San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas had a long-standing professional and personal relationship with “West Side Story” composer Leonard Bernstein making the June 10, 2014 release of the live recording of the first-ever concert performance of Mr. Bernstein’s complete score for the iconic musical quite significant. Equally significant is the recording itself. Mr. Tilson Thomas and the San…
“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” is a rollicking romp through the hilarious escapades of Monty Navarro (Bryce Pinkham) as he eagerly disposes of any relative who appears to be an obstacle in his desire to become the heir to the Earl of Highhurst and the D’Ysquith family fortune. It is a sumptuous theatrical feast that serves up seven…
As parodies go, Seth Rudetsky’s “Disaster!” is among the best. Eschewing lampooning just one disaster-genre movie, Mr. Rudetsky and Mr. Plotnick successfully spoof several of the catalog of doomsday films of the 1970s that feature the disfigurement, death, and discord that results from some combination of electrical or natural gas disturbances; earthquakes; floods; tsunami; sinking ships; plagues; or infestations. There…
Anyone with fears that there is a dearth of new musicals on the horizon can stop worrying: the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) has been hard at work since 1989 introducing writers and their new musicals to significant theatre industry leaders. The nine new musicals introduced at this year’s Festival garnered overwhelming support from those leaders who packed Stages…
“What the world needs now is love, sweet love/It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” (Hal David/Burt Bacharach, 1965) Affirming that the world needed love in 1965 and continues to need love in the twenty-first century is a lovely thought and a fitting mantra for a world mired in ennui and daily teetering on the brink of…