Billy Elliot the Forum

After a highly acclaimed run in London this spring, Glenn Close will return to Broadway in her Tony winning role as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. The show will play at the Palace Theatre for 16 weeks, beginning February 9, 2017.

Note: I was fortunate to see this during my visit to London in April, and was completely blown away by her performance.

http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/ne ... =25oct2016

I saw "Sunset Boulevard" last night and share the enthusiasm about Glenn Close's performance as Norma Desmond. It's hard to imagine anyone else playing the part in this production, after seeing how completely she immersed herself in the role. I've always been a huge fan of the movie version, as it's one of my top 2 or 3 movies of all time. I thought the lines were very memorable and the banter very witty, and I was glad to see that it was used almost word for word in the musical version.

My favorite scene was when Norma Desmond returned to the set at Paramount and was saying hello to some of the old-timers who had been there when she was one of the top movie stars 25 years before. She's sitting in a director's chair and a spot light operator sees her and yells down, "Miss Desmond ! Let's get a good look at you." The spotlight operator - who's perched in one of the theater boxes - swings the light around and focuses it on Norma on stage, enveloping her in light. It drew a long round of applause from the audience, temporarily allowing them to recognize Glenn Close as the long-time star that she is, just as the character is being recognized for the same thing in the show.

I wasn't familiar with the musical score, but enjoyed pretty much every song that was performed. My only criticism - which I have in general when stage musicals do this - is having the actors sing a great deal of the dialogue, as if it's an opera. When the words don't rhyme and it sounds like they're making up the tune as they read the script, I find myself wishing they'd just speak the dialogue until they come to an actual song. I suppose that's why I've never been a huge fan of "Les Mis" or any Gilbert & Sullivan production. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the show and thought they did a good job transporting the audience back to Hollywood of 1950, along with creating some impressive stage moments with Glenn Close's performance and Andrew Lloyd Weber's magic touch.