Serious Theater Hits Broadway—At a Price

Hot off the success of its Los Angeles run, “Curtains” blows into town to give “Drowsy Chaperone” (also from L.A.) a run for its money. It’s a murder-mystery musical set in 1950’s Boston at (wait for it) the tryout of a new musical. Musicals don’t have to make sense; their job is simply to serve the lyrics and the music. Rumor has it, David Hyde Pierce strides far from his past as Niles in “Frasier” as the singing and dancing Lieutenant Frank Cioffi. If you like your musicals old-fashioned and in no way based on film, this is the season’s choice for you.

The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Booth Theatre, opens March 29)

Vanessa Redgrave, the subject of so much Oscar buzz for her performance in the film “Venus,” is coming to Broadway in what may be this season’s most highly anticipated show. Based on Joan Didion’s award-winning memoir of the same name, “The Year of Magical Thinking” is a one-woman show that tells the story of the sudden death of Didion’s husband and the very serious illness of her daughter. The book was praised for its honesty and humor and indeed, Didion turned her grief into a literary tour de force that at once explicates and forgives the overwhelming eccentricity of sadness. If this seems like an unlikely choice for the theater, consider Redgrave. It will be a pleasure to see one of our finest actors bring this to life.

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