A Quick Read on "The Book of Mormon"

Posted by Bruce Miller
On our recent theatre trip to NYC, my daughter Hannah and I saw The Book of Mormon. Almost locked-in to win the Tony Award for Best Musical, Mormon is the hottest ticket on Broadway. So it's the one show we bought in advance, paying $352 (before box office service charges) for two seats in the rear mezz. Yikes!

I read a rave review on Facebook from one of the Richmond theatre artists I most respect. His glowing assessment echoed the sentiments of virtually every mover and shaper in American theatre. Mormon has already won Best Musical nods from the New York Drama Critics' Circle, the Drama Desk Awards, the Outer Critics Circle Awards, and the Drama League Awards.

Ben Brantley in the New York Times called it "the best musical of this century." Peter Marks gushes in the Washington Post: "Matt and Trey: where have they been all my life? The Book of Mormon deserves worship." The critic in Vogue proclaims it "the best new American musical of the last 25 years." And Entertainment Weekly describes it as "a perfect Broadway musical," adding, "This is what 21st Century Broadway can be."

The youthful, packed house on the Sunday evening performance we attended went WILD--the most enthusiastic audience response I've witnessed on Broadway since the euphoric reaction that followed Jennifer Holliday singing And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going in the pre-Tony Award months of the original run of Dreamgirls in 1982.

So what did we think of The Book of Mormon? I liked it more than Hannah did. There were elements I liked a lot. If the rest of the world weren't getting all orgasmic, I'd be talking about how fun it was. But the best musical of the century or the last 25 years? Better than Into the Woods, The Lion King, Rent, Wicked, Spring Awakening, and Light in the Piazza? I have to admit that I just don't get it.

I'm sure part of it is that I'm 60 years old. I've never watched South Park, also written by two of the creators of Mormon, even for five seconds. When I watched that South Park "Hamlet" take-off that James Ricks posted on Facebook a week or so ago, I found it confusing and annoying and not funny in the least. I'm 60 years old, which I know is no excuse, but it seems to me like maybe it's germane.

My taste in musicals was forged during the era of Stephen Sondheim. My favorite musical of all time is A Little Night Music. My favorite musicals of this century are Wicked, Spring Awakening, and Light in the Piazza. I NEVER thought I'd say this about Sondheim (Night Music), but I fear and suspect that my beloved musicals of days gone by now seem terribly old school to young, savvy theatregoers who find Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon to be what American musical theatre needs today.

To me, The Book of Mormon was a lot of fun, clever and energetic, full of sound and fury signifying ... not a heck of a lot. To me, it was mostly derivative. Like Spamalot and Avenue Q, it revels in its irreverence. Like Drowsy Chaperone, it celebrates unapologetic musical comedy technique. Like Urinetown, it finds much of its humor from referencing other musical theatre hits. Like The Producers, it rejoices in an old fashioned bring-on-the-dancing-girls (in this case boys) sensibility that is almost quaint. Like In the Heights, it wraps everything up at the end with a tidy sentimental bow.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unlike the great works of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Kander and Ebb, it breaks no new ground with its production, libretto or score. It challenges nothing (seriously, find me an easier target for satire). It takes us nowhere we haven't been before. It teaches us very little. But it doesn't intend to do any of that.

Also, full disclosure time, I experience discomfort making smart-aleck fun of anyone's faith, no matter what that faith may be. Early in the show, there's a jaunty song that repeats the catch phrase, forgive me, "f... you God," I knew my father, were he alive, would be deeply hurt to see me applauding.

So, let me say what I LOVED about the show:

The CONCEPT: Take the squeakiest clean, fastest growing religion in the world and insert two of its virgin missionaries into Uganda, the most hellish place on earth (at least as described in this show), and see what they can do to convert a populace that is being decimated by AIDS, barbaric war loads, and enforced female circumcisions. View everything though the lens of American musical comedy. A GREAT idea.

The PERFORMANCES: I thought Josh Gad as a Mormon Zach Galifianakis (Jack Black?) and Andrew Rannells as a Mormon Bradley Cooper were full of talent and energy, as were their Mormon back-up singers. Nikki M. James, the beautiful black woman who is the first to convert, is a joy to watch. Everyone sings, dances and acts with such a love of all things Broadway, they send your spirits soaring.

