Marie and Rosetta

The Atlantic Theater Company and Neil Pepe have created a near pitch perfect, smart, toe-tapping, bio-play about a less well known musician who is often coined the original soul sister.  She was among the first to merge gospel music and rock & roll.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Kecia Lewis) as a sassy, street-smart, music and fun loving gospel singer who saw an opportunity bring it out of the church into the mainstream.  As often happens, the church people were not happy about her worldly presentation.  And the world was not always happy with her churchy style.  She fought it all, morphed when she needed, and like many before and after her was taken advantage of, lived the high life, and died penniless.

Marie Knight (Rebecca Naomi Jones) was the young girl she picked out of an audition because she had "something" in her eye that just struck Rosetta as something she could work with.  Together the two bantered about religion, taking things too far, and style and created a sound the world embraced, sending them to stardom on stage and in the recording studio for a while.

The show takes place at the beginning, in the basement of a funeral home in 1946 Mississippi where the colored people stayed so not as to dare taunt the while people in the town they were passing thru on tour. Rosetta is donned in her favorite and fabulous while glittery dress which matches her vocal style - blow the roof off the house - is what what comes to mind.  Marie is much more demure and lady like but she's got the bug to perform and break out.   The two of them spend about 90 minutes taking you down the memory lane of how their relationship developed.

In might have given this show at 10 out of 10 if the actors actually played the guitar and piano.  The piano was more difficult to tell as it was cleverly turned around so we could not see the keys, but an actor air-strumming a guitar is quite noticeable.  However, the two actual musicians are credited in the playbill (Felicia Collins and Deah Harriott) were superb!

In an incredibly surprising and clever twist at the end - we fast forward.  Touching, tender, and a complete closure to the trajectory of the story which bring it all back to the beginning and suddenly every little detail in the beginning now makes sense.

American Idiot

It's loud, irreverent, but not pointless.  A story of teenage angst is told thru the music.  Conceived in the Bush era this show is both artistic and uncomfortable at the same time.  John Gallagher, Jr., Stark Sands and Michael Esper lead the cast in a 90 minute multi-media, alcohol, drug, and profanity laced tour de force.

Green Day may not be your favorite band and watching a group of kids come of age in different, yet predictable ways may not be the ideal night in theatre - but the "shock and awe" on stage might just win you over.   Will it last?  I think at least as long as Spring Awakening.  Longer?  Not sure.

Passing Strange

The latest resident at the Belasco Theater is unabashedly an un-broadway un-musical; Passing Strange: A New Musical. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, at first glance. Part rock concert, part rock opera, part comedy, part drama, part performance art, Passing Strange, however, uniquely crafts all those elements into one thoroughly entertaining theatrical experience.

It's the semi-autobiographical experience of the star and creator of the show, Stew. He's the narrator, the rock-band leader, and the storyline itself. In just under 2 1/2 hours, we follow one man's journey growing up black in LA, his escape to Europe, searching and struggling for who he is and what skin he is comfortable living in. It's about the parent child relationship - and the lessons we often learn too late in life. It's about searching for the elusive "real". It's about art and life and where the two diverge... and where they collide.
The cast is a bubbling cauldron of young, hot talent (and by hot, i mean smokin' hot!) - Daniel Breaker (the young Stew), De'Adre Aziza, Eisa Davis (Mother), Colman Domingo, Rebecca Naomi Jones and last but certainly not least, Chad Goodridge (when i say smokin' hot - I mean Chad please step to the front of the class!).

Stew narrates the show from center stage all the while playing his guitar, leading the surrounding band strategically placed on stage with him which includes musical co-creator Heidi Rodenwald.

There are no elaborate sets or scenery - unless you count the visually stunning Tony Award deserving wall of lights - which is unveiled as the young man lands in Europe where he begins his journey stumbling into love, sex, drugs, art, family, and plenty of music along the way.

Stew takes us on a journey unlike any other yet seen on Broadway. Hair may have been the original ground breaking musical, Rent and Spring Awakening did indeed take their place in the evolution of the American musical, and now Passing Strange is here now and is ready to sweep us up on a magical journey.

Don't miss the bus!