2023 Wrap-Up | "We're tired" | Episode 17

e here today bringing you our: 2023

Alex: Because guess what? We made it to December.

Danielle: Let's not jinx it. We're recording this really early in December. So now we made it to December. We mean jury's out if we make it through December.

Alex: Yeah, that's true. This episode will also be coming up before the end of December. So really, anything can happen. Yeah.

Danielle: Let us know when this episode drops.

Alex: Where you are on the existential dread meter.

Danielle: We're pretty high ourselves right now.

Alex: It's…yeah, what a year, what a year.

Danielle: What a year.

Alex: Couple of things we want to chat about before we really get into it. We're going to do our year-end wrap up for you this week. But before that, we wanted to let you all know that we are taking a little bit of a winter break after the holidays, and we plan to come back mid-January.

Danielle: It'll either be on January 18th or January 25th. Keep an eye out on our social media to find out exactly when it will be. Until then, you can keep up with Partial View and me and Alex on not only our social media in general, but specifically our Patreon, which you can find at www.patreon.com/partialviewpod because we will be posting some fun bonus content on our Patreon.

January with a new episode in: 2024

Alex: Is that the title of the episode now?

Danielle: I guess so.

Alex: What fresh hell! What fresh hell, indeed. Great.

Danielle: You’re like, “how do I follow that?”

Alex: Why don't we talk a little bit about what we've been enjoying that might not be part of our year end wrap up. Do you have something you've been enjoying that we're not going to chat about today?

Danielle: Yes. It's not so much a “been enjoying” as much as it's something I enjoyed, which is that I finally saw Titanique. Yes. And what a joy that was. Oh, my God. Jackie Burns. I mean, also, like, I loved that…so, it's both…Jackie Burns is playing Celine Dion and Lindsey Pierce is playing Rose. So it is just this, like, stellar duo of former Elphabas belting Celine Dion and it is fabulous. I had a great time.

Alex: Think about that show more than you would expect. And spoiler alert, it is actually in my year-end wrap up. God, the entire vibe of just being in that theater, it’s everything. Everyone go see Titanic. Again, we’ve talked…we talked about it…I think when I shouted out Jackie Burns but open-ended run at the Daryl Roth Theater, so get your tickets.

Danielle: Yeah. I don't know how long the current cast is staying.

Alex: That's true.

Danielle: But recommended regardless.

Alex: Really, truly. You will have a blast

Danielle: There's merch.

Alex: Oh, you know, the merger is great.

Danielle: There's a sweatshirt that you can buy that just says “Iceberg Bitch,” and I'm into it. What about you, Alex? What have you been enjoying?

Alex: Oh, mine's easy. My favorite show came back from the dead. That is Doctor Who, which goes on hiatus for lengthy amounts of time and so far, I'm not…I shouldn't go into the nitty gritty of it but essentially, they're doing a series of special episodes before they go into their whole new season.

Danielle: OK.

Alex: It's a really big deal right now because they're doing three specials with two actors who used to be on the show - David Tennant, Catherine Tate, God love them. And so far, they have aired two of the specials. The third is coming up. By the time this episode comes out, it will actually have already aired. So if anyone listening to this has any Doctor Who feelings, please let me know because I'm always down to talk about Doctor Who. Anyway…and then there's going to be a special on Christmas and that'll kind of kick off the new season which is coming next year.

Danielle: That's fun.

k Doctor Who from the dead in: 2005

Danielle: Mm hmm.

Alex: So, yeah, that's what's making me happy right now, is just the grin that I got on my face when I heard that theme song again. Oh, man.

Danielle: Yay!

Alex: Once you’re a Whovian, you never stop being a Whovian, and I don't care what angry people on the Internet say. Yeah, that's what's making me very happy.

Danielle: Yay!

Alex: OK, so first we're going to talk about plays and some of the plays that we thought were the best we saw this year. We kind of split it into new plays and revivals though. I'm just going to say that, like, what you can qualify as a revival versus a new play can get kind of sticky, but we're just going to roll with it. My top three new plays that I love this year, I'm going to say, are Our Dear Dead Drug Lord by Alexis Scheer, which I saw at Center Theatre Group in L.A. Not really a premiere, but I'm still counting it as a new play. It's a contemporary play.

Danielle: Certainly not a revival.

lassic Stage Company in early: 2024

Danielle: So the first one, I didn't know whether to put under new or revival.

Alex: Sure.

It's the first thing I saw in: 2023

Alex: Mm. Yeah.

