By Bart Greenberg***Forbidden Broadway: Merely We Stole a Song is the newest edition of the long-running series that first debuted over 40 years ago—an outstanding run under any standard. Guided throughout by writer and director Gerard Alessandrini, often with the participation of the terrific music director Fred Barton, the show has proven an endless font of clever satire and insightful commentary of the shifting business called show. Each version has included a mix 
of brilliant sketches, clever ideas that don’t quite score, and a few bombs that don’t fulfill their promise by being too long or just dull. In other words, they resemble every Broadway season. And this production is no different from the others, though the percentage of smashes is considerably higher.
The show kicked off in high gear with the cleverest “turn off your cell phone” spiel announcement in quite some time. Other highlights included send ups of & Juliet, Six and the upcoming film version of Wicked. A wonderfully over-the-top camp of the wonderfully over-the-top revival/rethought Cats, which also served to show off the choreography of Gerry McIntyre was one of the joys. On the other hand, a “tribute” to Lincoln Center ran out of steam long before it ended and seemed to exist mostly to show off the impressively wide vocal ranges of the performers. And the attempt to create a backbone for the evening with a recurring visit from the two central characters of Back to the Future was more noisy than clever (but also rather reflecting the source material).
The other recurring “theme” of the evening was Stephen Sondheim; he even made an unexpected appearance during the course of the show. In one way or another, more than a third of the numbers referenced his material, ranging from a very funny mashup of The Outsiders and West Side Story to a just kind-of-there Company/Bump-A-Knee sequence. “Audra MacDonald” showed up to give us a preview of Gypsy (including a reference to the patron saint of the entire series, “Merman’s got to let go”) and “Bernadette Peters” reclined on the piano to promote her upcoming new/old review featuring the composer’s work. And then the current Mary Todd offered up a hilarious tale related to her distant cousin, the baker.
What was in no doubt was the talent onstage. The performers each had a chance to demonstrate their wide-ranging abilities both as vocalists and comic actors—and 
they grabbed the opportunity. Danny Hayward embodied versatility when he glided through the three Emcees of Cabaret – Joel Grey, Alan Cumming, Eddie Redmayne – with appropriate instant costume changes and shifting accents. Chris Collins-Pisano captured the personality and vocal tics of Daniel Radcliffe while barreling through the lyrics of “Harry Potter, Inc.” (another Sondheim parody). His bordering-on-vicious recreation of Ben Platt in his Palace concert was equally on target.
Nicole Vanessa Ortiz offered up a delightful Audra, throwing off those top notes with ease, as well as dealing with contemporary sounds in both tributes to Six and & Juliet that relied on both her impressive vocal range and her fine sense of humor. But if there was a first among equals, it was the 
tireless Jenny Lee Stern, a veteran of several earlier incarnations, who jumped from Bernadette to Patti to Hillary, just a little girl from Little Rock. Her devastating wit, her powerful belt and her confident stage presence marks her a star (her impressive splits and death drops during the Cats fiesta were in another category entirely).
The 95-minute evening (sans intermission) moved quickly and smoothly thanks to the excellent staging by Alessadrini and McIntyre and the teamwork of the cast. Barton adapted to the constantly shifting styles and genres with impressive dexterity. Costume designer Dustin Cross made a major contribution to the show, with apparel that was witty and sophisticated and always apt. The simple set was by Glenn Bassett and appropriate lighting design by Joan Racho-Jansen. All of these elements added up to a satisfying and often hilarious evening.
Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song plays at Theater 555, 555 W. 42nd St., NYC. For tickets, click here.
Photos by Carol Rosegg
