The Silver Screen is the Star of Sunset Boulevard at the St. James Theatre

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

I want to preface this review by saying I did not hate this production, and I fear everything I say next is going to make you think I hate it. I don’t hate it; I desperately need to see this weird show again to better understand it. It is a unique piece of theatre, unlike anything I have ever seen in my life and that’s perhaps why I sound so negative, because I don’t have a good frame of reference for understanding a production like this. If you can, I encourage you all to go see Sunset Boulevard. 

The show I saw was during the week Nicole Scherzinger, the lead actress, was out, and Mandy Gonzales played the titular character, Norma Desmond instead. She is currently billed as a guest star in the show, performing every Tuesday night and any other time Nicole is out. At the performance I attended, all roles played by Emma Lloyd were played by Abby Matsusaka instead. I sat in the front right mezzanine, Row A.

Sunset Boulevard is a revival of the classic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical adapting the even more classic 1950s movie of the same name. This production is directed by Jamie Lloyd, who has been making quite a name for himself lately. Andrew and Jamie have become particularly good business partners, perhaps an intense psychic connection due to the shared name. Jamie is also slated to direct an upcoming revival of Evita on the West End this summer, as well as directing Andrew’s new musical The Illusionist. 

This production of Sunset Boulevard originally premiered on the West End at the Savoy Theatre for a limited run. It has since transferred to Broadway with the same, original cast from its debut. The musical features Andrew Lloyd Webber’s orchestrations and a book and lyrics by Christopher Hampton. In my opinion, a revival should be trying to introduce some new element, and should give us a reason to put this show on stage again. Sunset Boulevard absolutely fulfills that requirement, being a new reimagining of the musical, and one of the boldest steps forward in theatre at large.

The musical follows the same plot as the movie. Joe Gillis, a down on his luck screenwriter, ends up at the residence of Norma Desmond after a police chase. Norma Desmond is a former silent movie star who now lives alone in a luxurious mansion with her butler, Max Von Mayerling. She believes she is still the greatest star who has ever lived and employs Gillis to edit an incoherent and self-serving script she has dedicated her life to writing. She intends this to be her return to the screen, to the millions of fans who have always been waiting for her to return. Slowly, she pulls Gillis further and further under her control, before he meets a grisly end at her hands. (Side note: I don’t quite consider this a spoiler because both the movie and musical open on him being dead and narrating the story. In the musical he pops out of a body bag, and in the movie he all but says “I bet you’re wondering how I got here” as he floats in a pool). 

Previous productions have had very lavish sets, using Norma’s mansion as an excuse to go in a very maximalist direction. Jamie Lloyd has done the opposite, making this a very minimalistic version. There is absolutely nothing onstage except fog and lights. All characters wear plain black and white clothes. The star of the show is a 23-foot-tall LCD screen that lowers from the ceiling and shows the audience a live feed from cameras onstage. Suddenly, the actors’ faces are blown up for us to see with incredible detail. Everything on the screen is still filmed in black and white, keeping with the style of the movie and the aesthetic presented on stage. Credit for the Silver Screen, and the accompanying video design and cinematography goes to Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom, who I applaud for bringing something so complex and bold to the stage.

The cameras are centered inside large apparatuses the actors and camera crew use to hold them steady. Think large square steering wheels, with the camera being situated where the horn would be. Joe Gillis, played by Tom Francis, actually does hold it like a steering wheel when he starts his car chase with the cops. After twenty minutes of jazzy music and fun choreography, the screen is lowered for the first time. Actors moving behind Francis give the impression of movement, as wind is blown into his face. Suddenly, a title card drops: “Sunset Boulevard, directed by Jamie Lloyd”, followed by a full opening credits sequence. It is a production concerned with movies, quite literally trying to put a movie onstage in a way I’ve never seen before.

Gillis then slinks into Norma’s mansion, and she makes her slow entrance as the orchestra plays her gorgeous, soaring theme. Norma Desmond is normally played by Nicole Scherzinger, most known for her work with the band The Pussycat Dolls. I have seen people herald her performance as a once-in-a-lifetime role, something that is simply unmissable. Nonetheless, I missed her as we went the week she was scheduled to be out. Mandy Gonzales acts as her standby, and they were smart to market her week as a “big event”, a reason for people to come back to see the show. I have a hard time imagining how Nicole would have been much better than Mandy, the minimalism of this show gives them very little to work with. Despite that, Mandy has managed to construct a grand character. I fear this is where much of my confusion with the show began. 

