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      Why ‘Tammy Faye’ the Musical Feels Like a Redemption

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      The televangelist defended gay men during the AIDS crisis. Now she’s getting perhaps the gayest tribute: a Broadway show led by Elton John.Anyone interested in Tammy Faye Bakker — the chirpy televangelist queen of the ’80s — can watch a documentary and a biopic about her, both called “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” or read the autobiography “Tammy: Telling It My Way.”There’s also plenty out there about Bakker’s bonds with gay men, which was exhibited most poignantly in 1985, when on Christian television she did what many conservatives considered unthinkable: She interviewed a gay man who had AIDS, the Rev. A. Stephen Pieters. She admonished Christians — “we who are supposed to be able to love everyone,” as she put it — for not embracing the dying.Now the most famous daughter of International Falls, Minn. — who died of cancer in 2007 at 65 — is getting perhaps the gayest tribute a person can have: a Broadway musical.“If you were an outcast or pariah, Tammy Faye loved you even more,” said Elton John, the composer of “Tammy Faye,” which opened Thursday at the Palace Theater in Manhattan. “That’s what happened with her and gay people.”Through bald farce, earnest biography and a pop-country score, “Tammy Faye” details how she and her husband, Jim Bakker, started the television program “The PTL Club” in the 1970s and became highly successful televangelists, only to have a fall from grace in the late 1980s, amid sex and financial scandals, and later divorcing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: Tammy Faye Was Over-the-Top. This Musical Makes Her Small.

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      “Tammy Faye,” a bland, tonal mishmash of a show opening on Broadway, seems afraid to lean into what made the televangelist so distinctive.“Tammy Faye,” the new Broadway musical about the televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, kicks off with a projection of a set of eyes in close-up, mascara running down in a dramatic streak.It’s a visually arresting reference to the real-life Bakker, whose electrifyingly made-up eyes, encased in clumped lashes, gave her a look of perpetually startled innocence. Not for nothing, there have been two films titled “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” — a documentary narrated by RuPaul in 2000 and a 2021 feature for which Jessica Chastain won an Academy Award for best actress. Together, they represent what Tammy Faye, who died in 2007, is now famous for: camp iconification and performance of the self.But after that teasing introduction, Tammy Faye’s signature Kabuki facade barely figures in the disjointed, strangely bland musical that opened on Thursday at the newly renovated Palace Theater. It is laudable that the show’s composer, Elton John; lyricist, Jake Shears (of Scissor Sisters); book writer, James Graham; and director, Rupert Goold, tried to go behind the mask of this complicated, outsize woman, whose public persona was shaped by and for television. The problem is that they ended up making her smaller than life.Brayben won an Olivier Award for her performance in the original production in London.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe show, which originated two years ago at the Almeida Theater in London, is a straightforward look at the rise and fall of Tammy Faye (Katie Brayben, who won an Olivier Award for her performance in the original production). The climb begins when she encounters Jim Bakker (Christian Borle, leaning hard on his comic skills) in the 1960s. The couple share a sunny vision of proselytizing Christianity, delivering their message through playful puppets rather than fiery sermons. We follow them as they take to the airwaves and pioneer the use of television to spread the gospel and raise a lot of cash. By the 1970s, they have their own satellite network, PTL, on which they host a popular program.And then the wheels fall off the wagon, as the Bakkers are swayed by money, sex and, in Tammy Faye’s case, pills.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Review: Darren Criss and Helen J Shen Are Robots in Love

