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  • A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical Arrives – Houston Press

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    The story of Neil Diamond has been built into a musical telling how a boy from Brooklyn New York ended up writing and performing music that sold more than 120 million records worldwide.

    For his fans, with a host of their favorite songs to choose from, the Houston arrival of the tour of A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical offers a chance to bask in “Sweet Caroline,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” (his memorable duet with Barbra Streisand) “I Am … I said,” Kentucky Woman,” “Solitary Man,” and more.

    The setup is that an older Neil talks to his younger self and the songs come out along the way.

    Besides the lead performers, the ensemble, re-christened The Noise in this musical, provides all the needed background harmonies as well as filling specific spots in the show as needed.

    One of those “swings” is Jer who fills in when someone falls ill or goes on vacation. Jer, who is non-binary, is based in New York City and their previous experience includes swing duties for the Jesus Christ Superstar 50th Anniversary national tour.

    “I cover all The Noise in our show,” they say, adding that usually covers the male-presenting tracks but also covers female roles as well if needed.  In some cases, they say, they’ve been called upon at the last minute to fill in, but they’re helped in this by the camaraderie and support they get from other members of the show. And besides, they say, it’s kind of exciting to do.

    Jer, a Hawaii native, says one of their best moments was getting to meet Diamond during a matinee performance in Los Angeles. “That’s an icon, superstar legend. I didn’t expect that we were actually going to meet him. He surprised the whole show. At the end of the show he sang ‘Sweet Caroline.’

    “As much as I see the people getting really excited about our show, that seeing Neil Diamond, people immediately burst into tears. He’s done so much. He’s made people feel so good. People love him and adore him and his music has done so much for their lives. I think that’s a special thing. “

    Diamond retired from touring in 2018 after a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease but collaborated on the making of this Broadway musical. “He chose to continue his legacy through a musical,” Jer says.

    Audience members sing along all the time, Jer says, often saying they have their own favorite song.

    “If you love theatrical magic, I think our show does that so beautifully. We label this as a small intimate play with music.”

    Performances are scheduled for November 4-9 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hobbby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter,org. $55-$265.

    A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical has raised $750,000 for the Parkinson’s Foundation. For more information on how you can help, visit abeautifulnoisethemusical.com/partners

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    Margaret Downing

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  • Singing Sicko: American Psycho from Houston Broadway Theatre

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    Houston Broadway Theatre’s inaugural production last July, 2024, Next to Normal, might have been a one-off. But what a one-off! Superlative in every aspect – design, performance, emotional wallop – it surprised us with its Broadway caliber excellence. Who is this new company in town, where have they been, and when are we to have the privilege of seeing them again?

    Well, the wait is over, and Houston Broadway Theatre has knocked us silly with another theatrical slap in the face. In a startling presentation, this young company has given us a most superior show in the revised cult musical, American Psycho.

    Be warned, this 2013 musical, with music and lyrics by Spring Awakening’s Tony Award-winner Duncan Sheik and book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, is adapted, as if you didn’t know, from Bret Easton Ellis’ scandalous 1991 novel about Wall Street investment banker Patrick Bateman (Robert Lenzi) who just happens to be a serial killer during his off hours from the office. Don’t take the kiddies nor your Aunt Fanny who might swoon at the simulated sex and copious gore. I must admit, the sex scenes, albeit misogynistic, are rendered a bit harmless since all participants keep their underwear on. But it is nevertheless suggestive in the extreme. Unless she’s a cougar, keep grandma at home.

    After a successful premiere run in London, the show opened on Broadway in 2016 and immediately flopped. In limbo for years, the creators, forever faithful to their vision, revisited Psycho and through skillful botox and much creative surgery have resuscitated the musical into the form now on stage at Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center. The body is beautiful.

    Manhattan. The late 1980s. It was a time of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous corruption, bedecked in Armani, English loafers made from ostrich hide, and fine silk bespoke neckties. These young masters of the universe dined at Nobu or Lutece, their hard gym-toned bodies splooted over by young nubile women, already bought, or later paid, for their attentiveness. The men were glorified at work, at leisure, and in bed.

    Inside the gilt bubble that encased them, morality was an alien concept, anathema, it didn’t apply. The view, all surface and no depth, sparkled wherever they looked, mesmerizing, seductive. Whatever it took, make that deal, get that deal, succeed whether you ruin your associates or betray your friends. Just do it.

