Profile for JeaniusIsMe

Jonathan Cohen said: "Scott Rudin'sreturn to Broadway will beSamuel D. Hunter’s Little Bear Ridge Road this October, withLaurie Metcalf and Joe Mantello directing.It's aSteppenwolf transfer, butSteppenwolf has opted not to participate in the Broadway version. No clue if that's related to Rudin or another reason." Per Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune, Steppenwolf removed their name from the transfer because of Rudin’s involvement. But “released the play and the cast” to give it a shot at Bro...

Definitely agree that something is amiss with this new translation. I wasn’t familiar with the play going in and I’ll admit to having zero clue just what actually ailed Oswald - read up on the play after and that made a hell of a lot more sense. Considering this translation is so focused on telling us everything rather than showing us, why not just spell that huge plot point out as well?Anyway, that framing device was strange and unnecessary and frankly took me out of the play more than some ...

Caught it last night, and the good news is that there's definitely a viable show here, but they're going to have to do some work if they want it to be a pretty good/great show. Totally fixable - probably not by the end of the Chicago run, but definitely before it moves to Broadway (for I presume next season).The good news, as others have mentioned, is that Jasmine Amy Rogers is a star. She understands what she needs to do as the character, executes pretty flawlessly, and whenever she's not th...

I caught the first show in Chicago tonight and oof. I’ll echo the previous comment that the cast is working incredibly hard and Iglehart is well cast as Armstrong. But even for a bio-musical, boy is the book shockingly thin. The conceit of having his wives tell the story is an interesting one - if only the show bothered to do any actual character development with them during their quarter of the story (his final wife gets some good moments, but when that’s the best you can say about our narra...

Fully aware that she might not want to work on it, but why Aline Brosh McKenna isn't doing the book (after handling the film - and then working for four years on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) continues to confound me. The film script was great. She's got experience with musical-aligned writing. Plus the Chicago book was just...oof.

Just saw it tonight and joining in on the positive reviews. I was never a fan of the film, so I was prepared to dislike the musical, but boy was I wrong. They’ve made the smart choice to anchor the story around the older Allie and Noah, which allows the story to have the depth and sadness the film only injected at the end interspersed throughout. Everyone around me was sobbing throughout - and even I she’s a tear.I haven’t seen a show this Broadway ready in a pre-Broadway tryout here in awhil...

HenryTDobson said: "I'm surprised to hear that they kept a lot of the dialogue from the movie. Yes, some of it is iconic, but much less so than other movie-to-musicals (I'm thinking Mean Girls). I don't think anyone would be missing huge chunks of dialogue (save for several key points).When will writers/producers learn? How many bad movie-to-musicals do we need before they realize not ALL movies need to be musicalized?"I will say - some of the biggest cheers/laughs/engagement from the crowd c...

Saw the show tonight and am pretty much going to echo what others have written thus far. This isn't First Wives Club bad, but it's definitely not good.Book: As some have said, nearly all the key line from the film that you remember are here (why Aline Brosh McKenna doesn't get an acknowledgement in the program when so much of her script is being reused is a genuine question I have - and why not just have her do the book? It's not like she doesn't have experience working on writing scripts wit...

I'll be going on Wednesday, July 20th as well. I enjoyed the film a great deal, but I have a hard time seeing how this is going to translate well into a modern musical. But who knows - maybe it will surprise me?

Broadway in Chicago is having a “sneak peek” Zoom on the show right now and they played snippets of two songs. Very Aida ballad reminiscent. They also talked about how they have had to make the story more applicable to today (the fall of print media, bosses who are tyrants aren’t ok now, etc.) Lots of emphasis that this isn’t just going to be the film on stage.

Another vote for Wonderland from me. An adult Alice going back to Wonderland and confronting her own insecurities/worries/fears in adulthood is a solid concept. And there were a number of solid songs. But boy, was the book a mess. The overall plot was convoluted. It's the one show I look back on and think, "Man, there's a decent show in there, and I have no idea how it became such a complete mess."

BJR said: "Was this production similar to Gold's, or a new interpretation?"It was similar to the tour staging, if I recall correctly. But it was a great production - Middle Allison in particular was great.

Got tickets for next week for Lehman and Mockingbird (in what would normally be premium seats, crazy). Worse case it get canceled, but I figured might as well snag tickets just in case.

Just popping in to add another rave review. I intentionally went into the play as blind as possible in terms of plot and was blown away. It's not my favorite Letts work, but all five actors were just sensational. Smallwood and Coon let you understand just how each character ends up in this particular situation.I agree with CoercedBull - I was also sitting on the house left and the dresser blocked the bed on set at times (we must have been sitting right by each other on Friday!)It's a great ni...

I'm set to go this Friday - very excited for it. I'm a huge Carrie Coon fan (and, naturally, a Letts fan), so I'm thrilled to hear such positive feedback.

Re: The Chicago run - the article that ran in the Chicago Tribune had a quote from a producer (Carmen Pavlovic)that indicated that the run could be a genuine sit-down/extended if interest is high. Sure, that could just be a line, but who knows.

Per her Instagram, Pauly will be back starting with the Edmonton run of the show.

The Owen in The Goodman has a bit of black box feel (the seating can be moved depending on the production and it isn't a traditional theatre set-up). I've seen two shows there, and the balcony is high, but with pretty good sightlines. I recall there being two rows of seats in the balcony last I was there, and I think if you got the front row you would be fine. But, for $35, orchestra might be worth it.

Chris Jones just put out a piece on the return Chicago engagement. As mentioned above, it's an initial 16-week engagement, separate cast from the Broadway show, but it has the goal of being a sit-down production after the initial engagement ends. Considering the continuing buzz here about the show, and assuming it continues to build during the initial Broadway run/Tony season, this could be a solid hit again for Chicago (I've had non-theatre fan friends start asking me about it over the past ...

I saw the tour when it came through Chicago and aside from Cox, it was atrocious. I described it to friends thus: "As a concert of Whitney Houston songs sung by Deborah Cox, it was a delightful evening. As a musical, it was a disaster." You definitely got the good end of the deal just seeing Cox sing and not having to see the rest of the show along with it.