In case you missed it, critwinks are smaller reviews turned out in a single draft.

I have to admire John Donnelly's chutzpah for titling his play about queer identity and queer anxiety in professional sports The Pass. The moniker has multiple (fairly obvious) meanings, but it also makes the piece an easy target for snark: “Should you see The Pass? The answer is right in the title.” “Pass is exactly what you should do on The Pass.” “Whenever an opportunity arises to say something meaningful, Donnelly chooses to pass.” You get the idea.

Perhaps the play felt more original and insightful when it premiered in London in January 2014. Nine months earlier, Jason Collins had come out in Sports Illustrated, becoming the first openly gay player in America’s major leagues. Less than two weeks before The Pass began performances, Thomas Hitzlsperger, a veteran of three of England’s highest-profile football clubs, publicly came out as gay. The following month, rising NFL prospect Michael Sam announced that he was gay, which many believe downgraded his placement in the subsequent draft.

Opening in such a climate must have endowed The Pass with an exciting “ripped from the headlines” topicality it now lacks, although there is still extensive work to be done to address homophobia and queer representation in sports, especially men’s sports. The original production also featured direction from the frequently visionary John Tiffany (Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Broadway’s haunting 2014 revival of The Glass Menagerie) and a reported tour-de-force from Russell Tovey, who repeated his performance in a 2016 film adaptation. Now that The Pass is making its New York debut at La MaMa—but without the same social context, director, or star—it seems that the magical combination of those factors did more work than the play itself in generating strong reviews and sufficient interest to spawn a film version.

Max Hunter’s slick off-Broadway production is not bad; it’s just not good enough to camouflage the fundamental flaws in Donnelly’s writing. The Pass follows footballer Jason (Tovey’s role, here played by Matisse Ratron-Neal) from the rookie season he plays with fellow newbie Ade (Terry Bell) on to stardom. Over the course of several years, we see how Jason’s celebrity colors his initially casual relationships with everyone from a “table dancer” (Ino Badanjak) to his hotel’s bellhop (Oliver Rowland-Jones) and, inevitably, his reckoning with Ade.

This is a drama that prioritizes character and theme over plot—again, not necessarily a bad thing, but a problem here because the characters are all familiar types (e.g., the harlot who reveals “unexpected” depth as she reveals more and more of her body), and Donnelly doesn’t actually have anything new or profound to say about fame or the closet. Each scene is structured to build to one or two “twists,” most of which the audience can see coming from a football field away. What I could not predict was that after nearly two repetitive hours of kitchen hotel–sink realism, the play, or at least this production, would culminate in a frustratingly abstract ending.

Ultimately, The Pass is a vehicle that doesn’t feel worthy of the clear talents possessed by its cast, Hunter, or his design team. In fact, Seth Byrum’s delightfully versatile set hides more surprises than the actual script. Ratron-Neal is charismatic and compelling, albeit a tad too green to make full sense of his character’s changing agenda. Badanjak breathes life into the stereotype she has to play with choices that are both believable and interesting, while Rowland-Jones finds laughs in the stereotype he has to play by acting with the utmost sincerity. Unfortunately, the miscast Bell does not rise to their levels: as Ade, he appears too slight to be a professional athlete, too detached from Jason to justify his choices, and too effortful to ground his most emotional moments.

In Bell’s defense, he is also hamstrung by some of Donnelly’s most forced and occasionally downright illogical writing. It’s easy to imagine that, back in 2014, these and other problems in the script felt insignificant compared to the creativity of an auteur director, an electric performance from a bona fide star, and urgent cultural relevance…none of which the current production can fully reproduce. So maybe Donnelly’s choice of title wasn’t chutzpah as much as it was hubris. Either way, if you’re presented with an opportunity to see The Pass, you know what to do.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• Hunter uses a traverse configuration of LaMaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre, meaning the playing space is like a runway with audiences seated on both of the long sides.

• Choose odd-numbered seats if you want:

  • Better views of Ratron-Neal’s partial nude scene (the play may only get two rainbows, but I’d give his tuchus five); and/or

  • A more direct route to the exit, so if you decide to leave during the show, you won’t have to navigate a curtained-off, semi-backstage area, as one woman did at the performance I attended.

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Despite the significant role “Camp” plays in their consumption of culture, I’m willing to bet that most gay men haven’t thought much about how it’s defined. The typical understanding of Camp could, in fact, be articulated with the exact words that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously used in his opinion on identifying pornography: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it . . . .” Of course, if a gay man actually used that wording, it would be a quick swipe left situation.

The most seminal work of scholarship on Camp remains Susan Sontag’s 1964 “Notes on ‘Camp.’” Today, when people are pushed to define Camp, they often land on some variation of its being “over the top” and/or “failed seriousness.” The DNA of those descriptions is easily traced back to Sontag, who wrote, “In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.” Here, Sontag’s reference to naïve/pure Camp, which strives for the seriousness it lacks and becomes Camp unintentionally, is contrasted with deliberate Camp, which “knows itself to be Camp.” Mommie Dearest, for example, would be classified as naïve/pure Camp while Death Becomes Her would be labeled deliberate Camp.

Subsequent exploration of Camp often reads as a response to Sontag, even when it proffers a different definition. The Politics and Poetics of Camp (1994), a collection of essays edited by Moe Meyer, uses a quote from Notes on “Camp” as its epigraph before arguing that Sontag’s conceptualization represented an “erasure of homosexuality from the subject of Camp.” Meyer instead described Camp as the “strategies and tactics of queer parody,” with its ultimate goal being “queer . . . social visibility.” For Meyer, if it’s not queer, it’s not Camp.

I recognize that this post may be starting to feel less like a review of Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody and more like an undergraduate term paper for a course that’s cross-listed by the departments of Performance Studies and Gender & Sexuality. Nevertheless, before I move on to the production in question, there’s one more theory on Camp that I should discuss. In his 1977 essay “Camp and the Gay Sensibility,” Jack Babuscio argued that Camp is the byproduct of the gay male experience of living outside of social norms. Meyer’s analysis thus feels like an extension of Babuscio’s. However, unlike Meyer, Babuscio believes Camp can exist outside of queer spaces, even though that’s where he sees its distinct sensibility as having developed.

Babuscio identified four basic qualities of Camp: irony, aestheticism, theatricality, and humor. The irony is generated by “an incongruous contrast . . . between an individual/things and its context/association.” In other words, Camp savors mismatches—whether they are between appearance and reality, intention and effect, or expectation and experience. Aestheticism refers to Camp’s emphasis on style and “evocation of mood.” Babuscio ties theatricality to “the gay sensibility’s preference for the intensities of character, as opposed to its content: what the character conveys tends to be less important than how or why it is conveyed.” Humor is fairly self-explanatory, though Babuscio contextualizes “[l]aughter, rather than tears” as queer culture’s “means of dealing with a hostile environment.”

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody (“HR: MP”) desperately wants to be deliberate Camp. (Congratulations, reader, you’ve made it to the review.) As someone who generally loves Camp, I wanted to revisit the foundational texts on it to equip myself with language to describe why I found it so damn disappointing. To be fair, though, I should concede that HR: MP succeeds as Camp in at least some respects.

Based on the Crave/HBO series Heated Rivalry, itself adapted from Rachel Reid’s novels, the musical follows the love affair between hockey opponents Ilya, a surly Russian, and Shane, a sweet Canadian. As it traces the highs and lows of their relationship, we also meet hockey vet Scott, who falls into a whole Notting Hill situation with his local juice barista Kip. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but it’s hard to imagine anyone finding the musical even vaguely amusing without having already seen the series.

Without question, HR: MP offers the queer parody and queer visibility that Meyer finds necessary for Camp. In terms of Babuscio’s criteria, as a parody, HR: MP is full of humor (or at least attempts at humor). It’s also undeniably theatrical—not only because people burst into song, but because the performances are often deliberately over-the-top, its sets and wigs are obvious fakes, and the production is full of metatheatrical flourishes that call attention to its own artificiality, including narration that explicitly mentions the show’s writer. It’s also quite clear that, stylistically, the cast and creators are trying to evoke a specific mood, one of self-aware silliness, which ticks the aestheticism box.

Where HR: MP flounders is in its efforts to be ironic, largely because the Heated Rivalry series is not plagued by incongruous contrast. There is no mismatch between its intention and its effect, or the expectations surrounding it and the experience of actually watching it. HR: MP may be deliberate Camp, but, as parody, it suffers because the material it’s sending up is not naïve Camp. Certainly, Heated Rivalry, the series, has its detractors, but I doubt even they could characterize it as failed seriousness. Some might describe its sex scenes as over-the-top, and yet I’d be willing to bet they ring true for most gay men. Furthermore, one crucial reason the series has amassed such a devoted following is that the performances, especially from Connor Storrie as Ilya and Hudson Williams as Shane, are so believable. Viewers are invested in the fates of Ilya, Shane, Scott, and Kip because they feel real.

That gives HR: MP little to work with. The first sign of trouble comes the moment the curtain rises and we’re introduced to the musical’s framing device: narration from a trio of “Live/Laugh/Love” moms who’ve become obsessed with the series. It’s as if the creators are admitting the show itself hasn’t provided enough material to parody, so they have to riff on its fanbase as well. Later, they further extend their purview to the YouTube videos Connor Storrie made as a noticeably effete child, which went viral after the series became a hit. It feels cheap and, frankly, a little mean.

The book, music, and lyrics were all written by Dylan MarcAurele. Given how recently the series became popular, it’s fair to assume his creative process was rushed so that he and director Alan Kliffer could capitalize on public interest. Despite a couple of catchy melodies (the moms’ opening number, Ilya’s lament about his butt), HR: MP definitely sounds and looks hastily thrown together. The crowd-pleasing choice to use an audience volunteer to play Scott feels, on one hand, like pandering and, on the other, like pure expediency, as if MarcAurele didn’t have the time or bandwidth to figure out how another role could be added to anyone’s track in the small, five-person cast. The overall effect is a production that feels like an entry in the New York City Fringe Festival: it’s kinda fun and has potential, but it also feels kinda slapdash and falls far short of what it could be.

There is one way in which HR: MP is not even the slightest bit rough around the edges, and that’s in its casting. Kliffer’s company is small but mighty with a professional sheen the rest of the production lacks. The major standout is Jimin Moon as Shane. Moon perfectly grasps “the intensities of character” integral to deliberate Camp without sacrificing a sense of real affection for Jay Armstrong Johnson’s Ilya. From his smooth vocals and sweet smile to his sexy physique and infectious sense of joy, everything about Moon’s performance announces him as a star on the rise. Armstrong Johnson’s work isn’t as interesting, but his confidence, capability, and comeliness are unquestionable. (Interestingly, he and Kliffer’s parents are credited as producers of the musical, suggesting the project benefited from personal attachments stronger than its level of development.)

The heated rivals are supported by a trio of delightful proteans who each play one or two major characters and a variety of more incidental ones. As the main narrating mom, Ryann Redmond commits fearlessly to the bit and elevates MarcAurele’s score with her powerful voice. The hilarious Ryan Duncan impressively fleshes out every role he plays, including Ilya’s Dad and Kip. And Cherry Torres makes a meal of sending up Kip’s coworker, one of the rare instances of naïve Camp in the series, and elicits major laughs with her changing delivery of one word. I wish I could see all five of them in a better show.

With my apologies to the excellent cast, any reader looking for a laugh out loud parody with some great singing should pass on HR: MP and instead hitch a ride on Titaníque. It is an ideal example of deliberate Camp—both a love letter to the excesses of Céline Dion’s vocal performances and a takedown of the naïve Camp in James Cameron’s bloatedly earnest film. HR: MP, by contrast, attempts to parody a property that is essentially too effective to parody. Deliberate Camp needs incongruity or failed seriousness to exploit. Titaníque can choose from a boatload of options, but HR: MP cannot subvert what doesn’t exist. Consequently, while Titaníque truly is a musical parody, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is an overlong sketch.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• If you are petite, be warned that the first few rows at The Culture Club are not raked, meaning they’re all on the same flat level. I recommend sitting in row A center, row B on the center aisles of the side sections, or row F center (which, I believe, is the first raised level).

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It’s clichéd but true that one should never say “never.”

In the mid to late 90s, when I was in my early to mid-teen years, I saw the original Broadway production of Cats and thought, “Well, I never need to see that musical again.” (And, in 2016, when original director Trevor Nunn revived it on Broadway with new choreography from hot-off-of-Hamilton Andy Blankenbuehler, I did indeed stay home.)

In 2025, when I started this Substack, I told myself that I’d never center full-length posts on productions I’d already seen.

And, in 2024, when I first caught Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch’s brilliant reimagining of Cats as a ballroom competition during its initial off-Broadway run at PAC NYC, I said, “This is fantastic…and it will never transfer.” Or maybe I said, “It should never transfer.” Either way, I was wrong.

In October 2025—over a year after it had been a hot ticket downtown, but about six months before it would officially open—Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced it would transfer to Broadway. It’s a path that has felt increasingly inevitable for off-Broadway hits, even though the commercial successes (Hadestown; Dear Evan Hansen; Hamilton; Next to Normal; Avenue Q) are vastly outnumbered by the financial failures (Illinoise; Dead Outlaw; Here Lies Love; Be More Chill; Natasha; Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812; The Scottsboro Boys; [title of show]; Passing Strange; Caroline, or Change; A Class Act; James Joyce’s The Dead). These days, it seems rare for a production that becomes popular off-Broadway to stay there.1

Nevertheless, from a commercial perspective, I hadn’t expected Cats: The Jellicle Ball to move, especially after so much time had passed since it was the toast of the town. The previous revival underperformed; its 2019 film adaptation was a notorious flop; and the cost of reproducing its environmental setting, which felt crucial to the action, seemed especially risky given the economically disastrous consequences of doing the same for Here Lies Love and The Great Comet. Furthermore, the Great White Way (pun intended) has a history of engaging with communities of color, who are inseparable from ballroom, that has been inconsistent at best.

Artistically, it appeared equally ill advised. At PAC NYC, the set was almost entirely a long runway, flanked by large portions of the audience on each of its sides, suggesting the immersive experience of being at a packed ball. Much of the cast was populated by mesmerizing experts legitimately from the ballroom scene and gender-nonconforming singers who don’t sound like Broadway babies. I feared they’d be replaced with talent who has more regularly “trod the boards” and their invaluable contributions would be lost.

I should have trusted that Levingston and Rauch—directors who were imaginative enough to reconceive Broadway’s longest running punchline into an electrifying celebration of queerness and people of color—would also be smart enough to remain connected with everything that gave their vision its charge. The vast majority of the spectacular off-Broadway cast was retained. Although Rachel Hauck’s set still features a runway (albeit a much smaller one), and onstage seating for a small chunk of the audience evokes a ballroom crowd, the predominantly proscenium space actually works in the production’s favor, creating superior sightlines and a more guided focus for the explosive choreography from Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons. Qween Jean’s showstopping costumes look more opulent and audacious without losing grit when they need to grime. Adam Honoré’s lighting somehow feels more theatrical and more clubby. Kai Harada’s sound design induces both goosebumps and head bopping. Much to my surprise, everything about Cats: The Jellicle Ball is even better on Broadway than it was off (but it’s no surprise that Levingston, Rauch, Wiles, Lyons, and Jean all won Tonys for their work).

The entire company is outstanding, but there are a few I have to single out. Dudney Joseph Jr. emcees the evening with effortless command and infectious playfulness. Primo Thee Ballerino is a crackling ball of energy and precision, wholly captivating whether in his regular role of Tumblebrutus or understudying Mr. Mistoffelees. Then there’s the full-time Mistoffelees, Robert “Silk” Mason (they/them), who is as fearless as they are graceful, and as pristine a technician as they are a bravura showman. Watching Mason, you sense that you are seeing an early performance from someone who is bound to be a major force in the world of dance.

