#oh mary broadway review

[thequeereview]

Theatre Review: Oh, Mary! (Lyceum Theatre, Broadway) ★★★★★

The skill required to craft and perform truly great comedy is often underrated, so its refreshing to see the slew of much-deserved plaudits for Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! that currently adorn the marquee of Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre. Included among the attention-grabbing endorsements is the show’s own mock-boastful tagline—which channels the titular character’s tendency for self-aggrandizement—”The…

[travsd]

My Review of "Oh, Mary!"...

Something unprecedented happened this past weekend — I lucked into one of the hottest tickets in town. Also unprecedented: that I would want one the hottest tickets in town. But in this case I knew it would be my jam, and oh boy was I right. My happy and grateful mission was to review Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! for Chelsea Community News. Why Michael Musto didn’t get this plum assignment is…

[broadwaydivastournament]

Bernadette and Christine: Hey, Old Friends

Yes, yes, once again, Good Fight costars, but Bernadette and Christine go way, way back to 1982 and a little off-Broadway play called Sally and Marsha, written by Sybille Pearson and directed by Lynne Meadow, who remains Artistic Director at MTC to this day.

Bernadette is Sally (no, not Follies Sally just yet), a 30-year-old waif and New York transplant who is your quintessential all-American housewife. Contrast against Christine as Marsha, the tall erudite wise-cracker, cynical and neurotic. Can we say 'typecast?' (Oh, my god, this is just Summer, 1976 with Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht, except set in New York.)

Anyone else getting a fruity vibe from this? You can't convince me they didn't explore each other's bodies during all those long tension-filled talks...

As you'd expect, Sally and Marsha butt heads over their innumerable differences, but eventually realize they're really not so dissimilar deep down as they discuss sex, marriage, children, and everything but the kitchen sink. (Or maybe that too, I don't know. I wasn't seeing shows in 1982. They're wearing aprons, so...)

Bernadette reportedly joined the production four days before rehearsals began after a frantic and unsuccessful search for a Sally to match Christine's Marsha. Christine had read with dozens of actresses who fit the bill, but no dice until Bernadette signed on, having loved the script. This marked Bernadette's return to the stage after an eight-year absence.

The play received mixed reviews for its writing, but general warmth for its actresses. By this point, Bernadette was a two-time Tony nominee, and Christine still a relative newcomer to the New York stage. Coincidentally, they'd both go on to receive Tony nominations in the same 1984 season, Bernadette for Sunday in the Park (Leading Musical), and Christine for The Real Thing (Featured Play). Bernadette would lose to Chita Rivera for The Rink, while Christine would win her first Tony.

And speaking of Sunday in the Park...

Fresh off the middling success of Sally and Marsha, both actresses would join forces with some composer named Steven Sondheim to do the Playwrights Horizons workshop of Sunday in the Park with George in the summer of 1983. The show did not perform the second act until the last three performances, and the entire show was still largely in development.

It starred, as we know, Bernadette Peters as Dot/Marie, and featured Christine Baranski as Blair Daniels/Clarisse (later named Yvonne). Christine did not transfer with the company to Broadway the following year in 1984, having instead chosen to do Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Tony Award, so great decision on her part. This was also notably the play where she's Cynthia Nixon's mother, despite not being old enough to do that. Showbusiness, eh?

Oh, and one more thing. Bernadette and Christine were also both Cinderella's Stepmother in separate movie musicals. Bernadette in the 1997 Cinderella with Brandy and Whitney Houston (the superior Cinderella, the only one that matters, the one that made me a lesbian). Christine in the 2014 Into the Woods movie adaptation that we here at BroadwayDivasTournament do not talk about under any circumstances except to say how hot Christine was.

The obvious answer is both, but we here at BroadwayDivasTournament do not allow fence-sitters. Make a choice, dammit. Commit to something.

[1percentcharge]

I haven’t really been paying attention to Cole Escola’s career and Oh, Mary only crossed my radar initially because of the subject matter but hearing about it more and more these past few weeks instills in me an emotion that I have trouble putting into words- it’s not strong or bitter enough to be envy, and not parasocial enough to be admiration, but still something that results from seeing, almost in real time, a person write a comedic play for themself to star in which then blows up, sells out, gets rave reviews, attracts a bunch of celebrities, and attains a transfer to broadway

[jgroffdaily]

Excerpts from an interview with Jonathan, Lindsay and Daniel at Vulture:

Now, the show is back on Broadway for the first time, directed by Maria Friedman, with 42 years of changes and a cast that earned rave reviews for a production Off Broadway last winter. Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe, who play Frank, Mary, and Charley respectively, sustain deep chemistry onstage and off, roasting and complimenting each other often in the same breath — and, together, they’re helping turn the idea of “Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway” from one of the saddest stories in theater to the type of show its explosive Act Two number “It’s a Hit” could be sung about.

Did you have a relationship to Merrily prior to getting involved with the production?

Groff: The documentary was the first time I knew anything about it.

Mendez: Same.

Radcliffe: I saw this production in London in 2013, and that was my only experience of the musical. I had no appreciation of the troubled history of the show until I watched the documentary.

Groff: Frank says in the first scene, “I made only one mistake in my life, but I made it over and over again, and that was saying ‘yes’ when I meant ‘no.’” In the early stages of the friendship, we’re all on the same page. We’re coming up together in New York, and we are inspiring each other with our common goals and shared talents, and, as years go by, people have families and people have writer’s block and shows become successful; there’s wives and children and mistakes, and needs become different. The mistake that we all make to a certain extent is we don’t allow each other to change.

What did you think when you were first cast together?

Mendez: Jonathan’s how I got cast. He was like, “Lindsay should be Mary.” Dan was cast before either of us, but Dan didn’t know either of us really, right?

Radcliffe: No, but obviously both by reputation. As soon as this trio was the idea and it came together, everything just worked. I flash back to what my life could have been like if it hadn’t been with them, and it’s a very different story.

Jonathan, what did you see in Lindsay that made you think she should be Mary?

Groff: I just selfishly was thinking she’d be so great for the part because she’s an animal. An amazing actor and singer. Even before meeting Dan, I had seen him in Equus and knew he was a theater animal. It’s brilliant to cast Dan in the show because we’ve all seen him grow up from being a child to a full grown man. It’s like Wow, we’ve all seen Dan for the last 20 years in front of us.

Dan, as the person who didn’t know these two before, how did you develop chemistry?

Radcliffe: It was a case of being plunged into a world of video messages at first unwillingly. [Groff and Mendez laugh.] Then being like, “Oh, fuck. I guess.”

