Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

I posted on Thanksgiving about how thankful I was to have music in my life. On Saturday I got to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum in ( oh me-o, oh my-o, oh) Cleveland, OH and my gratitude only increased. In a recent issue of Rolling Stone , the Hall of Fame and Museum dominated almost the entire issue. Rolling Stone’s editor and Publisher Jann Wenner was actually instrumental in establishing the Hall of Fame so covering the excitement surrounding the recent 25th Anniversary concert* that took place over two nights in New York’s Madison Square Garden was a no brainer. The issue is chock full of information about the Hall and Museum, including an explanation to the oft asked question, “Why is it in Cleveland?” (Answer: Alan Freed, a Cleveland DJ, coined the term “rock and roll”; that and Cleveland offered financial support for the museum!) Check out the issue for in-depth coverage of the concert and a thorough history of the Hall of Fame and museum. My experience at the Mu...

Just a quick note about last night's Glee . The episode was good but the Imagine scene was great. The glee club from the school for the deaf began "singing" and signing John Lennon's Imagine ; Mercedes (the sassy Amber Riley) was so moved she began singing in her seat. After a few bars she got up and sang, shoulder to shoulder, with the other club's lead vocalist. Then Artie joined her. Then Tina and Rachel and all the McKinley High misfits. The two clubs were singing together, signing together, expressing themselves, in their own ways, united by music. I started to cry and thought, "This is the power of music. Music unites us all and connects us and allows us to have these beautiful moments of clarity and peace." Well done, Glee. On this Thanksgiving, I am eternally grateful and thankful for music. It truly is "the way we sing that makes 'em dream". Happy Thanksgiving!

I remember anticipating and then purchasing Green Day’s "American Idiot" in 2004. We were at the tail end of a heated presidential election – the first one in which I was eligible to vote for POTUS. W. was the incumbent and Senator John Kerry his opponent. On campus , you couldn’t get through the student union without passing by wranglers for both sides. Even my crush was getting into it, manning a booth and canvassing his neighborhood. (Unfortunately, he was supporting what I thought was the wrong side.) Folksiness and ignorance were being celebrated while intellect and an inclination toward analysis had to make its case. The country was at war (with one another – figuratively – and with countries abroad – literally) and I was hungry for someone or something to speak to me – to express the rage I had for those who celebrated ignorance and a feeling of being eschewed by a country whose most vocal majority probably didn’t know what “eschewed’ meant. Along came Green Day ...

Since the season began in September, Saturday Night Live has been, in my opinion, only sporadically funny. My favorite parts of SNL are usually Weekend Update, the digital short and the cold open, in that order; the sketches are not consistently funny or sometimes the funniest sketch is on at 12:50, rather than in a prime pre-Weekend Update block. This past Saturday’s episode, though, hosted by the adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt , was entirely funny. The late-in-the-show Thanksgiving sketch had a good pay-off after a slow start: When the family began singing Wilson Phillips, I was laughing out loud. ( Watch highlights from the episode on Hulu .) And, more remarkable, the final sketch – usually more of a filler than anything else – could easily have been slated in the front of the show: Recreating the infamous “Lloyd holding the boom-box” scene from Say Anything, Gordon-Levitt’s deadpan Lloyd was smartly contrasted with Jason Sudeikis’s wise cracking neighbor. The digital short was defin...

As promised, here’s an off-Broadway Briefing: Avenue Q - full disclosure - I haven’t seen the show since it transferred off-Broadway; truth be told I haven’t seen Avenue Q since December 2003, before it David-ed Goliath, aka Wicked. (I guess, though, since Wicked continues to play to capacity - and on Broadway - Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero got the last laugh.) All that said, I really like Avenue Q. My family - mom, dad, brother and me - saw it together and we all liked it. My mom and I are really the only theatre fans so the fact that even my brother liked it is quite an endorsement. Avenue Q is snarky yet surprisingly affecting for a show I’d describe as Sesame Street on crack, though I mean that as a compliment. One of my favorite songs is “Mix Tape” in which Kate Monster tries to decipher the meaning behind the songs on the mix tape her crush, Princeton, just gave to her. When, at the end of the song, Kate quietly says to herself, “He likes me!” I tear up nearly every time. Avenue Q...

In the interest of efficiency, rather than back-logging I instead offer this briefing of shows I’ve seen (that are still playing and that I didn’t review in depth in a previous post). Going forward, I’ll share my complete thoughts about and reactions to shows, concerts, et al as I see them. This post is the Broadway edition. A smaller off-Broadway edition will be posted later. The 39 Steps – fun and entertaining; four cast members play over one hundred characters, using light and sound to great effect. This is closing in January, (it was originally a limited run, then extended to an open ended run and went through several venue changes; there’s now talk that it may move off-Broadway, a la Avenue Q) so try to see it at the Helen Hayes Theatre while it’s there. Billy Elliot – good but not revelatory. The choreography is impressive but the score is derivative. A general crowd pleaser, BE is selling so well that one year into their run they still don’t have to offer discounts. If you want...