On Broadway- Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

Does a musical based on a part of the Tolstoy classic novel War and Peace sound like a snooze? Well, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is anything but. With its innovative staging, large cast of mostly newcomers, no spoken dialogue (the show is entirely sung by the cast) and an almost unrecognizeable singer Josh Groban playing a schlubby, bookish Pierre, this is a show that must be seen to be fully appreciated. Describing it doesn't do it justice.

There is no real stage- there are tiers of tables and walkways where the cast sing, dance and play instruments around the tables. The opening number Prologue starts the show with an enthusiastic bang that let the audience know they are in for something fresh and exciting.

The cast is large, and periodically during the show they hand out pierogies to snack on, love letters, pages from the actual book War And Peace, and plastic eggs filled with rice to shake along with a song to audience members. They even sat next to audience members at certain points, involving them in the action.

My sisters-in-law and I sat at a table below the main walkway, and we had to pay attention to the various cast members who sang to us and whirled by us dancing. This is not a show where you can take a little snooze, nor would you want to.

Denee Benton usually plays Natasha, whose fiancee has gone off to war, but at our performance we saw Shoba Narayan, making her Broadway debut. Her role is the largest in the show, and she will be a star if this show is any indication. She played Natasha with a sense of wonder, joy and eventual sadness.

Josh Groban stops the show with his rendition of Dust and Ashes, showing us why he commands the stage at his concerts. It gave me goosebumps.  (You can hear him singing it on the show's website.) Other cast standouts include Brittain Ashford, Gelsey Bell and Lucas Steele.

The best way to describe this show is if you put Hamilton, Once, and Les Miserables in a blender, you'd come out with The Great Comet. This is a show that you will download the soundtrack (as I did) and play it on repeat to catch all of the things you missed at the theater.

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 is the most inventive musical of the year,  with an amazing score, don't miss this one. Bravo to Dave Malloy who wrote the music, lyrics, book and did the orchestrations.

The website for The Great Comet is here.

On Broadway- Sunday In the Park With George

It takes a brave soul who is willing to take on a role so iconically identified with a Broadway legend. In the revival of Sunday in the Park With George, there are two- Jake Gyllenhaal, playing George, the role that Mandy Patinkin made famous, and Annaleigh Ashford, playing Dot and Dot's granddaughter Marie, roles that helped make Bernadette Peters a star.

I have seen Annaleigh Ashford in Kinky Boots, and her Tony Award-winning role in You Can't Take It With You (she was hilarious!), and she is the best thing about Showtime's Masters of Sex, playing Betty, the office manager who holds it all together amidst the chaos swirling around her. I adore her!

I knew she'd be fabulous as always, and she brings such a depth to the role of Dot, with her trademark humor and pathos. She is the definition of luminous in the role of Dot. As Marie, she gets to crack wise as the older woman who gets her chance to hold an audience for just a moment.

But it is Jake Gyllenhaal who was a surprise. As an actor, he has always chosen roles that stretch him- Brokeback Mountain, End of Watch, Nightcrawler and Donnie Darko spring to mind- and he does that again here. His George Seurat is an artist who is driven to create, and he plays him tightly coiled.

Sunday in the Park With George is a Sondheim musical, so the songs are no walk in the park to sing and Gyllenhaal has surprised everyone with his beautiful, powerful voice. (There is a video of him singing Finishing the Hat online that has everyone talking.)


The supporting cast is just as strong, including Robert Sean Leonard and Broadway vets Philip Boykin, Erin Davie, Ruthie Ann Miles and Brooks Ashmanskas.

The musical highlights of the show include the opeing number Sunday in the Park With George and its reprise at the end of Act II, and George and Dot's moving duet We Do Not Belong Together.

Sunday in the Park With George will bring you joy and tears, it is one show that I will always remember. The run ends April 23, and it is worth buying a full-price ticket for this one. It is a must-see, and it is playing in the newly restored Hudson Theatre, which is so lush and lovely.

The website for Sunday in the Park With George is here.

