Tootsie
Opening Night: April 23, 2019
Closing: January 5, 2020
Theater: Marquis Theatre
Dorothy Michaels is the biggest sensation to hit Broadway in years. She’s talented, outspoken, and an inspiration to everyone around her. In fact, she’s too good to be true. Because squeezed into Dorothy’s sensible pumps is actually Michael Dorsey, an out-of-work actor willing to do anything for a job — even if it means playing way against type. Now, as audiences fall for Dorothy and Michael starts to fall for the woman of his dreams, he’s learning that the hardest part of show business isn’t getting to the top… it’s keeping up the act. Starring Tony® nominee Santino Fontana, TOOTSIE features a score by Tony winner David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), a book by Robert Horn, choreography by Tony nominee Denis Jones, and direction by eight-time Tony nominee and Olivier Award winner Scott Ellis.
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April 23, 2019
Comedy rarely flows as smoothly as it does here. The secret is more than the book; it’s the songs. Mr. Yazbek is one of the few composer-lyricists working today who can set jokes to music and make them pay. The most obvious instance in “Tootsie” is “What’s Gonna Happen,” a showstopping patter number for Michael’s ex-girlfriend, the neurotic Sandy (Sarah Stiles). In a tumble of words reminiscent of “Model Behavior” from Mr. Yazbek’s underrated score for “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” she goes well past that verge.
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April 23, 2019
This is the rare musical in which the book outshines the score. At their best, David Yazbek’s songs are densely wordy and nervy; elsewhere, they are merely agreeable, and sometimes a skosh underbaked. But Tootsie is packed with great zingers and character jokes, and director Scott Ellis’s bright, snappy production has assembled a murderer’s row of actors to put them over.
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April 23, 2019
You’ll have just enough time during the false-start opening moments of director Scott Ellis’ wonderful new Tootsie to ponder such things, and then the musical and its star Santino Fontana grab hold and don’t let go. It’s not without a few runs in its stockings, but this Tootsie is a delight, a not-quite-blind date that plays out so much better than you could have imagined. With music and lyrics by Tony-winner David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit) and a laugh-out-loud book by Robert Horn (creator of Designing Women, writer for, among others, Bette Midler and Dame Edna), Tootsie hauls itself into 2019 leaving behind what needs leaving and, with a whopping exception or two, adding what needs adding.
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April 23, 2019
That applies no less to Santino Fontana’s extraordinary dual-role performance in this madly entertaining stage musical adaptation. His Dorothy fights for truth in her performance with the same refusal to compromise as Michael, yet she’s smarter about getting what she wants, so smart that we even buy it when she becomes an unlikely feminist trailblazer. She exists as a credible, empowered creature in her own right, and by extension, so does this clever, crowd-pleasing show.
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April 23, 2019
Robert Horn (book) and Tony-winner David Yazbek (score) have a high old time poking fun at theatrical rituals — the mortifying auditions, the grueling rehearsals, the agonizing openings, the backstage heartbreak — in this affectionate sendup of a Broadway musical (replacing the movie’s soap opera setting) and its uniquely unlikely star. Director Scott Ellis leaves nothing and no one unscathed in staging this satire of a Broadway-bound musical called “Juliet’s Nurse.” From the gaudy Renaissance costumes (by William Ivey Long) to the over-the-top choreography (from Denis Jones), the creatives nail it.
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