Musical Review— Michael John LaChiusa’s “The Wild Party” at Encores

The Wild Party

Music and Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa  

Book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe; based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March  

Directed by Lili-Anne Brown; choreographed by Katie Spelman  

Performances March 18–29, 2026

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

The cast of The Wild Party (photo: Joan Marcus)

Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 poem The Wild Party is a strange choice as the basis for a musical—but two shows based on March’s poem both premiered within months of each other in the 1999–2000 season: Andrew Lippa’s off-Broadway version and Michael John LaChiusa’s Broadway version. City Center’s Encores—which has been bringing back obscure and neglected musicals for 30 years—tackled Lippa’s version in 2015 with a game but miscast Sutton Foster as the heroine Queenie and Broadway stalwart Stephen Pasquale (most recently onstage in Encores’ High Spirits last month) as her lover Burrs. This time, Encores does LaChiusa’s adaptation: perfectly cast and energetically staged by director Lili-Anne Brown and choreographer Katie Spelman, its two hours are a frantically entertaining journey into hell.

The Wild Party centers on the volatile relationship between vaudeville dancer Queenie and her lover Burrs, a clown who performs in blackface. Always at each other’s throats, literally and figuratively, they decide to host a party in their Manhattan apartment one evening. Among the array of friends, acquaintances, hangers-on and other theater people, Queenie has invited Kate, her best friend who is a famous name now and with whom she has always had an explosive relationship. Kate has brought her latest beau, the strapping Black, which sets up a night filled with jealousy, recriminations, sex, drugs, music and—fatally—more. 

The book by composer and lyricist LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe (who directed the original Broadway production) presents this evening of debauchery as a series of blackout sketches for Queenie, Burrs and their guests, who all get showstopping spotlights in the midst of arguing, drinking, drugging or pairing off for trysts. These increasingly dark scenes are certainly arresting, but there’s little dramatic arc to the whole thing—instead, it’s a parade of desperate characters acting desperately, and a little of The Wild Party goes a long way. 

Despite that, the acting, staging and music making at City Center are peerless. Mary Mitchell Campbell conducts the superb Encores Orchestra, which gives LaChiusa’s alternately jazzy and dissonant score a full, sumptuous sound. Director Brown and choreographer Spelman make great use of their terrifically agile cast, which includes a legend in Tonya Pinkins—the original Kate on Broadway—who, as fading star Dolores, kills it in her two solo turns, “Moving Uptown” and “When It Ends.”

Then there’s the sublime trio at the heart of the show. Jordan Danica is a quietly insinuating Burrs, Adrienne Warren is a powerhouse Kate, and Jasmine Amy Rogers is a spectacular Queenie, singing, dancing and acting up a storm. If this staging transfers to Broadway, at a minimum Danica, Warren and Rogers should go with it.

Musical Review—“High Spirits” at Encores with Katrina Lenk and Philippa Soo

High Spirits

Music, Lyrics, and Book by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray 

Directed by Jessica Stone; choreography by Ellenore Scott

Performances February 4-15, 2026

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

Katrina Lenk and Philippa Soo in High Spirits (photo: Joan Marcus)

High Spirits is the kind of musical that Encores was made for, since it premiered on Broadway in 1964 but has rarely been seen since. A tuneful adaptation of Noel Coward’s classic ghost comedy Blithe Spirit, High Spirits is a buoyant if conventional show that’s probably too old-fashioned to succeed in today’s musical climate. But for a couple of weeks at City Center with a terrifically agile cast, it fills the bill.

Novelist Charles Condomine lives with his second wife Ruth in his well-appointed Hampstead Heath home, where the memory of Charles’ first wife, the free-spirited Elvira, is palpable. One evening, Charles plans a séance to get ideas for a new story, but it works too well in the hands of the eccentric medium Madame Arcadi—Elvira’s spirit materializes, although only Charles can see her. Soon, Elvira tries her damnedest to ruin Charles’ current marriage or even his life—but after Elvira tampers with Charles’ car, it’s Ruth who takes it for a drive, and soon Madame Arcadi has returned to Hampstead to help Charles with a much bigger problem: the ghosts of both dead wives.