Danielle: I generally like Tom Stoppard, which I know I have a lot of like friends who disagree with me on that, but Leopoldstadt was just beautiful. The performances were unbelievable. And it really stands out to me, even though it was almost a year ago that I saw it. Next for a new play - gotta shout out our friend Julia Izumi’s play Regretfully, So the Birds Are… that ran at Playwrights Horizons. I loved it. I had such a great time. And then the third one I selected actually is - we overlap here- it's Just For Us.

Alex: Just for Us! Yes. I will say that because I'm extra, I also have honorable mentions for mine and Leopoldstadt was an honorable mention for me.

Danielle: I'm Gonna Marry You, Tobey Maguire would be an honorable mention for me.

Alex: Yes. So good. Both so good.

Danielle: Yeah. I don't have anything more to say about Just For Us because I think you really, like…how would I possibly top you saying that it may have changed your opinion about stand-up comedy forever? That’s high praise.

Alex: Tell us your revivals.

Danielle: I guess, like, first of all, I didn't see as much as I usually see this year. I was just really busy and traveled a lot, and it just didn't…I didn't see as much as usual. So, like, I might not even have three. Or like, it might be that I saw a total of three play revivals.

Alex: Yeah.

Danielle: I guess I saw more than three. Okay, so I'll say some tops are…and these before I said them in chronological order - now I'm not, I'm abandoning that. But Hamlet at the Delacorte, Shakespeare in the Park over the summer.

Alex: I’m so jealous you saw that. I just didn't.

Danielle: What was so wonderful…Ato Blankson-Wood as Hamlet is just spectacular. And let's see then I also loved…you know, I saw Take Me Out for a, like, final time. Essentially, I had seen it already and I'd seen this production already, but I brought my dad for his birthday early last year because…early this year, I guess, because he is a huge baseball fan and I thought he would enjoy it and he did. But so I was…I was happy to see it again. Yeah. And then and then I'll also say we overlap again on Endgame because that play just doesn't get done very often. So it was just so great to see it and to see it in a production that really understood it.

Alex: Mm hmm. I think that if I had seen Take Me Out this year, which I didn't, I actually saw it at the end of last year, it would have been on my best list. That was a really, really strong, beautiful production.

Danielle: Definitely. And then for musicals…yeah. My favorite new musicals were actually very easy. We've got Kimberly Akimbo, which we forgot actually opened earlier this year. Yeah. Obviously had a run off Broadway, but Kimberly Akimbo, New York, New York…

Alex: Oh, yes.

Danielle: Honestly, it made it. It made it. And & Juliet. Yeah, loved them.

Alex: Just…I love musical theater.

Danielle: Like, purely all of them have moments of such pure musical theater entertainment.

Alex: In very different ways.

Danielle: In super different ways, and also have moments of like really powerful musical theater like heartstring-tugging that I think all three shows balanced heart and like, not irreverence, but like I mean, certainly irreverence for Kimberly Akimbo and & Juliet, I don't know that I would ever describe New York, New York as irreverent, but they all really struck a really nice balance for me.

Alex: Those three shows also had dynamite female leads, I think, all three of them as well. I'm thinking specifically of Lorna Courtney in & Juliet.

Danielle: Although I saw Lorna Courtney’s understudy.

Alex: Oh, well, I do think Lorna Courtney is terrific, but also Betsy Wolfe in & Juliet. New York, New York…

Danielle: Yes.

Alex: I still think Anna Uzele was one of my favorite performances of the year. And then Kimberly Akimbo, obviously, like…

Danielle: Obviously Victoria Clark and Bonnie Milligan.

Alex: Both of them incredible. So like, yeah, three really strong terrific picks. And then what about revivals for you?

Danielle: So for musical revivals, Merrily, because is anyone surprised? Obviously. And then Light at the Piazza at City Center and Sweeney Todd, but specifically with Nicholas Christopher on a Sweeney and Raymond Lee on as Pirelli, which is who I saw and I don't want it any other way.

Alex: So first of all, we do overlap on a couple of things. I mean, my top musical…everyone who listens to this podcast knows is & Juliet. Like, I think it’s…

Danielle: I was going to say - let me…let me guess…your favorite revival this year was Oliver!.

Alex: Oh, God. I still cannot believe…whatever, moving on. But I also wanted to shout out Titanique, which again, so funny, so fun, so gets the vibe, gets their audience, great cast, amazing. And truthfully, the other musical - like the other top musical for me this year - I bet you won’t guess it - but it was A Musical About Star Wars. I believe it's still as of this…this recording coming out, I believe it's still running off-Broadway and it is truly so fun. It is for…even if you aren't into Star Wars, I think it's a really fun time. And if you are into Star Wars, it's still a really fun time. But get…like, be prepared for some of the bullshit of Star Wars to be called out, like the racism, the misogyny of the early movies, things like that. Like they call it out, they acknowledge it, so like get used to that, but that cast is incredible, too. There's only three people in the cast and they're on stage the entire time, essentially and killing it every night. Yeah, it's a really, really, really fun time. And again, fun…fun and knows their audience. I mean, it's funny when you…when I think about…that my top three musicals, & Juliet, A Musical About Star Wars and Titanique, they're all like super fun, like almost critiques of theater.

