Lowering the curtain on 2010

All the reviews have been written and the curtain has dropped on my year of living theatrically, 2010 edition.

Unfortunately, it was not a record-setting year. I saw fewer shows than I did in 2009, since I wasn't able to get to New York in the spring and I didn't make it to Boston at all. But it's quality not quantity, right? And I still saw a lot of memorable theatre.

Before I get to the highlights in an upcoming post, a few odds and ends:

I checked two more Broadway theatres off my list: the Longacre and the Cort. There are only six left that I've yet to step inside: Ambassador, American Airlines, August Wilson, Golden, Majestic and Sondheim. The Longacre reopened in 2008 after a two-year, $12-million renovation by the Shuberts, and it's beautiful. The Cort, well, I hope it's next on the list for a facelift. And speaking of the Sondheim, when are they going to dot the i? Has anyone else noticed that it's still missing?

Among the seat-selection lessons I learned this year: just because the front row in a particular theatre is fine for one play, that doesn't mean it'll be fine for another play. I sat in the front row at the Friedman for The Royal Family and it was perfect. But I was a little too close for The Pitmen Painters. The stage seemed to be higher and deeper. I never realized the dimensions could change that dramatically!

Another question: Does the director ever sit in the audience to make sure everyone can see from every vantage point? A row of speakers blocked my view of the actors' feet in Xanadu. Not good in a musical with roller-skating dancers. A chair blocked my view for a couple of scenes in The Pitmen Painters and a piece of the set that popped up from the stage did the same during Act II of A Free Man of Color at the Beaumont. (To be fair, I had changed my seat at intermission, moving down to an empty spot in the front row. There's no leg room in the Beaumont, even in the orchestra.)

As always, I had many wonderful stage-door experiences. Among them: Saycon Sengbloh of Fela! graciously took me onstage at the O'Neill.

I tracked down Tony winner Douglas Hodge in a bar after La Cage aux Folles and he was great, taking a few minutes to talk to me and sign my Playbill. I consider that one of my more intrepid stage-door adventures.

I met Michael Shannon from Mistakes Were Made at the Barrow Street Theatre. He was so nice, asking me where I was from, how I travel to New York and what other shows I was seeing. He asked me my name so he could personally inscribe my program. (I think I startled him because "Esther" is his character's secretary in the play). And he even drew a little smiley face for me!

Another first: I met a playwright! David Hirson was at the stage door at La Bete, a work I really loved and I got to tell him so. I also had the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with David Hyde Pierce. I told him how much I enjoyed him in Curtains and he showed me that he was wearing the show jacket from the musical - which I thought was sweet in a theatre geek kind of way.

By far the rudest audience behavior I witnessed this year was at Trust, at the Second Stage Theatre off-Broadway.

I was in the third row and at the beginning of Act II, a woman sitting on the aisle snapped a couple of pictures of Zach Braff. It was so brazen, as well as rude and dangerous to the actors. It's a small theatre, too, 327 seats. So it's not like no one would notice.

I'm pretty sure that if she'd waited until after the play, he would have posed for a picture with her.

Fela!

Fela! at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on Broadway.
Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

I was supposed to see Fela! in December as the final show in my New York City trip. When the performance was canceled due to injuries about 10 minutes after curtain time, I was extremely disappointed.

By the time I returned to Broadway, last weekend, new musicals had opened and I'd lost interest. I was going to skip Fela! altogether.

But my friend Steve on Broadway encouraged me to give it another chance, telling me it was incredible and reminding me that I'd get to see Saycon Sengbloh in a featured role. Fortunately, I listened to him.

Fela! tells the story of the late Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and takes place in 1978 in his nightclub, the Shrine. It's an original musical that meshes politics, history and a personal narrative with the pulsating sound of Afrobeat. I was enthralled from beginning to end.

Two actors share the title role - Sahr Ngaujah and Kevin Mambo. I saw Mambo and he was mesmerizing - a charismatic showman who at one point gets the audience up and swiveling our collective hips. You can understand why a million people crowded the streets of Lagos at Fela's funeral.

Mambo is onstage almost the entire 2 1/2 hours and has practically the only speaking role. The music - from the Afrobeat band Antibalas - and dance, choreographed by Tony winner Bill T. Jones, are almost nonstop. Robert Kaplowitz's Tony-winning sound design was crisp and clear without hurting my ears.

Aided by Peter Nigrini's projection design, Fela tells of his childhood in a politically active family, chafing under British Colonial rule, eye-opening travels to England the United States, becoming a musician and opposing the corruption that took hold in Nigeria after independence.

