Some memorable moments from 2008

It's hard for me to pick my favorite shows of the year because truly, I loved almost everything - just some more than others. These are some of the songs, choreography, scenes and characters that amazed me, made me laugh or cry or simply made me think a little bit harder about the world this year. There were probably another dozen I could have picked, too.

One of the things that struck me as I looked over the list of plays and musicals I saw in 2008 was how many of them dealt with adolescents struggling to find their place in a world that's not always very accepting.

Some have done things that their parents simply can't understand. Others dream of a life that their parents simply can't imagine. They want desperately to fit in with their classmates, to live up to the expectations that their families have of them. But they also want to be true to themselves. While they're not all on this list, to some extent all of their stories resonated with me. Maybe it has something to do with the power of theatre, but I felt for them all.

1.) For thrilling spectacle, it's hard to beat the opening minutes of Disney's musical The Lion King. Once a pair of giraffes ambled across the stage followed by a parade of animals up the aisles of the theatre in the opening number, "Circle of Life," I was hooked. My jaw dropped in amazement and my inner child was activated. Director (and designer) Julie Taymor uses elaborate costumes, masks, puppets and video projection to create a show that's so visually rich and vivid. I'm not a big fan of comic book stories but knowing that Taymor (and Bono!) are two of the creative forces behind the new Spider-Man musical definitely makes me interested.

2.) Black Watch brought home the experiences of a Scottish regiment in Iraq in such an imaginative, visceral way. Soldiers silently act out reading letters from home; one member of the unit relates the history of the Black Watch as he's being dressed, undressed and turned every which way with military precision. At one point near the end of the play I closed my eyes and winced in anticipation of a bone being broken. It was a moment of potential violence that was unexpected and it seemed so real.

3.) I had the pleasure of seeing Harvey Fierstein on stage twice this year - in A Catered Affair and last month, reprising his Tony-winning role as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. When Harvey sings "Coney Island" at the end of A Catered Affair, suitcase in hand, ready to start a new phase in his life, it was so touching. And in Hairspray, I had a chance to see Harvey's wonderful comic timing. I just have to smile whenever I think of him jumping on the hot dog cart in "Welcome to the Sixties" or the hilarious duet with Wilbur Turnblad in "You're Timeless to Me." They were priceless moments.


4.) Brooks Ashmanskas is an adorable, teddy bear of a man. I loved him and Kate Baldwin as feuding coworkers who don't realize they're pen pals in She Loves Me at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company. What a sweet, wonderful little musical. Baldwin has a great comic touch in "Vanilla Ice Cream" and I got choked up when she sang "Dear Friend," while waiting in a cafe to meet her pen pal. But I think my favorite moment was watching Ashmanskas, a truly expressive, physical actor, dance his way across a bare stage bathed in blue light while performing the title song.

5.) I remember as a kid watching Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals when they came on television - Oklahoma! and The King and I and above all, Cinderella with Lesley Ann Warren. But until I saw the revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center this spring, I had never seen a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical on stage. From the opening strains of the overture, when the stage slid back to reveal a 30-piece orchestra, I was captivated by this production. There were many great moments with Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot and Matthew Morrison as the leads. I especially loved the lively staging of "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair." But really, it was all great.

6.) Seeing Patti LuPone as Mamma Rose in Gypsy was on my list of top theatrical moments of 2007. When the musical moved from the City Center Encores! series to Broadway, I saw Gypsy again. And once again, it makes my list of top theatre moments. This time, I want to mention Laura Benanti's performance. The moment when we first see Benanti transformed from gawky, plain-Jane adolescent Louise to glamorous, confident stripper Gypsy Rose Lee was stunning. Her hair is different, her clothes are obviously different, even her personality seems different. I could hardly believe she was the same person. Really, the brilliance of her Tony-winning performance just blew me away.

