The time is Renaissance England, where two brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom, are desperate to write a hit play. But how can they when the competition is the biggest star of the era, everyone's favorite bard: William Shakespeare? So they seek out the soothsayer Nostradamus. But not the Nostradamus, his nephew Thomas, who gives our heroes a completely original idea from the future - write a play with songs. And thus, the first ever musical is born. But not without much mayhem, madness, and musical mishaps. There is indeed Something Rotten! - and it will have audiences rolling in the aisles.
Unchecked enthusiasm is not always an asset in musical comedy, despite the genre's reputation for wholesale peppiness. 'Something Rotten!'...dances dangerously on the line between tireless and tedious, and winds up collapsing into the second camp...'Sophomoric' is the right adjective for 'Something Rotten!'...this production wallows in the puerile puns, giggly double-entendres, lip-smacking bad taste and goofy pastiche numbers often found in college revues...With his resolute jaw, gleaming smile and heroic tenor, Mr. d'Arcy James wasn't meant to play a sad sack like Nick. Though he works hard, the character eludes his grasp. Mr. Borle brings his well-polished panoply of comic tics, winks and flourishes to his portrayal of Shakespeare as a glam rock star...Borle is a master of carefully stylized excess. In 'Something Rotten!,' though, he has nothing else to fall back on. Like the show itself, it's both too much and not enough.
Something Rotten! revels in its silliness while delivering such a nonstop blitzkrieg of production numbers, each out-doing the one before, that you hardly notice how much you've fallen in love with the Bottom bros...It's entirely possible that I would have had a different reaction had not the show given us the exuberant D'Arcy James in his best role ever...Ditto Borle....The book is jam-packed with outrageous puns, bad jokes and inside references to Shakespeare and Broadway, and in that the show is like the much-missed series Forbidden Broadway, but on steroids...One surefire combination in the art of producing for Broadway is the ability to make audiences feel smart -- but not outsmarted -- and giddy at the same time...Anyone who can pull off jabs at Cats and Les Miz at this late hour has tapped into something, you know, not rotten -- and the best tonic I can imagine for this endless winter season.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2017 | US Tour |
National Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Featured Actor in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Brian d'Arcy James |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | John O'Farrell |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Choreography | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Brad Oscar |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lyrics | Wayne Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lyrics | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Orchestrations | Larry Hochman |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Christian Borle |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Brian d'Arcy James |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Brian d'Arcy James |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Choreography | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Gregg Barnes |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | John Cariani |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Heidi Blickenstaff |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design | Jeff Croiter |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Set Design | Scott Pask |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Book of a Musical | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Book of a Musical | John O'Farrell |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Choreography | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Musical | Gregg Barnes |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Musical | Casey Nicholaw |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Timothy Laczynski |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Kyodo Tokyo Inc. |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Wendy Federman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Barbara Freitag |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | LAMS Productions |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Winkler/DeSimone |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Kevin McCollum |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Jujamcyn Theaters |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | JAM Theatricals |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Robert Greenblatt |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Dan Markley |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Harris/Karmazin |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Morris Berchard |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Ronald Frankel |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Jerry Frankel |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Mastro/Goodman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | CMC |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Broadway Global Ventures |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Something Rotten! |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Larry Hochman |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre | Karey Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre | Wayne Kirkpatrick |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Christian Borle |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Brad Oscar |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | Brian d'Arcy James |
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