Betsy Wolfe

On the bustling streets of 1970s San Francisco, neon lights pierce through the fog-drenched skies, disco music explodes from crowded nightclubs, and a wide- eyed Midwestern girl finds a new home—and creates a new kind of family—with the characters at 28 Barbary Lane. Over three decades after Armistead Maupin mesmerized millions with his daily column in the city's newspapers, detailing the lives and (multiple) loves of Mary Ann, Mouse, Mona, Brian, and their beloved but mysterious landlady Mrs. Madrigal, his iconic San Francisco saga came to life as a momentous new musical at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater.

Estella Scrooge is a Wall Street tycoon with a penchant for foreclosing. A hotelier in her hometown of Pickwick, Ohio has defaulted on his mortgage and as a Christmas gift to herself, Estella decides to deliver the sad news in person. Arriving at the Harthouse Hotel on Christmas Eve, Estella discovers that the mortgage holder is none other than her childhood sweetheart, Pip Nickleby. Always the humanitarian, Pip has generously transformed the property into a refuge for the distraught, disabled and displaced. A freak snowstorm forces Estella, much to her dismay, to take refuge at Harthouse. That night, as it happened to her ancestor Ebenezer long ago, she too is haunted by three visitations. And oh what uninvited overnight houseguests they are!

Nominated for five 2017 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical, Falsettos is a hilarious and poignant look at a modern family revolving around the life of a gay man Marvin, his wife, his lover, his soon-to-be-bar-mitzvahed son, their psychiatrist, and the lesbians next door. Originally Episode 2 from Season 43 of Live From Lincoln Center on PBS.

8.8/10