The idea of turning Richard Linklater’s brilliant 2003 film comedy, School of Rock (about a struggling guitarist/substitute teacher coaching his prep-school students on how to, well, rock), into a Broadway musical sounds like a great one. All you need is a book writer capable of preserving the wit and warmth of Mike White’s screenplay, a […]
Tag: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Posted inTheater Review
Glitter and be God
You want irony? How’s this—the actor originally cast as Judas in the 50th-anniversary touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar, James Beeks, was dismissed from the tour after being arrested for his participation in the January 6 insurrection. In his pretrial motion, Beeks claimed that he didn’t recognize the authority of the government and that he […]
Posted inTheater Review
A fresh Evita
Marcia Milgrom Dodge demonstrates in Drury Lane’s Evita what great casting in 2022 looks like. The director and choreographer gathered a cast diverse in race, age, and body type, creating what feels like an authentic picture of Argentina from 1934 to 1952. There is no color line among the military, upper-class, or poor. Her diverse […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hollis Resnik is big, but the score stays small in Porchlight’s Sunset Boulevard
A great star turn can’t quite overcome the limitations of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 musical.
Posted inArts & Culture
Lyric’s Jesus Christ is, indeed, a superstar
He causeth the amplifiers to thunder and glitter to rain down upon the stage.
Posted inArts & Culture
A Dickens Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, and nine more new stage shows
A clever mashup of fact and fiction and a “radio show” version of the holiday classic are among this week’s best bets.
Posted inArts & Culture
The Phantom of the Opera and four more new stage shows
The longest-running musical on Broadway returns to Chicago as impressive as ever.
Posted inArts & Culture
Hair gets back to its roots
American Theater Company revitalizes Hair, the 1967 “American tribal love-rock musical.”
Posted inBlogs
Reader’s Agenda Sun 5/19: An organic beer garden, 60 years of blues, and Andrew Lloyd Webber
What’s on the Reader‘s Agenda for Sunday, May 19
Posted inArts & Culture
Cats
Cats, Shubert Theatre. When Cats opened on Broadway 20 years ago, it was a sensation. More spectacle than story, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical transported theatergoers to a moonlit junkyard populated by sinuous, stretching, preening cats with electronic glittering eyes, all competing for the privilege of ascending to heaven in a spaceship and being reborn. But […]
Posted inMusic
Face It, It’s Opera
THE MUSIC OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER IN CONCERT at the Auditorium Theatre October 17-22 I have no doubt that composer Andrew Lloyd Webber will be known to future generations as the most successful opera composer of the second half of the 20th century. Few, I suppose, would question his unparalleled success. Not only is his […]