The Champion 2007-2008 Broadway Season

It's hard to believe but there's only six weeks left to the 2007-2008 Broadway season. It's been a banner year for Broadway but it's not over yet. There are ten more shows officially opening before the Tony Awards which will take place on June 15 at Radio City Music Hall.

To top off an already great Broadway season, the ten shows opening are:

• Gypsy, starring Patti Lupone opened March 28th to raves not only for Patti and the show itself but for Laura Benanti as Gypsy Rose Lee and Boyd Gaines as their manager, Herbie.
• South Pacific, one of the many brilliant Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborations, opens today, April 3rd. This is the first Broadway revival of this wonderful musical since it's original staging from April 1949 to January 1954.
• MacBeth starring Star Trek's Captain Picard, the very sexy Patrick Stewart, which moved to Broadway from the Brooklyn Academy of Music opens officially April 8th. This modernized British production was hailed by West End critics where it ran for a limited engagement before heading to America. The critics agreed that this is Patrick Stewart's finest performance.
• Les Liaisons Dangereuses opens for a limited engagement April 12th to June 6th at the Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre on Broadway. Starring two time Academy Award winner (You Can Count on Me and Kinsey), Laura Linney. This is a story of revenge while depicting the decadence of the French aristocracy shortly before the French Revolution.
• A Catered Affair, Harvey Fierstein's latest contribution to Broadway musicals opens April 17th. It's about a Brooklyn family who faces the dilemma of spending their life savings on a family business or their daughter's wedding. Fierstein not only wrote it but stars in it as the bride's Uncle Winston.
• Cry Baby, the next John Waters movie to musical stage production officially opens April 24th. I saw it in previews and found it a lot of fun. Although not of the caliber of his first movie to musical adaptation, Hairspray, it had enough going for it that if it were tweaked a little before the official opening, could make it a force to be reckoned with at the Tony Awards.
• A Country Girl, starring, get this, Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand and the gorgeous Peter Gallagher opens April 27th. With direction by Tony Award (Spamalot) and Academy Award (The Graduate) winning director, Mike Nichols, it would take a really bad day by all concerned to miss the mark.
• Thurgood, opens April 30th, a one-man play starring Hollywood star and Tony Award winner, Laurence Fishburne, gives us some insight into the intellect and wit of Thurgood Marshall who rose from adversity to become the first African-American to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
• Boeing-Boeing, the West End smash comedy of errors arrives on Broadway straight off the plane from London. It's a revival of the 1960 Broadway show and will star Christine Baranski (appearing in the movie Mamma Mia with Meryl Streep opening this summer). In previews starting April 19th with the official opening on May 4th.
• Top Girls opens May 7, (in previews beginning April 15th) starring, among others, Martha Plimpton and Academy Award winner (My Cousin Vinny) Marisa Tomei. This play looks at the challenges facing working women in 1980's London.

So it ain't over till it's over and it ain't over yet. When I look at what's opening and what's playing on Broadway, and off for that matter, I'm like a kid in a candy shop. My funds are limited but I do have tickets for A Country Girl and A Catered Affair. I just had to see my favorite actor, Morgan Freeman, live on stage, and I adore Harvey Fierstein so it was kind of a no-brainer but as I said on air last week, so many shows, so little time and money.