7.) I've written numerous times about my admiration for Daniel Breaker's performance in Passing Strange, especially the moment when he leaps across the stage in imitation of a big Broadway dance number. There's another scene that's stayed with me, too. When Breaker's character, Youth, is living in Berlin, he's made friends with a group of left-wing artists and activists. He fully expects that one of them will invite him home for Christmas. But they're not too keen about bringing a young black man to their small towns to meet the family. It's a painful moment when Youth realizes that there are limits to acceptance and friendship.

8.) I really enjoyed In the Heights, winner of the 2008 Tony for Best Musical. Lin-Manuel Miranda was great as bodega owner Usnavi, rapping his way through the opening number, featuring Andy Blankenbuehler's awesome choreography. But Mandy Gonzalez really won my heart as college student Nina, whose story is at the center of In the Heights. She returns to her Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City from Stanford feeling like a failure. I think her voice is beautiful and she's heartbreaking in "Breathe," when she sings about her guilt at having let down her family and her community.

9.) I though Laurence Fishburne was mesmerizing in Thurgood, as he took us through the life of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court. This was my first time seeing a one-person show on stage. Fishburne is a great storyteller as he goes through the details of Marshall's life and the fight to end school segregation in this county, culminating in the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. For me, he was such a commanding presence. I was in the third row, on the aisle, so when he sat down in a chair on stage at one point, he was literally right in front of me. I didn't dare take my eyes off of him - he was looking right at me, or at least that's what it felt like.

10.) The more I think about it, the more I like 13, Jason Robert Brown's musical about Evan Goldman, a Jewish kid who moves from New York City to Indiana after his parents get divorced. He's trying frantically to get the cool kids in his new school to come to his bar mitzvah. I loved the energetic young cast and the choreography and the rock 'n' roll score. At the end of the musical, in a very nice scene, we see Evan, played by Graham Phillips, during his bar mitzvah, a yarmulke on his head and a prayer shawl draped around his shoulders, chanting in Hebrew. The show could have left that moment out, soft-pedaled the religious angle, but it didn't - to its credit.

11.) Just about any moment that involves dancing in the musical Billy Elliot is memorable. I loved the dream ballet between Billy, played by Trent Kowalik at the performance I saw, and an adult dancer, played by Stephen Hanna. I loved seeing Billy in the middle of all those tutu-clad little girls in "Shine" and the big scrum of kids, miners and police in "Solidarity." I loved a very tender and bittersweet embrace between Billy and his father, played by Gregory Jbara. And any moment with Haydn Gwynne, who plays Billy's dance teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, is wonderful. But the scene where Billy reads a letter from his dead mother is heartbreaking. Listening to it on the cast recording, I'm in tears.

12.) I can still picture Brian J. Smith as Brandon Hardy, a high school senior in the 1980s in Roberto Aguirre Sacasa's play Good Boys and True. At one point, Brandon angrily denies to his friend Justin (Christopher Abbott) that he's gay. He hurls vile, homophobic insults, taunting Justin that he'll have a better life, he'll make more money, be more successful, be happier, because he's not going to be gay. To me, it was a powerful moment not solely because of what Brandon does to Justin - although that's bad enough - but because it shows, in a very stark way, what Brandon is doing to himself out of fear.

My 2008 Broadway playlist

In today's New York Times, Stephen Holden writes enthusiastically about the newest Broadway cast recordings. He looks at In the Heights, Passing Strange, South Pacific, A Catered Affair and off-Broadway's Adding Machine.

Holden also mentions Gypsy in passing, but notes that it won't be released until August. He does say, however, that it will include some never-before-recorded songs. And he gets the winner of the Tony for Best Original Score wrong, giving it to Passing Strange instead of In the Heights. Wishful thinking on his part, perhaps?

It's a very timely story for me, because I've been spending the past month listening to South Pacific, In the Heights and A Catered Affair. (Passing Strange is available on iTunes, but it won't be released on CD until July 15, so I'm holding off until then).

I decided this week to try and put together a playlist for my iPod of my absolute favorite songs from the three shows. I'll add Gypsy and Passing Strange once I've listened to them a few times.