    Patrick Bateman’s compass has been broken for years. Like his co-workers, he lives for immediate pleasure, for another snort of cocaine or an easy lay. Everyone, everything, is a commodity up for sale or for the taking. They talk of exfoliants, the sharp cut of a suit, whether tassels on shoes are proper business attire, the shapely legs on a secretary, the cologne on a business card. They obsess over their gym workouts in “Hardbody,” yet they can’t differentiate between any of them.

    With its relentless product placement, its too easy joke on Trump’s “The Art of the Deal,” American Psycho is an almost comic allegory on money and greed, the pursuit of mindless excess, rampant consumerism, first-world privilege, and the numbing down of personal interactions. The killing spree begins, but is it for real? Or have American values been so debased that they send Patrick on a psychic spiral into hell? Is this all delusional?

    click to enlarge

    Robert Lenzi has power to spare in the role of Patrick Bateman, the Wall Street investment banker.

    Photo by Lynn Lane

    The leads are fantastic. I assume every audition required a valid gym membership, for the cast is wondrously chiseled. Lenzi has power to spare, whether chopping off legs or hacking his rival to death with an ax. Thankfully, the nail gun crucifixion gets a cursory mention. While insufferable Patrick rattles off his ‘80s luxury possessions like his Rolex, Ralph Lauren underwear, his 30-inch Toshiba TV, his Walkman, we actually begin to warm to him. He crumbles from the inside, and we understand a bit why he’s so possessed, so fragile. Could we be driven mad, too, by the constant “Selling Out” that is presented so seductively in Jason H. Thompson’s video projections? We’re lured into this fantasy world just like Patrick. Don’t we want this stuff, too?

    The 18-member cast is first-rate with kudos going to Chiara Trentalange as unrequited love interest Jean; Paul Schwensen as obnoxious Paul Owen; Owen Claire Smith as Evelyn, Patrick’s fiancee and Hampton’s Housewife deluxe; Jacquelyne Paige as Courtney, oblivious girlfriend to gay Luis (Ivan Moreno) who’s in love with Patrick; Tyce Green (who produced The Who’s Tommy on Broadway) as Timothy Price, entitled scion of Patrick’s investment firm Price & Price. Then there’s Kaye Tuckerman as zonked-out Mrs. Bateman, a delicious cameo role that Tuckerman eats alive, with dangling cigarette or martini glass firmly in hand. She appears and disappears regularly, but each time bequeaths a little gem of a performance.

    The quartet of a band (Michael Ferrara, Beto González, Steve Martin and Joe Beam, all responsible for the powerhouse arrangements) sounds like a DJ’s gig on steroids. Hope Easterbrook’s choreography recalls the ‘80s dance moves with perfection – remember voguing?. Tim Mackabee’s cubist set design, all gray, black, and white, is Broadway caliber; as are Colleen Grady’s psychedelic costumes of luxury suits and underground club wear; while Robert J. Aguilar’s lighting conjures Patrick’s interior hellscapes with pin-spot accuracy. The entire production soars with professionalism under Joe Calarco’s knife-sharp direction.

    The show has been softened, certainly from the book and its iterations in London and Broadway. It’s more accessible, more fun, yet still chilling in its condemnation of wretched excess and overweening pride. Listen to the women harmonizing in “You Are What You Wear,” a litany describing designer clothes that make the woman. “I want blackened, charred mahi mahi. Works so well with Isaac Mizrahi… But let’s be clear, there’s nothing ironic about our love of Manolo Blahnik.” This catalog song would have Stephen Sondheim salivating.

    American Psycho is still a cult show, but one not to be missed. Not when Houston Broadway Theatre sinks its highly polished teeth into it. If this is the producer’s Houston launch to get the production back to London and Broadway again, I think they’ve found the perfect road to success.

    Note: HBT must have deep moneybags. Look at the incredible physical production which would be lauded on any Broadway stage, but take a gander at their glossy playbill. No inexpensive xerox page, but a magazine worthy of GQ with ads for Rolex, Absolute vodka, Cricketeer and Flusser suitings, Clinique skin care, Crown Royal, and Lamborghini, all in the style of Patrick Bateman’s power world. Brilliant marketing…and expensive. Just what this show extols and exposes.

    American Psycho continues through September 14. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 2 p.m. Sunday. Zilkha Hall at The Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $33.80-$148.20.

