My first weekend in New York my mom and my sister were in London. They saw The Book of Mormon, Matilda and The Lion King. I started to get jealous. Then I realized I had seen all of those shows. Still I wanted to make the most of my time. I had so much fun playing the lottery and rush ticket game, though I may have gone a little over board. I saw 15 shows in 5 weeks.
I give 5 stars to the following (I know, it’s a 4 star system, but these were so good I give them 5)
Come From Away and Bandstand were just so good
M Butterfly was the most thought provoking
The Play that Goes Wrong was so funny. I laughed so hard it hurt- extra points for that.
Tiny Beautiful Things and Hamilton were the most personally meaningful to me. And on top of that they were really good. They just go into a category of their own because I walked in with so much backstory in my head– with both of them I’ve read/seen everything the authors have done.
The Band’s Visit was just so sweet and so good.
These are the shows the next tier down– they were really well done but had some big parts I didn’t jive with:
Oedipus was so awesome until he slept with his mother and gauged his eyes out. If they playwright hadn’t had that play out so literally I would have been blown away.
In Groundhog Day I loved the characterization of the female lead so much that I was able to forgive the things that didn’t quite work.
The Prince of Broadway was well done, but it was a review. It would have gotten more stars if it had more of a story- but that’s not what it was trying to do.
The Polkadot Kid also gets honorable mention– it was awesome for a kid’s show.
These ones weren’t up to snuff in my opinion–
In Measure for Measure they raced through the verse so quickly I didn’t get any meaning from it. They may as well have been wearing random costumes and speaking gibberish (such a waste of Shakespeare).
The Portuguese Kid was a play with Jason Alexander (pro) of a bunch of people insulting each other (con).
Time and The Conways didn’t have enough (more than one) likable characters.
And Blood Wedding (at the New School) was too experimental for me– if that’s what it was. Amanda saw another one of their shows and she said it was much better– so you should still give the New School a Chance.
So there you have it! I can’t wait until my next chance to go to New York and eat some more great food and see some more shows!