Profile for bear88

I saw a local production of Sweet Charity on Saturday night and had never seen it before. I knew it didn’t have a happy ending, and I gather there have been many different versions over the decades.

Here’s the one I got: Oscar breaks it off, Charity ends up in the lake, Oscar leaves, Charity gets out of the lake and sings ‘Where Am I Going?’ - not heard until then. That’s basically the ending of the show, aside from a version of &lsq

ACL2006 said: "Just in Time is expected to recoup by Labor Day according to Broadway Journal (if grosses hold). Outsiders may recoup soon."

The Outsiders should recoup soon. Maybe Happy Ending probably recoups by the end of the year."

I am bullish on Maybe Happy Ending’s prospects but this sounds pretty optimistic based on what I’ve read - which could be incorrect. While the show is making good money now, and ha

Peterson’s article comes off as strangely naive. Glowing reviews notwithstanding, Dead Outlaw had no chance. It wasn’t a show that the average theatergoer was going to embrace because that wasn’t its goal. The musical was deliberately distancing - the first half presents an unappealing central character who is both a racist drunk and an incompetent crook. The second half is a series of revue sketches and songs after his demise, and the running theme is a s

Maybe I missed a this in the thread on the Audra McDonald revival of Gypsy (it’s long) but has there been much discussion of the final scene? This was my first time seeing Gypsy but I have been digging down the rabbit hole.

In the 2008 revival, Laura Benanti - as Louise - laughs in disgust as she walks away from Patti LuPone’s Rose, leaving her grasping pathetically at the ROSE lights that flicker and die. It’s a chilling reje

Thanks, Charley Kringas Inc., for your thoughtful review. As someone who also liked, but was occasionally frustrated by Dead Outlaw when I saw it, I too have been tempted to try to figure out ways to improve it. But after a few weeks to reflect, I think I haven’t given the musical enough credit for what it did achieve. As you point out, there’s so much strong material in the show - the Maine and especially the Kansas scenes are so economically told that they ser

Thanks to everyone for their seating suggestions for Floyd Collins. While I didn’t end up seeing it on our April trip, my daughter caught it Saturday night and really enjoyed it. The cheap seats in the 100 section on the aisle were pretty much ideal. She has now seen Adam Guettel musicals - the other was Days of Wine and Roses - and liked both of them. The main cast was in (Lizzy McAlpine returned a few days ago after an illness)

I scheduled my New York City trip around catching a  preview of Dead Outlaw, so I guess I was its target audience. I like dark, off-center, original musicals - and a comedic trip through the dark side of America appealed to me. 

Did it totally work for me? No, as I’ve discussed in the threads on the show. But I would much rather that talented Broadway creatives swing for the fences, even on a musical that didn’t seem likely to thrive financ

I think I have been lucky in New York. I don’t think I have had a genuinely unpleasant theater experience because of a bad audience. I am always fine at local and regional theaters. The only time I run into trouble is at touring productions in San Francisco (the occasional loud argument, some very annoying women who sang along with Fiddler on the Roof until I made a remark at intermission). There is the dread at one theater that gives out drinks in bottles, which inev

As I haven’t been able to get ‘There is No Other Way’ out of my head since seeing the show twice in eight days, I must say that I think I prefer it sung by Kayama and his wife, Tamate, as opposed to the two Observers. It didn’t hurt that Nick Nakashima and Sarah Jiang had such lovely voices, but I was drawn into their tragedy - and the importance of honor in 19th century Japan - rather than distanced from it. The song, coming early in the musical, plunged me

I am very confident that Just in Time will recoup. Beyond that, none of them is necessarily a sure thing. I don’t know about Buena Vista Social Club’s costs and budget but I can’t imagine it’s anything too crazy - and the musical keeps making big money, week after week. At some point, that will slow down, but I probably underestimated how much people like the music/the movie.

Maybe Happy Ending has had a steady clim

It was nice to see a good turnout for the final performance by Kunoichi Productions' production of Pacific Overtures at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco. The audience was enthusiastic and the company was even more revved up than when I saw it last weekend. Keko Shimosato Carreiro, who played The Reciter, spoke emotionally to the audience after a standing ovation at the show's conclusion.

I've made my positive comments before, but I can only r

Binau, I second the praise for your review, which both explains the conceits of the revival while highlighting what you thought worked. It is, however, making me regret not seeing a more traditional production of Evita. (There was a local production not long ago, but some life stuff happened and I missed it.)

I had seen Sunset Blvd. before, both the film and the Glenn Close production in Los Angeles, so I didn’t have to worry about the plot - just the

I said in my first comment about the review that I appreciate critics who don’t whitewash a show’s flaws just because it is a small production. It must be awkward to both cover the local theater scene - and many San Francisco Bay Area theaters have closed since 2019, which Lily Janiak has written about - while also being an honest critic.

But there’s a line between honest criticism and nastiness, especially when aimed at actors and directors who are doing this as

I realized the other day that I am running out of musicals with music and/or lyrics by Stephen Sondheim that I haven't seen in person at least once. (I am not counting the films.) The ones I haven't seen are Saturday Night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the  Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Do I Hear a Waltz?, The Frogs, Passion (though I've seen the Great Performances pro-shot), and Wise Guy

Hi Wayman,

I think it’s safe to say that you know a lot more about Pacific Overtures than I do. This was my first time seeing it. I always worry a bit when seeing ambitious shows by small theater companies, but it’s often very rewarding (and sometimes brings something different out of a show). I knew in advance that women were in the cast, but because I had never experienced the traditional version in person and am not a purist, that didn’t both