January 19, 2023
Race Like You’re a Contestant on ‘Race to Bachelor Island’ to See the Hilarious ‘Tootsie’by Randi / July 2, 2019It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the play Sweat by Lynn Nottage, currently playing at London’s Gielgud Theatre until July 20.
You know how society as we know it is falling apart and there’s nothing we can really do about it, so decent (and not so decent, but no one deserves the crumbling of the world) people are suffering in poverty and drug addiction and racism and sexism and classism and overall misery, and we need governments to work together for the people in order to solve any of these societal problems but the people running things are too busy thinking about their own comforts instead of caring about anyone else, let alone all of society, so things are just falling apart for the regular person and it’s all incredibly depressing? Yeah, well, so, Sweat.
Lynn Notage’s highly distressing, highly moving play about Reading, Pennsylvania and the devastation caused by joblessness (as well as the aforementioned –isms) is a hell of a depressing show. Nottage interviewed real citizens of Reading (not including Michael Scott) to research this show, since Reading has notably experienced a horrible decline in employment and 40% of the population now lives in poverty. I don’t know how many times I can say ‘depressing’ in one review but we will probably break that record today. Sweat shows us the lives of a small group of friends and acquaintances in Reading before and after all their lives changed for the worse.
This group consists of people who work at the big factory in town, people who used to work at the big factory in town, and their kids who have little choice but to also work at the big factory in town: Martha Plimpton’s volatile Tracy and her equally hot-tempered son Jason (stereotypical and scarily accurate central-PA white people who probably voted for the cheeto toilet); management-material Cynthia and her son Chris (black people who have to work harder to prove themselves), plus their estranged husband/father who is now an addict; their floaty old-hippie now-drunk friend Jessie; the bartender friend Stan; the bar’s Mexican busboy Oscar; and the good-intentioned parole officer. Yes, parole officer: the show begins with the kids, Jason and Chris, just released from prison. The rest of the show – before returning depressingly (there’s another!) to present day – shows us what led up to their arrest.
If this sounds compelling to you, well good, because we are all living in this world, and Sweat felt like a genuine reflection of the hardships of the working class, from the fear of how quickly joblessness can destroy your life, to America’s opioid epidemic, to how this fear to have someone real to blame for your lot in life can so easily lead to blaming those who are different from you. As someone who tries to focus on making her social justice efforts intersectional, I found a lot of this show a gut-punch of a reminder that some other people who we write off as not caring about people different from them simply don’t have the ability, the time, the luxury of caring about anything except working enough to make enough money to feed themselves to stay alive and then repeat the next day, and all their next days. It doesn’t make them good or bad people (well, some of them are bad people); it just makes for a world where caring for each other isn’t seen as a priority, and so we’re stuck in this vicious cycle of shit.
Nottage’s nuanced playwriting shines best as she develops these characters, along with a pretty remarkable cast. Plimpton was of course incredible, but she scared the absolute shit out of me. She was 100% exactly like some people I’ve met. She even looked exactly like a woman I used to work with: same exact fake blonde hair and gruff demeanor and ease of saying suuuper racist things. She was like half the women in Upper Darby who say “Wha, you think ya better than me?? YA THINK YA BETTER THAN ME?” and then knock over the bar table. That was Tracy, and her white supremacist son never had a chance with her antagonistic tendencies. (NB: Never get face tattoos, just don’t, you’ll never get a job et al., and ESPECIALLY don’t get white supremacist face tattoos. Or, ya know, do, so we know to stay away from you.) I found the whole cast moving and convincing in their individual ways. My favorite was honestly Leanne Best, who had little to do as Jessie but managed to turn her one big scene into the most heartbreaking part of a show that’s all hardship. When she reminisces about how she was supposed to see the world as a young adult but she started working at the factory and never could stop, she keeps repeating the list of destinations she and her boyfriend had memorized as a sort of mantra: “Istanbul, Tehran, Kandahar, Kabul” and so on. Her melancholy and regret at never having left Reading was palpable and tragic, and it was a tiny but wonderful performance.
