After last year's delicious epic Beardo, Pipeline Theatre Company has done it again! Their new show Folk Wandering is an invigorating and crushworthy new musical about chasing the American Dream in bygone eras. This is what musical theater can and should be. It's REALLY good!
5 REASONS YOU NEED TO SEE IT IMMEDIATELY:
1. The Cast. What a grand troupe of performers this is! There's 11 cast members and you won't be able to decide which one's your favorite. One standout of standouts, though, is Kim Blanck (pictured in the banner above). She has a mid-show showstopper during which you'll be daydreaming about her accepting a Tony Award one day soon. Literally all 11 of them are awesome, though! It's really rare to see a cast, especially one this big, that is 100% dreamy. There are future megastars x 11 up there on that stage giving knockout performance after knockout performance.
2. Andrew Neisler's Direction. It's clean, wildly engaging, and lets the cast (see #1!) and the music (see #3!) shine. The humor lands, the three interwoven stories are clear, and you're fully engaged for the entire hour and 45 minutes, all thanks to his direction.
Photos: Suzi Sadler
3. The Music. Nine (!) different emerging singer-songwriters composed the delightful music for this show. The result? A revolutionary musical structure that is VERY fresh and exciting...and pulsating with youthful indie energy. Cast recording immediately, please and thank you!
4. It's really woke! Colorblind casting, stories about women at the forefront, and a very 2018 approach to history? All very awesome stuff to be included in a period piece...
5. The space is REALLY nice. Pipeline has taken over the newly renovated A.R.T./New York Theatre's space on 53rd Street and 10th Avenue. You know it's extra nice when you're even impressed by the design of the urinals and the bathroom tiles! The seats are comfortable and it's luxuriously spacious in the theater itself. No claustrophobic black boxes in sight!
Yes, yes, and more yes to Folk Wandering!
Runs through March 25.