Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James star in a searing new musical about a couple falling in love in 1950s New York and struggling against themselves to build their family. The New York Times calls Days of Wine and Roses “a jazzy, aching new musical with wells of compassion!” (Critic’s Pick) and The Washington Post raves, “Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James soar! One of the best new musicals this year.”
Adapted from JP Miller’s 1962 film and original 1958 teleplay, composer & lyricist Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins) and playwright Craig Lucas (An American in Paris) reunite in their first collaboration since their acclaimed The Light in the Piazza. Directed by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen).
Of course, there is a perspective from which too much grousing about Days of Wine and Roses feels unkind: Lucas has been sober for 19 years, Guettel went through his own journey to sobriety more recently, and O’Hara has told the story of a woman thanking her after the show and whispering, in parting, “23 years.” If the show—if any show—strikes someone, somewhere, for some reason, to the heart, well, so shines a good deed in a weary world. And yet… I hunger for more. O’Hara and James are capable of leaving us not simply pensive, but elated and shattered, if they had a show that would let them.
Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara return to Broadway for the first time together since 2002 to portray a couple who fall in love with alcohol as much as with one another in this musical adaptation of a dark story that was first a television drama in the 1950s, then a movie. They last performed together on Broadway in a musical adaptation of another dark movie set in the 1950s, “Sweet Smell of Success.” They were relative newcomers then. It’s thrilling to see them back together for his sixteenth and her thirteenth role on Broadway. The two stars carry “Days of Wine and Roses,” their exquisite voices bringing out the brilliance of Adam Guettel’s jazz-inflected, often operatic score, and investing the characters’ rocky emotional journeys with a credibility that few other performers could match. They justify bringing to Broadway an adaptation of a story that feels dated.
Digital Rush
Price: $49
Where: on the TodayTix app.
When: 9am on the day of the performance
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Subject to availability.
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