But the plot teeters a bit, and it’s hard to provide a strong enough answer as to what we were actually supposed to take away from how depressing it all is. I wish, I honestly really wish, that the play had ended a scene early. Once we see all the pre-prison scenes (most of the action is the flashback), we meet again with the parole officer with Jason and Chris. He’s trying to inspire them and get them to really try with their new leases on life, and his scene ends with him talking to both men but speaking to the audience, and saying something super inspiring like “so what are you going to do to make it better? what are you going to do?” and then the theatre blacks out and I was like ‘HOLY SHIT I WANNA DO ALL THE GOOD THINGS! LET ME GO DO THEM!’ and I found it incredibly powerful. But then there was another scene! And, this final scene was clearly supposed to be super moving, but it actually wasn’t, and considering the content, it’s a shame that it just doesn’t work.
Overall, however, it’s a decent, poignant look at modern tragedy. There’s so much nuance about how ingrained racism, for one example, can be. I was blown away realizing how Tracy blames everything on her friend Cynthia’s inability as a low-level manager to stop some huge things from happening in the company, yet completely accepts her (white) bartender friend Stan’s reporting that his boss changed a rule at the bar. This kind of subtle creation of each realistic character makes Sweat a play to see, even if you won’t really learn anything except ‘fork, this is a ball of shit.’
INFORMATION
Sweat ends its short run (intentionally limited; only 50 performances at this theatre) on July 20, but it’s the kind of show that I am sure will be popping up all over the place with regional theatres, tours, everyone trying it on for size given how relevant it is.
If you can get there before July 20, the best seats (I’m SO happy I remembered for my own good!) at the Gielgud, if you pee in the ladies room and pee often, are front stalls, about Row D-K, because the door to the kind-of-hidden ladies (WHY DO THEY WANT TO KEEP THESE BATHROOMS A SECRET) is literally RIGHT THERE, if you are sitting on the aisle stage right (that’s HOUSE LEFT). I was sitting three feet from the door to the bathroom door! It was the best ever! I was so happy! (And then so quickly unhappy, obviously (did you READ the review??)) It was also really well air-conditioned on the hottest day in London so far this summer, so it was nice not to literally sweat.
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“It’s Only A Play” on Broadway: You Should Still Try Though
I hate using the word ‘starry’ to describe something that uses a lot of recognizable actors, but hell if this isn’t the starriest thing I’ve seen since those shitty “Valentine’s Day” movies. I’m okay here with making the main descriptor of “It’s Only A Play” ‘starry’ (as every other piece about the show does) because it is indeed its main selling point. And, more than that, if I don’t go with starry I’ll have to go with ‘uninspired’, or ‘disappointing’, or ‘lame’. So, yeah, starry.
Reviewing this show is a little difficult, because while it is a revival of Terrence McNally’s 1982 play, it’s chock-full of ‘culturally relevant’ updates. So which part is more responsible for the crappiness, the old stuff or the new? I guess both! Also, while I’m sure the original work was seen as cutting and important for the theatre scene, this revival feels so tired and lame and ugh too often painful.
Okay, so it’s about an opening night party after the premiere of a new play as all the integral players wait for the reviews to come out. This premise forces all the action to happen in one room, specifically the bedroom of the producer, played by Megan Mullally. Bottling everyone claustrophobically inside this room as so much goes to shit and people start fighting and turning on each other and ugh just talking too much, it will make you want to shout from your seat “JUST LEAVE! JUST WALK OUT THE DOOR AND LEAVE WTF!” As I’m sure all audience members do, I felt like Bunuel in “Midnight in Paris” when Owen Wilson explains his future film to him, and Bunuel is like “But why don’t they just leave? I don’t understand.” This show.
Megan Mullally (I’m not going to use character names because these actors were not able to escape their public personae) is the sole producer of a show for the first time, so she is nervous about the reviews, and thus spends the entire opening night party (which she’s having at her HOME, which is LUDICROUS) upstairs in her bedroom. Pseudo-friends start popping in and never leaving, including:
- Nathan Lane, a television actor who gave up the lead in this play for his now-cancelled series even though the playwright is his ‘best friend’;
- the playwright Matthew Broderick, who is the most boring milquetoast man you have ever seen and I shudder to think of poor SJP;
- the director Rupert Grint, who is saddled with the worst costume and the worst bit (infra) and will have to deal with everyone saying how his Broadway debut did not measure up to Daniel Radcliffe’s but that’s not really his fault because this show;
- the theatre critic F. Murray Abraham, who somehow works his way into the inner circle despite, um, being a critic, and is just super miscast;
- the lead of the Play, Stockard Channing, who is trying to overcome her serious drug addictions (haha so funny?) by doing many drugs onstage while wearing her ankle monitor (which she couldn’t remove during the play within the play);
- and the best part of this show, Micah Stock, stealing all his scenes as the hopeful actor working this party as the coat-check guy.