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      A supersmart musical about making a connection arrives on Broadway in a joyful, heartbreaking, cutting-edge production.Claire is low on energy, so she pops across the hall to Oliver’s pad for a pick-me-up. But Oliver, a creature of routine, doesn’t like being interrupted while listening to jazz and waiting for mail. She insists, he gives in, and a spark, maybe a literal one, is ignited.Never was a meet cute as cute — and as quietly ominous — as it is in the musical “Maybe Happy Ending,” which opened Tuesday at the Belasco Theater. That’s because the pair are robots, and Claire’s battery is running down fast. Hooking her up to his charger may signal, for Oliver, the beginning of love. It may also signal the end of it.That we nonrobots also connect, pair and empower one another to share a too-brief lifetime is the surprising double vision that makes “Maybe Happy Ending” a ravishing addition to the catalog of Broadway nerdicals. The term is high praise, honoring supersmart, usually small-scale shows — like “Fun Home,” “The Band’s Visit” and “Kimberly Akimbo” — that nevertheless have big emotional impact. This one, directed with breathtaking bravura by Michael Arden, gets bonus points for difficulty, too: Under cover of sci-fi whimsy, it sneaks in a totally original human heartbreaker.The sci-fi elements are handled lightly and humorously in the book by Hue Park and Will Aronson, thus dodging the invidious scrutiny that the genre often elicits. By 2064, when their story takes place, Helperbots — android servants like embodied Siris — have been assisting humans with daily tasks for decades. But Oliver (Darren Criss) and Claire (Helen J Shen) are now obsolete, living out their days in a pleasant retirement home in Seoul as their operating systems antiquate and replacement parts become scarce.Still, they remain fully sentient and distinct. Oliver, an early model Helperbot 3, is more stylized and herky-jerky than Claire, a later model Helperbot 5. His lips are pursed, his feet splayed, his language not quite natural (he can’t stop saying “thank you”) and his hair a hard helmet like a Playmobil figurine’s. Even so, he spent enough years with his former owner, James Choi, to have absorbed some human analog tastes — the jazz LPs especially — and to miss him fiercely. Surely Choi (Marcus Choi, excellent) will reclaim him one day.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘A Wonderful World’ Review: Blowing Louis Armstrong’s Horn Isn’t Enough

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      The great jazz trumpeter and sandpaper vocalist gets the old jukebox treatment in a new Broadway musical starring James Monroe Iglehart.Who, having lived through 20th-century pop culture, could fail to recognize that voice like a truck without a muffler? That piercing trumpet and embracing spirit?Who could fail to recognize Louis Armstrong?Yet he is something of a blur in “A Wonderful World,” the Armstrong jukebox musical that opened Monday at Studio 54. Not for lack of a precise embodiment. In the leading role, James Monroe Iglehart has every Satchmo detail perfectly tuned: the rumble, the chortle, the hankie, the beam, the satchel-like cheeks that inspired the nickname. If drama were merely a tribute concert, there would be nothing to complain of.But with such a major figure we want something deeper. And though subtitled “The Louis Armstrong Musical,” the show, with a book by Aurin Squire, spends too little time exploring its subject’s interior life while plumping for his greatness as if the point were in doubt. The score, drawn from songs he performed but (with two exceptions) did not write, makes the case irrefutably already, encompassing the astonishing range of a man who grew up with the blues, changed the course of jazz, excelled at swing, perfected scat and won a Grammy for “Hello, Dolly!”To balance such a rich and varied artistic life, let alone a chaotic personal one, Armstrong deserves more than the standard jukebox bullet-point biography he gets here. Offering little you would not learn from a good obituary, or from a visit to the terrific museum at his home in Queens, “A Wonderful World” compresses 60 years, from youth to death and even beyond, into four discrete chapters defined cleverly but overneatly by decade, locale and wife.The 1910s segment, set in Armstrong’s native New Orleans, introduces wife No. 1, Daisy Parker (Dionne Figgins), a prostitute with a “Kiss of Fire.” After leaving her to join the jazz scene of Chicago in the 1920s, he falls for the pianist and arranger Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming), who polishes his musicianship along with his wardrobe. Nevertheless, he leaves her too; she and Daisy bring down the first act with a furious medley of “Some of These Days” and “After You’ve Gone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Avett Brothers Braved Choppy Waters to Bring ‘Swept Away’ to Broadway

