B (2:43)

Yeah, I'm really excited. Look, I hope that's not the good shows. Like, you know, I got to be there for Rent, and, well, I didn't get to actually see Red there, but for Newsies was, like, a crazy phenomenon that I think was supposed to be so limited. But, yeah, no, I. I'm excited for it to have, like, this really lovely several months, you know, hopefully with, you know, success kind of moment there at that theater. And it's been a minute since I've gotten to, like, hang out at the Nederlander, so I'm really excited to be a part of that in some capacity. I am excited to welcome people to Schmigadoon, which is a real town that people can visit. I highly encourage you to do so.

A (3:22)

Wait, what now?

B (3:24)

Yeah, Schmegadoon. It's a real place.

A (3:26)

Is it? How do you get there?

B (3:28)

You can go starting in April.

A (3:30)

Oh, okay. Do you have to, like, go through a secret portal to get there, like the characters do on the show?

B (3:36)

I would argue that the doors to the Nederlander are a secret portal because that one, you know, back area there's the reason that the Rent wall, everyone signed. It's because it's such a. Like, a shallow alleyway that you have to go backstage. So in many ways, there is a portal.

A (3:52)

Okay. All right. We will check back in with that in the very near future. All right, Grace. On the last two shows, we did review roundups for things that opened on Broadway, but we didn't hit the reviews for another very major show that opened off Broadway. So I want to just run through some of the reviews for Masquerade, the immersive phantom that opened off Broadway on Monday. I will just have some of them. I'll have the Broadway World Review Roundup in there. But I do want to hit first Alexis Soloski, writing for the New York Times, and she said, quote, for better and for worse, Masquerade is Phantom Remixed. Many songs have been truncated, as has the book and much other music added. The chronology owes more to the unloved 2004 film version, as does the interpolation of a ballad, Learned to Be Lonely that played over the movie's credits and probably should have stayed there. But the story and characters are much the same. Masquerade, even more so than the original, makes this the Phantoms show entirely we are here, a greeter tells us to be guided through his darkest dreams. There's a ballet set within his workshop, and an extended flashback reveals his time in a circus sideshow, a sequence used to explain and expiate his crimes. It's all very sexy, provided you are comfortable excusing the bad behavior of powerful men and decentering the experience of a woman deceived. Christine, a character who only makes sense if she is either narcotized or pathologically naive, is rendered even less legible here. It's a shame that Paulus Diane Paulus, the director who directed a Broadway revival of 1776 starring female, transgender and non binary performers, couldn't find more space between the notes to explore Christine's circumstances or to dress her in more than negligee. What about her ambition? Her desires? Both Christines I saw were excellent. Alexis saw two different performances, particularly the winning and extremely youthful Anna Zavilson. And the Phantoms were skillful too. I saw Kyle Scatliff, a resident baritone, opposite Aaron Lacroix, Jeff Creedy opposite Zavilson. Yet at times the performances seemed superfluous. This is Vibes based theater, which I think is something that a lot of people thought as well. And then I want to mention Vulture's review because Sarah Holden and Jackson McHenry did a back and forth review where they kind of talked it out. This is very reminiscent of the one that the New York Times did for King Kong the Musical. However, this one is actually not just a lame attempt for bad writers to try to get off even worse jokes. This is actually fairly thoughtful. I'll read just part of the back and forth here. Sarah Holdren said Quote I know this whole thing had a $25 million budget, but there were moments going up and down escalators or jogging down flickering corridors or into the Phantom's lair of creepy little automaton inventions. Very Blade Runner. When I felt a spirit Halloween vibe and I didn't hate it. The budget line for drippy looking electric candles alone must be through the roof, Jackson said. Quote I'm also of two minds about how effectively the gambit works. On the one hand, it injects the whole thing with this lively, creepy, crawly, campy energy. On the other, it hits the fundamental stumbling blocks of Phantom with its shins pretty hard. Like that whole tragic backstory or the moralizing at the end of the show when the audience in sympathy with the Phantom is asked to unmask and Sarah responds, oh, God, we don't need the backstory. I don't need to know that he was a sad little boy whose mom abandoned him to creepy carnies. As much as I like creepy carnies, I think this is where the sentimentality of our own era runs up against the gothic, which is actually so much more hardcore. We're desperate to provide psychological explanations for our phantoms, our Heathcliffs, our Cathys. Hurt. People hurt. Yeah. Okay, just tell me a good ghost story. And quickly. Adam Feldman of TimeOut New York gave it four out of five stars. Even Johnny Oleksinski seemed to really like in the New York Post, saying, a few smart, artful additions raise masquerade to something far greater than a jolly tourist attraction. Paulus, when she's firing on all cylinders, knows how to fuse the commercial with the profound. So, Grace, I don't think you or I have seen this show yet. I don't know if you or I are going to see this show, but it sounds like if you can get over some of the issues that were always baked into Phantom, that it's a pretty cool experience, even if it doesn't do a ton to elevate the material from where it was 40 years ago when it premiered.

