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Today on Broadway: Wednesday, April 9, 2025
00:15:30
Tony-Winning Icon Will Finn Dies at 73, Critics Weigh in on ‘BOOP!’ Jamie Lloyd Finds London Che Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every Monday through Friday.
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Matt Tammanini
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Wednesday, April 9, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammanini and I'm.
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Grace Locke
Telling Me on a Sunday Podcast, Grace Locke.
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Matt Tammanini
Grace On Tuesday night we have our latest Broadway opening, that is with Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. The reviews are embargoed for later in the evening, so we will have those on tomorrow's episode. This is a show that I saw on Sunday, actually wrapped up my trip on Sunday. I feel pretty confident that people are going to enjoy it, but it's a review, so I don't know that this will necessarily be a major awards contender or anything like that, but it is certainly a love letter to everybody who loves Stephen Sondheim. All right, Grace, I had originally assumed that we would start today's episode with the reviews for Boop. The musical, which opened technically on Saturday, but the reviews were embargoed for Monday night. Unfortunately, we do have to start somewhere else because we learned on Tuesday that the legendary Tony Award winning book writer and composer William Finn died after a lengthy illness at the age of 73. There were no details given as to what the illness was or anything along those lines, but news of his passing certainly rocked the theater community. On Tuesday, Finn actually only had three shows that ever made it to Broadway, although there was a fourth show that he wrote one song for. But the two major works that he did have on Broadway, Falsettos and the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, are two of the most iconic and beloved shows in the modern musical theater canon. But then he also had a number of other shows that that played off Broadway and it continued to play around the world, including things like A New Brain, the Little Miss Sunshine musical that was eventually off Broadway. He also wrote a musical adaptation of the Royal Family of Broadway and there are a number of different reviews of his things that are still available. And of course he did all of the short one act musicals in Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsetto Land that eventually were all combined together to become falsettos. And Grace, I didn't know this that he actually wrote songs for The Brave Little Toaster films, I know that those were something that when I was a teenager, those were pretty popular, and I had no idea that he was involved with those. But on Tuesday, so many people were sharing experiences of working with him, Grace. And obviously he is somebody who meant a ton to theater fans, not only because of his talent, but also because he was really the first person to put gay characters and characters dealing with HIV and AIDS into popular musicals on Broadway. So his. His impact both on fans and artists is. Is pretty immense.
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Grace Locke
Yeah, I've. I've just seen so many clips. I know one of them, especially from, like Josh Layman, frequently collaborated, I think was a part of New Brain at some time, but also did Little Miss Sunshine and had done some other things. And just the outpouring of love from so many people has been so touching. And I'm just really that people are able to share so many fantastic memories of collaborating with this artist. You know, a lot of times, well established creative team members, when people pass like they either have the most rave reviews of collaboration, and some of them, it's. It's, you know, more bittersweet. But this one is very, very, very clear that people are really mourning this loss.
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Matt Tammanini
Yeah. And I think it's so interesting that we mentioned a New Brain, and that was in at least in part inspired by his real life experience of having brain surgery. He had avm, which is. I'm gonna screw up this. This medical term, arteriovenous malformation in his brain stem, and he had to have surgery that led to the musical A New Brain. And obviously a lot of his experiences in the late 20th century led into falsettos, especially as we started to see the AIDS pandemic spread across the country. And the. The. Our thoughts are with everybody who not only loved William Finn's work, but knew and loved him personally as well. All right, Grace, that will bring us to the story that I thought would start the show, and that is the reviews for Boop. The Musical. On yesterday's show, I talked about my thoughts in brief on the show. Grace, you actually don't know this because I recorded it after we were done. I realized I probably should have done that, so I added it afterwards. But I will have my full thoughts in the final travelogue episode that'll come out either today or tomorrow, because I want to make sure that I wait to get on all of the embargo times settled for old friends. But this is a musical, of