I believe the only theatre work of Ms. Rivera's that I ever saw live was The Visit, in its (and her) final Broadway performance, on June 14, 2015.  While the show itself may not have been quite first-rank Kander & Ebb, I thought she carried it quite capably -- commandingly, even -- despite a slight cold which, she confessed in her curtain speech afterward, was making her voice even huskier than usual.  There's a full slime tutorial of that production on YouTube.

Ed.: My bad: a quick scan of IBDB reminds me that I had also seen Ms. Rivera two years prior in the Roundabout's Mystery of Edwin Drood revival at Studio 54. 

Both honorable performances in respectable material, there are far worse ways to make a graceful B'way exit.  Her cabaret act at 54 Below, which I saw in October 2019, was obviously more pure-Chita, but I came away feeling that her many-peaked career had (sadly but, at 86, hardly surprisingly) passed its final peak.  Ms. Rivera's 2021 cameo as one of the "Legends" in tick, tick... BOOM!'s Sunday-brunch scene made a moving, albeit vanishingly brief, final screen appearance.

Among the roles she created, the only one I could have seen (but didn't) prior to The Visit was her Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman, whose entire two-year run I missed while flailing my way through graduate school (and walking past the Broadhurst, four blocks from my apartment at the time, probably half a dozen times a week en route to and from the Times Sq subway).  On the basis of its OCR -- admittedly only a handful of hearings over many years -- Spider Woman's score has never really grabbed me.  But a movie adaptation, written and directed by Bill Condon, is slated to begin filming this spring with J.Lo in the title role.

I didn't get to this last week, but the NYT published six pieces in two days:

Obituary

A Life in Photos

An Appraisal

9 Memorable Performances

Her Ballet Roots

Reactions and Tributes


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Dance Magazine:  Remembering Chita Rivera

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I should have started a thread for this show two years ago, but when someone posted this on Facebook recently I figured better late than never:


Old Friends finished its limited West End run one month ago, but a recording of the original May 2022 tribute concert was released this past December.  A year earlier, on New Year's Eve 2022/3, a video capture of the concert had been broadcast on BBC2.

Hopefully that capture will make it across the pond eventually as a cinecast, streaming or PBS offering.  (For some reason a Broadway transfer, at B'way prices, actually interests me less).

Thursday night I went with some friends to see Harmony, which closes this evening; I guess they were papering the house for the show's final week, since we were comped by a colleague.  It was a more or less watchable -- but sometimes frustrating -- mix of not-bad and not-so-good, with Chip Zien, Sierra Boggess, and Julie Benko fighting to elevate mediocre material.

One of my companions, unaware of the show's 26-year history, opined that it needed a few more months out of town.  I'm tempted to wonder, conversely, whether it hasn't been stewing for too long by now; to be honest, I'm just not sure there is a universe in which this show was ever going to successfully cohere into anything great.

It did leave me mildly curious about the real Comedian Harmonists, whose story has previously been told in a 1976 documentary; a 1997 movie; and in another, even shorter-lived 1999 B'way revue.  And even mild curiosity might be counted as a point in the Manilow musical's favor -- but then, it's also worth mentioning that I emerged from the Barrymore the other night with little real understanding of who these guys were, or of the times they lived through, beyond what could easily be summarized in a very short blurb.  While a great deal of talent, intelligence and showmanship have been invested in Harmony, I came out with essentially the same curiosity I'd brought in, largely unaffected by the show's version of these people and events, which I couldn't help suspecting had been Broadway-ized beyond plausible recognition.

It has been snowing all day except when I first took the dog out for a walk early this morning, when it was rain that was just turning into snow. Neither one of us wanted to be on that walk, and one of us didn't poop. Since then, it looks as if we've gotten about three inches of accumulation. I have nothing to do today, although the laundry is looming. Next Saturday I'm going to see a play called Cebollas, about a road trip from Albuquerque to Denver. Then on the 27th, I'm seeing a play called Rubicon, about espionage.

