The New Canaan Town Players closed their excellent season with Gerard Allesandrini’s “Forbidden Broadway’s Greatest Hits,” a compilation of some of the best spoofs from Allesandrini’s long-running “Forbidden Broadway” satiric review (it opened in 1982).
The show, directed by Sheri Dean, with musical direction by Ben McCormack (who also accompanies) features six talented actor-singers playing dozens of roles, including Liza Minelli, Chita Rviera, Carol Channing, a devastating song about Mandy Patinkin, Cameron MacIntosh, Barbra Streisand and Harvey Fierstein.
They also manage to spoof (mostly gently) Chicago, Annie, Wicked, endless Les Miz songs, Phantom, Mamma Mia, Spamalot, Cats (of course), Fiddler, Rent and Hairspray. The well-deserved barbs the show throws at A Chorus Line are far from gentle.
It wouldn’t be fair to give away the jokes in this satiric review, but the talented cast: Stephen DiRocco, Emily Hull, Terry LeBel, Lauren Linn, Kellen Schult and Valerie Torphy use all the talents and a huge number of gorgeous costumes created by Debbie Runestad to amuse us all evening. In fact, some of the costume changes are lightning fast, and entertaining themselves.
To see the rest of the review, watch for it on the OnstageBlog
