New York: The Shows

Our original plan was to take in a Broadway musical while in the Big Apple, but once we got there we decided to see a second as well. After all, we don't visit NYC often.

Nice Work If You Can Get It:

We got to see this on its opening night of previews. I have to admit, it was kind of exciting to see something not many other people had seen already.

In a nutshell, its a musical comedy about a playboy and a bootleger that fall in love over one crazy weekend at a beach house. All of the music is by Gershwin and the staging/dancing/script has a real "old-time" feel even though it's new. It was very well written--we laughed almost nonstop for the entire show.

I convinced Brandon to see it because I really wanted to see Matthew Boderick perform live. After all, he has a few Tonys to his name and he's supposed to be amazing in person. Unfortunately, I found his performance a little flat. In all fairness, his character is a little dopey and he did ease into his role as the night progressed so I'm sure he'll eventually do great. The real star of the show was Kelli O'Hara. She is A-MAZING! What a talent! The rest of the cast was also great.

Once:

I hadn't even heard of this show, but Brandon's cousin recommended that we see it. It was so fantastically different than any other musical I've ever seen. The entire cast of 12 or so plays all of their own instruments. I can't even imagine how hard it was to cast. I mean, how many broadway caliber actor/dancer/singer/musicians are out there?

It's the story of a broken-hearted Dublin musician and a Czech girl that fall in love while forming a song writing partnership. It's a lovely story and the music is modern and touching-loved every minute of it! But beware, it's set in Ireland so they drop the F-bomb a lot (apparently it's not as crass to them as it is to Americans). If you can get past that, you'll adore this show.