If you know Coward’s play, you know how it turns out, but there’s fun in the musical’s comic twists and turns: Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray expanded the role of Madame Arcadi, giving the redoubtable Andrea Martin opportunities to go overboard at Encores. Still, the witty banter of the original—mostly intact in the musical—doesn’t really need any added songs. If Martin and Gray provide entertaining, sometimes tasty interludes, only “Home Sweet Heaven”—in which Elvira enumerates all the fun she’s having in the afterlife, hanging out with everyone from Bernini and Proust to St. Theresa and Joan of Arc—has satiric bite. 

Jessica Stone’s Encores staging—which continues the half-staged, half-concert format that the series perfected decades ago—centers on the orchestra, conducted by Mary-Mitchell Campbell, which sounds glorious throughout. The starry cast includes the aforementioned Martin and Rachel Dratch (the Condomines’ maid Edith); though both are consummate physical comedians, their shtick becomes distracting—but at least Martin has a showstopping second act song, “Something Is Coming to Tea.” Campbell Scott is the suave narrator, named Noël Coward, while Stephen Pasquale makes an amusingly exasperated Charles. 

Finally, there are two of our top musical performers taking flight as Charles’ wives. Philippa Soo is a delightful Ruth, singing beautifully and showing impressive comic chops along with a happy gift for physical comedy that smartly stops short of mugging. And Katrina Lenk, a force of nature as the cheeky Elvira, is obviously having a great time—her effortlessly powerful voice and impeccable timing are the primary reason why High Spirits still resonated at Encores.

Musical Review—“Once Upon a Mattress” at Encores With Sutton Foster

Once Upon a Mattress

Music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer

Book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer

Directed by Lear deBessonet; choreography by Lorin Latarro

Performances January 24-February 4, 2024

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

Sutton Foster and cast in Once Upon a Mattress (photo: Joan Marcus)

Occasionally role and performer combine for a happy marriage. The musical Once Upon a Mattress, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, is one example. When the show opened on Broadway in 1959, Carol Burnett played Princess Winnifred, the last hope for a kingdom desperately needing a new bride for Prince Dauntless because all other marriages will be able to take place. By all accounts, Burnett’s unique and physical style was perfect for this slightly silly crowd-pleaser whose tuneful songs by Mary Rodgers covered up for the uneven lyrics and book.

Fast-forward 65 years to Sutton Foster headlining a two-week Encores run at City Center. Since it’s been adapted and updated by Amy Sherman-Palladino (with whom Foster worked on the TV series Bunheads) so there are a few topical references and fewer goofy characters running around. But it all hinges on Foster, and she proves herself as physically adept—in different but equally agile ways—as Burnett. 

Of course, Foster’s vocal pipes and comedic facility have never been questioned, and she acquits herself magnificently in her big musical numbers, “The Swamps of Home” and “Happily Ever After,” and she can rat-a-tat the rush of quips and one liners as well as anyone. But it’s her physical prowess throughout that’s simply astonishing. 

From the moment she crawls over the castle wall to make her initial entrance through her bounding around the stage during “Shy” and the first-act closer “Song of Love” to, even more impressively at the end, displaying incredibly precise movements while trying futilely to fall asleep, showing herself as a gymnast nearly on par with Simon Biles, Foster's performance is extraordinary. That she does occasional Carol Burnett-like mannerisms is a bit excessive, but who cares? (Skylar Fox is credited with “Physical Comedy & Effects,” so he may deserve plaudits as well.)

Director Lear deBessonet and choreographer Lorin Latarro shrewdly don’t foreground Foster; for all her talent and stamina, the Broadway superstar fits easily into the harmonious musical-comedy ensemble that includes such premium hams as Harriet Harris, Michael Urie, David Patrick Kelly and Cheyenne Jackson. Meanwhile, Nikki Renée Daniels sounds as ravishing as she looks, while J. Harrison Ghee—the breakthrough star of last season’s Some Like It Hot—consolidates his singing, dancing and comic talents in the expanded role of the Jester.

Yet, even as the Encores Orchestra sounds sumptuous under Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s musical direction and David Zinn’s amusing sets and Andrea Hood’s colorful costumes make it a visual treasure, this is Sutton Foster’s show all the way. Which brings up the question: will this Mattress transfer to Broadway after Foster is finished with Sweeney Todd?

Musical Review—Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!” at Encores With Raúl Esparza

Oliver!

