PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT THE MUSICAL is a heart-warming, uplifting adventure of three friends who hop aboard a battered old bus searching for love and friendship in the middle of the Australian outback and end up finding more than they could ever have dreamed. With a dazzling array of outrageous costumes and featuring a score of dance-floor classics, Priscilla is a sensational journey to the heart of fabulous.
What 'Mamma Mia!' did for Abba, director Simon Phillips' stage adaptation of the 1994 Australian road movie does for a foot-tapping mega-mix that lifts primarily from '70s disco and '80s pop. There's A LOT going on. While much of it is gaudy, fabulous and funny, it's not until act two that the aggressively high-energy musical calms down enough to allow emotional investment in its characters. This comes largely via the anchoring presence of Sheldon's divine Bernadette. She's soft and vulnerable one minute, maternal the next, yet always ready to dispense an acerbic put-down. Elegant and dignified, the Australian actor could pass for Cate Blanchett's mother. Sheldon has been with the show since its earliest Sydney incarnation in 2006, which accounts for the deeply etched back-story he brings to the role.
A lip sync of a lip sync of a lip sync, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical arrives on Broadway in a flurry of pink feathers, delivering more or less exactly what you’d expect of a jukebox musical about three drag queens' braving the spangle-resistant Australian outback in a beat-up tour bus. (The show is based on the similarly titled 1994 feel-good movie starring Terence Stamp.) We’re treated, in other words, to a high-speed Automat of toweringly tasteless costumes, camp levels so dangerously high you’ll be finding stray sequins in the dryer for years to come, and a set list — sorry, a score — stuffed to its glittery gills with karaoke yester-hits: There are so many showstoppers, in fact, that I occasionally wondered when it was actually going to start. (Can anyone in the Western world survive another 'I Will Survive'? The Act One finale suggests that we can, and must.)
2006 |
World Premiere |
|
2009 | West End |
Original London Production West End |
2010 | Toronto |
Pre-Broadway North American Production Toronto |
2011 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2013 | US Tour |
US National Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2011 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Tony Sheldon |
2011 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Stephan Elliott |
2011 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Allan Scott |
2011 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Tim Chappel |
2011 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Lizzy Gardiner |
2011 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Musical | Bonnie Comley |
2011 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Tony Sheldon |
2011 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | 0 |
2011 | Theatre World Awards | Performance | Tony Sheldon |
2011 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Musical | Tim Chappel |
2011 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Musical | Lizzy Gardiner |
2011 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | Tony Sheldon |
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