The athleticism
The exuberance
The sexiness
The skin tight costumes
On taut athletic sensuous bodies
The sparkles
The music
The choreography
So very Fosse
But remixed, turned on its head
Made relevant for 2023
The joyful fun quirky sexy angular fluid unexpected satisfying thrill of it
The unapologetic pride of it
The way the dancers look like they’re having the time of their lives
The way they dance full-out for a full two and a half hours
With a myriad of costume changes
While singing their hearts out
Grips your heart your throat your soul
How do you do that 8 times a week?!
They must take hour long ice baths
The physio bill must be astronomical
You think about the collective number of years
These athlete performer superstars
Have spent in class
Twenty performers all in their twenties, maybe thirties if they’re lucky
Probably dancing since before they could walk
In class since three or five or seven
Say twenty years on average
Four hundred collective years of skill
On rapturous virtuosic display
What a thrill to see it.

I haven’t been inside a Broadway theatre
Since they lifted the vaccine mandate almost a year ago
It felt strange being in a crowded room
Full of unmasked people
(I wore my mask)

But the play
Oh the play
So beautifully realized
So devastating in its poetry
So heart wrenching in its reality

The story of families
The stories of family
A red photo album
Containing the images and
Names of people
Remembered and forgotten

Vienna in 1900
The constant interweaving of
Christianity and Judaism
Art and music and literature and science
A star of David on the Christmas tree
Hiding the matzoh

Vienna in 1924
The simple choreography of a shawl
Depicting the passage of time
Already a war has deprived a generation of their youth
Already a war has made the youth restless for joy

Vienna in 1938
Brutality
You cannot watch
You cannot look away

Vienna in 1955
Remembering
Reckoning
The haunting ghosts
The luck of where you ended up
What you escape
What you survive
How to go on after all of that

The strangeness of hearing St Patrick’s Day bagpipes from 8th Avenue
The collective silence of a thousand people holding their breath
The quiet sobs as the lights go to black

The privilege of story telling
The privilege of making art
The necessity of story telling
The necessity of art.

You’ve seen RENT dozens of times
Can’t even count the number of times you’ve listened the cast recording on repeat
It’s been a while between visits
You go to see a high school production
To support one of your camp kidlets
And walking down the hallway to the auditorium
You’re moved by the messages scrawled in black sharpie
On the white plastic drapes adorning the walls
No day but today!
Today 4 You
ACT UP!
And the production itself is astonishing
A bare bones set
With a giant rectangular platform in the middle of the stage that with some ensemble muscle
Becomes a revolve
The vocals blow you away
You almost forget these are high schoolers
And then you catch a glint of silvery braces
And even though you can still recite every lyric from memory
They make you see the show in a whole new way
With their original line deliveries
And subtle contemporary hints
Like La Vie Boheme with Cups choreography
The girl playing Maureen (who already has a Broadway credit to her name)
Delivers the most epic Over the Moon you’ve ever seen
The energy of it
The vocal gymnastics of it
The comedic timing of it
The way the audience got to participate
Like we were in the lot
MOOOO!
And although you love their energy
And the spirit they bring to the show
It’s funny to side with Benny now
“A state of the art, digital, virtual interactive studio
I'll forego your rent
And on paper guarantee
That you can stay here for free”
Excuse me
Did Benny just offer these bohemian artists a rent free loft apartment in the Village with studio space for making art and high tech equipment?!
Sorry Maureen. The protest is off.
At the end of the show, the audience leapt to its feet
In the lobby, the buzzy energy of kids on a post-performance high
Proud parents and older siblings carrying bouquets of flowers
You hug your camper and tell her proud you are
What a joy it is to see her shine
And you head home
With a lightness in your step.

First I watched
Life Jacket by Caridad Svich
The magic you can create
With a few wooden boxes
And a piece of rope
Focused lighting
And a few sound effects
The devastation of the text
Poetry in action

And in the evening I watched
Kiss by Guillermo Calderón
The heightened melodrama of the first act
The astonishing gestures of the
Physicalized subtext
The second act “talkback”
Talk back
Assert
Provide context
A “kiss” is not a kiss when --
The heightened realism of the third act
The way the set fell away
The way the furniture floated

When you see a play
That touches your soul and
Makes you see the world
In a different light
In a new way
With more compassion
More understanding
How it lights your soul on fire.

