`Horse Girls,` a Black Comedy at the Cell - Boneau/Bryan

December 19, 2014
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘School of Rock’ Musical Coming to Broadway in November
By Patrick Healy
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical project, an adaptation of the Jack Black movie “School of Rock,” will
have its world premiere on Broadway in November at the Winter Garden Theater, Mr. Lloyd Webber and other
producers said on Thursday. The show will feature songs from the film as well as original music by Mr. Lloyd
Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater (“Sister Act”) and a book by Julian Fellowes, the creator of the television series
“Downton Abbey.”
The plot of the musical will largely hew to the movie, a critically acclaimed hit comedy from 2003 about a
rambunctious rock guitarist with dead-end gigs who pretends to be a substitute teacher at a tony private school
to earn cash – and ends up forming a band with his young students. Casting for the show will take place in
January in New York, Los Angeles and other cities. The production will be staged by Laurence Connor, one of
the directors of the current Broadway revival of “Les Miserables.”
“School of Rock” marks a return to the Winter Garden for Mr. Lloyd Webber, whose blockbuster hit “Cats” ran
there for 18 years. The theater’s owner, the Shubert Organization, is hot to have another long-running hit there
after its last musical in the house, “Rocky,” surprised theater executives and others by becoming a fast flop this
summer. The new play “Wolf Hall: Parts 1 & 2” is set to begin a 15-week run of performances in March at the
Winter Garden. The Shuberts have signed on as a producer of “School of Rock,” as have another major
Broadway landlord, the Nederlander Organization (which also has close ties to Mr. Lloyd Webber) and the
Warner Music Group. The Grammy Award-winning music producer Rob Cavallo will work with Mr. Lloyd
Webber to help create the rock sound for the show.
In a statement, Mr. Lloyd Webber recalled one of his early breakthrough musicals, saying, “It is a joy for me to
return to my ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ roots – when Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan was recording ‘Jesus’ for Tim Rice
and me at London’s Olympic Studios, Led Zeppelin was recording next door and a glimpse of a Stone or two
was routine.
“‘School Of Rock’ is hugely about how music can empower kids. Tim Rice and my first performed piece,
‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,’ was written for a school,” he said, adding, “ It will be a joy
to discover and work with talented musical kids in the U.S.A. and, who knows, maybe discover a rock star or
three of the next generation.”
Performances are scheduled to begin Nov. 2.
Total Daily Circulation – 1,897,890
Total Sunday Circulation – 2,391,986
Monthly Online Readership – 30,000,000
December 19, 2014
‘It’s Only a Play’ Recoups on Broadway
By Patrick Healy
The Broadway production of “It’s Only a Play,” Terrence McNally’s satire about theater people, has recouped
its $3.9 million capitalization, becoming the first show of the 2014-15 season to announce that it has turned a
profit. The play’s producers disclosed the news on Wednesday, saying in a statement that the show’s hefty
ticket sales at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater “exceeded our expectations.”
Indeed no one was predicting in August, when the production began performances, that “It’s Only a Play”
would become the biggest smash of the fall season; the show took in $1,413,682 last week, more than the other
Broadway plays and musicals that have opened recently. “It’s Only a Play” has benefited from being a
relatively rare comedy on Broadway, as well as from the popularity of its leading men, Nathan Lane and
Matthew Broderick, who were audience favorites when they starred together in the 2001 musical “The
Producers.” Mr. Lane is leaving the play in early January and will be replaced by Martin Short, creating a test
for the show’s profitability at the box office. “It’s Only a Play” is scheduled to run through March 29.
December 19, 2014
Beneath the Tiara, a Lot of Attitude
'Disenchanted!,' a Musical Comedy About Princesses
By Laura Collins-Hughes
Cinderella is kind of a nitwit, Snow White can be a little mean, and Sleeping Beauty? Narcoleptic, apparently.
When it comes to fairy-tale princesses, those are the Big Three, but in Dennis T. Giacino’s “Disenchanted!,”
they’re not the way Disney, let alone the Brothers Grimm, drew them.
In this musical comedy for grown-ups, directed by Fiely A. Matias at the Theater at St. Clement’s, the trio lead
an all-princess revue aimed at upending their popular portrayals. “Misguided messages,” insists Snow White
(Michelle Knight), who can get a bit preachy.
