KUDOS FOR KIMBERLY!

The latest Broadway revival of Grease hasn't been getting very good reviews, but Blog About Town favorite Kimberly Grigsby seems to be rising above it all.

"Some of the best dancing at 'Grease' isn't on stage, but above it - in the loft where Kimberly Grigsby leads the band.

"Pelvis rocking, fingers flying - the willowy brunette isn't so much conducting the music as she is channeling it, riding with the rhythms and lip-syncing the lyrics, visible via video monitors, to the actors onstage...."
—Barbara Hoffman, New York Post (August 20, 2007)

"The real performance happens above the sanitized stage, where a tough and terrific conductor named Kimberly Grigsby leads the band from a synthesizer while tossing her pony tail and dancing as if she means it. Dare you to watch anybody else."
—Linda Winer, Newsday (August 19, 2007)

"Another positive element in the set is the perch for the cooking band under Kimberly Grigsby, a dressy conductor who dances as she directs an ensemble - whose tenor sax man, John Scarpulla, contributes eloquently to the '50s sound."
—Malcolm Johnson, Hartford Courant (August 20, 2007)

"The orchestra, conducted by Kimberly Grigsby, is perched on a catwalk above the stage. Grigsby, who also plays the synthesizer, puts on quite a show herself, particularly after the actors have taken their curtain calls at the end of the musical and she lets the band rock theatergoers out of the Brooks Atkinson."
—Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press (August 20, 1007)

This sounds a lot like what Grigsby did so wonderfully in Two Gentleman of Verona—which was also directed by Kathleen Marshall.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

SPRING AWAKENING. I can't think of a better time to write about Spring Awakening, which is currently enjoying a successful run at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre. The story, based on a controversial 1891 play by Frank Wedekind, captures the tension between adolescent passion and adult repression in a German town in the 19th Century. The dialogue is (intentionally) stiff, like an early English translation of Wedekind's play, but when the performers deliver the Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater songs, it's as if their microphones finally enable them to pour out feelings that have been bottled up far too long. The contrast is unusual and effective.

The vocal scoring of Spring Awakening exposes many individual parts but the casting of the production is impressively deep, with many of the performers--not just stars Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, and John Gallagher, Jr.--possessing strong and beautiful voices. I was impressed by Brian Charles Johnson and Jonathan B. Wright and most especially Lauren Pritchard (left), who plays the non-conformist Ilse with disarming quirkiness and also has this MySpace page.

The music director for Spring Awakening is the amazing Kimberly Grigsby (right), previously noted here for her conductorship of the Summer 2005 Two Gentlemen of Verona, which should still be playing today. This woman simply casts a spell on me: I didn't realize she was at a Spring Awakening event at the Virgin Megastore until a glimpse of her graceful hand movements caught my attention....

My enthusiasm for the show has grown since I saw it and gave the cast recording a number of spins.

Here's "The Bitch of Living," featuring choreography by Bill T. Jones that reminds me of Trish Sie's routines for OK Go.



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