Lippa's Wild Party was very popular with theater kids when I was in high school in the mid-00s. It's all this-feels-edgy and big feelings in big belty songs. It focuses tightly on Queenie-Burrs-Black while the other characters are one-song wonders and have little to no bearing on the show. (Most telling: Jackie and Dolores are in both shows, but are little more than ensemble roles in Lippa's with few, if any, lines, while in LaChiusa's both are principal roles and prominent parts of the action with Dolores even getting the 11 o'clock number).
LaChiusa's takes a much wider scope. All the guests are given a clear thematic purpose and story arc and are generally well-integrated into the story. LaChiusa and Wolfe also widen the aperture to explore 1920s society a lot more- race, gender, sexuality, and class are all explicitly explored.
Burrs in Lippa's version is a vaguely defined vaudeville clown who is a jealous, abusive drunk. LaChiusa's Burrs is specifically a minstrel performer- which by the 1920s was on its way out as popular entertainment- who is plagued by insecurity and inadequacy. He spends the first half of the show desperately trying to ingratiate himself with people who he thinks can help him move up in the world, then turns and bitterly tries to destroy the relationships of his guests. He's still jealous of Queenie and Black, but it comes from much deeper well than in Lippa's. It's a nasty but complex role.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 3/6/26 at 11:14 AM
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