Popular Broadway Songs [Youtbe Clips]

[topdog]

News

Dear Evan Hansen

The producers released a new video! This is a 360 degree version of the song "You Will Be Found" made with fans - and the cast - visually participating. This is a 360 video so you need to scroll around to see what is happening on every side.

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They also announced cast replacements. First, while we knew that Ben Platt was leaving at the beginning of November, most of the rest of the cast has renewed their contracts to stay on through spring. They will have two new Evan Hansen's to take the show forward!

Ben Platt (Center) will be leaving the show November 19 and will be replaced first by Noah Galvin (left) and then at the end of January Taylor Trensch (right) will take on the role for an indefinite run.
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Noah Galvin will take up the part as soon as Ben leaves. He will play through the holidays and in to the New Year until Taylor finishes his Hello, Dolly! contract. People may know Noah from his TV series The Real O'Neals - the Dan Savage produced sitcom about a gay teen. But they may not know that before TV Noah spent his life on stage. As a matter of fact, he and Ben Platt are the same age and had very similar experiences growing up doing professional stage roles. Ben was working on the west coast, while Noah has been doing off-Broadway roles since he was 12. Noah's run may be limited, but that may be because they have their eye on him to lead the tour.

Taylor Trensch is currently knocking people's socks off as Barnaby Tucker in Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler. Before that he was on Broadway in last year's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and before that the Spring Awakening tour. Taylor will step in to Evan's shoes in mid-January. Taylor should be amazing in this part which shares some similarities to the boy he played in Curious Incident.

Bonus - they are both out gay actors. Taylor's partner is Max Crumm (Grease, Disaster!).

Hello, Dolly!

Meanwhile back in Taylor's current show at the Schubert Theater we have all been wondering who was going to take on the red dress and feathered hat from Bette Midler when she leaves in January. Now we know that the new Dolly Levi will be....

Bernadette Peters!

I know a lot of people will be ready to order their tickets this week for seats starting this February. Peters will be joined by Victor Garber who will take over for David Hyde Pierce in the role of Horace Vandergelder. Gavin Creel and Kate Baldwin have extended their contracts to stay in the show well into 2018.

Hurricane Relief

Hand-in-Hand is a telethon that will air tomorrow night in the US to raise money for victims of hurricanes Harvey and Irma. There will be stars performing in both LA and Nashville. Barbra Streisand will be featured.

Another performer provided her own relief in the middle of Hurricane Irma. Kristen Bell - known to children around the world as Princess Anna in Disney's Frozen entertained children at an emergency shelter in Orlando, and then later at a retirement home. Bell was in Orlando filming and staying at the Disney resort. When she heard from fellow Frozen cast member Josh Gad that his parents needed to evacuate their Orlando home, Kristen got them a room at the Disney property.

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[topdog]

Tours

Broadway shows don't just stay in New York - they get their act together and take it out on the road! Here is a list of the companies currently touring the US, Canada, and playing in London. If any of these come close to you get a ticket and get out there and see the pros doing what they do best.

Love Never Dies died in London in 2010, but a new improved version of the Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is being sent on tour across the US this month.​

What's new this year?

• You can check out Escape to Magaritaville this fall as it does a pre-Broadway tour before it's New York opening night in February.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber's new and improved Love Never Dies (the sequel to Phantom of the Opera) has had a lot of positive word of mouth and this month starts a US tour.
• The 25th Anniversary production of Les Miserables tour starts in October. This is the revised production that was on Broadway last year.
• Waitress and On Your Feet hit the road this month to bring these recent hits to the rest of the US. (On Your Feet also opened in London, and Waitress will be following there by the end of the year.)
• Finally, The Bodyguard is winding it's way across the States after picking up rave reviews in London. No word on when it will finally appear on Broadway

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The new Les Miserables cast rehearses in New York before playing their first date later this month.​

