Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 10.04.2014 - Broadway
Photos by Paul Kolnik and Sara Krulwich
To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”
"There is, however, plenty to
enjoy-director-choreographer Susan Stroman at the top of her game with a
toothsome cast and a gag-filled book surrounded by repurposed jazz standards.
The show might be lightweight and nostalgic, but you can't deny its savvy craft
and bursting showmanship: sexy chorines, Art Deco backdrops and sight gags
galore. Who knew Broadway could still be this much fun?"
in Time Out New York by David Cote
"How good can a jukebox musical be? As good as
"Bullets Over Broadway," Woody Allen's new stage version of his 1994
film, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman. The book is funny, the
staging inventive, the cast outstanding, the sets and costumes satisfyingly
slick."
in Wall Street Journal by Terry Teachout
"There's a ton of talent onstage in "Bullets Over
Broadway", evident in the leggy chorines who ignite into explosive dance
routines, the gifted cast, the sparkling design elements and the wraparound
razzle-dazzle of director-choreographer Susan Stroman's lavish production."
in The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
"Bullets Over Broadway" is the show everyone hoped would get those
flickering Broadway lights blazing again. In certain wonderful ways -- Susan
Stroman's happy-tappy dance rhythms, the dazzling design work on everything
from proscenium curtain to wigs, and a fabulous chorus line of dancing dolls,
molls and gangsters -- Woody Allen's showbiz musical is the answer to a
Broadway tinhorn's prayer."
in Variety by Marilyn Stasio
"Director-choreographer
Susan Stroman is back in idea-crazy form in Allen's adaptation of his 1994
backstage-Broadway movie about gangsters and tootsies and self-serious
thespians in the '20s. The show takes a while to hit its stride, feeling
competent but mechanical at first, as if the job could only get done if
everyone bellows and hard-sells the lamest jokes. But once inspiration strikes
-- and it eventually does -- the smartly cast, good-looking production relaxes
into the confidence of its own gleeful, high-gloss ridiculousness."
in Newsday by Linda Winer
"Susan Stroman, the Tony-winning director-choreographer
("The Producers") who amps up the material in uncomfortably vulgar
fashion. (Yard-long phallus, anyone, for "The Hot Dog Song?")"
in The Washington Post by Peter Marks
"Backstage musicals bring out the best in director
and choreographer Susan Stroman, and her production of "Bullets" has
electricity that at times matches her high-voltage staging of "The Producers."
Even when the jokes fall flat and the songs (all borrowed from the period, many
revamped by Glen Kelly) seem incongruous, the show has the galloping vigor of a
runaway hit, if few of the ecstatic peaks...Stroman's staging moves with an
effervescent fluidity - gangsters and flappers glide by, each in high Cotton
Club style - yet the book isn't as spry."
in Los Angeles Times by Charles McNulty
"The mark of director-choreographer Stroman...is all over the deliciously
escapist piece, which boasts showstoppers and glitzy costumes that would be
right at home in a vaudeville revue... What's important here is this: Stroman's
brand of showmanship and Allen's unparalleled wit go together, in the end, just
like a hot dog and a roll."
in NBC New York by Robert Kahn
"On the plus side, director and choreographer Susan
Stroman's dance numbers pack sure-footed pizzazz. And the good-looking
production depicts 1929 New York with wit and grace notes...But working in
tandem with Allen, who adapted the screenplay of his Oscar-winning 1994 comedy
while dealing with anything-but-amusing personal issues, Stroman doesn't match
the zany, out-of-this-world wow factor of her collaboration with Mel Brooks on
"The Producers"..."
in New York Daily News by Joe Dziemianowicz
"The Broadway show makes a Sinclair-sized effort to
persuade us of the value of early-20th-century songs shoehorned into a 1929
setting. The attempt is intermittently enjoyable, extremely well crafted by the
director/choreographer Susan Stroman, and progressively enthralling."
in Financial Times by Brendan Lemon
"... it's Stroman who makes this baby sing and dance, not just literally but
spiritually. The playful wit and exuberance that were stifled by the material
in her last Main Stemouting, Big Fish, are in full force here, and are
supported by performers and designers (among the latter the great William Ivey
Long, whose costumes are especially scrumptious) who seem to never run out of
steam."
in USA Today by Elysa Gardner
"It's Stroman's vision that will keep this cute,
brashy ode to Broadway on Broadway for long to come. She has staged a truly
deliciously vulgar scene sung to "The Hot Dog Song" that, let's put
it bluntly, will not be making the Tony telecast. She has teamed up with Santo
Loquasto's ambitious and lovely set designs to put a snazzy looking real car
onstage and yet also make a train out of dancers dressed as red caps in white
gloves. When she has mobsters in three-piece suits tap dance to "'Tain't
Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," their masculine movements are a joy. When the
play-within-the-musical is staged, the proscenium has real dancers posing like
carved statues. It's all been so well thought out and executed, right down to
its bouncy chairs and rotating houses. Stroman has the right to sing, as the
title of one song goes "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You." When the
critical reviews of the fictional play come out at the end of the show, the
consensus must be the same about this fun, beautiful musical: "A work of
art of the highest caliber."
in Associated Press by Mark Kennedy
"Bullets Over Broadway" is Stroman's second bite of the apple this
season. In October, she directed and choreographed "Big Fish," a
musical about the evolving relationship of a father and son. It wasn't the
right show for her fizzy style. With "Bullets Over Broadway," she's
gotten a perfect match. And the result couldn't be more joyful."
in Bergen Record by Robert Feldberg