Music, book and lyrics by Lionel Bart

Directed by Lear deBessonet; choreography by Lorin Latarro

Performances May 3-14, 2023

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

Benjamin Pajak and Raúl Esparza in Oliver! at Encores
(photo: Joan Marcus)

Lionel Bart’s Oliver!—a 1960 musical adaptation of the Dickens classic Oliver Twist, which went to Broadway three years later—probably seemed old-fashioned at its premiere. That the faithful film version, directed by Carol Reed, won the Oscar for best picture of 1968 (beating out even less worthy contenders as Funny Girl and Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, while groundbreaking classics 2001 and The Battle of Algiers were snubbed) has only cemented its rep as the conventional Hollywood musical’s last gasp.

Oliver! has rarely been seen in New York since—although it’s had several successful London revivals—possibly because it’s very “English” and it needs several talented young performers to play the orphans in master thief Fagin’s employ, especially the Artful Dodger and Oliver himself, who must be a good actor, singer and dancer. I saw the show at the Stratford Festival in 2006, with Colm Feore a deliciously dastardly Fagin, but a flop 1984 Broadway revival with Ron Moody (who played Fagin in the movie) and Patti Lupone that played for a month has killed it in New York…until now.

Lear deBessonet’s staging for Encores—which brings back older musicals for short runs, often allowing stars to essay roles they might not otherwise get to play—is savvily paced, with athletic choreography by Lorin Latarro. A musical about child labor and abuse that also sheds much of the novel’s expansive plotting and voluminous characters will always be problematic, but deBessonet balances keeping Bart’s bouncy songs front and center while hinting at the story’s darker aspects—literally, thanks to Justin Townsend’s moody lighting on David Rockwell’s clever two-tiered set. 

Bart’s charming music-hall score is impossibly catchy, with numbers like “Consider Yourself,” “Oom Pah Pah” and “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” becoming singalongs for cast and audience. Then there’s the torch song “As Long as He Needs Me,” passionately sung by Nancy, a Fagin associate and kept woman of evil villain Bill Sikes, after Bill beats her up. This uneasy mix of love song and female defiance leaves a strange taste in the mouth but, as sung by Lilli Cooper, whose Nancy is a fiery onstage presence, its hair-raising bravado brings down the house. 

Equally  is “Reviewing the Situation,” which finds Fagin ruminating on his life choices. Fagin is a juicy role for any actor and the song is a magnificent way to give the character a little more nuance; Raúl Esparza dazzlingly sinks his teeth into the song and the part, bounding about the stage and interacting with the terrific cast of young boys led by Benjamin Palak, an irresistible Oliver. The mesmerizing Esparza gives the song an emotionally direct power, turning it into a Sondheim-like mini-drama.

The usual Encores luxury casting provides roles for veteran Broadway hams Brad Oscar and Mary Testa, who further enliven the proceedings as Oliver’s antagonists Mr. Bumble and Widow Corney in the delightful duet, “I Shall Scream.” This Oliver! does nicely as a reminder that “old-fashioned” is sometimes a virtue.

Musical Review—“The Life” at Encores

The Life

Music by Cy Coleman; lyrics by Ira Gasman

Book by David Newman, Ira Gasman and Cy Coleman

Adapted and directed by Billy Porter; choreography by AC Ciulla

Performances March 16-20, 2022

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

The cast of The Life (photo: Joan Marcus)

When it got to Broadway in 1997 after years of workshops and an off-Broadway production, the musical The Life—set in the sordid Times Square of the late ’70s—was seen as a clunky stew of cutesiness and moralizing, sleaze and sympathy, with songs not up to composer Cy Coleman’s best.

So Billy Porter’s decision to revamp The Life for Encores and for our current climate is not surprising. The biggest change is that Queen, the Times Square prostitute caught between her drug-addicted lover, Fleetwood, and the imposing pimp, Memphis, who runs the area, is now a trans woman. This adds another layer of subjugation to a character who’s an outsider desperately looking for a fresh start.

Porter has also split Jojo, the would-be pimp who plays both sides between Fleetwood and Memphis, into two roles, with the new half the older, wiser narrator who recounts the unfolding events from the perspective of four decades and comments on what happened and why, not only among these people but also in the wider culture. 

That means, for example, that we see the infamous Daily News headline from 1975, “Ford to New York: Drop Dead,” early in the show. But it’s at the beginning of act two, when both Jojos—and the ensemble—don Reagan and Trump masks and sing about the similarities between these two presidents, 40 years apart, who did nothing about a plague that would kill many Americans, where Porter channels his righteous rage.

