AMERICAN UTOPIA 2021-22 Thread

The road to nowhere takes us to the St. James Theatre, where a return engagement of David Byrne’s American Utopia begins performances tomorrow evening. The concert – featuring the Talking Heads frontman and his gray-suited troupe of musicians - is once again playing a limited run, currently set to conclude on March 6. Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!) is the production consultant, and Annie-B Parson oversees the choreography and musical staging; both individuals previously collaborated with Byrne on critical darling Here Lies Love.

“We could all use a little utopia right now, and David Byrne’s American Utopia returns to rock Broadway this fall. This ‘dazzling, jubilant, and rapturous’ production – featuring ‘astonishing’ staging by choreographer Annie-B Parson, with Alex Timbers serving as production consultant – will begin performances on September 17, 2021, featuring all the great songs, all the acclaimed musicians, and a gorgeous new venue to blow the roof off of. This is the event that will tell the world, if you want to rediscover the joy of live music, community, and connection, Broadway’s St. James Theatre must be the place!”

Who’s going?

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/David-Byrnes-AMERICAN-UTOPIA-Announces-Digital-Lottery-20210916

Absolutely joyous night at the St. James. While the intimate nature of the Hudson certainly was fantastic, the larger venue makes it feel even more like a giant celebration.

Random Notes:

- Balcony B30 - Partial View per the BO - was a fine view for $59, only missed a handful of minutes and the show played marvelously upstairs. So don't hesitate to go for one of the less expensive price points, IMO.

- Am thrilled the show is winning a Special Tony Award, but truly, if there were ever a "Best Ensemble" specific honor, it should go here. The company is perfect.

- Also from watching upstairs - the staging from Annie-B Parson is breathtakingly beautiful, again, performed with stellar precision by the ensemble.

- David Byrne himself was in incredible voice, clearly living each moment, and playing wonderfully to the crowd. There's a bit of new material related to the pandemic and the recent election that worked fine in the realm of the show. And he gave a lovely post-curtain speech, bringing out the crew working on the show for bows.

- Again, this was a special night - there were at least a half-dozen standing ovations. I was in tears during "Once in a Lifetime" of joy -- and also in tears during "Hell You Talmbout" as 1,700 people said the names back to the stage of lives so wrongly taken. 

Can't recommend seeing this show live strongly enough, whether you've enjoyed the Spike Lee film (also wonderful!) or not. Everyone at the St. James was very well behaved following mask rules and the like - I felt very safe the entire time, and the whole house staff was gracious and welcoming. Definite recommend!

For those who went. Were people standing for the most part? I heard that it got to be like a concert at the Hudson and decided not to go. Would have been upstairs and didn't want to stand a lot to see. I have been toying with getting a balcony seat to see it. I have been a fan of his since The Talking Heads days.

Thanks for sharing gibson2. I may just get a front row seat also.

OK I already started writing this post and then accidentally somehow lost it and it’s really late here so I’m gonna try to keep this quick so I can pass out in bed.

So it wasn’t too long ago I was fretting on here that I didn’t know when I would be able to get back to Broadway and that it might be 2023. Well to my surprise I was here this weekend. How that happened could be its own thread but suffice to say I will do just about anything for Madonna including booking a last minute Friday flight and hotel using miles & points and culminating in marching the streets of Harlem after 2:00 a.m. on Saturday with Madonna & Jon Batiste and about 200 others singing Like A Prayer.

But I digress…

So my friend came in from New Jersey on Saturday. Took me a while to sufficiently recover from being up so late and he didn’t make it in time to make a matinee anyway. But we still still managed to see two shows. American Utopia (my choice) at 5:00. And then Chicken & Biscuits (his choice) at 8:00.

For Chicken & Biscuits, my friend clued me into the Digital lottery. I ended up winning before he got notified so I’m not sure if I ever asked him if he ever found out if he had also won, but we bought two tickets with my win for $33 each. Seats D411 & D413.

For American Utopia, we went through the TKTS booth at Times Square. Ended up with really good seats in row L right orchestra for $85 each plus fees. There were tickets that were about $20 more but I’m happy that we were sitting a little further back then what the seats would’ve been for the more expensive tickets as I think they were like row D but they were extreme side seats maybe.

I’m not really gonna say too much about either show other than to say that I found American Utopia to be transformative, transporting, cathartic, meaningful and joyful. My friend who really is not as familiar with David Byrne or the Talking Heads and only knew three of the songs in the show really enjoyed it and said that he was glad that we had gone. And as you can tell, I really loved it. I laughed and I cried. And having already seen the filmed production on HBO did nothing to rob it of its power for me. If anything I felt like being more familiar with some of the songs helped me.

So now for Chicken & Biscuits. I really had a good time. It’s definitely broad comedy. But I really enjoyed the performances. I will say that our seats were extreme side seats in the equivalent of left orchestra. We were the last two seats against the curtain or the wall. If you’ve been to the show you’ll know what I mean by the curtain. Didn’t miss anything meaningful, but they definitely weren’t ideal seats but I don’t feel like we missed anything much. Just some entrances and some facial reactions mainly. Plus for $33 you can’t complain. My friend and I agree that it felt like a better written Tyler Perry movie if it was a play. (As an aside: My friend reminded me that Medea started out in plays before she was a character in movies). That might seem like an insult depending on how you feel about Tyler Perry movies (I’m not a fan), but I did enjoy this and we both agree that we are glad it’s on Broadway. As others have mentioned, it could use some trimming. It’s a little long for a show with no intermission. But nothing that was interminable. I chuckled a lot.

Having seen the play now, I don’t think there’s a lot of sense in getting upset about how characters are characterized since the play traffics in some pretty broad stereotypes of all the characters.

If I could’ve seen one more show while I was here it would be Caroline, or Change but sadly I leave tomorrow.

Lastly, a comment about the audiences. Of course David Byrne was bound to bring in people that are not maybe naturally people that go to the theater. I don’t know if something has changed in me during the pandemic or if it was just because of the concert nature of the show, but it didn’t bother me much when people randomly got up and started dancing during the show or when I saw people using their cameras to take a photo or a short video but overall that was pretty rare except at the one point in the show where he encourages us all to get up and start dancing. That was an amazing experience after this last 19 months of mostly hoarding up in my home.

For both shows, I was impressed with the amount of mask adherence. If I did see somebody (very rare) with their mask down, they quickly brought it back up on their own.

Aw, Broadway. I’ve missed ya. I suspect there will be tears tomorrow when it comes time to leave.

Updated On: 10/10/21 at 02:23 AM

Tonight's performance is also cancelled.

ACL2006 said: "Their original run had swings/understudies, so I wonder if they don't have them for this return engagement? Obviously David Byrne doesn't have one, but curious about the rest of this cast."

There are six standbys in this remounting - I know one of them personally.