Madeline Ashton is the most beautiful actress (just ask her) ever to grace the stage and screen. Helen Sharp is the long-suffering author (just ask her) who lives in her shadow. They have always been the best of frenemies…until Madeline steals Helen’s fiancé away. As Helen plots revenge and Madeline clings to her rapidly fading star, their world is suddenly turned upside down by Viola Van Horn, a mysterious woman with a secret that’s to die for.
After one sip of Viola’s magical potion, Madeline and Helen begin a new era of life (and death) with their youth and beauty restored…and a grudge to last eternity.
Starring Tony Award® nominees Megan Hilty (Wicked, “Smash”), Jennifer Simard (Company, Disaster!), and Christopher Sieber (Spamalot, Company), with Grammy® Award winner Michelle Williams (Destiny’s Child, Chicago), Death Becomes Her, based on the classic 1992 film, is a drop-dead hilarious new musical comedy about friendship, love, and burying the hatchet…again, and again, and again.
Life’s a bitch and then you die. Or not!
This clever show was written by Marco Pennette and directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, and features music and lyrics from the very talented newcomer team of Julia Mattison and Noel Carey. It has some crowd-pleasing strengths, including a genuinely funny book, a swirling, retro, filmic score that features a knockout two-pronged 11 o’clock number for Hilty and Simard, and its best numbers put you in mind of Burt Bacharach and John Barry (no Ingrid Michaelson-like experiments here to confound future Tony Award nominators). There’s a lush physical production from set designer Derek McLane in an old school, drape-heavy “Producers”-like mode and a stellar cast. (Most unusually for this size of Broadway musical, there are just four designated principal roles, so the talented members of the ensemble surely earn their paychecks.) But there’s much work to be done overall if the show is to appeal to people who don’t have prior affection for the source.
Act one was pretty bullet-proof. Tight pacing, hilarious dialogue, and they nail the big moments. It ends with the stairs (which is staged BRILLIANTLY) and I was very satisfied during intermission. Special shout out to the writers for ridding of the infamous fat-shaming suit bit with Goldie Hawn in the movie too. I really like the direction they took with Helen’s downfall. Act two definitely needs some tweaking before Broadway.
2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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