficult request, probably: I wouldn't be surprised if the libretto has never been published. Did the CD have lyrics in the booklet? (I got my copy of the cast album from iTunes.)

If anyone can help, I'd be extremely grateful :)

*blink* *blink* *blink*

I feel like any way I could react to this would just be playing into its hands.