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Idina Menzel plays a type-A city mom escaping from recent emotional trauma in Redwood, her first Broadway outing since 2015. Directed by Tina Landau, who wrote the book and co-conceived the story with Menzel, every aspect of this production emphasizes momentousness to a fault, treating every beat as an exclamation point where a gentler phrasing might have been more impactful.
As it opens, we swiftly learn that Jesse (Menzel), a New York gallerist, has left her photographer wife, Mel (De’Adre Aziza), behind in an impromptu cross-country road trip. Ominous glimpses of their son, Spencer (Zachary Noah Piser), point to some form of tragedy surrounding him being the issue weighing on her. Once she lands in a California forest, she meets and immediately inserts herself into the business of Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon) and the hippyish Finn (Michael Park), two naturists studying the local redwood trees. Jesse feels communing with nature might grant her some peace and, despite Becca’s protests, begins to climb with them, eventually setting up camp in one’s platform.
The story has its obvious parallels to Wild, Cheryl Strayed’s memoir about self-discovery along the Pacific Coast Trail, but its closest aesthetic relative, thanks to its wall-to-wall score, is the forced earnestness of Christian rock. The composer Kate Diaz has crafted a score which is tuneful but, at least under Tom Kitt’s music supervision, bursts with an endless barrage of jungle drums, handclaps and inspirational strings that ring hopelessly hollow after the third or so song. The lyrics, by Diaz and Landau with contributions from Menzel, are thus appropriately platitudinal; one number is built around the line “Big Tree / Religion saved me.”
Jason Ardizzone-West’s set features a central turntable that reveals a giant tree, surrounded by massive screens often displaying birds-eye views similar to Disney’s Soarin’ attractions. (Hana S. Kim handled video design, Scott Zielinski the lighting, and Jonathan Deans the sound.) The production succeeds in immersing us in the forest, but the hyper-realism created by the screens nixes a sense of humanity, leaping directly into extremes alongside the score.
Jesse’s family life is revealed piecemeal, though never satisfactorily fleshed out, and we learn equally null details about her new companions. Her focus – and, as soon as that tree is revealed, ours – is on climbing, and her sudden intense attachment to the tree is clumsily sentimental. When she finally does (Melecio Estrella, from the aerial dance company Bandaloop choreographed the “vertical movement”), her joyous bounces away from the tree have the giddiness of long-awaited liberation, but look awkwardly amateurish. This would be fine were this her first of many climbs, but the story and incessantly bombastic score mean for this to play as a climactic triumph, so while the upward-hoisting trio’s bicep and core strength are commendable, they simply don’t live up to the Pink-level acrobatics it promises.
While the musical never drags, very little of it lands. Part of this is due to the half-baked book, but also to Landau’s haphazard direction, which has her cast barreling through dialogue on their way to the next thunderous anthem. Certain beats, like Jesse video-calling Mel from a laptop positioned slightly diagonal to her, but speaking out to the audience, just feel lazy.
Menzel is a fierce actor with an often equally fiery voice, and she shines in the production’s too-few book scenes, as well as a mournful number, late in the show, that delivers rather than telegraphs genuine emotion. But years of stratospheric success belting Wicked battle cries and Frozen pyrotechnics seem to have boxed her into a vocal lane that is hardly sustainable, even throughout one performance. Song after song here demands a to-the-rafters explosiveness that becomes as harrowing to watch be attempted as it must be to deliver.
The talented supporting cast is massively short-shrifted. With impressive vocals and a fierce commitment to her part, Wilcoxon all but walks away with the show, but her character is saddled with being that most unfortunate of recent tropes: the no-nonsense Black woman who exists only to berate other characters about their incompetence, or shoe-horn arguments about race and gender. While others’ quirks are driven by personality, hers are annoyingly relegated to identity. It isn’t until we learn about her relationship to nature in the final 30 minutes that the show allows her to display any semblance of independent joy. (The piece has an overall eye-rolly relationship to race, making passes at hipness with references to Lil Wayne and saddling Piser with a truly dispiriting rap number.)
Redwood doesn’t feel like a disaster, nor did it have to be. There’s enough genuine passion in Menzel’s commitment, to the role and the overall project, to power a solid show. But none of its ideas or characters are given space to coalesce into anything meaningful, with blandly inspirational songs crowding out an ecosystem that would better thrive on more organic soil.
Redwood is in performance at the Nederlander Theatre on West 41st Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.
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We are truly counting down the days until Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years finally makes its way to Broadway, and thankfully we don’t have too much longer to go. Today, producers Seaview, ATG Productions, and The Season have released the original music video for “Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You” from The Last Five Years starring Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren.
The musical begins performances on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at the Hudson Theatre, before an official opening night on Sunday, April 6, 2025.
Directed by Tony Award nominee Whitney White, the musical will feature choreography by Tony Award nominees Jeff Kuperman & Rick Kuperman, scenic design by Tony Award winner David Zinn costume design by Tony Award winner Dede Ayite, lighting design by Stacey Derosier, sound design by Tony Award winner Cody Spencer, wig & hair design by Academy Award winner Mia Neal, music direction by Tom Murray, casting by Taylor Williams and production stage management by Cody Renard Richard. Baseline Theatrical’s Andy Jones and James Hickey serve as General Managers.
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Director (and Theatrely31 alum) Jack Serio has found his company for Ken Urban’s Danger and Opportunity. The new play is set to premiere at the East Village Basement beginning March 27 and run through April 17, 2025. An official opening night is set for Thursday, April 3.
The new play will star Drama Desk and Lortel award-winner Juan Castano, Julia Chan, and Ryan Spahn.
In Danger and Opportunity, Christian and Edwin are a married gay couple in a rut when Margaret – Christian’s ex-girlfriend from Catholic high school – gets in touch after twenty years. At Edwin’s urging, Christian invites her over for drinks. The trio embarks on an unexpected journey together, testing the limits of what defines a contemporary relationship.
“Danger and Opportunity is my attempt to make sense of the push and pull between change as possible and impossible at a deeply personal level,” says playwright Ken Urban. “While many of my plays are inspired by research or interviews, this one speaks intimately to my experiences as a queer man navigating desire and love in a relationship. Given the script’s intimacy, when Jack and the producing team suggested doing the play in an actual living room so we could really bring the audience into the lives of these three characters, how could I say no?”
The creative team for Danger and Opportunity includes Frank J. Oliva (scenic design), Avery Reed (costume design), Obie-winner Stacey Derosier (lighting design), and Zach Brecheen (production stage manager). Casting by Caparelliotis Casting - David Caparelliotis & Joe Gery. Danger and Opportunity is produced by Jacob Stuckelman, Andrew Patino, Matt Krauss, and Kyle Rogers.