Posted: 4/1/19 at 4:07pm
They are now selling their tour merch online for those interested.
http://shoplct.com/falsettos
Posted: 4/13/19 at 12:24pm
Posted: 4/13/19 at 12:34pm
Posted: 5/8/19 at 1:29am
I caught the show over the weekend or perhaps better stated, I caught the first act.
I had never sen Falsettos before and wasn't at all familiar with the music. I knew the basic storyline and as a fellow gay jew I thought I'd be all over this, except that i wasn't. The cast was uniformly perfect and I enjoyed their performances and voices - but I just couldn't find the empathy to care about them, at all. The direction and production itself was totally underwhelming and quite frankly disappointing. That giant cube, the meh lighting, the not great sound mix did not help the cause
I so wanted to love this but left at intermission.
Posted: 5/8/19 at 1:37am
Posted: 5/8/19 at 1:40am
If I still have the PBS Broadcast on my PBS app, I'll be sure to attempt to watch the second act. I think we are in the minority but found the show just so unlikeable
Posted: 5/8/19 at 2:42am
VernonGersch said: "If I still have the PBS Broadcast on my PBS app, I'll be sure to attempt to watch the second act. I think we are in the minority but found the show just so unlikeable"
I also saw it at the Ahmanson 2 or 3 weeks ago and I had the exact same reaction you did. Didn't really care for it. The vignettes just seemed disconnected, I didn't understand the purpose of or see the need for the 2 neighbors and the ending created the obligatory lump in the throat but it didn't feel "earned" for lack of a better way to put it. I stayed through the whole thing but of the 6 shows I saw on my extended L.A. theater weekend, this was at the bottom. As a contrast, the best of the shows I saw was the night before, Nia Vardalos in Tiny, Beautiful Things at the Pasadena Playhouse, another heavy, emotion rendering play. But the emotions I felt came organically and naturally and just flowed throughout the work rather than from an inserted plot point in the last 20 minutes. Not sorry I saw Falsettos but didn't really live up to what i was hoping for.
Updated On: 5/8/19 at 02:42 AM
Posted: 5/9/19 at 2:54am
Saw it tonight in LA, and loved it almost as much as when I saw it on Broadway for the first time a couple of years ago. We won the Today Tix lottery for $25 tickets, and the seats were center rear orchestra. Didn’t notice any issues with the sound.
I don’t think it’s a show for everyone, but I found it moving despite the relative enormity of the Ahmanson.
Posted: 5/29/19 at 8:46am
Saw the first performance in Chicago. It played great from mid orchestra, though I've no idea how it reads from the balcony. I agree with the many who find act one feels dated while act two feels timely. The one thing that comes across is how few options some women and gay men felt they had in 1979, and how things were just starting to open up before the AIDS crisis hit.
Max von Essen and Nick Adams show greater range than I've seen from them in the past. Both show more vulnerability than their counterparts did on the PBS broadcast and are able to play both sweet and sour sides of their characters. Eden Espinoza lacks the comic chops of past Trinas I've seen. The audience loved "Breaking Down" but I felt she was more comfortable in "I'm Tired of All The Happy Men." By act two it felt her arc was over and she was stuck in one gear. Nick Blaemire plays Mendel with a lot of energy but very grating. He bonds with Jason but reads as hostile to Trina and the other men.
What stood out this time is how little we hear of Whizzer's thoughts compared to the other characters. His act one solo is how wary he is of Marvin. Marvin, Trina and Jason spend act two singing of their love for him but his interactions with Marvin cede focus to him and he rarely interacts with the other two. It made me wish they'd given Jason and Whizzer a significant conversation in act one beyond "Sure, go see a psychiatrist."
Posted: 5/29/19 at 5:36pm
Posted: 5/31/19 at 11:15am
Eden was out last night (she posted that her dog had died). Her understudy was Megan Loughran who was VERY good. I thought Megan did a good job building Trina. She came off as VERY meek at the beginning but was heightening the character as the show went on, making her more complex and adding layers that I didn't pick up on from other Trinas. She also had a killer voice.
The rest of the cast was great with EXCELLENT. The weakest in the cast was Von Essen. I think he needed more complexity to Marvin. I was getting one expression the whole time. May be because the usually chemistry with Eden wasn't there but idk.
Posted: 6/2/19 at 9:04am
Chicago reviews are positive. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune gushes about the material and the singing but doesn't delve into anyone's' acting choices.
"Touring 'Falsettos,' now in Chicago, has a cast that's better than Broadway's"
The all-pro road company ... sings the score exquisitely. This is not an unusual occurrence, partly because many factors go into the creation of Broadway casts, allowing for a subsequent tour to be composed of maybe lesser known performers who act and sing just like characters whom the director now knows very well. That’s exactly what you get here; truly, the singing is as pitch-perfect as it is organic to the story-telling. At times, I just closed my eyes to listen to the harmonies." ~ Chicago Tribune
https://www.theatreinchicago.com/falsettos/reviews/9868/
Posted: 6/6/19 at 11:23pm
Posted: 6/14/19 at 5:56pm
Saw this in DC, and I think Max von Essen is giving one of the most beautifully nuanced and affecting musical theater performances I've seen this year. As a whole, I liked the show much better this time than when I saw it on Broadway.
Posted: 6/14/19 at 7:47pm
Posted: 6/15/19 at 12:21pm
darreyl102 said: "I saw the show closing night in LA and it just blew me away. I and pretty much everyone around me were greatly affected and teary by the end. I saw the show on Broadway as well but was much less effected by it and enjoyed this production more as a whole. One thing that I didn't feel with the Broadway casting was that Andrew Rannells fit his character description as being a flawless Adonis. Hot he is, but an Adonis? I felt Nick fit the bill better"
And I think Nick sang the score better too. I hadn't realized he had such a fun "show-tune" voice. The DC audience also was wrecked by the end. At the curtain, you could tell von Essen still hadn't recovered from that very emotional final scene.
Posted: 8/24/20 at 8:47pm
Unfortunately, the FALSETTOS National Tour concluded some time ago, but I saw it in Chicago, and I just want to say I agree with the praise for child actor Thatcher Jacobs that has been expressed here by Will3700 and others.
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