I finished Kerri Maher's novel several days ago
Devoured it is a better description
Couldn’t put it down
And I can’t stop thinking about it
Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier
And Paris in the 1920s and
And Hemmingway and Joyce and
The writing of Ulysses and
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and
Sylvia’s mother Eleanor
And sister Cyprian
The lesbians of the Left Bank
Stories of extraordinary women
So richly rendered
In an astonishing historical novel
That makes you want to travel back in time
To a place where
Bookshops encourage loitering and
Reading and discussion and
Art.

I first encountered Eve Ensler,
Well her work,
In my first week at university
A student production of
The Vagina Monologues.
It made me anxious.

Then whilst in London
I discovered V-Day and
Was inspired by the red-lipped dancing women
Joyous and proud

I read In The Body of the World
While walking the Camino
It was B.C., Before Cancer, but
I was still moved by Eve Ensler’s powerful, visceral writing

A year later
I was diagnosed with cancer

Now, A.C.
I found myself sitting in a theatre
With Eve Ensler herself
Speaking her words aloud
Telling her heart-breaking, gut wrenching, soul shaking story
In an extraordinary one woman show

Parts of it made me gasp
Parts of it made me nod in feverish agreement
Some parts I didn’t relate to at all
(I never wanted to be a mother
I have always loved trees
I loved being bald)

But Eve is captivating
She is who I want to be
Powerful, passionate
Emotive, articulate
A true artist connecting the dots
Between the personal and the professional
The self and the world.

The ending,
A total surprise
So beautiful and breathtaking

Eve invited us in
To walk in the garden of Ensler, and
I never wanted to leave.

It feels like Christmas Eve! The Tony Award nominations are being announced in approximately seven hours and I feel the desire to share my predictions. 

I am delighted to say that I have seen two-thirds of this year’s potential nominees (and I worked on one! Even if it was in front of house, it's so thrilling to be a part of this crazy, awesome world). Huge improvement on two years ago when I had seen precisely ZERO shows! 

Below are my predictions for the 2017 Tony Awards in all the musical categories. It’s not that I don’t love plays, I just don’t see enough of them to make an informed decision, because time and money. A theatre junkie living in New York needs to have some kind of limits. My predicted winner is in bold. 

Best Actor in a Featured Role 
Andrew Rannells - Falsettos 
Lucas Steele - Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 
Gavin Creele - Hello, Dolly! 

Best Actor in a Musical
Josh Groban - Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
Ben Platt - Dear Evan Hansen 
Christian Borle - Falsettos
Andy Karl - Groundhog Day
David Hyde Pierce - Hello, Dolly! 

Best Actress in a Featured Role 
Jen Colella - Come From Away 
Caroline O’Connor - Anastasia
Rachel Bay Jones - Dear Evan Hansen
Jackie Hoffman - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 

Best Actress in a Musical 
Patti LuPone - War Paint 
Christine Ebersole - War Paint 
Bette Midler - Hello, Dolly
Denée Benton - Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 
(For this category alone, I do not envy the Tony voters their job… HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?!) 

Best Book of a Musical
Dear Evan Hansen
Come from Away
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

Best Choreography  
Come from Away
Anastasia 
Hello, Dolly! 
Holiday Inn
Groundhog Day 
(Again, how do you choose?!) 

Best Conductor/Musical Director 
Sunset Boulevard 
In Transit 
Come From Away 
Bandstand
(I'm sad that In Transit is unlikely to get much love here. It was conducted entirely by SOUND, with MD Rick Hip-Flores giving cues via a microphone backstage. The logistics of that blows my mind.) 

Best Costume Design
Hello, Dolly! 
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
War Paint 

Best Lighting Design 
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
Dear Evan Hansen 
War Paint 

Best Scenic Design
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
Groundhog Day
War Paint
Hello, Dolly! 

Best Orchestrations 
In Transit 
Come from Away 
Hello, Dolly! 
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

Best Score
Anastasia 
Come from Away
Dear Evan Hansen
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

Best Direction
Come From Away
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
War Paint 
Dear Evan Hansen

Best Revival 
Hello, Dolly! 
Falsettos 
Miss Saigon

Best Musical
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
Dear Evan Hansen 
Come from Away 
Anastasia 
War Paint 

WHAT A SEASON!!! I genuinely loved the vast majority of what I saw this year. I think Come from Away will nab a good number of the awards simply because it opened later and is fresher in voters’ minds. Producer Ken Davenport did a blog a while ago on the fact that shows that open in the fall do not fare as well as shows that open in the spring come awards season. 