Jonathan Burke and Dava Huesca are endlessly delightful as Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, traditionally the musical’s most grating characters, but here irresistible scene-stealers, like a contortionist combination of Lenny and Squiggy, Chi-Chi Rodriguez and Rosie Perez, and Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón and Chita Rivera. As Gus the Theatre Cat, ballroom legend Junior LaBeija infuses the evening with decades of history, sly charisma, and genuine poignance. Nora Schell plays Bustopher Jones like the lovechild of Sophie Tucker and Ethel Merman whom you didn’t know you were dying to adopt. Sydney James Harcourt is so astoundingly sexy as Rum Tum Tugger, you might not realize how polished and versatile a professional he is. (At least I’m hoping he’s versatile.) And of course Broadway legend André De Shields is the production’s beating and badass heart as Old Deuteronomy, conveying more character before he even opens his mouth than Ali Louis Bourzgui—who incomprehensibly beat De Shields at this year’s Tonys—does in the entirety of The Lost Boys.

And yet…

While my artistic misgivings proved unfounded, my commercial concerns turned out to be spot-on. This past Monday, the production announced it will close on August 8, having eked out a run of just four months. The news triggered an uproar in the theatre community that I see as falling into two categories.

The first is theatre people, queer folk, and people of color who love this production, mourning the demise of what they rightfully see as an important piece of representation. To grossly oversimplify their/our reaction, it’s a more personal and sophisticated version of, “Why can’t we have nice things?!” Their reaction includes elements of disbelief (“How can this be happening? It’s so good!”), betrayal (“Sure enough, mainstream theatre can’t support a show like this!”), and sadness (“There’s such an embarrassment of talent on display; what will they do now? Where will I be able to catch their work?”). For some, I think there’s even a certain sort of transference occurring where the general population’s rejection of Cats: The Jellicle Ball feels like a rejection of who they are.

The second category of outcry comes with some thorny ethical complications. It’s been best articulated by Cats composer and King of the British Megamusical Andrew Lloyd Webber in an Instagram post that followed the closing notice. He wrote:

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to write musicals.

Even though I’m British, when I was young, Broadway meant musicals to me.

The first of my musicals to be staged was on Broadway, Jesus Christ Superstar in 1971. I premiered School of Rock on Broadway.

In short, I love Broadway.

What is happening in front of all who care about the Great White Way breaks my heart.

One of the last things Hal Prince said to me was that it broke his heart that it was impossible for new or daring work to be originated on Broadway anymore.

The truth is that, for any show, it makes practically no financial sense to come to Broadway with things as they are.

Creators, writers and directors have been forced to take minimal royalties from new shows, often surviving on a fixed weekly fee rather than a royalty. It makes it impossible for young creatives to make a living from theatre alone.

Investors count themselves fortunate indeed if they see a portion of their money back.

Of course, the established big hits are still profitable. But Broadway can’t survive because of three old shows.

As someone who is still as in love with Broadway as I was when I was a teenager, I beg the theatre owners, unions and producers to come together urgently to address what is a crisis coming to a head.

Broadway is in dire danger of rivalling Hollywood’s empty soundstages with increasingly dark theatres.

The sobering economic realities that Lloyd Webber describes are difficult to dispute. The majority of Broadway shows don’t recoup their investments. It’s gotten even harder as production costs have skyrocketed…but, then, so too have ticket prices. There’s clear truth in what he says about how impossible it has become to take risks in commercial theatre…but, then, there’s also clear self-interest. After all, critical acclaim and winning major Tony awards didn’t help Cats: The Jellicle Ball or the recent revival of Sunset Blvd. turn a profit, and it seems unlikely that an undertaking as massive as Masquerade will be able to close in the black.

There’s also irony in Lloyd Webber finally garnering the kind of raves that eluded him at the peak of his popularity, only to see them fail to translate into commercial success. There’s even more irony in Lloyd Webber—whose name was once synonymous with Broadway spectacle, pandering to the masses, and recycling melodies—positioning himself as a downtrodden risk-taker. His last new Broadway musical was Bad Cinderella.

Thorniest of all, though, is Lloyd Webber’s inclusion of unions alongside theatre owners and producers. I’ve seen them increasingly scapegoated for the economic woes of live theatre, and singled out as the reason why so many shows that are being commercially recorded film on the West End rather than Broadway. I don’t doubt that unions add to production costs, but they also offer necessary protections to groups of artists who face constant economic insecurity and job uncertainty. And, let’s be real, how many people have gotten rich off of Equity or IATSE contracts? I worry that pointing the finger at unions is part of a larger trend, especially in America, where folks at the bottom of the food chain are pushed to settle for less in order to have anything at all…while those at the top subsist on a diet of lobster, filet mignon, and Dom Perignon.

The business of Broadway clearly needs to change, though I’m not smart enough to know how. As it turned out, I was smart enough to know that moving Cats: The Jellicle Ball uptown was financially a step too far. However, as T.S. Eliot—who created the poems that provide the basis for Cats—once wrote, “[O]nly those who will risk going too far can possibly find out just how far one can go.”

Push producers and theatre owners to go farther. Go see Cats: The Jellicle Ball during its last three weeks on Broadway. Don’t go to save this production, which will never happen. (Damn, there I go again!) Go to create a memory. Go to understand what happiness is. Go because Broadway will never become all it can be if we don’t show up for the productions that dare to commit to something new.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈🌈½ (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• The onstage seats are catnip for people who love being part of the action, but the best sightlines for the thrilling choreography are in the house. Prioritize sitting center.

• Some of this production’s detractors have been turned off by its highly vocal and responsive audience. Be warned that fan clacking, clapping, and whooping are all part of the experience.

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Every Brilliant Thing is built on a fairly simple concept: after an early childhood encounter with suicide, a person keeps a running list of all the wonderful things life has to offer. The experience of seeing Every Brilliant Thing, though, isn’t quite so simple to explain. On one hand, it’s an uplifting, feel-good play that celebrates joy and connection. On the other hand, it’s a poignant meditation on depression, neglect, and death. On one hand, it’s a scripted play that’s being revived. On the other, parts of its script are rewritten for different actors, and it includes lengthy sequences of improv. On one hand, it’s a one-person show. On the other, much of its fun comes from the ways it incorporates various audience members as “guest stars,” playing integral roles like our protagonist’s father, first love, and counselor. Theatre people love to rhapsodize how their art is special because it is live, which means you never see the same show twice…and, sure, that’s true. But at Every Brilliant Thing, you REALLY never see the same show twice.

Of course, one of the most obvious and impactful differences comes down to who’s headlining the production, which, again, is true of any piece of theatre, but feels particularly true for one-person shows. When Every Brilliant Thing opened this spring, it starred Daniel Radcliffe, making his first appearance on Broadway since his Tony-winning run in Merrily We Roll Along. Perhaps the Harry Potter aura still glows brightly enough around him that his presence could turn any production into a box office smash, especially a one-hander where it’s all-Daniel-all-the-time. Nevertheless, when word got around that Every Brilliant Thing involves extensive audience participation, giving Potterheads the chance to rub elbows with Harry himself, demand skyrocketed beyond expectation, and supply went “Evanesco!”

As much as I respect Radcliffe—who has genuinely pushed himself as an artist since childhood stardom and steadily grown into a consummate showman—there’s no way I was paying $1,000 for the chance to play his father. (However, after seeing him nude in Equus, I might pay that much to be his daddy.) After repeatedly losing the Lucky Seat lottery for $45 tickets during his run, I was able to secure a $45 TodayTix rush ticket to see his replacement, longtime Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay.

Hargitay was a surprising choice to succeed Radcliffe: a different sex, a different age, and a different persona. Radcliffe’s fame is built on magical fantasy and coming-of-age tropes. Hargitay’s is built on gritty realism and borderline prurient procedural tropes. Even their levels of experience are stark contrasts: Every Brilliant Thing marks Radcliffe’s sixth Broadway production and Hargitay’s first.

And yet you would never know it from the way Hargitay commands the space from the moment she enters. It’s something even more impressive than a confident stage debut; it’s a natural, almost effortless one. She seems supremely at ease whether alone or working intimately with someone from the audience, whether delving into the play’s darker scenes or yucking it up in its silliest scenes. You wouldn’t know it from SVU, but Hargitay has excellent comic timing (a fact I knew because I first discovered her on a one-season sitcom called Can’t Hurry Love where she played a Samantha Jones–type opposite Nancy McKeon’s Monica Geller–type). Everything about her performance here suggests that Hargitay could have a successful career in theatre whenever she desires.

As good as she is, though, Hargitay can’t fully make sense of a crucial turn in the play’s last third. However, the problem lies more in Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s script than her execution. This is a play born out of theme, which the writing prioritizes over plot and character. To convey their message and hit certain emotional beats, the playwrights impose some narrative turns on the story that don’t feel earned or wholly believable. I doubt any actor could justify them.

I also doubt that it matters to most people. Despite its flawed storytelling, Every Brilliant Thing offers audiences three things they love: proximity to a celebrity; a chance to shed a tear or two; and an uplifting takeaway that—even better!—can be easily translated into action. Imagine Pay It Forward if it had been a one-man show where Haley Joel Osment did crowd work. Maybe he can star in the tour.

Lest you think I’m acting superior, I’ll freely admit that I too enjoyed my proximity1 to Mariska Hargitay; found (admittedly light) catharsis when my eyes filled with tears; and left with both a refreshing sense of hope and a renewed commitment to my daily gratitude list. The ways Every Brilliant Thing manipulates its audiences’ emotional reactions, both negative and positive, can feel whorish…but sometimes it feels so good to get off, you don’t care how you got there. A fittingly skeevy note to end on for Olivia Benson.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• IF YOU WANT TO SEE HARGITAY, YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL THIS SUNDAY, JULY 5.

• As mentioned, I got a $45 rush ticket through the TodayTix app. My seat was actually onstage, but someone associated with the production asked if I’d be willing to move to the first row of the orchestra and play a role. Given that it was about 104 degrees under the stage lights, I readily agreed.

• Even though Every Brilliant Thing has popped up on TKTS since Hargitay joined (i.e., became) the cast, I haven’t seen it on TDF. However, they do currently have tickets posted during the run of Hargitay’s successor, Tracee Ellis Ross. It makes me wonder: Will Ross become the latest recipient of the Maria Conchita Alonso Award for Halfhearted and Commercially Ineffective Second Replacement Casting? Previous winners include Dixie Carter for Master Class, David Alan Grier for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Elaine Paige for Sunset Blvd.

a key to the pictures

• In 2016, the original off-Broadway run of Every Brilliant Thing was captured by (of all people) RuPaul’s Drag Race masterminds Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato for HBO, where it is still streaming.

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By the time I got around to seeing Broadway’s current revival of Death of a Salesman, which was actually the night before this year’s Tony Awards, countless people had told me it was fantastic, offering especially rapturous reports of Joe Mantello’s direction. One trusted friend referred to it as “the crowning achievement” of his storied career.1 What no one had told me—and what really set this Salesman apart from other productions I’ve seen—is that Mantello stages much of Miller’s classic as if it were a thriller.

For starters, there’s Chloe Lamford’s eerie and abstract unit set. It’s not clear if it’s a garage, warehouse, or some other dilapidated industrial space, but it’s crystal clear that it’s crumbling and foreboding. There are no walls separating the Lomans’ house into rooms, which also heightens the sense of impending danger: they inhabit a space without boundaries, and anyone could overhear what everyone else is saying at any given moment. Then, there’s Mikaal Sulaiman’s chilling soundscape of ghostly echoes and ghoulish cackling.

Finally, there are the actual Lomans. Mantello departs from the tradition of having the actors who play Biff and Happy appear as younger versions of their characters in flashbacks, returning to a conceit Miller included in earlier drafts of his play by casting an entirely different set of actors. Young Biff and Young Happy appear in warm, saturated light—a dramatic contrast to the stark cool tones designer Jack Knowles uses elsewhere—suggesting not just a dream state, but the sort of romanticized utopia we see in horror movies before “the big bad blank” causes everything to go awry. The disparity between the idealized past and the ominous present is further accented by a persistent threat of violence, particularly from adult Biff but even from Willy, that I don’t remember being quite as constant in any other production. All these elements combine to create an unrelenting tension that raises the stakes and keeps the audience as on edge as the characters.

Mantello has shared (including as part of his Tony acceptance speech) that the impetus for this revival was his desire to direct Nathan Lane as Willy Loman. Ironically, Lane struck me as the production’s biggest liability. To his credit, the boisterousness and command—and, no, that is not code for effeminacy or flamboyance—that have defined the “Nathan Lanest” of his iconic performances are nowhere to be found. On the contrary, his Willy seems too deflated from the very start. Perhaps that’s part of Mantello and Lane’s concept: the staging could easily be interpreted as Willy replaying the action of his life in the moments before he kills himself. But if Willy’s demise is a foregone conclusion, it creates a narrative imbalance. The play’s driving question shifts from whether Willy can escape defeat to how his imminent downfall will affect the family fighting so desperately to save him, diminishing some of the drama’s suspense.

Lane also comes across as too analytical and voluble—and, okay, maybe there is a hint of code there—to be believable as someone who was only “a happy man with a batch of cement,” who put “more of him[self] in [the Loman house’s] front stoop than in all the sales he ever made.” He does not seem like someone who “had the wrong dreams” and “never knew who he was,” ignoring his truest self to pursue a white collar, capitalist version of success that would always elude him. As a result, Lane’s Willy is not the convincing cautionary tale he needs to be to trigger Biff’s new understanding of himself.

Nevertheless, the production still makes a considerable impact. How could it not given the brilliance of Miller’s script, singularity of Mantello’s vision, and powerful performances from the rest of its cast? Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers each grasp the important dualities that define the Loman brothers. Abbott is riveting as Biff, infusing the role with both frightening volatility and tender protectiveness toward his family. Ben Ahlers captures both Happy’s suave charm as a ladies’ man and the painful yearning that underpins it. Jonathan Cake—a physically imposing, highly accomplished classical actor who understudies Lane and would be fascinating in the role—is slick and threatening as the brother Willy idealizes. Playing “the Woman,” Tasha Lawrence shrewdly adjusts her performance as Willy’s experience of her changes. K. Todd Freeman and Michael Benjamin Washington are luxurious casting for the comparatively minuscule roles of neighbor Charley and his son Bernard, but bring so much to their fleeting appearances, they personify the old saying that “there are no small parts….” It is, in fact, the third consecutive role I’ve seen Freeman play that made me think, “This man is a master.”

However, there’s no greater master of their craft in theatre today than Laurie Metcalf who, as Linda, somehow manages to exceed the high expectations created by her history of excellence. It’s the rare performance that harnesses the intensity of manic energy without compromising laser-like focus. She possesses the even rarer ability to make famous lines of dialogue that are etched in our collective consciousness (“attention must be paid,” “free and clear”) sound like spontaneous, new thinking. Metcalf’s accessibility, vulnerability, and flawless comic timing illuminate new meaning in the choices we know Linda is going to make. It may be the finest work of her incredible stage career.

One quality that makes Miller’s play a masterpiece is how it has seemed to be in conversation with every era in which it’s been staged. That remains painfully true. I was surprised by how much this Salesman reminded me of the debate around the “college for all” movement that raged when I began teaching secondary school. Its proponents believed that framing college as an expectation for young students was the key to opening access and equitable opportunities for them later in life. Arguably, they envisioned success along the same lines as Willy. The movement’s detractors argued that “college for all” ignored different skill sets, interests, and realities and undermined the value of trade schools or other pre-professional training programs—an ideology more similar to Biff’s. I marveled at how a play that debuted over 80 years ago could feel as relevant as it does now. At the same time, given the grotesque income disparity and mounting class tension in America, it seems appropriate that Salesman has never felt as scary. For many, like the Lomans, the American dream has become a nightmare.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈½ (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• The show’s a hit and tickets are expensive. I paid $172, avoiding fees by purchasing directly from the box office, for the last row of the orchestra center. The view was fine, but I do wish I’d been a little closer to enjoy the detail in the acting.

• If you can’t sit center, choose house right.

a key to the pictures

• Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock, who originated the roles of Willy and Linda, reprised their performances in a 1966 telefilm that also features George Segal as Biff and Gene Wilder as Bernard. The adaptation is aggressively cut, but it’s wonderful to have a record of Cobb and Dunnock’s performances.