Groff and Mendez: Dan!

Radcliffe: I was watching them like, “They’ve said so much. I need to write notes to answer all the things that they’ve said.”

Were they about the show?

Radcliffe: Yes and no.

Mendez: It was months and months before. We were trying to get to know each other so that we wouldn’t arrive on the first day like, “Nice to meet you. Let’s be old friends.”

Radcliffe: And now I send videos all the time. Now I’m like, “You can’t stop me.”

Groff: Now you initiate sometimes.

Radcliffe: You get to jobs when you know you are playing people that are intense friends hoping that the other people are coming in with the spirit of, “Let’s get involved and see how much of that we can bring out.” We did it pretty fast at New York Theatre Workshop, but this time around, having had a full year of knowing each other, it feels so different in a lovely way.

I was rewatching Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened and was struck by how young the original cast was. Given that you all worked professionally at that age, what would it have been like if you were in this show at their age?

Groff: I look back at that time of being 21, and all the dreams and expectations — if Spring Awakening had flopped in the way that their show flopped, it would’ve been a very different life. I was ugly crying through that entire documentary because it was like sliding doors. Knowing how this show brings you together and bonds you — feeling that that wouldn’t be accepted or celebrated would be even more devastating.

Jonathan, you haven’t mentioned Frank’s future past the show yet.

Groff: I think healing begins. The way that we’ve now staged the ending is a bookend, which is a nod to it being hopeful. Maria always says, “You can start over again. It’s never too late in your life to be a good person.” I do think that this show is an offering for the audience. We want them to follow our characters and be invested in us, but at the same time, we want them to think about their own lives. There were people Off Broadway that would say, “I called my dad. I called my friend.”

Radcliffe: Maria has specifically asked us to make eye contact with people in the audience. So if you’re reading this and that makes you very uncomfortable, I’m sorry that it happened to you already. There are some times you would see somebody a minute and a half into the show absolutely sobbing.

How do you start the show at that place without any momentum? How do you start at the end?

Mendez: I’ve gotten really good at snapping into a moment. That’s what this play has done. I leave hysterically sobbing and then have to come in and have it be five years earlier. I do it 20 times in each show.

Groff: The gift of the Off Broadway run was that getting to live it allowed us to layer it, because the more we lived it, the more it became clear how fucking brilliant the writing is.

It’s so nice that, in the experience of performing the show, you get to shed the severity scene by scene. When we would finish the show Off Broadway, I would feel like I was 18. It’s different for the audience because they’re taken on a different experience, but we’ve spent a lot of time rehearsing and in performance and now rehearsing again, reminding ourselves to start again at the beginning of every scene. Start again, start again. It’s a unique acting challenge because usually you can feel the momentum.

Mendez: And you get to take that with you, but instead, with this show, you have to leave it every time. “Leave it, leave it. I don’t know this yet. I don’t know this yet. I don’t know this yet.”

Groff: It’s a life lesson. Sometimes the things we take with us no longer exist. I find myself working this muscle when performing this show — “Now I’m going to show up in this scene releasing everything that has happened and be here right now.” And then I take that work into my life with my old friends.

With the level that you appreciate the show, is there a sense of responsibility toward it? The goal is to redefine Merrily’s place in the canon, right?

Radcliffe: There have been a lot of productions. These include, but are not limited to: a 1985 production at the La Jolla Playhouse, a 1994 Off Broadway revival, a 2000 West End production that won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical, a 2012 Encores! production, a 2012-13 London production, also directed by Friedman, and a 2019 Off Broadway production of Merrily. I definitely don’t feel like the goal is redefining, but I share the sense of responsibility. It’s so fucking good, and I want to do justice to this story every night.

Groff: Seeing the marquee go up, “Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway,” 42 years later, does feel like a big deal. But there’s a difference when we’re sitting and talking about it now. But as an actor, I’m not thinking about anything except the moment to moment of the show. There’s so much to think about when we’re performing the show that it isn’t until moments like this where it’s like, You’re right, it’s a big deal that Merrily is going to be on Broadway.

Mendez: All I hope for is that people understand it and that we break their hearts a bit and they say, “Wow, I saw a Sondheim show that I haven’t seen before and now is in my canon.”

[withallthingslove]

The Phantom of the Opera Broadway Thoughts/Review - March 9, 2023

This marked my fifth time seeing Phantom on Broadway, and I went with my friend who was seeing it for the first time. The Phantom was Ben Crawford, Raoul was Paul A. Schaefer, and Christine was played by both Emilie Kouatchou and Kanisha Marie Feliciano. Kanisha replaced Emilie during Il Muto. 

compared to when I saw it in December, the audience was not as loud during songs and was more enthralled/not taking a breath

From the start, Paul’s Raoul seemed stronger than the last time I saw him. It was also a vocally strong performance all around for everyone. 

While going down to the lair during the title song, Ben’s Phantom caressed Christine’s arm as she passed him at the end of the travelator

During STYDI, Emilie and Ben had a lot of tension when she decided to hand his mask back. And the way Ben hovered over her before grabbing her arm made me sjdjsk

Ben and Emilie were not seen coming up the trap door after the lair and the part where the ballerinas would spot the Phantom and Christine was cut. Instead the ballerinas just screamed after Magical Lasso and exited instead of pointing toward the Phantom and Christine so something felt off there

Kanisha came on during Il Muto instead of Emilie and it was my first time ever seeing an emergency cover happen in a show. During Il Muto I thought Kanisha’s confusion played well, but in All I Ask of You she seemed a bit overwhelmed. Paul really took over All I Ask of You and increased his energy in a really reassuring way.

When Ben appeared in the angel my friend went “oh fuck oh fuck” so it’s cool how surprising the angel still is to people who haven’t seen it

Ben also timed his hand coming up over the angel to the music so well it made it feel really gothic and creepy

Nehal Joshi as Andre really brought a ton of physical comedy and had dialed it up a bunch since I saw it in December. He walked through the ballerinas performing in Hannibal and bumped into more ballerinas during Il Muto. He also was more exaggerated with Firmin. 

Ok so we have to talk about Paul in act II... the first time I have seen him have consistent stage presence all the way through. He had so many cute moments with Kanisha and was appearing so protective instead of just standing there. I can’t even begin to recount the number of little reassuring touches he did that just added so much to his relationship with Christine. My friend commented that she thought she would be bored of Raoul based on the beginning but was obsessed with him in act II so she also noticed it

Kanisha has such a beautiful voice, but I think it took until Wishing for her to settle into the character. Her Wishing was really beautiful!

