First Wives- Revisited!

Tonight David and I saw The First Wives Club, the musical, at the Oriental Theatre. It was a blast! Based on the novel, by Olivia Goldsmith and the film of the same name, it followed the original plot line very closely. I think many of the spoken lines were taken from the movie.

It is a very funny story about three women, each of whom is being dumped by her husband for a younger woman. The three wives get their revenge by taking over each of the husbands businesses.

Faith Prince        
                                                            Carmen Cusack

Faith Prince,Carmen Cusack, and Christine Sherrill took the roles played by Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton in the film. And they made them their own. The men were equally good but in much smaller roles. They were Sean Murphy Cullen, Gregg Edelman, Mike McGowan, and Patrick Richwood.

                                           Christine Sherrill

The music and lyrics were by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland. It was loud, brassy, sassy, and fun. Not Gershwin, but nothing is these days.

The set was remarkable. Furniture and parts of the set slid on and off stage as if by magic. No moving floors, no strings. I guess they were versions of the Roomba Vacuum Cleaner and were controlled offstage by a computer.

The singing was what passes for singing on Broadway these days: loud with lots of belting. As a voice teacher who works with the classical voice for the most part, I don't know how they do this eight shows a week and have any throat left, but they seem to.

We had a good dinner at Petterino's restaurant just a block away with valet parking. On a very cold night this was a benefit!

We had a really good time.

The show is now headed for Broadway.

Now it's off to Houston on Friday for us.