Here are the shows on tour through January 2018

• Aladdin - London UK, San Francisco CA, Los Angeles CA
• An American in Paris - London UK, Dayton OH, East Lansing MI, Detroit MI, Washingtohn DC, Naples FL
• Beautiful - Sacramento CA, San Jose CA, Tulsa OK, Chicago IL, Indianapolis IN
• Escape to Magaritaville - Chicago IL
• Finding Neverland - Cincinnati OH, Philadelphia PA, Providence RI, Schenectady NY, East Lansing MI, Fayetteville AR, Miami FL, West Palm Beach FL, Fort Myers FL, Austin TX
• Fun Home - Providence RI, Rochester NY, Tampa FL
• Hamilton - London UK, Los Angeles CA, San Diego CA, Tempe AZ, Seattle WA, Denver CO, Portland OR, St Louis MO
• White Christmas - Fayetteville AR, Fort Worth TX, Chicago IL, Dallas TX, San ANtonio TX, New Orleans LA
• Jersey Boys - Edmonton AB, Vancouver BC, Santa Barbara CA, Fort COllins CO, Farego ND, Bismark ND, Billings MT, Nashville TN,
• Kinky Boots - London UK
• Les Miserables - London UK, Greenville SC, Nashville TN, Grand Rapids MI, Little ROck AR, Kansas CIty MO, Charlotte NC, Washington DC, Philadelphia PA
• Love Never Dies - Fort Lauderdale FL, Orlando FL, Atlanta GA, Fort Myers FL, Tampa FL, Providence RI, PIttsburgh PA, CLeveland OH, Boston MA, Chicago IL
• On Your Feet - London UK, St Louis MO, Houston TX Cleveland OH, Greenville SC, Durham NC, Washington DC
• School of Rock - London UK, Chicago IL, Milwaukee WI, Durham NC, Greenville SC, FOrt Lauderdale FL, Orlando FL, Tampa FL, Charlotte NC
• Something Rotten - Costa Mesa CA, Los Angeles CA, Sacramento CA, Salt Lake City UT
• The Bodyguard - Portland OR, Seattle WA, Las Vegas NV, Tempe AZ, Salt Lake City UT, Providence RI, Detroit MI
• The Book of Mormon - London UK, Washington DC, West Plam Beach FL, Miami FL, Tampa FL, Orlando FL, Naples FL, Seattle WA
• The Color Purple - Pittsburgh PA, Boston MA, Hartford CT, Philadelphia PA, Oklahoma City OK, Houston TX
• The King and I - West Palm Beach FL, New Orleans LA, St Louis MO, Austin TX, Dallas TX, Denver CO
• The Lion King - London UK, Baltimore MD, Buffalo NY, Atlanta GA, Jacksonville FL, Orlando FL, Birmingham AL
• The Phantom of the Opera - London UK, Phildelphia PA, Waterbury CT, Memphis TN, Minneapolis MN, Columbus OH, Charlotte NC
• Waitress - Columbus OH, Kansas City MO, Minneapolis MN, Appleton WI, Des Moines IA, Ohama NE, Denver CO, Milwaukee WI, Cincinnati OH, East Lansing MU, Baltimore MD
• Wicked - London UK, Cleveland OH, Chicago IL, Pittsburgh PA, Ft Lauderdale, Memphis TN

 

[topdog]

Your Weekend Musical

Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover. The setting of the plot is relocated to 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Madame Butterfly's story of marriage between an American lieutenant and a geisha is replaced by a romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bargirl.

This is the filmed version of the 2015 London production that is now running on Broadway.

Act 1

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Act 2

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[topdog]

Closing Notices

Update: War Paint posts closing notice for December 30 2017.

If you've ever done shows, whether it was professional, community theater, or high school - you know the shock of a show closing. One day you are in the middle of a whilrlwind that has dictated the pace of your life for weeks or months, and then the next day - nothing. There is no reason to get out of bed. No one is waiting for you. No friends to catch up with at the theater. No lights and energy and excitement followed by exhaustion. Now your life is literally nothing. You sleep in. Walk the dog. Start thinking about unemployment.

Last night both Bandstand and Groundhog Day played their final shows. Today the moving trucks pulled up as sets were struck and lighting and sound systems packed up and put in storage.

Corey Cott, Laura Osnes (Bandstand) and Andy Karl (Groundhog Day) are all on the cusp of being stars. They each gave great performances, and had their shows been hits, this could have been the moment that seared them into the public's imagination. But that was not to be. Ben Platt got the magical trip to the Heaviside Layer this past season. (Yes, that is a Cats reference. Now and forever.)

Lucas Steele of The Great Comet knows that feeling well because two weeks ago it was his show that was closing. The day after he made this video that captures that moment really well.

Lucas Steele of The Great Comet gets off the subway and heads to the Imperial Theater where his show is no longer playing.​

It begins with a recording he made on his phone outside the stage door closing night when fans serenaded the cast with the song "Goodbye My Gypsy Lovers" from the show, Lucas then fades in to his own recording and arrangement of the song, as he makes his way to the Imperial Theater, just as he has done nearly every day for almost a year. Only on this day there is no show - just a theater with old sets that are now in the way and have to be cleared out.