When Ben appeared in the graveyard my friend went “not this fucker again.” 

It was the best Wandering Child trio I’ve seen (and I do not like the trio in the song I prefer how it used to be from years ago). But the trio actually worked here. It was really cool to see Ben’s characterization change with Kanisha compared to how he would be with Emilie. With Kanisha he was immediately more paternal with her and this made the lyrics “wandering child” and “fathering gaze” that much more impactful.

Paul was bringING it during Wandering Child and since Kanisha and Ben were too, the sequence of Christine walking in a trance to the Phantom to Raoul stopping her, to the Phantom yelling at them while Chrisitne tries to stop Raoul while Raoul tries to protect Chrisitne just all ~ came together ~ 

Ben sounded really good in PONR. The new blocking I think this time I interpreted that Christine was just trying to force the Phantom to finish the choreography and then once she unveiled it as him she was maybe going to try and find a way to help the situation without the Phantom needing to die. And then he proposed to her and she was SHOCKED

During the final lair Ben was a bit more scary and physical than when I saw him in December and this made Paul louder and more protective. Kanisha’s “tears of hate” line was very defiant.

After the kiss for a second it looked like Kanisha’s Christine maybe felt something for the Phantom but a bit unclear on what that feeling was. She definitely stopped hating him after the kiss though and was looking at him almost perplexed and even after he let Roaul go, she still seemed to be trying to figure out what he was doing and what she felt

Ben broke my heart because when Christine came back to return the ring he leapt up and seemed to be thinking she was going to stay. Then Kanisha took a huge step back and stiffly outstretched her arm and it dawned on him that she wasn’t staying. 

He sang “I love you” once, and once she left he said it again but more in a pitiful way to himself. So he wasn’t trying to convince her to stay like he did when I saw him with Emilie. 

I don’t get the 100% vibe that Ben’s Phantom goes after Kanisha’s Christine. He seems to have sadly accepted it and I see more of like a 25% he considers trying to find her but doesn’t go through with it

I cried multiple times during the show and when I got home I sobbed at the thought of that being my last time seeing Phantom, so I bought one more ticket for April. My credit card and friends and family are probably unsurprised yet exasperated, but I think need one more time to say goodbye. This show in particular was pretty much perfect vocally, and it was so cool to compare the different acting interpretations and how they changed once Kanisha came onstage. 

But it was super chaotic and a roller coaster of emotions from hoping Emilie is OK, wondering what happened, being disappointed Emilie wasn’t on anymore, loving that I got to see Kanisha, and then being disappointed I couldn’t have seen Kanisha at the beginning while still wishing I got to see Emilie all the way through. By the time Ben was singing at the end of the Final Lair, I realized my emotions had been so all over the place and I had so much adrenaline that I didn’t get to use the show the way I originally intended and hadn’t been able to just sit back and appreciate it one last time.

So I guess I’m going back again

[margridarnauds]

Unrelated to the writing asks, have you ever thought about bringing 1789 to broadway? Who would you cast? Any specific staging ideas?

God, I've thought about it so much over the years.

From this post from 2019, here was my dreamcast at the time:

After hearing Reeve Carney in Hadestown, I’m actually curious about what his Ronan would sound like, even though I think that I would never be fully over “OH MY GOD, RONAN’S SPIDERMAN.” But Reeve Carney has the chaotic twink vibes that I feel like Ronan needs. I still feel like he needs more GREMLIN, but I can’t think of anyone who could really give me the gremlin vibes I NEED. I don’t know, I don’t follow Broadway all that much these days since I switched to Toho/Zuka/French musicals. Lazare (1) For a Toho-esque Lazare, I really, really like Norm Lewis as a possibility. I think that he could NAIL Lazare, and he’s already played Chauvelin and Javert, so it’s like…the Trio must be completed. He has the voice, he HAS the stage presence, and he does a PHENOMENAL job at playing authoritarian assholes who nonetheless remain nuanced. Any racists who want to argue about plausibility can and will have a brick-length biography on the Chevalier Saint Georges *delicately* applied to the back of the head. (2) Ramin Karimloo, for a more Carnot-esque bent. Look…I KNOW, I KNOW that he tends to be in everyone’s Top 10 Fancasts For Everything, but…I DO think that he has the voice for Lazare, he has the stage presence, and he has the fanbase. My only concern is whether or not he’d bend my son a little too much towards the dark side. (3), which is obviously dead serious, Patti Lupone. Because she would be TERRIFYING. Marie Antoinette - SPEAKING OF EVERYONE’S MOST OVERUSED OPTIONS, I genuinely do think that Sierra Boggess could do a good job. Look, her enunciation sometimes bugs me and I’m not going to pretend that she’s my ULTIMATE FAVORITE CHRISTINE EVER, but she has a fun, sparky attitude, with the range to also do Antoinette’s more somber moments, she has a high enough range that I wouldn’t be TERRIFIED of her high notes (not to name names, but…you know who), and I just genuinely think she would have a fun time in the role. Olympe - Eva Noblezada Solène -Mandy Gonzales. Artois - Josh Young

And I'll add, since I've thought about this more over the years:

Camille Desmoulins - Derek Klena

Lucile - Philippa Soo

Artois - Tam Mutu

Danton - Josh Young

Robespierre - Aaron Tveit

I would follow the Toho production more than the French -- We want something that feels contemporary and modern, but that isn't too abstract, with a solid 2 act structure. French musicals can be a tough sell to American audiences and I refuse to explain the apocalyptic furry tea party sex nightmare. I honestly think that this would be the perfect time for 1789, just because a lot of things that it was doing 10 years ago are now popular courtesy of Hamilton. I've seen a lot of people, even in French reviews of it, call Molière l'Opera Urbain "French Hamilton" and I'm here like "Okay, clearly they did take inspiration, you can see that from the logo, I'm not saying they didn't, but also, French musical theatre did Hamilton before Hamilton. We're seeing American influences strengthening a pre-existing French framework."

The dancing can stay the same, the overall style can say the same, I would probably borrow and refresh the costuming ideas from the French, making a style that keeps the silhouettes from the time period while also modernizing them and giving them a sleek, luxurious feel. Silks and satins for Olympe and Marie Antoinette, Robespierre can keep his black velvet coat and his red and black color scheme.

We're living in the age of projectors in musicals -- I think we could do more with that. I'd love to see a creative combination of physical staging and projectors to really highlight the extreme highs and lows of France at the edge of Revolution.

