A More Theater Monday Monthly Mashup for November, 2019 Maurice Hines Is Tappin Thru Life and Duet for Three

We may have been given complimentary tickets to one or more of the shows mentioned below for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.

What: Maurice Hines Is Tappin Thru Life

Where: NJPAC
             1 Center Street
             Newark, NJ

When: This event occured on Saturday November 23, 2019

Me: My topic for today is Maurice Hine Is Tappin Thru Life. It was a good show. He talked about his life and his brother Gregory and he sang  a bunch of songs that were related to people he knew or things that happend in his life. I liked the songs. I had heard some of them before including I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face, Lucky Be A Lady. Others I hadn't heard. I liked most of the songs a lot, and there were none that I really disliked. Some of the songs  were from Broadway shows. I appreciated that because I love Broadway show songs. There was also a lot of tap dancing in the show.  Maurice Hines tap danced even though he is 75 years old. That was really impressive. There were also two sets of twins that were in the recent production of the Tap Dance Kid at NJPAC who tap danced in this show as well. One pair of twins actually played Maurice and Gregory Hines on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. They were all really talented. There were also an adult brother and sister who tap danced. They were really good too. The band was good as well. They were an all female jazz band. I don't think I ever saw an all female band before. All in all, even though I had never heard of Maurice or Gregory Hines before I had a really good time at Maurice Hines is Tappin' Thru Life .

For more information about upcoming events at NJPAC, visit www.njpac.org

What: Duet for Three

Where: A.R.T. /New York Theatres
             Mezzanine Theatres
            502 W. 53rd St.
            New York, NY

When: This event occured on Thursday November 21 and Friday November 22

Mom - My topic for this month is Duet for Three. This show was part of AMAS Musical Theatre's yearly Dare to Be Different Festival. The show is about Kay Swift, the first woman to compose a musical that made it to Broadway. However, it mostly focuses on and the love triangle between Ms. Swift and her husband and writing partner, James Warburg and George Gershwin and not so much on Ms. Swift herself. The show was interesting because it illuminated a part of history which I and I am sure many other people were unfamiliar with. Although I had, of course,heard of George Gershwin before I had not heard of Kay Swift or James Warburg. As the first woman  to successfully compose a show for Broadway, Ms. Swift's name ought to be much more celebrated than it is. To me, the most interesting part of the show was not so much the love triangle, but the parts of the show where they talked about the writing process and how Swift and Warburg went about writing their songs. All of the songs in the musical were actually Kay Swift songs. I had never heard of any of them before nor had I heard of Swift and Warburg's show Fine and Dandy. Neither of these things took away from my enjoyment of the show, however. Seeing this show, definitely left me wanting to know more about this pioneering woman of the theater.

For more about AMAS Musical theatre, visit www.amasmusical.org.

And that's our view. Tune in tomorrow for Tips for Tuesday.