Norma has always seemed old and senile, but Mandy plays her with something of a youthful energy. She stares into the camera and makes dramatic faces, akin to what people would do in a TikTok sketch. I think she is trying to be one of the “fellow kids”, acting like she is still a 20 something star, even though that is no longer the case. She is acting like she’s still in a silent movie and looks insane doing so while every other character gives carefully crafted film performances when in front of the camera. I believe it is true that good art often needs to be digested, something you discuss on the way home from the theatre. However, I also don’t want to pay money to be confused in a theatre. This production walks a fine line between art and confusion, and I fear at times it leans a little too far into confusion. 

After Mandy sings “With One Look”, I suddenly felt trapped in a worse version of “Think of Me” from The Phantom of the Opera for forty-five odd minutes. Leitmotifs continue to be replayed so often it feels repetitive rather than artistic. Characters walk around the stage slowly and talk in a strange, dream-like manner. How many times can a woman possibly sing about giving the world “new ways to dream”? I was downright sleepy in the first act, I wished we could go back to the upbeat jazzy sounds of Hollywood the show started with. The end of act 1 picks up a little, but I had not been convinced what I was watching was actually “good” yet.

Act 2 contains all the real drama, even if the story feels truncated. It begins with an incredible sequence where Tom Francis sings the title song while he walks down seven flights of stairs and out onto the streets of New York, before he returns to the stage to finish the song. We only see him on the screen as the camera operator Shayna McPhearson follows him, often having to walk backwards. It is full of fourth-wall breaks and references to the movie itself and actors’ lives. 

David Thaxton admires a picture of Mandy Gonzales in his dressing room, we see Norma point to the gun she’ll use later, and Francis sings the words “Sunset Boulevard” while standing under the marquee of Sunset Boulevard. The plot picks up pace significantly, as Gillis navigates a burgeoning relationship with fellow writer Betty Schafer, and begins to understand how dangerous it is to be in Norma’s grasp. His demise is perhaps one of the most visceral depictions of violence I’ve seen (or rather, heard) onstage. He is shot, and the stage goes dark as we hear his cries of pain and agony as Norma begins to tear into him. 

When the lights come back on, Norma has blood running down her mouth and soaking her black slip. She is alone onstage, and it is dead silent as an unseen camera zooms in on her face as she utters her famous line: “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. Demille”. After the curtain call, the screen begins to play a closing credits sequence, and I was struck with the fascinating feeling that I was walking out of a movie theatre. 

Quite frankly, if I had not watched the original movie before I saw this show, I don’t think I would have been able to follow anything that was happening. The minimalist set is interesting but robs us of context. Norma’s mansion is of the same magnitude as Schwab's Drug Store and Paramount Studios, all of which are presented as just an empty stage. A lot of the plot feels gutted, there isn’t a creeping sense of dread as Norma’s fingers tighten further around Gillis’ autonomy. There is a love side plot between Joe Gillis and Betty Schafer that is given adequate space to breathe in the movie, but is left compressed in this stage adaptation. When Norma begins to break from reality, the ensemble comes out dressed in her black slip and starts convulsing on the ground as the screen flashes red. I dare say this production is incomprehensible without knowing the movie first. The spectacle is grand, but the plot has suffered as a result.

Tom Francis’ performance as Joe Gillis is fine, and I wish Grace Hodgett Young had enough real time onstage as Betty Schafer for me to say much about her performance. Jamie Lloyd seems to have directed her and many others to walk slowly across the stage and speak like they’re in a dream, which is a shame. Young was recently seen in the West End transfer of Hadestown, where she played Eurydice. She’s very engaging on the cast album they recently released, and I wish I got to see her in a better role. 

David Thaxton plays Max Von Mayerling and I feel as though he may have had the best performance in the show. His voice is deep and booming, he is always shown on the screen so his intimidating face looms over Gillis. When he walks and speaks slowly, it feels calculated rather than strange. However, I’m excited to see what he does next!

Sunset Boulevard is currently selling tickets up to July 6th, but I doubt it is going to close anytime soon. With the production easily grossing a million dollars a week, operating costs are being covered fully right now. The show will almost certainly not tour. The set is simple, but the logistics needed to do the walk at the top of act 2 in different cities is downright impossible. They could tour without it, but I fear the show would be much, much worse off without a crucial selling point. 