• It was the second chance Dunnock had to preserve her performance, as she was also in László Benedek’s 1951 feature film, which got Oscar nominations for her, Fredric March as Willy, Kevin McCarthy’s Biff, and Alex North’s score. North had also composed the music for the original Broadway production.

• The 1985 telefilm, a sort of recreation of the 1984 Broadway revival, follows the play much more closely. Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich won Emmys for their performances as Willy and Biff, with Hoffman widely credited for reinventing the role.

• A 1996 BBC adaptation features Warren Mitchell as Willy Loman, Rosemary Harris as Linda, Iain Glen as Biff, and Owen Teale as Happy. Teale would now make a fantastic Willy himself.

• The 1999 Broadway revival was captured for broadcast on Showtime in 2000. It had won Tony Awards for Best Revival, Best Actor for Brian Dennehy, Best Featured Actor for Elizabeth Franz, and Best Director for Robert Falls. Dennehy and Franz were also both Emmy nominated for the broadcast, which includes the great journeyman stage actor Ted Koch2 as Happy (disclosure: I’ve worked with him) and replacement Biff Ron Eldard.

  • I’m biased because this revival was my introduction to the play and it made a profound impression, but if you only watch one of these linked adaptations, this is my recommendation.

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It has been an unusual season on Broadway. Typically, musicals dominate the buzz and the box office, but this year, there’s been a paucity of new offerings, and two of the four eligible revivals (only three of which were even nominated) were transfers of productions first staged off-Broadway. This season, to paraphrase the Prince of Denmark, the plays have been the thing.

There was perhaps no hotter ticket than the one-man show Every Brilliant Thing while it starred Tony nominee Daniel Radcliffe. Although it ended its limited run in February, people are still talking about Robert Icke’s adaptation of Oedipus so enthusiastically, its leading lady, Lesley Manville, is the odds-on favorite to win Best Actress. Despite initially getting off to a slow start (if only I’d grabbed one of those TDF seats during previews or used my mailer!), word of mouth has turned Joe Mantello’s revival of Death of a Salesman with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf into such a hit, orchestra seats are going for $699—for a play! A play that’s had six Broadway revivals, the most recent of which closed in 2023!! A play for which Nathan Lane seems emphatically wrong!!! The season included such a preponderance of acclaimed star-turns, theatre darlings like Cynthia Nixon, Kara Young, and Linda Emond weren’t even nominated for their acclaimed performances, which was also true of several Hollywood A-listers doing more polarizing work, like Adrien Brody, Jean Smart, and Ayo Edebiri.

Strangest of all? I didn’t get to see a lot of the nominated plays. (I’d explain why, but my subtitle only promises a soupçon of memoir.) Consequently, in many categories, I didn’t feel equipped to weigh in with MY PICK of who should win. Instead, I opted to name only MY PREDICTION of who will win, based on what I’m hearing from friends, which prognosticators I trust, and how earlier awards ceremonies played out.

Let’s see if I can break 85%….

Best Play

MY PICK: The Balusters by David Lindsay-Abaire

Giant by Mark Rosenblatt

MY PREDICTION: Liberation by Bess Wohl

Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter

Best Musical

The Lost Boys

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Schmigadoon!

Titaníque!

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

Best Book of a Musical

The Lost Boys - David Hornsby and Chris Hoch

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Schmigadoon! - Cinco Paul

Titaníque! - Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) - Jim Barne and Kit Buchan

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman - Music: Caroline Shaw

August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone - Music: Steve Bargonetti

The Lost Boys - Music & Lyrics: The Rescues

MY PICK: Schmigadoon! - Music & Lyrics: Cinco Paul

MY PREDICTION: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) - Music & Lyrics: Jim Barne and Kit Buchan

• The producers of Schmigadoon! made a big mistake in failing to publicize that voters should consider its entire score, not just the new material written for the stage production. With the songs created for the original TV series, Schmigadoon! is much stronger than Two Strangers. However, Two Strangers is still delightful, and this category will likely be where the Tonys can offer it their stamp of approval.

Best Revival of a Play

Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo

MY PREDICTION: Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe

Fallen Angels by Noel Coward

Oedipus by Robert Icke

Best Revival of a Musical

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Ragtime

Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

Will Harrison for Punch

Nathan Lane for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

MY PREDICTION: John Lithgow for Giant

Daniel Radcliffe for Every Brilliant Thing

Mark Strong for Oedipus

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

Rose Byrne for Fallen Angels

Carrie Coon for Bug

Susannah Flood for Liberation

MY PREDICTION: Lesley Manville for Oedipus

Kelli O’Hara for Fallen Angels

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical

MY PICK: Nicholas Christopher for Chess

Luke Evans for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

MY PREDICTION: Joshua Henry for Ragtime

Sam Tutty for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

Brandon Uranowitz for Ragtime

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

Sara Chase for Schmigadoon!

Stephanie Hsu for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

MY PREDICTION: Caissie Levy for Ragtime

MY PICK: Marla Mindelle for Titaníque!

Christiani Pitts for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

• Comedy almost never wins over tragedy during awards season, but Mindelle’s unique comic lunacy is Titaníque’s raison d’être and deserves to be celebrated.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play

MY PREDICTION: Christopher Abbott for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Danny Burstein for Marjorie Prime

Brandon J. Dirden for Waiting for Godot

Alden Ehrenreich for Becky Shaw

Ruben Santiago-Hudson for August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Richard Thomas for The Balusters

• Probably the hardest category to predict, this could easily go to Ehrenreich, who is dynamite as a misanthropic anti-hero.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play

Betsy Aidem for Liberation

Marylouise Burke for The Balusters

Aya Cash for Giant

MY PREDICTION: Laurie Metcalf for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

June Squibb for Marjorie Prime

• It won’t happen, but I would REALLY love to see Burke pull an upset here. I’m sure Metcalf is brilliant (I don’t see Salesman until tomorrow night), but Burke is an invaluable New York stage veteran who’s never before even been nominated.

  • June 7th Update: Marylouise Burke deserves a Tony, but Laurie Metcalf deserves this Tony. She is stupendous as Linda Loman—an unqualified triumph.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical

Ali Louis Bourzgui for The Lost Boys

MY PREDICTION: André De Shields for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Bryce Pinkham for Chess

MY PICK: Ben Levi Ross for Ragtime

Layton Williams for Titaníque!

• This is another tough race. I really hope it’s De Shields or Ross over Bourzgui who doesn’t deliver a performance as much as a prolonged imitation of Kiefer Sutherland.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical

MY PREDICTION: Shoshana Bean for The Lost Boys

Hannah Cruz for Chess

Rachel Dratch for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

MY PICK: Ana Gasteyer for Schmigadoon!

Nichelle Lewis for Ragtime

Best Scenic Design of a Play

MY PREDICTION: Hildegard Bechtler for Oedipus

Takeshi Kata for Bug

David Korins for Dog Day Afternoon

Chloe Lamford for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

David Rockwell for Fallen Angels

• Don’t be surprised if Dog Day Afternoon takes this or even Salesman.

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

dots for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

Soutra Gilmour for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

Rachel Hauck for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Dane Laffrey for The Lost Boys

Scott Pask for Schmigadoon!

Best Costume Design of a Play

Brenda Abbandandolo for Dog Day Afternoon

Qween Jean for Liberation

MY PREDICTION: Jeff Mahshie for Fallen Angels

Emilio Sosa for The Balusters

Paul Tazewell for August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Best Costume Design of a Musical

Linda Cho for Ragtime

Linda Cho for Schmigadoon!

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Qween Jean for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Ryan Park for The Lost Boys

David I. Reynoso for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

Best Lighting Design of a Play

Isabella Byrd for Dog Day Afternoon

Natasha Chivers for Oedipus

Stacey Derosier for August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Heather Gilbert for Bug

Heather Gilbert for The Fear of 13

MY PREDICTION: Jack Knowles for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Best Lighting Design of a Musical

Kevin Adams for Chess

MY PREDICTION: Jen Schriever and Michael Arden for The Lost Boys

Jane Cox for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

MY PICK: Adam Honoré and Donald Holder (Lighting Design) and 59 Studio (Projection Design) for Ragtime

Donald Holder for Schmigadoon!

Adam Honoré for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Best Sound Design of a Play

Justin Ellington for August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

MY PREDICTION: Tom Gibbons for Oedipus

Lee Kinney for The Fear of 13

Josh Schmidt for Bug

Mikaal Sulaiman for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Best Sound Design of a Musical

Adam Fisher for The Lost Boys

MY PREDICTION: Kai Harada for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Kai Harada for Ragtime

Brian Ronan for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

MY PICK: Walter Trarbach for Schmigadoon!

• More than in any other category, I let my own wishful thinking be a factor here. The sound design of The Lost Boys, which is tantamount to theatrical assault, has a very good chance of winning. If it does, it’s a good indication that the majority of voters conflate volume with rock and roll.

Best Direction of a Play

Nicholas Hytner for Giant

Robert Icke for Oedipus

Kenny Leon for The Balusters

MY PREDICTION: Joe Mantello for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Whitney White for Liberation

Best Direction of a Musical

Michael Arden for The Lost Boys

Lear deBessonet for Ragtime

Christopher Gattelli for Schmigadoon!

Tim Jackson for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Best Choreography

MY PICK: Christopher Gattelli for Schmigadoon!

Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant for The Lost Boys

MY PREDICTION: Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Ellenore Scott for Ragtime

Ani Taj for Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show

Best Orchestrations

MY PICK and MY PREDICTION: Doug Besterman and Mike Morris for Schmigadoon!

Ethan Popp, Adrianne “AG” Gonzalez, Gabriel Mann, Kyler England for The Lost Boys

Lux Pyramid for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Wilson, Trevor Holder and Doug Schadt for Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Brian Usifer for Chess

a key to the pictures

My top 10 favorite Tony performances in chronological order…

1. The original Broadway cast of Dreamgirls performs “It’s All Over” and “And I Am Telling You…” at the 1982 Tony Awards

2. Betty Buckley and the original Broadway cast of Cats perform “Memory” and “Jellicle Song” at the 1983 Tony Awards

3. Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur recreate “Bosom Buddies” from Mame at the 1987 Tony Awards

4. Linda Lavin and Jonathan Silverman in a scene from Broadway Bound at the 1987 Tony Awards (back when the nominated plays still got to perform on the broadcast—bring them back!)

5. Michael Jeter and Brent Barrett (who’d replaced the gone far too soon David Carroll) perform “Let’s Raise a Glass” from Grand Hotel at the 1990 Tony Awards

6. The original Broadway cast of The Will Rogers Follies performs “Our Favorite Son” at the 1991 Tony Awards

7. Chita Rivera, Brent Carver, Anthony Crivello and the company of Kiss of the Spider Woman perform “Where You Are” at the 1993 Tony Awards

8. Glenn Close performs “As If We Never Said Goodbye” from Sunset Blvd. at the 1995 Tony Awards

9. Bebe Neuwirth, Ann Reinking, and the Company of Chicago perform a medley of “All That Jazz” and the “Hot Honey Rag” at the 1997 Tony Awards

10. The original Broadway cast of The Life performs “My Body” at the 1997 Tony Awards

Happy Gay Super Bowl, everybody!

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There is voluminous analysis as to why The Rocky Horror Picture Show has become the quintessential cult classic, like this HuffPost article and the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,1 both of which were released last fall in conjunction with the film’s 50th anniversary. One theory that appears in every think piece I’ve seen ties the movie’s popularity to an empowering hook in one of its final songs: “Don’t dream it, be it.” These five repeated words encapsulate the musical’s enduring appeal and its message. And to be sure you don’t somehow miss them in Roundabout Theatre Company’s current Broadway revival of the stage show on which the film was based, director Sam Pinkleton spells them out for you—literally spells them out…in a neon sign that descends as they’re sung.

The disappointing obviousness of that choice epitomizes the general lack of inventiveness that prevents the production from truly taking us on the strange journey it promises. Its overall blandness is doubly surprising because it’s not a quality one associates with Rocky Horror or Pinkleton. Over the last decade, he has led some of the boldest and most memorable productions in New York: as choreographer, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Soft Power, and Here We Are; and, as director, You Will Get Sick, ta-da!, Can I Be Frank? (which is being remounted at Soho Playhouse through Pride and you should ABSOLUTELY go see), and a little play you may have heard about called Oh, Mary!. Pinkleton’s work here feels so uncharacteristically safe, I found myself wondering if Roundabout somehow demanded restraint out of concern for their older subscriber base.

The members of Rocky Horror’s ensemble are referred to as “Phantoms,” and it would be unfair to Pinkleton and his company not to acknowledge that they are being haunted by some mighty phantoms of their own. The musical, a sendup of horror and sci-fi B–movies from the early to mid-20th century, chronicles the misadventures of newly engaged, virtuous and virginal Brad and Janet as they stumble upon the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a libidinous mad scientist and self-professed “sweet transvestite,” on the night his adonis-like version of Frankenstein’s monster, Rocky, is brought to life. The film is anchored by an indelible performance from Tim Curry, who is seductive, menacing, and perfectly camp as “Frank.” It’s made even more vibrant by the performances of Susan Sarandon, young and glowing with stardust as Janet; Barry Bostwick, a couple of years after originating Danny Zuko in Grease and still teeming with sexual charisma under Brad’s buttoned-up shirt; the equally beautiful and guileless Peter Hinwood as Rocky; and, in a variety of supporting roles, real-life rocker Meat Loaf and the delightfully eccentric original cast members Patricia Quinn, “Little” Nell Campbell, and Richard O’Brien, who also happens to be Rocky Horror’s composer, lyricist, and librettist. Each of their specters hovers over every production of the musical.

Which is not to say they can’t be exorcised. A sensational Broadway revival, respectively directed and choreographed with subversive glee by Christopher Ashley and Jerry Mitchell, opened in 2000.2 It featured a phenomenal cast who had no problem making the material their own: Tom Hewitt, spellbinding as Frank; Alice Ripley and Jarrod Emmick, perfect as Brad and Janet; Raúl Esparza, exploding with charisma and deploying daredevil vocals as butler Riff-Raff (O’Brien’s role); Daphne Rubin-Vega, effortlessly cool and strange as maid Magenta (Quinn’s role); Sebastian LaCause, hilarious and sex incarnate as Rocky; real-life rocker Joan Jett as minion Columbia (Campbell’s role); Lea DeLaria, gender-bending as Eddie (Meatloaf’s role); and Dick Cavett, as dry and elegant as the best Burgundian Pinot Noir in the role of the show’s narrator. Their collective success makes the job of the current cast even harder. This new group not only has to compete with memories of performers from the movie, they also can’t claim that living up to those memories is impossible when the first Broadway revival’s cast did so brilliantly.

Ironically, the actor who comes off the best is the one with the highest heels to fill. Making his Broadway debut, Luke Evans is an electrifying Frank. He doesn’t resist borrowing from Curry, but he is nevertheless magnetic, threatening, sexy, and very funny—everything you want a Frank to be. The revival’s other MVQ3 represents the opposite approach. Playing the Narrator, Rachel Dratch is inspired casting and a clear departure from her predecessors in the role. Her expertise as an improviser uniquely qualifies her to banter with the audience during the callouts that have become a regular part of the Rocky Horror experience, even though the production’s stance on such participation is unhelpfully ambiguous. Moreover, Dratch is a wily comedienne who can adroitly gauge just how much to wink at the audience.

Stephanie Hsu, on the other hand, is far too “in on the joke” as Janet, depriving the character of an arc by being far too salty, far too soon. As Brad, Andrew Durand is about as lively as he was playing the title character in last season’s Dead Outlaw. Amber Gray and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez appear to have wandered in from an off-season “Spirit of Halloween” store, while Juliette Lewis (yes, that Juliette Lewis) is a puzzling Magenta, seemingly determined to make every choice as un-theatrical as possible. Plus, she can’t really sing. Harvey Guillén, who plays Eddie, was absent from the performance I attended, but Josh Rivera was a terrific Rocky, showing off a wackadoo comedic sensibility that he hasn’t been able to unleash with characters like Chino in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Aaron Hernandez in Ryan Murphy’s American Sports Story.

