Broadway Review: ‘Tootsie’
The new Broadway adaptation of “Tootsie” is old-fashioned and proud of it — and it’s a surefire crowd-pleaser, in this musical spin on the 1982 film comedy with Santino Fontana in the Dustin Hoffman role.
Robert Horn (book) and Tony-winner David Yazbek (score) have a high old time poking fun at theatrical rituals — the mortifying auditions, the grueling rehearsals, the agonizing openings, the backstage heartbreak — in this affectionate sendup of a Broadway musical (replacing the movie’s soap opera setting) and its uniquely unlikely star. Director Scott Ellis leaves nothing and no one unscathed in staging this satire of a Broadway-bound musical called “Juliet’s Nurse.” From the gaudy Renaissance costumes (by William Ivey Long) to the over-the-top choreography (from Denis Jones), the creatives nail it.
