‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG’: Chris Collins-Pisano & Jenny Lee Stern. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG
Created, written & directed by Gerard Alessandrini
Choreography by Gerry McIntyre
Music direction by Fred Barton
Through January 5, 2025
Theater 555
555 W. 42nd St.
https://www.forbiddenbroadway.nyc/

By Scott Harrah

It has been five long years since the last installment of Forbidden Broadway played the New York stage. For those unfamiliar, Gerard Alessandrini’s Forbidden Broadway is a beloved farcical franchise of theatrical lampooning. The latest iteration, Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song, is long overdue. It is perhaps one of Mr. Alessandrini’s funniest and most scathing shows yet. The show jabs the satirical needle into the latest crop of Broadway shows. There is a definite “meta” thrill of insider humor if one has seen most of the productions being parodied. However, Merrily We Stole a Song features razor-sharp performances, goofy sight gags and crisp vocals and will, therefore, be lots of fun even for people who have not seen anything on Broadway the past season.

Nearly all of Broadway’s current biggest hits are all roasted and parodied with relentless glee, from the mega-successful revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along to the musical adaptation of Back to the Future to this summer’s sensational hit Oh, Mary! Included are parodies of Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone and Ben Platt.

& Juliet and Cabaret

One of the funniest vignettes is the parody of Cabaret. It starts out with Danny Hayward portraying the venerable Joel Grey in the original 1966 production in which he starred as the emcee. He sings the classic “Wilkomen” while a cabaret girl (Jenny Lee Stern) dances next to him. He says to the audience, “Ladies, gentlemen, and suckers who have paid six hundred dollars a seat. You there in the ring side table, do you like all those sweaty butts in your face?”

Next, Ms. Stern tears his costume. He morphs into Alan Cumming, who performed in two revivals of the Kander and Ebb classic. All of a sudden, the cabaret girl tears the emcee’s costume again. He morphs into Eddie Redmayne, the British actor who was universally panned by critics for his lackluster performance in the 2024 revival. Mr. Hayward impersonates Mr. Redmayne as the grotesque caricature he is in the new production. “Vile homely actors are stranger/I put this classic in danger,” he sings. “I’m Eddie Redmayne/And I have no charm/I will repulse you/Sniff my underarm and lick it!”

Nicole Vanessa Ortiz skewers the jukebox Shakespeare-themed musical & Juliet with the hilarious “& Juliet/Sore,” sung to the tune of Katy Perry’s “Roar.”  She sings, “I sing like I’m on fire (tiger?)/Like I’m a one-woman choir/Like my head’s exploding/I yell till my throat is sore.”

The Great Gatsby, Hell’s Kitchen & Back to the Future

Other highlights include “Great Gatsby for Dummies,” with Mr. Hayward, Ms. Ortiz and Chris Collins-Pisano mocking the current Broadway musical, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, starring Jeremy Jordan.

Ms. Ortiz and Ms. Stern portray Alicia Keys and her piano teacher in a delightful lampoon of the Broadway smash Hell’s Kitchen in the number “Hell’s Kitchen and Alicia’s Piano Lesson.” The song points out the factual inaccuracies of the musical. Ms. Ortiz sings “this show’s a big liar” to the tune of “This Girl is On Fire.” Meanwhile, Ms. Stern adds additional snark by saying she’s choking on all the dust from “disintegrating actors at Manhattan Plaza,” the affordable-housing project that is the setting for the story.

The Back to the Future musical adaptation is wonderfully eviscerated in three songs, “Back to the Future Part 1,” “Power of Math,” and “Back to Back to the Future,” featuring Mr. Collins-Pisano, Mr. Hayward in all three and Ms. Stern in two songs. The same three actors team up to ridicule The Outsiders in “The Outdated,” which one characters describes as “West Side Story plus Grease.”

There is even a clever song poking fun at Lincoln Center, trashing everything highbrow from the opera and ballet to such flop revivals as Camelot.

“Ev’ry season at the Beaumont/There’s a mo-ment you will cringe/Bartlett Sher will gladly dare/Kill any classic when he’s on a binge,” they sing.

Gypsy, Suffs & Oh, Mary!

