Posted: 5/7/15 at 4:23am
Brandy is such a class act, and she sounds amazing. Agreed that Amira is less than impressive - in the clips of her and Brandy, they have no chemistry, and she appears to be pretty wooden. I want to see Brandy in this so badly, she's fierce as hell. If anyone was there, I really would love to hear their take on it.
Updated On: 5/7/15 at 04:23 AM
Posted: 5/7/15 at 7:45pm
Don't really want to make a new thread about this, but my mom and her boyfriend adore brandy and are trying to get tickets to see her. Unfortunately I don't know anything about the seating at the Ambassador. What seats would be best?
Posted: 5/7/15 at 8:32pm
Wish I could have seen the show again with Hughes & Nettles. The thought of seeing AFW sleepwalk through this show again disturbs me to no end. Brandy sounds & looks terrific, but regardless of how good your Roxie is, putting them next to AFW as Velma hurts their performance.
Posted: 5/7/15 at 8:56pm
acl: I feel your pain. 
Posted: 7/21/15 at 11:19pm
Got around to seeing Brandy tonight and this was, by far, the best shape the show has been in for years. That's not to say it was perfect, but the cast was vibrant and the audience was extremely responsive; let's face it- I've seen both the cast and audience doing their best impersonations of zombies on several occasions, so it's nice to see a long-running hit like this firing on (almost) all cylinders.
The biggest surprise of the night for me was Amra-Faye Wright. Reading this thread I've shared some of the complaints about her performance in the past, but not tonight! She was on fire and had the audience cracking up right and left. She had great chemistry with Brandy and performed her numbers with a gusto that I've found missing on other visits to the Ambassador.
Brandy did a fine job. This is no embarrassment like Ashlee Simpson of Christie Brinkley, delightfully hysterical as they both were. Her Both Reached For the Gun puppet was a riot and that number was thrilling- a word not used to describe this revival in quite awhile. The Roxie monologue was strong and Me and My Baby was funny. She was completely on pitch (a rarity for any Roxie nowadays), but added a few too many riffs for my taste. Her dancing was spirited and she energized every cast member on that stage.
Ivan Hernandez was a wonderful Billy Flynn. They should keep him around for a bit.
I had a fun time tonight; it's never a wasted evening when you get to hear a book and score like this.