Of course, it's impossible to pick just a few tunes out of these three wonderful scores. They're all terrific and I've enjoyed listening to them repeatedly. I mean, what don't I love about South Pacific? Holden writes that you can't listen to the revival recording "without becoming misty-eyed for an era of cockeyed postwar optimism when all America sang Rodgers and Hammerstein hits and absorbed the moral instruction in their songs."

You'll note that my South Pacific picks are heavily tilted toward Matthew Morrison's Lt. Joseph Cable. The more I listened to South Pacific, the more I was taken with Morrison's voice. While he's not my all-time favorite Lieutenant Cable, he's a close second.

In the Heights
In the Heights
Breathe
Inutil
Pacienca Y Fe
Everything I Know
96,000

A Catered Affair
Our Only Daughter
Your Children's Happiness
Don't Ever Stop Saying I Love You
I Stayed
Coney Island

South Pacific
My Girl Back Home
Younger Than Springtime
You've Got to Be Carefully Taught
I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair
A Wonderful Guy
A Cockeyed Optimist
There Is Nothing Like A Dame
Some Enchanted Evening
This Nearly Was Mine

The end of the Affair

T.S. Eliot famously wrote that April is the cruelest month, but apparently for struggling Broadway shows, June and July can be pretty nasty, too.

I remember last year around this time - just after the Tony awards - a couple of shows that I wanted to see during my July trip to New York City, the revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company and August Wilson's Radio Golf, posted closing notices. At least this time, I actually had a chance to see A Catered Affair, which will have its last performance on July 27. When the show closes, it will have played 27 previews and 116 regular performances.

It's too bad that this tender slice of life about a 1950s family in the Bronx never really found an audience. It had a plot with a great deal of resonance, as the family faced the question of what to do with the military death benefit they received when their son was killed in Korea - spend it on a lavish catered affair for their daughter's wedding or use it to secure a bigger piece of the American Dream.

I know some reviewers found A Catered Affair somber and slow-moving, but I thought it was very life-affirming. Each of the characters is at a crossroads in life, and it definitely ends on a note of hope. I'm glad I saw the show for many reasons, including John Bucchino's absolutely gorgeous score. This was my introduction to his music, and I loved it. A couple of songs, "Our Only Daughter" and "Coney Island," are among my favorites of the 2008 Broadway season.

I'm also glad I had a chance to see Harvey Fierstein, as the family's live-in "bachelor" uncle. Harvey is such a Broadway legend and it really was great to see him on stage. In fact, I enjoyed all the performances, including Tom Wopat as the solid, working-class husband and father who feels unappreciated, Faith Prince as the wife who wants to give her remaining child the wedding she never had, and Leslie Kritzer as the daughter eager to go off and start her own life.

I didn't think A Catered Affair was doing that badly at the box office either. Last week, it played to 74 percent capacity, with an average ticket price of $68.41, although the audience was down by 3.3 percent from the previous week. I guess the producers didn't see much chance of things picking up over the summer, even though they recently announced the addition of a Thursday matinee, dropping a Wednesday night performance.

It just seems like every year, these exquisitely acted little musicals open up and struggle to find an audience. The stars of Grey Gardens, Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, both won Tony awards last year, and the show still closed in July. I'll happily go to New York for five days and see seven shows, but I know most people won't - they'll see one, or maybe two - if that. And as much as I love Hairspray and Wicked, I'd be the first to tell someone planning a trip to New York that if they're only able to see one show, they should try to see something they can't see in their hometown on tour, something with its original Broadway cast.

In a statement, Fierstein said, "Our team set out to create a new form of musical storytelling. What we achieved was raw, honest, emotionally daring theater. I couldn't be prouder of A Catered Affair. And, from all indications, the show will have a long and prosperous life in every sort of venue around the globe. That ain't chopped liver!"

