NOT AS FUNNY AS the “Saturday Night Live” tribute to New York City and Broadway. (“My first apartment was a drawer,” Maya Rudolph, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, sang.) Not as goofily self-aware as the number that Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jimmy Fallon did on “The Tonight Show.”
But “This Is Broadway,” the newest entry in the come-back-to-Broadway series of promotional videos, has its own magic. First of all, it has star power. That’s Oprah Winfrey narrating. It has numbers — well, in two ways. Glimpses of almost a hundred shows are seen in the two minutes and 35 seconds or so. (And most of the shows have musical numbers of their own.)
Music from “The Lion King” starts us off, followed by a deluge of song and dance — Bebe Neuwirth in “Chicago,” Alan Cumming in “Cabaret,” little Sarah Jessica Parker in “Annie,” and Angela Lansbury insisting that everything’s coming up roses in “Gypsy.”
Best effect: The would-be baseball hero Troy Maxson starts out as James Earl Jones and turns into Denzel Washington, reflecting two award-winning productions of August Wilson’s “Fences.” Second best: Jerry Orbach in “42nd Street.” ordering a nervous near-star, “Think of Broadway!”
We are. We are. O.K., Mary Martin (who appears in the video) is dead. So is Elaine Stritch, who sings “The Ladies Who Lunch” from “Company.” But Patti LuPone, who is also in the video (as Evita), will be singing it in the new revival of “Company.”
As Winfrey intones, this is “where time stops every time a show starts.” If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need any reminders. But you probably could use a boost.
https://www.today.com/popculture/oprah-winfrey-narrates-video-ahead-return-broadway-shows-t229350?icid=canonical_related