Danielle: Yeah.

Alex: So like, if you were to talk to me about them, you would probably be like, oh, she doesn't like, like, serious musicals, like some of the more like cerebral stuff, like Stephen Sondheim, Kimberly Akimbo, things that go to, like, darker themes. That's not true at all. Like, I'm really surprised that all three things that are top for me are these, like, super fun, let's put on a show type of things.

Danielle: I mean, that tells us how this year went.

Alex: That’s true…I will say for revivals, I did not put Merrily on my list, not because I don't love it, but because it was on my list last year. It's like the same production, essentially.

Danielle: That's true.

Alex: I didn't…I just wanted to give some love to some other things. First off, totally agree with you on The Light in the Piazza. I mean, not technically a full production. It's technically a staged reading…whatever, It's a full production.

Danielle: I mean, it's…like Encores! is pretty damn close to a full production these days.

Alex: Also, I saw the off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors. Yeah, honestly, that's a perfect production of Little Shop of Horrors.

Danielle: It really is. I saw it pre-pandemic.

Alex: No matter what cast you see it with. I think it's a perfect production. I saw it with Matt Doyle's understudy and Joy Woods and Drew Gehling.

Danielle: Who was the dentist?

Alex: Yes, the dentist, et cetera

Danielle: et cetera.

Alex: I loved it. And oh, I mean, we don't need to agree on this, Danielle, and we don't need to get into it too much, but my favorite revival I saw was the Broadway revival of Parade.

Danielle: Listen. For somebody who had never seen the show before, yes, absolutely.

Alex: Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah, absolutely.

Alex: Like that is the revival I saw that has stuck with me the most.

Danielle: So that's because the show is fucking perfect. The show. Well, the show is perfect.

Alex: And there were moments that I remember that really got me. I didn't completely agree with every choice that was made, but there were a lot of moments that I can still clearly remember that really brought up extremely visceral emotion. And it drew me in in a way that, like, I think is really hard to do with older material. You know, like if you're breathing life into something, even if it's as rich as Parade, like, it can be hard to do that. Whatever. And I'll say that Sweeney Todd was one of my honorable mentions. I didn't completely love this revival, but I will agree that it was quite good, quite quite good.

Danielle: Yeah. And, like, the choreography was very divisive for a lot of people. I liked it. Mm hmm.

Alex: Mm hmm. I hated it.

Danielle: So, you know. To each their own.

Alex: To each their own. I have a couple other shout outs. I just wanted to…to give…I have, like, some set design shout outs, which I find very interesting. I wanted to shout out the set design for Purlie Victorious on Broadway. Yeah. But like, also the overall design for Back to the Future: The Musical.

Danielle: Okay.

Alex: That was a feat. And so I wanted to shout out that that really worked for me this year. I also really wanted to shout out Anthony Rapp’s Without You, which we saw together earlier this year, ran at New World Stages for, like, a pretty long time.

Danielle: Yeah.

Alex: It was there for a number of months and both, like, the construction of it and the performance of it were just fantastic. It's just so heartfelt. And I also wanted to shout out Anna Zalverson for an incredible New York debut in The Light in the Piazza at City Center, of course, and Andrew Durand in Shucked. I really loved his performance in Shucked. I had previously only seen him in The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown like 12 years ago. And just seeing how he's grown as a performer and embodied that character, which I think was actually, like, quite a nuanced and difficult character to play despite the tone of the show…I was stunned. I was pretty blown away. So yeah, those are my kind of, like, set design, and, I guess, performance shout outs. Do you have anything that we didn't get to talk about that you just want to say you enjoyed?

Danielle: Oh, yeah. So a couple of shout outs. One is also something that I saw on New Year's Eve last year, so it's like, “Oh, where does it actually belong?” And that was Kate Berlant’s show Kate. Yes, just…chef's kiss. So good. So, so good. And then if it was still running, I would implore everyone to go see it, but it did close. I will also give a shout out to…I saw…me finally seeing Mike Birbiglia as the Old Man in the Pool in Edinburgh. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I'm glad I caught it and shout out as well too. So I have seen Hadestown when it first was, I think, in previews on Broadway, obviously pre-pandemic, you know what? Hot take: didn't like it, but I decided with the current cast to give it another shot because my friend won the lotto, so it was inexpensive, and really because Reeve Carney finally left, and now Jordan Fischer is playing Orpheus and Betty Who is playing Persephone. I was like, “Yeah, absolutely, I will return, I will give this another shot several years later,” and I'm so glad I did.