But, on the positive side, two more shows have been announced for Spring 2018. Mean Girls will come in to New York after the DC tryout, and Angels in America with Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield will transfer from London.

 

[topdog]

West Side Story

Happy 60th Anniversary

Next week marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of West Side Story on Broadway. Want to celebrate? Take a look at this New Year's Eve performance of the Mambo section from "Dance at the Gym". The audience is cheering, dancing, throwing flower petals! At a symphony concert! Must be seen to be believed.

Conducted by Gustavo Dudamel with the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra Simón Bolívar and the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble. And yes, even the orchestra dances!​

The last two years have also marked the dates when Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins would have turned 100. That really highlights the fact that Stephen Sondheim was the baby of the creative team - it was his first Broadway show.

In the Masterworks video below, Stephen remembers the process of recording the original cast album for West Side Story - including the experience of being thwarted from using actual profanity in the lyrics.

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See my previous post on West Side Story for details on both the show and the movie.

 

[topdog]

SpongeBob SquarePants

NPR has again previewed a new Original Cast Album - this time it's SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical which doesn't open until December.

You can listen to it here.​

The unique thing about the SpongeBob musical is that the songs are written by a bunch of pop composers, including Sara Bareilles, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, T.I., Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, members of Plain White T's, Panic! At The Disco, The Flaming Lips and They Might Be Giants.

 

[topdog]

Sunday in the Park with George

Wow! NPR is on a Broadway preview streak. They now have a track from the newly released Jake Gyllenhaal / Analeigh Ashford cast recording of Sunday in the Park with George. And I must say that Jake sounds pretty incredible.

You can listen to it here.​

Unfortunately, they only have the one song ("Move On") available. But the whole album goes up on streaming services today. (I checked on Amazon and it is there.) The vinyl and CD versions will be in stores in November.

 

[topdog]

Cats

Last month was the one year mark for the Cats revival on Broadway, which means that most of the contracts were up for the cast. Many left the show, and a couple switched parts. So now that things have settled down with the new cast for the final months, they released a new video with fresh dancing kitty cats.

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Andy Blankenbuehler won the Tony last June for Bandstand, but he also choreographed the Cats revival as well. Here he discussed his approach to refreshing Gillian Lynne's dances while keeping the show's DNA intact.

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[gvd_rm]

Thanks for keeping us all informed about Broadway Musicals

Thanks again

 

[topdog]

Your Weekend Musical

A little over a year ago near the end of the national tour of Newsies Disney made the unique move of taking a week at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles to shut down performances to do an extensive filming of the production. They brought back Jeremy Jordan, Andrew Keenan-Bloger, and Kara Lindsey and other members of the original cast. They finished the week by inviting Newsies fans for a special performance and taping. That production was shown in movie theaters around the world in February and is available now on Netflix.

This is that live capture of the show. It may not be available for long - so watch it while you can.

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For more information:

• Newsies Post 2 - Background on the 1992 movie and the creation of the Broadway musical
• Newsies Post 3 - Crutchie takes us behind the scenes
• Newsies Post 4 - Review of the filmed Broadway show

 

[topdog]

Julie Andrews

Happy Birthday Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews was 82 yesterday and did you know that she has been entertaining audiences now for about 70 years? She started young and was a radio and stage sensation in the UK just after the war. People loved hearing the little girl with the freakish four octave range. At 13 she played the London Hippodrome for a year and did a royal command performance for King George VI with Danny Kaye and the Nicholas Brothers.

Julie Andrews at 12 years old singing her heart out to the tune of 'Je suis Titania' (Polonaise) from Mignon by Ambroise Thomas.
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Four years later she was cast in a 1920's parody musical called The Boy Friend in London and became something of a sensation. Lerner and Lowe asked her to audition for a musical version of Pygmalion they were writing. She was cast in High Tor - a TV musical with Bing Crosby. And Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wanted her for Pipe Dream - their follow up to King and I and South Pacific. And that was all in 1955 - 56!

She decided to turn down R&H and instead make her Broadway debut in My Fair Lady - and the rest is history.

In 1962 she did her first television special Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall with Carol Burnett. Since we are still celebrating the 60th Anniversary of West Side Story, let's hear them sing "A Boy Like That / I Have a Love". They make a pretty awesome Anita and Maria!

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Julie Andrews is an international treasure.