Other hysterical highlights include Ms. Ortiz portraying six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald singing about her upcoming starring role in the new revival of Gypsy. The song, “Audra in Gypsy,” is viciously funny, and Ms. Ortiz’s vocals are lush and vibrant. Finally, Ms. Stern does a spot-on impersonation of Hillary Clinton as the producer of the women’s right-to-vote musical Suffs. The song gets in digs at that show’s creator Shaina Taub in “Shaina Taub: Cheap Marching/Finale.” Next, Ms. Stern’s Hillary Clinton introduces us to another First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln. Mr. Collins-Pisano sings a winning homage to Cole Escola’s nonbinary, non-factual portrayal of Abraham Lincoln’s wife in Oh, Mary!

Gerard Alessandrini has mounted different productions of Forbidden Broadway since 1982. The shows just get funnier and more caustic with each installment.  As creator, writer and director, Mr. Alessandrini gets outstanding performances from the entire cast. It is genuine treat and thrill to have a new Forbidden Broadway show back in New York to send up the current season. Merrily We Stole a Song delivers many badly needed laughs during these tense times.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published September 23, 2024
Reviewed at September 21, 2024 press performance

‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG’: Jenny Lee Stern & Danny Hayward. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG’: Jenny Lee Stern, Chris Collins-Pisano & Danny Hayward. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG’: Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, Danny Hayward & Chris Collins-Pisano. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG’: Nicole Vanessa Ortiz. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG’: Danny Hayward & Chris Collins-Pisano. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

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Fan First Presale April 12-14

General Onsale April 15

Limited Engagement at the Hayes Theater

Performances Begin July 29, Opening August 15

NEW YORK—Tickets for Gerard Alessandrini’s Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song will go on sale as below:

·        Presale tickets for Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song are available exclusively to Audience Rewards® members from Tuesday, April 9 at 10 AM – Friday, April 12 at 9:59 AM. It’s free and fast to join at www.AudienceRewards.com.

·        A Fan First Presale from Friday, April 12 at 10 AM – Monday, April 15 at 9:59 AM; ticket buyers can sign up at ForbiddenBroadwayonBroadway.com for access.

·        The general on sale is April 15 at 10 AM through Telecharge.com.

The opening date of the Hayes Theater box office will be announced.

Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song will play at the Hayes Theater (240 West 44^th Street) this summer with performances starting on July 29 and an August 15 opening night. The limited run is through November 1.

In addition to the five-person cast including the onstage pianist, weekly guest stars will appear throughout the engagement.

The cast and the rest of the creative team will be announced.

 Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song will be created around the current and recent seasons of Broadway and will include spoofs of the new and upcoming Broadway musicals and plays like The Great Gatsby, The Notebook, Water for Elephants, Hell’s Kitchen and Back to the Future, as well as current and recent Sondheim revivals like Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Company and Merrily We Roll Along.

 Forbidden Broadway was born in 1982 in New York’s 130-seat Palsson’s Supper Club. It has gone on to play in over 200 cities around the world in venues holding thousands. The show has spawned multiple iterations with Mr. Alessandrini continually updating the material to reflect Broadway’s current slate; a few timeless evergreens remain. Almost no show has escaped the long arm of Forbidden Broadway. Alessandrini’s wit has poked at scores of shows (and their scores); actors and directors are no exception either. Being on the receiving end of his loving barbs is considered both an honor and a rite of passage by legions of theatre legends. In addition to Forbidden Broadway, Spamilton, Gerard’s spoof of the Hamilton phenomenon was a runaway hit for two years and continues to tour the US. For his work on Forbidden Broadway in all its forms, Gerard Alessandrini and the show received a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre and seven Drama Desk Awards.

Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song is produced by Broadway & Beyond Theatricals (Ryan Bogner, Victoria Lang & Tracey Stroock McFarland) with John Freedson and Harriet Yellin.

Audience Rewards is the Official Rewards Program of Broadway, providing membership benefits and rewards for 3 million members and representing more than a quarter of all Broadway tickets purchased through authorized ticketing platforms. Free and easy to join, Audience Rewards allows buyers to earn ShowPoints on every ticket purchase, to be redeemed for free tickets, theater collectibles, unique experiences, and more. Founded in 2008 by a unique coalition of prominent theater owners, including Nederlander, Shubert, and Jujamcyn, major national presenters, and key performing arts centers from across the country, Audience Rewards has offered members first access presales to more than 100 Broadway shows and 200 VIP experiences and events, which have included a meet and greet with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge, a walk-on role in Rock of Ages, a cooking class with Gavin Creel & Celia Keenan-Bolger, celebrity Q&As, backstage tours and much more.