But honestly, how do you compare all these wonderful pieces of art? Natasha, Pierre is immersive and scintillating while Come from Away is moving and heart-warming. War Paint and Hello, Dolly! tell the stories of powerful, wonderful, complex women. Anastasia shows us that “children’s” movies do not have to be light and fluffy. Dear Evan Hansen is tapping into the psyches of anguished teens. And all of these shows are using different styles of music, story-telling devices, and conventions of musical theatre. They all sing and dance and tell powerful stories. I feel so very lucky to have been witness to it all. 

After 31 previews and 366 regular performances, Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour played its final performance on Broadway today. 

Working in front of house for the past four or five months, I have been an infinitesimal speck in the run of this production. 

The show is not groundbreaking. It is not the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It presents a world inhabited by mostly white people, where people of color never speak. Gay men are the punchline of jokes, and gay women do not exist. Women may be stars, but they have no agency. Even when they can sing, act, dance, and write moving lyrics, their sole function is to be the pivotal point of a love triangle. 

And yet, Paramour will always hold a special place in my heart.

It’s my first job on Broadway. It got me into the illusive ushers union. It has inspired me in my quest for physical fitness. Throughout the run, I have made friends with some truly wonderful people who I’m really going to miss spending time with 8 times a week. 

Circus invites us to see the world in a more whimsical and playful way. It’s a world where people walk on their hands, fly from the ceiling, and balance roses on their foreheads. 

The level of athleticism and artistry of the acrobats is out of control amazing. I have gotten fitter as a result of watching this team of athletes do their thing 8 times a week. They inspire me to be better, work harder. Most of the acrobats are men, but there is one woman who stands out, Gasya Atherton. She is awe-inspiring to watch. Follow her on Instagram for inspirational photos of a beautiful human being being amazing. 

The Atherton Twins are astonishing. I understand why people are always moved to try and film during their number. I don't understand the people who are bored during their number. One night I had to stop a woman from watching a fashion show on her phone mid-performance. If two beautiful half-naked men swinging from the ceiling above your head in perfect unison doesn't hold your attention, I don't know what will. To my knowledge, the twins haven't missed a single show. I can't wait to see what they'll do next.

I love Cooper, the Clown. He doesn't speak a word, yet he just about steals every scene he's in. He's always interesting to watch, always on, even when he's not the focus. 

I love the unicycle act. I love the dancing in the Calamity Jane number. I love the audible gasp that comes from the balcony when the zombies descend. I love the trampoline act. 

The best part of working on Paramour has been finding a community of creative people. Actors, writers, lovers of theatre. People working on fascinating projects and doing what they can to survive in this intense crazy city. Just really lovely people who are easy to have a conversation with. ​

So, au revoir Paramour. You will be missed. 

Two different kinds of posts were prominent on Facebook on Wednesday (August 26):

1. Posts celebrating dogs in honor of National Dog Day, and
2. Posts asking people to remember that, although dogs are awesome, it was also National Women's Equality Day 

In a world where women are definitely still not equal with men (representation in media, government, or pay, to name just a few examples; see TIME for a great infographic), the prominence of celebrating canines over half the human race bothered me immensely. 

Curious about the origins of both days, I did a little research. 

National Women's Equality Day became such after a Joint Resolution was passed by Congress in 1971. The date was chosen to celebrate the day in 1920 when women in the United States of America finally won the right to vote (for interest and comparison, New Zealand was the first nation to grant full suffrage in 1893, Australian women followed in 1902 (though Aboriginal women were excluded and not granted the right to vote until 1967), and as recently as this week, women in Saudi Arabia were finally given the vote. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has an interesting chronology of the history of women's suffrage). 

National Dog Day was created much later, in 2004, to bring public awareness about the number of dogs needing to be rescued each year.

According to Parade Magazine, over half a million tweets were sent celebrating #NationalDogDay. A Google search for news articles on National Dog Day returned over 26 million results. The same search for National Women's Equality Day returned 1.9 million results. 