And Mambo is a terrific storyteller. He's funny as Fela describes his influences - Frank Sinatra and James Brown among them; poignantly ambivalent referring to his grandfather - the first African to record music in Europe; reverential about his mother, Funmilayo, a courageous, pioneering feminist; defiant toward the authorities who constantly harass and arrest him.

Only two other performers have speaking roles. Sengbloh is captivating as Sandra Isadore, an American who sparks his interest in politics and black power. Abena Koomson (understudy for Lillias White) is stirring as Funmilayo. I just wish we'd seen more of them, and others who influenced Fela's life.

Fela! doesn't present its subject as a saint - there's a hilarious scene involving marijuana and he married 27 women, some of whom are onstage dancing with him. And it doesn't stint in describing the violence directed against Fela and his followers by Nigeria's military dictatorship.

So I was disappointed that while the show mentions Fela's death, it's silent about the cause - complications from AIDS. The omission leaves the audience wondering and it made me a bit sad that in one respect, this bold musical held back.

Nonetheless, I left the theatre exhilarated and with two thoughts: that Kevin Mambo should have received a Tony nomination along with Sahr Ngaujah and that Fela! was the best new musical I saw on Broadway this season.

At the stage door, upstairs in the bar

I'll be posting reviews of the shows I saw in New York City but first, I have some memorable stage door experiences to share. Well okay, one of them was an upstairs in the bar experience.

First, I introduced myself to Saycon Sengbloh, whom I've written about before, after seeing her in the vibrant and powerful Fela! To my surprise, she recognized my blog!

Saycon occupies a treasured place in my theatergoing experience. She went on in the role of Celie, as the understudy for Fantasia, when I saw The Color Purple. It was the first show my dear friend and brother Steve On Broadway and I saw together, on the day we finally met in person.

After signing my Playbill, and sending regards to Steve, she graciously took me onto the stage at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, which was thrilling. After years of being an understudy, I'm so happy that she's had a chance to create a role on Broadway.

I saw La Cage aux Folles Saturday afternoon and it won my heart completely. But neither Douglas Hodge nor Chris Hoch, who was filling in for Kelsey Grammer, came out after the matinee. (Although lots of other actors and the fabulous Cagelles did.)

On Saturday night, I went to the hilarious Lend Me a Tenor a few blocks away at the Music Box. That stage door was quite an experience.

Did you know that teenage girls go wild for Justin Bartha? Neither did I. But about 25 of them swarmed him for a group photo. It was incredible. (Well, he is cute.)

Since La Cage is a little bit longer than Tenor, I raced back up to the Longacre but everyone had left. Then a woman standing in front of the theatre told me that the cast was in the restaurant next door.

Now, I don't normally run after actors in restaurants. Really, I don't. But I was so taken with La Cage aux Folles. Plus, after writing about Kelsey Grammer's absence, I felt that I owed Chris Hoch a mea culpa.

A waitress told me everyone was upstairs in the bar. One of the Cagelles (Sean Patrick Doyle, I think) recognized me. He said Chris wasn't there but Douglas was, and introduced me. (I asked him to please pass along my compliments to Chris on a terrific performance.)

Well, Douglas Hodge could not have been nicer - incredibly generous with his time after a two-show day.

He signed my Playbill, apologized for not coming to the stage door after the matinee and spent a few minutes chatting with me.

Stupidly, I forgot to congratulate him on winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. So, congratulations!

Finally, a role of her own

I so was thrilled when I read this sentence in Ben Brantley's New York Times review of the musical Fela!, which opened on Broadway last night:

"Saycon Sengbloh shimmers as the seductress who introduces Fela to Marx and the American black-power movement."

She shimmers!

Now that I've been going to Broadway shows for a few years, it's great to see actors and actresses whose performances I loved work their way up the food chain.

I can remember as clearly as if it happened yesterday walking up to the Broadway Theatre with Steve on Broadway on the day we finally met after months of e-mailing. It was July 22, 2007, and we going to see The Color Purple with Fantasia, who'd gotten great reviews.

Unfortunately, Fantasia was out that day. I was a bit disappointed until Steve found out that Saycon Sengbloh would be playing the role of Celie. He told me he'd seen her in Wicked and she was terrific.

Well, Steve was right. I was so moved by her performance in The Color Purple. In May, I saw Sengbloh in Hair. And next month, I'll be in the audience at Fela!

(In this New York Daily News story, she talks about how she's known her Fela! costar Sahr Ngaujah since they were teenagers in Atlanta.)

Until now Sengbloh, who made her Broadway debut in Aida in 2003, has never done what I imagine every Broadway performer dreams of doing - create a role.

Congratulations, Saycon. As Celie would say, you are definitely here.

Hair

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

I knew there were going to be good vibes from the Broadway revival of Hair the moment I opened up my Playbill and those little white slips of paper fluttered out. Often that means disappointment - an understudy going on in place of a performer I really wanted to see.

