Best of 2014
1. On the Town: On the Town reminds us how great American musicals should be performed and presented. With the largest orchestra on Broadway, this revival is fresh, funny, and believe it or not, sexy. John Rando's direction is pitch-perfect. Joshua Bergasse's choreography is stunning. And the performances are sublime. Tony Yazbeck brings tremendous athleticism and heart to the role of Gabey, a sailor in pursuit of the girl of his dreams during a 24-hour leave in New York City. Jay Armstrong Johnson and Clyde Alves, as Chip and Ozzie, are the perfect wing men adding libidinous charm to each of the looney scenarios cooked up by the incomparable Comden and Green. The boys are well-matched by their female counterparts Megan Fairchild (as Ivy Smith), Alysha Umphress (as Hildy), and Elizabeth Stanley (as Claire de Loone). Months later, I'm still smiling from Umphress and Armstrong Johnson's comic numbers, "Come Up to My Place" and "I Can Cook, Too." On the Town currently offers the Best of Everything on Broadway - score, orchestra, choreography, and ensemble. This revival is not to be missed! With any luck, producers Howard and Janet Kagan will have this production delighting audiences for years to come!
2. Anna Shapiro: I first admired the work of Anna Shapiro in 2007 while watching August: Osage County at Steppenwolf. After seeing her work represented on Broadway this season in Of Mice and Men and This is Our Youth, Ms. Shapiro has cemented herself as one of the best directors working in the American theater today. She directs with clarity and precision - always with great respect for her actors and a genuine admiration for the text. Actors who work with Shapiro very often find themselves giving the best performances of their careers. This was surely the case on both ends of the spectrum with septuagenarian Jim Norton's heartbreaking portrayal of Candy in Mice and with the strong ensemble work from millennials Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, and Tavi Gevinson in Youth. Every moment in a Shapiro production feels so real that time seems to stop, the outside world vanishes, and you happily lose yourself in the performances and drama unfolding before you.
3. After Midnight: I often cringe when I think of spending an evening watching a musical revue with, more often than not, horribly arranged medleys and schlocky dialogue linking numbers together. Give me a good, book musical any day of the week. After Midnight made me re-evaluate the genre. This Encores! transfer (formerly known as Cotton Club Parade) was a blissful joyride from start to finish and it showcased some of the greatest singing and dancing talent that I've ever seen assembled under one roof. The Lincoln Center Jazz All-Stars blew off the roof each night with its red-hot renditions of some of the greatest standards in the American songbook and Warren Carlyle's choreography and staging constantly surprised and enthralled audiences throughout this 90-minute intermissionless delight. If only they produced a true original cast recording of this show - there would hardly be a road trip in my future without these tunes helping get me from point A to point B.
4. The Tempest (as conceived by Aaron Posner and Teller): Posner and Teller added magic, quite literally, to their beautifully staged and conceived production of Shakespeare's The Tempest at The American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. From Daniel Conway's three-tiered sunken ship/Victorian musical hall set to Ariel's card tricks and Prospero's levitations to Caliban's Pilobobus' choreographed movement, there was always something fantastic to watch in this Tempest. And vision wasn't the only sense stimulated in this production, nor should it be in any good Shakespearean staging. Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan added a fantastic score for an onstage band and Posner and Teller did terrific text work with their company capturing both the comedy and the poignancy in this late romance. While the magic and slapstick was enough to keep the kids entertained during their introduction to this classic, it will be the themes of love, family, redemption, and forgiveness that will keep this Tempest in the hearts of the adults who treated themselves to this mounting. The Tempest has made a couple more stops since its Boston outing. Hopefully, its ship won't be sunk anytime soon giving more theater lovers around the country an opportunity to get lost in this storm.
5. Bullets Over Broadway: I know I might be the only person placing Bullets on his Best of List - but I honestly haven't had this much fun at a musical comedy since Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman (Bullets' director) teamed up for The Producers. In many ways, I think Allen's personal drama unfortunately soured critics and audiences even before the overture started. I should have prefaced this pick by saying that a musical with showgirls, gangsters, and a Woody Allen script was pretty much written specifically with me in mind. That being said, Bullets was a delight. Allen's book was funny and well-structured (only Allen could incorporate high brow jokes about Nietzsche within five minutes of dancing hot dogs), Stroman's staging/choreography was clever and inventive, the designs were ravishing, and the performances were all-around charming. From knock-out dance numbers, revolving sets, endless one-liners, belting ingenues, and gut-busting novelty songs (I'm still laughing from Helene Yorke's The Hot Dog Song), this show was a crowd-pleaser. Sure - some might argue that the show would have been better with an original score, but these classic tunes (many of which audiences probably had not heard before) fitted in perfectly with Allen's oeuvre and were beautifully orchestrated by Doug Besterman. Glen Kelley also did a terrific job providing smart new lyrics for these public domain ditties to make them feel connected to the show. Hopefully, time will be kind to Bullets and audiences will have an opportunity to roll down the aisles with laughter in the regional and community circuits.
6. Kelli O'Hara in The Bridges of Madison County: Give this girl a Tony Award already. Say what you will about the source material (while preparing to see this musical, I kept the novel hidden on my iPad - protecting my reputation from public judgement), but you can't deny Kelli O'Hara gave New York audiences one heck of a performance to remember. And honestly, anything less from her, especially when paired with the tremendously gifted Bart Sher at the show's helm, was not expected. O'Hara is one of Broadway's greatest treasures. Mass audiences finally got to see what all the fuss was about this holiday season when she helped elevate NBC's Peter Pan as Mrs. Darling. Always grounded, her interpretations of songs are eloquently phrased and earnestly performed. O'Hara is the type of actress who plays the truth even in the most ridiculous of situations (anyone remember Nice Work?) and makes smart acting choices keeping her performances fresh and interesting for herself and her audiences. In Bridges, O'Hara's performance was layered emotionally with love, conflict, and responsibility. While Bridges' affair was short-lived on Broadway, the complexity and depth of O'Hara's performance burns brightly in the memories of those who were lucky enough to see it.
