Beau The Musical

Last week, I ended up at Beau the Musical off-broadway. I feel there is a lot to be said about the current world of Broadway, and in this sort of drought I have been feeling of new and exciting Broadway, it seems that off-broadway is thriving. 

This show is what I always imagined off-broadway to be. The plot synopsis is available elsewhere, so I'll try and just stick to what I felt and experience, not just tell you what happened. The show is playing at The Distillery at St. Lukes, which is basically the basement of a church. This coolest part of the entire experience was how they rebuilt the entire space to look like a Nashville bar. The entire room was covered in stickers, posters and string lights. There were several small tables on the floor surrounding the stage, and three rows of regular theater seating around the walls. We sat in the back row of the regular seating on the right side of the stage. I had a really good view, but my mom was sitting in a place where she could not really see the second stage because of a pole. 

The show was framed as a performance by Ace Baker of his new album. The album is based on his middle school diary, specifically as he deals with identity and meeting his grandfather Beau. The narrative went back and forth between the thirteen year old version of Ace and the adult version. When I first heard this, I was extremely skeptical. I genuinely thought it would be silly, but it was actually really cool. The transition between teen and adult versions were so clear. Matt Rodin was really such a star in this role, and it led me to his substack which is fantastic. 

I was constantly surprised. Like everything that happened I was gasping internally. That was really fun, to keep being surprised. I don''t know how it would do on broadway. I think it thrives in the small space, but also I think if there was any time to come to broadway it would be now. I'm putting it out there now, but the August Wilson is still renovated for cabaret, and could become a really cool Nashville bar. This is all my thoughts from now, but there is a concept album out right now that is pretty good.

Thanks for reading

Makayla