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      The Avett Brothers were all ears a decade ago when a determined crew of theater upstarts and veterans came aboard to adapt their maritime album for “Swept Away.”In the early days of the 21st century, before the Top 5 albums and the three Grammy nominations, the Avett Brothers were a band of three young guys, relentlessly touring their blend of folk-rock-country, sprinting from show to show in their van. Between gigs, Scott Avett’s father gave him a copy of “The Custom of the Sea,” Neil Hanson’s book chronicling the 19th-century wreck of the Mignonette, a British yacht, and its tragic aftermath.On the road, Scott would recap the pages he had read, to his brother Seth and their bandmate Bob Crawford. They eventually decided that the harrowing survival story of these crewmen, stranded off the Cape of Good Hope on the South African coast, would be the foundation for their second studio album. It was released in 2004, and they titled it “Mignonette.”Over the next few years, the Avett Brothers were selling out arenas, their style of Americana, including emotionally probing lyrics, establishing them as stars in the genre. And then, one day about a decade after “Mignonette” came out, they received a curious call: A young theater producer named Matthew Masten asked if they would be interested in having the album adapted for a stage musical.“It sounded like a good idea,” said Scott Avett, who sings and plays guitar and banjo in the group. “But ideas are a dime a dozen, and a very small percentage of them seem to happen.”It took another decade, numerous stops and starts, and several regional productions of this unlikely story, but the new musical “Swept Away” has finally reached Broadway. It opens on Nov. 19 at the Longacre Theater.The crewmen of “Swept Away”: Adrian Blake Enscoe as the thrill-seeking Little Brother, Stark Sands as the pious Big Brother, John Gallagher Jr. as the Mate, and Wayne Duvall as the stoic Captain. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Broadway’s ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Asks: Can Robots Fall in Love?

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      “Maybe Happy Ending” had an initial Korean-language production in Seoul in 2016. Here are five things to know about the show.Hue Park was sitting in a Brooklyn coffee shop in the spring of 2014 when “Everyday Robots,” an indie pop ballad by Damon Albarn, floated over the speakers: “We are everyday robots on our phones / In the process of getting home.”What if, Park thought, there were a whole world filled with robots who looked just look humans?The result: a one-act Korean-language musical about a pair of abandoned robots who fall in love in Seoul in 2064. The show, which Park wrote with Will Aronson, a former New York University classmate, found success with its premiere in Seoul in 2016, and five subsequent commercial productions there.The New York Times critic Jesse Green, who saw an English-language production at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater in 2020, called it “charming” and “Broadway-ready.” Now that version will open at Broadway’s Belasco Theater on Nov. 12, starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen.The story is about two outcast helperbots who meet at a robot retirement home and build a relationship while grappling with their own obsolescence, and Park thinks it is especially relatable after the coronavirus pandemic. “People have become so comfortable staying alone in their rooms and connecting to each other through a screen,” he said in a recent interview in Midtown Manhattan.Shortly after previews began last month, Park, 41, a former K-pop lyricist who wrote the show’s lyrics, and Aronson, 43, who wrote the music — both collaborated on the book — talked about their inspirations and the different approaches to developing the show’s Korean and English versions. In a separate video call, Criss, 37, and Shen, 24, discussed the challenges of playing robots who look like humans.Here are five things to know.Shen and Criss star alongside two other actors in the musical, which is at the Belasco Theater in Manhattan.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Don’t Say ‘Macbeth’ and Other Strange Rituals of the Theater World