This disparity is disturbing. Why did the organizer's of National Dog Day choose this day as their day of celebration? My guess is they simply didn't know about the conflict. As well intentioned as the organizers of the various National Women's Equality Day events and publicity were, much of it, like this National Women's History Project brochure, seems out of touch and irrelevant in today's social media saturated world.  

The best publicity for National Women's Equality Day came from Broadway. Led by Tony Award winning Fun Home (the first Broadway musical with an all-female writing team to win a Tony Award for Best Original Score), Broadway stars posted pictures of themselves imitating Rosie the Riveter in support of the Equal Rights Amendment (a constitutional amendment expressly prohibiting discrimination against women and girls on the basis of gender).

It would be wonderful to see National Women's Equality Day get the recognition it deserves, and for women to be treated equally in all spheres of life. 

I was very pleased to see the following on the National Dog Day website -  

Hopefully next year, National Women's Equality Day will be more prominent, and not because of its relation to dogs. I hope that by 2020, the 100th anniversary of American women winning the right to vote, we will live in a world where women are more equally represented in the media, in government, and receive equal pay for equal work. 

In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do.

After a year of not being able to go to theatre, I've seen 9 shows in the past month. It makes my heart Very Happy to finally feel like I actually live in the theatre capital of the world! Below is a summary of what I've seen so far. 

The musical of one of my all time favorite movies with a score and book by two of my favorite composers, Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich. My first time at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, and my first show since stupid effing cancer, did not disappoint. 

I have no doubt this show will go to Broadway, where I hope it will be a huge hit. I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed for a cast recording. 

You can read more here. 

A musical about three sailors on leave for one day in NYC. With a sumptuous score by Bernstein and endearing book and lyrics by Comden and Green, On the Town is a bona fide classic.

The number one reason to see this show: the dancing!!! Oh, the glorious, wonderful, beautiful dancing!!! I’m itching to see American in Paris now, because if the dancing/choreography is better in that (based on Tony Award for Best Choreography) I think I will die and go to heaven. 

The entire ensemble were just gorgeous. The ballet in the second act was like watching an MGM musical performed live. I cried several times it was so damn beautiful. 

Everything about this show is gorgeous. The lighting, the costumes, the orchestrations, the singing. I loved it. Definitely want to see it again. 

I had been anxious about seeing Kinky Boots for the stupid reason that it “stole” the Tony for Best Musical from Matilda. There is no way Cyndi Lauper deserved Best Original Score over Tim Minchin (compare the lyrics “Let me hear you say “yeah”/Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” to “My mummy says I'm a miracle/ One look at my face, and it's plain to see./ Ever since the day doc chopped the umbilical cord,/It's been clear there's no peer for a miracle like me!”) but now that I've seen the show, I understand why Kinky Boots won the big coveted prize. 

Set in England, Kinky Boots is based on the true story of a man who inherits a shoe factory and revives its failing fortunes by manufacturing heels for men. It's a great story about facing adversity, embracing who we are, and ultimately finding acceptance. This production is fun and genuinely touching, and it was wonderful to see Billy Porter playing his Tony Award winning role.  

After the show, my friend Annie and I were lucky enough to be treated to a backstage tour with original cast member Adinah Alexander. It was fun to walk on the stage, and head behind the scenes to see all the gorgeous costumes up close! 

A special event at BAM featuring the original Broadway cast of Into the Woods, along with composer Stephen Sondheim and book writer James Lapine. Mo Rocca interviewed everyone in light-hearted conversational manner, and the cast sang their signature songs. It was all done for the fans, and it was glorious. The highlight for me was absolutely Bernadette Peters. It was quite an experience to see a Broadway legend in action, and I swear she has not aged a single bit. How does she do it?! 

I don’t think this kind of event would have been possible if the original production hadn’t been filmed and made available on VHS/DVD. I was three-years-old and living in Sydney when Into the Woods premiered on Broadway. It closed when I was five, a full nineteen years before I even went to New York for the first time. The filmed production gave me access to the show. 

Filmed live theatre is the future (as a complement to live theatre, not a replacement), and this event was proof of its power of giving ephemeral shows a much longer lifespan and wider audience. Dear producers: please stop being afraid of filming of your shows, and make them available. The end. 

