joegratz.net

I’m back in Minneapolis after ten days on the east coast. My interviews in New York went well, and I got to see four shows:

• The Capitol Steps: Between Iraq and a Hard Place. Standard Steps fare, very clever, and with an “On Broadway” parody about the blackout tacked on to the beginning. As always, I liked Lirty Dies the best.
• Take Me Out. A show about a baseball superstar coming out of the closet. Had I been born a baseball fan, I probably would have enjoyed this show more. It was still brilliantly directed (Joe Mantello is amazing) and very well written and acted. But it was more diverting than affecting.
• Gypsy. I have a confession to make. I’d never seen or heard Gypsy in any form. (And you call yourself a Sondheim fan! Really!) It’s sort of a hokey story, but the lyrics (obviously) and especially this production raised it to another level. It’s hard not to gush about a show involving so many people whose work I like so much—Sondheim, Sam Mendes, Bernadette Peters, Jules Fisher, and Peggy Eisenhauer. So I’ll shut up before gushing.
• Avenue Q. What happens to a puppet, just out of college with a literature degree in the early oughts? (Musical number: “What can you do with a BA in English?”) He moves to an affordable neighborhood: Avenue Q. It’s a bit like Sesame Street, but grown up and trying to find a purpose in life. It was my favorite of the shows I saw, mostly because it was the first musical I’ve seen that had a sense of my generation: our attitudes toward each other (“Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”; “If You Were Gay”; “Schadenfreude”), to the outside world (“There Is Life Outside Your Apartment”), and to, ahem, ourselves (“The Internet Is For Porn”). I recommend it highly, especially to anyone born between 1975 and 1982.