The unevenness of the cast reflects the inconsistencies of the revival as a whole. Much of it, especially David I. Reynoso’s costumes, confuses ugly with edgy. Pinkleton weaves in a few directorial flourishes, like an adorable bit in the prologue and an uproariously racy moment between Frank and Brad, that recall the singular vision he has brought to his other work. In general, though, it’s not clear what he wanted to say or reveal in Rocky Horror. It also feels like a missed opportunity—one that might have created a more integrated point-of-view on the material—for him not to have handled the choreography, which was delegated instead to Ani Taj and feels underwhelming and unfocused.

The production being staged in Studio 54 is undoubtedly supposed to infuse it with the spirit of decadence and hedonism synonymous with the legendary site’s history. Sadly, this Rocky Horror does not effectively launch a time warp. It’s too safe. It lacks danger. It presents transgression without actually transgressing itself. In other words, it fails to take its own advice: “Don’t dream it, be it.” Still, thanks in large part to Evans, Dratch, and Rocky Horror’s beloved score of bangers, it’s not altogether a time wash either.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈½ (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• The production is selling very well. After several failed attempts to score a cheaper ticket with TodayTix’s digital lottery, I succumbed to buying a slightly discounted ticket on the app: $211 (with fees) for front mezz. center.

• Ideally, sit in the orchestra, but not under the mezzanine overhang. Then, opt for front mezz. Don’t do rear mezz at Studio 54, and if you sit in the orchestra under the overhang, you’ll miss that adorable bit I mentioned.

a key to the pictures

In chronological order…

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (the 1975 film) is available to stream with a subscription to BroadwayHD. It is also available to rent or buy through Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.

• Performances from the 2000 revival:

  • Slime tutorial of Daphne Rubin-Vega and Joan Jett performing “Science Fiction Double Feature”

  • “Time Warp” at the Tony Awards (with poor audio) and “Time Warp” on The Rosie O’Donnell Show (with poor video)

• Avoid Kenny Ortega’s dull 2016 remake with Laverne Cox as Frank.

• Performances from the current revival:

  • Luke Evans and company perform “Sweet Transvestite” on The Tonight Show

  • The cast performs “Time Warp” on Good Morning America

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David Lindsay-Abaire has a Pulitzer Prize for Rabbit Hole; two Tony Awards for the musical Kimberly Akimbo, which he co-adapted from his play of the same name; and, in addition to a slew of other nominations for plays as varied as the deliriously silly Fuddy Meers and the gut-wrenching Good People, both a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his new comedy The Balusters. And yet I think he’s still somehow underrated. When people discuss our great living playwrights, I never hear Lindsay-Abaire named; only Rabbit Hole has received a film adaptation; and The Balusters, despite its nominations, has not been flagged by prognosticators as a serious contender for this year’s Tony Award for Best Play.

Nevertheless, Lindsay-Abaire has crafted an impeccably structured and hilarious play that grapples with something real and relevant while also featuring characters whose voices are fully differentiated from each other. In other words, The Balusters ticks nearly all the boxes for great playwriting, demonstrating once again that Lindsay-Abaire is a master of his craft…in all ways except, perhaps, originality. Early works of his, like Fuddy Meers and Wonder of the World, were fairly “out there” in concept, but The Balusters, like Rabbit Hole, represents exceptional execution of a fairly familiar concept.1

So what is that concept? Kyra (Anika Noni Rose) and her family have recently relocated to a picturesque and historically landmarked suburb where her desire to have a stop sign installed on a nearby corner leads her to join the local homeowners’ association, which is ruled over by neighborhood lifer Elliot (Richard Thomas) with an air of sweet-tempered tyranny. They immediately clash over her proposal and begin jockeying for support from the other members of the group: wily septuagenarian Penny (the sublime Marylouise Burke, also delivering familiar shtick, but doing so brilliantly); Elliot’s effortfully woke goddaughter Willow (Kayli Carter); performatively salt-of-the-earth Isaac (Ricardo Chavira); imperious travel writer Brooks (Carl Clemons-Hopkins of Hacks in an effortlessly convincing Broadway debut); acerbic instigator Ruth (Margaret Colin, so hilarious that Steel Magnolias should be revived just so she can play Ouiser); perennially ignored Alan (Michael Esper); and over-everyone’s-shenanigans board VP Melissa (Jeena Yi, who has razor sharp comic timing). Throughout the group’s meetings, everyone is served wine, refreshments, and a Mona Lisa smile by Kyra’s housekeeper Luz (Maria-Christina Oliveras, marvelously grounded), who recently left Elliot’s employ under circumstances as mysterious as those surrounding Kyra’s departure from her last neighborhood’s board.

Understandable comparisons have been drawn between The Balusters and both Tracy Letts’s The Minutes, which unfolds during a city council meeting, and last season’s revival of Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, which not only concerns a school board facing the same kind of prosaic pain points, but also was produced at the same theater by the same company (Manhattan Theatre Club). The truth is that the origins of The Balusters extend all the way back to the 17th and 18th centuries when writers like Molière, William Congreve, and Oliver Goldsmith created the comedy of manners, plays skewering the upper class’s obsession with status and pretentious social customs. If that description strikes you as stuffy or antiquated, think of how the tradition was continued by Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward in the 19th and 20th centuries and then transferred to television in an even more accessible format with sitcoms like Frasier and Arrested Development.

With its setting in a modern-day aristocrat’s modern-day drawing room (the luxurious set is designed by Derek McLane), The Balusters fits into this lineage even better than The Minutes and Eureka Day. What Lindsay-Abaire adds—and what feels more like his trademark than the whimsical anarchy that put him on the map—is a sense of abundant compassion for his characters, even as he reveals their baser natures. It’s a quality that Kenny Leon expertly maintains and maybe even accentuates in his direction of the play.

It helps that Leon has assembled one of the finest ensemble casts to grace a Broadway stage in recent memory. Their chemistry is delicious, and their rapport suggests a group of people who really know each other, which, of course, would be true of these characters. At the company’s center are the perfectly cast Rose and Thomas. It’s Rose’s best stage work since her breakthrough in Caroline, or Change, cleverly capitalizing on her preternatural poise, and Thomas calibrates his performance with an expertise that is hard to imagine anyone else matching.

The Balusters may underwhelm some audience members because it doesn’t do anything especially new. I can’t argue that it advances the form; instead, it demonstrates why a specific form has endured so long. Like the best comedies of manners, it offers excellent entertainment and germane social critique. Other writers might have been more ruthless in their commentary, but Lindsay-Abaire’s generosity is a major reason why the play lingers. Exposing these people’s hypocrisies while simultaneously highlighting their humanity takes a truly great playwright, and it’s time that Lindsay-Abaire be recognized as such.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• My only strong piece of seating advice is to avoid the first row of the front mezzanine at the Friedman where the view of the stage is typically bisected by lighting equipment, even though Manhattan Theatre Club does not sell it as obstructed.

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Over the last couple of weeks, work obligations have precluded me from finalizing reviews of a few productions that I’m cramming in before the Tony Awards on June 7. However, it hasn’t all been cosmetically corrected nose to the grindstone. In the midst of various professional demands, my amazing mother came to town for a “Broadway bonanza” (her words, not mine) in celebration of her 80th birthday. With her, I revisited (her choices, not mine)—

• Chess: Nicholas Christopher is even better, Hannah Cruz is trying VERY hard to win that Tony, and though the writing remains a mess, I managed to enjoy it more by viewing it through a lens of great tunes and great eye candy (my friend Steven’s expression, not mine).

• Chicago: Still the best musical comedy on Broadway (and maybe in the entire canon), the 29-year-old production was not a bit tired thanks to its current cast of non-celebrities but genuine triple-threats, including Rachel Schur, a hilarious Roxie, and Sophie Carmen-Jones, a knockout Velma.

• Just in Time: Although the musical is now ably anchored by Jeremy Jordan, who isn’t as fun or vulnerable as Jonathan Groff but sings Bobby Darin’s songs even better, the evening belonged to Isa Briones, a powerhouse as Connie Francis...get this woman in a musical of her own!

Rather than remain silent while I tweak the posts sitting in my drafts folder, I figured now was a great time to continue the running feature in which I imagine what the nominations and winners would be if there were a Tony Award for Best Song in a Musical.

As I looked at songs in the new musicals that ran on Broadway from 2003-2013, it really hit me—even more than it did as I wrote about the musicals from 2014-2025—that this fictitious category would need clear criteria as to what constitutes the best song. Is it the catchiest tune? The most memorable lyrics? The song that would work best out of context? The song that best deepens a character or drives the action? Or maybe the song that checks the most of these boxes? I can’t say I defined the criteria as I made my selections, which were still mostly based on a gut or vibe check, but I am curious what others feel. Please sound off in the comments below or DM me!

The nominees and winners for the Nonexistent Tony Award for Best Original Song in a Musical are…

(Winners linked and underlined)

The 67th Annual Tony Awards in 2013

“Joy of the Lord” from Hands on a Hardbody

“The History of Wrong Guys” from Kinky Boots

“Land of Lola” from Kinky Boots

“Not My Father’s Son” from Kinky Boots

“Naughty” from Matilda

• Making a CHOICE here to link a bootleg of my favorite Lola, replacement and eventual Tony winner J. Harrison Ghee, rather than the OG Billy Porter or the professionally taped London production.

The 66th Annual Tony Awards in 2012

No award given

• What a terrible year for original scores. The winner was Newsies, and the other nominees were Bonnie & Clyde, One Man, Two Guvnors, and Peter and the Starcatcher.

The 65th Annual Tony Awards in 2011

“You and Me (But Mostly Me)” from The Book of Mormon

“Go Back Home” from The Scottsboro Boys

“Fabulous, Baby” from Sister Act

“Lady in the Long Black Dress” from Sister Act

“Take Me to Heaven” from Sister Act

“Invisible” from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

• Despite The Book of Mormon’s domination of the 65th Annual Tony Awards, I believe the other musicals I’ve listed here all have stronger scores, and each has several fantastic songs that I’ve not included.

The 64th Annual Tony Awards in 2010

“The Moon and Me” from The Addams Family

“Steal Your Rock ‘N’ Roll” from Memphis

• OOF…another rough year for original scores.

The 63rd Annual Tony Awards in 2009

“Electricity” from Billy Elliot: The Musical

“I Miss the Mountains” from Next to Normal

“Light” from Next to Normal

“Superboy and the Invisible Girl” from Next to Normal

“You Don’t Know/I Am the One” from Next to Normal

“I Think I Got You Beat” from Shrek: The Musical

• A great year for original songs—I had a tough time making a pick here.

The 62nd Annual Tony Awards in 2008

“Screw Loose” from Cry-Baby

“Benny’s Dispatch” from In the Heights

“Blackout” from In the Heights

“It Won’t Be Long Now” from In the Heights

“I Want the Good Times Back” from The Little Mermaid

The 61st Annual Tony Awards in 2007

“I Miss the Music” from Curtains

“Around the World” from Grey Gardens

“Will You?” from Grey Gardens

“So Much Better” from Legally Blonde

“The Bitch of Living” from Spring Awakening

“Totally Fucked” from Spring Awakening

• Another great year with a lot of underrated options

The 60th Annual Tony Awards in 2006

“The Color Purple” from The Color Purple

“I’m Here” from The Color Purple

“Push da Button” from The Color Purple

“Love is Always Lovely in the End” from The Drowsy Chaperone

“Show Off” from The Drowsy Chaperone

• If you only saw Fantasia in the film adaptation of The Color Purple musical, I encourage you to watch the linked clip. The film made some terrible choices in repositioning the song that took a lot of the emotion out of it.

• This year highlights the frequent challenge that comedies face in awards ceremonies. It’s hard to think of a more delightful contemporary charm song than “Show Off,” but even harder to resist the emotional wallop of “I’m Here.”

The 59th Annual Tony Awards in 2005

“The I Love You Song” from The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

“Here I Am” from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

“The Beauty Is” from The Light in the Piazza

“Fable” from The Light in the Piazza

“The Light in the Piazza” from The Light in the Piazza

“You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” from Spamalot

• Another great year with another battle between superbly sincere and silly selections

The 58th Annual Tony Awards in 2004

“Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” from Avenue Q

“For Now” from Avenue Q

“I Hate the Bus” from Caroline, or Change

“Lot’s Wife” from Caroline, or Change

“Defying Gravity” from Wicked

“Popular” from Wicked

• Without question, the best year in this bracket and absolutely the hardest for me to make a pick, especially without criteria—

  • “Lot’s Wife” is probably the most powerful and intelligent eleven o’clock number since “Rose’s Turn,” but it really does not work well out of context, which is true of a lot of Caroline, or Change’s exquisite score (it really hurt to exclude “Roosevelt Petrucious Coleslaw,” “Salty Teardrops,” and “Underwater”).

  • “Defying Gravity” and “Popular” have both become iconic.

  • Both songs from Avenue Q are laugh-out-loud funny, but surprisingly wise, as are several of its other songs that I didn’t have space to include.

  • Taboo isn’t even represented here, despite having a highly underrated, terrific score with gems like “Stranger in This World,” “Safe in the City,” “I’ll Have You All,” “Petrified,” and “Il Adore.”

The 57th Annual Tony Awards in 2003

“I Can Hear the Bells” from Hairspray

“Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now” from Hairspray

“Run and Tell That” from Hairspray

“Without Love” from Hairspray

“You Can’t Stop the Beat” from Hairspray

• This being another weak year—Amour’s was the strongest of the season’s offerings besides Hairspray, but it doesn’t include anything even near the level of these five songs—doesn’t take away from the excellence of Hairspray’s score.

That’s it for now. We’ll return to our regular programming sooner rather than later with reviews of something old and something new, the latter of which could be described as borrowed and the former of which could be described as blue. Don’t forget to let me know what your song choices for this bracket would be!

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It’s Gay Year’s Eve!

Tomorrow, Uzo Aduba and Darren Criss will announce the nominations for the The 79th Annual Tony Awards, which will be held on June 7. Last year, 81% of my predictions were correct (67 out of 83…look at that math…clearly, I’m ready to be cast in Proof). Let’s see if I can beat my own record!

• MAY 5 UPDATE: Following today’s announcement of the 2026 Tony nominations, I am tickled pink to say that of the 80 predictions I made, 65.85 (because only partial credit was awarded for alternates) were correct. In other words, I predicted 82% of the nominations correctly, which means I beat my number from last year! It’s nice to know I have good instincts somewhere.

Standard disclaimer: these are predictions for who will be nominated, which is different than who should be nominated. The toughest calls to make are for the featured actor and actress categories, especially for the plays.

Best Musical

• The Lost Boys

• Schmigadoon!

• Titaníque

• Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

Best Play

• The Balusters

• Giant

• Liberation

• Little Bear Ridge Road

Best Revival of a Musical

• Cats: The Jellicle Ball

• Ragtime

• The Rocky Horror Show

Best Revival of a Play

• Becky Shaw

• Death of a Salesman

• Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

• Marjorie Prime

• Oedipus

  • One of the two hardest categories for me to predict!

  • Likeliest alternates (in order of likelihood): Bug, Proof, and/or Fallen Angels could take the place of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and/or Marjorie Prime

Best Director of a Musical

• Michael Arden, The Lost Boys

• Lear DeBessonet, Ragtime

• Christopher Gatelli, Schmigadoon!

• Tim Jackson, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

• Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, Cats: The Jellicle Ball

  • Likeliest alternate: Sam Pinkleton for The Rocky Horror Show over Gatelli, who will definitely be recognized with a choreography nomination

Best Director of a Play

• Nicholas Hytner, Giant

• Robert Icke, Oedipus

• Anne Kauffman, Marjorie Prime

• Joe Mantello, Death of a Salesman

• Whitney White, Liberation

  • Likeliest alternate: Trip Cullman for Becky Shaw over Kauffman

Lead Actress in a Musical

• Sara Chase, Schmigadoon!

