Actors Theatre of Indiana is staging Forbidden Broadway at The Studio Theater, 4 Carter Green, Carmel, through May 12, and while it is not a show that lends itself to a short summary, we are going to try anyway.
It is a rapid-fire montage of music, madcap comedy deep cuts, costume changes, and more offers something for musical theater fans, old music buffs, a pop culturalist, and film aficionados.
This is a show that opens with the “dong-dong” from Law & Order, has shout-outs to the movie Ghost and the play Newsies, has a ragamuffin revival and shows us The Little Mermaid binging on Goldfish crackers.
Fake Mandy Patinkin’s bit, which contains the tunes of “Hava Nagila” and the Dreidel Song, somehow ends with an ever higher-speed parody of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” leaving the audience not only laughing, but also wondering both how a human can sing that fast and whether the piano should be smoking at the end.
The best we can tell you is that it reminds one of Saturday Night Live when it used to be good.
Les Misérables takes the hilarious beating it deserves … as does Cats, Wicked, and Disney as a whole.
Hey, it’s called “Forbidden” Broadway for a reason.
Click here to get your tickets.