The show is facing stiff competition to win Best Revival at the 2025 Tony Awards. They will have to battle the already successful revival of Gypsy starring Audra McDonald (across the street at the Majestic Theatre), a revival of The Last Five Years starring Nick Jonas, The Lincoln Center’s greatly anticipated revival of Floyd Collins, and Pirates! The Penzance Musical, a reimagining and renaming of the original. Nicole likely puts on a nomination worthy performance, but she’ll be fighting Audra McDonald and Idina Menzel and we still have ten musicals coming out before the Tony eligibility period ends in April. We will see in June whether the Tony voters think Sunset Boulevard is high art or a confusing reinterpretation of a classic, but the production already seems to know the answer.

It Works! A Review of the Tour of Back to the Future: The Musical at the Buell Theatre

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

Back to the Future: The Musical is a new adaptation of the classic movie. With a book by Bob Gale, music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, and direction by John Rando, this timeless tale has hit the stage at full speed.

I attended this show twice while it was in Denver. The first was a part of our family’s season subscription. At that first performance, we had the full principal cast and sat in Orchestra C, Row AA, Seat 9. The second time I saw it with a group of friends and had the full principal cast but a new Marty McFly than the one I had previously seen transferred to the West End production. I sat in Orchestra D, Row D, Seat 7.

Back to the Future: The Musical follows the movie to a T, with only slight changes or omissions. I was quite skeptical coming into the show, figuring it’d be good fun but ultimately another forgettable movie-to-musical adaptation. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It works! 

Back to the Future: The Musical is bombastic, strange, and campy. Much of this is achieved through incredible tech work, with many moving parts that come together to create convincing illusions. The most important thing is that they have recreated the DeLorean time machine and put it onstage. This thing can actually drive around the stage and has a fully detailed interior. Credit goes to scenic and costume designer Tim Hatley, who managed to design and bring this beast to life. 

While it can drive around, the effect is really sold through Fin Ross’ video design and Chris Fisher’s illusion work. The car is sandwiched between a downstage see-through scrim and a screen in the background. Here we see videos of the world zipping by the DeLorean, creating an incredible feeling of speed I haven’t really seen on a stage before. It is a particularly effective piece of technical work that sells the scene well despite it being a simple setup. It also displays the logo when you first arrive in the theatre, with error warnings popping up reminding you not to take photos as phones did not exist in the 80’s and it will mess with the space-time continuum. 

While we are on the topic of technical work, I want to applaud the lighting design by Tim Lutkin and Hugh Vanstone. It does not intrude on scenes where it is unnecessary, but it makes great use of the proscenium which lights up in a futuristic circuit-like pattern when the car is speeding by. Towards the end of the show, when the storm begins to pick up, bright white lights flash at the audience to simulate lightning.

At our first performance, Marty McFly was played by Caden Brauch. He has since left the touring production to instead play Marty on the West End and has been succeeded by Lucas Hallauer. Caden’s interpretation of Marty felt unique, he wasn’t weighed down by what Michael J. Fox did in the movies. His Marty seemed to be playing it cooler than Fox’s. There is a specific line that I feel illustrates the point well. When Fox says “You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?”, he sounds exasperated and confused. When Brauch says it, he is in awe, with a hint of “right on dude” in his voice.

Our second performance had Lucas Haullauer, who previously understudied the role. Almost anything I could say about Caden’s performance I could say about Lucas’, they both play a very cool and suave Marty. I prefer how Lucas plays out moments with Lorraine and the few moments Marty does get genuinely panicked, his voice shoots up and the persona comes down. I feel Caden had better chemistry with George, his disappointment in how lame his dad is being almost painful. There are moments where he says nothing, just staring at his dad as you see the hope being extinguished behind his eyes. Neither of them gave a “better” performance, I think they both are doing a lot of the same things but playing into different strengths.

Don Stephenson played Doc Brown and his performance was one of the greatest things I have ever seen a person do onstage. I couldn’t make out many of the words he was saying due to his strange cartoon voice, but his vibes and aura were captivating. He moved about the stage in a herky-jerky manner, speaking with the cadence of a mad scientist. Stephenson says “flux capacitor” like Doofenshmirtz says “evil-inator”. There was a point where he made an expression where he stretched his mouth in opposite diagonal directions, a face so impossible he surely must have detached his jaw from the whole side of his skull. He looked like an animatronic with rubber skin stretched so far it was about to tear away. He’s almost what I imagine Doc Brown would be like if an 80’s Back to the Future cartoon had ever been made, similar to the Beetlejuice cartoon. A goofy caricature of a mad scientist, a zany personality that could sustain an episodic series.