• Caissie Levy, Ragtime

• Lea Michele, Chess

• Marla Mindelle, Titaníque

• Christiani Pitts, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

  • Likeliest alternate: Jessica Vosk for Beaches or Stephanie Hsu for The Rocky Horror Show over Michele

Lead Actor in a Musical

• Nicholas Christopher, Chess

• Luke Evans, The Rocky Horror Show

• Joshua Henry, Ragtime

• Sam Tutty, Two Strangers

• Brandon Uranowitz, Ragtime

Lead Actress in a Play

• Rose Byrne, Fallen Angels

• Carrie Coon, Bug

• Ayo Edebiri, Proof

• Susannah Flood, Liberation

• Lesley Manville, Oedipus

  • Likeliest alternate: Laurie Metcalf for Little Bear Ridge Road, Anika Noni Rose for The Balusters or Kelli O’Hara for Fallen Angels over Edebiri

Lead Actor in a Play

• Adrien Brody, The Fear of 13

• Nathan Lane, Death of a Salesman

• John Lithgow, Giant

• Daniel Radcliffe, Every Brilliant Thing

• Mark Strong, Oedipus

  • Likeliest alternate: Will Harrison for Punch or Jon Bernthal for Dog Day Afternoon over Adrien Brody

Featured Actress in a Musical

• Shoshana Bean, The Lost Boys

• Ana Gasteyer, Schmigadoon!

• McKenzie Kurtz, Schmigadoon!

• Nichelle Lewis, Ragtime

• “Tempress” Chasity Moore, Cats: The Jellicle Ball

  • Likeliest alternate: Shaina Taub for Ragtime or Hannah Cruz for Chess over Kurtz

  • My wish for the category: Isabelle McCalla for Schmigadoon! over Kurtz or Moore

Featured Actor in a Musical

• Ali Louis Bourzgui, The Lost Boys

• Max Clayton, Schmigadoon!

• André De Shields, Cats: The Jellicle Ball

• Jim Parsons, Titaníque

• Ben Levi Ross, Ragtime

  • Likeliest alternate: Layton Williams or Constantine Rousouli for Titaníque over Parsons

  • My wish for the category: Sydney James Harcourt for Cats: The Jellicle Ball over Bourzgui’s Kiefer Sutherland illusion

Featured Actress in a Play

• Betsy Aidem, Liberation

• Laurie Metcalf, Death of a Salesman

• Cynthia Nixon, Marjorie Prime

• June Squibb, Marjorie Prime

• Kara Young, Proof

  • The second of the two hardest categories for me to predict!

  • Likeliest alternate: Linda Emond for Becky Shaw or Aya Cash for Giant over Nixon

  • My wish for the category: Marylouise Burke for The Balusters over Nixon or even Aidem

Featured Actor in a Play

• Christopher Abbott, Death of a Salesman

• Danny Burstein, Marjorie Prime

• Alden Ehrenreich, Becky Shaw

• Elliot Levey, Giant

• Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

  • Likeliest alternate: Charlie Thurston for Liberation or Ben Ahlers for Death of a Salesman over Santiago-Hudson

Best Choreography

• Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons, Cats: The Jellicle Ball

• Lorin Latarro, Chess

• Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant, The Lost Boys

• Ani Taj, The Rocky Horror Show1

• Christopher Gattelli, Schmigadoon!

  • Likeliest alternate: Ellenore Scott for Ragtime over Latarro

Best Original Score

• Iris Rainer Dart and Mike Stoller, Beaches

• The Rescues, The Lost Boys

• Stephen Schwartz, The Queen of Versailles

• Cinco Paul, Schmigadoon!

• Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

  • Likeliest alternate: People really love to hate Beaches and The Queen of Versailles, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Caroline Shaw for Death of a Salesman or Kris Bowers for Proof sneaks in

Best Book of a Musical

• David Hornsby and Chris Hoch, The Lost Boys

• Cinco Paul, Schmigadoon!

• Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, and Tye Blue, Titaníque

• Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

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Let’s just get this out of the way: I believe Proof is a perfect play.

I saw the enthralling original production multiple times, first with Tony winner Mary Louise Parker and then the late Anne Heche, who was somehow even better. In college, my classmates and I worked on literally every scene from it as part of an acting exercise where we dissected a script and then performed it modularly. I even included the Pulitzer and Tony winning play as part of my curriculum when I taught theatre in the New York City public school system, seeing firsthand how it invigorated teenagers who usually tried to appear apathetic.

Undoubtedly, my expectations were influenced by that history as I walked into the Booth Theater, where it is receiving its first Broadway revival. They were further compounded by the pedigree of this production, which stars Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri as Catherine, a young woman questioning her own stability after years of caring for her mentally ill father, a renowned mathematician played by Oscar and 11 time Emmy nominee Don Cheadle; two time Tony winner Kara Young as her domineering sister Claire; and Grammy nominee Jin Ha as her suitor Hal—all overseen by Tony and Emmy winning director Thomas Kail. Even its incidental music, despite being…you know…incidental, is written by an Oscar and Emmy winner (Kris Bowers).

I did not, however, sit down with my arms crossed, silently demanding the production to prove it was worthy of the piece or my time. On the contrary, I very badly wanted the production to be good—and I was confident that if for some reason it wasn’t, I could still enjoy David Auburn’s flawless piece of playwriting.

The sum of all these variables? Well, to quote Catherine, “It works…But all I can see are the compromises, the approximations, places where it’s stitched together. It’s lumpy.”

There are two major problems with the production. Firstly, Kail demonstrates no discernible point-of-view on the material, other than, “Let’s have these actors—who also happen to be people of color—do Proof.” I couldn’t help but wonder if more might have come from this approach if the director had also been a person of color. It also would’ve been interesting to see what a woman could have illuminated in the piece, being that it’s fundamentally a woman’s story. I’ve heard rumors that there might be some directors out there who are women AND people of color.

How might an artist whose experience overlaps more directly with Catherine’s have changed this iteration of Proof? We’ll never know. Instead, we get Kail’s unfussy and mild redux of Daniel Sullivan’s vastly superior staging of the original production. Kail doesn’t get in the way of the story, but he also doesn’t bring anything particularly exciting or different to it. In the rare instances when he does deviate from Sullivan’s blueprint, Kail’s choices still manage to feel recycled, as with Teresa L. Williams’s more abstract scenic design, which appears to be borrowed from a LORT B mounting of Next to Normal.

The second—and ultimately more damaging—problem with the revival is its uneven cast. In a play with only four characters, just one miscalculated performance can significantly subtract from its overall effectiveness. Sadly, this production has two of them.

Cheadle has been giving fantastic performances in film and television since I first became aware of him on The Golden Palace. (Yes, in 1992, he really was on the short-lived spinoff of The Golden Girls.) His work here is oddly tentative, presumably because it’s been 25 years since he was last on a New York stage. It’s as if he’s performing in fog: Cheadle proceeds with caution and the shape of his character can’t quite be made out, but there are occasional glimpses of the great talent we know him to be, mostly because he has solid chemistry with Edebiri.

I wish I could say the same of Ha, an actor whose momentum has somewhat surprised me. Ha has impressed me in more heightened vehicles like Here We Are, but in realistic settings, like Proof’s, he comes across as all technique and no humanity. The romantic sparks he was able to generate opposite Micaela Diamond in the dreamlike world of the former are completely absent from his interactions with Edebiri in the more ordinary world that Hal and Catherine inhabit. Worse, Ha never actually registers as a real person simply living his life as we happen to look in; instead, he always seems like an actor self-consciously reciting his lines and posing.

The artificiality of Ha’s performance is further accentuated by its juxtaposition with the throbbing honesty of Edebiri and Young’s. There’s a rawness to Edebiri that fits Catherine as beautifully as the black dress that Claire buys her. She nails her character’s spiky sense of humor without detracting from her vulnerability, which is written across her highly expressive face. Her arc doesn’t yet feel as dramatic as it should—perhaps an impossibility given that two of her three scene partners aren’t giving her much to work with—and a key moment in which Catherine shows frustration with herself feels a bit imposed, but it’s still an emotionally absorbing performance that elicits full investment in Catherine’s fate.

Finally, there’s Young, who turns the play’s most potentially thankless role into another remarkable entry in her streak of scene-stealers. As in Clyde’s, Cost of Living, Purlie Victorious, and Purpose, she demonstrates an uncanny ability to find laughs where no one else would think to look for them, but it speaks to her integrity as an actress that she never actually asks for them. She brings as much heart as humor to her role, anchoring Claire’s controlling behavior in compassion for Catherine. Young and Edebiri make the relationship between the sisters the most engrossing part of the play.

Is that enough to make Proof worth seeing? In combination with Auburn’s brilliant writing, I think so. After all, I laughed a lot. I even teared up. Nevertheless, it’s a shame that all the components of this revival don’t add up.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• A lot of action takes place on the far sides of the stage, so try to sit as close to center as possible.

• Some of the juiciest scenes play out stage right/house left.

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Early in the second act of The Lost Boys—after a lovely (albeit dramatically inorganic) duet between those consummate pros Shoshana Bean and Paul Alexander Nolan reignited my hope that this new musical could turn into something special, but before the dancing superheroes confirmed it’s as beyond redemption as the souls of the titular vampires—there’s a would-be rock anthem called “War” sung by the romantic female lead. “War” could also be the show’s mission statement, given how determined it seems to attack our senses and standards.

Based on Joel Schumacher’s 1987 film of the same name, The Lost Boys follows the Emerson family as they try to start a new life in the boardwalk town of Santa Clara, California. Older brother Michael (LJ Benet) is resentful and rebellious. Younger brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) is geeky and…well…gay. (You know your libretto is blunt when it makes a Joel Schumacher film look subtle and smart.) Mother Lucy (Bean) is unsure how to parent her children and make up for the years they spent with their abusive father (Ben Crawford), who haunts the family in nightmare sequences that handle domestic violence with all the sensitivity of a very special episode of Who’s the Boss?.

Trying to assert his independence from his biological family, Michael finds himself drawn to an elusive beauty named Star (Maria Wirries), but their romance is quickly complicated by her chosen family: a biker gang/punk rock band—yes, really—led by the seductive but sinister David (Ali Louis Bourzgui). They are, of course, actually vampires, and David is intent on recruiting Michael for their clan. Meanwhile, Lucy is courted by her new boss Max (Nolan)—apparently, workplace sexual harassment is fine if your boss is hot—and Sam is befriended by Edgar (Miguel Gil) and Alan Frog (Jennifer Duka), an archetypal pair of comic relief misfits who are the only people to rightfully suspect that Santa Clara is the “murder capital of the world” because it’s infested with vampires.

The Lost Boys desperately wants to have bite (pun intended), but feels cloyingly conventional. For starters, Michael and Star’s relationship could not be more of a musical theatre cliché. They fall in love instantly, earnestly, and without displaying any interesting character traits. Furthermore, like many singing ingenues before her, Star is essentially a beard. The truer and more propulsive attraction is between Michael and David, which obviously would not have been explored by a major studio motion picture in 1987, but should not have been so homophobically avoided by a Broadway musical in 2026.

Instead, a seemingly obligatory acknowledgment of the film’s queer subtext is made in David Hornsby and Chris Hoch’s book by cranking up Sam’s flamboyance, often with punchlines that position the audience to “laugh at the nance!” rather than laugh with him. After having made a joke of Sam’s femininity for most of the evening, the writers then try to have it both ways and force a round of dutiful applause in Sam’s big solo by having him sing, “Maybe I can be a hero here / and make it cool to be queer. / Maybe that’s my superpower.” Maybe lyrics like those are my kryptonite.

To be clear, though, my issues with The Lost Boys extend far beyond its treatment of queerness: its writing is fundamentally bad, not just bad for gay men. The score is credited to rock band The Rescues, but most of the lyrics sound like they were written by a middle schooler with access to ChatGPT and a rhyming dictionary. Consider the cliché-packed AABB rhyme scheme of the introductory verse to “Belong to Someone,” one of Michael’s big songs:

I don’t know who I’m supposed to be
It’s like I’m always fighting gravity
I hear something calling
But I feel myself falling

The chorus continues the clichés, but swaps basic and/or mis-accented rhymes for near rhymes:

I want to belong to someone
Someone who can take my heart home
A home where I don’t always feel alone
I wanna belong to someone
Someone who is always near me
Someone who really hears me
Someone who can save me from me

If you’re familiar with the structure of musicals, you might read these lyrics—which are far from the worst in the show, but some of the only ones currently available online—and assume it’s Michael’s “I Want” song. Nope. It comes near the end of the first act, reflecting one of the musical’s larger structural problems: characters frequently sing “I Want” songs without having transformed in any way since they last articulated the same desires. In fact, very few of the songs involve transformation, as they tend to lean into the vibes of a moment rather than move the plot forward or deepen the characters.

Are the lyrical inadequacies at least offset by the music? Unfortunately, not. Again, they’re desperate to serve punk and rock and roll; however, the edge those genres have is derived from far more than an onslaught of guitar solos and aggressive volume. (The borderline violent sound design is by Adam Fisher.) There are two or maybe three good songs, including the aforementioned Bean and Nolan duet, a reflective ballad for Bean, and a melodic closer where the entire ensemble spells out the moral of the story. The effective music shows The Rescues (who also did the vocal arrangements) have a notable talent for creating gorgeous harmonies. Everything else they’ve written—and there’s a great deal of it—blends and blares together, underlining how much craft is at work in the composition of bona fide punk rock from the likes of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.

Nevertheless, The Lost Boys garnered some positive reviews from respectable critics and a dozen Tony nominations. What about it has won folks over when I thought it made Redwood look like Next to Normal and Death Becomes Her look like The Producers? (Please note that I did enjoy The Lost Boys more than Heathers.)

Much of the praise has affectionately described the production as bringing spectacle back to Broadway, and director Michael Arden has indeed assembled an impressive physical production. Visually oriented viewers will be understandably dazzled by Dane Laffrey’s gargantuan and atmospheric set—so long as they’re willing to overlook a climactic sequence where the extreme caution its upper level necessitates reveals that Arden and Laffrey have prioritized form over function. Sleek aerials, choreographed by Lauren Yalango-Grant & Christopher Cree Grant, never really best anything done in a good production of Peter Pan, but they’re still a lot of fun to see, as are Ryan Park’s 80s-inspired costumes. Arden and Jen Schriever co-designed the lighting, which is integral to making both the flying appear otherworldly and certain sections of the show genuinely feel like horror.

And therein lies the biggest problem in Arden’s direction—“certain sections.” Rather than mitigate the gross tonal inconsistencies in the book and score, Arden exacerbates them. The scenes with David lean into horror with surprising success; the scenes with Lucy and Max feel like something out of a Nancy Meyers dramedy; and the scenes with Sam and the Frogs play like a sitcom John Hughes might have made for the Disney Channel. Ultimately, the biggest danger to my neck wasn’t a pair of vampire fangs; it was genre-based whiplash.

Although no one in the cast is well served by this (mis)approach, no one is as hurt by it as Pajak, a promising young actor with sharp comic timing who can’t overcome having been directed to play Sam like the love child of Eugene Florzyck and Jack McFarland. Casting an actual adolescent as Sam comes with the advantage of authenticity, but the serious disadvantages of having an actor who’s very much still developing while also dealing with a voice that’s changing. Pajak’s shortcomings are accentuated by his constant juxtaposition against adult actors who are also playing teenagers, particularly Gil, a similar type who’s probably only a few years older but significantly more polished. Gil does such great work as Edgar, I kept wondering how it would change the piece to have him play Sam.

Benet is capable and sincere…but unexciting and fairly one-note. Bourzgui is charismatic and sexy…but opts to deliver an extended imitation of Kiefer Sutherland (the film’s David) that prevents him from registering as three-dimensional. Wirries has a powerful set of pipes…but acts with all the personality of a model in a soap commercial.

Adult roles tend to be thankless in most teen-centered dramas, and yet Bean and especially Nolan come off better than anyone. While Bean doesn’t convey the clear sense of character that Dianne Wiest did in the movie—admittedly, that’s a high bar—she is such a captivating singer that her more “everywoman,” or more precisely “every mom,” interpretation works. Nolan expertly nails his dorky Reaganite character’s arc, again demonstrating that he’s one of New York’s most underrated shapeshifters.