B (8:11)

I think it's interesting that people keep talking about, like, centering the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera, because I always view it as, like, Christine's show. I love going to musicals where the title is not actually the focal point of the person, and so I do find that kind of interesting. It makes me want to see it because I am always interested when a narrative is taken away from a voice that I think is, like, particularly. Especially in that piece. Her. Her voice is literally, like, ripped from her. You know what I mean? So I'm. I'm curious how that feels in the setting. I don't even know if they're, you know, letting people. I mean, the tickets are so hard to get. Like, who knows if we'll ever see it? But I am interested in a lot of those takeaways, for sure.

A (9:01)

Yeah. I think when we talked about the art reviews a week or so ago, I was like, I don't really. I mean, like, you have to talk about the show itself when you're reviewing a revival. But I, like, I don't want them to the show itself as much as this production, because, like, that's already out there. This is a completely different thing, obviously, because this is not Phantom of The Opera. They're not even calling it Phantom of the Opera. So while it is the same source material, this is something different. So the fact that they are kind of reorganizing the focus of the show, for better or for worse, I think that's really noteworthy in a lot of these reviews. And I think it's fair to talk about the fact that, like the Phantom, although he is like, especially in this version, considered like the tragic hero, like he's the villain. And anything that kind of makes us move beyond that, I think is an interesting take, especially from Diane Paulus, who has such a great grasp over theatrical storytelling, that there was obviously a pretty definitive reason for why those changes were made. All right, let's dive into last week's Broadway grosses and folks. They weren't very good, to be quite honest with you. Only seven shows moved up week to week. And some of those were for obvious reason reasons like they added more shows. But in total, there were 28 shows on Broadway last week and the grosses were down 4%. About $1.5 million to come in at 30,783,164 bucks. Attendance down 6% to 233,580 people. But the average ticket price rose 2% to $131.79. At the top of the grosses ladder was Hamilton yet again. And I think it will be for quite a while. At $3,773,354. Just over 2 million was wicked over art back at eight shows after its three show week last week came in at 1.65 million. Mamma Mia was at 1.65 as well. And then Waiting for Godot now on an eight week show was at 1.6. Rounding out the top five. The rest of the shows north of seven figures in descending order are the Lion King, oh Mary, Just in time. Death becomes her. Maybe happy ending, Hell's Kitchen, MJ and Buena Vista Social Club. The one show I want to point out that did not make $1 million is Ragtime because it only did three performances. But it did come in at 451,554 bucks. Extrapolated over an eight show week, that would be 1.2 million, which is a pretty good start for that show. In total, 17 of Broadway's 28 shows played to 90% capacity or more. Ragtime, oh Mary, Waiting for Godot and Wicked all played to 100% capacity. Art and Mamma Mia were right around 100.5. Hamilton was at 101.5. And then just in time continues to just pack people in to circle in the square at 103.37. Moving on to some show and casting news real quickly, Grace. Yesterday, the Roundabout Theater Company announced dates for some of their Broadway and Off Broadway shows. Alex Lin's Chinese Republicans will begin performances off Broadway on February 5th, and it'll play through April 5th. Beginning on March 26th at Studio 54, we will get a revival of Rocky Horror Picture show, directed by Sam Pinkleton. And then the other spring Broadway show from Roundabout will begin performances on March 27 and at the Todd Haymes Theater. This will be a new production of Noel Coward's Fallen Angels starring Kelli o' Hara and Rose Byrne. And then moving off Broadway, a show that you have talked about quite a bit because you interviewed the playwright Rishi Varma. Sulfur Bottom has extended off Broadway and is now currently playing at the theater center through October 25th. Now, Gracie, you had recently gone over to your beloved Cherry Lane Theater to see a new show, like the first show that opened it. You also went to, I don't know, was it a talk back or a movie screening on Monday night. So tell us about both the theatrical and the film exploits at the newly renovated and refurbished Cherry Lane Theater.

