Seth Shelden Archives - TheaterScene.net

Seth Shelden

I’ll Say She Is

June 21, 2016

Only a 30 page treatment and five songs remained from the original show by the Johnstone brothers, writer Will B. and composer Tom. Diamond has written new lyrics for music by Tom Johnston and his brother Alexander as well as using songs from other shows written by Tom and Will. He has rearranged the plot, left out some sequences, and reduced the number of characters. The show at the Connelly Theater is not so much a revival as a homage to Marx Brothers musicals. [more]

The Butter and Egg Man

May 22, 2015

George S. Kaufman’s only solo effort, the 1925 satire, "The Butter and Egg Man" is a colorfully exaggerated snapshot of the nitty-gritty, seat-of-your-pants theater of a prolific decade when two men could do it all: casting, hiring designers, booking theaters and, of course, raising the dough. How things have changed! It’s the money, and the chicanery involved in raising it, that animates the plot of The Butter and Egg Man. The title, in fact, refers to the rich dilettante who can be duped into investing in a clunker, here played by a wide-eyed Ben Schnickel who makes Peter Jones a sweet guy from the sticks who finally finds a backbone and love. [more]