Michale Bindeman plays George McFly, Marty’s father, and is a delight to watch anytime he’s onstage. He is a very tall and lanky man and uses it to his advantage, walking around in an awkward and bow-legged manner. One of the best moments that showcases this brand of comedy is during “Put Your Mind to It”, a song where Marty is teaching his dad how to be cool. Marty dances with swagger and style, and his father flails his arms around as he attempts to replicate the moves. There is a key point towards the end of the show where he gains confidence he never had before, and it is fun watching how his character transforms. He is still gangly and awkward, but he stands tall and stops being hunched over all the time.

Zan Berube plays Lorraine, Marty’s mother, who has the onerous task of making the audience believe incest is funny. She is successful at this endeavor, as she is quite overtly horny and Marty has to dodge her wild attempts to get him into her bed. To add some essential context for those who have not seen the movie, Marty accidentally interferes with his parents meeting for the first time in the past. Instead of his mother nursing his father back to health after he falls out of a tree, Marty falls and his mother becomes affectionate towards him. It is ridiculous how infatuated Zan is with Marty, and it is ridiculous how this is a primary obstacle that needs to be overcome so Marty isn’t erased. Perhaps it is the fact it is all so ridiculous that makes her performance work so well.

The whole show lives in its own ridiculous and campy world. When Doc begins to sing, a group of women come out and act as backup singers. Marty asks where all these girls came from, and Doc says “I don’t know! They just appear whenever I start singing!”. A whole chorus of ensemble members appear later during “Future Boy”, and Doc awkwardly shoos them out of his house when the song comes to a sudden halt. Act 1 ends with a spectacularly choreographed chase sequence through the high school, with Marty and George scaling lockers and leaping over tables. There is so much happening onstage during that sequence, so much to look at. It’s a spectacularly fun show.

The music is the weakest part of this show, despite the promise of the name attached to it. Alan Silvestri composed the music for the original movies and came back to create the score for this musical. When the Back to the Future theme is being played, recreating iconic moments from the movie, there is some real magic happening on that stage. That said, Alan is not a musical composer. 

There are a lot of times where it feels like the music is not meaningfully moving the story forward or developing the characters, two essential traits of any good musical theatre song. The first four songs are duds, making it feel like we were stopping the show to sing a song. The best was “Hello, Is Anybody Home?”, where Marty wonders how he ended up with such a lame family. It’s fun seeing how much his family sucks. The show at this point is sitting at like a 7/10, maybe 6 if I’m feeling uncharitable. Then right after that song, the DeLorean comes swerving out of the darkness and the show instantly rockets up to a 9/10. Everything after that point is just ridiculous, campy, fun. It maintains that energy until the very end with a curtain call performance of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Back in Time”. Back to the Future: The Musical is absolutely not high art, but boy is it a real fun ride.

Tensions Flare in Stereophonic at the John Golden Theatre

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

Stereophonic is a new play written by David Adjimi and directed by Daniel Aukin with original songs by Will Butler. It debuted at Playwrights Horizons, a theatre that fosters new work by playwrights hoping to break into the business. The play became the most nominated play ever at the 2024 Tony Awards with 13 nominations, beating the previous record of 12 held by Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play. While it did not win every nomination, it did win Best Play, Best Direction of a Play, and Best Sound Design of a Play. Will Brill won the award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Reg, and Sarah Pidegon won Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Diana. The show we saw had the full principal cast, although Sarah Pidegon and two other original cast members, Tom Pecinka and Juliana Canfield, had left the show by this point. 

The play follows a band trying to record their next album after their first received international acclaim. They’ve recently become quite well-known, and the pressure of fame weighs heavily on them. We watch the band, their producer, and assistant with a kind of fly-on-the-wall view. 

Early we see the seeds of discontent being sewn within the band, seeds that blossom into anger and resentment as they spend longer and longer in the recording studio. We are often without context as to what time of day it is, until one of them complains that it’s 3 AM and they’re at take 34. At one point, Grover, their producer, hears something loose in Simon’s drum. Fast forward and they have spent 6 days trying to get rid of the rattle sound. It takes them a full year to record the album, a slow and torturous time for our characters, but not for the audience, despite the show holding four acts and a runtime of three hours and fifteen minutes.

The greatest praise I can give to this play requires some context. The day I saw Stereophonic was the day we flew into New York. I woke up at 5 AM to catch a 7 AM flight, landed at LaGuardia at 1 PM, took a hellish ride on the Q70 bus to the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street-Broadway subway stop, took the 7 Train into Times Square, spent far too long trying to check in to our hotel, caught a 5 PM show of Oh, Mary!, left the Lyceum at 6:20 PM, rushed to grab coffee somewhere, and was finally seated right at 7pm to see Stereophonic. 

