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Sweet Charity Ending Question Jun 29
2025, 04:28:42 AM
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
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Sondheim & Ives’ HERE WE ARE headed to London’s National Theatre in 2025 Jun 26
2025, 02:03:17 AM
theatergoer3 said: "Hopefully it pops up on NT at Home but similarly surprised. Thought that waspart of the calculus."
Perhaps we all just talked ourselves into it because we wanted a taping to happen. And I did, even without Rachel Bay Jones and David Hyde Pierce.
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Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 6/22/25 Jun 26
2025, 01:47:46 AM
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
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DEAD OUTLAW to close June 29 Jun 24
2025, 09:29:17 PM
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
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GYPSY ending scene Jun 22
2025, 05:34:59 AM
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
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DEAD OUTLAW Reviews Jun 22
2025, 04:50:54 AM
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
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FLOYD COLLINS Reviews Jun 22
2025, 03:25:39 AM
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)
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DEAD OUTLAW to close June 29 Jun 20
2025, 11:15:25 PM
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
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Why are audiences so poorly behaved these days? Jun 20
2025, 03:48:34 AM
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
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'Pacific Overtures': Bravo to Kunoichi's rare San Francisco revival at Brava Theater! Jun 18
2025, 10:14:47 PM
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
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Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 6/15/25 Jun 18
2025, 01:13:45 AM
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
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Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 6/15/25 Jun 17
2025, 01:06:28 PM
Maybe Happy Ending doesn’t have as much room to move as Sunset Blvd., because the former musical was already selling out in a smaller theater. But it will have a fine summer. Beyond that, we’ll see how things go after Darren Criss leaves.
I am impressed with non-Tony winners like John Proctor is the Villain. It’s still doing very well. And Just in Time, of course.
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'Pacific Overtures': Bravo to Kunoichi's rare San Francisco revival at Brava Theater! Jun 16
2025, 12:50:11 AM
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
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Jamie Lloyd-helmed EVITA revival to play the London Palladium in 2025 Jun 15
2025, 12:23:24 PM
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
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'Pacific Overtures': Bravo to Kunoichi's rare San Francisco revival at Brava Theater! Jun 14
2025, 05:43:49 PM
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
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The dozen Stephen Sondheim musicals I've seen - and how my opinion has shifted Jun 14
2025, 05:00:36 AM
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
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'Pacific Overtures': Bravo to Kunoichi's rare San Francisco revival at Brava Theater! Jun 14
2025, 02:35:15 AM
I'm sure people have run across this before, but it's fascinating nonetheless. "Someone in a Tree, Anatomy of a Song" - it's in two parts (the second part ends with a performance by the original cast with Sondheim on piano):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFkldZHOp_k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPmRiJNOVz0
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DEAD OUTLAW Reviews Jun 13
2025, 07:11:15 PM
Fordham2015 said: "Anatomy of a Tony Awards Performance: HowDead OutlawBrought Their Show to the World
https://playbill.com/article/anatomy-of-a-tony-awards-performance-how-dead-outlaw-brought-their-show-to-the-world"
That’s fascinating, and a ridiculous amount of work. This was the first time I realized the band was pre-recorded, which makes me wonder how much of the rest of the telecast was pre-recorded.
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'Pacific Overtures': Bravo to Kunoichi's rare San Francisco revival at Brava Theater! Jun 13
2025, 04:43:33 AM
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
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'Pacific Overtures': Bravo to Kunoichi's rare San Francisco revival at Brava Theater! Jun 11
2025, 11:56:48 PM
Here are the reviews.
Chad Jones of Theater Dogs, an admirer of the musical, praised the production.
"The Kunoichi production at Brava, directed by Nick Ishimaru, embraces the less-is-more philosophy with a single unit set (by Yusuke Soi) and an adept 11-person cast to create a fable-like vision of Japan (mostly in the 19th century) and its “barbaric” invasion from the point of view of Japanese people.
The star here is Sondheim’s score, simple, intricate and bursting with lyrical gems. Music director Diana Lee and a superb seven-piece orchestra (featuring Shirley Muramoto on the koto) make the show’s 2 1/2 hours a sonic treat, as do some glorious voices in the cast."
https://www.theaterdogs.net/reviews/pacific-overtures
And then there is Lily Janiak's review in the San Francisco Chronicle. Aside from "A Bowler Hat," Janiak is not a fan of Stephen Sondheim's score, which she is entitled not to like (although she has an annoying habit of reviewing revivals as if they were new shows).
This is what she has to say about "Someone in a Tree":
"In the repetitive song 'Someone in a Tree,' the actors fail to justify why one character, recalling his observation of the first meeting of the Japanese and Americans, sings that he was 'younger then' six times. Sitting in the audience, you start to dream up possibilities. Maybe he’s senile. Maybe he’s overexcited or fond of hearing his own voice. Maybe his listener would be indulgent at first, since she yearns to hear his tale, only to grow confused, then impatient, then exasperated. But the actors don’t explore these possibilities or any other, probably better ones. Each iteration feels the same."
Again, Janiak is entitled to not like "Someone in a Tree," but the director, Nick Ishimaru, and the actors in the scene didn't handle the song much differently than Hal Prince did in 1976. I rewatched the YouTube video just to make sure I wasn't crazy. Has Janiak never seen Pacific Overtures, even on YouTube? Is she really trashing the director and actors of a small theater company for performing it in a very similar way?
I generally appreciate critics who don't whitewash a production's flaws, even a small theater group, but if you're going to do that, it might help if your review doesn't betray your own ignorance. Janiak manages to say at the end - after insulting the actors' singing ability in a rather gratuitous way - that the musical "makes for a provocative revisit." But she clearly doesn't know the show at all. Janiak, the newspaper's main theater critic, should at least know how "Someone In a Tree" is normally staged and performed. It's painfully obvious that she doesn't.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/kunoichi-productions-pacific-overtures-review-20353433.php
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