Profile for Auggie27

Isn't it interesting, triggering audience expectation? This will seem random, but this discussion of the clipping and unclipping takes me back to No, No, Nanette. Ruby Keeler wore regular shoes through the top of act one until a specific entrance in one scene. People in the audience would whisper, "Look! She's got on her taps!" and sure enough, within minutes she launched into "I Want to Be Happy," invariably to thunderous applause. Here we have wires tell

MILD SPOILER INNUENDO. I must agree with Mrs. Sally: the show wants to be about the rangy nature of family, biological and chosen, but spends considerably less time on the chosen. In effect, this stacks the deck and makes it clear from the outset that the vampire culture will lose. It would be stronger to feel the two factions, um, neck in neck. Nothing in act two takes "Belong to Someone" to next level emotional investment. Arguably, one issue is the decision to give two love inter

Stakes. Nothin' beats 'em. I was listening to Maybe Happy Ending yesterday, first time since last summer when I saw it. The opening is a killer set-up. This creature named Oliver is waiting patiently for years for his beloved owner and de facto mentor/parent figure to return. Learning that the factory that made him will no longer supply parts to allow repairs. His obsolescence is a death sentence, his reunion with someone he genuinely adores the only thing to "

Very interesting conversation starter. I would counter that the show could use much more intellectual distancing. All three love-challenged characters routinely wear their hearts on their sleeves for most of the stage time, whether venting operatically about non-allegiances, "Nobody's Side," origin story trauma, "Pity the Child," or wistful yearning for attachment to culture and geography, "Anthem." Rice's libretto may be lard

I'll just add, going out on a shaky limb: calling attention to a story entirely contained in the Asian culture and a specific geographic locale deserving Asian actors the action of a "woke mob" misses the point. This piece is a unique capture of a Korean future, theatrical world-building with various components indigenous to the terrain (the "love" motel, for example.) The logic in presenting a Seoul peopled with Asian bots is baked into the DNA of the show.

Kad for the win here. The last and best word on Strong's decades-long effort: too little, and too wrong.

I've spilled a lot ink on the production's flaws, focusing on Florence's underdeveloped yet over-sung character. But I don't believe the show's marketing was ever the problem. The last thing we needed to see was that drop curtain in the Imperial, the USSR vs USA theme/plot highlighted unduly. If anything, the Cold War components are the most distancing, s

I'll be the outlier here, I love the play, own a copy, and find that I can open it anywhere and smile at its wit. It's an old school family drama, yes, but it delivers everything it promises, its second act revelations are some of the most fascinating - and ever relevant in 2026 America - secrets in this genre. Baitz crafted a wildly entertaining dramedy, and every role is gold. If there's a question mark here, it's how the two female stars can duplicate the perfect synergy of

I'll just add this to the Jellicle discussion, since two friends attended this week, one on my recommendation: many people presume this to be some sort of improvisational riff on Cats, a loosely constructed entertainment that throws out the original conceit - a community gathering and transcendent resurrection - and more or less exploits the original score. Full disclosure here: I was not personally prepared for the original orchestrations (or a closer facsimile the

Kad's post says it all, bluntly and persuasively. It's still a hard show on which to gauge the word of mouth's impact: I've mentioned it to a number of theatergoers who are indifferent, precisely because it's vampire-themed. I remember thinking that Gatsby didn't have a chance in hell, with such blandly dismissive reviews and no score standout to market. But there's quite a pop-cultural chasm between a classic-titled musical and yet another

Arguably only occasionally reliable as a critic, an Addison DeWitt manque prone to gushy paeans and snide dismissals, he was always an acid-tongued commentator and a decent interviewer. If his talents were more Walter Winchell than Walter Kerr, he was once a formidable voice, inhabiting the Venn diagram of gossip adjacent dish and serious (enough) journalism. For boomers, he was the first larger-than-life chronicler of celebrity that wasn't from a hatted lady of Hollywood. His brand of of

I appreciate another weigh-in on the Arbiter as a central point of failure in the Strong book. After promising a definitive Chess that ties up the loose ends in the plotting, make the triangle organic to geopolitical stakes, and fleshes out characters locked into Rice's navel-gazing lyrics, Strong simply gives the Arbiter the meta role of critic. He both sends up and trash-talks the prior libretti. It's not witty, it's lazy. The real-time Idol-esque commentary on on-