{"id":90551,"date":"2022-07-10T21:19:02","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T04:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=90551"},"modified":"2022-07-10T21:19:02","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T04:19:02","slug":"a-beautiful-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2022\/07\/10\/a-beautiful-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beautiful Noise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hours before this column was filed, I attended the opening night of <strong><em>A Beautiful Noise<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 a <em>Broadway<\/em>-bound musical about (and featuring the music of) <strong>Neil Diamond<\/strong>.&nbsp; It stars the fantastic <strong>Will Swenson <\/strong>as Neil, which makes as much sense as <strong>Hugh Jackman <\/strong>playing <strong>Peter Allen<\/strong>.&nbsp; Each of those legends would give their left testicle for the chance to look like their matinee idol equivalents.&nbsp; But in this case, it works \u2013 largely due to Swenson\u2019s eerie approximation of Diamond\u2019s somewhat whining vocal quality (would that he\u2019d trust his voice enough let it open up and bloom to its full potential).&nbsp; Whether Neil was a cross between <strong>Elvis<\/strong>, <strong>Johnny Cash <\/strong>and <strong>Liberace <\/strong>is an argument I\u2019ll leave to others.&nbsp; I\u2019ll simply say that the show has a long way to go before it\u2019s ready for <em>Broadway<\/em>.&nbsp; It\u2019s short on exposition and jumps right into the singer\u2019s story \u2013 which gives the audience hope that there\u2019s an eventful life ahead.&nbsp; Alas, the show (and perhaps Neil\u2019s life) has no second act.&nbsp; The musical cannily approximates a Vegas-style concert to kick off the second half.&nbsp; Had that continued, it might have appealed to diehard fans.&nbsp; Instead, it meanders down a road that goes nowhere (the scene contrived to set up \u201cYou Don\u2019t Bring Me Flowers\u201d is perhaps one of the most painful things I\u2019ve ever seen).&nbsp; One cannot say enough about Swenson \u2013 I just wish he had material that equaled his talent.&nbsp; The rest of the cast is commendable \u2013 except for one person who must be recast immediately.&nbsp; Let me single out the dynamic <strong>Tatiana Lofton<\/strong>, who steals virtually ever scene she appears in (she stood next to Swenson for the curtain call), and <strong>Makai Hernandez<\/strong>, whose ass should get special billing in those tight checked pants!&nbsp; It is at the <em>Emerson Colonial Theatre <\/em>in Boston until August 7<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp; As of now, the show begins previews on <em>Broadway <\/em>November 2<sup>nd<\/sup>.&nbsp; You can get more details at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ABeautifulNoiseTheMusical.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>ABeautifulNoiseTheMusical.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hours before this column was filed, I attended the opening night of A Beautiful Noise \u2013 a Broadway-bound musical about (and featuring the music of) Neil Diamond.&nbsp; It stars the fantastic Will Swenson as Neil, which makes as much sense as Hugh Jackman playing Peter Allen.&nbsp; Each of those legends would give their left testicle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90552,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90551\/revisions\/90552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}