B (12:54)

It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. A24 has done an amazing job with the Cherry Lane Theater to the shock of literally no one. But the chairs are comfortable. It's a green velvet. It's really, really nice. The seating has ample leg room, which is always good to see in a tiny Off Broadway theater. I was okay, but of course, I'm under 5 fe take that with a grain of salt. But I do have knee problems, so I was able to, you know, stretch and do all the things I needed. Got to see what is now open, which is Natalie Palamides. I believe I'm saying her name right, but forgive me, Natalie's play, We're W E E R, which is playing now through November. I believe the rest of the run is sold out, but they do day of rush tickets for $24, like an hour before the curtain. It's an amazing character piece. This is very much a classic character, one person, you know, driven show. But it is. It is a show. I would say that, like, it. It goes further to be more of like a character show that I would see at ucb, Soho Playhouse, things like that. Soho Theater in London. I know that she played it there rather than something that I would call like a, quote, play. I mean, there is play. It is theater. But I want you to kind of like, if you're gonna go see this. It's definitely a character piece where Natalie is split physically down the middle playing two roles, both, both characters in the play. It's an unbelievable feat. The the tech team and everyone that helps her pull this off is astounding in the theater. It is hilarious, it is moving, it is funny. It is perfect for anybody who lived through the 90s. The show starts off at New Year's Eve 1990 says and it's just funny. And it's meant to kind of like poke fun at 90s rom coms. It's poking fun at human interaction in plays. It's poking fun at some audience participation without giving anything away. It's spectacularly done. I cannot recommend it enough. Really great start to the Cherry Lane theater takeover from a24.

A (15:08)

And how is our boy Spike?

B (15:10)

Spike Lee did a post show conversation of his documentary from 1997 called Four Little Girls about the bombing that took place in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960s where four young girls were murdered. It is a terribly challenging real documentary that was made by him and he did a post show conversation which was very raw. There were no phones allowed, so he didn't record anything. But I do want to take away with the fact that there were so many film students in that room and he was giving such great advice to them and really making them realize that like it's not that like it's serious, but like just be a person. Like, you know, how do you get your subjects to, you know, open up like this? He was like, have a conversation before you put a camera in their face. Like, you know, it's just like basic communication and human instincts. And I think that because we all have camera phones now, we're just excited expected to open up and perform all the time. And something that was really nice to like level set that he offered was that there's like a level of humanity to that storytelling that I think can also be transferred into theater as well.

A (16:15)

Love that. One of the absolute best to ever do it. Speaking of some of the best to do it, this list is not necessarily the ones to ever do it, but the ones that could potentially do it. Because this week time released its 2025 time 100 next list and there were a number of theater folks on that list, including Jonathan Bailey, Helen J. She, Sanaz Tosi, Lola Tang and Kara Young. Jonathan Bailey was interviewed by his Wicked co star Ariana Grande for the piece. He was the COVID star of the of the whole piece Also in the piece included messages from Sara Bareilles about Helen J. Shin, Lynn Nottage about Sanaz Tusi, Jenny Han about Lola Tung and Leslie Odom Jr. On Kara Young. So if you want to read all of those, we will have that link in the show notes. And then Grace, we talked about the whole fact that Ragtime was now in performances on Broadway and doing very well. On Monday night, two of the show stars, Joshua Henry and Michelle Lewis, went over to the Ed Sullivan Theater and performed Wheels of a Dream on the Late show with Stephen Colbert. If you want to check out the audio and video for that, we will have it in the show notes. Very cool that they didn't do it in costume. There was no acting, which is something that I think is I like this better. The Late show has often done this where they have just Broadway people come and do just like versions of the songs wearing normal people clothes, not costumes. That's really, really effective, especially for a show that is a period piece otherwise. But the songs is, the songs are so good that I think that really can communicate the story. So check that out. Maybe I'll be playing it underneath here a little bit and obviously get over to the Vivian Beaumont. Beyond all of this lifetime that car full of hope will always with the promise of happiness. All right, everybody, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Rodrigo. If you want more BroadwayRadio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace, where can people find you?

B (18:28)

You can find me Reisaki.

A (18:29)

All right, everybody, have a wonderful Wednesday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow. And he will ride our son will ride on the wheels of our dream.