The RESOLUTION: Using the mythology of the Broadway musical to shed light on the mythology of Mormonism (standing in for all the world's religions), and watching the Disneyworld Africans discover that, yes, mythology is make-believe but that's all it's ever been intended to be--stand-ins for the truths of love and interconnectedness. Yes, it is a small world after all.

I honestly did think the show was fresh, excitingly performed, and a lot of fun. At the end, it's even sorta sweet. I wasn't offended, just a little uneasy. In the overall arc of musical theatre, I think this show will go down as very 2011. Which is in many ways a great compliment.

--Bruce Miller

Hunter Herdlicka Hits Homer with Henrik

Posted by Bruce Miller
Two of the friends Hannah and I stopped to visit on our recent theatre weekend in New York were actors in shows we went to see. Hunter Herdlicka plays Henrik in A Little Night Music, and the second friend appeared in the ensemble of Ragtime, which closed on Sunday.

I'm being presumptuous when I call Hunter Herdlicka a "friend," although I certainly now consider him to be one. Hunter was a classmate and friend of Zak Resnick's at Carnegie Mellon. When Zak appeared in Into the Woods in the summer of 2007, Hunter came down to Richmond to see the show. He loved it. He and I may have met during that visit; neither one of us is sure.

When Facebook entered the consciousness of guys in their 50s like me--not too long after Into the Woods--I decided it was in Barksdale's best interest for me to "keep in touch" not only with close personal friends, but also friends of friends--professional actors and other theatre artists who had the potential to work with us here in Richmond one day.

I "friend requested" Hunter and several other of Zak's classmates at Carnegie Mellon. I did the same thing with talented theatre students at other universities. I'd send a note with the "friend request" that went something like this: Hunter - I'm shamelessly networking on behalf of Barksdale Theatre, the leading professional theatre in Richmond VA. AEA SPT. I'm the artistic director. I'm trying to strengthen connections and communication with the national talent pool. Thanks.

Truth is, most of these young theatre artists are trying to strengthen their own connections, and so a lot of them accepted me as a friend. Now I know that being a Facebook "friend" isn't the same thing as being a real friend. But in a business where networking and contacts are really important, there's nothing disingenuous about casting a wide net among respected professional colleagues.

For example, when we were casting the role of Trevor in Thoroughly Modern Millie, I turned to my Facebook friends and found Tim Ford. We wound up casting him, he moved to Richmond for the summer, was terrific in the show, and won a Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. Now he's a friend for real.

Anyway, back to Hunter. When he was cast in Night Music, I wrote him a Facebook message of congratulations. When Hannah and I were making plans to see Night Music, I messaged Hunter again and asked if Hannah and I could stop by after the show.

Part of what I'm after is maintaining my family of professional contacts. The other part of what I'm after is scoring dad points. If you're a freshman in college and interested in theatre, it's got to be at least a little cool to have a dad who knows people in the business.

After exchanging a few nice messages with me, Hunter suggested that Hannah and I approach the stage doorman after the show, mention his name, and come backstage to say hi. We did. He couldn't have been nicer. We talked a while about Barksdale and Into the Woods. Then he showed us all around the Night Music set--really crowded by the way, even more so than the notoriously crowded Empire. We stood onstage and looked out into the house. Once we were off the set, I took his picture with Hannah, and then we all headed out into the cold.

Hunter is now an official Friend of Barksdale, and friend of professional theatre in Richmond in general. I encourage all of you to try to catch his performance in A Little Night Music. Not only is he terrific in the show, he's a heck of a nice guy. I can't thank him enough for being so friendly and gracious.

The second friend we met at the stage door of Ragtime is a young man who first began working at Theatre IV when he was around eight years old. He did several shows with us as a child, and now he's on Broadway. We had a GREAT visit. I'll tell you more tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you for your support of Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV. We couldn't do it without YOU.

--Bruce Miller

If They Can Make It There

Posted by Bruce Miller
Hannah and I had the chance to visit with four actor friends--three old and one new--on our recent trip to New York. We caught up with the first two, Zak Resnick and Mark Ludden (below and to the right), at lunchtime on a frigid Saturday morning.

As many of you will remember, Zak recently starred at Barksdale in Into the Woods (Rapunzel's Prince, Second Wolf--above and to the left) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Jimmy--below and to the left). Mark is a veteran of one of Barksdale's several productions of Joseph/Dreamcoat, which preceded my tenure as artistic director. Both Zak and Mark are doing Richmond proud as they put their amazing talents to good work in the Big Apple.