 

[topdog]

Favorite Dances

W!nston posted George Benson's great hit from the 1970's "On Broadway" over in the Youtube thread. Here is exactly the same song which Bob Fosse turned in to the best opening for a backstage film musical ever - All That Jazz (1979).

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This is one of Fosse's great tricks - the only thing on the soundtrack is the George Benson song. But I imagine the sounds of the theater, dialog with the producers greeting the star watching in the back, the director talking to the dancers, the noise of all those people on stage, the singing auditions. We think we hear them - but that is just Fosse's skill in shooting and editing to the music and the masterful way he tells a story on film.

 

[topdog]

Favorite Songs

The Prayer (Bring Him Home) from Les Miserables

As an encore at the end of the 25th Anniversary Concert at the O2 Arena four actors perform "Bring Him Home": Colm Wilkinson from the original London cast, John Owen-Jones from the 25th Anniversary touring production, Simon Bowman from the current London cast, and Alfie Boe, who sang the role in the Anniversary concert. ​

The story goes that in 1985 when this song was added to the show in the rehearsal rooms at the Barbican theater complex in London the cast gathered round and Colm Wilkinson sang the song in front of the company for the first time. The cast was in tears at the end.

Director Trevor Nunn spoke up and said "I told you we were going to bring God into this show." One of the cast answered "Yes - but you didn't tell us that you had employed Him to sing it."

Other Versions

• Colm Wilkinson - The original! He launched the London production in 1985, and then came to Broadway and repeated the role there. This video is from the 10th Anniversary production and he definitely still had it. Little known fact - Colm was also the original Phantom of the Opera when Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber did the first workshop. As a matter of fact, nearly every successful Jean Valjean has also played the Phantom on Broadway or London - Colm, Ramin, Alfie Boe, John Owen-Jones, and Norm Lewis are examples.
• Ramin Karimloo - Broadway's latest Jean Valjean. Being incredibly sexy is not really a requirement for this role - but Karimloo has it in spades. This is a simple rendition he did on the Today Show with just acoustic guitar accompaniment. Ramin is currently featured in Prince of Broadway.
• Josh Groban - Josh Groban included this on his Stages album. He has never performed the part, but after seeing him in The Great Comet it looks like this is a role he could take on any time he wants.

 

[topdog]

News

Social media is going berserk in the Broadway community over the last 24 hours. Everybody has an opinion on this much anticipated story.

At long last the casting for the spring revival of My Fair Lady directed by Bartlett Sher has been announced. Some people are happy, others are mad, but everyone is to some extent dumbstruck. Here is the cast (and I will include the actor's ages, since that is a big point of discussion).

• Eliza Doolittle - Lauren Ambrose (39)
• Henry Higgins - Harry Hadden-Paton (36)
• Alfred Doolittle - Norbert Leo Butz (50)
• Mrs. Higgins - Diana Rigg (79)

From left to right: Lauren Ambrose, Harry Hadden-Paton, Norbert Leo Butz, Diana Rigg​

So, who are these people? Some may be familiar to you in other contexts.

• Diana Rigg - for my generation she needs no introduction. She is well known for her TV work - from Mrs. Peel in The Avengers in the 1960s to Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones today. Ms. Rigg is the one cast member that everyone agrees is perfect, especially since she played this role in the non-musical version, Pygmalion, in London a couple of years ago.
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• Norbert Leo Butz came to Broadway in Rent when he replaced Adam Pascal as Roger. He created the roles of Fiyero in Wicked and Jamie in The Last Five Years and won Tonys for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Catch Me If You Can. He's a bit young for Alfred P. Doolittle (who sings the rollicking "Get Me to the Church on Time") but only slightly and certanly has the chops to pull this off. I think most people assumed that Bartlett Sher would use his long-time star Danny Burstein (Tevye in the recent revival of Fiddler on the Roof) as Eliza's father - but Norbert is, I think, a nice risky surprise.
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• Harry Hadden-Paton - I think the collective response here was "Who?". If you have seen him at all it is probably in Downton Abbey where in the series finale he married Lady Edith. (He was the shy Bertie Pelham who we first met as a groundskeeper, but later inherited the title of Marquess and a huge estate.) Considering that this whole project began years ago around casting Colin Firth in the part, this seems quite a comedown. I mean run through actors from Downton Abbey, Harry Potter, and James Bond and you can come up with a dozen more suitable and bankable names: Kenneth Branagh, Jason Isaacs, Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, David Thewlis, Hugh Bonneville, Hugh Grant, Julian Ovenden, Daniel Day-Lewis, or Matthew Goode. One thing is for sure, Harry will certainly be the youngest Henry Higgins most of us have ever seen. Which leads you to think that maybe that is what Sher is going for - a much younger MFL. But wait...
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• Lauren Ambrose - Lauren has long been rumored for this part, and she has some history with Bart Sher - he cast her in his Broadway revival of Funny Girl in 2012. Unfortunately that production fell victim to the credit crunch when a big investor dropped out and another one could not be found. Lauren has been doing stage work for much of the last decade - mostly plays. But you might know her for her first big TV role as Claire Fisher in HBO's Six Feet Under (2001–2005). Lauren has a good singing voice - though she is more known for her belty numbers rather than sparkling soprano. However, oddly, she is rather old for the part - not to mention older than her Henry Higgins. I could understand going older to bring in a star like Kelli O'Hara (41) or Laura Benanti (38). But neither Harry nor Lauren are going sell tickets.