I mean. That’s a great cast. It’s just too bad the play isn’t better. But I guess that doesn’t matter, because their collective star power is allowing this pile of whatnot to break box office records left and right. Good job, producers, proving that our current society values celebrity over quality. It’s just true. Even I went to see all these actors even though I had already heard how dumb it was. I judge me too.
I don’t want to be super mean; it’s not like this is the worst show ever or even right now. It’s just that it has so much freaking potential and that makes it even worse, (like “American Hustle”). As you know, it makes me angrier when something so easily could be better than when something just sucks. It reeks of laziness and negligence when a little more attention and effort could make something great. Hence why I’m so angry about this and I didn’t say anything about “Holler If Ya Hear Me”.
Nathan Lane, bless his heart, tries so freaking hard in everything he does. You can almost see a cloud of smoke (not farts) following him around as his effort outweighs every single person ever inspired by any small engine that ever thought it could, combined. Even during my vote for #1 worst part of the show – when Nathan Lane’s character has to refer to ACTUAL PERSON NATHAN LANE/himself as a super-gay famous actor whom he would have understood being cast in something, without cursing out the entire production team for including this awful update and without throwing glass vases at all the laughing audience members who think this is somehow funny – Lane gives his all to deliver every line with all his acting prowess as though it’s the most important play ever. Bravo to him, seriously, because his giving 200% is surprisingly what lets him retain his dignity after this mess ends.
So okay, plot. Oh wait, you got it. These characters wait for the reviews to come in. And not just any reviews, but most importantly the New York Times review from Ben Brantley. This is my vote for Worst Shit #1 (tied), because Ben Brantley is a real person who actually had to review this show. And despite it being terrible, he loved it and gave it a positive review – maybe…juuuuust maybe, because the show exalts him as the most important voice in all of theatre??? You think he liked that?
Breathe. So the characters assemble, and as they wait, they kind of fight, they bicker, they drop so many names. Nathan and Matthew have a big fight because Nathan admits that he didn’t take the part because the play sucks (real Nathan wishes he followed his character’s path?), and Broderick makes big lofty speeches about how commercialized the theatre has become. Listen, I saw this show in previews, so these speeches may have been mercifully cut by opening night (though as far as I can find, they haven’t been), but Broderick’s speeches stopped the show faster and more drastically than a ton of bricks falling from the ceiling could have. It was beyond boring. His delivery copied Ben Stein doing “Bueller…Bueller?”. The actual words mirrored Bob Balaban’s end monologue in “The Lady in the Water”, just replacing ‘movies’ with ‘theatre’. I wonder if M. Night has seen this yet and been alternately thrilled and pissed.
F. Murray Abraham, that fantastic serious actor, plays a total jackwagon of a theatre critic who, despite being stuck in this room with these people, tells them how much they suck and how dumb they are. He also acts kind of like a clown, laughing maniacally and creepily, and you’re just like…how did they cast you, fearsome Dar Adal &c., in this role? I feel bad for him.
Rupert Grint gets the shit end of the stick by far when he has to act out a confrontation with his father…in front of all his work colleagues (not to mention the audience)…with…wait for it…hand puppets. That he had in his pockets. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was sad, and embarrassing.
Stockard Channing is another Serious Actor whom I felt intense levels of fremdschamen for the entire time. Important note to producers if they find a time machine: Stockard and Mullally should have switched roles. Stockard mostly talks about drugs and drinking while doing drugs and drinking in front of us, and it’s supposed to be funny because haha addition, but it’s not funny because it’s freaking Stockard Channing and you’re like…hey…hey girl…what are ya doing? Meanwhile, Mullally found success and became super famous because of how good she is at making drugs and drinking somehow freaking hilarious. Why on earth was she playing the uber-wealthy producer instead of the crazy actress? Why?
The saving grace of the entire shebang is Micah Stock, long-lost little brother of Billy Eichner. Micah’s coat-check guy comments on all the celebrities partying downstairs with absolutely no cynicism or really knowledge, just pure sincerity, and he’s hilarious and perfect. My favorite part of the show is when he comes up with coats and says a jumble of sounds that somehow you (if you are a theatre aficionado) know is supposed to be ‘Tovah Feldshuh’. Jokes about the Kardashians and Lady Gaga are less welcome, but he does his damnedest to make you laugh. His heavier presence in the beginning is what lets this show start off with a bang, but his diminished presence later on is what lets all the air out.