I guess in a way, it was was daring: a small, quiet musical. I've seen quite a range of musicals this year - lots of dancing, no dancing; elaborate sets, minimal sets; musicals with rock 'n' roll scores, more symphonic scores, along with salsa, pop and hip-hop. I think A Catered Affair's music is among the most beautiful and its story, about the struggles of average, everyday people, left a lasting impression.

Listening to A Catered Affair

I've been listening to the Broadway cast recording of A Catered Affair for the past couple of days. After I see a show, listening to the music either confirms how I felt about it in the first place, or makes me reconsider. In this case, I love John Bucchino's songs even more.

I'd never heard of Bucchino before A Catered Affair, so I didn't quite know what to expect. But his melodies are absolutely beautiful. I know there's been some criticism that the songs in this musical all sound alike. It's true that on one level the music is similar - there aren't any upbeat numbers, for example. Honestly though, the music is so stirring, the similarity didn't bother me. In fact, I think it's a strength - it makes the 90-minute musical a cohesive whole.

But don't be misled - even though the music may sound similar, if you listen to the lyrics, they're all quite different in tone. Each one is told from the perspective of a different character in this working-class family in the Bronx in the 1950s. And Bucchino packs so much into those lyrics - they're little stories in song, and they reveal so much about the lives of these people.

Each song paints a very clear portrait of each of the characters - Tom and Aggie Hurley, who are grieving the death of their soldier son in Korea, their daughter Jane, so eager to begin married life, and Aggie's brother Winston, who's at a crossroads in his life.

One song that stood out for me even more on the cast recording was when Faith Prince's Aggie sings about "Our Only Daughter." She and her husband, played by Tom Wopat, placed all of their hopes and dreams on the back of their son, to the detriment of their daughter. Terrence was the one who got a chance to go to college, while their daughter, Jane, had to go to work.

It's only after their son is killed that Aggie realizes all of the sacrifices that Jane, played by Leslie Kritzer, has made for the family. "She never asked for more because life taught her that there was nothing more for our only daughter." It's that realization that makes Aggie want to use her son's military death benefit to give her daughter a lavish catered affair - the big wedding that she herself never had.

I've known families like this - who basically sacrificed everything for their son, and their daughter's needs came second. I think it's probably very realistic for that time period. I even remember 25 years ago having a roommate in college who told me that her brother was smarter - and it was better for a boy to have the brains.

Another moment I loved was when Harvey Fierstein's Uncle Winston sings "Coney Island." It really moved me when I heard it on stage. The only other time I'd heard him sing was on the Broadway cast recording of Hairspray. And he sounds so different here, like he's trying to modulate his famously gravelly voice.

When he sings to his sister about a long-ago ride on the roller coaster at Coney Island, "You're halfway through another ride, don't wait until the scary feelings pass. Just take a breath and open up your eyes right now," it's really sweet and tender. I was so touched by the sentiment behind those words, the love and caring between this brother and sister.

I think A Catered Affair is the type of show where I'll find something new whenever I listen to the score. And I definitely need to start listening to more of John Bucchino's music.

A Catered Affair

Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

I've written before about my love for musicals with elaborate sets, rousing songs and intricately choreographed dance numbers. But that's not all I love. There's plenty of room in my musical theatre fandom to heap some praise on a small gem of a show like A Catered Affair.

This is a thoughtful musical that treats working-class characters in the Bronx in the 1950s with dignity and tenderness. Its themes of family and love and sacrifice resonated with me. John Bucchino's score is quite moving in the way that it articulates what the characters are thinking and feeling. And Harvey Fierstein has packed a lot of emotion, including a bit of humor, into his book, based on a movie by Gore Vidal and a teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky.

This is a musical that's really unlike any other I've seen over the past 18 months. A Catered Affair doesn't overreach. Under John Doyle's direction, it's a well-told slice of life about a family at a crossroads. I liked the way it showed the different dreams of people living under the same roof. And one thing I appreciated when I thought about it later, it's generally a very quiet musical, which was kind of nice for a change.