My gold standard doesn't actually come from either France, Japan, or America, but from Russia, with the staging of the Anna Karenina musical. (The entire musical just. Looks like this. Legitimately one of the most gorgeous stages and blocking I've ever seen in a musical *anywhere*)

We know that in my ideal world, I would pay Attia and Chouet a hundred million dollars or something so I could totally rewrite 1789 and make Peyronan canon, but since I CAN'T do that, there are a couple of things I would fiddle around with lightly, such as emphasizing the close relationship that Ronan and Solène had before everything went to shit and giving Solène and Olympe the stage together during Pour la Peine. Something that was done really well in a bootleg Japanese production I have was that they did have Lazare getting wounded during the Storming of the Bastille, with Ronan giving Solène the choice on whether to kill him or not. I would cut out the plotline to both Japanese productions on Solène becoming a Respectable Woman and let her stay as a sex worker.

Something potentially controversial, and that I'm not even sold about, is minimizing the historical figures -- it isn't that I don't like them, it's that (1) They create a lot of clutter and (2) They will not mean as much to an American audience. To a Japanese audience who are used to Rose of Versailles (and to an audience of Japanese musical theatre fans, who might have watched the Takarazuka Robespierre musical, Azure Moment, the Scarlet Pimpernel, The Poem of Love and Revolution, and Marie Antoinette) they are already familiar with Robespierre, Danton, and Desmoulins. They are Standard French Revolution Figures, we expect to see them.

...for an American audience? It isn't like I think that they're DUMB, but I'm saying that 1789 would face the same issues that Elisabeth would face on an American stage -- trying to make this part of history that Americans do not know all that much about, that isn't really part of our national identity, and to make it appealing and fun. That's a tall order. There's a reason I always said Rebecca had the best chance of being adapted of all the Kunze and Levay musicals (though maybe Lady Bess, especially on the West End), and it's because it's an adaptation of a book that is required reading for a lot of students. (It also isn't lost on me that it feels like this is only an issue. With American audiences.)

...I don't want to cut any of the three of them, not really. I love Au Palais Royal, I love A Quoi Tu Dans, I love the original staging for Ca Ira Mon Amour, but I feel like Danton is kind of the most expendable of the main cast. He can be cut, while Papa du Puget's role can be slightly emphasized more, both to emphasize Olympe's family life and to shed a little light on what the politics of the Bastille were like, since he was a very interesting man who was involved in a lot. Make Necker a ghost character who's mentioned but not seen. Cut Antoinette's love affair with Fersen, possibly give "Le Temps s'en Va" back to Ronan and Olympe, making it a sort of love at first sight situation before shit hits the fan. Tie the show's two villains, Lazare and Artois, closer together so it doesn't feel like two messy plots.

They're painful changes to make, I'm not sold on them (except for cutting Fersen), but I think they might create a slightly stronger show. In the absence of the audience being really familiar with the show, we have to settle for creating sympathetic, likeable leads and a strong love plot. If we don't have that, the show flops.

[steele-soulmate]

Tattooed Wings, CHAPTER 393, Peter Steele & OFC, Soulmate AU

SUMMARY: Mary Claire Bradley meets her soulmate- literally- the famous Peter Steele of metal group Type O Negative. But will obstacles including trauma, stalkers, and toxic family members get in the way of their life?

WARNING: mentions of child rape (nothing graphic) PTSD, milk kink, soft smut, grinding, assault, fingering, hand jobs, blow jobs, 69, P in V sex, blood, noncon rape, blood, violence, death, vandalism, graffiti, attempted kidnapping, break-ins, wild animal attacks, terrorist attack (sabotage)

WORDS: 2205

“Hello, hello, hello, it’s so nice to meet everyone.”

“Hello doctor,” I greeted the child psychiatrist. It was now Tuesday, and the Ratajczyk family was at a small clinic located an hour north of the house, seeking the help from a well-reviewed doctor for seeking treatment for the traumatized kids.

 “Let’s go around and quickly introduce ourselves, shall we now?”

 “My name is Peter, and I’m the kids father,” Peter rumbled, his tall frame crammed into an uncomfortable chair for the hour long appointment. He had Baby Tommy on his chest, where the chubby little man was napping with a fistful of his daddy’s hair in his tiny balled up hand.

 “I’m Mary Claire Ratajczyk, and I’m the mother,” I introduced myself, already on pins and needles for some reason.

 “I’m Elizabeth Ratajczyk, but daddy calls me Bitty and the babies call me Lizz Lizz,” Elizabeth mumbled.

 “I’m Katie but mommy called me- what do you call me mommy?” Katie turned to face me.

 “Mo stór,” I chuckled. “Mo stór means my dear in Irish Gaelic.”

 “Baa bee Tom Tom,” Baby Tommy slurred out in his sleep, his little arm wrapped around his mini me toy. “Baa bee Tom Tom.”

 “Well, it’s nice to meet everyone. Alright, now can everyone tell me a little bit about themselves?”

 “I work in the music industry, and I love my family,” Peter volunteered, cooing down at his son on his chest.

 “I’m a stay at home mom for the most part, but I’m also an author and I’m playing the lead in the Ken Anderson musical, Wednesday Addams: A Dark New Spooktacular Broadway Musical,” I shrugged, leaning back and welcoming in Elizabeth to come in and sit on my lap.

 “I play the harp and I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up,” Elizabeth piped up.

 “I have Down’s Syndrome and I have trouble with math and numbers,” Katie frowned.

 “Now, am I correct in deducing that Katie is adopted?”

 “Yes, that’s correct,” I told her before going around and going into further detail about our relations to one another. “Baby Tommy is Peter’s and my child together, Elizabeth is from a past relationship of my husband and Katie was adopted into the Ratajczyk family as of recently.”

 “And little girl is my wife’s daughter that she carried as a surrogate for some friends of ours,” Peter shrugged. “Mary Claire gave birth to little girl while on the toilet.”

 “Oh my! That does sound rather exciting!”

 “Oh it was,” I muttered. “Trust me, it was plenty exciting. Little girl was originally due on September thirtieth, but the little diva just had to make an entrance and was born on my thirtieth birthday, nearly three and a half weeks early!”

 “Oh my! She does sound like a little diva! Can I ask what was the leadup to her birth?”

