Broadway, Broadway: How Great You Are

And I would know, because I have literally seen it all. As of this afternoon, I have officially seen every show on Broadway (including national touring productions and exempting White Christmas and Burn the Floor - which don't really count). This semester alone, I have seen 30 Broadway shows, with a triumvirate of shows this weekend wrapping it up.

First, a quick quasi-digression: on Thursday, I returned to South Pacific, since I did not get to see Kelli O'Hara last time. Well, she was in the show this time and let me tell you - she was absolutely perfect. And Paulo Szot was even better when he had her to play off of - the magic of the two of them together was all a person could ask for. Sadly, Cable was still atrocious and Bloody Mary's understudy was pretty awful as well. But they didn't detract from the overall impact of the production, thanks to the power of Mr. Szot and Ms. O'Hara. I even got to see the show from house left this time, so I have an entirely new perspective. Yet another enchanted evening. Moving on...


On Friday, Kelly and I attended the eagerly-anticipated revival of A Little Night Music. Yes, Angela Lanbsury was there. Yes, Catherine Zeta-Jones was there. Yes, they were both very good. Ms. Lansbury can really do no wrong, so I was obviously blown away by her performance - she was hilarious, engaging, and completely affecting. And Ms. Zeta-Jones was surprisingly great - she landed the comic moments beautifully and offered a moving, tragic rendition of "Send in the Clowns." Sondheim's score is undeniably brilliant, so that alone more than justified the price of admission. After the show, we hit up the stage door (our first visit to one in months). Catherine emerged and was more than cordial, signing Playbills and chatting away to the crowd's delight. Unfortunately, we were stood up once again by Angela (she also failed to come out in May when we saw her in Blithe Spirit). Oh well, I can still cherish my memories of seeing her and the rest of the cast and crew while they rehearsed at MTC. Isn't it rich, indeed.

On Saturday we finally (and I mean finally) got to see Ragtime. After millions of failed lottery attempts (okay, it was at least 8 though...), we took a safer route and bought tickets on TDF. The seats were wonderful - Row P, orchestra left. And the production: wow. All the production elements were absolutely gorgeous, and the direction was so picturesque and electrifying. Each and every actor was wonderful as well - Quentin Earl Darrington was powerful and natural as Coalhouse; Stephanie Umoh was great as Sarah (and she looked and sounded just enough like Audra McDonald to get me through); Christiane Noll was deeply moving as Mother; Bobby Steggert was a fiery, impassioned Younger Brother; the list goes on and on... It breaks my heart that I couldn't see the original production, but this one was so incredibly wonderful that I think I can make it through now.


And today, we finally attended the elusive Superior Donuts. This was our fall-back show when we couldn't get into anything else (generally post-lottery loss); but strangely, the student rush tickets were always sold out. So this time we showed up early and snagged our tickets - this was tragically our last early-morning ticket line of the year, so it was definitely a bittersweet experience. The production was very respectable. Michael McKean's acting was wonderfully understated and Jon Michael Hill gave a breakthrough, effortless, passionate performance. I loved the play up until the last quarter of it, which let me down somewhat. It could definitely use another rewrite, and the fight choreography was bizarrely subpar. The most tragic part is that this is the show that replaced the Pulitzer-prize winning August: Osage County, which we had expected to still be running. Oh well, I suppose we did see enough great theatre to make up for it...


So there you have it: the complete Broadway experience. It's gonna be incredibly strange to not be able to see every show as it comes out from now on. Next semester I will just have to sit back and imagine what the shows are like...that is until I return in the near future. And I mean soon. Very, very soon.