Despite the long and arduous travel day, my attention never wavered during Stereophonic. It is a captivating piece of theatre; I found myself quickly invested in these characters despite knowing them for so little time. Part of this is due to Enver Chakartash’s wonderfully 70’s costume designs, and Robert Pickens and Katie Gell’s hair and wigs, adding the touches needed to complete the characters’ looks. It firmly establishes a time, setting, and attitude for everyone onstage. Other little touches like prop cigarettes and joints bring it all together. Those props were lit with a real lighter onstage and they produced real smoke the audience could smell. The other part of what grabbed me so quickly were the performances. 

Prior to seeing the show, I had heard some naysayers on the internet claiming the show had lost its “je ne sais quoi” since the three original cast members left the production. The new members “couldn’t capture the energy” or whatever. However, the cast I saw was electric. They embody the play’s deeply naturalistic style, just people having candid conversations about life and work and tensing up when ill-tempered characters enter the recording studio. I cannot imagine how the performances could have been better beyond nitty gritty preferences on character interpretations. 

Special shoutout to Eli Gelb who played Grover, the primary sound engineer. Grover is a chill man who unravels at the seams slowly as he is enveloped by the hellish working conditions the band put him through. Perhaps I connected with him because he feels like he’s part of the audience, watching everything unfold helplessly and trying to stay out of it. When Eli came out for bows, I had a hard time believing that Gelb was the man who played Grover and not just Grover himself. 

Will Brill is also brilliant, rightfully deserving of his Tony Award. He starts the show particularly inebriated, and we watch his slow journey to sobriety as he reckons with the fact sobriety alone cannot solve all his issues. Early in the show, there’s a particularly amusing moment when Reg goes on an incoherent stoned rant about houseboats and the “secret war” happening between rich houseboat owners. It is a wonderful bit of acting from Brill, and had sold me on the validity of his Tony win long before he even started to have his character arc.

The real cherry on top is getting to hear the band play music live. The foreground of the stage has the soundboard and acts as a “hangout” area, and the background is a full recording studio area. Ryan Rumery’s sound design gives a distinct quality to the actors’ voices when they are speaking on the recording microphones, giving an extra layer of authenticity to the whole thing. 

The music in this show is really, really good. The most gripping and magical moments of the show come from watching a take finally come together, waiting with bated breath to see if the band can nail it this time, and sharing a sigh of relief with the characters when they do in fact nail it. I think perhaps the only critique or gripe I have with this show is the ending, or rather the feeling I was left with as it ended. There was so much drama and tension and yelling and when it ended, I asked “well, what was it all for?”. It doesn’t feel like it leads to a neat conclusion, but I feel perhaps that’s the point. You can stream the album they made (really just a cast album for the show), and it hits differently after seeing everything that made the music possible. It feels almost tainted, and even though the music is bopping, you can’t justify the pain people went through to make it.

The show officially closed on January 12th, but I am so glad to say it will be going on tour! Playbill reports that the tour will begin in October at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Recently, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) has been featuring touring one play per Broadway season, so I have very high hopes it will be in Denver in the next two years. The DCPA 2025-2026 season will be announced sometime in March. Alongside that, it is going to transfer to the West End at The Duke of York Theatre, with performances beginning in May of this year.

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club Asks “What Would You Do?”

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club is the reason my mom and I traveled to New York. Well, not Cabaret specifically. In July of last year, the show announced they had cast Adam Lambert as the Emcee, starring alongside Auli’i Cravalho as Sally Bowles. I love Adam Lambert, I saw him in concert when Queen came to Denver a few years back. My mom really loves Adam Lambert. She has been following him since his American Idol days. We had been thinking of an excuse to do another Broadway trip, and that excuse was Adam Lambert. The trip was loosely planned the same day they announced the casting, and before noon we had bought our tickets. At this performance, we had the full principal cast for the show itself and three understudies for the Prologue Company. We sat in the East Mezzanine, Mezzanine 1, Row B, Seats 114 and 113.

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, directed by Rebecca Frecknal, is an immersive revival of the classic Kander and Ebb musical. A revival should generally be trying to do something new with the old material. That said, I don’t always mind a revival existing for the sake of throwing a show on Broadway again. The recent production of Sweeney Todd was really just an excuse to put the show on Broadway again with big names in the leading roles, and I didn’t care because Sweeney Todd is a damn good show and the revival was a damn good production. 