Alex: It is a good show and the cast can really make or break that, I'll admit.

Danielle: Yeah. No, the cast makes or breaks it. Yeah.

Alex: I remember feeling similarly when I saw it on tour.

Danielle: Also, in the current cast, Solea Pfeiffer is playing…

Alex: I’ve heard she’s excellent.

Danielle: …Eurydice and she is unbelievable. I'm literally like re-do the cast recording with all of them right now, with the current cast. Yeah, because also like the whole central foursome is incredible. I've named three of them. The fourth, Philip Boykin, is playing Hades. You'll remember Philip Boykin from the revival of Porgy and Bess that Audra McDonald did quite a number of years ago, at this point, because we're really old, but he's unbelievable.

Alex: Is he a true bass?

Danielle: Oh, yeah.

Alex: Okay, because they…I mean, fun fact for anyone who doesn't know, but it's actually…even in professional theater and in professional opera, it's very hard to find a true bass.

Danielle: I would say yes.

Alex: Then when I saw Hadestown on tour, they did not have a true bass as Hades and I talked to somebody who was surprised at that fact and didn't realize how rare it is, but it is actually very rare.

Danielle: Philip Boykin really had a lot of like depth to his voice, even in the lowest notes, like, yeah, it was beautiful. Like there was…like, a real richness to it. And it wasn't like you could tell… it was not even any kind of stretch for him to hit those notes. Yeah. I mean, he's an opera singer. Yeah.

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Danielle: So yeah, those are….those are my big shout outs.

Alex: Cool, cool.

Danielle: So now we're going to move on to some of…the sort of major events so to speak, in the industry this year, starting with some awards. First being that Into the Woods won the Grammy for Best Musical Cast Recording.

Alex: Which I called as soon as it came out.

Danielle: Oh, I was convinced.

Alex: I was convinced. Since it came out, I was like, “this has to win the Grammy.” I was obsessed with this idea from day one.

Danielle: Well, congratulations to you for being right then. English by Sanaz Toosi won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama which is super exciting. We love her.

Alex: I haven't read the play yet, but I want to, or see it.

Danielle: Same and same. And then lastly, just…the Tonys happened. Kimberly Akimbo won Best Musical and a bunch of other awards, deservedly so. I love that show. We know that.

Alex: Leopoldstadt, as we talked about before, won Best Play.

Danielle: It was a weird, weird acceptance speech if I remember correctly. Like they cut Tom Stoppard off.

Alex: Like, it was really bizarre. The Tony Awards also, like, kind of made a wave because two non-binary performers won in their respective categories - openly non binary, I should say - for the first time. J. Harrison Ghee won for Some Like It Hot, Alex Newell won for Shucked.

Danielle: And you love to see it.

Alex: Yeah, it's great. We stan…progress, I guess? Yeah. For revivals, Parade won Best Revival and Topdog/Underdog won Best Play, or Best Revival of a Play. And also Tony Lifetime Achievement to John Kander and Joel Grey. Love you guys. Love you! Related to the Tony Awards briefly because you may have recalled that the Tony Awards went unscripted this year and that contributed to some weirdness and that was because this was kind of a year of union talk.

Danielle: The year of labor.

Alex: Year of labor. Couple of things - that was related to the Writers Guild of America strike that was ongoing at that time. Later in the summer, the Screen Actors Guild also went on strike. And so we kind of had this weird period where people were kind of wondering what was going to happen with the future of TV and film. And of course, that did ripple out to theater, you may have noticed. But we're seeing a lot of, like, major TV film stars signing on for theater projects in the coming like right now and in the coming year. And I don't think that that's a coincidence.

Danielle: Yeah.

Alex: The actors not being able to work on screen for a while definitely meant like they had time to take meetings and read through projects and think about a life outside of TV/film. And so I think that that is really going to influence some of what we talk about next year and our end of year wrap-up because we have sure, there's some really exciting star studded shows coming down the pike.

Danielle: One, like, already running is Danny in the Deep Blue Sea starring Aubrey Plaza.

Alex: Exactly. And Christopher Abbot.

Danielle: Yes. Speaking of…speaking of Aubrey Plaza, and Danny in the Deep Blue Sea, just a quick little addition to our, I guess, major events in the theater industry, if you want to call it that, is Aubrey Plaza being roommates with Patti LuPone.