 “Well, I met Peter when I was twenty six weeks pregnant with little girl,” I explained. “I had asked him to hold off on proposing to me until after little girl’s birth, due to the New Father Law that Governor P. T. Grantsville passed, saying that regardless of who the father was, the husband was required to put his name down onto the birth certificate. I had said that I didn’t want to cause any legal issues down the road for little girl’s daddies. Anyway, our romance progressed very quickly and he ended up being the first to find me after I had given unexpected birth. He proposed to me while I was in the hospital, holding little girl, none of the less!”

 “You did ask me to propose to you when it was just the two of us,” my soulmate chuckled. “And I didn’t do that- I did it with little girl in the room as well. Oops.”

 “But I did say yes!” I laughed. “I said yes, and you hadn’t made me regret my answer, not in the two plus years we’ve known each other!”

 “Has it really been that long sweetheart?” Peter wondered, looking at me with hearts swimming in his eyes.

 “I do need to ask, how do you girls feel when your parents start acting like this?”

 “They’re setting the bar for when we start dating,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “They’re showing us that the world won’t stop turning just because they’re obviously still stuck in their honeymoon phase.”

 The doctor burst into unexpected laughter at Elizabeth’s deadpan words.

 “Well, I did say in more than one interview that men who are stoic and closed off to their feelings are displaying toxic masculinity,” Peter confessed with a little shrug. “And I have been open with my emotions in front of my family, friends, and fans alike.”

 “Oh wow. I do have one question, and forgive me for missing out on some kind of family story- but why do you call her little girl?”

 “Little girl’s mother and I were calling her ‘little girl’ even before knowing her name, and the nickname just stuck. I’ve been calling her by the affectionate nickname since meeting her mother when she was twenty six weeks pregnant and we only learned of her name- Vanessa Rose- after she was born. It’s simply a sweet little nickname that represents on how much that little girl was loved and wanted before she came into the world.” Peter pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead as the little baby shifted in place with a soft babble.

 “He is also her favorite person in the world,” I told the doctor, who was writing notes into a notebook. “She is his little girl and he is her Papa Pete.”

 “Papa Pete? Awwwwwwwwwww…”

 “You’re telling me!” I laughed. “Peter wears the babies in a back papoose whenever he’s playing at shows, and little girl has very quickly coined the term JeeJee Chris looks like me, a line from one of the songs that he and the boys play.”

 “The boys?”

 “My affectionate nickname for the other band members,” I explained. “Josh Silver on keyboard, Kenny Hickey on guitar, Johnny Kelly on drums and Slitzy the social media manager.”

 “Oh, that’s so cool! What instrument does Peter play?”

 “Bass and lead vocals,” Peter hummed, smiling down at Baby Tommy as he woke up gradually.

 “Now I see that the kids have bought their friends with them. Care to introduce them to me?”

 “Elle,” Elizabeth meeped, making her dollie wave her hand.

 “This is Jing!” Katie declared. “She was the first Christmas present that I ever got. Elizabeth also got her American Girl doll the Christmas before.”

 “Oh?”

 “Aria and Evie- they’re my oldest brother, Adam, his twin daughters, they got dolls too,” I explained. “They sometimes spend the night at our place.”

 “Wow, so a full house!”

 “And I love it.” Peter flipped Baby Tommy so that he was now on his back. “Can you say hello to the nice doctor now Baby Tommy?”

 “No!” gurgled Baby Tommy. “Fuk!”

 “NO NO NO!” Peter panicked. “WE DO NOT SAY THAT WORD BABY TOMMY- THAT WORD IS A BAD WORD!”

 The doctor broke out into sudden laughter yet again, totally taken aback by my husband’s words.

 “I am a bad daddy!” Peter bemoaned dramatically. “My babies are already cussing and they aren’t even potty trained yet!”

 “How old is little girl again?”

 “Well, I had told Peter that I wanted to wait at least two years to give my body to me to heal from the trauma of carrying and giving birth to little girl,” I confessed. “But Baby Tommy was conceived a little under two months after little girl’s birth. So they are Irish twins, technically speaking of which!”

 “Oh my goodness!”

 “And I’ve heard firm on wanting to wait until our next kid,” I told her with a firm voice. “This upcoming Valentine’s Day is when we will try for another Ratajczyk baby.”

 “Oh, fun!”

 “I’ve booked a weeklong getaway for the two of us,” Peter confessed sheepishly. “It’s going to be a very belated honeymoon for the two of us. I’m the only one who knows where we’re going, it is to be a surprise for my woman.”

 “Well I do hope you two have fun. And now onto the real meat of today’s session- the concert where the stage collapsed in on itself. Walk me through what happened.”

 “The band was partway through Christian Woman when I felt the stage starting to shift,” Peter recollected, welcoming the girls in under his arms as they came in seeking cuddles and love. “I dropped my bass, slung the babies over my chest and started back offstage when the stage collapsed in on itself,” Peter recalled with a far off look in his eyes. “The only thing on my mind was protecting the babies- no harm is to ever come to my babies. I needed a rod put into my leg to help with the break because of it, but I honestly wouldn’t change anything for their protection and safe being.”

 “We were so scared daddy,” Elizabeth whimpered, stuffing her face into his neck.

 “I don’t want to lose you,” Katie meeped. “You and mommy and Lizz Lizz and Elle and Baby Tommy and Jing are the best things that ever happened to me!”

 I hummed as I leaned into Elizabeth to join in on the hug.

 “I love each of you,” Peter whimpered in a watery tone of voice, and I knew that he was crying as I accepted the box of tissues that the doctor offered us.

 “Are you two seeing someone?”

 “Charlaine Thorn, we all see her over Zoom at least once a week,” I told her. “We all have a family session and then individual sessions. I try to schedule everything on the same day, but sometimes life bites me!”

 “I would like to have access to her notes, if you don’t mind.”

 “Girls?” I asked them. “Is it okay with you if the doctor looks at Charlie’s notes from your therapy session? You don’t have to answer right now.”

 “Okay,” they told me before folding themselves deep into me.

 “Peter and I both involve the kids in planning a lot of the day to day activities,” I explained as I kissed their foreheads. “What we’ll eat, where we’ll go, what movie we’ll watch after dinner… I find it best to stick to a routine for me.”

 “Are you by any chance autistic?”

 “No, I’m not,” I answered. “But Baby Tommy here was pre-diagnosed as autistic while he was in the hospital following fracturing his leg.”

 “Oh, yes, I saw that note. Are you hoping to get a positive diagnosis?”