This time, just the opposite happened. An actress I was really looking forward to seeing but who only had a small part, Saycon Sengbloh, was going to play a bigger role. In fact, as Dionne, she'd be opening the show, singing "Aquarius."

I was so excited and that bit of good fortune turned out to be only the beginning of an evening that I will never forget. I've seen so many wonderful shows over the past couple of years of theatergoing and this is one of the best - 2 1/2 hours of bliss that culminated in my Broadway debut.

First, there's the music, by Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt McDermot. I've always been hugely interested in the 1960s and I've always loved the music of Hair. Hearing - and watching - those songs performed live - wow, they sounded great. Sometimes, like on "Ain't Got No," the audience joined in and clapped along.

The original production of Hair opened at the Public Theater in 1967, then moved to Broadway a year later. When I watched the PBS documentary Broadway: The American Musical and saw the cast climbing over seats and interacting with the audience at the Biltmore Theatre, I wished I'd been able to see it then. It looked like so much fun.

Well, thanks to director Diane Paulus and choreographer Karole Armitage I got a sense of what that experience must have been like. This is one show where the actors don't simply break the fourth wall, they shatter it completely. They are everywhere in the mezzanine and orchestra of the Hirschfeld Theatre. And it is so much fun.

Hair tells the story of a tribe of hippies, led by a charismatic Will Swenson as Berger, living in New York City's East Village. Really, I enjoyed the whole cast - they are all so likeable, especially Gavin Creel's sweet and conflicted Claude, Bryce Ryness as the Mick Jagger-obsessed Woof and Caissie Levy as the privileged college student Sheila.

I can't even imagine how shocking Hair was in 1968 - and I'm not just talking about the nudity. The hippies are everything that must have outraged their Depression and World War II-era parents. They leave school and grow their hair long and use drugs and sing the praises of interracial love and question authority. Hovering ominously over it all for the young men is the draft and the Vietnam War.

Under Paulus' direction Hair truly evokes the spirit of the decade. The generation gap is on full display. This is funny, joyous musical but it also doesn't gloss over some of the decade's more powerful - and brutal moments.

Paulus saves her most stunning image for the end, which is slightly different from Ragni and Rado's book. But it's absolutely the right choice and it left me choked up. I don't think I'll listen to "The Flesh Failures/Let the Sun Shine In" the same way ever again.

Hair doesn't shy away from presenting a pretty strong criticism of American policy in Southeast Asia. I can't imagine a Broadway show - much less a musical - being so political today.

But this is far from a period piece. I think the message still resonates. Whether there's a draft or an all-volunteer Army, Hair reminds us that we should always exercise the utmost caution before sending American troops into harm's way.

The 1960s was a decade of convulsive change in American society. But it was also a time of celebration - when all sorts of barriers were being broken. Fittingly, Hair ends with the ultimate breaking of the barrier between audience and performer - an invitation to join the tribe onstage.

Despite my nerves, despite my fear that I'd look and feel foolish up there, I leaped at the chance. You know what - it didn't matter that I couldn't carry a tune and had no sense of rhythm. No one was judging me. It was a thrilling experience, an incredible adrenaline rush and it got even better when, to my surprise, Kevin joined me.

For a few moments, I was a member of the tribe. And for the rest of my life I'll be able to say that I did something I never thought I'd have the nerve to do, never thought I'd have a chance to do: I sang and danced on a Broadway stage. Now, where do I get my Equity card?

Cast of Hair grows longer

Another day, another snowstorm. I might as well be living in Syracuse again, the city that once proudly proclaimed "We're snow king!" Okay, it's not quite that bad. But I do need some good news to cheer me up and keep me thinking about spring.

The producers of Hair have been announcing new cast members for the Broadway revival every day this week. I have to admit that I've never heard of most of them but today's list includes a familiar name: Saycon Sengbloh. I saw Sengbloh as Celie in The Color Purple, when she went on as an understudy for Fantasia. It can't be easy to go on stage in place of a performer you know most people have come to see, but I thought she was wonderful. Her transformation over the course of the musical was absorbing to watch and so moving.

She'll be reprising her role from this summer's production of Hair in Central Park, an event that I could kick myself for missing. She'll play Abraham Lincoln, be part of the White Boys Trio and a member of the tribe.

All of Sengbloh's Broadway credits thus far have replacement or understudy or standby next to them. So I'm glad this gracious and talented actress will be part of a Broadway show's original cast for the first time. (Okay, I know it's a revival, but you know what I mean!)

I'm already excited about Hair because I love the songs and I love the 1960s but this is another reason to look forward to a trip to Broadway in the spring. The musical begins previews March 6 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre and opens March 31.