Here’s the final tally from my recent trip to New York City: across 13 nights, I saw 20 shows in all – 11 of them on Broadway, 8 off-Broadway, one in a cabaret room (54 Below, that I actually visited three times in all, the most of any single venue, though the other two times were for press launches, not full shows).
Those break down into 12 musicals, six plays, one special event (The Gazillion Bubble Show at New World Stages), and one cabaret.
They included two Stephen Sondheim revivals (Company and Assassins, respectively on and off-Broadway), and the new musicals Jagged Little Pill and Mrs Doubtfire (also already announced to make its UK premiere at Manchester Opera House in September 2022).
These were my highlights:
1. OFF-BROADWAY – Baby, presented by Out of the Box Theatricals. Delightful production of 1983 Broadway musical., pictured below.
2. BROADWAY – Jagged Little Pill: Surprising original musical constructed from Alanis Morissette songs. As I did not recognise a single number here, it all came as a complete surprise to me; but more than that, I was thrilled at how they were employed in the service of an original narrative about a nuclear family going, well, nuclear. In the process, it became the best musical constructed from a back pop catalogue since American Idiot, a musical made out of Green Day’s album of the same name.
3. CABARET – Melissa Errico at 54 Below. Simply sublime love letter from a native New Yorker to her home town.
