“Mean Girls” was Tina Fey’s smart, funny 2004 movie that she turned with her husband into an overlong, ill-timed Broadway musical (as I wrote in my review) in 2018, which has now been adapted into a movie musical. So what do the film critics think twenty years after they first weighed in on this story? Read on. Excerpted and linked from meanest to nicest. (Below the reviews, the Broadway connections and the cast) there’s a hollow emptiness to this rendition that’s thoroughly soul-sucking. It’s as if by adapting the film, which was adapted from a book, into a musical and back into a ..read more

Choose your favorite Broadway cast recording released in 2023* from among the 12 in the poll below, ordered alphabetically. If I’ve somehow missed your favorite, fill in the “Other” slot. (If enough people choose an “other” album, I’ll add it to the poll.) More about these albums at the links below the poll. Loading… * I’ve applied a liberal definition of “released.”  I include the title if any format was first put on sale in 2023, even if other formats were on sale previously or won’t be on sale until later. To pick the most extreme example:  “Six The Musical” o ..read more

“Rock & Roll Man,” a musical at New World Stages about Alan Freed, a radio disc jockey and concert promoter who championed early rock and roll, had already announced a September 1st closing date when the production invited me to take a look. I felt lucky to be able to catch some exciting performers rocking out some two dozen Golden Oldies, like Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti; Jerry Lee Lewis’ Great Balls of Fire;  Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven. I think it counts as an irony that for all the familiarity of the music, it would be  hard to dismiss “Rock & Roll Man ..read more

One more time indeed!  Like “& Juliet,” this jukebox musical features songs made popular by Britney Spears; like “Bad Cinderella,”  its central character is a rebellious version of Prince Charming’s one-shoed love interest;  like “Six,” the show is a high-energy spectacle with a rock concert vibe, featuring a multicultural group of colorfully-costumed performers portraying female figures from the past (in this case fairy tale princesses) who loudly proclaim a frilly type of feminism — less fourth wave than sonic wave. If “Once Upon a One More Time,” openin ..read more

Each of the following ten recording artists has been nominated for Album of the Year, the most coveted of the 91 categories in the 65th annual Grammy Awards, which will be held this Sunday. Which of them do you most want to see write a Broadway musical? (We’re not necessarily talking about turning their specific nominated album into a musical.) The poll is beneath a list of the artists and their albums, and videos from the albums *ABBA: Voyage Adele: 30 Bad Bunny: Un Verano Sin Ti *Beyoncé: RENAISSANCE Mary J. Blige: Good Morning Gorgeous (Deluxe) Brandi Carlile: In These Silent Days Co ..read more

The original challenge to the creators of “1776” was how to make a commercial musical comedy out of something as somber and dry as the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Half a century later, Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus, directors  of the Broadway revival that is opening tonight at Roundabout’s American Airlines Theater, apparently saw an almost opposite challenge: How to update this sturdy but sometimes corny Broadway entertainment so that it both reflects the changed aesthetics of Broadway  —  where the go-to musicals about American history have b ..read more

The Off-Broadway revival of “Kinky Boots,” which opens tonight  at Stage 42, comes just 40 months after the end of the show’s run on Broadway, and is so little changed from the original that it’s unlikely to make many people reconsider their view of the musical. That means that fans will probably not be disappointed by this new production. It also means that there’s little reason for those who weren’t fans to give it a second look. My second look didn’t bowl me over; I still don’t think it’s kinky enough. But I get why people find it so entertaining, and I like the same two thi ..read more

Margaret Hall at TEDxBroadway A century and a half after the first American musical, the art form “is growing up, and it is time for us to address the growing pains,” historian Margaret Hall said at her TEDx Broadway talk yesterday. Some shows have aged better than others. “Many older shows are difficult for us as modern audience members today,” Hall said. “Honestly, that is one of my greatest joys, because it is a direct sign of progress. Frankly, I would be a little bit worried if sensibilities had not changed.” Hall has created five categories as a framework to consider how viable an old s ..read more

Is there a better time to debut a documentary about “Spring Awakening,” a musical that features a lead character who dies after a botched back-alley abortion?  “Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known” launched yesterday on HBO Max, the day after the leak of the draft of a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade. The film is ostensibly about the 15th anniversary reunion concert by the original Broadway cast, a one-night event that occurred in November 2021. But, over the 83 minutes of the documentary, directed by Michael John Warren (who also directed “Rent: Li ..read more

“Funny Girl,” a revival of which opened tonight on Broadway, is supposed to be a musical about Fanny Brice, the singing comedienne who was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway for some twenty-five years and then starred in a radio series that she created as the beloved brat Baby Snooks. But let’s face it: “Funny Girl” has always really been about Barbra Streisand. Streisand originated the part when “Funny Girl” debuted on Broadway in 1964, in her second and final stage role, and made her film debut in the 1968 Hollywood adaptation of it, which turned her into a movie star. “The trouble ..read more