I think it goes without saying that at this point in his career Bart Sher has earned the right to cast whoever he pleases. In the past few years he has staged critically acclaimed revivals of South Pacific, The King and I, and Fiddler on the Roof as well as original musicals like The Bridges of Madison County and this year's Best Play Tony Award winner - Oslo. But Broadway professionals and fans are having a hard time swallowing Ambrose and Hadden-Paton in these parts when there were so many Broadway and London theater favorites left in the cold.

In the end, it comes down to what goes on that stage at Lincoln Center in the spring. We'll have to see what Sher and his cast have in mind.

Rare tape of Julie Andrews being "coached" by director Moss Hart for a TV segment featuring "Just You Wait, Henry Higgins" from the original production of My Fair Lady.​

 

[topdog]

Charity

Lin-Manuel Miranda has written a song to raise money for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.

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Lin was inspired by the constant social media requests after the the hurricane passed for information on loved ones. "Has anyone heard how is Farjardo?" "I have relatives in Las Mareas and I can't reach anybody - what's happening there?" So his lyric is naming all 78 towns on the island.

He first called his friend Rita Moreno (who played Anita in the movie of West Side Story) who immediately agreed to help and also put him in touch with Gloria Estefan (who wrote and is the subject of On Your Feet) - and the list of artists grew from there.

He also got support from the man who wrote the line: "Say it loud and there's music playing; say it soft and it's almost like praying."

Of course, Lin and Stephen Sondheim have collaborated around West Side Story before - Lin wrote Spanish lyrics for some of the Bernstein/Sondheim songs sung by the Sharks in the 2010 revival.

 

[topdog]

Your Weekend Play

Pygmalion
by George Bernard Shaw

This season we will see My Fair Lady again. But have you ever seen the George Bernard Shaw play that My Fair Lady is based on? Much of the greatness of the musical is there in Shaw's original play. Here is a chance to compare and contrast the two with this 1983 television production starring Peter O'Toole as Henry Higgins and Margot Kidder (yes, Lois Lane in Superman) as Eliza Doolittle.

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This is an abbreviated version of the play. GB Shaw wrote the 1938 screenplay for the filmed version with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. You can find that version here.

There has been much discussion through the years about what Shaw is saying about class and women versus how Alan Jay Lerner reinterpreted it for Broadway. Take a look - the performances of these two will really get you thinking.

And if you can only watch musicals, here is the London Cast Recording - you can pause the teleplay at appropriate moments and insert the songs.

 

[topdog]

Favorite Songs

Cabaret from Cabaret by John Kander and Fred Ebb

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The song wears its showbiz cynicism on its sleeve, which made it a perfect show tune for a generation coming out of Vietnam, the Cold War, and Watergate. It also made it perfect for film director Bob Fosse who made a career out of combining sex, showbiz and cynicism.

When the score was written in the mid-1960s, Kander and Ebb had just had their first hit Flora the Red Menace with Liza Minnelli. They wrote the score to Cabaret with her in mind. But director Hal Prince didn't want a brash American in the role when Sally was supposed to be British, so she lost the role on Broadway. Still, when the time came for movie, Liza's career was in the right place at the right time and the screenplay was rewritten for her.

Personal note: When I saw this in the theater and she sings the line about "When I saw her laid out like a queen..." I couldn't help thinking of her singing about her mother, Judy Garland, who had died just a few years before.

