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Teddy Bergman

Urinetown (NY City Center Encores!)

February 8, 2025

“What an awful name for a musical,” spouts Little Sally (a brilliantly talented Pearl Scarlett Gold) as one of the narrators of the New York City Center Encores’ witty production of the 2001 surprise hit "Urinetown."  Yes, it is, but it’s also an entertaining show that actually has inadvertent relevance to today’s audience with its artful jabbing at big business. [more]

KPOP

December 5, 2022

Adopting the hokey framing device of a concert documentary, Kim turns the impending U.S. debut of a South Korean entertainment company's three hottest acts into a triptych of rigorously gendered plots. While attempting to capture all the glitz, glamor, and artistry, the American documentarian (Aubie Merrylees) also relentlessly stirs the pot to heighten any behind-the-scenes discord for the cameras, which doesn't make much sense since his paycheck is signed by Ruby (Jully Lee), the record label's iron-fisted founder and driving force, who obviously wants a glorified promotional video, not an investigative report. But to ascribe dramaturgical logic to the situation is to entirely miss the point. Aided by Peter Nigrini's voyeuristic projections of backstage squabbling, the objective is not truth but, rather, to establish the type of assiduously rendered false intimacy fans perceive as truth. [more]