Transcript
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Mickey Jo (2:00)
So here's the thing. When it came to finally planning which shows I was going to see on my upcoming New York trip, I found myself actually saying the words, what if two weeks just isn't enough time? And I said that not because of all the shows I wanted to see on Broadway, but because of the wealth of exciting new productions opening Off Broadway. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theater theatre. I am, as many of you will already know at this point, a professional theatre critic and a content creator and an enthusiast based here in the uk, but who travels frequently to New York to go and see as many Broadway and Off Broadway shows as possible. I try and see pretty much everything worth seeing. But ultimately, and try as I might, the Atlantic Ocean does remain something of an obstacle to me. And so when I get to travel to New York three or four times a year, I have to choose which shows I'm going to go and see. Not only that, but which shows I'm going to go and cover and review for everybody following on social media, which is a great reminder for you to make sure you're following me with notifications turned on so you don't miss my upcoming New York content and reviews. Some very exciting shows on the roster, let me tell you. In fact, literally, let me tell you, because that's, that's what I'm doing right now. And I dare say those of you who don't live in New York and who are used to visiting or visiting London for theatre, perhaps are used to the sensation of trying to figure out what you can see in a finite amount of time. So today, with so many new productions opening, many of which I have not yet seen, I'm going to give you a sense of my perspective on the full season by way of the shows that I have chosen to see for myself, which is a combination of the things which I think are the most buzzy, the most exciting, and the things which I think will actually be the best theatre. As always, we are going to do this under three different headings. I will tell you the shows that I am definitely seeing, have already booked the shows that I am hoping to see or will maybe see, which is already a longer list than slots I have left to see shows, so they're not all going to make the cut and perhaps the even more intriguing shows that I am not planning to see specifically. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section down below. Let me know of the shows on my roster you're most excited to hear my thoughts about. Let me know any shows that I might have missed that you would like to bring to my attention. Or just let us know the shows that you are most excited to see in New York over the next couple of months. In the meantime, start spreading the news. I am leaving today. Well, I'm leaving in 48 hours at the time of filming, but let me tell you all about the shows that I will be seeing or not on my upcoming trip to Broadway. Okie dokie, let's see. Start with the positives and let me tell you what I am definitely going to be seeing, starting with the reason for the season. Although the season is actually its old title. I am talking about the Broadway Opening of Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York I am so excited to get to see this in New York. Not because I haven't already seen the show both off West End in the West End and regionally in the US when it was produced a couple of months ago at the American Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts, but because New York audiences en masse haven't yet had the opportunity to see this show. It has not yet been produced in Manhattan. It's set there. It is in many ways a love letter to the city. I'm so excited to see this with an audience full of New Yorkers. I think that is deliciously exciting. Unless of course it's an audience full of other people like myself who are all hoping to be surrounded by New Yorkers and none of us are. Hopefully that's not the case. But I am very excited for this new British musical that has made its way to Manhattan in the slipstream of shows like Operation Mincemeat, which conjures many of the same feel good, romantic, intimate, small vibes of the successful Tony Award winning musical. Maybe happy ending. And I call it the reason for the season because this is why we are going to New York when we are. This is why the trip is timed as such. It also happens to overlap with a couple of other openings, including the one which I think all of you are going to be the most excited for me to cover. Of all the reviews I will be sharing after my trip, I think this is going to get the most views and that is the revival of of Chess. And I may be on nobody's side, but I will be in the auditorium for one of the upcoming performances of Chess at the Imperial Theatre. I am so excited to hear this score sung by this fantastic company. I am very intrigued to experience the new book, the reworked version. It has been decades since Chess was last seen on Broadway. I couldn't miss it. I had to be there for this one and I am very excited to be going there in an official critical capacity. So this is one of those shows that you are going to see a full YouTube review from me about which is very exciting and revival revivals seem to be very much the thing on Broadway right now because another reason that my stagey fiance Erin James are going at the time that we are is to go and see Ragtime at Lincoln Center. Now we've technically seen the majority of this company and essentially the earlier iteration of this production when it was staged at New York City center, but I'm never going to pass up the opportunity to go and see Ragtime. It is one of my favorite musicals of all time. I think it's one of the greatest book musicals ever written. I think the score is phenomenal. The book is phenomenal. And it's an extraordinary company that they have assembled. So even though I have essentially seen this version of the show, I know that it's a different staging. There's some changes. I know it's not a full set. And it might not be the open brackets wheels of a closed brackets dream production of Ragtime that we had been hoping for. With full lush staging. It's still going to be a real treat to hear this score sung by these wonderful performers. So there was no way that I was going to be in New York at the same time as Ragtime and not attempt to go and see it. At one point there were fears that the magicians union. Not the magicians, not the magicians. Musicians union. Excuse me, the musicians union at one point seemed poised to go on strike. So did Actors Equity. And in the eventuality that the actors didn't and the musicians did, Ragtime would have been one of a very small number of shows still running through that strike period. So I was briefly considering keeping the flights and just going to see Ragtime 20 times in two weeks. Don't put it past me. I do it. Carrying on here is another of