I almost didn’t go see Days of Wine and Roses: The Musical because my memories of the highly regarded 1962 film—directed by Blake Edwards and written by J.P. Miller—aren’t all that warm. I distinctly remember thinking, “So just stop drinking already!” I was able to appreciate Edwards’s artful direction, even at age 20, along with Miller’s subtle and perceptive story of enabling and co-dependency, and Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick’s fine performances (Lemmon was a real actor before he began leaning on mugging and shtick). But something in me resisted extolling a work principally dedicated to depi ..read more

Buena Vista Social Club—a wonderfully infectious and sexy collection of golden-age Cuban music featuring all-but-forgotten virtuosic Cuban musicians in their 70s and 80s—has been wrapped in nostalgia and wish-fulfillment since its first release as an album in 1997. It was produced and brilliantly marketed by the American musician Ry Cooder and British producer Nick Gold and touched a tender nerve in the post-Soviet West. Thirty- and forty-somethings who were baffled by the novelties of rap and electronica (Cooder called them “the Jeep Cherokee set”) proved ripe for this record’s acoustic arti ..read more

Tim Rice became interested in the biography of Eva Perón – the wife of the famous dictator Juan Perón – in the early 70s of the past century. Most of the musical’s book, Tim wrote while in Argentina, where he traveled specifically to get “imbued” with the spirit of the country, where the action of his script takes place. He introduces a certain Che as the storyteller – the prototype of Ernesto Che Guevara.  Che is the one who asks the most important question: Who was the legendary Evita in reality? The book by Tim Rice contains the life story of Maria Eva Duarte de Perón – also known as ..read more

Presented by NYC’s Piper Theatre, Aftermath is a new pop musical-in-development written by Daniel McKamey, with lyrics by Pance Pony and book by James Clements. The story follows the aftermath of a school shooting, in which four survivors arrive at group therapy and, while bonding over shared grief, learn of a diary the shooter left behind. Now, they must each choose how to best handle this discovery and move forward toward healing. Inspired by McKamey’s real-life experience, the musical is a searing examination of the impact of what has become an everyday American tragedy. A staged reading o ..read more

Little Shop of Horrors is a famous rock musical by Alan Menken, with the book and lyrics written by Howard Ashman, based on the horror comedy film directed by Roger Corman (1960) – and in 2022 the Little Shop celebrated its 40th anniversary. Over such a long period the show became extremely popular due to its long post-premiere run (over five years), multiple national tours across the US and the UK, revivals (2004, 2007, 2009, 2019), as well as new productions in Canada and Australia. The 1986 screen version directed by Frank Oz also helped make this show a hit, even though originally, many ..read more

The musical Wicked premiered on Broadway twenty years ago and quickly earned the title of the very “model of a modern musical.” With its contemporary form, vibe, and portrayal of the worldview and its perception, the show became extremely popular over the past decades. Stephen Schwartz together with Winnie Holzman, inspired by the famous novel by Gregory Maguire The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, worked hard to create this brilliant adaptation of the novel which became the basis for the musical. It is important to note that they were able to preserve the originality of the li ..read more

Up to the present moment a debate has been going on – whether the demon-barber of Fleet Street had a real-life prototype. For the very first time, a character under the name of Sweeney Todd appeared in the series of Penny Dreadful stories written by Thomas Peckett Prest in 1846. Later, the stories were collected into a single novel A String of Pearls. There have been some doubts and differences in opinions when it came to the authorship of the novel: some believed that the book was written by Thomas Peckett Prest, and others were convinced that it was a creative work by James Malcolm Rymer. T ..read more

Some performers were born to be on Broadway, and Eugene Ma could easily be among them: The 33-year-old director oozes the exceptional talent, high-octane energy, and infectious charisma that it takes to make it on the Great White Way. As fate would have it, he was even raised on Broadway, albeit the one that borders the massive Mei Foo Sun Chuen housing estate where he grew up. In that distinction lies an important key to understanding the trajectory of this aspiring enfant terrible of Hong Kong theater.   “I knew something was wrong when I had to just memorize shit in school and ou ..read more

The pandemic was unusually kind to China’s musical theater scene, but an obsession with established properties threatens the industry’s creativity. The past six months have been good to Shanghai’s musical theater industry. Already buoyed by the rising popularity of musical theater-themed reality singing competitions, theaters have enjoyed a string of hits this spring — the first season in three years unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The run began in April, with the debut of a Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera. That was followed by a Chinese-language musical version of Hamlet and ..read more

“We’re not here to make fairytales, we’re here to follow them,” quips the narrator (Adam Godley) early on in Once Upon a One More Time, the Britney Spears jukebox musical playing at the Marquis Theater. Although he is the show’s antagonist, his pronouncement is unfortunately apt. Once Upon a One More Time is an insipid regurgitation of fairytales and their nominally feminist retellings with little new to offer. But for such a transparent cash grab has it actually, well, grabbed the cash? The $20 million show is closing on September 3rd after 123 performances leaving me wondering when will the ..read more