By Rex Reed 2/21 8:43am

cabaret

Adam Guettel. (The Guardian)

An Original Classic: Adam Guettel’s Musical Lines Run Deep, But For This Songwriter, It’s All About Carving It Out On His Own

You wouldn’t call him a chip off the old block, but Adam Guettel’s musical genes are unmistakable. Yes, his grandfather was the great Richard Rodgers, and his mother was Mary Rodgers, who wrote Once Upon a Mattress. He works hard not to imitate either of them, but I say if you’ve got the genes, flaunt ‘em. And that is exactly what the adventurous, spirited and always imaginative composer of The Light in the Piazza is doing all this week, for seven performances,  at 54 Below, New York’s glitzy nightclub beneath the street where the notorious Studio 54 used to be. It’s the most interesting mini-concert in town.

Actually, it’s less a concert than a kind of kickstarter to raise awareness of this extraordinary young songwriter’s talent and versatility. Read More

By Robert Gottlieb 11/11/02 12:00am

Scattered Season at A.B.T.: Nostalgia, Oldies, Newies

American Ballet Theatre is, as usual, moving in a number of different directions at once. In their annual two-week fall season at the City Center, they trotted out some tried-and-true golden oldies ( Fancy Free , Symphony in C ); some more recent overpraised pieces (Stanton Welch’s Clear , Martha Clarke et al.’s The Garden Read More

By John Heilpern 10/28/02 12:00am

Nerd Loves Girl, Nerd Walks Through Wall, Nerd Gets Girl

Only the French would create a musical about a man who can walk through brick walls. You can’t imagine Oscar Hammerstein saying to Richard Rodgers, “Are we sure about the King of Siam ? Let’s do a show about a dope who can walk through walls instead.” But the French think otherwise-or they wouldn’t be Read More

By Rex Reed 6/17/02 12:00am

Musical Cocktails Laced With Humor

It’s a relief to welcome the ladies back to the driver’s seat, no matter how slight or small the vehicle, and in the Apple this summer, there are enough of them in full racing gear to enter the Indianapolis 500.

They’re all celebrating the 100th birthday of Richard Rodgers. Bernadette Peters is in the Read More

By NYO Staff 4/08/02 12:00am

Eight Day Week

Wednesday April 3rd

Tse it ain’t so! Here we are, right in the thick of damp, mossy spring , doing the old tedious wardrobe switch, during which we stash the long underwear and ski togs and bring out the frisky T-shirts …. But here are two final gasps from winter: a) the Tse sample sale Read More

By John Heilpern 4/01/02 12:00am

There’s a Dark, Rainy Cloud on the Meadow

Concerning the fuss about Trevor Nunn’s dark psychological version of Oklahoma! may we, firstly, all keep calm and remind ourselves that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s lovely, eternally bright golden haze of a musical ain’t Oedipus ?

If it were, it would have an exclamation point. ( Oedipus! ) To be sure, the fabled Oklahoma! has a Read More

By John Heilpern 3/23/98 12:00am

Bless Their Lederhosen, The Little Von Trapps Are Back

I’ve been accused of maliciously trying to trip up nuns and various von Trapp kiddies as they walked in virtuous, stately procession down the aisles of the Martin Beck Theater during the wedding scene in The Sound of Music . Let me say from the outset that I would never do such a thing, consciously. Read More