Alex: I mean.

Danielle: And how obsessed with that I am.

Alex: There's got to be a joke at next year's Tony Awards, I don't care that Aubrey Plaza is not in a Broadway show and I don't care that Patti Lupone gave up her Equity card. There needs to be a joke. I can't wait for it. Now that we have writers writing the jokes again.

Danielle: I'm obsessed.

Alex: In addition to the WGA and SAG strikes, Actors Equity actually authorized a strike back in April. You may have forgotten about it because it didn't end up happening. There's been a lot of chatter in AEA recently, and in like different levels of AEA. There was specifically…there were specifically a lot of grievances with the touring contracts for a while.

Danielle: And that is what the strike authorization had been about.

Alex: Yes. And I know that actors were actually going outside of their theaters and cities, that they were in handing out pamphlets and trying to let people know, you know, “we're not being treated how we would like to be treated. And if this happens, your show will be canceled,” and things like that. But there's been a lot of talk on that front. I don't think it's gone away.

Danielle: I would agree with that.

Alex: I think we're going to see more next year.

Danielle: I completely agree. And I also…just to go back to what you were saying about the WGA and SAG strikes and how it left people sort of wondering what would happen with the industry, I would say we're still wondering.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah, we are.

Danielle:Technically, the SAG membership has not yet approved the negotiated contracts.

Alex: And so they just voted on it, like, just as we're recording this episode.

Danielle: Yeah. I think like the deadline was either yesterday or today, but we don't…we don't…we don't know.

Alex: We don't know.

Danielle: And also the new SAG contracts, if the members ratify it, is only for two and a half years.

Alex: Exactly.

Danielle: So this is going to come back up real soon. Yeah. And then lastly, for “year of unions” is- remember when Here Lies Love was opening, there was, let's say, a kerfuffle of sorts around them wanting to only use prerecorded tracks and not hiring musicians and the musicians union with Local 802 had a big old problem with that. And the show ended up caving and hiring musicians with a waiver for having a smaller band. My memory of it is that Local 802 you don't…you have agreements with each Broadway theater, like based on the size of a theater. There is a minimum number of musicians that need to be employed for a musical production in that venue. And shows get waivers all the time for hiring under that minimum number of musicians. But no one had ever hired zero musicians before. So that was the problem.

Alex: Well, the other problem is that Here Lies Love didn’t even apply for the waiver at first, it's my understanding.

Danielle: Yeah, right. And they went into rehearsals without that waiver approved and like just sort of plowing forward and the union was like, hold up. No, no, no. And they did end up hiring some musicians, which I think is a win. I think the union was in the right on that one.

Alex: Yeah. The union did what the union was…is constructed to do. Last, in other news on Broadway, finally, no one thought it would ever happen. - Phantom of the Opera closed. Phantom of the Opera closed down on Broadway. It is no more. The chandelier fell for the last time. All those jokes. And now the Majestic is like getting a little bit of a facelift.

Danielle: Thank God they haven't been able to do that in quite a while.

Danielle: In our lifetimes. Yeah.

Alex: I mean, there's the rumors that it's going to come back in a few years because this is essentially what happened on the West End. They closed it and then they brought it back with a smaller orchestra and like a smaller space and stuff like that. There's…there's…there's rumors. But I think a lot of those rumors are started by the Phans (P-H-A-Ns) themselves.

Danielle: Yes and no. I mean, I think there is certainly some merit to those rumors.

Alex: Oh, I agree. I agree.

Danielle: They're not baseless, we'll say.

Alex: But now Andrew Lloyd Webber is also going around talking about how Broadway is, like, terrible, right?

Danielle: Because Bad Cinderella didn't do well.

Alex: Yeah. So I don't know if he wants to come back here at all. Who knows? Also, Bad Cinderella discourse was a fun time. There was like…that was like a moment in New York City theater. Yeah.

e Bad Cinderella discourse in: 2023

Alex: But also, on our Patreon!

Danielle: Hmm.

ed it's closing. It opened in: 2011

Danielle: I saw it in May of: 2012

Alex: Same, I haven't been back because ticket prices skyrocketed.

Danielle: Yes. And from what I hear, if you had a good experience the first time you saw it, you don't go back, because…not because of anything the performers are doing, but just like the front-of-house audience experience is just like a shit show. I recently saw someone posting about it who's returned recently due to the casting or due to the closing announcement and said that it seems like they're…they raised the cap on like, capacity. So it's so painfully crowded to be in the audience and that every single scene and every single character is basically followed by a stampede of people. And rooms are so full that like…you can't even see the scene. You've ended up at the back. And, you know, things were already sloppy at the time because it's like… part of it is that it's, like, they're getting you drunk while you do this. So it's like, well, apparently they're also like really, really rushing people back to the bar now.