 “If possible, yes,” I answered her. “Also, Katie doesn’t have an IEP for school and I would like to explore that option, if possible. She’s been doing pretty good in her mathematic studies, however, she has told me that she seeks out help from the school library.”

 “Ah. And does Elizabeth have any trouble in school?”

 “Not really, no,” she muttered, curling in on herself. “I enjoy school. I just really wish we wouldn’t have so many lock down drills.”

 “Oh? Can you touch on a bit more on that?”

 “I killed a man named Eric Dessmor.” My heart froze at the look on her face as her emotions just spilled out. “He was threatening my mommy, and Baby Tommy, and little girl. He’d already hurt daddy, and I had the chance, and I guess I just took it.”

 “Are you okay if we touched on this subject more in our individual sessions? I am very curious about this chapter of your life, Elizabeth.”

 “I guess,” she mumbled, looking up as Peter grunted before shifting again.

 “Do you want a pillow to sit on, Peter?”

 “Nah, I’m good,” he grunted before resettling him, lifting up Baby Tommy to kiss his forehead. “Yabba dabbo doo!”

 Baby Tommy scrunched his face up before-

 POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

 “Oh man, Baby Tommy!” Katie squealed, jumping away with her hand clamped over Jing’s nose.

 “Mommy, Baby Tommy’s stinky man butt could be a weapon of mass destruction!” Elizabeth hacked as she opened the window and started fanning the bad air out.

 “Fuk!”

 “BABY TOMMY!”

  Mo stór, my dear, Irish Gaelic 

TAGLISTS ARE OPEN/ ASK BOX IS OPEN/ REQUESTS ARE OPEN/ PLOT BUNNIES ARE WELCOMED

 If you liked this, then please consider buying me a coffee HERE It only costs $3!!!

 PETER STEELE TAGLIST

@starchild0985​

[newyorktheater]

Job Broadway Review

“Job” is the second 80-minute play this month that has powered onto Broadway after sold-out runs downtown. (The other is“Oh, Mary!” .) That this two-character play about a therapy session written by a little-known 29-year-old playwright is opening tonight at the Hayes Theater is the theatrical equivalent, I suppose, of going viral – which feels an especially apt way to talk about “Job,” since the…

[broadwayworld]

Review Roundup: OH, MARY! Opens On Broadway https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Review-Roundup-OH-MARY-Opens-On-Broadway-20240711

[thequeereview]

Exclusive Interview: Oh, Mary! star Bianca Leigh on Cole Escola's hit Broadway comedy "laughter is my oxygen"

For the last few months, Broadway’s oldest continually operating legitimate theatre, the Lyceum, has reverberated with the raucous laughter of sell-out houses attending Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! Having made its award-winning debut downtown at the Lucille Lortel earlier this year, the irreverent, colourful—and very queer—reimagining of historical figures, centred around a petulant, heavy-drinking,…

[tenaciouspostfun]

Stories

Submitted



Awaiting Review

Upload ImageEmbed VideoUnsplash image



Click to update image

This 2024 Fall Season on Broadway maybe as exciting as the Spring 2024! Probably the most anticipated actor to come to Broadway is the recent Oscar winner, Robert Downey Jr in "McNeil" at Lincoln Center starting September 5th at The Vivian Beaumont Theatre. The acoustics in this theater should show off the acting chops of Downey, who is a behemoth of a fill actor.

One of my favorite plays returns to Broadway; "Our Town", a play I saw at Town Hall back in the 80's. "Sunset Boulevard", another great show that I last saw in Los Angeles with Glenn Close will be returning to "The White Way". The Bard's "Romeo and Juliet" too will return this fall season. It will be interesting to see how it will be directed. Another great show of the same genre, "Othello" will run in the Spring of 2025 starring Denzel Washington.

Another hugh Hollywood actor will be making his debut on Broadway; George Clooney in "Good Night, and Good Luck" will have its run this fall. "Maybe Happy Ending" will play at the Belasco in mid September. This show could be a sleeper of the Fall season.

As an early treat, three shows are coming this summer. The first has started early previews already: "Breaking The Story" at the Keiser Theatre. A very successful, albeit, short run at City Center "Once Upon A Mattress" will play at the Hudson Theatre at the end of July. "Oh Mary" after a run off Broadway will begin at the Lyceum Theatre June 26th. A fourth show which I didn't include because it opens previews August 29th at the Booth and is technically a kickoff weekend for some limited theater, is "The Roommate" with the great Patty LuPone; it also includes Mia Farrow as well.

"Yellow Face" is also a show coming in September, followed by a slew of shows in October: "Wonderful World", a story about the life of Louis Armstrong, the greatest Trumpet player ever. A musical I just saw at The Morristown Performing Arts Center "The Pirates of Penzance" makes its overdue return to Broadway. This Tony winner cleaned up at the Tony's back in 1982 when it last played. "Tammy Faye" will also begin in October at the newly renovated Palace Theatre.

From the movie, "Death Becomes Her" at the Lunt Fontaine Theatre has had some early buzz in the theater community. In November "Eureka Day" is showing some promise as well. This show will play at the Friedman Theatre. "Swept Away" has not announced an opening date yet and I have not seen a theater for it. This show is being highly talked about as well as highly anticipated. A show I find interesting is "Left On Tenth". I am hoping it is similar to say "Between Riverside and Crazy" Either way, the title is intriguing to say the least.

Being treated to so many great shows this season has spoiled the theater lover for sure. The lineup for this fall looks like it may do the same. Tony judges this season do not have an enviable position. So many great shows, so few awards to be given out. With a plethora of talent, both old and new, we look forward to the new shows slated for this fall season on Broadway, as well as a few off Broadway.

Robert Downey Jr, Lincoln Center, "Pirates of Penzance, Linda Ronstadt, Tony Awards, Oscars, Hollywood, Broadway, George Clooney, J LO, Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet", Patty LuPone, Mia Farrow, "Our Town", Town Hall, New York City, #Broadway Bob #No Bull With Raging Robert, www.broadwayworld.com, Booth Theatre, Nimbus Magazine, Dramatists Guild.

Words:��604

[frontmezzjunkies]

"Oh, Mary!" Finds the Magic in a Comedic Bottle Brilliantly

#frontmezzjunkies reviews: #OhMaryPlay @ohmaryplay written and starring #ColeEscola directed by #SamPinkleton w/ #BiancaLeigh #TonyMacht #ConradRicamora #JamesScully at the #LucilleLortelTheatre transferring to #Broadway's #LyceumTheatre late June

Conrad Ricamora and Cole Escola in “Oh, Mary!” Photo by Emilio Madrid. The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Oh, Mary! By Ross Billed as “The Greatest Play of the Generation!“, I walked into the off-Broadway production of Oh, Mary! with high hopes. Not actually because of what the flyer stated, quite brazenly, but from all the word of mouth from my friends that this was the funniest play of the…

[thrashntreasure]

Ep07 Set Fraser to Stun w/ Alison Fraser! (Broadway!)

