Broadway Roundup: Performances from 'Merrily We Roll Along', 'Stereophonic', 'The Great Gatsby'
Click to viewBroadway stars Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez perform "Old Friends" from their Tony Award-nominated musical, Merrily We Roll Along. Catch the show during its strictly limited engagement, now through July 7th at Broadway’s Hudson Theater.
( 'Masquerade' from Stereophonic )
"Masquerade" is such a bop, I Iove it.
Just got back from a big NYC theater trip - some thoughts on the shows we saw! [Spoiler (click to open)]
The Outsiders - Picked up tickets for this last minute when we ended up getting to NYC early enough to see a show that night. Really enjoyed the visuals and the talent on stage, though many of the songs were lyrically awful. I did enjoy a few though, and the guy playing Ponyboy, Brody Grant, has a phenomenal voice. I also liked Joshua Boone as Dalley, but the guy playing Johnny was awful. There are definitely some changes from the book, which I know fans here were pretty peeved about, but I only read it for the first time a few months ago so I didn’t mind too much.
An Enemy of the People - Strong cast for this one, with Michael Imperioli being the only one who didn’t really hit for me. Jeremy Strong gets to wear a brown suit for the whole show, I was very happy for him. And of course, as is usually the case with these old plays, way too relevant to what’s going on today. Sat in the second row on one of the short ends of CITS and had a perfect view - it truly is a great theater. I did miss the big OK! on the lobby wall, though. :/
Stereophonic - A play with music clearly based on Fleetwood Mac… I suspected that I'd like this one, and I really did! The bad British accents bothered me more than most people, I guess, because I haven’t seen them mentioned much, but I loved the way it was framed. Sarah Pidgeon and Eli Gelb were both so damn good! And seeing Juliana Canfield in this show meant I saw Kendall and Jess on the same day, lol.
The Great Gatsby - I think was expecting this to suck based on the reviews, but it was fine? The production design was out of this world, I cannot believe they did not get nominated for a Tony for that.... you could really see where they put their money on stage. Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada were great, as was Sam Pauly. We had an understudy for Nick, who was just okay - not sure if it was the role or the guy playing it, I could see it going either way. Does the show really *get* the book? No, but it was fun to watch and had some beautiful songs. Excited for the A.R.T. Gatsby coming out soon!!
The Who’s Tommy - This was fucking great, Ali Louis Bourzgui is a goddamn star!! It’s very weird and abstract, like the movie, but there’s some great dancing and the way they move the kid actors around is absolutely fascinating to watch. They were so good! It's not really that kind of show, but I cried at the finale - a group of people singing AT you is so powerful.
Patriots - Booked this specifically for Michael Stuhlbarg. The reviews ended up being very meh, so I was worried, but it was fine and he was great. He can be really hammy, but in a way I love? Like I think another actor being as over the top as he is at times would make me mad, but he makes it work. Was not familiar with the story of Putin's rise to power, so that was interesting!
Uncle Vanya - Didn’t have anything picked for this slot until this morning of, but Cabaret was wildly expensive, and Lempicka only had really shitty or really expensive seats left, so I went with Uncle Vanya. No regrets! I was not familiar with the play, so I would love to see another production at some point soon, but I enjoyed it. William Jackson Harper was the highlight, but honestly, the whole cast was great. A bunch of people left at intermission, which was a shame because it picked up a lot in the second act.
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The Lonely Few - This was one of the big disappointments of the trip, unfortunately. I saw this show three times in LA last year, and was so looking forward to seeing it again, but while they kept the talented performers and most of the (excellent) songs, they absolutely butchered the book and character development of two of the supporting characters. It was brutal to watch a show transformed for the worse like that, I hope they fix it. :/ Lauren Patten's voice is a fucking knockout, though!
Three Houses - Dave Malloy is such a good writer, jesus!! This was a show about the pandemic quarantine era, and just hearing that turned me off because I just don’t care to revisit it at all, but of course he made it work beautifully. Loved Margo Seibert and Mia Pak, but I don’t really care for JD Mollison. The music was giving Comet & Ghost Quartet, in a good way!!
All of Me - This was a last minute booking because it was a Sunday night show and basically no one does those! Sweetening the pot for me was Kyra Sedgwick, who I love, and the few reviews I saw said it was sweet and funny. And they were right! Madison Ferris, one of the leads, was absolutely hilarious. The whole story revolves around a relationship between two disabled folks who use assistive devices to talk and wheelchairs to move around, and they got so much humor out of the premise and while still making me cry at the end.
Illinois - Last show of the trip, on my actual birthday, and it was so damn good. I’ve loved that album for many, many years, and was a bit skeptical of it as a dance show, but I am happy to report it worked well. The singers were overall pretty excellent, though I think I wanted a little bit more from the male singer at times. The guy playing Sufjan Henry resembles him to a distracting degree, and was very good. We must have had an understudy debut for Clark, because the cast was hyping him up like crazy during bows!!
Overall, great trip! I love theater so goddamn much.
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I'd heard about Stereophonic but now I get why no one was mentioning the plot haha, if it's just another rehash of FM
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And yeah it's definitely a fully Fleetwood Mac bts sort of thing, with a couple of audio engineers acting as the audience inserts. I can see why people are tired of that, but I was into it!
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While Daisy Jones wasn't perfect, I've really loved the music. So was the stereophonic music any good?
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Also happy late birthday lol
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i'm glad you enjoyed most of what you saw though, what a great lineup!!
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