Weekly Margin 2024, W30: Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty Sided Tavern

7/28/24: Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern

What: The improv RPG where the audience gets to vote on characters and choices, now under the official auspices of the D&D label.

And? Good silly fun!

The cast of Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern. 
Photo by Bronwen Sharp.

Weekly Margin 2024, W29: JOB, Home, Suffs

7/17/24: JOB

What: The Broadway transfer of Max Wolf Friedlich's two-hander play about a therapy consultation for a woman placed on leave from a job to which she's desperate to return.

And? I really want to respect the playwright's wish to not spoil certain elements of the play (there was a talkback the night we attended), but I'll say this is excellent and tense theater that keeps you on your toes and questioning whether anything you're seeing or hearing is real. I thought it was great.

Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon in the Off-Broadway run, as Loyd and 
Jane. Photo by Emilio Madrid.

7/18/24: Home

a repeat visit

7/20/24: Suffs

a repeat visit

Weekly Margin 2024, W28: Hilma

Streaming Theater Related Content I Watched

• Wilma Theater's Hilma.

Weekly Margin 2024, W27: Cats: The Jellicle Ball

7/05/24: Cats: The Jellicle Ball

What: The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about cats, reimagined for the drag Ballroom culture.

And? Believe the hype. This is my favorite musical theater production I've seen so far in 2024. It's so life-affirming, defiant, and joyous. Everyone in that space is in the same world together (a rarer thing than it sounds), waving fans, screaming, clapping, stomping, and roaring to their feet repeatedly over the talent on that runway. The production pays beautiful homage to Ballroom culture and its history, including honoring its Founding Mothers, and casting real Ballroom performers in the show (including Junior LaBeija, member of The Iconic House of LaBeija and MC in the Paris is Burning doc, as Gus the Theatre Cat) alongside performers with more traditional stage experience (including the legend himself, André De Shields, as Old Deuteronomy). Much like my experience last week with A Little Night Music, I found myself investing anew in a show I thought I knew all the ins and outs of. But with this new lens of Ballroom, the dynamics around Old Deuteronomy, Gus, and Grizabella deepen in such a powerful way that I suddenly, at the bitter old age of *cough*, have an emotional connection to this strange show.

It's a bit like the Deaf West revival of Spring Awakening, whose lens added new depths that felt almost inevitable and required for the show to work: now, in a Ballroom setting, with each cat's song part of their runway competition, Cats finally works for me in thrilling, vivid clarity. I kinda wish it would run ... okay, not "now and forever," but certainly a bit longer.

The cast of Cats. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

Weekly Margin 2024, W26: A Little Night Music in Concert

 6/29/24: A Little Night Music in Concert

What: David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center hosts a concert staging of the musical adaptation of Smiles of a Summer Night. 

And? Sublime. I understand from reading online that the concert was on shakier ground earlier in the week (line flubs, etc), but it was in fairly good shape by Saturday night, when we saw it (I don't know if I'll ever not be anxious during a performance of "Liaisons," either for tempo or lyric reasons). Not every casting decision was ultimately ideal, but a lot of the important stuff worked really well. I don't think that I've ever been as invested in Desiree and Fredrik as a couple, as I was by Susan Graham's and Ron Raines's rendering of them. I cried during both "Send in the Clowns" and its reprise (and due to antidepressants, I'm not crying at the theater nearly as often as I used to). The star of the night is probably still Ruthie Ann Miles in the meaty role of Countess Charlotte--she's precise and perfect, delivering every line and lyric like succulent bites in a transporting meal. We do not deserve her (but aren't we lucky she's here?). Also marvelous were Jin Ha as Frid (they restored Frid's cut song and Ha sang it beautifully) and Cynthia Erivo as Petra (that high note in "Miller's Son"!). But what really struck me as well is how much it matters that the liebeslieder singers are well-cast. They often feel like an afterthought (especially in casting), but they have to be good--so much of their performance carries us through the thinner second act. These five are in marvelous voice, good concert with each other, and making real choices that help add more dimension to the lyrics. Thank you Ellie Fishman, Leah Horowitz, Jonathan Christopher, Andrea Jones-Sojola, and Ross Lekites.

Leah Horowitz, Jonathan Christopher, Andrew Jones-Sojola, Ross Lekites,
and Ellie Fishman as the Liebeslieder Singers. Photo by Joan Marcus.