I challenged myself to see at least 12 pieces of live theater (an average of one per month) in 2024, and I managed 16:
1. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, NYC)
2. Drunk Shakespeare NYC (Macbeth) (Ruby Theatre, NYC)
3. Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age (Studio 54, NYC)
4. All The Devils Are Here (DR2 Theatre, NYC)
5. Macbeth (an undoing) (Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Brooklyn, NYC)
6. Water For Elephants (Imperial Theatre, NYC)
7. Or, What She Will (Red Bull Theatre, NYC)
8. The Play That Goes Wrong (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Central Valley PA)
9. N/A (Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, Lincoln Center, NYC)
10. Back to the Future: The Musical (Winter Garden Theater, NYC)
11. Once Upon a Mattress (Hudson Theater, NYC)
12. The Hills of California (Broadhurst Theater, NYC)
13. Drunk Dracula (Ruby Theatre, NYC)
14. The Man of La Mancha (Beacon HS Theatre, Beacon NY)
15. The Comedy of Errors (modern language version) (Newton HS Theatre, Newton NJ)
16. The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical (The Other Palace, London, UK)
So that’s 6 musicals, 1 cabaret act, 5 comedies, and 4 dramas. 6 of those were in Broadway houses (Sweeney, Alan Cumming, Water for Elephants, Back to the Future: The Musical, Once Upon a Mattress, and The Hills of California), four were Off-Broadway/elsewhere in NYC (Drunk Shakespeare, Drunk Dracula, Macbeth (an undoing) and Or, What She Will); two were high school productions in which a nephew or niece appeared (La Mancha, Comedy of Errors), one was at a regional festival (The Play That Goes Wrong) and one was in the London equivalent of an “off-Broadway” house (do they call it “off the West End”?) (Lightning Thief).
Leaving aside the high school productions (because of obvious “That’s my nephew/niece” prejudice), favorites were Sweeney Todd (we saw it after Groban, Ashford, and Gaten Matarazzo left, but before Tveit, Foster, and Joe Locke came in – and it was still utterly fantastic); Drunk Shakespeare / Drunk Dracula; Or, What She Will; Once Upon a Mattress and The Hills of California. (This does not mean the other productions were bad – just that I enjoyed these productions more.)
I have set myself the same “see at least 12 pieces of live theatre” challenge. I’d like to see more live regional theatre when I’m on the road for work, but that’ll always be sort of last-minute decisions. I already know we’ll be seeing Old Friends on Broadway in April (starring Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, co-starring among others Bonnie Langford (one of my favorite Doctor Who companions, Mel!) We’ll see what January brings….
I’ve always loved live theater, and in the past couple of years I’ve been making a stronger effort to see more of it. Theater Thursday is an occasional series where I talk about live theater, both shows I’ve seen recently and shows I’ve loved in the past.