Alex: I'm sure they can't afford their rent. Like, I'm sure that this all comes back to and also I've heard through the grapevine about like the rumors about the low pay and…

Danielle:

Oh, yeah, not even grapevine. Like, just straight up.

Alex: It's like…it's another subject.

Danielle: And it's a bad, bad workplace.

Alex: Yeah. From what I've heard. That being said, I still think it's like a real artistic feat.

Danielle: I completely agree. Nothing we have said has been negative about the show.

Alex: No. Yeah, the show is actually like a really incredible experience, especially if you are a Shakespeare nerd or you are a Hitchcock nerd. You will get so much out of it. But yeah, I think people are pretty stunned because it's been such a mainstay for the past 12 years, almost 13 years.

Danielle: Yeah. And there's some speculation that they'll be bringing a different Punchdrunk. Pretty interesting.

Alex: I would be interested to see that because this is the only Punchdrunk I've seen but I know that like there…there's a lot of… a lot of Sleep No More from what I understand. Like you'll get a similar kind of experience and a really good way. Yeah, interesting. I hadn't heard that rumor.

Danielle: I have no idea how much validity there is to that, but it is something that I've heard.

Alex: Interesting. All right.

Danielle: And then lastly, in New York City theater news highlights for the year…this isn't really like a single news item. It's just that, like, Stephen Sondheim has had a pretty banner year posthumously. We've got Merrily, we've got Here We Are, we've got Sweeney.

Alex: We’ve got his townhouse selling for $7 million, which seems oddly low to me.

Danielle: It does. And to a fan, which is exciting, but they are using it as like their primary residence.

Alex: Interesting. Yes. I guess my bid went ignored.

Danielle: Oh, I'm so sorry.

Alex: My bid of $300 and…

Danielle:

And…and a letter stating my case. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Alex: Anyway. And my…and my…I mean maybe I could have…maybe I could have sold my Wicked poster signed by Idina Menzel and that would have…

Danielle: For $7 million.

Alex: $7 million.

Danielle: Well, that's a missed opportunity.

Alex: Now I just have to make friends with this fan who bought the place. Anyway. Yeah. So Stephen.

Danielle:

Shout out to Steve.

Alex: Shout out to Steve. We miss ya, Steve.

Danielle: We miss you, buddy.

Alex: But your legacy is alive and well.

Danielle: Oh, and I mean, also, we forgot, like, Company was running earlier this year.

Alex: That was earlier this year. That's right.

Danielle: You know, time is off.

Alex: Again, Into the Woods - again, it won the Grammy…

Danielle: Closed in January. It won the Grammy…

Alex: Into the Woods was touring around the country and like, people ate it up. People had a great time, you know. And then some news kind of outside of New York. There's been a lot of what we love to see Lauren Halvorson's newsletter call “The Regional Theater Game of Thrones,” with artistic directors being replaced for various reasons, resigning for various reasons, things like that.

Danielle: Retiring, just like normal reasons.

Alex: One change that we wanted to shout out is that Nataki Garrett resigned from Oregon Shakespeare Festival earlier this year.

Danielle: After facing disgusting pushback and complaints about her tenure as artistic director, receiving death threats, truly disgusting shit.

Alex: Yeah. So that is unfortunate, to say the least, especially because Ossoff, around the same time, I think I'm trying to remember the exact timeline, but around the same time, they also announced a major fundraising campaign. It sounds like things are pretty dire.

Danielle: Yes. So pretty…pretty dire over there. So like all our love to OSF and to Nataki Garrett.

Alex: So that was the conclusion of the saga. That was Nataki Garrett's tenure at OSF. And that's really unfortunate.

Danielle: Yes. On the note of, like, a bit of a scandal, so to speak, outside of New York, is the casting of Fanny Brice in the Funny Girl national tour and a lot of the discourse around the fact that a non-Jewish actress was cast as Fanny.

Alex: Like really, we're still doing this?