On this EXTRA special Christmas episode, we welcome our first EXTRA EEEXTRA special guest, two-time Tony nominee- and OG Trina, ALISON FRASER to our Torture Chamber Musical Podcast! Hear the one and only Lady Fraser like you've never heard her before as she reveals one of her biggest secret passions! Plus we chat about fan art, Christian Borle, William Finn, rejecting Mary Poppins, music, and heaps more! Oh, and of course, Aaron and Gareth review new albums! Produced, Mixed and Edited by AW. Be sure to follow Alison on Twitter - www.twitter.com/alisonfraser -- https://www.ghostlightrecords.com/alison-fraser-tennessee-williams-words-and-music.html

[i-am-the-entertainer]

History on Stage: or, A Preamble to the Inevitable Criticisms of Suffs

Edit (4/7/22): Well I’ll be honest, when I originally wrote and queued this post for Thursday morning I thought that 1) Suffs would have opened last night and 2) all or most of the reviews would have been positive. But as it turns out, Suffs not only didn’t have an opening night but cancelled the rest of the performances this week, and the reviews that have been coming out are decidedly mixed, and they’re making the exact same criticisms I make in this post. Still, the sentiments I express in this post still apply, so I’m leaving this largely unedited.

Speaking as one of the OG Hamilton fans (I was part of the early fandom in the 2015-16 era, and yes, I saw the original cast while it was at the Public) who has gone through the various stages of both loving and hating the show, to settling on overall liking the show as a standalone piece of art but disliking its handling of history and also how its fandom receives it...

Point is, I’ve been through and seen a lot pertaining to Hamilton. Which is why I’ve been awaiting with a bit of trepidation for how people will react to Suffs.

It goes without saying that a lot of people are referring to Suffs as “the next Hamilton,” a description I find abhorrent. But the similarities are pretty obvious: both shows are history musicals that are mostly sung-through, they were developed at the Public, they’re selling out very quickly, with resale prices on tickets reaching the thousands, the hype is high, celebrities are attending regularly, the cast is racially diverse... hell, they even have some folks who have been in Hamilton, namely Phillipa Soo and Hannah Cruz.

It also, like Hamilton, centers characters who we know engaged in racist practices: namely, most of the "hero” characters in Suffs, who were historically white, willfully omitted black women and other racial minorities from their activism for the 19th Amendment. It also sacrifices historical accuracy at times in the name of telling a good story, the implications of which have yet to manifest but if Hamilton is anything to go by may not turn out great. Overall, it is a decent piece of art but an undeniably flawed view of history – and it has some of the same flaws as Hamilton, which people are going to notice.

Much as I did enjoy the overall experience – the music was good and the performers were on their A-game – I remember thinking as I left the theater, “Oh boy. I’m not looking forward to the backlash.”

Minor spoilers for Suffs follow (nothing to do with staging or design, just some specific characters and how the show is structured). Do keep in mind, before clicking the Read More: this post and its critiques reflect Suffs only in its Off-Broadway state. Although the show is locked for the Off-Broadway run, it is technically still in development, and it’s very possible most of these criticisms will prove moot should another run occur.

A word in Suffs’ defense:

The choice to depict the characters with a racially diverse cast dramaturgically meshes well with the fact that the cast is almost entirely made up of women, with all of the male roles played by female-identifying actors. Where Hamilton plays its color-conscious casting straight, Suffs has it so the actors are essentially portraying caricatures: caricatures of white men, and white people in general, which allows for some mockery (particularly Grace McLean as Woodrow Wilson, my god). Ergo, rather than using different races in casting to “absolve the white people of their racism” (as some argue Hamilton does), Suffs often highlights the whiteness of its characters in the dialogue, though I think it could go further.

Suffs is also very aware of the racism of its white characters, another thing that puts it a step above Hamilton, which does not really grapple with that. As a matter of fact, the suffrage movement’s treatment of black women voters is frequently criticized in the narrative, and a considerable amount of time is spent focused on black suffragists Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, particularly their struggles in being heard in the movement and the pushback they got.

However, I do have a problem with this, though my problem has nothing to do with what they’re saying: more, how they’re saying it and how that affects the overall experience of seeing Suffs. It’s glaringly obvious that this element is a relatively recent addition to the show – this plot thread was apparently expanded on in a major way after the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in America – and it’s clear it has had less development in its execution, namely in how well it fits with the rest of the show. As a matter of fact, despite sharing some common themes with the rest of the show that make me understand how they justified adding it, it honestly feels like an entirely different storyline has been haphazardly stitched into a pre-existing work rather than something that was with the show from the start, and that makes for a rather disjointed viewing experience. For me, even as a viewer who wanted to see these white suffragists’ racism addressed, it was difficult to follow the main characters’ story when the story kept stopping every few minutes to remind us “Oh by the way, they were racist!”

Really, the storylines almost feel incompatible: the main through-line of Suffs is the story of Alice Paul and co., focused on venerating them for their brave, often dangerous actions in the name of getting support for the 19th Amendment. But when the criticism for their treatment of black women is first introduced, not even halfway through the first act, it almost taints one’s enjoyment of the rest of the musical: a friend of mine who managed to snag tickets remarked that she didn’t feel entirely comfortable supporting the main characters for the rest of the show.

Still, I give the show credit for intentionally grappling with this fact. The result is pretty messy and removing it would make for a more cohesive story (not to mention trim down its way too long runtime), but it’s better than just pretending that issue isn’t relevant to the women’s suffrage movement. This is definitely something the show will need to work on should it move to Broadway.

But then again... I’m not entirely convinced there’s anything they could do to fix that. Because...

Backlash to the Show

Suffs is very much a girlboss musical. It is fundamentally a show by white women (the collaboration between writer Shaina Taub and director Leigh Silverman) written about white women whom they admire. It is very much centered more on the white women of NAWSA and the NWP than the black women they mistreated. And I sincerely doubt there’s much stitching two white women can make that’ll change that. Already I’ve been seeing criticisms both on Twitter and from my interactions with other people who’ve seen the show at how Suffs‘ attempt at addressing the racism of its characters largely just highlights the white perspectives of its main characters and its creatives. There’s not much fixing the creative team can do without bringing on another collaborator... which from a purely financial standpoint they have no incentive to do because Suffs’ popularity at this point supersedes any losses from that criticism (though who knows? Hamilton was a shoe-in for a Broadway transfer immediately after its Public run but Miranda and Kail wanted to develop it more).

