Want some church with your theater?

I love The Civilians. I love this show.

Show Business Weekly review: This Beautiful City

Florida in February (or why traveling for work sometimes really isn't all that bad)

This past week my work travel took me to Gainesville (University of Florida), Tampa (University of South Florida), and Orlando (University of Central Florida).

Besides the sunshine and delicious 70-degree weather, here are a few other reasons why my glass was more than half full (or palm tree was more than half grown?) in Florida:

1. Spanish moss dripping from the treetops:




2. A cool-cat jazz professor/saxophonist who gave us free CDs: I especially recommend the "Singin' in the Rain" track from "Ridge Lines".

3. Sensational sushi. If you're ever in Tampa, run, don't walk, to Samurai Blue Sushi in Centro Ybor for the Blue Moon roll.

4. This view from my ($50!) hotel room:



5. Random campus oddities, like this:



6. The well-intentioned efforts of the anthropology department to keep us out; but not to worry, we so got in.



7. Not being in the office = getting to traipse through settings like this one (at UF):



Next up: Missouri, where I will do my very best not to shoot eye darts at the football stadium ...

Keeping Austin Weird (and Running)

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that my main experience of the New York Marathon has been minor irritation at the roadblock I encountered when trying to have brunch at one of my favorite restaurants. But now I'm redeemed: I have a new reverence for marathoners after watching two people I love compete in one.

[Full disclosure: Personally, I only run when chased. Or when trying to catch the subway. I much prefer a pool (as do my knees).]

I just got back from a long weekend in Austin, Texas, where I got to watch my brother Jeff and his girlfriend Mara sail through the Austin Marathon! I am so enormously proud of them and all of the training they did to get to this point. My parents flew down from Nebraska, and we all got to meet Mara's parents, brother, and grandparents. (Her sweet grandfather even gave yellow roses to my mom and me to commemorate the "Yellow Rose of Texas" for Valentine's Day. I was almost more excited to learn that he attended the opening night of Sweeney Todd on Broadway!)

Fittingly, because Austin is one of the music meccas of the world, there were eclectic bands playing at many of the checkpoints. As we waited to watch them complete the home stretch, we heard a girl-guitar band play such marathon-friendly covers as "I Will Survive" and "500 Miles".

We found two great spots from which we could see them -- at the 6-mile mark and then at 200 meters from the finish line (in between we rather guiltily grabbed brunch and kept remembering how they were still running ... and running ...). Jeff finished at 4 hours, 7 minutes, and Mara finished about an hour later.

I love to find the theater in everyday life, and there was no shortage of entertainment from the runners and spectators. At the 6-mile mark, we saw runners dressed up as such random things as a bumble bee and superheroes (pictured). I even saw a 60-ish man wearing nothing but a large garbage bag (or so it appeared). One of the highlights was the man who stopped and did a cartwheel before continuing on (somehow, I doubt that he was cartwheeling by mile 25).

Jeff and Mara were still hobbling a bit today, but I think they're both glad that they did it. If nothing else, in addition to the running festivities, we ate scads of good food. If you're in Austin, I would recommend:

Austin Java: especially the chai latte (home brew), spinach omelette, oatmeal, and muffins (per my parents, who thought the blueberry and morning glory varieties were the best they'd ever tasted)

La Traviata: excellent pistachio-crusted salmon. Even more excellent orange-ricotta cheesecake.

Trudy's: Tex-Mex the way it should be. Chips & salsa galore, delicious fish tacos, expert service. Will someone please bring some decent Tex-Mex to New York?

Lambert's Downtown BBQ: scallops grilled with grapefruit, goat cheese, and radishes? Yes, please!

Pho: excellent bubble tea & friendly waitstaff with cheeky "Go Pho It!" T-shirts.

I'll leave you with parting shots featuring two of my favorite things about Austin: 1) My phenomenally talented, mothering-and-lawyering-and-multi-tasking friend Simi; and 2) The horizon at sunset (even when marred by a Hitchcock-looking tree of birds).

Ragtime, in Your Time

Presidents’ Day seems like the perfect occasion to exhort you, implore you, and beg you to do yourself a favor and go see Ragtime at the Astoria Performing Arts Center this weekend. And please hurry – it closes on Sunday! In the age of Barack Obama, Ragtime has truly become a profound, riveting, immensely resonant experience.