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    D. L. Groover

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  • A Revamped American Psycho: The Musical Heads for Houston

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    A massively redone American Psycho: The Musical is on its way to Houston, with plans to remount it in London next year and hopes of eventually getting it back on a Broadway stage. Houston audiences will have more influence than usual on what the revised version turns out to be.

    Why?  Because the first three nights the show is performed at the Hobby Center will be previews complete with next day script adjustments. According to Robert Lenzi who plays the lead role, the script won’t be “frozen” until opening night on September 5.

    Despite an impressive lineup of buff stars in Psycho’s first trip to Broadway in 2016, the original musical closed after 27 previews and 54 performances leading to all sorts of debates about why that happened. Was it the audience, the gory book it was based upon, the mixed reviews it received? There were some fans, but not enough.

    Tony Award®-winner Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Glee, Riverdale, Pretty Little Liars) believe there is still something worthwhile to be salvaged in their new adaptation of the best seller by Bret Easton Ellis. Both of them have come up with a new script and revised score. But they want to do some more fine tuning before they head back to London, hence the stopover at Houston Broadway Theatre. Joe Calarco is directing.

    Lenzi plays Patrick Bateman, the ’80s era Wall Street exec who has it all, but turns into a creature much more violent, darker and without a conscience at night. He says he welcomes the fast pace of the changes coming his way.

    “I love it. I’m an actor based in New York and I’ve done a lot ,one of my true passions is doing developmental work. When you do developmental work you really are kind of fast on your feet and trying this. You read something on Monday and you show up Tuesday morning and there’s new pages.

    “They are fresh out of the printer and it’s the most exciting thing to be handed fresh pages. If you’re lucky as we are with this show, written by truly brilliant writers and reading them out loud for the first time.”

    The musical was originally produced in London in 2013 and brought it to Broadway in 2016. “Now our writers,  Roberto and Duncan, are revisiting the piece and taking everything they learned from the London and the Broadway production and also spending more time with the piece and obviously the world has continued to change,” Lenzi says.

    “The preview process is an incredibly important part of when you’re doing new work,” Lenzi says. “Right now we’re at a studio, it’s just us. Eventually you’ll  perform the play at night and then the next day we’ll get new pages. We’ll rehearse all day, take a dinner break, breathe and then perform the new things that night and see how it goes. And continue that process until the show becomes ‘frozen.’ That is the version we’ll do every night after opening.”

    Actually, Lenzi’s history with the show includes the fact that his wife — his girlfriend at the time — was in the original Broadway cast. He saw the final dress rehearsal for that show and “was totally blown away by what the story had a say and by that character.”

    Asked to describe his character, Lenzi says: “He is troubled by the lack of authenticity in the world around him, this idea of  materialism and hyper consumerism that he participates in. It drives him to want to take up the world and show them the horrors that are around them. He does that by committing acts of horror himself. It leads him down this rabbit hole of dark, existential despair.”

    As for portraying a character so diabolical, Lenzi says he doesn’t have to like him, but he does need to understand what leads Bateman to act the way he does — to map out the logic of what he does.

    The musical isn’t just blood and guts, however, he say: “There are many satirical elements. It’s  also incredibly witty and and funny and absurdist comedy elements to it. There are dark elements, but there are also things about the absurdity of life that are truly hysterical

    But Psycho is definitely not for children, Lenz says.

    “At the heart of the play. It’s a great work of existentialism as in what is the point of all this. In the world today, we’re existing on our phones, we’re presenting ourselves through social media. And when you sort of stop and think it’s like what is the point of all of this? What is the point of human existence?

    The show in a very absurd and dark way kind of tackles this major idea of what it is to be a human being,” Lenzi says. “It’s this one man trying to make sense of all this in a really heighted way.”

    Performances are scheduled for September 2-14 (with opening night on September 5) at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $33.80-$148.20.

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    Margaret Downing

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  • Cheyenne Jackson Brings Signs of Life to Houston’s Hobby Center

    Cheyenne Jackson Brings Signs of Life to Houston’s Hobby Center

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    Saying he wanted to branch out beyond concerts and cabaret work, performer Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story, Glee) explained how he came to write “a riskier” act that not only showcases his singing talents but allows his audiences to know so much more about him.