They deserve better than The Lost Boys. So does nearly everyone involved. The Lost Boys may develop a fanbase because, like The Outsiders, it centers good-looking twinks and capitalizes on nostalgia. However, I am not horny or wistful enough for that to fool me into thinking it’s a good musical. If audiences as a whole are, we may be…lost.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• The Lost Boys is playing at the Palace Theatre, one of Broadway’s biggest houses. Avoid sitting in the balcony, which is so high up that it’ll feel like you’re watching from Ontario.

• Prioritize sitting center over proximity. Although they’re not selling the side seats as obstructed view, they essentially are.

a key to the pictures

• Following an interview with coproducer Patrick Wilson, the cast performs a medley on Good Morning America.

• The original film is available for rental or purchase on all the obvious streaming platforms, but is not included as part of a subscription with any of the big ones (Netflix, Hulu, etc.).

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The act two opener of Schmigadoon!, the new Broadway musical based on the Apple TV+ series of the same name, features the luminous Isabelle McCalla singing, “You must always try your best with all of your heart.” These lyrics are not just an example of the show’s frequently pitch-perfect pastiche; they represent the ethos of the entire production. Although its comic point-of-view is decidedly contemporary, Schmigadoon! is as unabashedly well-intentioned and eager to entertain its audience as the Golden Age musicals that it spoofs. The result is—to quote one of the many classics they reference—“something wonderful.”

When the series debuted in July 2021, it was rabidly devoured by a niche and instantly devoted fanbase that was starved for a taste of theatre after more than a year of live performances being suspended due to COVID-19. Initially, I was reluctant to tune in. Its cheeky name—a reference to Lerner and Loewe’s 1947 hit, Brigadoon, about a mythical village that reveals itself to two tourists in need of a lesson—insinuated derision to me, and I didn’t want to see the art form of musical theatre mocked when it was actually in serious peril.

However, as the collective enthusiasm for the show built, I got the sense that it was less a takedown of traditional musicals than a love letter to them. When I finally did watch, I too was instantly devoted. In telling its story of Melissa and Josh—a modern-day couple whose relationship is on the rocks when they’re magically transported to the town of Schmigadoon, where every day is a Golden Age musical—the series combined the sly self-awareness and one-joke-a-second style that I love in Tina Fey’s best writing with spot-on sendups of classic musicals’ most memorable songs and tropes. Yes, it poked fun at a lot of them, but with a tone of affectionate teasing rather than disdain.

The musical remains extremely faithful to its source, essentially relocating the first season of the series to the stage with few changes, which isn’t surprising given that its book, music, and lyrics are written by co-creator and showrunner Cinco Paul. But it’s not a problem: the material is so innately theatrical, it feels less like a new meeting of different forms than a welcome reunion. The sense of continuity is further enhanced by having Christopher Gatelli, who choreographed the TV show’s musical numbers, continue in his role and expand it to encompass direction.

It’s a joyful return to form for Gatelli following the dismal Death Becomes Her. He has an expert’s understanding of classic musicals, as evidenced by his Tony nominations for choreography in South Pacific (2008), The King and I (2015), and My Fair Lady (2018). However, on productions like Altar Boyz (2005), Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me (2006), and SpongeBob SquarePants (2017), Gatelli has simultaneously developed a unique aptitude for tongue-in-cheek comedy and heightened realities. Schmigadoon! requires a mastermind equally comfortable in all these worlds, and Gatelli is one of the few who can rightfully claim to be one. It also allows him to choreograph with the sort of buoyant showmanship that won him a Tony for Newsies, especially in his dances for more-than-just-his-biceps-but-holy-shit-look-at-those-biceps Max Clayton as town “rapscallion and known fornicator” Danny Bailey.

Gatelli’s only missteps as a director reside in some of his casting choices. The recency of the series leaves the entire company open to comparison more than would be the case if Schmigadoon! were an actual revival of an old chestnut. It’s a credit to the preponderance of talent in NY theatre that most of the actors are able either to live up to or exceed memories of the television cast, but a crucial few fall disappointingly short.

McCalla and SNL alum Ana Gasteyer stand out as the clearest improvements on their Apple TV+ counterparts (Ariana DeBose and Kristin Chenoweth). McCalla’s characterization stands out as the most authentically “Golden Age” in the cast; you could plop her down in a production of The Music Man without having to adjust anything she’s doing. It’s a performance full of sincerity and heart that also displays her talents as a true triple-threat. Gasteyer, here on her ninth Broadway show and undoubtedly eager for Tony recognition, is an inspired choice for the town’s morally superior misanthrope. Her years in sketch comedy have honed her ability to make bold choices that quickly convey character, and to mine even small moments for comic gold…who else could send the audience into stitches simply by shushing people? The score doesn’t take full advantage of her former-Elphaba pipes, but she still stops the show with her one big number.

At the other end of the spectrum is McKenzie Kurtz. Playing an Ado Annie-like romantic diversion for Josh, Kurtz does not do anything on stage without commenting on it. It’s an unhinged performance that delights many audience members, but cheapens the proceedings. Clayton also winks a bit too much at the audience; however, it’s not nearly to the same extent as Kurtz, and he arguably makes up for it with his virtuosic dancing. Regardless, I missed the suggestion of genuine melancholy that Aaron Tveit brought to the role (though perhaps that was just his general inexpressiveness as an actor).

Schmigadoon! boasts a deep bench of onstage talent—not to mention an impeccably integrated design concept with smashing costumes from Linda Cho and storybook scenery from Scott Pask. While I want to keep this review a critwink, there are a few more supporting players worth mentioning. Two of Broadway’s most reliable character actors, Brad Oscar and Ann Harada (the lone holdover from the series), make characteristically delightful contributions as the closeted mayor and his dim wife. Ivan Hernandez brings a dashing presence and beautiful baritone to the underwritten role of Melissa’s employer and love interest. Maulik Pancholy’s sweet sincerity as Gasteyer’s husband and sharp comic instincts in a wackier cameo cannot offset his vocal tentativeness. And the gorgeous Afra Hines suffers the adaptation’s most unfortunate omission—Jane Krakowski’s glorious “I Always, Always, Never Get My Man”—in a role that has been reduced to a few lines.

At the center of the production, mirroring the you-win-some-you-lose-some dynamic of the supporting cast, are Sara Chase and Alex Brightman as Melissa and Josh. They’re assured anchors for the musical, admirably playing it straight, despite both having previously enjoyed big successes as outlandish characters (Chase in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Brightman in Beetlejuice). Unfortunately, they don’t have much chemistry as a pair. Chase is the more essential of the two, smartly balancing her character’s yearning with infectious amusement for the outlandish situations in which she finds herself. Brightman doesn’t do anything wrong per se, but he’s missing two vital qualities that came naturally to Keegan-Michael Key in the series: sexual charisma throughout the story, and puppy-dog vulnerability in its most emotional scene. It’s not a disastrous performance, but Brightman never overcomes his fundamental miscasting, and it prevents the core love story from making the impact that it should.

Consider it yet another aspect of Schmigadoon!’s magic that it bewitches so fulsomely in spite of these shortcomings. They are too significant to forget, but not significant enough to undo the spell cast by so many artists at the top of their game. Schmigadoon! may be an ode to old musicals, but I left feeling hopeful about the future of new ones.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• With so much outstanding choreography, I’d prioritize sitting center over sitting close.

• Schmigadoon! is playing at the Nederlander, one of Broadway’s cruelest houses for those of us…on the petite side. The orchestra has only the slightest of rakes, which means shorter patrons will almost always have other audience members’ heads in their line of vision.

• As a result, if I could sit anywhere for this show, it would be the first row of the center mezzanine.

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A Brief Overture

Although I was a child of the 80s, my parents did not introduce me to theatergoing with the mega-musicals that were then dominating the Great White Way. My first Broadway show was Gypsy with Linda Lavin. My second was City of Angels. My third was Gypsy with Tyne Daly (when the press described her return as “by popular demand,” they may very well have been referring to me). My fourth was Grease!—okay, a populist outlier—and my fifth was Kiss of the Spider Woman.

It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized most of my fellow theatre kids were obsessed (or at least introduced to our shared passion) with different shows than me. So, I asked my mother, “Why didn’t you start me out with the shows everyone else has seen? The Phantom of the Opera and Cats and Les Miz?” She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Because they’re BAD.”

Finally, in 2010—motivated by a combination of curiosity, completism, and the sentimentality that comes with age—my mom and I went to see Phantom. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, and Richard Stilgoe’s adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s novel tells the tale of a mysterious figure who haunts a Paris opera house as he stalks/mentors/romances a young singer named Christine. She finds herself torn between this Phantom and her childhood sweetheart, the wealthy, worked-out, and bland-beyond-belief Raoul. When people criticize Phantom, they usually focus on the bluster and repetitiveness of Webber’s melodies, and its generic, often nonsensical lyrics. What doesn’t get enough attention is that all three of these characters are terrible people.

At any rate, 2010 was one of the worst times anyone could have caught Phantom’s record-breaking run—long after it set new standards for Broadway spectacle and memorable “popera” music, but years before its closing notice reportedly reinvigorated the production. The cast was on such autopilot, the visuals looked so in need of a refresh, and the audience was so disinterested that the experience reminded me of visiting Disney’s Hall of Presidents: robotic performers and once revolutionary (but now outdated) technology dispassionately dispensing a familiar story that’s boring everyone who’s watching.

Curtain Up

About two years after Phantom closed with the bragging rights of being the longest-running show in Broadway history,1 it was reimagined by director Diane Paulus as Masquerade, a two-hour immersive experience that opened off-Broadway in September 2025, aspiring to be musical theatre’s answer to Sleep No More. When word broke that audiences would be required to dress formally and wear masks (Venetian or domino, not KN-95), there was some eye-rolling across town. When folks started hearing the ticket prices, which generally start around $175, it escalated to grumbling. However, most of the complaints started dissipating after the start of performances, which generated surprisingly positive buzz.

Still, I resisted seeing it…because of my underwhelming experience with Phantom, the hefty price tag, a pair of meniscus tears, and a general wariness of immersive theatre, which I tend to find more gimmicky than revelatory. But when my beloved college roommate Kaye told me she was coming to town, it seemed like the obvious choice—not only because it was a musical that we, who met while studying musical theatre, could experience for the first time together, but also because the many years her husband Allen (the unofficial fifth roommate in our apartment) has spent working in production have included immersive events. What really sealed the deal? We’d be joined by their creative and wise-beyond-her-years 13-year-old daughter Blair. I found myself thinking of that underrated Gloria Estefan ballad “Christmas Through Your Eyes,” hoping I could see immersive theatre through Blair’s eyes.

And I did.

To a certain extent.

Because Masquerade is simultaneously not Phantom and still Phantom.

Gone are the entire orchestra; most of the subplot focusing on opera diva Carlotta and the theater’s managers; and the overall impression of maximalism, despite Hal Prince’s deceptively minimalistic staging. Newly added are a click track; extensive backstory about the Phantom’s childhood, which incorporates a song from Joe Schumacher’s soporific film version; and a sustained affect of intimacy, despite Paulus’s objectively maximalistic staging. (There is one live musician, a violinist, Nikita Yermak at the performance I attended. Yermak plays so superbly, it reminds you there’s no substitute for a live instrumentalist.) Preserved are all the big songs that Phans want to hear, like “Think of Me,” “Music of the Night,” and the title number; an unwavering commitment to Victorian melodrama; and the distinct sense that you’re visiting a Disney attraction…only this time, it’s the Haunted Mansion.

The sumptuousness of the physical production Paulus has assembled with a very large creative team is dazzling—and likely would be even without your own cynicism-support tween. Production designer James Fluhr, scenic designer Scott Pask, and costume designer Emilio Sosa are true masters of their crafts. For most of the action, they transport you to another time and place so successfully, it’s jarring when you’re ushered onto escalators and a contemporary Manhattan roof for scene changes. A huge part of why the evening feels like a Disney attraction is that no expense seems to have been spared in expanding the Phantom and Christine’s world beyond a traditional proscenium.

Conversely, a major reason why the evening feels intimate—despite sprawling across multiple rooms, sets, levels, and floors—is the unusual proximity the audience has to the cast. Masquerade is performed several times a night, each performance referred to as a “pulse,” to accommodate staggered arrivals of groups of about 60.2 Moving around in these small groups allows the audience to get close to the performers…literally.

While a few of the roles are played by the same indefatigable actors in every pulse, the Phantom and Christine are each played by six different actors and Raoul is played by three. If this sounds like an SAT problem to you, an example might help: assuming there were no absences, while everyone who attended Masquerade the same night as me saw Matthew Curlano as André, only my group saw Clay Singer as the Phantom, Riley Noland as Christine, and Francisco Javier González as Raoul; however, one other group saw González opposite a different Phantom and Christine. Regardless of my reservations about the material and its execution—which, like a frustrating amount of environmental theatre, frequently prioritizes “vibes” over coherent storytelling—it was a privilege to be inches away from vocalists of such a high caliber as they sang. I was particularly taken with the clarity and placement of Noland’s stunning soprano.

Sadly, Paulus does not seem to have allowed her cast any more latitude in personalizing their characters than Prince did in his famously standardized staging. Every gesture, cadence, and piece of blocking seems as choreographed and devoid of spontaneity in Masquerade as it did in Phantom. And much of it is so stylized, it feels like colonized kabuki. The ensemble, especially the wholeheartedly committed Singer, never comment on the artificiality of what they’re doing, but that doesn’t make it feel less artificial.

Nearly every Paulus staging I’ve seen has contained both moments of goosebump-inducing brilliance and moments of cringeworthy, sometimes even juvenile, heavy-handedness. Thanks to Paulus’s considerable talent, her productions usually contain more of the former than the latter, but Masquerade is no exception. Its last scene alone had a spectacular bit of theatrical magic that made me gasp and an obvious metaphor that made me groan.

My response to those final few minutes is a pretty fair reflection of my experience at Masquerade as a whole. I wish Paulus had created a whole new world, one that transformed the Phantom we already knew instead of merely augmenting it. At the same time, the narrative clarity I craved was often most obscured when she did venture into the unknown. Maybe I should let it go, but I’ve got a dream that I’ll one day see a piece of immersive theatre that is as rich in storytelling as it is in environmental inventiveness. Although Masquerade is, at best, almost there, I am glad that there are creatives as daring as Paulus out there.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈½ (out of five)

a key to the pictures

• Masquerade’s current sextet of Phantoms sing “Music of the Night” on Broadway.com

• Production designer James Fluhr gives Broadway.com a tour of the performance space

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I spent the last weekend in Los Angeles for the Museum of Television and Radio’s 50th anniversary panel of Charlie’s Angels, a show I discovered early in my childhood through my big brother—he was pubescent, I was gay—and have loved ever since. It was a blissful few days that stand in stark contrast to the terrifying and demoralizing news that’s unfolding as I sit on the tarmac. Like so many of us, I am terrified. And yet I find myself holding on to a tiny sliver of hope from the unlikely source of the panel itself.

Charlie’s Angels was originally built around Kate Jackson, the only actress (i) to have had hit shows before and after the series, and (ii) to have been nominated for three Emmy Awards, two for her work on “Charlie’s,” as Jaclyn Smith calls it. Farrah Fawcett(-Majors) was, of course, its biggest breakout star and a cultural icon. She left after one season and would later legitimize herself as an actress by starring in Extremities off-Broadway and in its film adaptation. Cheryl Ladd, who replaced her, still works constantly and is the show’s only Angel who’s been on Broadway, having replaced Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun.

But it’s Jaclyn Smith who has enjoyed the most enduring, consistent, and LUCRATIVE success, not just as an actress, but as arguably the first celebrity to launch her own product line at a discount department store (Kmart). Her longevity is even more impressive when you consider she was the last of the original Angels to be cast, only being offered her role after it was turned down by a slew of other women, including Barbara Bach and Connie Sellecca. Smith was objectively the weakest actress of all the Angels to do multiple seasons on the series, and yet she became the only one to remain on the series for its full duration (not to mention make appearances in the film franchise!).

