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Kelli Barrett

Beaches

May 13, 2026

Much of the snappy dialogue in Dart and the late Thom Thomas’ script comes from the previous sources but somehow fails to land as intended. Possibly under the co-direction of Lonny Price and Matt Cowart, the delivery isn’t as fast. Dart’s lyrics are both prosaic and generic telling us what we already know. They do not seem to have inspired the legendary composer Mike Stoller (of Leiber & Stoller fame) as his songs either sound very similar or as if you have heard them before. Strangely, where the best songs should go to singer Cee Cee Bloom in her diegetic cabaret acts, Bertie has the best two with “The Brand New Me” and “My Best” (i.e. friend.) As you might have expected, “Wind Beneath My Wings,” the sensational Grammy Award winning number from the movie is sung by Cee Cee at the end of the show, but only shows how lacking the new songs are. [more]

Doctor Zhivago

April 27, 2015

Where is John Doyle when we really need him to whip new life into a musical? [Answer: he’s directing another Broadway musical, "The Visit."] There’s a moving chamber musical hidden amidst all the incessantly dashing chorus kids, shifting scenery, smoke effects, loud explosions and eerily surreal video projections that are the raison d’être of this production from the Nobel Prize winning novel by Boris Pasternak. This more-is-more approach to the new musical "Doctor Zhivago"—written by Michael Weller (libretto), Michael Korie & Amy Powers (lyrics) and Lucy Simon (music), choreographed by Kelly Devine and directed by Des McAnuff—dulls any emotional impact the story and the characters might have evoked. [more]