Broadway-bound new musical pulls off tricky, satisfying balance of serious and fanciful
New musical “Big Fish” has a high-class problem. In the six months between the end of this Chicago tryout and its Broadway launch in September, creatives need to resist tampering too much with something that already works. This is a wholly satisfying show: meaningful, emotional, tasteful, theatrically imaginative and engaging. Director-choreographer Susan Stroman pulls off a remarkable balance, unifying serious, potentially dark elements — a dying father, a son harboring a lifetime of anger — with the fanciful. It’s is not a genre piece that has a clear niche audience, but that uniqueness is exactly what makes it so broadly appealing.
I went to see the play last spring when it was playing in Chicago. It was about the best play I've ever seen. If you get a chance you should absolutely go see it.
Norbert Leo Butz is in this? We have the same birthday, I am 4 years older. the first time I heard him in a musical was "The Last 5 Years" which was a great show. I know he was in "Wicked" as Fiyero and "Rent" as Roger. If you can listen to the soundtrack for "The Last 5 Years" though do so. he was Jaime in the show. It is not a big broadway show but very good from what I can hear, not taped to my knowledge. All this was before the Broadway production of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" which most know him for.
