Best: too many to count, but most surprising based on low expectations? Metamorphoses...I was in tears several times.
Worst...or actually most disappointing: The original incarnation of "La Cage." I know I'm in a minority, but it's one of the few shows that ever made me angry...both due to quality and having paid full price.
Best: (ties) Sunday In The Park With George (original production, original cast), The Drowsy Chaperone, Death of a Salesman (Dennehy revival), Shirley Valentine.
Worst: (ties) Ring Of Fire, Lennon, The Times They Are a-Changin', High Fidelity.
"(in a sweedish accent) Oh! What a lovely T-shirt you are wearing!"- Catherine Zeta-Jones refering to my ALNM shirt at the CD signing.
Say NO to drugs and YES to Jackie Hoffman Live At Joes Pub!
"ITS THE DAY OF THE SHOW YA'LL!!"-Bwaynerd
BEST GYPSY IN THIS ORDER TYNE DALY -5 TIMES IN PERSON THE BEST/ ON RECORDING THE WORST BETTY BUCKLEY-AMAZING PATTI LUPONE-GREAT NINE =ORIGINAL AND REVIVAL DREAMGIRLS REBA IN ANNIE GET YOUR GUN SONG AND DANCE W/B PETERS AND WITH BETTY BUCKLEY 1ST ACT IS A VOCAL DREAM
WORST GREASE ON BROADWAY -JOLEY FISHER----HIGH SCHOOLS DID THIS BETTER THE NEWS-WORST SHOW EVER LES MISERABLE -LOVE THE MUSIC ..SHOW TOO GREY LION KING----WAY OVER DONE...REALLY REALLY DISSAPOINTED ME
- Dirty Dancing: It was part of a season package unfortunately. I even think mother nature was against it because in the last 15 min of the show, we had a 4.7 earthquake and about 50 or more left the theatre. I was outta there!
I'm pretty fricking picky...so it isn't many...I can't choose worst, because I feel bored to tears by the vast majority of theater I see and my critiques are not appropriate for a public forum -- scathing though they can be...I've started to only go to live theater when I'm personally invited, made that decision years ago.
Best has to include the ingredient of feeling life-changing, to me...
Only one in New York: Sunset Boulevard. IT WAS NOT THE SHOW ITSELF. It was watching Betty Buckley in it. She was a Master. And I learned a LOT about performing from watching her work. I think you can learn a lot about acting from watching great acting.
Another life-changing show was "The Baltimore Waltz," in the basement of a church. Three actors, all BRILLIANT, in Cincinnati, Ohio. There was probably an audience of 15. And I'll never forget it. It made me understand that theater can truly change lives, when all the ingredients come together.
Another life-changing show was "Miss Evers' Boys," by Tovah Feldshuh's brother. This is SUCH an important show, based on the fact our government experimented on black people until around 1972, medically, without their knowledge. I saw it in a small theater, outside New York. It was devastating and life-changing, to watch those performers...that ensemble. Amazing!
Finally, "Keely and Du." Also, in a very small theater, small cast. It's about a woman who has been raped and is not allowed to have an abortion, after being kidnapped by a crazy right-wing group. Again, those performances were life-changing. And I learned so much about acting from watching these amazing actors.
I watched "Kiss of the Spider Woman" and "Angels in America" on tape at Lincoln Center. I watched both parts of Angels in America twice...same deal...amazing...life-changing.
That's why I go to the theater, or to films. To quote Glenn Close, "When it's done right, it re-arranges your molecules." Absolutely...I don't want to settle for less.
Chillin' and teachin' acting and voice to muh Bway/Film peeps...
(Betty Buckley is teaching a workshop for me at my school, check it out.)
BEST Long Day's Journey Into Night (2003 Revival) Proof (Original Cast) Caroline, or Change Ragtime (Original and Revival) Mary Stuart Mother Courage and Her Children (Shakespeare in the Park) Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris The Coast of Utopia (especially SHIPWRECK) A View From the Bridge (1998 and 2010 revivals) Sunday in the Park with George (2008 revival) Happy Days (Fiona Shaw)
WORST Little Women: The Musical The Drowsy Chaperone Iphigenia 2.0 Paradise Park Cats A Tale of Two Cities All My Sons Deuce A Little Night Music (current revival)
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Best: Drowsy Les Mis (original) August: Osage County
Worst Memphis
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." -Stephen Colbert
Best: The Producers, Hairspray, Sweeney Todd revival (national tour) and South Pacific revival.
Worst (these shows were not necessarily bad themselves, I just saw bad productions): Grease- National tour 200?, but before the most recent revival (Frankie Avalon as Johnny Angel in his mid-sixties was actually the best part) Dirty Rotten Scoundrels- National Tour(I adore to OCR but in this show the three leads, I don't remember their names and that seems right, were terrible and the timing was completely off)
best: both times i saw rent....1st time cause it was my first musical ever and changed my life. the moment it was over i had this feeling of, i could die now and that would be ok. it was surreal. i was 15. the second time had adam and anthony, which was just so freaking cool. best moment in my broadway life was the moment john tartaglia appeared on stage at the beginning of shrek. i LOVE!!!! him, and i was in the front row, and i was so excited. i loved shrek, i don;t care what anyone says!
worst: i have only seen 18 shows in my life so far (i am only 19) but i recently saw a high school production of beauty and the beast. the guy playing gaston and the girl playing belle actually had phenomenal voices. the rest of the cast, including the beast where SO MEDIOCRE it was laughable. it was also 45 mins too long because the students kept throwing in useless 'inside jokes' that only people from that school understood. the school had done annie the year before. the girl playing laphoo (sp?) was annie and she made a joke about the show. then she made another and another. it took SO MUCH TIME and literally the show was 3 1/2 hours long (that included a 1/2 intermission). not bad for a HS production, but i was kind of like, meh.
"There's a fine, fine line between love...and a waste of your time" (L).
Seth Rudetsky is AMAAAHHHZING!
A Very Potter Musical FTW!