You can read a more detailed description here. 

A short engagement at New York City Center as part of the Encores! program, A New Brain is a one act semi-autobiographical musical about composer William Finn’s encounter with AVM (a brain clot). Although I have listened to the recording countless times since I first encountered the show at uni, I have never actually seen a production. 

Starring Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening, Glee, Frozen) and Ana Gasteyer (The Good Wife, Wicked, SNL), I knew this was going to be a special event, and it did not disappoint. The production was wonderful, with a top notch ensemble, clever staging, and gorgeous rich vocal arrangements by Jason Robert Brown.

The only downside? The tween-age kids sitting two rows down from me who spent the entire show playing on their phones. One kid even had headphones in. I was in the middle of my row and couldn’t get up to say something to the (absent) ushers. It was incredibly distracting. I complained afterwards, but the house manager just shrugged. 

I’m all for kids going to the theatre. I believe it’s incredibly important. I felt sorry for the kids — they were bored, and whoever was in charge had clearly made the wrong choice in choosing the show. But grown-ups should be teaching their kids about what behavior is appropriate in the theatre. My memory of Ana Gasteyer singing “Music Still Plays On” should not be intertwined with Candy Crush.

Seth Rudetsky is a Broadway music director, pianist, author, and radio host. I am a huge fan of his "deconstructions" and know that any event that Seth is a part of is going to have huge star power and plenty of sassy belting. 

Voice for the Voiceless was a special one-night-only benefit to raise funds and awareness for You Gotta Believe. Seth and his husband James recently completed training to be foster parents, and learnt that thousands of young adults age out of the foster care system without being adopted. These young adults face substantially higher rates of homelessness, health issues, and unemployment and one of the few resources in place to help them, You Gotta Believe, has just had the bulk of its funding cut. 

Organized in a mere six weeks, Seth and James rallied some of Broadway and televisions biggest stars to the cause  — Tina Fey, Jane Krakowski, Tituss Burgess, Megan Hilty, Darren Criss, and Eden Espinoza to name just a few. Seth hosted, conducted, and played keys, all while serving up his usual fast paced and witty repartee. The performances, a diverse range of Broadway and pop songs, were wonderful, and the 14 piece band was surprisingly tight. 

The highlight of the evening though, were the stories of young adults who had found their "forever homes" thanks to You Gotta Believe. Even more touching were the stories of young adults who were yet to be adopted. The event raised over $500,000. Read more here. 

One of my Buck’s Rock buddies kept posting about how amazing this show was, until she wrote “If any of you poor jerks haven't seen Hand to God yet, just go do it. Find a way. Because you don't know how badly you need this play in your life until you see it.” With a recommendation like that, I felt obligated. 

A play about a family in Texas and their encounter with the devil, Hand to God is clever, funny, and incredibly poignant. The story is sad, touching, and played with incredible humor by a talented cast. Steven Boyer is a stand-out, and his puppet skills are awesome to behold. Beowulf Boritt’s scenic design is brilliant, and one of those clever sets that has the ability to transform right before your eyes. 

A musical about a failed producer trying to woo back his starlet, and former love, whilst traveling aboard the 20th Century train between Chicago and New York. The Roundabout’s production is a great star vehicle for Kristin Chenoweth, and Larry Hochman’s orchestrations and vocal arrangements are delicious, but this is not Coleman and Comden and Green’s best musical. 

Unlike On the Town, which has a lovely heart, there is no substance to On the 20th Century. The overture is gorgeous, and the opening number featuring four tapping porters is thrilling, but it all goes downhill from there. The pacing is strange, the ensemble aren’t utilized enough, and act one ends without any sort of climax. The best numbers are the flashbacks not set on the train, but, unfortunately, we spend three-quarters of the show aboard the locomotive.

Worth it to see Kristin Chenoweth be Kristin Chenoweth. 

10 out of 12 (a play about tech rehearsal. A fellow Buck’s Rocker worked on it, I can’t wait) 

Shows for Days (starring Patti LuPone. I don’t care what it’s about. Patti could be reading a phone book and I would still love it. It’s Patti. She can do anything.) 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (starring Taye Diggs. Be still my beating teenage heart.) 

The King and I (Kelli O’Hara singing Rogers and Hammerstein!)