On Broadway- Doctor Zhivago

When I was in high school, I worked at a movie theater, and we had a re-release of the 1965 movie, Doctor Zhivago. I was mesmerized by the beautiful movie, and Omar Sharif and Julie Christie were unforgettable as Yuri and Lara, star-crossed lovers during WWI and the Russian Revolution.

Doctor Zhivago is now a Broadway musical, and I had the opportunity to see it last night. From the opening scene, I was again mesmerized. I thought it would be daunting to bring such an iconic movie to the stage, but the show was stunning from beginning to end.

The sets, from the grand wedding of Doctor Yuri Zhivago to Tonia, his childhood sweetheart and daughter of his benefactors, to the battlefields of Germany are brilliantly executed, simple yet effective in aiding in the telling of the story. The costumes are wonderful as well.

Yuri becomes entranced by Lara, a revolutionary who attempts to kill Victor Komarovosky, a man who is always involved in something shady and manages to keep his head above water. Victor and Lara are having an affair, one she regrets.

Lara is married to Pasha, a firebrand who wants to change Russia through revolution. They will do so through violence if necessary, since nothing else seems to work.

Pasha enlists to fight in WWI, and Yuri volunteers to offer his medical services as well. Lara becomes a volunteer nurse to be closer to her husband, but it is Doctor Zhivago with whom she falls in love.

The score is powerful and emotional, with the strongest songs being "Love Finds You", sung by the five leads, and "It Comes As No Surprise" sung by Lara and Tonia as they confront each other over their love for Yuri. And yes, "Lara's Theme" is here, sung beautifully by the nurses.

The acting is terrific, with Kelli Barrett, as the strong-willed Lara reminding me of another Kelli, Broadway powerhouse Kelli O'Hara. Tam Mutu has a tough job following in Omar Sharif's footsteps, but he does so admirably. I do wish their chemistry was a little stronger though.

The audience really loved Paul Alexander Nolan's performance of Pasha. He got lots of whoops and hollers from the audience, as did Tom Hewitt as Victor. Both men gave strong performances.

I'm sad to report that the show is closing on Sunday, but if you can get there before then, I recommend it. Fans of Les Miserables will love this one, as well as fans of the movie.

The Doctor Zhivago website is here.

On Broadway- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

It's great when I can combine my love of books with my love of Broadway in one post. A few years ago, I read Mark Haddon's remarkable novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, told in the voice of a 15-year-old autistic boy.

The boy is found next to the body of a neighbor's dog who has been stabbed and killed with a garden fork, and Christopher is at first thought to have done the deed. He is cleared of the crime and then decides that he will find the culprit himself since no one else appears interested.

The Broadway show, a transplant from Britain where it won every award possible, is a brilliantly conceived and executed show. It manages to take us right inside the mind of an autistic teen, and even more successfully than the book, we can hear and see how overwhelming the stimuli of a train station can be as staged in this show.

The scene in the train station is a cacophony of flashing lights and extremely loud sounds. And when Christopher descends on a escalator that appears magically out of nowhere, you could hear gasps from the audience.(I would compare it to the magic carpet in Aladdin, but even more amazing.)

Because the novel tells the story in Christopher's voice, we generally only get his point of view. In the stage show, I think we feel more of the emotions of the other characters- his mother and father, the older neighbor and his teacher. There is great sympathy for how Christopher's autism affected his parents.

Christopher can't stand to be touched, and is a math genius. His primal screams when he is touched ring through the theater, and it brings insight into how it must feel.

The show really depends on the actor who plays Christopher to succeed, and Alex Sharp is absolutely amazing in the role. It is an incredibly physically and emotionally role, and there is another actor who plays the role on matinee days because it is so demanding. I can't imagine that Sharp won't be recognized come awards season.

Ian Barford and Enid Graham, as Christopher's parents, are also wonderful at portraying the anguish and difficulty of their situation.

The staging of the show is stunning and inventive, allowing us right into Christopher's world, through his eyes.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a powerful, emotional piece of theater that resonates long after the show ends. This is a show that is worth seeing even at full-price, though discount tickets are available.

The show's website is here.

Broadway- The Glass Menagerie

The current revival of Tennesee Williams' classic play The Glass Menagerie has been called one the best revivals ever by more than one theatre critic and after seeing it this past week, I can concur.