Suffs, also like Hamilton, sacrifices some actual history in the name of telling a cohesive story. This has been a source of some ire in critiques of Hamilton, that by misrepresenting history it serves to perpetuate inaccuracies. I saw a tweet a few weeks ago basically complaining that Suffs was presenting its history as fact but is actually lying, because it didn’t say the separation between the black rights’ movement and the women’s suffrage movement occurred because of Frederick Douglass: apparently he at first advocated for women’s suffrage in the 1840s but backtracked in the 1860s. I’m not giving this particular criticism too much weight though, at least pertaining to Suffs itself, partly because the person who made it hasn’t indicated they’ve actually seen the show or even really knows what it’s about beyond what is described in newspaper articles (this was pretty early on in previews, too). Suffs is focused on key figures in the women’s suffrage in the decade leading up to the passing of the 19th Amendment, from 1913-1920, so it’s a bit absurd to expect it to directly deal with history from the 1840s: I’m not sure, having seen the show, if this is even something the characters themselves would have been aware of.

Still, Suffs is probably going to trigger the same urge to examine the actual history of these characters that Hamilton did, and people will inevitably find inaccuracies and omissions to real history that Suffs made in the name of a good story. And some of these omissions will seem so glaring once more people know about them that they may be mistaken for bad faith omissions or misrepresentations (something Hamilton is frequently accused of), rather than a removal for ease of viewing or simply being something the creators missed. In my experience, most of the history-based criticisms of Hamilton, particularly on Twitter, are made by people who didn’t know that history until after they saw it, yet in the constant internet need to be right about everything, it is presented as if this is common knowledge and thus an intentional omission by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Of course it’s not common knowledge! How much common knowledge did you have about Alexander Hamilton before you saw the musical?! That’s why the musical got big: most people didn’t know anything!

That’s the thing: neither Suffs nor Hamilton are meant to be comprehensive, completely accurate histories of their subjects. They’re art inspired by history that are trying to say their own thing, and so they will futz with accuracy a bit in the name of telling a cohesive story, or perhaps they will reflect the misconceptions about history that the writers have. There’s plenty of work out there like that to which no one bats an eye. But when that work becomes mainstream, it stands to perpetuate the inaccuracies, which could lead to trouble. This happened with Hamilton, and based on Suffs as it stands now, I can very easily see it happening with this show as well.

Truth is, though, it’s not the criticisms of the show that I’m particularly concerned about. It’s the fandom, and how that will affect the intensity of the backlash.

Backlash to the fandom

A friend of mine put it best: “Fandom is a curse enacted on decent-to-good media by capitalism.”

Fandom can be annoying. This isn’t a new concept: fandom culture often leads to wildly inappropriate and problematic behavior. I’ll spare you stories of problematic Hamilton fandom behavior I’ve personally witnessed, but as far as Suffs goes, the show hasn’t even had a cast album or bootleg emerge yet and there are already superfans on Twitter who are basically harassing the actors for attention.

(These people are doing their jobs as actors. You are attached to their performances because they’re doing a good job, but you do not know these people. You are not entitled to their attention just because you like the show.)

I’m not saying Hamilton and Suffs have invalid criticisms, but in my experience backlash to a particular pop culture artifact has more to do with being annoyed with the fandom than anything the artifact itself is doing (just look at Undertale). And I don’t think the backlash to Hamilton would be nearly as strong as it was without the existence of an incredibly toxic fandom that hyped it up and in retrospect may have overstated its value. The fandom treated Hamilton, its characters, and even its actors as something they could make headcanons for and write fanfiction and make fanart about. It’s true that Hamilton was, like any television show, movie, book, musical, etc., a pop culture artifact that could be used by fan culture. But it was also a historical musical about historical figures, whose actions were being ignored in favor of the perceptions and behaviors of fandom culture. The show itself wasn’t encouraging it, but because it wasn’t discouraging it either, that led to some concerning behaviors. Like headcanons about slave owners (*shudder*).

Counterpoint: Why should it discourage it, though? No one writes media knowing what people will criticize it for or how people will receive it and thus preempts the critiques. At least, no one who writes good media – they’re just trying to write something. And if people like what they wrote, great!

Counter-counterpoint: Even if Hamilton is a piece of media meant to be consumed, it is also an introduction to history for many of its viewers, thus it carries an expectation to not teach bad history. And if it teaches bad history... people aren’t going to be happy when it is taken as the gospel truth by its followers.

These optics are why the Hamilton pushback came on as strongly as it did. I suspect, given its growing popularity, Suffs is going to be viewed as the same kind of pop culture artifact, and thus will get the same kind of backlash.

So, How Should We View Suffs?

Neither I nor you can or should make a definitive call on Suffs and how the mainstream pop culture will react to it, because it’s technically still in development. A cast recording will certainly put it on the pop culture map, but that is unlikely to come out while it’s in this state. If it goes to Broadway, we’ll more likely see one then, and who knows? By that time there may be some changes that’ll alter my view on it, or what people will ultimately complain about.

But for now: even with my quibbles, I kind of like Suffs. And I still like the version of Hamilton I remember from when I saw it all those years ago, before it became a pop culture phenomenon and the general public’s awareness of Hamilton’s life was raised: amazing performances, good music, and an introduction to history I’m not too familiar with. Suffs, like Hamilton, is undeniably flawed in its portrayal of history, yes, but I’m not going into this expecting to get a 100% accurate representation of history. Rather, I’m watching art that is inspired by history. So long as I understand that the real history is more complicated, and in some cases much more frustrating than in the musical, I can conceivably still enjoy the show.

I think it is helpful to view Suffs right now the same way I’ve ultimately come to view Hamilton: a show that is designed to provide a baseline education to its viewers on a piece of history that isn’t that well known, and thus reflects that “first glance at this” view on the subject. This will in turn contribute to it becoming a pop culture phenomenon as people are intrigued by this history. But once the phenomenon occurs, people will also learn more about that history and start to push back at what it gets wrong. But that does not mean intentional malice on the creators’ part, it just means they got something wrong. And the creators aren’t trying to make something that will attract a toxic fandom. They’re just trying to make their art.