Jonathan Ritter Opens Tonight In New Harvey Milk Musical, HERE TO RECRUIT YOU
Jonathan Ritter ('Wicked,' 'Finding Neverland,' and 'Sweet Charity') portrays Harvey Milk in HERE TO RECRUIT YOU, a new play with music highlighting the little-known theatrical career of the gay political icon. Prior to becoming California's first openly-gay elected official, Harvey Milk lived - and loved - among a group of downtown bohemian artists on the verge of re-defining the Broadway musical. It was a time (the 1960s) and place (New York City) that informed his politics and inspired his activism. Beginning in 1964, HERE TO RECRUIT YOU chronicles Milk's quest to find love, success, and a purpose in life as he transitions from Wall Street businessman to Broadway producer and, finally, to a celebrated politician whose life was cut short by an assassin's bullet.
BWW Reviews: You'll Be Crazy in Love With MARIEANN MERINGOLO'S New Monthly Show at the Metropolitan Room
As a young veteran of the New York cabaret scene and someone who rests comfortably in that performer's purgatory between celebrity and what the folks at the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC) calls “Major Artist,” Marieann Meringolo certainly doesn't need validation from a Stevie-come-lately reviewer like me. But nobody bats 1.000—in baseball, life, or cabaret—and, frankly, I didn't cheer in print for her slightly pretentious 2013 show Orchestrated, which seemed to feature a band big enough to bust through the far wall of the Metropolitan Room and arrangements that were more than a tad overblown. But in 2011, I loved her annual holiday show, In The Spirit, and had heard nothing but great things about her 2012 tribute to the music of Michael Legrand, so I was willing to consider Orchestrated a mere hiccup—depending on what she came up with next. Well, next arrived on the afternoon of Saturday, April 5 afternoon with Meringolo's new show, Crazy Love, at the Metropolitan Room.