I went to see the amazing Cherry Jones, who I have been dying to see, playing the role of Amanda Wingfield, single mother to two young adult children- Tom, brilliantly played by Zachary Quinto in his Broadway debut, and delicate, insecure Laura, gorgeously portrayed by Celia Keenan-Bolger.

Amanda has been abandoned by her husband, whose presence is still felt even though he has been gone six years. The play takes place in Depression-era St. Louis, and Amanda is panicked about who will take care of Laura. Laura has a severe limp, and because of this, avoids any social interactions.

Her mother discovers that Laura dropped out of secretarial school because she was paralyzed by fear on the first day. The scene where Amanda confronts Laura over this is just so heart-stopping, Jones berating Keenan-Bolger, who looks trapped as an small animal. It gave me chills.

Tom wants to be a writer, but he is stuck working a dead-end job at a warehouse to provide for his mother and sister. He spends his nights out drinking and carousing, and Amanda is panicked that he will lose his job and then what will happen to them all?

Amanda convinces Tom to invite a friend from work to dinner to meet Laura. The gentlemen caller is played by Brian J. Smith, whom I have never seen before, and he stands out as well, not easy to do with these powerhouse performers surrounding him.  I look forward to seeing him in other roles. His scene with Laura is lovely and then so terribly sad.

The Glass Menagerie is frequently called "ethereal", but the performances in this play are anything but. Jones is a strong Amanda, concerned about her family's future and willing to find a way to protect it, no matter what, even while recalling her glory days as a debutante who "had 17 gentleman callers in one day!" It is unclear if this is true, an exaggeration or a complete figment of her imagination.

She imbues Amanda with a steely resolve, a different take on Amanda than others have done. Jones is electric, and when she is on stage, she owns it. Her performance has been called "one for the ages", and is simply not to be missed.

Quinto is like a caged animal, angry at being tethered to his family and looking for a way out, like his father. He is a ticking time-bomb and his performance is ferocious. You wait for him to explode at any moment.

I had seen Keenan-Bolger in Peter and the Starcatcher, where she played Wendy in the fantastic play about Peter Pan's origins, and she was wonderful in that active role. This role is so different from Wendy, she makes you feel Laura's panic when confronted by her mother and her blossoming when she talks with the Gentleman Caller. She is going to be a big star.

John Tiffany, who directed the Tony-winning musical Once, directs here and he uses his staging in a similar manner as in Once. The setting is sparse, but as Tom explains in the beginning, this play is from his memory, and the setting creates that dreamlike feeling.

Brian J. Smith

This is a play that you should see in an orchestra seat so you see the actors' faces close up, as there is so much going on in each actor's look. It is also one that if you paid full-price for a ticket, you got more than your money's worth. I hope it is rewarded come Tony time next year.

I waited outside to get my program signed, and Brian J. Smith and Celia Keenan-Bolger obliged us, even taking photos with many people. Quinto and Jones did not come out to greet fans, which disappointed many theatergoers.

Celia Keenan-Bolger

rating 5 of 5

The show's website is here.

On Broadway- Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

The Tony awards are but a few weeks away and I have been seriously amiss in my Broadway postings. One of the plays nominated for Best Play is Christopher Durang's comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

The play has been nominated for six Tonys, including Kristine Nielsen for Best Actress, David Hyde Pierce for Best Actor, Shalita Grant for Best Featured Actress and Billy Magnussen for Best Featured Actor.

The play opens with Vanya (Pierce) and Sonia (Nielsen) sitting outside enjoying the beautiful morning. Their banter indicates a married couple, but we soon find out that they are siblings, and Sonia is adopted. The hilarity begins there and builds.

Neilsen is hilarious in this show, and no more so than when she does her Maggie-Smith-as-Oscar-nominated-actress-in Neil-Simon's-California-Suite. Her accent is dead-on and when Sonia becomes this role for a costume party, complete with a lovely sparkly gown and tiara, she shines.

