Went to the South Bay Musical Theatre's production of Forbidden Broadway: Greatest Hits. We'd enjoyed the then-current version of this in a nightclub venue on a visit to NYC quite some years back, but that was with a top-flight NYC cast. This one was with locals, and not even as well done as a typical SBMT show.
Much of the material was pretty good. You can't parody Spamalot's "The Song That Goes Like This", so they just pointed out that it's "The Song They Stole From Us". And I always find it clever to apply some classic old song to a different show, so I got a kick from putting Rodgers and Hammerstein to the use of Lloyd Webber with "I Enjoy Being a Cat". But some was dull, and it got pretty repetitive after a while.
The cast were all sufficiently hammy for a parody show, but maybe being overhammy was the trouble. Their diction was bad, virtually not a one of them could sing on pitch - some of the songs I actually wondered if there was some copyright reason they couldn't use the original tune - and their impersonations of famous thespians (Streisand, Patinkin, and especially Channing) were a sorry sight to behold.
Various audience members felt it appropriate to whoop and screech in response to all this, but at least a quick word was enough to get the ones seated immediately behind us, where it'd particularly pierce our ears, to cease.
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