Looking back and looking forward

For the past few years, I've seen more than 100 performances, concerts, galas, readings, or theatrical events each year. I keep lists of everything I see, but I wanted a place where I could keep a better catalogue of my reactions to what I saw when I saw it, have a space to work out my thoughts about different shows, and who knows--maybe find one or two people who want to read what one dedicated theater nerd has to say about the too, too many shows he pays to see.

It's now January 2, and I've seen two shows already. I'll break my perfect streak tomorrow which should give me some time to catch up on the first two. In the meantime, I'll get this started with a cursory look about at 2010.

Overall, I thought it was an amazing year for plays, and an...okay one for musicals.

Favorite moments:
--The diner scene between Louis and Belize in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches was my favorite few minutes in a theater last year. Except for...
--A few hundred broadway performers singing "Sunday" at Sondheim's 80th birthday celebration at Lincoln Center.
--The extraordinarily strange/delightful experience of seeing Patti LuPone play a teenager in Annie Get Your Gun at the Ravinia Festival outside of Chicago.
--Bernadette Peters sending in the clowns in a Little Night Music.
--Colman Domingo celebrating John Cullum's 50th anniversary on Broadway during a curtail call at The Scottsboro Boys.
--Arachne's "Deeply Furious" in Spider-Man (for most deliciously awful-we all need some unintentional humor now and again).
--Molina and Redmayne painting a canvas in Red.
--Laura Benanti's "Model Behavior" in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. SI liked this show a lot more than most, but even people who hated it have to admit that number was inspired.

Favorite performances:
Lily Rabe in The Merchant of Venice
Nina Arianda in Venus in Fur
Zachary Quinto in Angels in America
Deidre O'Connell in In the Wake
Michael Chernus in The Aliens, In the Wake, and SPF's reading of Man Boobs
Andrew Garman in A Bright New Boise
Bobby Steigert in Yank!
Raul Esparza, Donna Murphy, and Sutton Foster in Anyone Can Whistle
Joshua Henry, Colman Domingo, Forest McClendon, and the ensemble of The Scottsboro Boys
Eddie Redmayne in Red
Douglas Hodge in La Cage aux Folles
Brian Bedford and Santino Fontana in The Importance of Being Earnest


Favorite plays:
The Aliens
Fences
Venus in Fur
Bachelorette
A Bright New Boise
The Merchant of Venice
Red
Angels in America
The Little Foxes
One new play and one revival that opinion was mixed on but I adored: In the Wake and The Glass Menagerie
Less a play than an experience: PS 122's Hotel Savoy


Favorite musicals:
La Cage
The Scottsboro Boys
Brief Encounter (however you may wish to categorize it)

And not to dwell, but a quick recap of the worst of the year:
The New York Musical Festival--I saw four shows, each worst than the last.
Spider-Man. Why pile on? Because it's actually as bad as everyone says.
A Free Man of Color, or What Was John Guare Smoking?
Million Dollar Quartet. Period.

There's no reason anyone would be reading this yet since no one knows about it, but should anyone stumble across it and be curious, the shows I've seen and will be commenting on in the next day or two are Blood from a Stone at The New Group and one of the final performances of La Bete on Broadway. Suffice to say, the year is off to a strong and encouraging start.