As I left the Ordway Center for Performing Arts on April 14th, yellow streamers caught onto my boots and dragged along the floor behind me, like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. It was a fitting end to my experience at the Minnesota premiere of Bullets Over Broadway, an audacious, raunchy musical set in the 1920s and written by Woody Allen. Allen also co-wrote the 1994 film of the same name with Douglas McGrath. This musical offers a slight variation on the run-of-the-mill Broadway storyline. Here, a country boy sort of makes good in the big city in a mash-up of the Faustian dilemma that also hints at Singin’ in the Rain, 42nd Street, West Side Story, and Chicago. Bullets — which I imagine might be somewhat autobiographical to Allen, McGrath, or the two as writing partners — follows David Shayne (played by Michael Williams), a young playwright from who moves with sweetheart Ellen (played by Hannah Rose DeFlumeri) from Pittsburgh to New York City, where he struggles to have his work produced without sacrificing artistic integrity. Shayne gets word that Nick Valenti (played by Michael Corvino) — a prominent mob boss — would like to be his financial backer, so long as Shayne […]
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