    “I felt much more exposed, I felt much more connected with the audience,” he says. “The idea for the show was really based on something my dad taught me very early on  and that is to look for the signs. The signs of life, the signs from God or the universe or nature. Signs that you are where you’re supposed to be and you’re doing what you are supposed to be doing. That’s the kind of skeleton if it but then I fill it with all kinds of crazy stuff.

    Jackson is coming to the Hobby Center’s Zilkha Hall as part of the Beyond Broadway series for one night only with his show Cheyenne Jackson: Signs of Life. With credits that include  Call Me Kat as well as the Saved By The Bell revival, American Horror Story: Apocalypse and Disney’s Descendants 3, is known as a versatile performer

    Part of the Beyond Broadway series lineup, the show was written by Jackson as a long form cabaret. He says the reception has been so good that he plans to continue with this program.

    “I think people maybe didn’t expect it to be so personal and didn’t expect it to be so open. And I believe that in order to really maintain a connection you have to go first as a performer. So right off the top of the show I take the wind out of myself. And this really shows them that we’re going to be in this thing together and the reaction’s been great.”

    I talk about my kids. My kids are hysterical and they’re going to be 8 next week. My husband and I have twins, a boy and a girl. Father hood adventures. I also talk about moving to New York and what that was like. I talk about my late great friend Leslie Jordan who passed a couple of years ago. It seems a little scattery, but it’s not. There’s a method to my madness.

    Asked why he had children with such a busy life as a performer, Jackson says: “All I ever wanted was to have kids. I just needed to find the right person. I met my husband 12 years ago at 39. So we met and about a year and a half later we were married and had kids on the way. It’s incredible.”

    “I play this character Hades in Disney movie The Descendants so that carries a lot of weight with 8 and 9 year olds. As for the other things I’ve done, not impressed.”

    During the show he does a little bit of everything. It’s me telling stores and singing some of my favorite songs and talking about like and lessons I’ve learned and telling a bunch of jokes. There’s elements of stand up comedy in it as well. I was not professionally trained as a singer. I was trained by just listening to all types of music always. And I think because of that it really gave me this edge up to kind of sing anything.”

    Asked for his favorite songs he says it’s a range. “I do a version of Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory.” I do a song by Sam  Smith. I sing a song from the Broadway musical The Full Monty which I really love, has a lot of personal meaning. I sing a song that I wrote, that also seems to be an emotional highlight of the show from people who talk to me afterwards. It’s a song I wrote about my dad. I sing some classic stuff. I sing “Besame Mucho.” So there’s kind of something for everybody.”

    He calls the song about his father a very simple song, a song thait’s combined with a story about the coach wanting me to go out ofor the football team and it was definitely something I did not want to do. , It’s about a conversation between me and my dad. It just has become this moment that most people come up and talk to me afterwards. It’s called ‘OK.’”

    His audiences range in age, he says, from those who know him through The Descendants to a gay following to an older demographic. “People that love a throwback. It’s been written about me that I was born perhaps in the wrong era and I definitely have an old fashioned kind of vibe in how I sound and how I look,

    “But I look out there and I see people of all different everything “

    Cheyenne Jackson’s performance is scheduled for October 26 at 7:30 p.m. in Zilka Hall at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit hobbycenter.org. $44-$247.

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    Margaret Downing

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  • Left, But No Right or Center: Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Hobby Center

    Left, But No Right or Center: Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Hobby Center

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    The life of late Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is plainly an act of reverence for playwright Rupert Holmes (master mystery writer, composer, and Tony-winning author of The Mystery of Edwin Drood).

    In All Things Equal: the Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the “notorious RBG” is beatified on stage as the apex of compassion, legal acumen, skillful oration, amid a life punctured by medical problems, family deaths, male condescension, and a constant struggle to have her voice heard while fighting for the little man (or woman). At the end you expect a halo to encircle her.

    Ginsburg had an incredible life, for sure, and she battled discrimination and petty assaults for most of her life. As a young female lawyer –  an anomaly in the early ‘70s – she argued for the Women’s Rights Project, a branch of the American Civil Liberty Union, and appeared before the Supreme Court six times, winning five cases. The opinions, with hundreds more, were ground-breaking for gender equality. Many times, she would represent a man to demonstrate the disparity between the sexes in the law, proving her point that if men weren’t given equal treatment, how could the current law also exclude women?

