New York’s Theatre Scene

Our Reviewer’s Review

In addition to the many plays I see in Toronto each week, I also follow the New York, London England and Los Angeles Theatre scenes. In fact, I fly to New York an average of once every two months and see as many as ten plays on each occasion. All by way of saying, over the course of each year, I get to see most of what NY has to offer in the way of theatre.

I just returned from one of these NY jaunts and was about to print up a series of detailed reviews when I decided that I could be far more helpful to anyone interested in seeing plays in NY over this holiday period if I identified two of THE most important as well as helpful websites for anyone needing down to earth guidance re choosing appropriate plays for their trip to The Big Apple.

http://www.stagegrade.com/ This EXCELLENT website gathers reviews of all plays On, Off and Off Off Broadway from the top media critics and then summarizes what the play is about, assesses the critics’ opinions and grades each play accordingly, assigning anything from an A+ to a D-. And most important, it is so well organized, you can see at a moment’s glance what’s offered and what might be of interest to you. Additionally, the actual full reviews are available, if you wish to read them.

http://www.nytheatre.com/ This website tends to focus more on the less commercial, Off and Off Off Broadway productions and will also offer up ratings, but not in as much detail as the previous website, Stage Grade.

AND the best website for purchasing tickets in advance at a discount of up to 30%, is www.broadwaybox.com/.

Plus, once you’re in New York and wish to purchase theatre tickets at up to 50% off the top price, TKTS Discount Booths, easy to find in Times Square, will often, but not always, have tickets for the show you wish to see. You can actually Check which tickets might be available on their website. http://newyork.citysearch.com/profile/38587205/new_york_ny/tkts_discount_theater_tickets.html

One of the most useful guides which I would suggest you purchase for virtually everything happening in New York in the way of entertainment, shopping, restaurants theatre and cinema, etc., etc. is Time Out Magazine.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season, here in TO, in NY or wherever you may be. Ron Singer

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert

At Princess of Wales Theatre until January 2

reviewed by Ron Singer

How does a musical with a very gay sensibility and featuring drag queens manage to become an enormous popular hit, catering primarily to a well-heeled audience who, while not necessarily homophobic, would under normal circumstances probably not choose shows about gays and most definitely not about drag queens??

Well, folks, that was the question I kept asking myself…and then I saw this Toronto mega hit production that has already been a ‘humongous’ success in Australia and is about to take Broadway by storm, immediately following this already highly successful Toronto run.

This musical stage version of the somewhat cultish and seminal Australian film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert, is based, story-wise, on the movie and does in fact use several of the movie’s well known and extremely popular disco-oriented tunes, such as I Love the Nightlife and Shake Your Groove Thing with many other up-tempo original tunes.

The story, in brief, is set in the Australian outback and concerns a young gay drag queen performer who had fathered a child prior to opting for the gay-only lifestyle and subsequently leaving his wife. We pick up the narrative a number of years later, when the child in question, Benjamin, tells his Mom that he’d genuinely like to see the Father he never really knew and the long separated, but reasonably friendly parents agree that father and son should meet in remote Alice Springs. And the rest, as they say, is showbiz, as the father and his band of merry drag queens sing and dance their way across the desert to their ultimate destination of Alice Springs.

I had some difficulty at first understanding some of the dialogue and if you’re very familiar with the Aussie accent, you’ll take offence with how badly two of the cast in particular handle that task. However, the one actor who is the worst offender in the accent department happens to be the best singer/dancer in the company, so he is easily forgiven.

Very much like in other cult productions, The Rocky Horror Show for example, where some of the audience know the story, dialogue and music and thus, occasionally join in, joyous sounds of recognition by some of the Priscilla cognescienti pepper the scenes in this show as well.

Harking back to my original question, what is it about this musical that makes it attractive to an all-encompassing audience? Well, to put it in simplest and most succinct terms, this show grows on you. It transcends the world of drag primarily because of the touching and extremely sentimental story, the strong acting, the brilliant singing and dancing, the very recognizable, popular, driving, rhythmic and infectious disco music, with tunes that you can hum and with lyrics you can remember, and to cap it all off, there are the many spectacular, glitzy, eccentric costumes and set pieces.

Additionally, this production has a most unusual-looking chorus, featuring every size and shape of performer. This is truly a “different’ musical than most and definitely an audience-pleasing spectacle. In fact, the jam-packed audience clearly not only grew to like or even love the characters and their very idiosyncratic behaviour, they stood as one at the curtain calls to repeatedly applaud and loudly cheer the delighted company.

About Ron Singer: Artistic Director Emeritus of The Randolph Academy of the Performing Arts, former Chair of the Department of Theatre at York University, former entertainment critic (CFRB Radio and Standard Broadcast News), and former  arts and entertainment reporter (CBC Variety Tonight). We’re honoured to have Ron with us.