BULLETS OVER BROADWAY

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman
Open: 10.04.2014 - Broadway
Photos by Paul Kolnik and Sara Krulwich

To see videos of this production go to “The Moving Picture Show”

"There is, however, plenty to enjoy-director-choreographer Susan Stroman at the top of her game with a toothsome cast and a gag-filled book surrounded by repurposed jazz standards. The show might be lightweight and nostalgic, but you can't deny its savvy craft and bursting showmanship: sexy chorines, Art Deco backdrops and sight gags galore. Who knew Broadway could still be this much fun?" 
in Time Out New York by David Cote

"How good can a jukebox musical be? As good as "Bullets Over Broadway," Woody Allen's new stage version of his 1994 film, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman. The book is funny, the staging inventive, the cast outstanding, the sets and costumes satisfyingly slick." 
in Wall Street Journal by Terry Teachout

"There's a ton of talent onstage in "Bullets Over Broadway", evident in the leggy chorines who ignite into explosive dance routines, the gifted cast, the sparkling design elements and the wraparound razzle-dazzle of director-choreographer Susan Stroman's lavish production." 
in The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney

"Bullets Over Broadway" is the show everyone hoped would get those flickering Broadway lights blazing again. In certain wonderful ways -- Susan Stroman's happy-tappy dance rhythms, the dazzling design work on everything from proscenium curtain to wigs, and a fabulous chorus line of dancing dolls, molls and gangsters -- Woody Allen's showbiz musical is the answer to a Broadway tinhorn's prayer." 
in Variety by Marilyn Stasio

"Director-choreographer Susan Stroman is back in idea-crazy form in Allen's adaptation of his 1994 backstage-Broadway movie about gangsters and tootsies and self-serious thespians in the '20s. The show takes a while to hit its stride, feeling competent but mechanical at first, as if the job could only get done if everyone bellows and hard-sells the lamest jokes. But once inspiration strikes -- and it eventually does -- the smartly cast, good-looking production relaxes into the confidence of its own gleeful, high-gloss ridiculousness."
in Newsday by Linda Winer

"Susan Stroman, the Tony-winning director-choreographer ("The Producers") who amps up the material in uncomfortably vulgar fashion. (Yard-long phallus, anyone, for "The Hot Dog Song?")"
in The Washington Post by Peter Marks

"Backstage musicals bring out the best in director and choreographer Susan Stroman, and her production of "Bullets" has electricity that at times matches her high-voltage staging of "The Producers." Even when the jokes fall flat and the songs (all borrowed from the period, many revamped by Glen Kelly) seem incongruous, the show has the galloping vigor of a runaway hit, if few of the ecstatic peaks...Stroman's staging moves with an effervescent fluidity - gangsters and flappers glide by, each in high Cotton Club style - yet the book isn't as spry." 
in Los Angeles Times by Charles McNulty

"The mark of director-choreographer Stroman...is all over the deliciously escapist piece, which boasts showstoppers and glitzy costumes that would be right at home in a vaudeville revue... What's important here is this: Stroman's brand of showmanship and Allen's unparalleled wit go together, in the end, just like a hot dog and a roll." 
in NBC New York by Robert Kahn

"On the plus side, director and choreographer Susan Stroman's dance numbers pack sure-footed pizzazz. And the good-looking production depicts 1929 New York with wit and grace notes...But working in tandem with Allen, who adapted the screenplay of his Oscar-winning 1994 comedy while dealing with anything-but-amusing personal issues, Stroman doesn't match the zany, out-of-this-world wow factor of her collaboration with Mel Brooks on "The Producers"..." 
in New York Daily News by Joe Dziemianowicz

"The Broadway show makes a Sinclair-sized effort to persuade us of the value of early-20th-century songs shoehorned into a 1929 setting. The attempt is intermittently enjoyable, extremely well crafted by the director/choreographer Susan Stroman, and progressively enthralling." 
in Financial Times by Brendan Lemon

"... it's Stroman who makes this baby sing and dance, not just literally but spiritually. The playful wit and exuberance that were stifled by the material in her last Main Stemouting, Big Fish, are in full force here, and are supported by performers and designers (among the latter the great William Ivey Long, whose costumes are especially scrumptious) who seem to never run out of steam." 
in USA Today by Elysa Gardner

"It's Stroman's vision that will keep this cute, brashy ode to Broadway on Broadway for long to come. She has staged a truly deliciously vulgar scene sung to "The Hot Dog Song" that, let's put it bluntly, will not be making the Tony telecast. She has teamed up with Santo Loquasto's ambitious and lovely set designs to put a snazzy looking real car onstage and yet also make a train out of dancers dressed as red caps in white gloves. When she has mobsters in three-piece suits tap dance to "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," their masculine movements are a joy. When the play-within-the-musical is staged, the proscenium has real dancers posing like carved statues. It's all been so well thought out and executed, right down to its bouncy chairs and rotating houses. Stroman has the right to sing, as the title of one song goes "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You." When the critical reviews of the fictional play come out at the end of the show, the consensus must be the same about this fun, beautiful musical: "A work of art of the highest caliber." 
in Associated Press by Mark Kennedy

"Bullets Over Broadway" is Stroman's second bite of the apple this season. In October, she directed and choreographed "Big Fish," a musical about the evolving relationship of a father and son. It wasn't the right show for her fizzy style. With "Bullets Over Broadway," she's gotten a perfect match. And the result couldn't be more joyful." 

in Bergen Record by Robert Feldberg