Danielle: And just a lot of…a lot of frustration and disappointment surrounding that that we echo…

Alex: Yeah.

discourse on the Internet in: 2023

Alex: There was also…this happened like much earlier in the year - I want to say, like February, March - there was a lot of discourse around people realizing that like audiences changed during the pandemic, and not for the better. And it's started to really grate on a lot of people who work front of house and work directly with patrons at the theater. It escalated a lot from a piece that was published on Playbill by Margaret Hall, who talked to some ushers at Broadway theaters, and then anonymized them and put their reflections of being, you know, physically harassed by, verbally abused by patrons. She put this all into an article and and how producers and theater owners were responding to these, you know, concerns or not responding. And you might recall that the article was up for less than a day before it started really making the rounds and it got taken down. And I don't want to go too much into the politics of all of that, but it started a conversation and it started a conversation that’s not just here in New York, but like I heard, I've also heard this regionally from…from people I know who work at regional theaters and, like, just really echoing the sentiments of…like, audiences are doing some really despicable things. If you go to see a Broadway show now or anything with a playbill that's officially published by Playbill, you will see that they've inserted a note about being courteous to everyone around you. We didn't need that pre-pandemic. We shouldn't need it now.

Danielle: But listen. We…like, arguably maybe did need it pre-pandemic. But it was…it has still gotten…

Alex: It has gotten notably worse. I also liked, just, the fact that people were really taking an eye to the situation that front of house and ushers are often put into because, like, oh, my God, the stories I could tell you from even the pre-pandemic days…

Danielle: Oh yeah, it shit gets messy.

Alex: I was just like hanging out one night - I think I was seeing the show, maybe, I don't even know. And my friend comes out and goes - she's house managing a musical - and goes, “I apparently have to ask a patron at intermission to stop touching another patron’s hair. Like…they don't know each other!

Danielle: She's just touching her hair.

Alex: And that's insane.

Danielle: Normal. Yeah. Just normal human interaction.

Alex: Totally normal. Anyway, some of the topics that came up this year.

Danielle: Some of the hot topics…

Alex: The hot topics that came up this year in the quote-unquote-American-theater.

Danielle: Yes. Alas, action. We've got a rapid fire of theater related items in pop culture.

Alex: And things that we just wanted to to chat about that emerged this year in kind of larger American culture that have roots in the theater. First off, Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater. It's a thing, and they're making the Wicked movie, but somehow that has diminished in relation to the story of their relationship.

Danielle: And you know that even diminished so much that we forgot to mention it in our own Wicked 20th anniversary episode. So, hey, the Wicked movie is the thing that is happening. There was a Newsies Day, Newsies theme day on the WGA strike picket line. Yeah.

Alex: I saw videos of it. It looked really, really fun. Of course, Newsies, originally a movie, but has been a Broadway musical and and has…that's really boosted the popularity of the movie as well.

Danielle: And obviously is about striking workers.

Alex: We had a couple musical kind of moments and some, like, movies that really made a splash this year. I'm specifically thinking of Barbie, which is not.

Danielle: [singing] I’m just Ken.

Alex: [singing] I’m just Ken. [speaking] Not necessarily a musical, but had musical numbers that really enhanced the story.

Danielle:

Yes, I love it.

Alex: And I love that Ryan Gosling is, like, nominated for a Grammy now. Like, what? Anyway. And I also wanted to shout out The Marvels because not only do they have a scene where the main characters go to a planet where you have to sing to be understood, like if you were talking normally you wouldn't be understood but [singing] put a melody on it [speaking] and they'll get they'll understand what you're saying but there's also a really funny moment that ties in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. I'm not going to say any more than that, in case you're planning to see The Marvels.

The Cats movie in December of: 2019

Alex: Don't you…don't you know, you can tempt…you can tempt fate?

Danielle: From high atop the thing. West Wing anyone?

Alex: So in terms of movies that came out this year, most of the musical movies that we saw were animated. Wish just came out - the new Disney movie that's in celebration of Disney 100 that's stars Broadway favorite Ariana Debose. The Little Mermaid remake came out and that involved Lin-Manuel Miranda and Daveed Diggs. Dicks: The Musical has been making the rounds, which…

Danielle: I need…I really want to see it.

Alex: I didn't realize it came out so long ago. I'm wondering if it's still in theaters.

Danielle: For those who have no idea it is based…it's these two guys, Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, and this movie is essentially an offshoo of an ongoing sketch series, sketch show that they did at UCB for years called Fucking Identical Twins. And I have listened to the two of them give be on so many podcasts and give so many interviews about Dicks: The Musical. And I was just like, I need to see it, yeah.

Alex: It looks amazing and it's getting amazing reviews. And I think it's also A24’s first musical movie, which, like, big A24 stan here.

Danielle: Oh, that's fun.

Alex: We're also getting The Color Purple later this month. I'm really excited. I've actually never seen it on stage…

Danielle: Oh!