“They make us look weak,” complains Sleeping Beauty (Jen Bechter).
“Like helpless damsels in distress,” adds Cinderella (Becky Gulsvig).
But this is feminism light, with sparkly costumes (by Vanessa Leuck) and high heels to keep the fantasy alive.
A “ho” joke isn’t beneath the playwright’s dignity, and when the princesses rail against princes who expect
them to do all the housework, the show feels like a girls’-night-out retro rebellion for the suburban oppressed.
Using a six-woman cast, “Disenchanted!” manages to shoehorn quite a lot of princesses into its 100
intermissionless minutes. Belle, from “Beauty and the Beast,” is here, amusingly played as a sort of mad
housewife by Alison Burns, who doubles as Rapunzel and a drunken Little Mermaid.
With a lovely voice and a fine comic presence, Lulu Picart is the cast standout, making both Mulan and
Pocahontas utterly human, surprisingly moving, even sad. She also plays Princess Badroulbadour, from “1,001
Nights,” riding a cleverly designed magic carpet. “Back home, I’m not even allowed to drive this thing,” she
says.
But the show is well into its second half when the sixth cast member appears: Soara-Joye Ross as the Princess
Who Kissed the Frog. The 2009 movie “The Princess and the Frog” features Disney’s first black princess, and
the lateness of this development is part of Mr. Giacino’s point.
“Why’d it take ’em so long to give a sistah a song?” the princess sings. Ms. Ross is excellent, but her delayed
entrance to the show means the one black princess is marginalized here, too.
“Disenchanted!” continues through Jan. 25 at the Theater at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46th Street, Clinton; 866811-4111, disenchantedmusical.com.
Total Daily Circulation – 1,897,890
Total Sunday Circulation – 2,391,986
Monthly Online Readership – 30,000,000
December 19, 2014
Unstable Days at the Stables, as a Youthful Obsession Is Threatened
‘Horse Girls,’ a Black Comedy at the Cell
By Claudia La Rocco
There is a point at which Jenny Rachel Weiner’s “Horse Girls” becomes totally incoherent. This point —
spoiler alert — comes well before one character brains another character to death with a golden horse-head
trophy.
The aggressor is Ashleigh (Olivia Macklin), the unhinged alpha of the Lady Jean Ladies tween group, which is
meeting in her horse-theme, pastel bedroom to discuss all things equine.
Her victim is Trish (Eleonore Condo), who isn’t even a member of the group but simply hanging out with her
cousin Camille (Anna Baryshnikov). When it comes to girls, outsiders are always expendable.
I’m all for a good braining. But it was sad to see Trish go; she had been an island of relatability in this addled
preteen hothouse, her facial expressions cycling between condescending skepticism, terrorized disgust and what
appeared to be the concentration of someone praying to be anywhere but here.
Here in this case is the Cell, an aptly claustrophobic space (the front-row of the audience is essentially sitting in
Daniel Geggatt’s pitch-perfect set) for “Horse Girls,” a 50-minute pop descent into madness directed by Sarah
Krohn.
The six Lady Jean Ladies are riders. (An open-arm framed photo of Ann Romney sits on Ashleigh’s desk like a
benediction.) And they are lovers, of horses, as only girls on the cusp of sexuality can love, which is to say
obsessively, deeply rooted in a soil far more fertile than reality.
“I’d rather eat Sulton than give him to another girl,” Margaret (Kaley Ronayne) declares at one point about her
beloved steed. And it may come to that: The girls’ meeting is upended by news that their stable is being sold —
and their horses butchered.
Hysterics ensue. Plots are laid, and then unmade by treachery. Things get a little out of hand, and Ashleigh’s
ribbon-and-trophy-festooned room becomes a death trap.
There is a particular go-for-the-jugular zeal among girls that lends itself to campy horror. But fake blood and
disco-ball-enhanced musical fantasy interludes aside, “Horse Girls” doesn’t quite reach a satisfying level of
satirical, nutty gore. Made by adults, ostensibly for adults, it feels more like a young-adult novel in its
complexity, or lack thereof.
“Horse Girls” runs through Jan. 23 at the Cell, 338 West 23rd Street, Chelsea; 800-838-3006,
horsegirlstheplay.com
December 27, 2014
Cast Albums