Burt Bacharach

Going Bacharach: The Songs of an Icon

January 17, 2026

Legendary composer Burt Bacharach died in 2023 and it has taken until now for there to be a fitting stage tribute to his 1,000 song output (mainly written with lyricist Hal David) which includes six Grammy Awards and three Academy Awards. Entitled Going Bacharach: The Songs of an Icon, the musical revue has been conceived by producer Jack Lewin along with Will Friedwald (who has been called “the poet laureate of vintage pop music,”) musical supervisor Tedd Firth and musical director Adrian Galante, who is also responsible for the arrangements and orchestrations as well as playing piano and clarinet in the show. While Bacharach was best known for his mellow sound as sung by Dionne Warwick who recorded most of the songs in the show, the volume of this Going Bacharach is very loud, though this may be the fault of sound designer Matt Berman. Those of us who grew up with these songs won’t recognize the arrangements while younger people may be pleased to experience them for the first time. [more]

The Look of Love (Mark Morris Dance Group)

March 27, 2024

"The Look of Love" was filled with Morris’ least complex choreography, relying on repetition, walking, running and soft leg extensions along with simple arm gestures. Considering the sophistication and elegance of Iverson’s arrangements for the MMDG Music Ensemble, Morris, whose musicianship is his best feature, clearly decided to go for the obvious and easily digestible. Nothing wrong with this approach, but it made "The Look of Love" appear less substantial than it really was. [more]

New York Animals

December 8, 2015

The new musical is similar to Sater’s "Spring Awakening" in that it takes a group of people in a specific historic time and place (here New York, circa 1995) and adds music between the scenes which is in a different style from the play. It also resembles Bacharach’s "Promises Promises" in depicting a series of New York types at work and play. While the Bacharach/Sater score is sumptuously sung by an on-stage band of five led by impressive lead vocalist Jo Lampert, Sater’s book in which we meet various Manhattan denizens whose lives intersect in the course of one day feels dated in that we have met these people before and the problems of the characters seem trivial compared to the problems of today. [more]

The Look of Love

September 20, 2003

When polished and classy performers such as Broadway veteran Liz Callaway ("Merrily We Roll Along," "Baby," "Miss Saigon") and Capathia Jenkins ("Civil War"), as a Dionne Warwick substitute, attempt to provide some inner life to relatively uncomplicated songs, the effect is still-born. When the gentle and folksy "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" is sung in Spanish by Kevin Ceballo and danced in orgiastic spasms by Shannon Lewis, you'll see how desperate staging can get. [more]