New! 1100 Miles Off Broadway: Theatre Reviews 2014-2022 IS HOT OFF THE PRESSES! If you enjoy the reviews in the book, there are plenty more. 

 

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Peter Nason's first book of show reviews is in production and looking forward to it debut. 1100 Miles Off Broadway includes approximately 140 favorites. For those of you who don't know Pete, he is one of the local critics for Broadway World, and he is both well-respected and feared for his honest, yet uplifting reviews. He knows that artists put their life into their work, and his way of handling both stellar and less than stellar attributes of a production is filled with heart and wit that only one who loves the theatre can express. 

 

Tampa Bay is 1100 miles from Broadway, and the local theatre there is alive and thriving in a place more famous for its sports teams than its greasepaint and curtain calls. The book 1100 MILES OFF-BROADWAY features the theatre reviews of the past decade by Peter Nason, renowned drama teacher, actor, director, and the Tampa Bay area's critic for Broadway World.  In his theatrical critiques, Nason is notorious for being both fair and honest, tough and kind, serious and funny, with an element of wit, wisdom and wackiness.  He wants you, the reader, to have the same enthusiasm as he had in watching and adoring many of the shows in question.

 

Shows Reviewed in 1100 Miles Off Broadway

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MUSICALS                                                   

West Side Story; Mame; Cabaret; The Light in the Piazza; Beauty and the Beast; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Hairspray; The Music Man; She Loves Me; Man of La Mancha; The Sound of Music; Sunset Boulevard; Sweet Charity

SONDHEIM                                                  

Into the Woods; Company; Putting It Together; Sondheim on Sondheim; Assassins; Into the Woods (SPO); Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

ROCK, POP, HIP-HOP & COUNTRY

Hair; Rent; Bright Lights, Big City; In the Heights; And a World to Carry On: Laura Nyro Remembered; Lizzie: A Killer Rock Musical; Mamma Mia; Always…Patsy Cline; Once

COMEDY                                                      

Noises Off; Laughter on the 23rd Floor; Twelfth Night; Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily; Harvey; The Great Trailer Park Musical; Spamalot; Tartuffe; The Red Velvet Cake War; The Flick; Rhinoceros; The Producers; Blithe Spirit; The Odd Couple; Around the World in 80 Days; Shrek the Musical; Young Frankenstein; The Nerd; A Midsummer Night’s Dream

DRAMA                                                                     

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Superior Donuts; Annapurna; The Tempest: Esta Isla Es Mia; Our Town; The Iceman Cometh; Good People; The Great Gatsby; The Aliens; A View from the Bridge; 12 Angry Men

YOUTH                                                                     

The Burnt-Part Boys; Anne Frank and Me; Thoroughly Modern Millie; Les Miserables, School Edition; 13: The Musical; The Little Prince; Peter Pan; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Chicago, High School Version; Pippin; Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead; The Addams Family: The Musical, School Edition

OLD AGE                                                      

On Golden Pond; Calendar Girls; 4000 Miles; Marjorie Prime; So Long Life; Between Riverside & Crazy; King Lear

CHAPTER EIGHT: REAL PEOPLE                                

Gutenberg: The Musical; At Peculiar Crossroads: A Celebration of the Life and Art of Flannery O’Connor; 1776; Tru; Evita; Marie Antoinette; Copenhagen; Titanic the Musical

CHAPTER NINE: RACE                                                    

Radio Golf; Jitney; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; The Royale; A Raisin in the Sun; Pipeline

CHAPTER TEN: L.G.B.T.Q.                                              

Birds of a Feather; La Cage Aux Folles; Bare: A Pop Opera; Perfect Arrangement; Fun Home; The Laramie Project; The Normal Heart

CHAPTER ELEVEN: RELIGION                                    

The Chosen; Doubt; Jesus Christ Superstar; Inherit the Wind; Bad Jews; A Shayna Maidel; Hand to God 

CHAPTER TWELVE: WAR                                                          

Occupation; South Pacific; Time Stands Still; War Virgin: My Journey of Repression, Temptation and Liberation; The Invisible Hand; Vietgone; Biloxi Blues

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ART

Inventing Van Gogh; Nureyev’s Eyes; Red; The Pitmen Painters; Art

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: CULT HITS & MISSES         

Return to the Forbidden Planet; Vampire Lesbians of Sodom; The Importance of Being Earnest with Zombies; Silence! The Musical; [title of show]; Psycho Beach Party; Disaster: The Musical; Night of the Living Dead; Urinetown: The Musical; Carrie: The Musical; Shockheaded Peter

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: CUTTING EDGE & CONTROVERSIAL

The Motherf*cker with the Hat; Keely & Du; Roe; Columbinus; Heathers: The Musical; Avenue Q 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES

August: Osage County; The Buffalo Kings; Other Desert Cities; One Slight Hitch; Next to Normal; Hir; Long Day’s Journey Into Night

 

In this collection, he has included approximately 140 shows that meant the most to him or the reviews that he believes resonate the most, whether the production was worthy or infamously wretched.  As Nason says, "Theatre criticism is an art form, and my goal has always been to tell you how I react to a particular show, what works and what does not, and why I feel the way I do.  I try to let kindness be my guide in every review.  And to tell the truth, always, but with only love in my heart."   1100 MILES OFF-BROADWAY throws the Bay Area theatre scene into the spotlight where it belongs.