Staff Pick: Most Memorable of the Decade

Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! (Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

29 December 2019 ∙ Originally published in  Exeunt NYC

(Presented below are my excerpts from a larger staff piece)

Broadway Leading Ladies: A quick shout-out to the unforgettable performances I saw from Broadway’s leading ladies, seasoned and new: Kristen Chenoweth rousing my first-ever theatrical belly laughs as the ultimate diva in On the Twentieth Century (2015); an instantly iconic Cynthia Erivo in The Color Purple (2015), echoing what it must’ve felt like when Barbra Streisand first took the stage; a single spotlight on Glenn Close’s supernaturally expressive face commanding its own (well-deserved) standing ovation in Sunset Boulevard (2017), before even singing the damn number; Bette Midler whippings withered Broadway crowd into a frenzy with her every move in Hello, Dolly! (2017); and Jessie Mueller proving you can give a ‘battered woman’ an entire inner life, filled with agency and desire, as Julie Jordan in Carousel (2018). (Juan A. Ramirez)

Ruthie Ann Miles in Here Lies Love (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Here Lies Love: I can’t remember if this was the first musical I ever saw Off-Broadway, but it certainly shook my perception of theater-going in the way only Downtown shows are able to. This glittery vision of Imelda Marcos’s time as First Lady of the Philippines had audiences dancing in a disco of their own ignorant complicity, shimmying across the dancefloor to David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s thumping beats and cheering along as fascism quietly took hold. Aside from the ingenious concept and fabulous numbers, it introduced us to Ruthie Ann Miles and Conrad Ricamora––two actors whose careers it has been a pleasure to follow. A truly immersive production that doesn’t inspire eye-rolls or require you to remember every plot twist in Macbeth, Here Lies Love is an invaluable addition to the glamorous-First-Lady musical theater canon. (Juan A. Ramirez)