    Her brilliance and feistiness, her wit and charm, her deep love for husband Martin and their two children, her unfailing quest to battle against injustice are on full display in Michelle Azar’s loving in-depth performance that lures you in, at first, by the uncanny resemblance, then the heart. We’re glad to be there. Costumer Devon Spencer, naturally, showcases her patented jabot collar. At one point, near the end of her life, she reveals a pink satin jacket emblazoned on the back with “The Supremes,” while she does her daily workout after another debilitating surgery. No wonder she became an internet meme, although she says that she doesn’t have a clue what that means. You want to hang out with this woman. We envy Court rival Antonin Scalia, far to her right, for their passionate friendship through the decades. Opera, good food, and travel kept these polar opposites, known as Washington’s odd couple, in platonic embrace.

    As if talking to a group of school children, the play is a straight-forward telling of her life’s tale, like a dramatized Wikipedia entry. Behind her substantial desk are projections of a bookcase with shelves of law tomes, illustrations or film clips of whomever she’s talking about (Susan B. Anthony, a personal idol; Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial; Bill Clinton, who nominated her for the Court; the nine “grumpy old men” she argued in front of; her beloved Marty and children). Set designer Tom Hansen and Video Projections Designer Mike Billings crisply shift the scenes. As older Ruth, Azar moves around the stage either in her office chair on casters or shuffles painfully about. When she’s the young professional lawyer on the rise, Azar is dressed in vivid blue skirt and jacket. Her voice register changes with the years; rather whispery near her end, vibrant and strong when young and arguing a case.

    But Holmes is preaching to the choir here, and the audience is definitely pro-Ginsburg. Trump, Court Associates Kavanaugh and Thomas, Fox News are not warmly welcomed. The play skews left with a vengeance, and leaves little room for nuance. But Azar’s elfin twinkle belies the steel beneath. Ginsburg was a fighter and did much good for our country. That’s laid out clear and clean, and that warms us no matter which side we argue for.

    All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 7:30 p.m. Friday, September 6. Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit [email protected]. $49-$71.

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    D. L. Groover

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  • Houston Broadway Theatre Delivers a Stunning Production of Next to Normal at the Hobby Center

    Houston Broadway Theatre Delivers a Stunning Production of Next to Normal at the Hobby Center

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    The Houston Press wasn’t going to review Houston Broadway Theatre’s production of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal because its run lasted only one weekend for four performances. A showcase that is so evanescent won’t hit hard, as they say.

    But after seeing the Saturday evening show, attention must be paid. There are still two shows remaining, Sunday matinee and Sunday evening. If there’s room in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center run to it. Don’t wait!

    Who the hell is this troupe? And why in hell are they so good?

    Next to Normal is their Houston company debut, and if this is what they can do then, please, bring us more. Much more.

    What a stupendous production – Broadway caliber musical theater of the highest order. Perhaps the band’s volume might be toned down a bit for the singers, but that is the only quibble to be found. Tim Macabee’s physical look is wondrous: modern mesh screens that pivot on casters, projections from Greg Emetaz that wipe across the background and proscenium like Golden Age Hollywood lap dissolves, neon-tinged edges from lighting designer Alan G. Edwards that light up in various colors to set the mood, and glorious performances from all that will knock your socks off.

    The tiny houses seen from above, like a Monopoly board’s houses on steroids, are  the perfect touch. But there are so many perfect touches that it’s difficult to list them. The entire show has the perfect touch.

    No question about it, this is a show as rich in production design and vocal talent as any seen in Houston in seasons. Their mission statement reads in part: “HBT is dedicated to captivating and uplifting the Houston community through the delivery of exceptional and compelling musical theatre productions.” Wow, that promise they deliver in spades.

    Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s multiple award-winning musical has a first act curtain like no other. What other show wheels its leading lady into the operating room to undergo electric shock therapy then breaks for intermission? There’s room on the musical stage for almost anything, and Normal (Broadway debut in 2009, after wowing off-Broadway during its 2008 run) takes the subject of manic depression and turns what could be an ultra-downer into as accomplished a piece of musical theater as possible. It’s a deeply moving work, yet highly exhilarating.

    Suburban housewife Diana (Mary Faber in an immaculate, bravura performance as battered and uncomprehending mother) is a mess. She doesn’t know why. She hates her life, has no feelings for her average husband Dan (Constantine Maroulis, of Rock of Ages, Jekyll & Hyde, and American Idol fandom) and doesn’t relate at all to her teenage daughter (Mary Caroline Owens), who’s on the verge of a breakdown herself, barely clinging to the lifeline thrown to her by stoner classmate Henry (Josiah Thomas Randolph).

