Just a quick update because it's late and I need to get up early tomorrow.
I went to see "Grind" at Musicals in Mufti tonight, and was really pleasantly surprised. It only runs through Sunday night, but it's well worth seeing if you have the time and inclination. I had tried to listen to the cd at work on Thursday and Friday, but couldn't really get into it. But as often happens with me, now that I've seen everything in context, I think I'm going to be listening to it quite often. The cast is uniformly excellent - with my surprise favorite being Joe Cassidy (who I'd never heard of before) who was really fantastic as the Irishman. His big song near the end of the second act was particularly gut wrenching and had me getting all teary eyed. Apparently there were a lot of problems with the original Broadway production of the show, having to do with an overly complicated book, and Ben Vereen using his clout to over-expand his supporting role (including a random Fosse dance number that had nothing to do with the show). Well, with this production there's a new book, that I assume is much clearer - I didn't have any big problems with it anyway - and very little dancing (it IS a Mufti staging, after all), and I really just found the whole thing to be totally enjoyable and moving. Of course after looking at the production shots from the Broadway staging in the lobby, now I want to see what the show's like with sets and costumes and all. Hopefully some rich person will see this version and put together a more complete production. I know - never gonna happen, but I can dream, can't I?
This is definitely up there with my favorite Mufti's I've seen. Thank goodness the York stills ticks to its mission of performing bonafide obscure musicals, as opposed to Encores which is doing "On The Town" as part of it's next season. Just saying....