7. The casts of The Seagull and Awake and Sing!: One of the most exciting movements of the contemporary American theater has been the rise of its regional institutions. Around the country, both classics and new works are being mounted year-round. Whether its The Oregon Shakespeare Festival putting on another Much Ado About Nothing or Harvey Weinstein bringing enhancement money in for the ART to try out Finding Neverland, regional audiences are lucky to have quality theater at their fingertips in nearly every region. The quality of theater throughout this country is illustrated each week by The Wall Street Journal's critic, Terry Teachout, who does theater fans a great service by highlighting and reviewing some of the most notable works being performed throughout the United States. With several great theaters in the city, Boston audiences are among the luckiest. At the heart of Boston's theater scene is The Huntington Theatre that produced two outstanding revivals over the course of the last calendar year: Chekhov's The Seagull and Odet's Awake and Sing!. When a group tackles Chekhov or Odets, casts of the highest caliber, who are committed to Stanisklavskian-based acting techniques, are needed. In both productions, hardly a weak link could be found. The Seagull was headlined by Kate Burton (theater royalty in her own right) and her son Morgan Ritchie. The mother-son intimacy and authenticity captured in the play's third act as Arkadina cares for Treplev's self-inflicted head wound would be hard to replicate in any other production. While Burton frequently brought the lightness of aristocracy to her portrayal of Arkadina, Awake and Sings!' Lori Wilner delivered the urban roughness required to hold her family together through force and deception as mother Bessie Berger. The common link between both productions, was Boston favorite Nael Nacer playing Medvedenko and Sam in The Seagull and Awake in Sing!. The similarities between the meek school teacher and the hapless and misguided shotgun husband go far beyond the actor playing the roles. Hennie's treatment of Sam as she shoos him out the door mirrors that of Masha as she forced Medvedenko to walk home in a snowstorm without the luxury of borrowing the family horse. Nacer shines in each production, but in both cases he is surrounded by fellow performers who are grounded in an emotional realism that packed a punch for local audiences.
8. Chita Rivera in The Visit: How often do audiences get to see one of Broadway's living legends originate a role in a new musical, notably one written by Kander an Ebb, a team whose work helped define her career nearly forty years ago? Berkshire theater-goers were treated to a performance of a lifetime as Ms. Rivera brought her surprisingly poignant portrayal of the vengeful Claire Zachanassian to The Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer. The Visit is an adult musical about death. From the opening imagery of a dilapidated grand train station, to a mobile coffin that serves as luggage, a car, and even a bed, to expressionistic make-up draining all visible life out of a committed chorus of townspeople, Brachen is a community defined by its loss - loss of youth and hope. Unlike Dürrenmatt's revenge story, McNally, Kander, and Ebb re-focus (while retaining much of the original's black comic tone) their story on the love (or loss thereof) between Zachanassian and Anton Schell (a very good Roger Rees) who wronged her years ago. Kander and Ebb's affection for their leading lady is apparent as they have given her some of the loveliest pieces from musical's collectively rich score. Rivera adds a beautiful delicacy to her renditions of "Winter" and "Love and Love Alone" - two ballads that rank up there with some of Kander and Ebb's best. The highlight of the evening is Rivera's pas de deux with Claire's younger self. Ms. Rivera may not have the moves she was best known for in her youth (nor should she to properly pull off the role), but her performance offers all the depth, wit, beauty, and pathos associated with the brightest Broadway stars. New Yorkers will be lucky to see this Visit make a stop in the city in 2015.
9. Fiddler on the Roof at the Goodspeed Opera House: Like much of the Shakespearean canon that is revived faithfully year after year, there are certain musicals that deserve first-class productions on a regular basis. Fiddler is definitely among these musicals. Rob Ruggiero's 50th Anniversary production at the reliable Goodspeed Opera House was exquisitely staged, acted, and choreographed. Adam Heller's as Tevye led an all-around superb cast that was able to balance the musical's humor with the show's most deeply affecting moments. With a brilliantly crafted book, terrific score, and its universal themes, this musical (if done as well as Goodspeed's production) deserves to remain a 'tradition' in the American theater.
10. The Final Fight of Rocky: Alex Timbers is one of the most innovative young directors working today. Whether its charming audiences through storyteller's theater in Peter and the Starcatcher or creating an immersive discotheque experience in Here Lies Love, there is consistently an element of surprise in everything Timbers does. Say what you want about Rocky and its clunker-filled score with numbers like "My Nose Ain't Broke" (must have sounded better in German) serenaded to (and I kid you not) a turtle, but the final fight scene of this film to stage adaptation was simply exhilarating. With the stage moving forward covering rows AA through F, audience members (myself included among them) filling the onstage stands, Rocky and Apollo parading down the aisles with their entourages, and ring card girls flaunting what their mamma's (or surgeons) gave them, Timbers delivered one heck of a 16 minute finale. With the aid of Steven Hoggett's masterful fight choreography, Rocky's finale delivered all of the excitement and adrenaline induced vulgarity of a championship boxing match. Looking at my top ten list, it should be evident at this point that I don't need spectacle to be wow-ed in the theater. But when executed well, it can certainly leave a lasting impression...at least long enough for a year-in-review list.