course, based on the iconic 20s and 30s cartoon star Betty Boop. That was created by Max Fleischer, and the show has a book by Bob Martin, music by David Foster, and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. It is directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, and it stars as the title character, a resplendent Jasmine. Amy Rogers also features Eric Bergen, Steven DeRosa, Angelica Hale, Philip Huber, who is a puppeteer, doing the dog, Pudgy, Anastasia McCleskey, Ainsley Melham, Aubrey Mariliss, Faith Prince and more. As of recording time, the review aggregator site Did They like it? Has collected 15 reviews, nine are positive, four are mixed, and two were negative. I if you listened yesterday, I was in the negative camp. But I can understand where some of these critics are positive in the aggregate, because a lot of them are saying that the show is fine. It's kind of frivolous. But Jasmine is so good that you can overlook a lot of things, and I completely understand that perspective. Let's start with Jesse Green of the New York Times, who was mixed. He said, quote, some shows are what shows? Leaving you baffled. Perhaps they involve roller skating trains or shrouds of Turin. Others are HAL shows, as in Dear God, how did that happen? But the most disappointing subgenre of musical, at least in terms of opportunity cost, is the why Show, a well crafted, charmingly performed, highly professional production that nobody asked for. Its intentions are foggy and sometimes suspicious. Boop the Musical, now playing at the Broadhurst Theater in a production directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, is a why show par excellence. And excellence it is. As Betty, the flapper of early talker cartoons, Jasmine Amy Rogers, is immensely likable. She sings fabulously, sports a credible perma smile, nails all the Boop mannerisms, and has a fetching way with a tossed off line. I can't imagine anyone making more of the exhausting opportunity, let alone in a Broadway debut, he continues. David Foster's music in a jazzy Brassen Reed Cy Coleman vein pops nicely. The lyrics by Susan Birkenhead are far better crafted than you dare hope for these days. But none of that explains or justifies the show's existence. Nor, despite enormous effort, can the book by Bob Martin. Granted, Broadway history has proved that ludicrousness is not in itself a detriment to enjoyment. But laboriousness is, and it's only with the groaning of heavy machinery underneath it that Boop approaches the semblance of a lighthearted surface. Betty Boop, if not the earliest cartoons she appears in, is still under copyright protection. No doubt the Fleischler heirs with one eye on Barbie would like to exploit their biggest star before she goes bust. Fair enough, who wouldn't? But a merch grab is not the same as a musical. The answer to why should not come from mere marketeers. Going to One of the positive reviews Adam Feldman gave the show four out of five stars in Timeout New York saying quote, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, there's an old fashioned candy shop of a show where tasty confections are sold in bulk. When Boop is corny, it's candy corn. Gorge on the multicolored gumdrops of its high energy production numbers, chew the jelly beans of its gentle social mindedness, let the caramel creams of its love story melt slightly over sweetly in your mouth and above all, savor this show's red hot cinnamon heart. Jasmine Amy Rogers Making a sensational Broadway debut as the 1930s animated short icon Betty Boop, Jackson McHenry was mixed in Vulture saying, quote we may not know Betty Boop deeply, but we can agree she has that certain IT quality that has made her stick around for nearly a century, even if just on lunchboxes. I wish after seeing this musical I were closer to identifying why Matt Wenman of AM New York was negative though. He said, quote, yes, it's kid friendly. Yes, it's visually slick, but it's also toothless. A show about a boundary pushing cartoon icon shouldn't feel this safe or generic. Betty Boop may be ready for a close up, but this isn't the vehicle she deserves. You are better off watching the original animated shorts on YouTube and believe it or not, this one shocks me. Grace, we're going to wrap up with a positive review from the New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski. He says, quote rogers can do it all. As smiley, effervescent and well animated as the actress is for most of the night, she finds power and emotional resonance in her 11 o'clock number. Something to shout About Like I said, I think that this show, if it had opened last year, that Jasmine would have been the front runner and potentially shoot in to win the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a musical. I thought the rest of the show was pretty subpar, but she is so good, Grace, that I'd like I'm kind of happy that I was out of step with the other critics because that means that hopefully they'll be able to use these positive reviews to get more and more people into the Broadhurst Theater to check out Jasmine's performance because she is as wonderful and electric and as exciting to see as we had hoped and however long she remains in Boop, however long it runs, I think this is the beginning of a very, very incredible career for her.
