When there’s a month with a fifth Wednesday, I’ll be heading Way-Off-Broadway for a look at theatrical happenings outside New York City. This summer, it’s not just flowers blooming all over the country; it’s musicals…

Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Image via theoneill.org.

Keep your sun screen and your pitch pipe handy because it’s time for summer theater development festivals. All across the country,writing teams are converging on bucolic locations to test out new musicals and pretend they’re at summer camp with cute actors. And the great thing is, you can join in (on the musicals and the cute actors). In fact, audience feedback is an essential component (for the musicals and the cute actors).

So let’s take a look (and listen) to some of the best prospects getting workshops this summer…

Read more…

MCC's "Carrie". Photo by Joan Marcus.

Carrie

Stephen King’s tale of a prom queen with a nasty temper, one of the most infamous musical flops of all time, returns from the grave with new material by the original writers and a new “less camp/more real” attitude thanks to director Stafford Arima.

“…it’s hard to imagine this defanged “Carrie” ever raising your blood pressure, or even making your flesh crawl.” New York Times

“The MCC Theater’s sincere and dead-serious production — reduced and rethought with strange dignity by director Stafford Arima – has just enough bubblegum pop and heartfelt shock appeal to be a sort of Grease for the post-Columbine generation.” Newsday

“What the show has going for it is the evocative source material, but in stripping the story of its camp value Arima and his team have also robbed it of any sense of fun.” Entertainment Weekly

“In an effort to make the show connect with awkward-age teens, it’s been watered down and robbed of all the distinctive qualities that made it ‘terrifyingly lyrical’ onscreen (in the words of Pauline Kael) and ludicrously lurid on Broadway.” Hollywood Reporter

Mizer’s Two Cents: I saw this early in previews when the show was still being reworked; you can check out my thoughts at the time by clicking on a prior blog entry. I’ll bring you a final take on everyone’s favorite high school hell raiser after I see it again later in the run.

William Shatner in "Shatner's World". Photo by Joan Marcus.

Within the last seven days, I saw Moby Dick sing, a Prom Queen blow up a gym and Captain Kirk take a bow on Broadway. If that isn’t the strangest week of theater I’ve ever experienced, then I’ve clearly repressed the memories of a weirder seven day span to protect my delicate psyche.

In honor of the decidedly odd (though certainly worthwhile in some cases) trio of works, let’s jump to some quick mini-reviews and thoughts:

Shatner’s World – We Just Live In It: The bombastic, Emmy-winning star of Star Trek and Boston Legal takes to the stage for a one-man show about his life and career. If you’re expecting a well-constructed play featuring carefully enacted remembrances, well–really? No, William Shatner is content to step into the spotlight and entertainingly ramble through stories like a dinner party guest who has had an extra cocktail or two. Funny thing is, once you’ve accepted the ramshackle nature of the evening, it’s quite amusing. I’m not a Trekkie and yet darned if I didn’t find Shatner charming, self-depricating and the best kind of ham–well-seasoned and never canned. He wanders and improvs and sings and tells hoary jokes with an impish glee that is infectious. In fact, his childhood love of vaudeville comics turns out to be a “rosebud” key to understanding his bigger than life, irrepressible persona. In the end after he has ever so glancingly touched on more serious matters of life and death, he imparts a world view that is both simple, illuminating and touching. Why does Shatner have a show on Broadway? Because he said “yes,” because he has always said “why the hell not!” And, for that, it’s hard not to love the guy. Read more…