Two more stories for AOL’s recently launched City’s Best.
The first one is on the Off-Off-Broadway revival of Manson: The Musical:
If anything can be a musical (“The Origin of Species” anyone?), the story of cult leader Charles Manson has to be up for grabs.
Back in the 1990s, Chicago’s Annoyance Theater claimed the mantle, creating a dark, improvised tuner on the life and times of the infamous “Helter Skelter” hippie. Unlikely as it sounds, it became a huge hit.
Fast forward to late 2009. Under the direction of Russell Dobular, whose End Times Productions is a New York-based hybrid theater and film outfit, Manson: The Musical was offered to Gotham. It, too, became a hit, and now it’s back for another run.
To read the rest, click here.
The second one is on the Broadway revival of La Bete:
Originally this post was to be written in iambic pentameter. Maybe 15, 20 lines, maybe more, artfully constructed and playfully rhymed. After all, if playwright David Hirson could write hundreds of lines of rhyming couplets for “La Bete” — a big flop back in 1991, now largely redeemed in its glittering Broadway revival — it can’t be so hard to write, right?
Oh yes, it can:
Try it yourself, try to keep the rhythm
Not just words, but meaning right along with ’em
Yes, I know, that’s an awful example. But it illustrates why “La Bete” turns out to be such rollicking comic theatre.
To read the rest, click here.
