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Tootsie at the Hobby Center
The cast of the National Tour of TOOTSIE. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.
Tootsie strutted into Houston Tuesday night as the second show in the Broadway at the Hobby Center 2021-2022 season. Tootsie, based on the 1982 movie of the same title starring Dustin Hoffman, presents the struggle of Michael Dorsey, an out-of-work actor recently fired and unable to land any roles due to his narcissistic and intolerable nature in rehearsals. In a desperate attempt to save his career, Michael attends an audition for “Juliet’s Curse”, a role he was helping his ex-girlfriend rehearse for, disguised as Dorothy Michaels, his newly-formed female alter ego. Chaos ensues as he falls in love with both his popular new persona and with one of his co-stars, who does not know his true identity.
Sister Act Rejoices at Hobby Center
Theater Under the Stars is on a roll with back-to-back, rocking shows at the Hobby Center. Sister Act opened this week in front of a full house of masked theatergoers. The story follows a vivacious Philadelphia club singer Deloris entering witness protection in a convent after witnessing a murder committed by her gangster boyfriend, where she brings her soul background to the dreary church hymns and creates a gospel choir out of the nuns. The Tony Award nominated musical, based off of the 1992 Film starring Whoopi Goldberg, features a lively, soulful score by Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hercules) that combines 70s funk songs with Latin hymns to create joyous gospel music that gets even the most straight-laced nuns singing along.
Payday Interview (ACL Weekend 1)
By Jacob Pellegrino
Payday is a unique artist whose music is influenced by an incredibly wide range of genres and styles: she writes her own songs, raps, and sings. Payday’s most recent album RAP IN A CAN exemplifies this diversity, also seen in her live set at ACL and contains the single “Vampire,” which features Danny Brown. At ACL, Payday’s performance contained a mix of slower songs based on singing along with harder raps that created a really nice balance for the crowd.
ACL 2021 (Weekend 1) Play-by-Play
By Jacob Pellegrino
The first weekend of 2021’s iteration of Austin City Limits was something to be remembered. From a diverse and busy lineup to the sunny weather in spite of forecasted rain, the festival was engaging and left me feeling uplifted throughout.
