In ‘New York, New York,’ Broadway takes a delicious bite out of the Big Apple
New York, New York. Packed with tap-dancing construction workers, the neon lights of Broadway (before they were replaced with digital billboards), and a jazz-era score, the musical hits nearly all the right notes for a magical night at the theater.Directed and choreographed by five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman, New York, New York, accomplishes the near impossible, delivering wide-eyed optimism with an American Dream reality check, all wrapped up in a beautiful package that will appeal to first-time visitors as well as jaded locals who wonder why they put up with the city that never sleeps.Sean Hayes takes on Golden Age Hollywood personality and pianist Oscar Levant in a new play by Doug Wright.It’s summer 1946 — nearly a year after the end of World War II — and America is still reckoning with the more than 418,000 lives lost.
Among them is Jimmy Doyle (Colton Ryan), a hot-tempered musician who gets fired or walks out on nearly every gig he books. Jimmy meets aspiring singer Francine Evans (Anna Uzele) while playing piano for auditions at a downtown polka club.With Jimmy’s pursuit, the pair becomes an item and eventually marry.
They face an uphill battle, though, both artistically as each tries to break into an unrelenting industry and culturally as a biracial couple navigating a discriminatory world.But it’s New York, after all, and everyone has a story.
Book writers David Thompson and Sharon Washington weave together three additional narratives, including first-generation Cuban American Mateo Diaz (Angel Sigala), a queer-coded passionate percussionist struggling to find his creative outlet and escape his abusive home; Abramek Dodje Klonowska Manikowski — Americanized to Alex Mann (Oliver Prose) — a soft-spoken.