It was a joy to see Jackson, Smith, and Ladd reunite last night. Yes, as the press is emphasizing, they looked fabulous, but, even better, they were deliciously full of life and possessed so much chemistry with—and respect for—each other. Each was a delightful speaker. Jackson’s remarks were characterized by candor and a wry wit that would’ve delighted Bette Davis; she was particularly hilarious while recounting being paid only $80 for all the Charlie’s Angels merchandise bearing her likeness…and 24 years after the show’s debut! Ladd was all bubbly effervescence and showbiz charm, but also demonstrated great vulnerability and resilience in revealing that she, like her two former costars, had battled breast cancer.

Smith, however, had a groundedness, eloquence, and evenkeeled energy that anchored the presentation. There was an aura of stability around her that often eludes performers, especially those who’ve weathered the brutality of the entertainment industry for decades. I found myself wondering about the relationship between this stability and her ongoing success. Which one was responsible for the other? Has her clearheaded-ness given her the perspective to identify good opportunities when she sees them? Or has she been able to remain clearheaded because the industry has treated her with a modicum of respect, sparing her the injustices and indignities imposed on many performers of a certain age—especially women and ESPECIALLY women who come to fame as sexual objects? In other words, is her equanimity a cause or an effect of her achievement?

Of course, the answer is that it’s probably both. Regardless of which feeds the other and to what degree, my unexpected takeaway from last night’s panel is that maybe—just maybe—in the end, stability wins. And today I’m going to hold on to that as the best bit of comfort I can get.

Thank you, Charlie’s Angels, for offering othered others like me 50 years of reassurance and empowerment.

a key to the pictures

• Cheryl Ladd sings “You Can't Get a Man with a Gun” on Broadway in Annie Get Your Gun, and “I’ve Got the Sun in Morning” in the production’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade spot.

• After Charlie’s Angels, Kate Jackson starred in Making Love, often described as the first major studio feature about homosexuality. It’s not a great movie, though she is legitimately great in it and it’s a fascinating historical artifact for queer folk, which you can even get an idea of in its trailer.

• Jaclyn Smith, who originally thought she was going to be a dancer, once appeared in a fantastic montage of dances from Emmy winning programs, including Liza With a Z. I cannot find it anywhere; if you have it, please message me!

  • In lieu of Smith doing Liza, here’s a famous, and thoroughly problematic!, sequence from Charlie’s where she belly-dancing.

a rare dedication

• This post is dedicated to my big brother who hosted me in Los Angeles, joined me at Paleyfest, and, nearly 30 years ago, was the first family member to whom I came out.  Thank you for introducing me to Charlie’s Angels—and so many other things I love—and playing such a huge role in making me who I am today. 

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A few months ago, my friend Andrew invited me to be his guest for Seth Rudetsky and Friends at Carnegie Hall. Andrew is a genuine rarity—and not just because he’s a brilliant lyricist and librettist…because he’s a straight man who loves musical theatre as much as I do. Usually, if a man offers me a comp, I figure he’s asking for nothing less than a handie to go with it. But with Andrew, I could enjoy the show knowing that the only post-performance passion to navigate would be a heated debate about the option-up at the end of “Meadowlark.”

Rudetsky’s persona is built on being the same sort of diehard fan of musicals. He too backs up his enthusiasm with incredible talent. He’s a gifted musician with an encyclopedic knowledge of theatre history, which, in combination with his quintessentially queer wit, he has parlayed into a career as an Emmy-winning writer, Sirius Satellite Radio host, and emcee/music director/producer of cabarets and concerts starring such Broadway A-listers as Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone, Jane Krakowski, Lillias White, and Vanessa Williams. His Carnegie Hall debut was a delightful display of The Rudetsky Brand, including his deconstruction of “Another Hundred People” from Company; dishy showbiz anecdotes. like the lie-by-omission he told to get a gig on The Rosie O’Donnell Show; and, perhaps most memorably, thrilling performances with top-notch Broadway talents like Norm Lewis, Jessie Mueller, Javier Muñoz, and Kerry Butler.

Rudetsky introduced one of Butler’s big numbers (“Fly, Fly Away” from Catch Me If You Can) with an animated aside about how there should be a Tony Award for Best Song—a topic that’s occasionally debated by musical theatre aficionados. I’ve always sided with the predominant school of thought: musicals’ scores should be written to serve their stories and characters, and singling out an individual song undermines the importance of context and cohesion. However, hearing someone with Rudetsky’s expertise make an argument that such an award should exist made me wonder if I should reconsider my position.

The idea reoccurred to me during my recent trip to Ragcrime Ragtime. Maybe Rudetsky popped into my head because I know Gagtime Ragtime to be Andrew’s favorite musical. Then again, maybe his argument was top of mind because I’ve always found Dragslime Ragtime to be a show that has several wonderful songs…and pretty much nothing else.

Taken together, the experiences have really got me thinking: What would my picks be if there were a Tony Award for Best Original Song? I thought sharing them in reverse chronology could be a fun running feature between reviews. It will be even more fun if you sound off in the comments below. So, let me know what you think!

There is no specific criteria. It’s just a vibe.

The nominees and winners for the Nonexistent Tony Award for Best Original Song in a Musical are…

(Winners linked and underlined)

The 78th Annual Tony Awards in 2025

“Don’t Say I Didn’t (Warn You)” from Death Becomes Her

“Dead” from Dead Outlaw

“The Rainy Day We Met” from Maybe Happy Ending

“When You’re in Love” from Maybe Happy Ending

“Dear Bill” from Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical

The 77th Annual Tony Awards in 2024

“Eleven Days” from Here Lies Love

“Here Lies Love” from Here Lies Love

“Just Ask the Flowers” from Here Lies Love

“A Letter from Harry’s Mother” from Suffs

“Wait My Turn” from Suffs

The 76th Annual Tony Awards in 2023

“Better” from Kimberly Akimbo

“Father Time” from Kimberly Akimbo

“Great Adventure” from Kimberly Akimbo

“Independently Owned” from Shucked

“You Could’ve Knocked Me Over With a Feather” from Some Like It Hot

The 75th Annual Tony Awards in 2022

“Don’t Lose Ur Head” from SIX: The Musical

“Heart of Stone” from SIX: The Musical

“All You Wanna Do” from SIX: The Musical

“Precious Little Dream / AIDS Is G-d’s Punishment” from A Strange Loop

“Inner White Girl” from A Strange Loop

The 74th Annual Tony Awards in 2020

No award given

The 73rd Annual Tony Awards in 2019

“What I Know Now” from Beetlejuice

“Michael in the Bathroom” from Be More Chill

“Epic III” from Hadestown

“Wait for Me” from Hadestown

“Way Down Hadestown” from Hadestown

The 72nd Annual Tony Awards in 2018

“Answer Me” from The Band’s Visit

“Omar Sharif” from The Band’s Visit

“Apex Predator” from Mean Girls (Drag me, Austin. I stand by this choice.)

“I’d Rather Be Me” from Mean Girls

“Someone Gets Hurt” from Mean Girls

The 71st Annual Tony Awards in 2017

“Waving Through a Window” from Dear Evan Hansen

“You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen

“Charming” from Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

“Dust and Ashes” from Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

“Prologue” from Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

The 70th Annual Tony Awards in 2016

“Asheville” from Bright Star

“My Shot” from Hamilton

“The Room Where It Happens” from Hamilton

“You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton

“She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress

The 69th Annual Tony Awards in 2015

“Days and Days” from Fun Home

“Ring of Keys” from Fun Home

“A Musical” from Something Rotten!

“A Confession” from The Visit

“Love and Love Alone” from The Visit (Yes! A rare tie!!!)

The 68th Annual Tony Awards in 2014

“Another Life” from The Bridges of Madison County

“Falling Into You” from The Bridges of Madison County

“To Build a Home” from The Bridges of Madison County

“Who We Are and Who We Want to Be” from The Bridges of Madison County

“You Learn to Live Without” from If/Then

More during the next lull in my review writing…

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Let’s just rip this Band-Aid off: I don’t think Ragtime is a good musical. In fact, I think Ragtime might be the worst written musical that is widely regarded as a well-written musical.

Yes, it includes some gorgeous songs, especially “Wheels of a Dream,” “Your Daddy’s Son,” “Make Them Hear You,” and “Back to Before.” But gorgeous songs do not, on their own, add up to a good musical. This is an art form that synthesizes—or, at least, SHOULD synthesize—music with lyrics and libretti, as well as production-specific elements like direction, choreography, and design. As beautiful and memorable as many of Stephen Flaherty’s melodies are, they cannot make up for Lynn Ahrens’s Hallmark Channel lyrics; the sanitized stiltedness, tonal whiplash, and monolithic characters of Terrence McNally’s book; or, in Lincoln Center’s current revival, director Lear deBessonet’s amateurish staging.

I’ve always wondered how much of my leaning negative on Ragtime was due to my having seen the original production with a tired replacement cast that was phoning it in for a conspicuously small house as the show limped toward closing. But the revival boasts a sensational cast and has become quite a hot ticket, playing to packed and enthusiastic houses (which, on the night I attended, included definitely-not-lesbian-lovers Christine Baranski and King Princess). Watching such sublime talents perform for such an appreciative crowd, it became clear my problems are with the material itself.

McNally’s script lifts a lot of narration from its source material, E.L. Doctorow’s brilliant novel of the same name, but maintains little of its danger and even less of its titillation. It juxtaposes the stories of Mother (Caissie Levy), the matriarch of an affluent white family; Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Joshua Henry), a Black musician courting the mother of his child (Nichelle Lewis); and Tateh, a Jewish immigrant (Brandon Uranowitz) fighting to provide a better life for his daughter. These families’ interactions with each other are positioned as a sort of microcosm of the ways their cultures intersected and diverged at the turn of the 20th century.

McNally also preserves Doctorow’s intermingling of fictional characters with actual historic figures, including Emma Goldman (Julie Benko, filling in for Shaina Taub through March 29), Booker T. Washington (John Clay III), Harry Houdini (Rodd Cyrus), Evelyn Nesbit (Anna Grace Barlow), J.P. Morgan (John Rapson), and Henry Ford (Jason Forbach)—at least half of whom feel thrown in here for historical color rather than dramaturgical function. They reflect a larger problem in the adaptation that occurs on both the narrative and thematic levels: while the scope of the novel feels epic and expansive, with each of its many characters serving a crucial purpose, the focus of the musical feels diffuse. Even divorced from a comparative perspective, the characters in the musical still come off as reductive, each defined by a single purpose, which prevents real three-dimensionality.

And that’s a shame because their collective story feels particularly relevant now, given the horrific rise—or at least normalization—of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment plaguing America. Subject matter this serious and wide-reaching deserves more probing and sophisticated examination than is offered by the musical, which too frequently defaults to easy morality and excessive reportage. Even when it addresses the complexity of its characters’ choices, it manages to sound overly tidy and pat. Consider, for example, this lyric from one of the show’s surplus of capital-A Anthems:

And say to those who blame us
for the way we chose to fight
that sometimes there are battles
which are more than black or white.

If I read those words in a high school literary magazine, I’d be impressed. However, in a Tony Award-winning score, I expect more than Snapple cap wisdom in an ABCB rhyme scheme.

One way to disguise such pedestrian drivel? Have Joshua Henry deliver it. So powerful is his singing, he could probably make one of Trump’s State of the Union addresses sound profound. That he fails to find as many levels here—both musically and dramatically—as he usually does falls squarely at the feet of deBessonet, who either did not ask him or did not guide him to show the range he has demonstrated elsewhere. Still, his performance has an undeniable impact.1

deBessonet seems to have taken a similarly hands-off approach with Lewis, a thrilling singer whose defining character choice seems to be “blank slate.” Levy and Uranowitz fare much better. Uranowitz2 summons such raw devotion to his onstage daughter that you almost forget it’s essentially his single character trait. He also uses his flawless comic timing to create some welcome moments of levity. After an exceptional star turn in London’s Next to Normal, which you can and should watch on BroadwayHD or PBS Passport, Levy’s performance as Mother offers further proof that she is more than her effortless belt. She turns her big song into a musical epiphany fleshed out with the kind of specificity I long for in the rest of the show. Best of all might be Ben Levi Ross in the economically written role of Mother’s Younger Brother. Whenever he’s onstage, Ross infuses Ragtime with the combustible energy and revolutionary spirit that should drive the entire piece.

What we get instead is something akin to a soundtracked museum diorama. It’s curated stasis that is supposed to convey the force and inevitability of change. The pretty music might make you feel something; ultimately, though, it’s all too lifeless to provide any sharper insight into history. Consequently, Ragtime lets down not only the Coalhouses and Tatehs and Mothers of yesterday, but also the Coalhouses and Tatehs and Mothers of today. I wish it really did make us hear them.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• Sit as close to center as possible, even if it means moving farther back in the house.

a key to the pictures

• The cast performs “The Prologue” on Good Morning America

• Joshua Henry performs “Make Them Hear You” on The View

• Caissie Levy performs “Back to Before” on Today

• Joshua Henry and Nichelle Lewis perform “Wheels of a Dream” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

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Near the end of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s musical about a group of kids vying to become the local orthographic champion, the children who’ve lost approach the winner and offer congratulations by repeating, “Good bee,” “Good bee,” “Good bee.”

That’s basically what my estimation of the piece itself has always been: it’s a good B.

The original production opened on Broadway during my first year living in New York and quickly became a favorite among my fellow theatre kids. Perhaps they identified with the endearing group of minor misfits onstage; perhaps they just loved that there was a new musical with a slew of roles they could play. And, indeed, in the ensuing years—boasting a small cast, unit set, and feel-good message—Spelling Bee became a staple in theaters across the country, employing many in my circle.

However, I’ve never felt it was fully deserving of the love that it engendered. Finn’s score includes one fantastic song, a couple more decent songs, and a whole lot of forgettable songs. Sheinkin’s Tony-winning book offers an abundance of great laughs and some genuinely moving surprises, but varies too wildly in how earnestly it depicts the contestants, running the gamut from something-adjacent-to-realism to caricature so broad, it would even seem ridiculous on Saturday Night Live. Their writing makes the director’s task of getting everyone to appear as if they belong in the same show pretty damn near impossible.

As a result, Spelling Bee works best if you suspend any need for coherence and allow yourself to enjoy its individual building blocks without worrying too much about how they fit together. On these qualified terms, the revival, which is directed by Danny Mefford (previously best known as the choreographer of Kimberly Akimbo, Dear Evan Hansen, and Fun Home), is more satisfying than James Lapine’s original, though Lapine’s production benefited from having the more interesting venue—Broadway’s mostly-in-the-round Circle in the Square as opposed to a traditional proscenium at New World Stages—and a vastly superior sound design. While Mefford’s reliance on some static set pieces, especially a standing mic placed downstage center, gets a little boring, he has wisely avoided the trap of overstaging the action that ensnares many choreographers-turned-directors. He is clearly a director who trusts his actors and, with one significant exception, it pays off.

Of course, given the terrific cast he’s assembled, Mefford has good reason to trust them. Jason Kravits, one of those sensational character actors who plays bit parts in seemingly everything,1 is hilarious perfection as a vice principal and substitute judge. He’s joined on the panel by Lilli Cooper, one of New York’s most vocally agile singers, as dexterous as ever playing a former champion who clearly relishes her return to the bee. The charismatic Matt Manuel rounds out the “adult” cast in the role of a counselor that has, thankfully, been reworked for the revival.2

But it’s the actors playing the kids who get the showiest opportunities in Spelling Bee. They always have. It’s no accident that the original production helped launch the careers of Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Dan Fogler, Josh Gad, Sarah Stiles, and, my college chum, future Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Greta Lee. It’s easy to envision similarly great futures for the members of Mefford’s company.

On the more grounded side of Sheinkin’s spectrum, Philippe Arroyo is very funny and even touching as a contestant who’s in the throes of puberty. He also effortlessly navigates his song’s incredibly challenging tessitura. Leana Rae Concepcion brings infectious joy and a refreshing resistance to stereotypes to her portrayal of a high-achiever.