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Grace Locke
You know, I can't wait to see this. Unfortunately, I was, like, triple booked on the day that I was supposed to go see it, so I'm rescheduling that now. I can't wait to know. I think it's fascinating so much of the conversation around the show with those reviews, with word on the street with creators, things like that, that I've, you know, contact with it is all across the board. But what stays consistent is everyone raving about her. And I think that that is the most important narrative right now, especially the fact that, like, Betty Boop has a long history of, you know, kind of like an erasure of coming from a black woman. I also don't want this to have history repeat itself where we miss sight and lose sight of, you know, what's. What's kind of the exciting factor here for this show is her is Jasmine, Amy Rogers. So I can't wait to see that firsthand. And I love puppets. Broadway, so congratulations, Pudgy. You made it.
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Matt Tammanini
All right, Grace. I'm dive into last week's Broadway grosses really quickly. For the most part, every show was down basically because it was the end of spring break and a lot of the tourists had left. But Overall, Broadway had 39 shows last week and ended up grossing 42,361,129. Attendance was at 322,960 people, and the average ticket price was $131.17. Despite that fact, we did still have two shows north of $3 million, and Othello retook lead mainly because I think Good Night and Good Luck had to deal with opening and all of the comps that go with that. But Othello came in at $3,179,908. Good Night and Good Luck was still north of $3,000,000 at $3,135,536. There was only one show that was also above 2 million, and that was Wicked at 2,476,681. All of the other shows north of seven figures in descending order are the Lion King, Hamilton, Glengarry Glen Ross, the Outsiders, Aladdin, Picture of Dorian Gray. In just seven shows, mj oh, Mary, Gypsy, Death Becomes her, the Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge, Cabaret, the Kit Kat Club, and Sunset Boulevard. Cursed Child was very, very close as well in its first week of performances, and this one's a little different because Just in Time did seven performances. So it's pretty darn close to its normal playing week. But it did $901,972. And if you extrapolate eight shows that would have come in at just about 1,030,000 bucks. There were 26 of Broadway's 39 shows that played a 90% capacity or more. We had Pirates, the Penzance Musical, oh Mary and wicked all at 100% north of 100% but below 101% were just in Time, Glengarry, Glen Ross, the Picture of Dorian Gray and John Proctor is the villain. The outsiders were at 101.57% but they were not the top show that actually went to Good Night and Good Luck, which was at 101.72. All right, Grace, real quick, we're going to talk about a pair of Jamie Lloyd shows because yesterday we found out who would be starring opposite Rachel Zegler in the London revival of Evita that Jamie is going to be directing this summer and he is pulling from his roster of folks that he already has been working with because Diego Andres Rodriguez has been cast as Shay in this production. Diego plays Artie in the current Broadway revival of Sunset Boulevard and I believe he is also an understudy for Joe Gillis and I think he's gone on quite a few times. When I spoke with Manigan Dallas, she had gone on with him, I think the last time she was doing the role. But he will star opposite Rachel Zegler when the performances begin on June 14th. And then speaking of Mandy Gonzalez, yesterday she released the complete schedule of when she would be performing as Norma Desmond starting next Tuesday and running through July 1st. So if you want to check those out, you can see them in the show notes. And then Grace, I've got a couple of recommendations. First up, there's a show coming up on Monday night over at 54 Below that is a show that is a musical that does say that it's you don't see a whole lot of shows come out and say in press releases that they are aiming for Broadway with having a concert at 54 below that's pretty ambitious. But the show is called Picasso in Paris and it obviously has to deal with Pablo Picasso and his work while living in France during Nazi occupation. The show was co written by Sir Kenneth Hawkins and Paul Cozby with music by Cosby, Luis Bonuelis and Patrick Ray Andrews. So if you want to check this out, see what a show that is aiming for Broadway looks like in an abbreviated concert form. You can check that out in the show notes. And then I also have all of the performance videos from the Oliviers, everything from the Curious Case of Benjamin Button to Starlight Express to the In Memoriam segment to the opening number that features Billy Porter and Beverly Knight. If you want to see what things look like over there, you can do that now, my darling, come back home to me. All right, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Radio. And you can follow me on Instagram @bwwmatt. Grace, where can people find you?
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Grace Locke
You can find me at. It's Grace Hockey.
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Matt Tammanini
All right, everybody, have a wonderful Wednesday, and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow. Not tonight.
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Grace Locke
It.