Despite all this crap it’s kind of fun? I have a feeling people would compare this ‘it’s bad but you still want to watch it’ feeling to “Grease 2”, but G2 is amazing and that would be too high praise. It’s more like “Never Been Kissed”, I’d say. You cringe the entire time and you cover your eyes at most everything that comes out of Drew Barrymore’s mouth, but Michael Vartan is in it and you love him. So…see it? Maybe?
“Bandstand” On Broadway: War Is The Worst But This Show Is Amazing
In my long, extensive history of theatre obsession, I’ve never been as surprised by a show as I was by “Bandstand”. Well at least in the upward direction; I’ve been downward surprised many a time. Considering how few Tony nominations (THEY MEAN NOTHING) it got, how little chatter there was on my online Broadway forums, and how easily I picked up a few rush tickets one afternoon, I didn’t expect much from the new musical. I wanted to see it because I like Laura Osnes, the star, and because I wanted a solid musical to take my sister-in-law to that I hadn’t already seen. Well. Color me thrilled (and badd) because I was sitting there slack-jawed buggy-eyed and wanting SO bad to shout down to the stage “Ohh my god oh my god you guys, this is REALLY GOOD did you know??” I didn’t obviously because I am of sound mind but guys it really was.
“Bandstand”, which has nothing to do with the old Philly-based show “American Bandstand” no matter how badly my parents want it to, tells the story of World War II veterans who return home to Cleveland and form a rocking swing band in order to win a radio competition. That’s the short version I knew going in. What the ads aren’t selling, and what they should be selling, is that the story deals heavily, primarily really, with the PTSD and severe depression the vets are suffering with upon return. And the guilt. So much guilt. It’s so heavy and difficult, watching them struggle to get through each day, singing about how things will be just like they were before but knowing that nothing could ever be like it was before. This group of veterans forms the band not only to win a competition but because it’s the only thing that helps them wake up and get through the day, and playing music is the only time they aren’t completely incapacitated by their demons. The show deals so directly with these serious issues facing veterans, issues that need to be addressed directly in real life but still aren’t, and the show really should be commended for not sugar-coating it at all. In lots of other art it’s like ‘Oh Johnny drinks every night so he can fall asleep without thinking of all he saw over there’ and that’s all that’s said. In this, it’s that plus stories for every character plus visuals like a platoon of dead soldiers crawling over the piano as our lead tries to play, showing how every moment of his new life is weighed down by his experience.Okay so that sounds like a really sad and unenjoyable show, but it’s not. The severity of what they’re dealing with helps connect the audience to the characters really quickly, and from there we are totally with them on the journey as they find something worth living for. And the music is rollicking and fun and really helps lift everyone’s spirits and provide a sense of joy and hope for the characters. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the swing music considering the last time I listened to it was begrudgingly at school dances in the ‘90s when it was somehow popular at that sort of thing. I mean it’s not wise to compare Broadway musicians to that f-ing horrendous “Zoot Suit Riot” song but still. I’m super impressed by composers Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor considering I don’t know their previous work.
Right at the start of the show, we are somewhere in the Pacific Ocean with Corey Cott and a group of soldiers in trenches, just when some really bad things are about to happen (we know from lights flashing and then darkness). In another section of the stage, Laura Osnes is at home being a homemaker (we know because she’s wearing an apron) when a man in uniform rings her doorbell to bring her some awful news, and we deduce that her husband was just killed in that attack when she opens the door, sees who it is, and crumples to the ground sobbing. So all of this is happening with just the orchestra playing, no words or anything, and despite the fact that you haven’t met anyone yet and despite being maybe 30 seconds long it’s so well done that you will 100% cry. Osnes is a TRAYSURE, as Emily Gilmore would say.
