Tuesday, July 8, 2014
I was in the Berkshires over the July Fourth weekend, and had no intention of seeing any theater. Honestly. But I wound up taking in two shows, one of which was The Servant of Two Masters at…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 04:52PMTuesday, July 1, 2014
Here's a roundup of my latest posts on About.com (theater.about.com). I'm supposed to post at least twice a week, which is a bit more frequent than I've been used to in my blogging, but so f…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 09:37PMSunday, June 29, 2014
I just got back from a three-show day in NYC. I hadn't planned on blogging about any of the shows -- I wanted to just sit back and enjoy on this trip -- but as I sat watching one of...
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 12:54PMFriday, June 27, 2014
I'm sure that some of you, like me, greeted the news of a prospective Tupac Shakur musical with at the very least a raised eyebrow. I think this is a vestige of our propensity of limiting ou…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 01:58PMSunday, June 22, 2014
I can't recall the last time I was so genuinely enchanted by the first act of a show, only to be so disenchanted by the final curtain. The new musical Fly By Night at Playwrights Horizons fe…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 06:10PMThursday, June 19, 2014
Here are my two most recent posts for About.com. One of them is about some A-list Hollywood types that will be playing on Broadway in the coming season (including Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenha…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 04:39PMTuesday, June 10, 2014
So, the Tonys are over, and another season has come and gone. I've caught up (mostly) on my reviews, but I wanted to alert y'all out there in EIKILFM land that I've picked up a companion wri…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 01:18PMSaturday, June 7, 2014
OK, I admit it. I was skeptical when the Roundabout Theatre Company announced its plans to bring its acclaimed 1998 revival of Cabaret back to Studio 54. It seemed like a cynical attempt to …
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 02:04PMRegular readers will recall that I occasionally attend "straight" plays. (I prefer to call them "non-musicals.) My attendance at these belting-deprived affairs is usually cont…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 09:20AMMonday, June 2, 2014
We can complain all we want about star casting, but the fact remains that it works. Not always, of course, as the producers of the recently canceled mega-tour of Jesus Christ Superstar disco…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 03:07PMTuesday, May 27, 2014
Wow. Just wow. I went into the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fully expecting to enjoy myself. What I didn't expect was that I would be so blown away, both by the power of the…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 02:23PMWednesday, May 21, 2014
If I had to sum up musical-theater history in just one word, that word would be "integration," which I define for my Boston Conservatory students as the extent to which a song or dance contr…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 01:31PMTuesday, May 20, 2014
Friday, May 16, 2014
If I were producing a musical version of the darkly comedic film "Heathers," there are two guys I would have turned to in a New York minute to write the show: Laurence O'Keefe (of Bat Boy an…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 11:30AMWednesday, May 14, 2014
OK, grades are in. Let the catch-up begin. I saw quite a few shows this spring, both on Broadway and off, but so far have only had a chance to blog about a handful of them. Now that school i…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 02:49PMMonday, May 5, 2014
Regular visitors to this blog may have noticed that things have been slightly awry with this blog for the past few weeks. (Or, as my dear friend Esther might say, things have been slightly &…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 01:33PMWednesday, April 9, 2014
I've seen a lot of boxing puns in the reviews of the new Broadway musical Rocky, based on the 1976 film of the same name. Rocky is a "contender," some contend. Others say Rocky "goes the dis…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:36PMI've seen a lot of boxing puns in the reviews of the new Broadway musical Rocky, based on the 1976 film of the same name. Rocky is a "contender," some contend. Others say Rocky &qu…
SOURCE: Christopher Caggiano at 05:36PMSaturday, April 5, 2014
The Walt Disney Company continues to comb its catalog for stage-musical candidates. You can hardly blame them: The Lion King has become a license to print money, Newsies is still going stron…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:21PMTuesday, March 25, 2014
I somehow made it through the '90s, the '00s, and nearly half of the '10s without reading The Bridges of Madison County. Nor have I seen the 1995 film of the same name, despite an abiding pa…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:52PMFriday, February 7, 2014
Here are three things that I learned from seeing Beautiful: The Carol King Musical: 1. Jukebox musicals don't automatically have to be atrocious 2. Pandering to baby boomers isn't necessaril…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:59PMMonday, January 27, 2014
You may have heard that the new musical Murder for Two, now playing at the New World Stages, announced today that the production is now selling tickets through July. Take it from me, that's …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:12PMSunday, January 12, 2014
As I pointed out in my recent post of The Best Musicals of 2013, it was a darned good year for musicals, but it was also a doozy for not-so-great musicals. Try as I might, I just couldn't ge…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:41PMSaturday, January 11, 2014
Hey, you know what? The year 2013 was a pretty good one for musicals. And I'm not even talking about the crowd-pleasers that seemed to please everyone in the crowd except me (Kinky Boots, He…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:50PMWednesday, January 8, 2014
The musical Working has always held a sort of fascination for me. Opportunities to see it staged live are somewhat rare, but it's one of those shows that, when I listen to the original cast …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:59PMMonday, January 6, 2014
Every few seasons or so, a musical comes to Broadway that just warms the cockles of my heart. (And as Woody Allen says in Love and Death, "Nothing like hot cockles.") Avenue Q was …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:50PMSaturday, January 4, 2014
If any of you happened to be in the Times Square area on the night of Saturday, December 14th, 2013, you may have heard some blood-curdling screams emanating from the Lyceum Theatre. But it …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:23PMTuesday, December 31, 2013
OK, now I can breathe. It has been one busy semester here at The Boston Conservatory, let me tell you. Of course, amid the hullabaloo, I continually remind myself that I'm teaching what I lo…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:22PMSunday, December 8, 2013
The end-of-the-semester crush is upon me, and I find myself scrambling to grade papers, plan finals, meet with students, and yet still keep up with my blogging backlog. As Tevye said, "…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:52PMSaturday, November 23, 2013
One of the great unexpected pleasures of the new Broadway season is After Midnight, an effervescent tribute to the joys and spirit of Harlem in the 1920s and '30s, in particular the fabled C…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:49PMMonday, November 11, 2013
Every once in a while, a musical comes along that restores my faith in the art form. Fun Home, the shattering new musical now playing an extended engagement at The Public Theater, is one of …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:21PM 