Cabaret has to live up to the fame of its previous famous productions, namely the 1972 movie starring Joel Grey as the Emcee and Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles, and the 1993 London production starring Alan Cumming as the Emcee and Jane Horrocks as Sally Bowles. This revival has added two notable elements to distinguish itself from its predecessors. The first of these elements is an immersive pre-show that transports you to the Kit Kat Club, a key setting in the musical, with performers walking around and plenty of booze to keep things interesting. 

The second element is that this revival is staged in the round, with the audience surrounding the stage on all sides. The August Wilson Theatre was formerly a classic proscenium theatre. The production went through the process of remodeling the whole theatre, tearing out the old stage to add a new seating area. The stage, designed by Tom Scutt, features three concentric circles embedded into the ground. The outermost circle is a turntable, like the ones in Hamilton or Hadestown. The center circle has a lift that brings characters and props up and down. The middle circle can rise with the center lift, revealing dazzling lights normally concealed underneath. There are four poles on each diagonal end that allow performers to climb them if needed.

We entered the theatre through a side door, where we could hear the distant sound of club music. You walk through a dingy hallway lit in red. At the end of the hallway is a green neon sign for the show’s logo, an eye with a letter “C “ creating the pupil. Suddenly you are in some kind of an alley behind the theatre, descending downstairs until you get into the Kit Kat Club itself. Just before entering, you will be asked to place a sticker over your phone camera to keep you from taking pictures of the prologue or show. The Prologue/pre show was very fun, the performers are very talented and it’s fun just wandering around. My biggest gripe is that the preshow is tonally inconsistent with the show itself. It didn’t feel like we were in the Kit Kat Club, just a club. The music there had a deep booming bass, and I am fairly certain that no music in 1930’s Berlin would have featured a deep booming bass. However, it really shined whenever it was just the Prologue performers playing instruments. The performances themselves were dance heavy, reminding me of shows I would see in Vegas. This is NOT meant as an insult, I love a good Vegas show and they did pull off that specific vibe very well. I can’t say it felt like I was in 1930’s Berlin though, but despite that, I still thought it was a pretty fun time.

Cabaret is a hard-hitting show; the rise of the Nazis and fascism and the ways the show portrays those maps too clearly onto experiences we’ve seen in America as of late. Even if this revival was just putting Cabaret on stage again, I think that would be acceptable and perhaps even essential. It asks us what we would do in the face of rising hate, prejudice, and militaristic nationalism. Do you simply look away and say, “it won’t be me” or “this will all pass soon enough” and bury your head in the sand? Will you face the truth of what’s happening, or instead drown out reality with foolish pleasures? It’s hard to believe this show was written in 1966, and it is frankly grim how bitingly relevant Cabaret is sixty years later, to our current world. 

The Emcee, a lead character in the production, is a strange figure in all the shows. Who’s clearly a member of the Kit Kat Club but also some kind of a force or idea that moves throughout scenes. This production portrays him as the spirit of Berlin. Lambert starts the show vibrantly, wearing outlandish and fun costumes. By the end, he and the ensemble have adopted grey and beige suits, and the Emcee specifically has a blonde wig. 

Eddie Redmayne originated the role in this production and from what I hear he played the transformation in a very sinister way. Lambert instead looks like a man whose spirit is being broken, solemnly paraded towards a forgone conclusion. Nonetheless, he is a deeply charismatic Emcee, helping to pull the audience into the foolish fun of the first act before the stakes are raised. He is a treasure to watch in anything he does frankly, and his vocal range is just stunning. Auli’i Cravalho is best known for her performance in Moana and Moana 2 as the titular character, but she has been focused on getting more theatre and film credits under her belt. 

Calvin Leon Smith is opposite her as Clifford Bradshaw, and the two eventually end up in a strange love affair. Calvin gives Cliff this reluctant energy, wanting to let go and have fun but being unwilling to do it until he’s fully pulled into Sally’s orbit. Cravalho has a beautiful rendition of “Maybe This Time”, letting us really see Sally’s character and emotions after hiding them so well. I want to shout her out for nailing the ending, the complexity of all the emotions she has and the weight of the decisions she’s made are apparent even before her heartbroken rendition of “Cabaret” fills the theatre.

