Broadway Dragstravagaza Camps Out
Priscilla Queen of the Desert—The Musical combines the two main trends of Broadway musicals: It’s based on a cult movie, and it’s a popsical, with the entire song list made up of preexisting pop hits. When I first heard about it I just assumed that it would include most of the disco tunes from the 1994 Australian cult classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, with original songs filling out the rest of the show. Wrong on both counts. Yes, you have the Village People’s “Go West,” Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Peaches & Herb’s “Shake Your Groove Thing,” CeCe Peniston’s “Finally,” and the Jerome Kern classic “A Fine Romance,” but Abba’s “Mamma Mia,” which is pretty prominent in the film, was already taken by the Abba popsical of the same name. Added in are a whole bunch of random ’80s hits that clash only slightly with the disco-era ones.
Sucks to Be French
I wasn’t planning to go to Les Misérables. Not that I have anything against the blockbuster 1985 musical of Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel—I’d never seen the one nor read the other, so I couldn’t really have an opinion about it. It’s just that my friend Kaya Oakes was having her book launch for her excellent new book Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church
It’s Got to Be Carefully Brought
Bring It On: The Musical may look like just the latest in a very, very long line of hit movies and cult classics that have been turned into stage musicals in recent years, but looks can be deceiving. This should be where I say that it’s so much more than that, but in fact it’s considerably less. It is, in fact, a total bait-and-switch.