    Diana pays inordinate attention, though, to her son Gabe (HBT founding member Tyce Green who produced the Broadway revival of The Who’s Tommy), who appears to her almost as if in a dream, popping up behind her and whispering in her ear. She comes alive in his presence. He is her favorite, no doubt about it. But the stress of everyday life is crushing her; the fallout scalds her family. When she makes sandwiches for her kids to take to school and finishes buttering the bread on the floor, there’s no denying the seriousness of her problem.

    The medical establishment in the form of doctors Fine and Madden (Manuel Stark Santos in exceptional voice) is as stymied as Diana’s clueless family. Pills seem useless to calm her relentless furies. When the family’s long-buried secret is revealed during an ordinary family meal (a revelation that arrives with dreadful calm and smacks us in the gut with utter surprise), suicide is attempted. That’s when the terror of electroshock therapy is broached. There’s the possibility of a cure, but that might wipe out Diana’s memories – the only sweet things that keep her grounded.

    Blessed with a stunning contemporary score and bitingly effective lyrics, the show keeps surprising as it returns to past melodies and spins them with ever greater potency. The score is labeled “rock,” but this might have more to do with the high vocal line and powerhouse delivery needed for the songs’ emotional heft. The specter of Sondheim and, especially, late great young turk Jonathan Larson (Rent) swirls throughout, but then so, too, does Rogers and Hammerstein.

    This is Broadway song writing on an exceptionally high plane. Ballads, like “Perfect For You,” sung by Henry and Natalie, or “I Dreamed a Dance,” for Diana and Gabe, are lilting romances, lovely and soft; contrasted to the churning “Make Up Your Mind” or “Superboy and the Invisible Girl,” power anthems with drama and drive. Gabe’s “I’m Alive,” as he seeks to seduce Diane into his orbit and not be forgotten, is terrifically effective, belted by Green as if his life depended upon it. Gabe’s life does.

    HBT’s ensemble is first-rate. Perhaps, more than first-rate. There is no flaw to be found in them anywhere. Their singing, wailing, cooing rocks the rafters. It’s all uplifting and ethereal, powerful and emotional. Directed by theater pro Joe Calarco, with musical direction by Michael Ferrara, and choreography by Hope Easterbrook, Next to Normal is far from normal. It is exceptional!

    Next to Normal has two performances remaining at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, July 28 at Zilhka Hall at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit houstonbroadwaytheatre.com. $32.50 – $132.50.

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    D. L. Groover

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  • You Can’t Stop the Beat: Hairspray Comes to Broadway at the Hobby

    You Can’t Stop the Beat: Hairspray Comes to Broadway at the Hobby

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    More than 20 years after it first premiered on Broadway, the new North American tour of Hairspray arrives at Broadway at the Hobby Center this week and Deidre Lang plays the entertaining character Motormouth Maybelle.

    For those who haven’t seen the movie or other iterations of the Tony Award-winning musical, Hairspray is the story of Tracy Turnblad who lives in racially-segregated Baltimore in the 1960s and loves to dance. She successfully auditions for a spot on The Corny Collins Show  despite not having the svelte form of all the other dancers and risks her subsequent celebrity to integrate the show. Motormouth Maybelle is the local disc jockey allowed to host the one-time-a-month “Negro Day” at the Baltimore station.

    Hairspray won eight Tony Awards in 2003 and thanks to its music as well as the story, it has remained a popular musical traveling across the country. It was made into a film in 2007 starring a powerhouse of actors including John Travolta as Edna, Tracy’s mom. The part of the mom is traditionally played by a man which is the case in this production as well with Greg Kalafatas. “When he starts playing the role, you forget he’s a man. Because he goes in as Edna,” Lang says.

    Lang (Broadway: Ragtime, The Lion King, Tommy) went out on the first national tour of Hairspray in 2002 when, she says readily, she was a little too young to play Motormouth Maybelle. She was one of the dancers in the red dresses, The Dynamites. “I was an understudy for Motormouth and I always said, ‘One day I’m going to play this role.’ I said’ ‘ I know I’m too young for it but I said one day I’m going to come back to Hairspray and I’m going to play this role.’”