Then the war is over and Corey Cott’s Donny Novitski made it back home to Cleveland. As the ensemble sings about getting back to normal, we see that Donny clearly is too haunted by his experience to know what normal is. He hears about a radio competition looking for the next big swing band, and he thinks it would sure be swell if the winners were a group of just-returned veterans. He sets about finding amazing musicians who have suitably served enough so that they are all broken (maybe not intentional). Meeting the 6 band members is so much fun. Despite not having tons of lines each, they are all given enough time and room to develop individual characters and really make you understand who they are and what they’re going through. Brandon J. Ellis, as big fun Irishman Davy on bass, is the funniest one, making ridiculous jokes and providing some much needed comic relief, although he’s clearly using humor to mask his pain like he does with alcohol. Most of his jokes were new to me, but I loved when the audience roared at one I knew: “A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel on his pants. The bartender says ‘hey, you’ve got a steering wheel on your pants.’ ‘Arghh’, the pirate says, ‘and it’s driving me nuts.’” Oh my god it’s so dumb I love it. Davy is full of jokes like this throughout the show, which is much appreciated. At one point, Davy tells the others guys, “I’ve survived mustard gas and pepper spray. I’m really a seasoned vet.” Grooooaaaan/love it.
Another standout of the band was Joe Carroll as Johnny on drums. His short-term memory and ability to socialize normally is shot because he suffered serious brain damage, as he tells you over and over, when his jeep flipped three times during an attack. His story is heartbreaking, but he uses humor well to get through it, and seems so good-hearted that you just want to give him a hug. At one particularly moving moment, he admits that despite his brain damage, he’s the lucky one of the group because he has fewer memories disturbing his mind all day. And the man providing most of my agita was Geoff Packard as Wayne on trombone, who had the most trouble reacclimating and pretending that normal life was normal at all. Part of his morning ritual was cleaning his gun in the bathroom, and I was 100% sure that meant he was going to kill himself by the time the show was over, especially since he seemed to be the most unable to return to everyday life. Thank god it was the one time when Chekhov’s gun was wrong, because his struggle to get to a point where life was bearable, thanks to this group, was one of the most emotional. Alex Bender as Nick on trumpet and a wonderful James Nathan Hopkins as Jimmy on sax round out the really impressive group of musicians, and although we get a lot of expected conflict between the troubled men, watching them struggle through their issues and try to create great music together was wonderful. And in case you think it’s a total feel good story where music solves all their troubles and they end the show super happy and smiley, that’s not the case at all. It just helps them get out of bed, one day at a time. The fight is shown as constant, not one that you can win in one battle but one that you fight on a continuous basis.
By now you’re probably like um where is Laura Osnes in all this besides reigning over everyone like the queen she is? Laura plays Julia Trojan, a name choice I haven’t yet decided how I feel about because it offers a few funny bits but like is it too forced? not sure. Actually it does lead to a stellar display of Laura’s acting in one conversation about it so maybe I’m for it, although the same conversation could have happened with any odd name. Anyway. Donny, as we saw in the opening, was with Julia’s husband when he died. It turns out they had become best friends, and her husband made Donny promise to look after Julia if he died. Later in the show, more comes out about her husband and his death that I could not have seen coming, and through my horror I was more and more impressed at how much this show kept surprising me without sacrificing substance or form. Donny sees Julia sing in church and is blown away like we all are because she can sang, and he asks Julia to sing with him in the band. I’ve seen Corey and Laura before, but their vocals in this show are astounding. You’ve never heard Laura, usually very angelic and sweet-voiced, belt as insanely as she does here, and Corey’s vocal strength constantly wows too. And he’s playing the piano the entire show, which is so impressive. (Or at the very least he’s really convincingly pretending to play the piano.) He needs to be Broadway’s next sure-thang leading man because hot damn, Corey Cott. Hot damn.
In the first act, the show blends the more serious moments with the band’s performances around town as it tries to build up its repertoire and name. These gigs are upbeat and tons of fun, in large part due to the eye-popping choreography. This is when Andy Blankenbuehler, director and choreographer who won the Tony for choreographing “Hamilton” (and “In the Heights”), gets to shine with his crazy (and I mean CAH RAZY) lifts and throws and super frenetic and energetic dancing in the ensemble. Morgan Marcell (who was also in “Hamilton”) fully distracted me from the band’s performing and Laura’s singing during these scenes as she was like doing figure skating spins and throws but like not on ice. I am in awe. Remember the amazing spin Aaron Tveit and Julianne Hough did on “Grease: Live!” during the Hand Jive (should play that exact moment)? The dancing in these gig scenes was like that but more intense and for the entire time. dammmmn. I don’t like spoiling but here is one little sneak peak.
