On the Town

October 1st, 2005
Reprise! Broadway's Best
UCLA's Freud Theatre
Musical

Hard call, but this may be the best thing we've seen at Reprise. As usual, solid voices, but what truly made the difference was that the actors were larger than life characters. Yeah, it's the same musical made into a movie with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garret and Ann Miller. It's just a fun story.

I'm not always a fan of Comden/Green (B & I were two of very few who didn't care for "Wonderful Town" on Bway), but this production was just so much fun, so well done. "On the Town" has better music (than Wonderful Town), cavorting handsome sailors, great singing, really funny women and character actor roles, and really appealing music, especially the duets and group numbers.

A cast of Stand-Outs: David Elder as Gabey (Gene Kelly role)... what a beautiful voice. We saw him sing The Look-Out role on Broadway in Titanic (No Moon....). He was ideal. And not hard on the eyes either. David Brouwer as Ozzie was freakin' hilarious, esp. when he was paired with Tami Tappan Damiano (Claire). I honestly can't imagine the song "Carried Away" ever having been done better (I'm very careful when I say things like that). Dynamic actor too. And Bets Malone as Hildy was full of charm and chutzpah, with a strong belt. And I can't leave out Broadway's Kate Levering as Ivy, who was charming and sweet.