A Musical For Our Times?

In 2004, Stephanie D'Abruzzo was nominated for a Tony for Avenue Q. Now she's starring in the unimaginative Greed: A Musical for Our Times at New World Stages.

Photo credit: Carol Rosegg

You have to hand it to Greed for delivering what it promises: a bunch of songs about greed. But the problem is that none of them (by Michael Roberts) say anything that insightful or funny. There's a song called "It's Mine" that is repeated three times. There are generic songs about cheating on your taxes and other things people do for money. There is even an offensive number called "Another Kid" about a mother continuing to get pregnant to get welfare money, which gets even more uncomfortable when Julia Burrows gets to the line about drinking and smoking while pregnant so that she can have a baby with birth defects and get even more money. The funniest line had nothing to do with the premise, but it was about how Greed shares a stage with The Gazillion Bubble Show.

We get it. People are greedy. But we don't need to go to a musical to learn that. If Roberts wants to write a musical for our times, maybe he can visit Avenue Q, which is playing in the building, for some research.