Today's blog post is a look into this season's Tony Award nominated Best Musicals and Best Musical Revivals of 2017. And it is a terrific group of exciting productions for sure. Kindly let me introduce them to you one by one.
The first one is
Dear Evan Hansen, a modern day story about a high schooler named Evan Hansen, who although feeling mostly ignored by his peers and suffers from social anxiety, finds himself in the middle of a storm when another student takes his own life. Apparently Evan Hansen has painted a picture that he was close friends of the student, which leads to Evan's sudden rise in popularity. Dear Evan Hansen is a profound story which really makes people think about the often "quiet difficulties" that teenagers go through while growing up. Dear Evan Hansen plays 8 performances weekly at New York's Music Box Theatre in New York City. I think this show will win the Tony Award for 2017 Best Musical. Ben Platt should win the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical playing the role of Evan Hansen. The show has received 9 Tony Award nominations.
Come From Away is another exciting new musical. The show is set in the week that follows the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and shares the story of 38 airplanes that were diverted to the small town of Gander, Newfoundland in Canada. 7000 stranded passengers were greated warmly by the local people of this town where they were cared for, housed and fed. Although the story takes place at an extremely difficult time in our history, the clear picture of how wonderfully warm and friendly our society truly is runs throughout every moment of this terrific inspiring and uplifting new muscial. Come From Away has been nominated for 7 Tony Awards in 2017, including Best Musical. Jenn Colella has been nominated for
Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The show is planning on another production to play in Toronto in Februry 2018.
The third musical nominated for the Best Musical of 2017 is
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet. The show has been playing since November 2016 at the Imperial Thetre in New York City after two previous runs in smaller venues in 2012 and 2013. I saw it in a tent Off Broadway in New York City's Meatpacking District and it was a great deal of fun indeed.
The show takes place in 1812 Moscow just prior to Napolean's invasion of Russia and before the burning of the city. Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet is based on Volume 2, Part 5 of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel War and Peace. This 70 page section of the book centers on beautiful, young Natasha, who is visiting Moscow while waitng for her fiance Audrey to return from war. Natasha, in a moment of indescression, has an affair with Anatole and her expected place in high society is ruined. Anatole is already married and is Pierre's cousin. Pierre is a wealthy, middle aged aristocrat, who tries to direct Natasha toward redemption as he, himself searches to overcome his loneliness and search for his true life's meaning. The Imperial Theatre has been completely redone to look like an oppulent Russian salon and gives a unique perspective to theatergoers from every vnatage point.
Dave Malloy wrote the Book, Music and Lyrics for the show. Singer Josh Groban stars in the show through July 2, 2017. The show is 2 hours and 40 minutes long with 1 intermission. Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet has been nominated for 12 Tony Awards, the most for any show this season including Best Musical.
The 4th musical being covered in this post is on
Groundhog Day The Musical. The show is based on the film written by Harald Ramis in 1993. It is a musical comedy with a fun story. A Pittsburgh televison weatherman named Phil Connors is asked to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The less than friendly Mr. Connors gets caught in a "time loop" where every day is the same as the day before. The show is just the type of fun filled time at the theater that audiences will enjoy for a long time to come.
Music and Lyrics have been written by Tim Minchin (Matilda The Musical) with a Book written by Danny Rubin. Andy Karl, a Broadway regular, stars along with a terrific cast or talented actors that aim to please every moment of the show. I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Groundhog Day The Musical is nominated for 7 Tony Awards this season and won London's Olivier Award for Best Musical in 2017.
Although the 4 shows listed above are all nominated for Best Musical of 2017, I thought it most important to mention this years Best Musical Revival category which includes Miss Saigon, Falsettos and this season's mega hit revival of Hello Dolly!, starring Bette Midler.
Falsettos is a combination of 3 shows, Falsettos, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland. The show has closed several months ago and told the story of a modern day family which includes the father Marvin, his gay lover Whizzer Brown, Marvin's ex-wife Trina, his teenage son Jason, his psychiartist Mendel and 2 neighbors, Charlotte and Cordelia. Although this modern family is going through big changes, Marvin is committed to making sure that everyone will be allright. The musical has a Book written by James Lapine and William Finn. Mr. Finn wrote the Music and Lyrics as well. Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells and Stephanie J. Block were the stars of this fun musical.
Miss Saigon's revival is a great one indeed. The musical is written by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil with Lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. and is based on Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly. The show centers on the unlikely romance between an Asian bargirl and an American GI around the time of the fall of Saigon in the 1970's. This Broadway production stars Eva Noblezada, Jon Jon Briones and Alistair Brammer.
Miss Saigon tickets are on sale through January 14, 2018 with reduced prices by going through our company Applause-Tickets.
This years show most likely to win the Best Musical Revival cate
gory is the runaway hit Hello Dolly!, starring Bette Midler. Ms. Midler plays the role of Dolly Levi, a middle-aged widow who decides to start living her life again. She lives life to the fullest by spending her time by matchmaking, meddling in the lives of others and looking for opportunity at each and every turn. An opportunist to say the least.
Hello Dolly! is based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 novel called The Merchant of Yonkers, which although originally unsuccessful, was retitled and called The Matchmaker in 1955. That's when the the story begins to achieve some pretty striking success in the arts world.
In 1964, David Merrick produced the musical stage version of Hello Dolly! With Music and Lyrics written by Jerry Herman with a book by Michael Stewart, Hello Dolly! went onto win 10 Tony awards. Coincidentally, Hello Dolly! has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards in 2017. The 1964 production had won 10 Tony Awards and became a record on Broadway which lasted for 37 years until The Producers, starring Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, broke the record in 2001. Barbra Streisand starred in the film version of Hello Dolly! in 1969. The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, winning 3 of them.
The current revival of
Hello Dolly is selling tons of tickets over at the Shubert Theater in New York City. Right now Bette Midler will play most performances through mid January 2018, with Broadway regular Donna Murphy substituting on Tuesday evenings beginning on June 13, 2017 and for Bette Midler's vacation days.
I sincerely hope you enjoyed this article on the Broadway musicals and revivals of 2017. Should you need some advice or want to obtain tickets, my company Applause-Tickets is open 24/7, 365 days a year to assist, offering personal service and expert knowledge on the Broadway Theatre. We'd love to talk with you whenever your plans include Broadway Theatre in New York City.
Stay tuned for this year's 71st Tony Awards show telecast live on Sunday June11, 2017 from 8-11pm. This years host is Kevin Spacey. It's going to be an exciting presentation as Broadway has so many great productions going on this season. Enjoy it.
My team and I at
Applause-Tickets looks forward to hearing from you anytime your plans include
Broadway and
London Theater,
Sports, Concerts and any reserved seast entertainment event playing throughout the world today.
Cheers and good luck to the wonderful cast and creative teams in the Broadway community. Bravo!
Rich Gladstone
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August 17, 1991 Care to guess what happened on that date? Believe it or not but on that date Blue Man Group opened Off-Broadway at the Astor Place Theatre. That's over twenty-six years for those of you mathematicians out there. A few months after moving to New York I had the opportunity to see the show for the first time. To be honest I wasn't sure what to expect. The truth is up until that point the my Broadway experience was limited to shows like Miss Saigon and Crazy For You. 
