Almost Famous opened on Broadway a little over a year ago on November 3rd, 2022. After its short lived run at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre, creators Cameron Crowe and Tom Kitt have gone back to the drawing board and decided to once again workshop the piece. Live readings were held at the Eugene O'neill Theatre Center in Waterford, CT on November 11th, 15th, and 18th.
Many of the cast members from the original Broadway production revived their roles in the readings. The show welcomed back Gerard Canonico as Dick, Chad Burris as Aaron, Rob Colletti as Lester Bangs, Anika Larsen as Elaine Miller, Jana Djenne Jackson as Polexia, and Julia Cassandra as Estrella. Plenty of new faces joined the cast as well including, newcomer Brayden Bambino who took on the role of William Miller. Additionally, Alex Boniello as Russell Hammond, Damon Daunno as Jeff Bebe, Kelvin Moon Loh as Larry Fellows, Blaine Alden Krauss as Silent Ed, Lola Tung as Penny Lane, and Katy Geraghty as both Anita Miller and Sapphire.
Despite the show solely being a reading with almost no props and blocking, I was amazed by this cast. I never thought I would get the opportunity to see a show that has meant so much to me ever again, so the fact that I got the chance to see this show in a new form was invaluable. I appreciated how Canonico got to showcase another of his many talents and was given the opportunity to play guitar in the readings. I also thought Boniello really pulled off the edgy and angsty Russell Hammond vibes. Ever since I initially saw the show I thought about Boniello in the role, especially considering he’s a great guitarist as well. As always Daunno brought his silky-smooth voice to this piece, but with some added rage to coincide with Kitt’s rock score. It was truly a treasure to watch this cast jam out and enjoy themselves on stage.
In speaking to Crowe after the final reading on November 18th, he said, “I just want to have this cast seen and felt by people because they’ve put so much of themselves into this and I love our new director [Des Kennedy]. And if it’s a pop up, if we go to London, if we come back to New York…it’s all a beautiful gift being able to come back to it with Tom and put new songs in, and give it life, so that it’s not something that we walked away from. We were never going to walk away from it. Because we closed on Broadway a little abruptly, it felt like something that had just a little bit of a cloud over it and Tom never let that cloud hover for very long at all. We dug right back into it and this is the result of finding people that wanted to join us and doing it, so I’m so grateful."
I look forward to the future of Almost Famous the musical and I am eternally grateful to have seen the show both on Broadway and in this workshop process.
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