    Asked about what she likes about being tis character, Lang says: Right now in life I can kind of relate to her because she’s a mother and a mother figure to a lot of the kids in the show. I have two daughters 21 and 23. She’s very motherly and she has a lot of knowledge and she ‘s lived a lot of life and she has a lot to give to these kids.”

    Lang says she used to watch old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly films late at night and knew from a young age she wanted to be on stage. She started taking lesson and was even accepted to Alvin Ailey whee she dropped out after six month because she got a par tin Bubbling Brown Sugar. “I never had to take a day job until the pandemic,” she says.

    “Now that I’ve lived some life I can really put some feeling into it. “She says she loves to sing the song “I Know Where I’ve Been.”

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    Caroline Eisemann as Tracy Turnblad and Greg Kalatatas as Edna Turnblad and company in Hairspray.

    Photo by Jeremy Daniel

    In fact. she points out, that all the songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are memorable. “The music is so much fun to sing. And then we have ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’ at the end which everyone loves and everyone is up on their feet singing and dancing.”

    Why its continuing popularity?

    “This show it’s just it has something in it for everybody it’s a timeless piece starts that no matter what year it comes out, it will always appeal to people of all ages, all colors, all backgrounds. It ends up in a happy place and everybody wants to be in that happy place. “

    Performances are scheduled for June 4-9 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713- 315-2525 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $35-$290.

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    Margaret Downing

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  • Patti LuPone Brings Her Voice to Houston’s Hobby Center in a One-Woman Show

    Patti LuPone Brings Her Voice to Houston’s Hobby Center in a One-Woman Show

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    Patti LuPone listened to all kinds of music growing up, was there for the genesis of rock and roll, but says her destiny was clear.

    “I knew that I’d end up on the Broadway stage.. Because it’s not a rock and roll voice.”

    Now the three-time Tony Award winner her her leading roles in Company, Gypsy and Evita, is coming to Houston’s Hobby Center with her one-woman show Patti LuPone: a Life in Notes. It’ll be her first time to play Houston.

    The show is brand new, she says. “There are songs I’ve never sung before. I mean I’ve sung them in my house but never in front of people.”

    The show is designed to take her through decades, she says. It’s not her first solo outing; every three or four years she has to come up with a new show.  Previous ones included Matters of the Heart, Lady With a Torch, Farawy Places and Don’t Monkey With Broadway.

    Besides wanting to have something different for audiences, she says “It’s also creatively satisfying to learn new music or songs that you might never sing.”

    The premise of this show is that every decade there’s a memorable song that was special to LuPone or described her life at that time.

    “The show’s about the songs that when you hear them again you remember exactly where you were or who you were with, how old you were, how they affected you.  Music can crystalize a moment in time. These are some of the moments of my life.”

    She has a longstanding team that helps her create and perform these one-woman shows.

    “I work with the same director [Scott Wittman], the same musical director [Joseph Thalken] who also arranged the songs and the writer[(Jeffery Richman] and we’ve been doing this for at least 15 years. “

    She tries to make each song her own. “It’s the same thing if I’m at a revival of a musical. I try to do it differently.  I don’t want to imitate another singer. I want to make it my own.”

    Accompanying her will be a pianist and a string instrumentalist who plays the mandolin, guitar, the violin, electric bass, she says. Before she sings each song she explains why she’s singing it and something about the decade in which it was written. It starts with the ’50s.

    LuPone has had a wide and varied career. Besides all her performances and accompanying awards (two Olivier Awards Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle awards as well as the Tonys) in musical theater, the Julliard graduate has appeared  in films (The School for Good and Evil, Driving Miss Daisy, Witness) and television and streaming shows (Penny Dreadful, American Horror Story and the upcoming series The Darkhold Diaries) to name just some.

    She still meets people who’s association with her is from watching her in Life Goes On, a family drama set in mid-Western suburbia that ran from 1989-93 and won two Emmys.

    She likes modern Broadway productions but feels the bands often overpower the singers, destroying any chance of hearing the lyrics. “How can you sing with a full orchestra playing?”

    Her biggest surprise in doing this show?  “I’m crying too much. I find it really emotional because it takes me back. It might take people back to their own experiences in music. It might take them back to something that affected them deeply. I hope it does.”

    And, in case you’re wondering, in what should be no surprise, there will be a selection from Evita.

    Patti LuPone: a Life in Notes is scheduled for 7: 30 p.m. March 21 at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit hobbycenter,org. $44-$64.

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    Margaret Downing

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