I was always a bit of a know-it-all girl growing up – Lisa Simpson and Hermione Granger come to mind. So it’s hardly surprising that I got a kick out of a musical about the biggest know-it-all girl of all time, Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
Tag: New York CIty
Cabaret Review: John Pizzarelli
The John Pizzarelli Quartet always scales the heights of cabaret’s jazzier side with astonishing musicianship and elan. This particular engagement at the Café Carlyle, however, is singularly focused on their guest star Bucky Pizzarelli, John’s father as well as jazz guitar legend in his own right (having played with the likes of Benny Goodman, Les Paul and Dion and the Belmonts).
Theatre Review: “Kinky Boots”
This is very much in the mold of musicals like Hairspray and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – both shows in which Kinky Boots‘ director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell had a major hand, it should be mentioned. Like them it’s a splashy, colorful, drag-filled joyride of a show, with a soft-sold message of tolerance that never gets in the way of high-energy production numbers. And like those shows, I predict Kinky Boots will be a big fat hit (if I had to guess, I’d say bigger than Priscilla, not as big as Hairspray).
Theatre Review: “Buyer & Cellar”
Just about everything about this show is charming. To begin with, the underlying concept: the play is indirectly about Barbra Streisand’s “elegant barn”, the main subject of her book A Passion for Design. That basement includes a street and fake “shops” to display her collections. Playwright Jonathan Tolins was so tickled by the idea of those fake shops having a real shopkeeper that he created this one-man show about “Alex More” a struggling L.A. actor who takes exactly that job.
Theatre Review: “Hands On A Hardbody”
This is an above-average musical, but only slightly above average. The ideas behind it are certiainly intrigruging, but are inconsistently developed. Everyone in the creative team has done solid, sometimes even inventive craftswork – all in all, Hands on A Hardbody has some really great parts, but is finally less than the sum of those parts.