Alex: …and the cast behind it. I'm here for it, so I'm really excited for it. I also want to just shout out in terms of musical movies, anyone who saw the Taylor Swift Eras concert movie saw the trailer for Journey to Bethlehem, which is a new musical movie about the birth of Jesus using contemporary musical theater songs. I'm like…yes, I'm intrigued. No, I won't see it, but yes, I'm intrigued. And I also want to know who did the songs because it's actually really catchy in the trailer. And of course, we are also getting a pro shot in movie theaters soon of Waitress with Sarah Bareilles in the lead of Jenna. So we're really pumped for that.

Danielle: I'm so excited that got filmed, that it's getting released now. I just have to hope that it becomes like purchasable. Yeah, because that is something I would…I would like to own.

Alex: It's got to. It has to. We also wanted to shout out the movie Bernstein which is coming out. Yeah.

Danielle: I'd be remiss to shout that out without also noting that Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose is heinously offensive. Yeah. And that Leonard Bernstein didn't look like that. And the next theater-adjacent - this is even…yeah, this is more than theater-adjacent…movie that came out this year is Theater Camp. So teaser for all of you, Alex and I for our December bonus episode on Patreon coming out later this month, probably like right before Christmas, we are going to be doing an episode where we watch Theater Camp and discuss, break it down, react. Yes. And we know that this is about five months late, but we think it'll be really fun and a fun way to close out the year. And once again, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com/partialviewpod. This Theater Camp episode will only be available to paid patrons. Yeah. And joining starts at $5 a month.

Alex: The one last thing we wanted to shout out is that The Gilded Age came back and I'm so happy. They filmed it over a year ago and it is just now back. They’re in the middle of their second season. Is this show good? Absolutely not. Do I watch every episode as soon as it comes out? Absolutely. It's riveting in some ways, and then you just laugh at it in other ways.

Danielle: You know, there was…I was just listening to someone talk about it on a podcast, and it is the first time I've ever actually been interested in watching it because they just talked about it in…I guess previously, most of the discussion I'd heard around the Gilded Age was basically just like, “it's bad. But Audra McDonald,” which like…

Alex: Oh no, there's other things.

Danielle: …wasn't enough for me. It was like…or…but this time I heard it discussed…I've heard how campy it is, discussed more in a way that has now intrigued me.

Alex: Yeah, I mean, it was basically made in a lab for me because I love talking about early 20th century American society, especially the Gilded Age in New York. And it has, like, so many amazing Broadway actors. I mean, talk about Audra McDonald. Yes. But Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Patrick Page is on this season. He was on it a little bit last season as well. Like, yeah, the cast is stacked also. For those of you who do not know, this is a fun tidbit for you. The Gilded Age was originally supposed to be a prequel to Downton Abbey about Cora coming up in early 20th-century. New York as a debutante.

Danielle: Oh!

ut it in that context in like: 2013

Danielle: Who knew?

Alex:

Guess me. OG Gilded Age Stan.

Danielle: You're like, “I guess me!”

Alex: I guess me. I will never stop looking at the clothes and just like, melting they're so pretty.

Danielle: Tune into The Gilded Age for some theater folks.

Alex: Sundays on HBO. I actually don't know when the season's ending, but I think when this… when our podcast episodes comes out, it will…there will still be a few episodes left and…

Danielle: Whatever, just, like, binge this season.

we solve American theater in: 2023

Danielle: God, no.

Alex: We, we tried.

We've got some work to do in: 2024

Alex: We tried so hard, but we got tired.

Danielle: It's been a tiring year.

weathering the storm that was: 2023

Danielle: Liking, commenting, subscribing.

Alex: All that good stuff.

Danielle: Following.

Alex: We appreciate it more than you ever know. And we hope that you have a wonderful holiday season and new year.

Danielle: We've got some really cool shit coming and we've.

Alex: Really, really.

Danielle: We met this past weekend and hammered some stuff out and y'all, we're excited.

Alex: It's going to be good. It's going to be good. And but sincerely, we wouldn't do this if we didn't have listeners. So thank you to all of our listeners.

Danielle: Yes. Including…we were looking at the analytics. We don't know who you are in Germany, but hello to our German listeners.

Alex: Yeah, I have no idea. And I'm so intrigued. If you're in Germany and you're listening to our podcast, please e-mail us, comment…like, DM us, let us know, because like we just admire you.

Danielle: Yeah. We're so curious how you found us. Are you…are you American expats? Who are you? Solve the mystery for us, please.

s time that we say goodbye to: 2023

Danielle: It's really unfortunate that we're doing this. And it's December 5th. And we're saying goodbye to the year right now on the podcast. But we still have another like 26 days.

Alex: Don’t think about it. Don't think about it too closely.

Danielle: We'll see you all next year.

Alex: See you next year. Bye bye.