My absolute greatest praise goes to Bebe Nuewirth, who plays Fraulein Schneider. She gave what was undoubtedly the best performance I saw on my entire New York trip. The relationship between her and Herr Schultz is the real beating emotional heart of the show. She speaks in such a way that makes her voice sound old and worn down. Fraulein Schnieder has lived a long and hard life, and we hear it so strongly in Bebe’s voice. We see the ways that love changes her through that voice as well, taking on a gentler quality. When all goes awry, her voice becomes terribly shaky. Nuewirth sustains a long note during “What Would You Do”, able to control her voice so well she can fill the theatre with her voice and sound like she is about to have her voice crack without it ever happening. She doubles over, overcome with emotion and shaking before composing herself again and acting like this is simply another hardship she’ll get through. Adam and Auli’i are really good, but I would gladly go back to see this show again just for Bebe Nuewirth.

Tickets to Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club are available through July 20th of this year. There is no set closing date for this production, but the small ticket window worries me, and makes me afraid they aren’t confident they can extend past July. The 2024 Tony’s weren’t particularly kind to the show, after being nominated for nine awards but only winning one, Best Scenic Design. Adam Lambert and Auli’i Cravalho are scheduled to be in the show until the end of March. 

According to Playbill, country music star Orville Peck will then take on the role of the Emcee, and Eva Noblezada will be Sally Bowles. I am not familiar with Peck’s work, but he is famous for wearing an outlaw-esque mask while performing. Tom Scutt’s costumes in this production have seen variations over the years from London to New York. I would not say it is out of the question that Peck’s Emcee costume will be redesigned so it can incorporate masks of some kind. 

As for Eva, she is immensely talented, and there is a clip of her singing “Maybe This Time” that is floating around somewhere online. Bebe Neuwirth will also depart at the end of March, with the role of Fraulein Schneider being taken over by Ellen Harvey. Playbill reports “Also new to the company will be Jada Simone Clark as Helga, Paige Smallwood as Rosie, and Price Waldman as Herman and Max,”.

The cast I saw was wonderful, and I have confidence the upcoming cast will be just as wonderful. Due to the nature of the stage and the immersive elements, this production will never tour in any realistic sense. If you want to see it, I recommend you get moving in case July 20th truly is their secret closing date. 

A Review of the Touring Production of Kimberly Akimbo

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer 

The national tour of the Broadway musical, Kimberly Akimbo began its tour at the Buell Theatre on September 22nd, and will be playing in theaters across America for the next year. The show kicked off the Denver Center for the Performing Arts 2024-2025 Broadway Season, bringing the best of Broadway to the Mile High City. Kimberly Akimbo won the 2023 Tony Award for the Best New Musical, a prestigious title that helped it stay popular and relevant, until it closed in April this year. Prior to the performance I saw, I had not listened to any of the cast albums or read any specific plot details. I only knew it was about a teenager with progeria. The performance I attended had the full principal cast.

Kimberly Akimbo is adapted from a 2001 play of the same name, depicting the teenage struggles of Kimberly Levaco, a 16-year-old from New Jersey. Kimberly has progeria, a rare genetic disorder that causes people to age at a rapid pace. The musical role of Kimberly was originated by 64-year-old Victoria Clark on Broadway, and played by 62-year-old Carolee Carmello on the tour. The magic of this show rests on that performance, the suspension of disbelief that a woman in her 60’s is actually a teenager. Carolee Carmello is a star in this role, making the audience truly believe that she is just a teenager, trying to be happy while contending with her disease and mortality. 

All roles in this show are cast so the actors appear as authentic to the age of their characters as possible. This helps Kimberly stand out amongst her young peers and middle-aged family. She is stuck dealing with her alcoholic father (played by Jim Hogan) and her narcissistic, pregnant mother (played by Dana Steingold). At school, she meets Seth (played by Miguel Gil), a charming, awkward boy obsessed with anagrams. In the meantime, her criminal Aunt Debra (played by Emily Koch) tries to drag Kimberly into a check-washing scheme.

First, I’ll start with highlighting the best of the show.. Kimberly Akimbo is a show that is relentlessly positive, without being the trite disability inspiration story we’ve seen many times before. It feels like it belongs in the 2017 season on Broadway, at home with shows like Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away. There’s drama and serious moments but it also has ample use of humor and comedy to provide stretches of levity. It’s a deeply human show, covering the flaws and follies of a parent, teenage friendship and love, and our fickle mortality. 

Kimberly’s “I Want” song is a letter to the Make-A-Wish foundation, talking about everything she’ll never get to do because she won’t live long enough to experience those things. Later, she’s among her peers as they sing about beginning their “real life”, in going to college and starting families. She sits there silently, dejected, knowing she won’t live long enough to have a life after high school. 

As I said earlier, it is worth seeing this show on tour solely for Carolee Carmello’s performance as Kimberly. To be 50 years removed from being a teenager (much less one in 1999) and still being able to portray that authentically is nothing short of spectacular. When the rights to the show become available, local theaters are going to have a hard time finding anyone who can match such a performance.

