Description
The show is a cabaret revue sharply spoofing show tunes, characters and plots of contemporary and current Broadway musicals. Forbidden Broadway has mocked popular shows like The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Les Misérables, Annie Get Your Gun, Hairspray, The Lion King, The Music Man, Miss Saigon, and Rent, to name a few. It also targets famous Broadway actors, writers, composers, directors, choreographers and producers, including Julie Andrews, Mel Brooks, Carol Channing, Kristin Chenoweth, Michael Crawford, Harvey Fierstein, Bob Fosse, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Goulet, Jerry Herman, Dustin Hoffman, Jennifer Holliday, Elton John, Angela Lansbury, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Patti LuPone, Cameron Mackintosh, Mary Martin, Idina Menzel, Ethel Merman, Liza Minnelli, Rita Moreno, Bebe Neuwirth, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Stephen Sondheim, Barbra Streisand, Julie Taymor and Gwen Verdon.
Forbidden Broadway is a four-person show, with two men and two women. Forbidden Broadway has released eleven albums, as well as one entitled Forbidden Hollywood, a cast album of the show of the same title by Alessandrini. Like Forbidden Broadway, Forbidden Hollywood is made up of parodies, except that it targets movies rather than musicals. The New York and Los Angeles based companies of both "Forbidden" incarnations have served as a workshop for rising talent to hone their skills. Alumni include Jason Alexander, Brad Oscar, singer/impressionist Christine Pedi, Bryan Batt, Michael McGrath, Chloe Webb, Barbara Walsh, Ann Morrison, William Selby and many more.
In 2006, the show and Alessandrini were awarded Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre. The 25th Anniversary production: Forbidden Broadway: Rude Awakening won the 2008 Drama Desk Award for outstanding revue with a cast recording recorded on October 18, 2007 and released on January 22, 2008. It starred Jared Bradshaw, Janet Dickinson, James Donegan and Valerie Fagan. The final incarnation, Forbidden Broadway Goes to Rehab, ended its run at the 47th Street Theatre in New York on March 1, 2009. It starred Christina Bianco, Jared Bradshaw, Gina Kreiezmar, and Michael West, with David Caldwell at the piano. In 2009 a book of "Best of" lyrics and the show's history was published under the title "Forbidden Broadway: Behind The Mylar Curtain."
The show, in its various editions, has received over 9,000 performances and been seen in more than 200 U.S. cities as well as playing in London, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. A 2009 review in Britain's The Independent commented, "Actors have always poked fun at the foibles of commercial theatre. ... Usually, though, they keep their parodies to themselves. It takes a touch of genius to turn them into something saleable, but writer Gerald Alessandrini has that Midas touch." The original artwork advertising the show was designed by caricaturist Ken Fallin, who suggested the actors find the name "Nina" written on their bodies as an homage to Al Hirschfeld, who was known for working his daughter's name into his drawings.
Read more about this topic: Forbidden Broadway
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