While enjoying the show, Pierce was doing his usual terrific job, but I was wondering why he was nominated; the role seemed a bit timid. And then comes that monologue. Vanya explodes in a verbal burst that has the audience spellbound as it goes on and on. When Pierce finally finishes, the audience rises for a standing ovation. And after he is done, I thought, well, that is why you get David Hyde Pierce for this role. He is a genius.

Sigourney Weaver plays sister Masha, an actress who could be Sigourney Weaver if she didn't make it big and wasn't a good actress. She clearly enjoys her role and the hissy fits she throws had me laughing.

Her boy-toy Spike is played brilliantly by Billy Magnussen. He acts like a big, goofy, puppy dog who has great abs. His performance is so energetic, and he is so magnetic, he takes what could be a one-note role and turns it into something exciting.

Masha comes to town to tell her siblings that she is selling the family home that Sonia and Vanya have been living in after caring for their aging parents who passed away. She can no longer afford to support them. They panic because they have no jobs, no viable skills, and now they will be homeless.

The sibling dynamic is one that so many can relate to, and the cast of this show is pitch perfect. If you are looking for a good laugh, this is a terrific show. There are discount tickets available, but this is a show for which I would happy pay full price.

The run has been extended through July 28th, and their website is here.
Watch a new TV promo with the cast here.

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

Sanaa Lathan as Vera Stark

2econdStageTheatre's new production, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is the latest play by Lynn Nottage, who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2009 for Ruined.


Ruined was a very heavy drama, and Meet Vera Stark has more of a comedic touch- at least during the first act. Vera is an African- American maid working for actress Gloria Mitchell (the wonderful Stephanie J. Block), once America's little princess, now desperately trying to hold on to her career in the 1930s.

Vera, played by the luminous and brilliant Sanaa Lathan, is an actress too, but parts for her are more difficult to come by. And the only ones available are for maids or slaves. When Gloria auditions for a big Southern epic (ala Gone With the Wind), Vera sees an opportunity for her to play the important role of the maid/best friend to the protagonist, and asks Gloria to help her, which Gloria brushes aside.

It is hinted that Vera and Gloria have a closer relationship than employer-employee, and that is developed more deeply in Act II. Act I is more of screwball comedy from the 1930s or 40s, with gorgeous dresses, the helpless, self-involved star, an African-American friend of Vera's (the versatile, funny and gorgeous Karen Olivo) passing herself off as a Brazilian actress to date the director of the movie, Kimberly Hebert Gregory playing a friend of Vera's who frequently breaks into a version of "Let My People Go", and Vera exaggeratedly acting the part of the subservient Southern maid to get the role in the movie.

I saw the show with an audience filled with high school students, and they enthusiastically reacted, laughing and applauding at the action on the stage. They especially liked Gregory's performance, perhaps because they know women just like her sassy character.


Act II has a much more serious tone. It is present day and three academics discuss Vera Stark's career. They review Vera's last appearance in 1973 on The Ben Donovan Show (think Mike Douglas/Merv Griffin). The show-within-a-play is an intriguing concept, and it works well here.

Vera is much older, and Lathan is remarkable in this Act. She plays a defiant, tough, possibly drunk  Vera in Act II, as opposed to the sunny, lively, younger Vera from Act I.


We see how difficult it was for Vera to find good work after her breakout role, and when Gloria shows up, the contrast between their lives and careers is stark. The only difference between them is their skin color, but that difference made all the difference in Vera's life. We learn more about Gloria and Vera's past connection as the academics debate about what really happened to Vera Stark.

The play is brilliantly written by Nottage, who transitions from comedy to drama to great effect. It has a lot to say about what it meant to be black in America at that time, and the price one pays in deciding whether to or not to be true to oneself.


The roles for women in this play are layered and rich and,  Lathan, Block, Gregory and Olivo make the most of them, with Gregory and Olivo playing multiple, diverse roles. The use of film in the show is well done, as we get to see part of the film, The Belle of New Orleans, at the center of this story.


I would say that By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is a nearly-perfect piece of theater. It succeeds on so many levels, and leaves you with much to contemplate as you leave the theater. It runs through May 29th at 2econdStageTheatre on 43rd & 8th Ave. If you love good theater, do not miss this one.