Else what's a heaven for?

With Columbus Day Actual falling on a Weds this year, I couldn't go away for the holiday, but I could catch a matinee. My mum even offered to buy tickets for the three of us. Too bad there was nothing to see. I read through the listings for all the Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and the only ones that sounded even moderately interesting were Book of Mormon and Warhorse. My father would've complained about the former just as he complained about and made us turn off Team America (something I did not want to deal with on Columbus Day Actual) and they'd already seen Warhorse.

Ironically, a dramatization of Venus in Furs was opening the very next day and the matinee for Newsies was on Thursday. Grr-argh. Honestly though, there's no way I'd've been able to explain why I left Manhattan to go see a musical in Millburn, NJ on Columbus Day Actual. Except that it was awesome.

I'd read a while back that they were trying to make a stage version of cult movie Newsies and then I accidentally read a NY Times article with a favorable review of the Paper Mill Playhouse production. It's not explicitly a pre-Broadway tryout, but as the Musical Theatre Muffin commented, there's a lot of people hoping.

Unfortunately, I don't think the production was convincing in this respect. The songs from the movie are great and I think Alan Mencken's new tunes are delightful. I don't like most of the new script as much: Harvey Fierstein threw in more liberal commentary and they changed Bill Pullman's reporter character to a female to give the show (more of) a love plot. Discussing it afterward, I realized that there's something fishy about that love plot: they explicitly mention Jack Kelly is 17 - which btw is too old to be a newsie, but whatever - but a female reporter should be older than that. There's a twist at the end with the printing press that almost reconciled me to her character. Ok, not really.

Age is a big problem for this musical. I understand the ironic child labor laws that make it impossible to do a live production with reasonably appropriate children, but the story is less compelling when the urchins are portrayed by fully grown men. The dancing is wonderful - there's a lot of random acrobatics thrown in - and it's wonderful to see a pro's (live) choreography of "King of NY". It was very well worth going to NJ. I'm glad I got to join Junior for her first proper musical.

Especially since it looks unlikely I'm going to be able to achieve my New Year's Resolution to see more shows this year than last. So far I've seen 3 (H2$, Anything Goes, and Newsies), but I saw 6 last year. I should take better advantage of a Manhattan apt in walking distance of Broadway and in crawling distance to Lincoln Center. Unfortunately, they're not making this easy. Most of what's opening later this year is star turns: Hugh Jackman sings stuff on Broadway; Mandy Patinkin & Patti LuPone sing different stuff on Broadway (while the new production of Evita starring *gag* Ricky Martin and a British chick I'm really curious about opens next year); and Alan Rickman plays a kinda evil professor in Seminar. I'm very interested in seeing the last, as well as Venus in Furs.

I have a pair of tickets for Dreams of Flying, Dreams of Falling for next Weds Oct 26: anyone want to join me? My theater buddy misread his calendar. *sighs* #damncalendars

On the plus side, he told me to skip the Met's new production of Don Giovanni. I can only really tolerate one opera per year and I've never seen Don Giovanni, so it was on the list. I'm also considering the Des "Tommy revival" McAnuff production of Gounod's Faust, which I've always been curious about after reading The Phantom of the Opera. I was also considering Aida (I don't think I've seen the opera) and Satyagraha (haven't really liked the music, but since the Met doesn't seem to be doing Akhnaten, we do what we must). I don't understand why City Opera isn't doing anything crowd-pleasing this season.

Next year on Broadway won't be much better: we're getting Ghost The Musical and Rebecca The Musical. *sighs* The SATC girls are coming to town in Private Lives and Wit, while Sarah Jessica Parker's husband will be in a new Gershwin jukebox musical. My mum was very impressed with his co-star at Caramoor, so I might con her into taking me; Gershwin musicals are awfully good for big dance numbers.

Anyhow, if you'd like to join me for any of these - especially the play next Weds, but also Seminar, Venus in Furs, or an opera - let me know.