Another thing that helps lift the spirits from super depression is the performance of Beth Leavel as Julia’s mother, who now lives with her widowed daughter. Beth Leavel is pretty big deal in musical theatre, so at first I was kind of like “ughhh we’re at the point where Beth Leavel is getting jobs as the ingénue’s mother onstage for like five minutes?” But, as I should have expected, Beth turns her small-ish role into a hilarious at times, lovely at other times portrayal and really makes her time onstage meaningful. She gets a touching, beautiful song called “Everything Happens”, about how not everything happens for a reason, but it just happens and we have to get through it somehow, and it’s wonderful. A rare occurrence of that sort of honest sentiment. And she gets to be hilarious as promised during a dinner scene, entering silently with a plate of deviled eggs so red that I was struck and distracted by the color from my balcony seat. I just thought oh that’s a weird move by the prop department. But then Julia and Donny stop talking, look to the eggs and then to Beth and she says, “The lid came off the paprika.” Her delivery was so deadpan and amazing that the audience actually broke into applause. So funny.
Despite being a relatively long show (the first act alone is an hour and a half), it felt shorter than most because of how engaging everything was. We’re there every step of the way as the band tries to make it, and more importantly as the guys try to stay in control of their mental states enough to get through a performance. It’s brilliant to see them decide to stop pretending like everything is fine, and that if they are going to sell themselves as a band of vets then they should be singing about real issues vets face. The band’s big song in the radio competition, “Love Will Come and Find Me Again”, is flipping amazing and I cannot wait to get the cast album oh my god they better make a cast album. The melody and the lyrics aren’t revolutionary, but the character’s sharing is, and the song is perfectly catchy and solid and the performance is so exhilarating and gorgeous that you can’t believe any other competitors came close. And their big climactic performance of their very risky song “Welcome Home” is like if anxiety were set to music, kind of hard to listen to but completely on purpose, and so riveting that you’re scared to blink or breathe lest it affect the magic being created. And also you can’t breathe because if you do the breath will catch in your throat and you will sob.
So the music is so much fun and often incredibly moving, the dancing is awesome, the book is more sophisticated and smarter than most, and the performances are wonderful across the board. At first I thought maybe the direction was overdone, because Andy loves him some busy choreo to the point where it’s sometimes distracting (like in Hamilton) but there are so many moments of brilliance. Andy is a stronger choreographer than director, given his background, and at times there probably should have been another voice tempering the movement. What works with his choreography in ensemble numbers is that it’s busy and frenzied and always interesting to watch. In non-dancing moments, that kind of thinking could be too busy, but here it often works, especially with the ghosts of their service haunting the men constantly. It’s a lot, sometimes too much to know what to focus on, but for this particular show it’s effective. Once, during Donny’s big first song, Andy’s signature kinds of movement were obvious (standing with his legs tightly pressed together with bent knees swinging left and right, a little hunched in the back. I feel like that’s how Andy himself is always moving). It was a little distracting because I remember thinking “Oh that looks like Andy!” not exactly the character. There were little moments like that peppered throughout where the movement didn’t match the action or characters. But for the most part, it was nearly flawless staging.
I really can’t get over how impressed I was with it. Even expected tropes like the inevitable budding romance between our two leads as they help each other work through their shared grief is done in a way that keeps it from being predictable. First of all, Laura and Corey’s chemistry is off the charts. It really was remarkable, so strong that when I remembered Laura is married in real life I was like aw. Second of all, it’s not a clear-cut romance in the least. Their big song together, once they’ve grown closer and everyone else knows they have feelings for each other, is not a love song. Instead it’s them admitting that because of who they are and what they’ve gone through, nothing can happen between them. It was so well done and made their story more realistic and emotional.
This is a pretty stellar Broadway season and, even with a lot of good work happening, this ranks up there as one of my top shows of the year. I know, I can’t believe it either. But aside from Act II getting a little loose in the cage, it’s an endlessly enjoyable, thought-provoking, moving, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting show that hits all the marks necessary to make you cry, laugh, and smile a lot. A lot a lot. Now that “Dear Evan Hansen” is sold out for probably as long as the earth has left, this is the show I’m most hoping succeeds. Go buy tickets, everyone, so it doesn’t close because I kind of want to see it again and I can’t go back to NYC until the fall!
THEATRE INFO
Toilets are in the basement, and only in the basement! Luckily there is only one mezzanine level, but still, that means at intermish you are running down two flights of stairs. It moves okay though.
Rush tickets ($30) are generally easy to get. No one is camping out at 4am like for other shows. After those sell out, the box office offers ‘secondary rush’ at $49. These seats actually have a better view than the first wave of rush, so it’s worth the extra money to wait.
