272 stories by "Christopher Caggiano"
I've seen a lot of boxing puns in the reviews of the new Broadway musical Rocky, based on the 1976 film of the same name. Rocky is a "contender," some contend. Others say Rocky "goes the dis…
The Walt Disney Company continues to comb its catalog for stage-musical candidates. You can hardly blame them: The Lion King has become a license to print money, Newsies is still going stron…
I somehow made it through the '90s, the '00s, and nearly half of the '10s without reading The Bridges of Madison County. Nor have I seen the 1995 film of the same name, despite an abiding pa…
Here are three things that I learned from seeing Beautiful: The Carol King Musical: 1. Jukebox musicals don't automatically have to be atrocious 2. Pandering to baby boomers isn't necessaril…
You may have heard that the new musical Murder for Two, now playing at the New World Stages, announced today that the production is now selling tickets through July. Take it from me, that's …
As I pointed out in my recent post of The Best Musicals of 2013, it was a darned good year for musicals, but it was also a doozy for not-so-great musicals. Try as I might, I just couldn't ge…
Hey, you know what? The year 2013 was a pretty good one for musicals. And I'm not even talking about the crowd-pleasers that seemed to please everyone in the crowd except me (Kinky Boots, He…
The musical Working has always held a sort of fascination for me. Opportunities to see it staged live are somewhat rare, but it's one of those shows that, when I listen to the original cast …
Every few seasons or so, a musical comes to Broadway that just warms the cockles of my heart. (And as Woody Allen says in Love and Death, "Nothing like hot cockles.") Avenue Q was …
If any of you happened to be in the Times Square area on the night of Saturday, December 14th, 2013, you may have heard some blood-curdling screams emanating from the Lyceum Theatre. But it …
OK, now I can breathe. It has been one busy semester here at The Boston Conservatory, let me tell you. Of course, amid the hullabaloo, I continually remind myself that I'm teaching what I lo…
The end-of-the-semester crush is upon me, and I find myself scrambling to grade papers, plan finals, meet with students, and yet still keep up with my blogging backlog. As Tevye said, "…
One of the great unexpected pleasures of the new Broadway season is After Midnight, an effervescent tribute to the joys and spirit of Harlem in the 1920s and '30s, in particular the fabled C…
Every once in a while, a musical comes along that restores my faith in the art form. Fun Home, the shattering new musical now playing an extended engagement at The Public Theater, is one of …
If you're going to create a musical about the magic of storytelling, you had better have some genuine magic on display, either in the piece itself, or in the presentation. Unfortunately, the…
When I started this blog in April of 2006, it was really just an effort to find an alternate outlet for my theatrical rants and ravings. My friends were sort of sick of my posturing and peda…
The Huntington Theatre Company in Boston announced today that its current production of The Jungle Book is now the highest-grossing production in the company's history, with three weeks stil…
Every few seasons or so, Broadway seems to attract a WTF musical. You know, as in, "WTF were they thinking bringing this to Broadway?" The kind of show that, even if it was any good, just di…
One thing I've noticed lately is that my tolerance for flaws in a musical depends on the overall feeling that I'm developing as I'm watching a performance. When a musical, overall, is well-c…
I'm going to be honest. When I first heard that the new musical First Date was coming to Broadway, I was beyond dismissive. The show wasn't really on my radar prior to the announcement, desp…
I have a confession to make: before last week, I had never seen Hello, Dolly! on stage. Oh, I had read the libretto, and listened to the cast recording countless times. And I've seen the mov…
This past month, I saw 25 musicals in 17 days. Even for me, that's a lot. Eighteen of those shows were at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). As one might expect, many of those sho…
I had the opportunity to see the new musical Nobody Loves You a few years ago while it was still under development. Some backstory: For the past three years, a handful of students from the B…
Here's round-up number three, out of four, of my reviews of the shows at this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). As in my previous review round-ups, there's a fairly wide range…
A few days ago, I published my first of four batches of capsule reviews from the 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). At this point, I have seen 13 NYMF shows in all, and I will be…
