All the Broadway Shows I Saw in College: A Collective Review
Through my college, I was able to see Broadway shows at a steep discount. These are my reviews.
I will complain a lot about my experience attending the Fashion Institute of Technology, but truly one of the highlights of being in the school’s Honors programs outside of the classes and discussions we attended were the Broadway shows. Once a semester you got to rank a certain number of shows, then you got to see one for $20. If a spot opened up at another and you could snatch it fast enough, you could see multiple shows in one semester. Obviously this was put to an end in COVID, but it was great while it lasted. We always had the balcony seats so you could see the entire stage, too.
I work in theatre now because of the exposure to Broadway I was given through FIT. Growing up lower middle class in Baltimore, Maryland, I had never been the theatre before really coming to New York. Outside of one field trip I had in high school, I had never seen live theatre before. Having the opportunity to attend so many Broadway shows truly was a blessing in disguise, as it instilled a lifelong love and devotion for theatre as an art form.
Please note each section may contain spoilers for a specific show.
Torch Song
Ironically, my boss at the theatre I work at now was a part of the staff for this show, which is a strange connection I ended up having many years later. Torch Song was my very first Broadway show and it will forever hold a special place in my heart because of it. It starred Michael Urie in the lead role, and he was absolutely fantastic in it. His traditional Jewish mother was portrayed by Mercedes Ruehl, who was the other standout performance in this show.
The Broadway revival of Torch Song condensed a three-part play in about two-and-a-half hours, which showed a little bit in the plot itself: it jumped around quite a bit. The story is about the life of one man, who is gay, and how he helps his lover come into terms with his sexuality as a bisexual man. As the story goes on, his mother emerges back into his life, and the lover is unfortunately killed in a hate crime incident.
Powerful play, although not everyone’s cup of tea. I found this production to be well-done, and it truly conveyed the realities of being a gay man who just simply wants love and a family.
The Waverly Gallery
If I’m going to be real, I picked this play that semester because of the fact it had Lucas Hedges in it. I was very much having a Timothee Chalamet and Lucas Hedges kick when it came to movies at this point in my life, but other people (the ones obsessed with Scott Pilgrim) picked this play apparently because Michael Cera was in it. Back then, I had no idea who Michael Cera was, but oh well. The standout star of The Waverly Gallery hands down is Elaine May. This eighty year old woman truly stepped on the stage and ripped the carpet beneath everyone’s feet.
Lucas Hedges stars a grandson who’s slowly watching his grandmother wither away because of Alzheimer’s. The grandmother is the owner of an art gallery on Waverly Street (if you know New York City, that’s in Greenwich Village. There’s a subway station right at the corner of the street). The grandson narrates everything going on as the entire family tries to cope with the circumstances of her cognitive decline, while a young artist (Cera) is the interloper, an artist, who has come to show his work at the gallery.
Heartbreaking play. It has a sudden ending though, as we no longer get to see the grandmother and are told solemnly by the grandson that she has passed away. Some people were straight up sobbing during my performance, as that grandmother really does grow on you.
Kiss Me, Kate
I often rate this as the worst Broadway show I’ve seen so far, and am willing to tell anyone who listens about my hatred of Kiss Me, Kate. My high school did a production of this which is the ironic part about it—I remember the girl who played Kate freaking out because it was her first kiss. Anyways, Kate in this production was played by Kelli O’Hara, who has the most incredible voice I’ve ever heard. Will Chase was Fred Graham, while Corbin Bleu was Bill. My entire section went wild when Bleu showed up because he was in High School Musical.
The entire premise behind Kiss Me, Kate is the fact that a theatre producer (Chase) is trying to put on a big show of The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, but his ex-movie star wife (O’Hara) is put opposite to him in the role of Katherine. He’s Petruchio. The two are constantly going at it, which gets to be annoying for everyone else working on this show, and then they slowly get back together over the course of the musical.
Not only did I find certain parts of this play sexist and outdated, but I really did not appreciate the commentary about Baltimore from white characters who are established to have wealth and power. That’s colonialism, folks. And racism. Look up the history of the city before you make statements like that, it can be problematic in mainstream theatre.
It had nice dance numbers though, I’ll give it that. +1 point for Kelli O’Hara’s singing as well.
The Rose Tattoo
This was my first Tennessee Williams play! I do kind of wish it was a different play, although this play was alright. Just alright, if I may clarify. Marisa Tomei starred as an Italian-American widow in deep Mississippi who falls in love with a stranger. The set design on this one was fairly pretty; lots of lights and rose petals everywhere.
It definitely got me excited as I entered the theatre and found my seat. However, I think the plot for this show just wasn’t my cup of tea. After her husband’s death she kind of becomes a recluse and tries to force her daughter to do the same thing, but her daughter wants to live a life completely different than that.
Tomei was fantastic, but she didn’t light up the stage I would’ve expected her to. I would’ve only seen it for her if I wasn’t paying $20, and I would have been disappointed to be honest.
Jagged Little Pill
I saw Jagged Little Pill when it was originally in previews not knowing who exactly Alanis Morissette was and why they made an entire musical from one of her albums (which the musical is named after). This show is essentially a crockpot of all the social issues plaguing the world right now. A wealthy white suburban family has an adopted Black daughter, who doesn’t feel visible in the world she lives in, while everyone in the family struggles with something different. The son struggles with perfectionism and has a friend rapes someone, the mother is addicted to drugs, and the father is left trying to pick up all the pieces. Interesting set design in this one, rather minimalist but functional. The swingset scene was the most interesting one in my opinion.
Everyone in this cast was fairly good. Laura Patten ended up winning the Tony Award for her role, which I was surprised by because I genuinely liked Celia Gooding’s performance more. Antonio Cipriano was another standout, and I finally got to see Derek Klena perform live and in person—the only reason I may bother to see Moulin Rouge now is because of him.
Jagged Little Pill also died fairly quickly, although it was a good show. Outside of the controversy it ended up causing, I think the main problem with the show was that it tried to do way too much all at once. Way too many social issues crammed into a show that’s only supposed to be two and a half hours.
West Side Story
I saw this literally two weeks before COVID-19 shut the entire United States down, especially in New York City. This was a controversial pick among our program, as one of the girls in the program knew the girl who was sexually assaulted by the NYC principal ballet dancer that was cast in the musical—look that up. It was met with a lot of protest and may very well be one of the reasons as to why this production was shut down so early. Another big reason is that the show relied way too much on technology: the actors held cameras, then there were screens showing what they were seeing. If they were in a fight, you got pulled directly into the frenzy of bodies.
The actors playing Tony and Maria were excellent—that edition of “Somewhere” still haunts me. The technology was innovative but it wasn’t done right. They’d take the cameras into the set-up of Doc’s Pharmacy, but because they were not actually visible on the stage anymore, it was basically like watching a television show. If I’m going to the theatre, that’s not what I want to see. I want to see more of this explored in a different manner in the future perhaps.
Then COVID-19 happened.
I graduated during the pandemic, so that was the end of that :(