I was also delighted with Miguel Gil’s portrayal of Seth, a sincere performance for an equally sincere character. Miguel was the original understudy for Seth during the Broadway run, and I’m so glad he gets to star in the role on tour. Seth is an awkward, wonderful “good kid” who plays the tuba. In his spare time, he creates anagrams, rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to say something new (Federal government can be rearranged to “large fervent demon”). His general weirdness and authenticity gives Kimberly a safe space, away from her deeply dysfunctional family. 

Miguel and Carolee have wonderful stage chemistry. Carolee’s performance doesn’t work if Miguel also can’t convince the audience of their budding friendship and feelings, and he’s able to do that despite the 40 years of age between him and Carolee.

On the other end, here are the not so great things about the show. While I enjoyed my time in the theater, I found upon walking out that I couldn’t really remember any of the songs. Many were fun to watch, fun in the context of the scene they were in, but they weren’t catchy. I hold the opinion that truly great musicals must have songs that are memorable, worthy in their own right. I can’t see myself going back and consistently listening to the Kimberly Akimbo cast album in my spare time. I fear almost all the songs sounded the same, only 3 stand out in my mind with any clarity after the fact. Those three were “Better”, “Happy for Her”, and “How to Wash a Check”. 

I also wouldn’t say this was a spectacularly staged production, or that it even felt “definitive”. It stayed committed to a realistic staging of the songs and material, but it didn’t make any part of it “stand out”. Come From Away is a show that’s grounded in equally realistic material, but it has a creative use of chairs and costumes within its minimal set to switch rapidly between people and places, giving it a feeling of momentum and purpose. And while it does escape being a disability inspiration story, it can’t escape being a dime-a-dozen feel good story. The story as I saw it would’ve worked better as a movie, as only a few parts of the story were elevated by the inclusion of music.

Overall, I give the show a 7/10. There were a lot of enjoyable moments and performances, but there’s a lot of missed potential. I also do not feel as though this show deserves the title of Best New Musical. It was up against Shucked, a corny, sincere, feel-good musical that I consider to be better than Kimberly Akimbo in all respects. Shucked will not be at the DCPA this season, but it has begun its American tour. If you have the chance to see Shucked, see it instead of Kimberly Akimbo.

Much Ado About St. Pelagia’s Players at Regis

(Photo courtesy of St. Pelagia's Players)

By: Allison Upchurch, Staff Reporter

               Did you know that Regis had a Shakespeare players group? Well, we do! It’s the St. Pelagia’s Players, created by seniors Hannah Creasman and Frederika Gillbert. The Highlander got to sit down with Creasman to talk about the group and their production coming up in November.

               As students, Creasman and Gillbert felt there was a lack of theater on campus and came together to create the St. Pelagia’s Players. “We both felt that we would like to create a venue for the student body in which we could explore that form of art,” Creasman tells The Highlander.

               This group first production, “Much Ado About Nothing”, was put on last fall semester. “And it was great,” Creasman recalls, “We basically did everything by the seed of our pants. We scrapped together a cast and a venue and a tech crew, very small numbers of all those things. She directed and I produced and we put on a play and it was amazing and people came and laughed.”

               This November, the group will be tackling what is regarded as Shakespeare’s final production as a playwright, “The Tempest.” Originally the story of a royal party who get shipwrecked on an island sometime in the 1600’s, the St. Pelagia’s Players have decided to set their production in a more modern setting and give light to the issue of ocean pollution and waste.

               “We’re doing this to sort of bring out the pathos of what our consumerism and disposable lifestyle creates around the world both for nature and for other humans,” said Creasman.

               Creasman adds how hard at work the actors have been since auditions last April at learning their characters, the production, and the themes they want to portray. “There’s a lot of emotion going on during the whole thing. So we wanted to give the actors enough time to be with their characters and kind of live with those people whom they are going to embody on stage.”

               The call to do this particular play at this time is one that stems from the Jesuit lifestyle here at Regis. To connect it all together, Creasman reflects, “In terms of living for other people, in terms of the Jesuit lifestyle, just realizing and being aware of the small aspects of our lives that creates a huge ripple effect all around the world in terms of pollution is a very strong aspect to explore.”

               “The Tempest” will be performed Nov. 10, 11, and 12, and this group has room for a few extra helpers and performers. For more information on the play or how to join, email stpelagiasplayers@gmail.com and follow their Facebook group @StPelagiaRegis.