If you've been keeping an eye on Zak's career, you know he's very quickly becoming someone to watch on the Great White Way. There's definitely no moss growing on this boy.

Just before beginning Millie rehearsals last spring, Zak graduated from the professional theatre program at Carnegie Mellon University. In August, he took his final bows in Millie and moved to New York almost before the applause had stopped. Just a few weeks later, he made his Off Off Broadway debut with the New York Musical Theatre Festival playing a leading role in The Cure, a new vampire musical that generated a significant buzz (see my earlier blog post, Zak Zooms in on Vampire Zeitgeist, Friday, Sept 25, 2009).

Then on October 1, Zak and his amazing tenor made it into the studio to record the new CD from the Broadway Boys, a vocal group comprised of 26 of the most accomplished male voices in New York. He was in illustrious company. Also singing on the Boys CD were Jesse Nager from the Broadway cast of Mary Poppins, Danny Calvert and Landon Beard (Altar Boyz), Telly Leung (Rent), Michael James Scott (Hair), Maurice Murphy (Putnam County Spelling Bee), Daniel Torres (Wicked), Gabe Violett (Spring Awakening), Marty Thomas (Xanadu), and Peter Matthew Smith (Hairspray).

Later in October, Zak made his debut at Joe's Pub, one of the hottest vocal venues in town. He shared his talents with the Public Theater's Music Theater Initiative Songwriters Showcase, singing songs from Dogfight, a new musical by rising composer / lyricist stars Pasek and Paul. Dogfight has just been commissioned by Lincoln Center, and Zak was among those vocalists recruited to showcase the amazing new score in its first public performance.

As a sure sign of his expanding New York profile, Zak was photographed by BroadwayWorld.com in November simply for attending the 6th Annual Broadway Unplugged concert at Town Hall. Bedecked in a golden scarf (see above), Zak stood with one of the evening's star performers, Daniel Reichard (Jersey Boys). Coincidentally, also performing that night at Town Hall was another of Richmond's vocal wunderkinds, Emily Skinner (below and to the left).

This past Monday, Zak joined an All-Star cast at the Canal Room for a one-night-only event celebrating the talents of one of Broadway's most exciting young composers/actors/ vocalists, Jonathan Reid-Gealt. Joining Zak at the mic--or perhaps protocol requires that I say that Zak was joining them--were several of Broadway's most amazing voices, including Jeremy Jordan (currently standing by as Tony in West Side Story--and formerly starring at Firehouse Theatre in Austin's Bridge), Tituss Burgess (recent star of The Little Mermaid and Guys and Dolls), Lauren Kennedy (knocking 'em dead in Vanities and Les Mis--also a former Ashland resident who graciously met with our 2007 Barksdale NYC tour group three years ago when we went to see her in Broadway's Spamalot), plus Quentin Earl Darrington and Bobby Steggert (a personal favorite of mine), both from the cast of the just-closed Ragtime revival.

Zak's career could not hold more promise.

Also making his Mark on American theatre is our other friend, Mr. Ludden. For the last few seasons he has alternated national tours of Les Mis (to the left) and Evita with summer gigs at the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse in Auburn, New York. Last year at about this time, Mark was one of the Barksdale alum who graciously agreed to talk with our 2009 NYC tour group during brunch in The Rainbow Room.

Hannah and I caught up with Zak and Mark in their current day jobs as singing waiters at Ellen's Stardust Diner--one of the coolest (and hardest to land) gigs going for up-and-coming Broadway singers. If you've never been to Ellen's, you really should give it a try. The great performances come with the price of lunch--and the singers are phenomenal.

Zak sang a couple songs during our time in the diner, easily outdoing Michael Bublé with his cover of the Leonard Cohen classic I'm Your Man. Mark's power baritone shook Ellen's rafters, providing beautiful counterpoint to Zak's pop tenor.

I suppose all the great theatre singers in New York don't come from Richmond, but what we heard on Saturday was proof positive that at least two of them do.

It was great to catch up with both Zak and Mark last weekend, even if the visits were all too short. All we Richmonders owe them our support as they chart their careers in New York New York. I'll try my best to keep all of you apprised of their successes as they achieve them.

And very soon, I'll write about the other two actor friends who graciously greeted us in the Big Apple.

--Bruce Miller