Forbidden Broadway is back after a hiatus of five years in a brand-new edition subtitled “The Next Generation.” Creator-writer-director Gerard Alessandrini’s beloved spoof of musicals both good and bad has been running in form or another for over 9,000 performances in cities all over the world. This new version has some misses, though. A Harry Potter bit is kind of obvious, and the parody of The Ferryman repeated gags Alessandrini used when he skewered another Irish hit, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, 20 years ago. The sketch on Jeremy Pope—who received two Tony nominations in one season—overextending himself, was a bit of a stretch (pardon the pun).
Still, the tight 80 minutes keeps a pretty high batting average. “Woke-lahoma” devilishly sticks it to Daniel Fish’s cynical deconstruction of Oklahoma! (“Oh, What a Miserable Concept” subs for “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning”). “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” has Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, and Jennifer Holliday navigating new trends to cop their next starring roles. Even film and TV events related to Broadway, such as “Fosse/Verdon” and the Judy Garland bio film, come in a lambasting.
The framing device of a family of tourists being taken on a tour of current Broadway fare by a smirking Andre De Shields works well and allows for a variety of skits. Immanuel Houston is masterful in his impressions of De Shields, Holliday, and numerous others. Jenny Lee Stern does a brilliant Judy Garland and switches seamlessly to Renee Zellweger playing Garland. Aline Mayagoitia snags Bernadette Peters and Karen Olivo from Moulin Rouge. Young Joshua Turchin riotously parodies the excessive emoting in Dear Evan Hansen, while Chris Collins-Pisano has fun with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bob Fosse, and Harold Prince who leads the cast in a finale from heaven.