On the more heightened side, Glee‘s Kevin McHale makes a thoroughly impressive New York stage debut, cleverly reinventing the role that won Fogler a Tony (and later marked Gad’s Broadway debut) as less of a clueless genius and more of a fussy misanthrope whose superior airs are, at least in part, a defense mechanism. Playing a precocious perfectionist, radiant understudy Cecilia Snow was such a delight, it’s hard to imagine that the actress she covers, Autumn Best, could live up to her surname. The only letdown in the whole bunch is Justin Cooley as a homeschooled oddball. Stage management: reel this guy in before he chips a tooth on all that scenery. Cooley’s performance is so distractingly cartoonish, it’s offensive.

Speaking of cartoons, the one cast member whom I haven’t yet mentioned is Betty Boop herself, Jasmine Amy Rogers. In the first major follow-up to her spectacular turn as the title character in last season’s Boop! The Musical, Rogers sheds all of Betty’s glamour and sex appeal, but maintains all the charisma and skill that made her performance so stunning. Her character, a shyer contestant with some problems at home, has always been Spelling Bee’s emotional center, but Rogers brings so much sincerity, sweetness, and raw emotion to her, she emerges as the production’s most memorable character as well. Boop! suggested Rogers’s arrival as the next great talent in musical theatre, and Spelling Bee confirms it.

For all the material’s imperfections, it’s solid entertainment, and when Rogers takes center stage, it’s as thrilling as it would be in any truly great musical to fall under her…spell.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• As mentioned, the staging relies heavily on the standing mic placed downstage center, so prioritize sitting close to center over sitting close to the stage.

• If you can’t sit center, sit house left for a better view of the judges’ table.

• I got a $49 rush ticket via Telecharge Rush at around 12 PM for a 7 PM performance, and was seated in the third of all the way to the right.

Horror, as a genre, has long allowed its creators to reflect and exploit the social concerns of the era in which they’re working, regardless of the medium being used or the time period. For example, on the page, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein grappled with the rapid scientific advancements of the Industrial Revolution all the way back in 1818 while, on the silver screen, nearly 200 years later, Jordan Peele’s Get Out explored institutional racism in 2017. In his book The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, David J. Skal refers to horror as a “shared anxiety ritual[ ]” because it dramatizes the societal ills that most frighten us; furthermore, in forcing us to confront them, it can trigger collective awareness and, hopefully, progress.

“Shared anxiety ritual” also happens to be an ideal way to describe what’s experienced by both the characters and audience of Bug. Although David Cromer’s revival of Tracy Letts’s play marks its Broadway debut, it has already enjoyed a long life, first premiering in London in 1996 before a revised version played Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and, finally, New York City, where it ran off-Broadway from 2004-2005. William Friedkin—director of The Exorcist, one of the all-time greatest horror movies—helmed an underrated film adaptation that was released in 2006.

But the timing of Bug has never felt more relevant. It has new and painful resonance following the global pandemic (which brought a slew of its own shared anxiety rituals) and the culture of conspiracy theories fed by—and resulting in the political ascent of—Donald Trump and his supporters. The play seems to be in such direct dialogue with those events that, if I’d been unfamiliar with its history, I would’ve guessed it was a response to them; knowing it’s not, the prescience of Letts’s writing adds to the evening’s eeriness.

When the curtain rises, we meet Agnes White (Carrie Coon), an Oklahoma waitress living out of a motel room and fielding mysterious calls from a heavy breather, whom she suspects is a violent person from her past. She has her bestie over to let off some steam and is introduced to Peter (Namir Smallwood), a stranger who’s sweet but…well…strange. As the bond between Agnes and Peter intensifies, so do their fears of threats from the outside world, which may or may not be related to past traumas each is trying to outrun.

If my overview of the plot seems vague, it’s partly because I’ve recently been dog-walked for divulging too much in my summaries; however, it’s even more related to the way Letts uses ambiguity to build suspense. Bug is often referred to as a psychological thriller, which is neither a perfect nor an inaccurate label, and it’s the uncertainties and secrets in Agnes and Peter’s story that keep the audience on edge. If you’re a theatergoer who needs clear answers, Bug is probably not for you.

Personally, I don’t mind the lack of clarity—not only because tolerating ambiguity is a sign of genius (natch), but because Bug is less about what happens than how Agnes and Peter respond to it. In other words, it’s a character study. As such, the effectiveness of any production pretty much rests on the shoulders of the actors playing the two central roles. Here’s where Cromer’s production both flies and lands in theatrical fly paper.

Coon pilots the production to its highest heights. The tomboyish bravado her Agnes assumes as a survival mechanism does not conceal that she is, in actuality, a raw, exposed nerve. Coon expertly conveys this vulnerability and desperation without ever becoming heavy handed. Other actresses have been fantastic in the role, yet Coon’s performance feels definitive.

Smallwood, on the other hand, cannot exterminate the hovering presence of Michael Shannon, who delivered the definitive take on Peter in the original London, Chicago, and New York productions and later preserved it in Friedkin’s film; it would become his breakout role on camera in a career that currently includes two Oscar nominations. Smallwood is never as fragile or menacing as Shannon. Even without looking at his more boyish interpretation through a comparative lens, he lacks the weird magnetism necessary for Agnes’s fascination with him to be about him specifically. Instead, it feels entirely rooted in her own pain, which leads you to invest more in her than in their relationship. Consequently, the play becomes Agnes’s story rather than their story.

Other aspects of Cromer’s production run a similar gamut. In terms of the supporting cast, Jennifer Engstrom is perfect as Agnes’s lone friend, so totally believable it seems like she was plucked from a Publix parking lot in Lawton, and Randall Arney is intriguingly impenetrable in a brief but highly impactful appearance. Steve Key, though, plays his role with less subtlety than a villain on Batman. The Adam West Batman. Takeshi Kata’s scenic design intelligently mixes hyper-realistic re-creation with fun surprises; neither he nor Cromer, however, quite figured out how to scale what is a quintessentially off-Broadway show to a Broadway theater. Gigi Buffington’s coaching yielded some of the most specific dialects I’ve heard in a while, but Marcus Watson’s fight direction often appears rudimentary.

The end result is a production that doesn’t make as strong a case for the play as its timing or leading lady’s performance. That’s a shame because, as a text, Bug probably has wider—and more profound—social implications than Letts’s Pulitzer and Tony winning smash hit August: Osage County (which my friend Raph referred to as “a really good episode of Mama’s Family”). This revival may not recontextualize Bug as Letts’ true masterwork, but, given the tour-de-force Coon is delivering, the Tony contest for Best Actress in a Play has definitely…hatched.

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• As mentioned, Bug feels a bit swallowed up by a Broadway-sized theater. I was in row H, and it felt too far away. At the same time, the stage is high, so I’d avoid sitting in the first two or three rows.

• Bug offers $49 rush tickets through TodayTix. I don’t know where they’re located, but I will caution that, in past visits to the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, I’ve always felt that the first few rows of the mezzanine should be sold as partial view because the stage is bisected by lighting equipment. That being said, I got a $45 rush ticket directly from the box office a few hours before a Sunday evening show.

a key to the pictures

• Friedkin’s film adaptation is available for rental on Amazon Prime and AppleTV. It streams for free on several commercial-supported platforms, including Tubi and Pluto. Shannon is dynamic and dynamite in what may still be his best screen performance. Ashley Judd is so persuasive as Agnes, it really makes you wonder what she could have accomplished in her film career were it not for Harvey Weinstein.

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While watching Just in Time, I found myself thinking a lot about my experience seeing Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz. These days, Jackman’s talents as a singer/dancer/greatest showman have become so intertwined with his celebrity, it’s easy to forget that there was a time American audiences only knew him as Wolverine. Many people had no idea that he rose to prominence playing Gaston and Joe Gillis in Australia, and that his performance as Curly in Trevor Nunn’s revival of Oklahoma! essentially got him the X-Men franchise, which would make him a household name.

But back in 2003, the excitement of seeing a big A-list movie star live in a Broadway musical was substantially heightened by the astonishment that a big A-list movie star could handle the demands of a Broadway musical so expertly. In other words, the fun in seeing Hugh Jackman sing and dance with such panache did not just come from seeing someone sing and dance well; it came from seeing Hugh Jackman, specifically, sing and dance well. And the joy he seemed to feel entertaining all of us was infectious. It was a real Roxie Hart “and the audience loves her” and “And I love the audience for loving me and they love me for loving them and we just love each other” situation.

Nearly everything that’s entertaining in Just in Time works along the same lines. Despite his beginning in theatre, Jonathan Groff has become a legitimate television and film star, steadily building a fan base with roles in Glee, Looking, Frozen, Mindhunter, and The Matrix Resurrections. After Disney’s quarantine-era release of the pro-shot Hamilton, the countless memes inspired by his sweat and spit added to the notion that seeing Groff perform live qualifies as an “event,” buzz that only intensified following his terrific—I would argue, production-making—Tony-winning turn in Merrily We Roll Along.

Just in Time rode that buzz to Broadway…well…just in time. It has become an unexpected box office hit because people want to see Groff. The Bobby Darin song catalog certainly adds to the experience audiences have once they’re in their seats—it’s hard to resist “Splish Splash”—but I don’t think it, alone, would have gotten that audience in those seats. (It certainly didn’t help Kevin Spacey’s Darin biopic Beyond the Sea.) Groff is the draw here.

And he delivers. Big-time. It’s an ebullient and showy star-turn that, like Jackman’s, is as defined by a polished skillset as it is by charm and charisma. Whereas Jackman was sexy, Groff is adorable…but, in both cases, it’s genuine talent that allows them to seduce their audiences so fulsomely.

Neither actor disappeared into his role nor did it seem he was supposed to: the chief pleasure vehicles like Just in Time and The Boy From Oz offer is not in seeing a performer you love transform; it’s in seeing a performer you love do things that will make you love them even more while they wear the persona of someone else you love (or will/should love by the end of the evening). It’s as if they’re donning one of those “Lone Ranger” masks that only covers someone’s eyes, thus allowing us to understand they’re in disguise without ever obscuring who they actually are or, by extension, our adoration of them.

The creators of Just in Time aggressively lean into this conceit, starting the show with a nightclub-like announcement introducing Groff and then having him tell the audience, “I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight.” He then launches into some twee patter that would even induce eyerolls on the stage at Don’t Tell Mama. As smoothly as Groff sells the bit, it all feels beneath him, and still farther below one-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Warren Leight who co-wrote the musical’s book with Isaac Oliver. (I had to double-check that I was correctly remembering their collaboration on Just in Time because it’s hard to believe that it took two people to write its book.) Leight used to be a real playwright; what he and Oliver have put onstage here feels more like a Wikipedia entry annotated with songs.

Their reliance on Groff’s direct address to the audience, which continues throughout the performance, is, in part, an easy way to dispense with exposition (i.e., lazy storytelling), but it’s also tied to director Alex Timbers’s half-baked conception of the whole musical as the sort of nightclub act for which Darin was famous. Given what I know of the director’s other work—including Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Peter and the Starcatcher, Rocky, Here Lies Love, Beetlejuice, and Moulin Rouge! The Musical—I increasingly see Timbers as being to theatre what Ryan Murphy is to television: a savvy creativepreneur with lots of sexy ideas that are often inconsistently realized; someone whose pitches are full of promise…and whose products are full of problems.

Timbers’s direction of Just in Time is no exception. The underdeveloped nightclub concept stands out as particularly problematic. On one hand, he effectively uses it to underscore Darin’s reciprocal relationship with the audience; and, if I want to be really generous, I can connect Darin’s need for that immediacy to his short life-expectancy due to a heart defect. On the other hand, because Timbers fails to make any meaningful use of the nightclub device in telling the stories of the romances that define each act, it begins to feel like a gimmick. Furthermore, it’s haphazardly picked up and put down, mostly used for the easy exposition I already mentioned, with cheap jokes next in line.

And if the old adage is true that 90% of a director’s job is in casting, Just in Time may represent the messiest work of Timbers’s career, as the cast that supports Groff misses the mark as much as he hits it. Michele Pawk has demonstrated her unusual versatility with standout performances in musicals like Hello Again and Cabaret, and straight plays like Hollywood Arms and Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which respectively earned her Tony and Obie Awards. Sadly, as Darin’s mother and mentor, the woman who once introduced Michael John LaChuisa’s rangy “Mistress of the Senator” and assuredly navigated Sondheim’s rhythmic complexities in Bounce seems totally lost whenever she’s called on to sing, barely phonating, struggling with pitch, and frequently behind-the-beat. More surprisingly, in terms of acting, it’s a lazy performance, built on broad “showbiz-broad” cliches.

Most of the other original cast members don’t fare much better. Emily Bergl has an ethereal weirdness about her that has worked to her advantage in striking performances on stage (e.g., The Ferryman), screen (The Rage: Carrie 2), and television (Desperate Housewives), but it’s totally at odds with her role as Darin’s working class worrier of a sister. Playing a wider variety of characters are Caesar Samayoa, who was brilliantly protean in Come From Away, but barely makes an impression here; Lance Roberts, who seems to be in an entirely different show; and Joe Barbara, who, in his largest part, coasts on cliches as much as Pawk, but at least does some solid celebrity impressions. Three “Sirens” act as backup in Darin’s nightclub act, two of whom (Julia Grondin and Valeria Yamin) have been with the show since opening while the third (Claire Camp) is a replacement. All three are great, enlivening the proceedings with seemingly inexhaustible energy and showgirl precision whenever they dance Shannon Lewis’s fun choreography.

The pivotal roles of Connie Francis and Sandra Dee have been assumed by Sarah Hyland and Sadie Dickerson. Their casting is best described as puzzling. Hyland was a Broadway kid before gaining a more national profile as Haley on Modern Family, so she’s not without stage chops. But the preternatural poise that made her a perfect young Jackie Bouvier Kennedy in Grey Gardens does not fit with the way Leight and Oliver have envisioned Francis, which is essentially as a member of the Sopranos family. Plus, her singing voice, though powerful, is not particularly beautiful, and it’s hard to think of someone with a more mellifluous voice than Francis. Newcomer Dickerson acts very well. In fact, a visit Dee makes to Darin when he’s going through a reclusive period is the only scene in the show that carries real dramatic weight. However, her singing voice is even less pleasant than Hyland’s, and it doesn’t make sense that she’s playing such a central role in a musical, particularly when her name won’t sell tickets.

Another replacement will be joining the cast soon, as Groff has announced a departure date of March 29. It’s rumored that his successor will be Jeremy Jordan or Matthew Morrison, both of whom are highly capable. Will they be capable enough to make Just in Time worth seeing? I’m skeptical, but it remains to be seen. Until then, Groff’s dynamic performance is the only saving grace that elevates the show from “Just a Crime” to “Just Is Fine.”

the not-a-bottom line

🌈🌈 (out of five)

a guide to ticket-buying

• There’s a line in The Producers where Max Bialystock, the hack theatre producer originated by Nathan Lane on Broadway, is bragging about his accomplishments and says, “You’ve heard of theater in the round? You’re looking at the man who invented theater in the square. Nobody had a good seat!” Man, oh man, that sure is true of Just in Time, which combines the worst parts of three-quarters in the round staging with the worst parts of proscenium staging.

• If you’re a really big fan of Groff and have thousands of dollars to spend, yeah, spend thousands of dollars to be at one of the cabaret tables on the floor. Your proximity and potential involvement in the action will probably be worth your having to constantly shift around to watch the action.

• Otherwise, I’d recommend sitting in the 100s section, ideally in the first few rows. It’ll give you the best view of the entire playing area.

a key to the pictures

Interestingly, performance clips from the 2025 Tony Awards are not available online, which is a shame because it was a very flattering representation of the show. You can however see…

• “Beyond the Sea” — Jonathan Groff and the Broadway Company of Just in Time Live on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

• “Mack the Knife” — Jonathan Groff and the Broadway Company of Just in Time Live on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon

• A medley on the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

• And just for good measure, here’s Hugh Jackman and the company of The Boy From Oz performing “The Boy Next Door” at the 2004 Tony Awards

A REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK

• How do you feel about my sharing video clips in the “key to the pictures” section of this substack? Useful or something you glaze over? How would you feel if it went away?

• Sound off in the comments or DM me!
  

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