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      Pulling back the curtain on the peculiar customs and enduring superstitions that help define life backstage.You may not have realized it, but there’s little chance you’ve heard anyone whistle inside a theater. In the old days, sailors often worked the ropes backstage, bringing to show business codes like command whistles. So a whistle meant as a compliment, or to get a person’s attention, might have landed a piece of scenery on someone’s head.Theater is full of these customs — many arising, like most rituals, from hazy origins. Still, show people hold on to them. In an industry that hopes to conjure the same wonder every night (with wildly different results), there’s comfort in tradition, especially if it reaches back decades or even centuries. Some, as the 56-year-old Broadway wardrobe supervisor and costume designer Patrick Bevilacqua says, are “rituals of consistency” — the private fist bumps or helpful Listerine sprays during a backstage quick change, which must be “choreographed within an inch of its life” to keep the show running smoothly. Others are spiritual; according to the actress Lea Salonga, 53, “any practice where everyone can see each other as human” is necessarily grounding.Some are individual: The actor Hugh Jackman, 56, last seen as the lead in “The Music Man” on Broadway in 2023, buys scratch-off lottery tickets for each production member every Friday; occasionally, someone wins a few hundred dollars. Some are secretive, like stealing costumes after a show closes, while others are blared through the house, as when stage managers announce on loudspeakers before a performance, “It’s Saturday night on Broadway,” a reminder that the wearying workweek is almost over.The curio cabinet that the actress Patti LuPone keeps at her Connecticut home filled with gifts from her shows over the years, including an “Evita” (1979) doll, an egg made by an “Anything Goes” (1987) crew member on top of a music box and a Mrs. Lovett bobblehead from when she appeared in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (2005).Daniel TernaLength dictates quantity: Longer-running productions are more likely to develop more idiosyncratic traditions. This means that in New York, Broadway is more ritualistic than Off, and musicals outmatch straight plays for the same reason. The 64-year-old actress Amra-Faye Wright, for example, has for about a decade been painting murals each season backstage for “Chicago,” the second-longest-running musical in Broadway history, which opened in 1975 and has been up since its 1996 revival. All agree that London is more laid-back, despite having some quirks, such as everyone in the cast and crew banging on the windows facing the National Theatre’s interior courtyard on opening night; or the Baddeley cake, an intricately decorated and frosted dessert that varies from show to show but has been served with punch at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, every Jan. 6 since 1795. It’s named after Robert Baddeley, an actor who played minor roles there and who in his will bequeathed funds for the annual festivity.As the 43-year-old British director Michael Longhurst says, most are “a mix of the practical and superstitious.” Actors tell one another to break a leg — maybe because “good luck” is gauche; maybe because they’re an understudy wishing a principal would just bow out; maybe because a theater’s “legs” are the thin drapes that frame the stage, which you’d cross if receiving an ovation; or maybe just because they know it’s a phrase they ought to keep alive.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Francis Jue Takes a Victory Lap in ‘Yellow Face’

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      Seventeen years after he first appeared in “Yellow Face,” the veteran actor Francis Jue has returned with a nuanced performance as a blustery patriarch.It’s a well-worn bit of audition advice for actors: Don’t telegraph that you really want the part you are up for — just do your thing. A corollary: The creative freedom you gain when you have relinquished your thirst for a role may spur you to make fearless choices that can seal the deal.Francis Jue has borne out this wisdom over a long and lauded career, which has reached a new height with his bittersweet turn as the blustery patriarch in David Henry Hwang’s hall-of-mirrors comedy “Yellow Face,” now on Broadway. Critics have rained superlatives on his performance: In his review for The New York Times, Jesse Green called it “masterly”; others have hailed it as both “a comic jolt” (Variety) and “heart-busting” (Time Out New York).The ability to wring laughs as well as tears from audiences is a superpower that has made Jue a go-to actor not only for Hwang (with roles in his shows “Soft Power” and “Kung Fu”), but also for “multiple generations of Asian American playwrights,” said Mike Lew, who cast him in his play “Tiger Style!”Lew called Jue “puckish yet rooted, razor-sharp-witted, yet equally gifted with physical comedy.”Remarkably, his victory lap in “Yellow Face” is a return to a role he first performed in the play’s New York premiere at the Public Theater in 2007. Still more remarkably, it is a part he was never seriously considered for — until he showed what he could do with it.Francis Jue, left, and Daniel Dae Kim in the play “Yellow Face” at the Todd Haimes Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More