Aggie and Tom Hurley, played by Faith Prince and Tom Wopat, are coping with the loss of their soldier son, killed in Korea. Understandably, that grief contributes to the subdued mood of A Catered Affair, but I wouldn't describe it as a gloomy or somber musical. Just the opposite - I found it very hopeful and life-affirming.

Aggie wants to use the military's death benefit to give their daughter Janey the lavish wedding that she never had. But Tom has a dream of his own that he's been harboring all these years: he wants to buy a share of his taxi business. And their daughter, played so sweetly and with such determination by Leslie Kritzer, wants a simple wedding at city hall with her fiance, Ralph, a nicely low-key Matt Cavenaugh, so that the two can embark on a cross-country car trip.

Prince and Wopat portray Aggie and Tom with great sympathy and poignancy. Up until this point, they've been consumed by the details of daily life. They've probably spent the past 20 years not talking to each other. Now, for the first time in their marriage, they will be alone with each other. And all of that bottled-up emotion is coming out, when Aggie dreams about the perfect wedding in "Vision," or Tom's stunning and forceful "I Stayed."

The disagreement about what to do with the money reminded me of another working-class family in the 1950s, the African-American Youngers in A Raisin in the Sun. But seeing the folded, triangular-shaped American flag resting on the kitchen table also reminded me of stories I've read recently, of families who have lost a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan and face a similar dilemma.

This was my first time seeing Harvey Fierstein on stage, and hearing that gravelly voice in person was thrilling. Initially, I had some reservations about his role. He plays Aggie's brother Winston, a "confirmed bachelor" in 1950s jargon. His comic turn seemed a bit out of place in a story about a grieving family. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how essential he was to the story.

I think audiences really crave the relief that laughter provides. A Catered Affair is a pretty serious musical, but Fierstein's book wisely includes a few scenes that lighten the mood. In one of them, his anger at not being invited to the wedding leads to a drunken outburst that's sad and funny. Ok, maybe his voice isn't the best, but I thought he was so touching in his big song, "Coney Island."

There's another reason why Winston's role is so important. In the popular culture of the 1950s, blacks, Jews and gays are largely at the margins of society, or invisible. But of course, there were gay men in the 1950s. What A Catered Affair does is make these men visible by giving a voice to their lives and their loves and their dreams, by showing them as fully realized human beings, as part of supportive families. And that's the way it should be.

I also loved the way David Gallo's set and Zachary Borovay's projection design evoked New York City - from the pictures of tenements projected on the back wall, to Janey and Ralph's beautiful duet on a fire escape, "Don't ever stop saying I love you." This was an era when extended families lived with each other in cramped apartments, and when two young people would never think about taking a cross-country drive together unless they were married. I also loved the trio of neighborhood busybodies, played by Lori Wilner, Kristine Zbornik and Heather MacRae, who lean out of their windows to trade the latest gossip.

At its core, A Catered Affair is a story about love - between a husband and wife, between siblings, between parents and children, between two men. Even though we never actually see the object of Winston's affection, we know there is someone special in his life. It's a story about what family members do for each other, the sacrifices they make, it's about the things that get unsaid in a relationship, about a younger generation yearning to break free from their parents.

I wrestled with my rating for A Catered Affair, whether to give it 3 1/2 or 4 stars. But I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. In the interest of full disclosure, a knee injury flared up soon after the show started, and I was in intense pain for the first 45 minutes. I spent the last 45 minutes standing at the back of the mezzanine in the Walter Kerr Theatre, which actually was a pretty good vantage point.

Since then, I've thought a lot about A Catered Affair. While some musicals are pretty forgettable, this one stayed with me. I went to the Web site and listened to some of the songs, and they moved me once again. Even the parts that gave me pause initially, like Winston's role, seemed to fit when I really thought about them. If it weren't for the knee pain, I think these things would have struck me while I was watching, and made a bigger impact.

In the end, A Catered Affair isn't the biggest, boldest or brashest musical I've ever seen, but it's certainly one of the most heartfelt.