Cris

TINA IS A HEAD-TURNER Two elements are vital to creating a hit bio-musical: great songs and a powerful life story. Tina, The Tina Turner Musical delivers both. Whereas some biographies required that book writers “punch-up” the drama, the true life story of the woman born Anna-Mae Bullock needs no exaggeration as it recounts how a…

IT’S SUITE TO BE BACK AT THE PLAZA A night at the Plaza? With Hollywood royalty? I’m in, how about you? Thus we find three serio-comic tales of love, loss and betrayal all taking place in Suite 719 of New York City’s famed Plaza Hotel. Set in Manhattan of 1968/1969, Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite is…

WITH SIX YOU GET POWDER-KEG SOUL What if the six wives of one of history’s bad boys, King Henry VIII,   formed a pop girl group and held a concert where they belted out tales of their superstar lives, secret loves and tragic ends? You’d have Six, the hit British import from London’s West End now…

THE KING OF POP IS NOW THE KING OF BROADWAY MJ (The Michael Jackson Musical) raises the bar for the bio-musical. Set in the rehearsal hall for Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous World Tour, the story follows two documentarians, one is “Alejandro” played exactingly by GABRIEL RUIZ, who are allowed entre into press-weary Michael’s inner sanctum to…

EVERYBODY RISE! Since its multi Tony Award-winning 1970 debut, COMPANY, the musical comedy exploring contemporary dating, marriage and divorce has been a favorite of singer-actors who relished performing George Furth’s witty cutting vignettes accompanied by Stephen Sondheim’s sophisticated and emotionally complex songs. However, it is directors who really relish delving into COMPANY’s non-linear structure because…

A SHOW THAT DESERVES AN EXCLAMATION POINT! Broadway’s recent bumper crop of musicals has provided spoof-meister Gerard Alessandrini a mother load to mine in the latest installment of his well-established, venomous valentines to the Great White Way, Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging! Performed by a four member cast of actor-chameleons (Carter Calvert, Mia Gentile, Marcus…

UNDER THE SPELL OF MATILDA Just as author Roald Dahl’s child-heroine “Matilda” is a magical mix of unexpected brilliance, youthful exuberance and solid common sense — so is the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new musical adaptation, Matilda the Musical. Employing the familiar storyline of the discarded child on a quest to find a home and family…