I think I may head back to bed and snuggle with the dog.

Fun Home at Vintage Theatre, Aurora, CO, 2024

(I don't want to start a new thread when there are already several devoted to Fun Home.)
I saw this production last night and thought it was amazing, fantastic (add several synonyms here). 
The theatre space is very small--about 100 audience members in three rows of seating, and the front row is basically up against the stage. I thought that maybe there wouldn't be amplification for the actors, but they did have microphones so they could be heard over the four-member orchestra, which turns out to be louder than one would expect because it's in such a small space.

The set at first consisted of a bunch of drop cloths covering all the furniture, which were pulled off to reveal Big Alison's working area, then sofa, chair, piano, bookcase and casket, all of which were painted to look like they came out of the graphic novel. Other props, such as bags, sketch pads and books, got the same treatment.

I'm not sure how the original production was directed, but this one had Big Alison on stage for the entire 90 minutes "directing" the action, which must be tiring for the actor. The performances were all excellent--it's difficult to pick out specific performers. Christian was cast as both the oldest Bechdel and a girl, which didn't affect the show at all.

(Stupid question alert! When someone says their pronouns are "she/they," when does one use "she" and when "they"? The director is "she/they" and the music director is "he/they.")

I would love to see this production again, but tickets are now hard to secure because of the tiny house size. They have extended the run an extra week.

In consolation for the transfer that never was (but we can still hope), here is a full-length slime tutorial from Sunday's 2017 two-month limited B'way run:

Saturday at beach with Steve


(...coy titles being an abiding hallmark of the slime-pedagogical métier).

Taken from the extreme house-right front mezz, the videography isn't topnotch, but it's still quite watchable.  Come for the wonderful Gyllenhaal, stay for the trippily anachronistic Chromolume (starting about 1:29:15 in the video).

I got a filling today. That was the super-exciting part of my day. The good news was that it only took about 15 minutes, so I decided to go to McDonald's and get some Chicken McNuggets and a large Coke. I do not know what was going on with the drive-thru line, because it was completely stopped for quite a while--I'd guess about seven minutes. I was kind of smushed between two cars at a weird angle. Eventually it sorted itself out. 

Then, when we were going on our afternoon walk, I got the mail and inside was a check for $92 from some class-action suit against Apple. After I post this, I'm going to look up the case on Google because I have no idea what it is, but I guess I opted into it however-long ago, and I could really use the $92 because the filling cost $two hundred-something. (And the McDonald's cost $4.80.)

Quote from: Naveen Kumar, Variety, 22 October 2023(FULL REVIEW HERE)

...Though Sondheim made light sport of critiquing bourgeois mores in shows like Company and Merrily We Roll Along, here the rich are served hot like a bottomless buffet.

And let's cut straight to the sweet stuff: Performances from the pinch-me-this-can't-be-real cast are like a Broadway gourmand's fever dream.  Whatever else this deeply strange and Frankenstein-ed musical delivers — which is a lot — the production's outrageous lineup of stars are as delectably odd as they've ever been (yes, even Denis O'Hare).  By the time David Hyde Pierce makes a late act-one entrance as a martini-swilling bishop who covets designer heels, the needle on one's pleasure odometer simply snaps off.

Never truer than last night.

Third time out, Here We Are was more delightful than ever — but the weather less so, even at a clear, dry twentyish degrees (feeling, to us at least, more like ten).  The oblique viewing angle was indeed exciting: not far enough over to cause any sightline issues, but enough to pop the thrust design and staging into dynamic 3D.  Sound is still just imperfect-enough to be mildly frustrating (fewer missed words tonight, but still sometimes harshly overamplified and unclear where voices are coming from).  But everything still looks great, and the performances have settled into a marvelous groove.  I really wish this would run for longer and/or be captured for TV/streaming — and I'm more excited and curious than ever for the cast recording, which, given the show's relatively few actual songs, ought hopefully to include generous dollops of Ives's dialogue and all of Tunick's underscoring.