James Monroe Iglehart

HOW ACCURATE IS “A WONDERFUL WORLD: THE LOUIS ARMSTONG MUSICAL”?

November 30, 2024

"A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical” gives Broadway a much-needed shot in the arm. From the clarion call of the first notes we hear to the final strains of the title song, there’s much to relish. And James Monroe Iglehart, as Armstrong, was born to play this role. But there are serious missteps along the way—significant factual errors and sins of omission. Armstrong deserves a more accurate telling of his story. [more]

A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical

November 22, 2024

Great in entirely predictable ways, especially its rich musical orchestrations and arrangements from jazz genius Branford Marsalis (he's assisted by Tony Award- winner Daryl Waters), "A Wonderful World" wastes its decided advantages by keeping Armstrong at a distance while incongruously tasking him with narrating his own life. An impassive witness to himself, Armstrong is also a bizarrely unreflective one as he meanders from place to place and wife to wife, before finally appearing with his wronged women to sing "What a Wonderful World" as an ethereal eleven o'clock number on Adam Koch and Steven Royal's protean set. To say the least, it's a lackluster concluding statement on the complexities of Armstrong's marriages, as well as his feelings about a world that, despite all of its "trees of green" and "red roses too," caused him so much pain. [more]

Spamalot

November 20, 2023

Still, whatever faint accommodations he grants it, for Idle, structure is the enemy of joy, which every aspect of "Spamalot" is relentlessly intent on delivering, not only from a few well-performed and well-known old Monty Python bits (the Knights Who Say "Ni!"; the French Taunter; the Black Knight) but also through amusing allusions to classic Broadway musicals that Aaron Sorkin was never given the chance to ruin. To be sure, it is fan service on a couple fronts, forming a Venn Diagram highlighting anyone who adores, for example, how Idle's brainy, irreverent silliness transforms Stephen Sondheim's song "Another Hundred People" from "Company" into a running plague count. It takes incredibly varied abilities to appealingly belt out Sondheim while landing that joke, which Ethan Slater, as the dejected Prince Herbert, does impressively and without remotely shortchanging either responsibility. [more]

The New York Pops: Heart and Soul

February 4, 2018

“September” by Earth, Wind and Fire was gorgeously mashed up with Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” and was the soaring opening number of The New York Pops’ exhilarating rhythm and blues concert, "Heart and Soul." The event celebrated African American History Month and Valentine’s Day. [more]

Editor’s Notes: 2014 Tonys Wrapup

June 12, 2014

Broadway had its big night when the 68th Annual Tony Awards, presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, were given out at Radio City Music Hall hosted by the genial and charming Hugh Jackman for the fourth time. One of several of the evening's surprises was the four minute opening number in which Jackman hopped from the street to the stage to backstage and back on stage again, recreating Bobby Van's iconic number from the 1953 MGM musical, Small Town Girl, which went unidentified in the course of the evening. [more]