 

[topdog]

Springsteen on Broadway

"Nothing about Springsteen on Broadway feels like an easy cash-grab, or even simply a rock star looking for a kinder schedule that doesn't involve trekking from city to city day after day. Instead, with its mix of live music and stories and readings adapted from his 2016 autobiography, Born to Run, Springsteen on Broadway lets one of popular music's most beloved icons flex all kinds of creative muscle in a rare, intimate setting that showcases the true breadth of talents." - Madison Vain, Entertainment Weekly

Springsteen on Broadway is not a Broadway musical per se. It is more of a special event/concert/revue like Liza at the Palace or Elaine Stritch: At Liberty. It is Bruce alone on stage singing his songs with a guitar or piano and telling stories - mostly from his autobiography Born to Run.

In that way it resembles this season's previous revue: Prince of Broadway. But while that one was big on flashy numbers and light on bio, Springsteen takes the opposite tack. Simple presentation of the songs, and then revealing detail of the songwriter/artist underneath are what the critics noticed in the mostly positive reviews.

Despite the relative lack of spontaneity (except when the crowd began clapping along on "Dancing in the Dark" and he said with a smile, "I'll handle it myself, thanks!"), the show is not a glorified audiobook. Springsteen's everyman persona can obscure his deep intelligence and formidable talent as a wordsmith: He has a novelist's eye for detail ("My mom's high heels would echo down the linoleum hallway"; "My dad's favorite bar smelled of beer, perspiration and after-shave") and a master politician's gift for flow, impact, rhythm and the ability to speak intimately to many. The show is loaded with great lines and we'll spoil just a few of them: "I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with a bit of fraud - including me"; "Those whose love we wanted but couldn't get, we emulate"; "I have never held an honest job in my entire life." - Jem Aswad, Variety

The stage design for SOB.​

Not that quality of any kind was required for this gig. Bruce could have just brought his band and did a regular set and sold out easily. (The entire run is sold out through closing in February.) But clearly he's stretching a bit and looking for something halfway between a play and a concert and the form he has found seems to be satisfying audiences.

The Hollywood Reporter gives some of their review with photos of the production. Sorry - I haven't found any video. Nothing has been officially released.​

I haven't heard if they are doing an album, but this is definitely one I would buy.

Last week during previews SOB took in $2.5 million. That's just with 5 shows/week in a 900 seat house. He's pulling in more money than Bette in Hello, Dolly! (and doing three less shows a week) and on a per seat basis bringing in bigger bucks than Hamilton.

Maybe Broadway will be the new residency for aging rock acts. Just think what Sting could have done with just a guitar and a piano instead of mounting The Last Ship a couple of years ago.

 

[topdog]

Dear Evan Hansen

All The Evans​

This delicious confection came out today. It's Ben Platt's last month in Dear Evan Hansen, and to celebrate he produced this little 70s disco video featuring his replacements: Noah Galvin and Taylor Trensch. The boys boogie around New York to the tune of Earth Wind and Fire's 'Getaway'. (Ben is in SoHo, Galvin in the West Village and I think Taylor starts out downtown by the East River.)

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Au revoir Mr. Platt, and we are looking forward to what Noah and Taylor do at the Music Box Theater. You can learn details of Noah and Taylor in this post.

Update: In my original post I said that it was Ben Platt's last week in the show. It's his last month - he leaves in mid-November.

 

[topdog]

Favorite Songs

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going from Dreamgirls

Jennifer Holliday and the original 1982 cast perform on the Tony Award broadcast.​

Jennifer Hudson won an Oscar for the role of Effie in the movie and Amber Riley just won an Oliver Award for the part in the recent London revival.

But the number could never have happened without the singular force of nature called Jennifer Holliday. The role won her a Tony and the song won her a Grammy. It was truly a Star-is-Born moment.

Jennifer was only 21 when she was cast as Effie - Michael Bennett had seen her critically praised performance in the gospel musical Your Arms Too Short to Box with God.

The other key thing to know about Jennifer in Dreamgirls is that she walked out of the show right before previews. She got fed up with Bennett's emotional manipulation (his standard directing method) and cuts that were being made to her part. Michael tried to keep her in line with an ultimatum, figuring he had the upper hand being able to give her Broadway success.

But for the first time Michael was dealing with a woman who really didn't care all that much for show business. Jennifer considered herself primarily a gospel singer and, frankly, she wasn't all that impressed with Broadway. She was perfectly happy being back with her family and singing in church in Texas.

Bennett was stuck. Dreamgirls was a good show even without Holliday. But he also knew that Jennifer was potentially the biggest Broadway sensation since Streisand in Funny Girl. She could make his musical historic. He caved. He went down to Texas to woo her back and brought with him changes to the script that would improve her part in the second act.

The rest is, as they say, history.