Musical Theater
Jelly’s Last Jam at City Center
NEW YORK – Jelly’s Last Jam at City Center is a gorgeous and stunning music and dance production about the life and career of Jelly Roll Morton.
March 5, 2024
For my money, the theatre is up there in the ten top reasons to be human. I leave my home and go sit in a dark room with complete strangers and watch actors do their stuff because I want to be inspired. I’m asking to be involved. I’m volunteering to be led down any old path they choose as long as they don’t let go of my hand. And if I see a show, and it is NOT so very good – I will try to divert you, because I don’t want you to come to the temple when the preaching isn’t up to snuff. I will bar the door, I will swing from rafters, I will yell FIRE just to set your feet on a path that does not lead to disappointment. Do something different with your evening I will say. Save your money for dinner with a friend you haven’t seen in months because you are too frigging busy. Go take a walk with your dog or your child or your significant other. Go to bed early, I will say. Don’t come to the theatre when it is less than it can be. I’m an usher snob, and that’s all there is to it.
NEW YORK – Jelly’s Last Jam at City Center is a gorgeous and stunning music and dance production about the life and career of Jelly Roll Morton.
NEW YORK – Seven Year Disappear at the Pershing Square Signature Theater stars Miriam (Cynthia Nixon) and her son Naphtali (Taylor Trensch) who have what could be referred to as a strained relationship – strained to the point of busting wide open except for the fact that the two are wearing emotional corsets pulled so tight that even the laces refuse to budge – until they do.
NEW YORK – The Connector now at MCC Theatre is an innocuous bit of fluff that has great ambitions and little structure. What it does have is a spectacular cast who tell this tale with as much gusto as they can. That alone almost makes it worth the watch.
NEW YORK – Sweeney Todd at the Lunt Fontanne Theater is a whopper of a tale, and the charm of this musical the last two times I saw it was that it pulled me into this preposterous story.
Russian Troll Farm at the Vineyard Theater is a story of people spying and creating madness who don’t realize they are the observed as well as the observers. Oops.
Alicia Keys and Broadway’s HELL’S KITCHEN are thrilled to announce the establishment of a comprehensive Fellowship Program dedicated to building and strengthening the Broadway employment pipeline by engaging and employing individuals from historically overlooked communities to become active and continuous participants in the Broadway workforce.
A Tribute to Chita Rivera at Café Carlyle – she doesn’t just take the stage at Café Carlyle, she hoists it over her shoulder and walks off with it and so in love with being on a stage that you wonder what pitiful amount of energy she might have left to devote to other matters.
The Animal Kingdom by Ruby Thomas, now at the Connelly Theatre, is a pressure cooker of a play that glides by in a flash – Sam (Uly Schlesinger) has recently tried to kill himself and is now in an institution of some sort for his own safety and may be in a place where he might find some surcease.
There’s A Little Starch Left at Don’t Tell Mama – somewhere in the flotsam and jetsam of the holiday, I forgot to pay special tribute to Lynn Henderson, who performed There’s A Little Starch Left – her new one-woman show – in December – I am a friend of Lynn’s and had watched her for over a year as she prepared for this show.
Encores! Once Upon A Mattress – A Ton and a Half of Pure Joy with Sutton Foster is at the center, using her crystal voice. lungs of iron, comedic timing. Foster is a combination of Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball. In addition, her physical prowess might qualify her for any number of Olympic Events, starting with Moat Swimming.
WOMEN ON FIRE: Fair is Foul – Get there! You will be challenged and uplifted. Which is what theatre is all about.