the shows that I have been desperate to get to New York for Because there has been so much buzz and enthusiasm around it. It is not a revival in traditional sense, but it is a remounting of an iconic musical from the past. This is Masquerade, the Off Broadway immersive production of Phantom of the Opera. I am so excited. I have booked my tickets. They were not inexpensive, but it's also incredibly well sold. So was Ragtime, for that matter. Kudos to them. And there was no way that I was missing out. I'm not going to be in New York and not get to go and do Masquerade. I have heard the most exhilarating things. I still, at this point, have heard very few spoilers. And I would love to get to make a video about it and talk to you all about it on here. There's also a dress code. And in the last few hours, I did go and buy myself a brand new suit exclusively for Masquerade. That's how. That's how much I'm looking forward to it. Now, I mentioned New York City center already. I am heading back there to see another one of their shows. Their annual gala presentation performance of Batboy. Not a show that I'm familiar with, but friends of mine are hugely enthusiastic about the material. I am a fan of the writers. It's one of my sort of musical theater black holes that needs to be rectified. And it sounds like this is a great cast and a great production with which to do that. There have also been some updates, some alterations, I think, to the material. So I'm really excited to go and see Batboy finally. We've sort of been staying in the realm of musicals. I'm also going to be returning to an Off Broadway show that I just loved earlier in the year. It has transferred to a different Off Broadway house. I am talking about bo. And if you have any New York trips coming up, I urge you to consider going to cbo. It is a lovely, queer, atmospheric gig theater one act musical starring the brilliant Matt Rhoden, absolute rock star of a human being in a production giving you the vibes from Once, because the whole playing space is transformed into this sort of atmospheric, immersive bar. It's a story being told through a gig, like I said. And the reason I urge you to go and see it is not just because it's fantastic and Matt is really great in it and the music is great and it's really moving, but also because they have some unusual show times. We love unusual showtimes. And they have some 5pm shows, they have some 9:30pm shows. You can absolutely go and see a one act Broadway play at 7pm and then go and make it to Bow, which is right down in midtown Manhattan in the middle of the theatre district, a stone's throw from most of those Broadway theaters. Or you can see their 5pm show and then go see a 7pm or an 8pm afterwards. In other words, you have no excuse not to go and see bo and I charge you to do so. I haven't yet had the chance to really review it because I saw a preview performance last time, but I will do this time around. Now let's talk about the plays and one of my most anticipated is the Broadway transfer of Liberation. I have heard such great things about this from everyone I knew who saw it off Broadway. I am very excited to see the Broadway arrival. This is being talked about right now as one of the shining lights in a perhaps slightly dim start to the Broadway season, controversially. But I dare say there is another on its way because the West End hit production of Oedipus, starring Mark Strong and Leslie Manville, directed and adapted by the visionary Robert Icke, is about to open at Studio 54. It's already in previews and it has its official opening night during my trip and I am very excited to be making a return trip to that play. I saw one of its final performances in London, which is much of the reason why I didn't ever review it on here, even though I had hoped to. Aaron is going to get the chance to see it for the first time as well, which is super exciting. I'm going to be very intrigued to watch him watching the play. And it's another one where it's going to be really satisfying to witness an audience discovering that piece of theatre for the first time. I hope this becomes a real hot ticket in New York. I think it absolutely deserves to and it's nice to be able to support a couple of, to some extent, homegrown British productions thriving over in Manhattan. Then we have some Off Broadway plays that I'm very much looking forward to. We're going to see this World of Tomorrow which I believe is at the Shed starring Tom Hanks, little known actor and Kelly o'. Hara. I believe she does musicals. I'm joking of course. They're both very significant. I know astoundingly little about this play. I gather there may be some kind of time travel involved and I'm sort of keeping myself as unaware of it as possible so that I can go in and have this very fresh experience. For anyone curious about getting tickets to this play, I know they were initially very expensive. They have subsequently lowered the prices of some of them. So go and take a look if you hadn't recently and I say lowered the prices. It's still New York theatre so your eyes may water just a little bit, but sometimes less crazily expensive is the best that we can hope for. Another play that I'm seeing is at the MCC Theatre. It's called Caroline. I've heard great things about this as well. Terrific word of mouth. I'm seeing it in its final week of performances, but I'm still going to let you know what I think of it. I have been really eager to go and see a Preston Max Allen play because I've heard great things about his writing. And this one is about a young trans character and trans themes. And that's a piece of theatre that I definitely want to go and support and experience and talk about because I think it's really important in the current social and political climate. We need more trans representation on stage, especially through the voice of trans writers. That's maybe the most important thing. Finally, I am heading to the Public Theatre for only the second time in my life. The first was earlier this year to go and see Initiative. I was so delighted to be invited to this play that I knew absolutely nothing about and the first thing that I noticed was it has a runtime of five hours with multiple intermissions. The synopsis talks about multiple friends coming of age and this sort of epic of youth. The title is Initiative and there is a D20 in the artwork design. So I'm getting big DND vibes from this Dungeons and Dragons for those of you not in the know, which I am more than a little bit partial to. And my inclination is that for the public theater in all of its prestige, to platform and produce this five hour long piece of theatre and sort of give it enough of a stamp of approval to be like, yes, this merits a five hour runtime. That means I think it's going to be pretty exciting and perhaps more than a little bit epic. And I like a theatrical marathon now and then. It's been a while since I've seen a five hour show.