CurtainUp review: Ragtime

Ragtime was the first Broadway show I ever saw (spring break '98), and the show is such an enduring masterpiece. In a way, I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen more of it around the city since then, but it took director Tom Wojtunik (newly anointed Artistic Director of APAC) to give the show a dazzling new treatment for our own historical era.

For one thing, this Ragtime is not designed to be a box-office blockbuster; it’s intimate, in-your-face, and visceral. You’ll likely make eye contact with a performer at least once, and you might get nervous at times that you might be whisked from your seat and into the show. (But not to fear: this isn't a physically interactive show, just an immensely emotionally and intellectually interactive one.)

And then there’s the cast—my highest praise and respect goes to D. William Hughes and Janine Ayn Romano, who tell the show’s central love story as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and Sarah. The roles were played on Broadway by the inimitable Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald. (And although the show ran only a few years, thanks to the power of cast recordings, their powerhouse duet “Wheels of a Dream” has been listened to/sung along with by theater geeks for more than a decade.) We know those songs. With those voices.

In fact, I actually got to hear them reprise their big duet in October, when Mitchell was the special guest star during Audra McDonald and Barbara Cook’s “Broadway Voices for Change” benefit concert. The left-leaning crowd was abuzz with the upcoming election, and McDonald actually brought a Barack Obama action figure on stage at one point. We all knew there would be a "special guest", and when Mitchell strolled on stage, McDonald quickly interjected: “Brian Stokes Mitchell, everyone!” She was sure that a few people in the back of the theater might mistake him for Obama, and Mitchell gamely pushed out his ears to further play up the resemblance. And then they broke into a glorious, unrehearsed (that’s what they told us, anyway) performance of “Wheels of a Dream,” a song which seemed magnificently appropriate for this moment in history.

But as you’ll see when you visit Ragtime (and maybe I’ll see you there again this weekend), Hughes and Romano inject their performances with a youth and vitality that feels fresh, true, and totally their own. And that’s just the beginning … For a mere $18, you’ll get a history lesson that will make you incredibly aware of the history you’re living. Right now.

Broadway in Brooklyn

Review #2 of 2009 found me at one of my favorite theaters--The Gallery Players in Park Slope, Brooklyn--where I reviewed their latest musical revival, a snazzy production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. It didn’t move mountains with its perky dance numbers, but it was a faithful incarnation of the sweet, jazzy story – complete with some wink-wink little-theater flourishes and a phenomenal turn by newcomer Alison Luff in the title role. (Not to mention the scene-stealing Miss Flannery, pictured here.)

offoffonline review: "One in a Million": Thoroughly Modern Millie

Curtain Up on CurtainUp!

In January, I contributed my first review to the wonderful, oh-so-comprehensive website CurtainUp, which was founded by (and continues to be edited by) the terrific and tireless Elyse Sommer. Elyse and I have been bumping into each other during intermissions for years now, and I’m so happy to be contributing to her site and getting out to see even more shows.

CurtainUp review: Looking for the Pony

My first assignment was the play Looking for the Pony, a heartbreaking, but often hilarious, play about the relationship between two sisters when one of them is diagnosed with cancer. I feel like there is never enough material out there that dares to really confront the issues surrounding death and illness, and I found this play to be an excellent addition to other productions of its ilk (including the oft-produced Wit and Lisa Kron’s genre-bending Well). As I frequently remark to friends, death is one of the few things in life that we all share (it’s a given, no matter how assiduously you might fight it with regular treatments of Botox or heavy doses of denial). Isn’t it time we could dialogue more about it – and not only about death itself, but about all of the living that continues to be done around it?

It seemed appropriate that a play like this would get wildly mixed reviews, as you can see in these two. (The Times liked it, TheaterMania loathed it.)

NYTimes review
Theatermania review

But then again, perhaps much of how we experience the subject is colored by our own experiences. My younger sister died of cancer almost six years ago, and I find myself extremely sensitive to anything approaching the hackneyed/maudlin/syrupy sentimental. Far from therapy, to me this play bravely mixed the fear of “going there” with the relief of hearing someone articulate (with wit and empathy) a few very real aspects of these (literally) life-or-death experiences.