Profile for bear88

The Cabaret numbers don’t surprise me. It’s one of the most famous, and best, musicals in history and is led - for now - by a movie star and has been marketed as a can’t-miss event after a wildly successful run in London. As noted above, it got a solid number of Tony nominations too.

The critical pans might hurt the revival eventually but probably not until September at the earliest.

Sweeney Todd got better reviews, even if it w

Kad said: "This is a great list, and just bums me out that the decision was made to withdraw Here We Are from all awards consideration. I think there were quite a number of elements in it that deserved to be honored."

I was sort of bummed after I saw it because it was such an impressive production and because Rachel Bay Jones gave such a wonderful performance. But I’m actually fine with it now. Let other shows get their flowers without a Sondheim show, though l

The ‘vanity project’ discussion is interesting to me. I was actually very curious about this show for a variety of reasons, including Chavkin’s involvement because I really liked her previous Broadway musicals, Amber Iman, and what sounded on paper like an intriguing show. I never saw it and won’t get the chance, but the ‘vanity project’ label can be applied to many of Broadway’s most iconic musicals. 

That said, it’s becoming v

I sometimes worry that Amber Iman, who I have seen often but not in this, is destined to be in shows that aren’t good enough for her. She’s in two other musicals that are intended for Broadway. Both need a fair amount of work, and Iman is wasted in Hippest Trip, the Soul Train musical. She’s the star of Goddess and was terrific, but that show had book (and score, except for a few songs) problems that I fear will be tough to overcome barr

The reviews of the San Francisco production are favorable but are basically just review of the show, aside from some focus on Malachi McCaskill, the college junior who played Usher. Karen D'Souza in the Mercury News describes him as "sweetly endearing" while Lily Janiak in the San Francisco Chronicle is rather harsh, writing that he "doesn't have the chops to carry a work of this depth" while also criticizing his vocal performance.

I'm going to defend Mc

I saw the fourth preview at the Toni Rembe Theater in San Francisco on Saturday night and it was a unique experience. I had never seen the musical before so was going in pretty cold. Malachi McCaskill, a junior at the University of North Carolina Greensboro,  played Usher.

At first, I had trouble tracking the lyrics and wasn’t sure if the sound mix was off or if the show just wasn’t going to be for me. At times, it was a little hard to understand the actors, which detr

I haven’t seen Lempicka, but Sara Holdren’s review was thoughtful and seemed pretty fair to me. I was glancing at Frank Rich’s reviews of Stephen Sondheim’s shows when he was the New York Times’ lead critic. Aside from describing the original Merrily as a ‘shambles’ - in the first paragraph, no less - he was disappointed with Into The Woods and Assassins too. The only raves were fo

Re: Merrily. Short-term (three mid-week performances), I doubt Groff’s absences will have any larger box office impact than Radcliffe’s. But if the revival tried to carry on without Groff, that would be a challenge. Merrily, after all, has been ‘fixed’ for years, including in identical productions years before both in the U.S. and in England. What made it really work was Groff, placed at its center in what is (almost) a memory play. He

SonofRobbieJ said: "hearthemsing22 said: "SonofRobbieJ said: "When reading Broadway Flash's posts, does anyone else have the thought 'God, I hope they're wearing their helmet today to prevent further damage'?

Just me?"

Why so rude? Just block them. There's a handy dandy feature on here to do that."

Because it's too much fun reading their inanity. Plus, I think they're pretty much trolli

I am sort of fascinated by the recent strength of Hadestown, in part because I really enjoyed the musical when it opened on Broadway in 2019 and wondered how long it would run. Even when the box office was weak, after the show reopened during the pandemic, it would consistently come close to selling out - which made me wonder if it was becoming one of those shows that tourists will check out because it’s a familiar name.

That seems to be playing out with s

bowtie7 said: "Phantom had a sit down production in Los Angeles. After it closed, the physical production moved to San Francisco for an even longer run. I believe each of these productions were produced under the old production contract with Los Angeles and then San Francisco being the home city. As I remember, the Equity production contract used to allow a production to choose one of four home/base cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Having a production based i