Although it comes across as heavyhanded, almost glib in its elated anger, and threatens to derail the entire show, it doesn’t, mainly because of the uniformly excellent cast Porter has assembled. Alexandra Grey (Queen) and Ken Robinson (Fleetwood) play off each other wonderfully, while Erika Olson has a dynamic presence as Mary, a newbie from Minnesota who becomes Fleetwood’s new meal ticket. Mykal Kilgore (young) and Deston Owens (old), capture well the two sides of Jojo. 

Best of all are Antawyn Hopper as the menacing Memphis and Ledisi as the hooker with the heart of gold, Sonja, whose powerhouse voices soar above everyone, especially in their spotlight numbers, Memphis’ “My Way or the Highway” and Sonja’s “The Oldest Profession.”

The Encores Orchestra performed superbly under conductor James Sampliner, whose arrangements tended toward more soulful and disco-ish than the originals, which was definitely permissible in this context.   

Musical Review—“The Tap Dance Kid” at Encores

The Tap Dance Kid

Music by Henry Krieger; lyrics by Robert Lorick

Book by Charles Blackwell; adaptation by Lydia Diamond

Directed by Kenny Leon; choreography by Jared Grimes

February 2-6, 2022

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

Alexander Bello and Trevor Jackson in The Tap Dance Kid
(photo: Joan Marcus)

As Encores’ first show since February 2020, The Tap Dance Kid felt like a balm, a true crowd-pleaser that, whatever its faults, made everyone happy, both onstage and in the audience.

In fact, the cast’s big smiles at the curtain calls let the audience know that the show meant a lot to them as well. Although the 1983 Tony-nominated musical has  problems—starting with a scattershot book that, while ostensibly about 10-year-old Willie, who dreams of following in the tap shoes of his grandfather, Daddy Bates, and his uncle, Dipsey (his mother Ginnie’s younger brother), keeps moving back and forth among the rest of the family’s travails, to diminishing dramatic returns—whenever the dancing, the reason for the show’s existence, takes center stage, all is forgiven.

Happily, The Tap Dance Kid is crammed with several exhilarating dancing sequences, which director Kenny Leon and choreographer Jared Grimes—with an assist from playwright Lydia Diamond, who has streamlined the story to make it slightly less choppy—ensure stop the show, time and again. Throughout, a dazzling chorus line functions as an ensemble being rehearsed by Dipsey for a show to be put on in Buffalo with an eye toward Broadway as well as Manhattan residents in Willie’s way on the streets and the bus. There’s also Daddy Bates, who reappears as a spirited spirit, dancing miraculously in the person of Dewitt Fleming Jr., particularly in his showcase number, “Tap Tap.”   

But the show hinges on the actors playing young Willie and Uncle Dipsey, and Alexander Bello and Trevor Jackson are simply spectacular, together and apart, as the boy whose precocious talent is ignored by his strict father William but is encouraged by his mom and uncle eventually gets the break he’s been hoping for. Bello is remarkably self-assured, even while dancing alone in “Dancing Is Everything,” and Jackson is so effortless and athletic in his numbers like the first act finale, “Man in the Moon,” and the second act’s “My Luck is Changing” that it’s surprising he actually does break into a sweat after certain strenuous and complex moves.

The show falters most when it centers on the family, soap opera style, as William’s singleminded way of providing for his family precludes love, tenderness and any flexibility. But the actors are so good in their spotlight numbers that they sweep aside any criticism of the family storylines: Shahadi Wright Joseph’s Emma, the older teen sister who wants to be a lawyer, powerfully voices her solo turn, “Four Strikes Against Me”; Adrienne Walker, as Ginnie, is dynamic in her lament, “I Remember How It Was”; and Joshua Henry, as tightly-wound father William, finally breaks out in the brilliant showstopping finale, aptly titled “William’s Song,” in which all the pent-up emotion comes flowing out in ovation-worthy fashion.

Joseph Joubert and the Encores Orchestra make the most of composer Henry Krieger’s rather derivative tunes, comprising mainly by-the-numbers power ballads and belters that are elevated by the musicians and singers. But it’s all that dancing that Encores audiences will rightly remember of The Tap Dance Kid.