Leap of Faith

http://leapoffaithbroadway.com

What? You're trying to decide whether to see Leap of Faith*** on Broadway? How is that even a question?

Ok, it's possible that I can't be even a little bit objective about this show. I love the movie on which this musical is based. And we all know I'm a sucker for it raining on stage. Plus Raúl Esparza is a sexy beast. And--as you can see above--he wears a freaking mirror-ball jacket. While singing his balls off. Alongside Jessica Phillips singing her ovaries off.

Overall, the movie is much better, but I think you'll like the musical too (though pretty much ALL the professional reviewers seem to disagree). I don't even care that I can't remember any of the songs right now. They sound great when they're happening, and the show is just so. much. fun.

Esparza as a womanizing, swindling, fake revival preacher? YES PLEASE. Phillips as a jaded sheriff and single mother? Oh yeah. (Seriously, her voice is so amazing in this that I really wish I'd seen her in Next to Normal.) Leslie Odom Jr., Kendra Kassebaum, and the rest of the cast are fantastic and have huge voices. For me the only problem is Talon Ackerman as the wheelchair-bound son, but that part is seriously underwritten so it's not entirely his fault.

All in all, I found Leap of Faith to be more fun than Bonnie & Clyde, Catch Me if You Can, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert combined.

*** I saw this show in previews.

If you're in Boston: Next to Normal, Long Day's Journey into Night

I'm halfway through my first week of blissful unemployment and still haven't made a dent in my review backlog. But I did change out of my PJs to head to the theater twice in two days. [Thanks for getting me out of the house, Todd!] So here are quick recommendations for two Boston-area shows you should catch before time runs out.

If you're a fan of the pill-popping musical, go enjoy the Speakeasy production of Next to Normal. There are some powerful performances on that BCA stage. I hear there's good availability for the last two weeks of the run, but sit toward the back for the best experience--it's a bit overwhelming from up close.

Also definitely set aside a good three-and-a-half hours to take in O'Neill's powerful family drama Long Day's Journey into Night at the New Rep out in Watertown. Everything about it is fantastic, and it's especially great as a vision of how the family in Next to Normal might have been a century earlier. Seriously.

Yay for more theatrical synergy! Be sure to catch both shows before they close April 22. For your mental health, though, I don't recommend seeing them the same day.

I'll be back with more next week, after I see Leap of Faith, Freestyle Love Supreme, and the Broadway transfer of Once!

* Sadly, I do not own these actual pyjamas. Yet.

My favorite searches

I'll get back to my reviews next month, I promise. I'm just so AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! from trying to wrap up my current job that I can't think critically about anything else.

To tide you over--in case you've already seen every cat photo on the Internet--here is a list of my favorite search terms that have brought people to this blog:

• "mark rylance" "hot" "michael esper" "sexy" "assistance"
• "mark rylance" "hot and sexy"
• "Michael Esper hot."
• michael esper beard
• ginger beard
  
• steve kazee s bare feet
• bobby steggert barefoot (Someone has a foot fetish, eh?)
  
• should i go see american idiot
• "the power of theatre"
• "the normal heart" sobbing
• lupone's belch during anything goes (Please tell me that really happened!)

I love all you crazy Googlers. Let's be BFFs. Let's drink lots of Jameson and Guinness next time I'm in the city, which happens to be this weekend. (When buying theater tickets, I didn't think through the implications of being in New York for St. Patrick's Day. Or, as my friend Hilary calls it, Amateur Night.)

Go see Assistance. Now.

[SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR TWO PHOTOS OF THE ASSISTANCE CAST BEING RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.]

So, as I mentioned earlier, I'm leaving my awesome publishing job at the end of this month. And this is interfering with my theater life. Wrapping everything up is taking over my life. I suppose leaving a job I love and moving on to a new adventure should be difficult, though. And the end is in sight!

I'm really looking forward to no longer canceling New York weekends. Last weekend I missed all of the following:
* How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (canceled in advance because Michael Urie was going to be out to film a pilot, and I didn't really need to see it without him and without Mary Faber, who has left the show).
* CQ/CX, at the Atlantic Theater (closing March 11, so I won't get to reschedule because I'll be in Denver this weekend visiting my brother and seeing the American Idiot tour again)
* Once, on Broadway (rescheduled for early April, which cannot come soon enough because I loved it the 4 times I saw it at the New York Theatre Workshop)
* How I Learned to Drive, at Second Stage (also closing March 11, so I won't get to reschedule)
* An Iliad, with Denis freaking O'Hare, at NYTW (closing March 25, so I hope I get to reschedule--I do still have tickets to see it with Stephen Spinella at least--they're alternating performances) [ETA: SORTED! As Stockard Channing will be out of Other Desert Cities to film a pilot with Mandy Moore(!), I got a ticket to see O'Hare. So I'll be seeing An Iliad twice in one weekend!)

Anyway, the real purpose of this post isn't actually to complain! *gasp* I just want to highly recommend that you run out to Playwrights Horizons to see Leslye Headland's OMGSOFANTASTIC play Assistance.

Every single person in the cast is perfect (Michael Esper, Sue Jean Kim, Virginia Kull, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, Amy Rosoff, Bobby Steggert). Headland's play is great. David Korins's set design is unfrakkingbelievable. Trip Cullman's direction is wonderful. Really, I love pretty much everything about this show. So go see it. Now. Because it closes March 11. If I could recommend only two shows currently running, they would be Once and Assistance. And you would kiss my feet to thank me for seeing both. I promise. (But don't do that, please. Ew.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting back to actual theater reviews next month. In the meantime, just do as I say and go see Assistance? Thanks. And you're welcome.

ETA: Here are two photos of the cast of Assistance being awesome.

Broadway houses (wistful thinking)

It's good to have goals. Like many a theater nerd, I'd like to see at least one show in every Broadway theater. As of today, I'm still missing 10. And I'm not going to see Chicago, Jersey Boys, Mama Mia (saw on tour), Spiderman, or Wicked (saw on tour), so I'll have a long wait for those last 5. Well, it's good to have goals anyway.


Al Hirschfeld Theatre
Ambassador Theatre
American Airlines Theatre
August Wilson Theatre
Belasco Theatre
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
Booth Theatre
Broadhurst Theatre
The Broadway Theatre
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
Circle in the Square Theatre
Cort Theatre
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
Eugene O'Neill Theatre
Foxwoods Theatre
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
Gershwin Theatre
Helen Hayes Theatre
Imperial Theatre
John Golden Theatre
Longacre Theatre
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
Lyceum Theatre
Majestic Theatre
Marquis Theatre
Minskoff Theatre
Music Box Theatre
Nederlander Theatre
Neil Simon Theatre
New Amsterdam Theatre
Palace Theatre
Richard Rodgers Theatre
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Shubert Theatre
Stephen Sondheim Theatre
St. James Theatre
Studio 54
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Walter Kerr Theatre
Winter Garden Theatre