For a Broadway musical, the road to success is not easy. And winning the coveted Tony as Best Musical, which is the ultimate goal, is even more difficult. Such trials and tribulations are shown for a handful of shows, their creative teams and their performers. There is competition amongst the performers for roles, competition amongst the shows not only for box office but also limited investor dollars and that final Tony prize, and competition amongst those ultimately hired in the cast and crew for what they want to see happen in the show, both for the good of the show and their own personal benefit. And sometimes, personal life gets in the way of these professional goals. These problems not only happen for those new or working their ways up the ranks, such as performers Karen Cartwright and Ivy Lynn, and the writing team of Jimmy Collins and Kyle Bishop, but also seasoned veterans, such as the writing team of Tom Levitt and Julia Houston, womanizing director Derek Wills, and producer ... Written by Huggo
The production values alone are worth the price of admission, but this is also a show of clichés. You have the gay musical guy with his ever-grinning sycophant, who also came up with the idea for the musical, the harried wife/other musical person, the horny English director, who lives in apartment out of architectural digest, but is lonely and always on the look out for "fresh" faces and bodies to devour. On the other, we like the Indian boyfriend, we love the staging, the songs, the singing. As many have already indicated, it is the casting of McPhee that is the shows biggest issue. Having seen only one show, I only know that I felt she was out of her league, big time. This may be intentional, this may be the catch the producers are creating, and at some point McPhee becomes the smash. It's hard to imagine simply because McPhee doesn't really have the charisma to play the part. I like her, I like her voice, she just doesn't feel right for the part. That said, fun show and a worthy alternative to ever ballooning list of "singing" TV shows.