Word: longbottom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There's some admirable teamwork in Side Show, not just by Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley, joined at the hip as Daisy and Violet, but by composer Henry Krieger (Dreamgirls) and director-choreographer Robert Longbottom (Christmas shows for the Rockettes). The show percolates best in a couple of brisk, ersatz-vaudeville numbers (one features dancing Egyptians, swan-shaped harps and a crocodile) and in a soul-inflected showstopper, The Devil You Know. And there's at least one anthem-like ballad, Who Will Love Me As I Am? that should have Whitney Houston on the phone to her agent...
Well, he could hope that A Christmas Carol lasts as long as the Radio City holiday show, which has been going since 1933 and never looked better. Under the direction of Robert Longbottom (Pageant), the show struts the ageless panache of the 36 Rockettes in five precision prances, notably as a parade of wooden soldiers and as Raggedy Anns whose letter blocks eventually spell out merry christmas and a happy new year. A new version of The Nutcracker, with teddy bear dancers as sugar plum fairies, Arabian houris and Chinese pandas, is delicate, funny, winning. The climactic Nativity tableau -- teeming...
...contestants are nice to look at -- knockouts, a couple of them. They are also played by men. This twist gives the burlesque a wierd glow and cues some wonderfully precise writing and acting. Pageant, conceived and directed by Robert Longbottom, never degenerates into drag queens unchained. Like Miss Industrial Northeast (Joe Joyce), who roller-skates while playing the Sabre Dance on her accordion, the show is perfectly poised on the precipice of farce. And like Miss West Coast (John Salvatore), who performs an interpretive dance called "The Seven Ages of Me," Pageant is all about ego and the denial...