It Shoulda Been You, is a musical comedy for anyone with parents. The bride is Jewish. The groom is Catholic. Her mother is a force of nature, his mother is a tempest in a cocktail shaker. And when the bride's ex-boyfriend shows up, the perfect wedding starts to unravel faster than you can whistle "Here Comes the Bride!"
The cast of It Shoulda Been You includes Tony Award-winner Tyne Daly, Tony Award-winner Harriet Harris, Sierra Boggess, Lisa Howard, David Burtka, Tony Award nominee Montego Glover, Chip Zien, Josh Grisetti, Adam Heller, Michael X. Martin, Anne L. Nathan, Nick Spangler, and Edward Hibbert, along with Farah Alvin, Gina Farrell, Aaron Finley, Mitch Greenberg, and Jillian Louis.
'It Shoulda Been You'...confirms the sad truth that weddings...bring out the worst in some people. That includes cynics, show-offs, heavy drinkers, envious have-nots and, it would seem, the creators of American musicals...'Shoulda'...occupies that treacherous comic ground between smirky and perky. Mining an illusion of charm from such terrain is hard, if not impossible, work for any contemporary performer. Not that the eminently talented ensemble members here don't do their best to fill out the paper-doll stereotypes they have been asked to embody...For the most part, the score sticks so relentlessly to the same up-tempo jauntiness that you expect a bouncing ball to materialize...There's not an element in 'It Shoulda Been You' that hasn't been used, and wrung dry, before. Adding latter-day twists to this cocktail of clichés somehow makes it taste all the flatter.
It's terrible. And it shoulda been left in turnaround after years of kicking around agency offices, instead of being offered up for sacrifice in this $7 million vanity production. Oh, the things we do for love...Perhaps I'm wrong about that. Maybe the exceedingly talented David Hyde Pierce...decided that this cellophane-thin story about the wedding day that would unite a crisply sniping Jewish family (hers) with a boozily bigoted Gentile one (his) was the brilliant choice for his debut as a Broadway director...The lyrics' rhymes are not only inane but you can predict them beats, if not whole measures, before they land, and Barbara Anselmi's melodies made me miss Frank Wildhorn. No, seriously...Nevertheless, Hargrove, Hyde Pierce and Anselmi are blessed with a superior roster of actors...So much talent, so little show.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Featured Actress in a Musical | Sierra Boggess |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical | Lisa Howard |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Josh Grisetti |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Tyne Daly |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tyne Daly |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Lisa Howard |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | It Shoulda Been You |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical | Tyne Daly |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | It Shoulda Been You |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | David Hyde Pierce |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Josh Grisetti |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | It Shoulda Been You |
2015 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Score | It Shoulda Been You |
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