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PULLING THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER DISNEY’S ‘ALADDIN’: Marcus Stevens (left), Mia Gentile (center) & Scott Richard Foster (right) in ‘Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging!’ Photo: Carol Rosegg

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY COMES OUT SWINGING!
Created & written by Gerard Alessandrini
Directed by Phillip George & Gerard Alessandrini
Musical direction by David Caldwell
Costumes by David Cross & Philip Heckman
Lighting by Mark T. Simpson
Davenport Theatre
354 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), http://www.forbiddenbroadway.com

By David NouNou

Gerard Alessandrini, the master of theatrical lampooning, comes out swinging again and in full force. It’s always great to see icons, icon wannabes, and pretentious shows getting skewered and being brought down a few pegs. The problem this time around isn’t that Mr. Alessandrini has taken a safe road; it’s just that Broadway has generated lots of unoriginal drivel lately, thus providing little new material to send up since his last outing, Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking. To Mr. Alessandrini’s credit, it’s a wonder he was able to mine as much good material as he did, considering the dearth of musicals and personalities from which he has to choose. In a very revelatory piece near the end of the show, “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from Cabaret, he spoofs the fact that there is no real creativity anymore on Broadway, that corporations have taken over and the sad and sorry state musical theatre has fallen into. That skit, although true, unfortunately is also a commentary of the day.

When one enters the Davenport Theatre, one hears the glorious overtures from West Side Story, Gypsy, Hello Dolly, etc. and recalls all those wonderful tunes that came out of those shows and what could have been satirized and celebrated from its glorious characters. When was the last time you listened to or hummed the score of The Bridges of Madison County, If/Then, Rocky, Violet, or Bullets Over Broadway (the latter didn’t even have a score)? As Scott Richard Foster, dressed as Alan Cumming in Cabaret, hilariously puts it, we live in an age when many things on Broadway seem to be a “revival of a revival of a revival.”

Originality is lacking on Broadway, and in the process, the Forbidden Broadway franchise suffers as well. Still, Mr. Alessandrini does hit the bull’s-eye with most of the skits, and the ones that come off best are Pippin, Once, Cabaret, Les Miz, and the horrible TV version of The Sound of Music, because they have a built in familiarity to them. The jabs at the expense of Liza, Idina, and Mandy are priceless. Two wonderful skits are the spoof of The Bridges of Madison County, which is closing soon, and Rocky, which I understand is on a respirator and not long for this world. For those skits to have any meaning for the general public, one has to have seen them in order for them to have any identifiability. Two parodies are problematic: “Robert Jason Brown,” who wrote the score to Madison County, and let’s face it, he is no Cole Porter or Rodgers and Hammerstein, so if you are not in the industry, the name would mean very little. The other is Bullets Over Broadway; it doesn’t have a score but uses period songs that aren’t even interpolated properly. It really was the season’s nadir and didn’t have any worthy characters to spoof, so the skit is about Woody Allen and Susan Stroman, not exactly a winning combination. Seems like this parody was rushed in at the last minute, much like Bullets itself was.

The performers are as wonderful as ever. The holdovers from the previous entry, Marcus Stevens and Scott Richard Foster, are still in top form and are joined by the fabulous Carter Calvert and Mia Gentile, both of whom are in great voice and know their way around skewering the theatre. All four voices are towering and their performances sublime. At the piano is the expert musician David Caldwell. However, none of this would have been possible without the expertise and the minds of its two geniuses who have deftly written and directed this night of hilarity, Gerard Alessandrini and Phillip George. Their talents and spoof-specialization skills are a welcome presence once again in the New York theatre.

PUTTIN’ ON THE HITS: Mia Gentile (left), Carter Calvert (center), Marcus Stevens (top center) & Scott Richard Foster (right) in a ‘Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging!’ Photo: Carol Rosegg

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 4, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on May 3, 2014

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