Theater Reviews: Catching Up With the Enjoyably Country-Flavored “Beau the Musical” and the Always Excellent Jean Smart in “Call Me Izzy;” Being Introduced to the Flamboyant Life of Rob Madge in “My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?)”

Beau the Musical (c) Valerie Terranova Photography

Theater: Beau the Musical 
At Theater 154 

The hero of Beau the Musical, Douglas Lyons and Ethan D. Pakchar’s country-rock musical making its Off-Broadway debut in a downhome, charming Out of the Box production, is not our narrator. That would be Ace (Matt Rodin), who is performing at a club in Nashville and telling the story of how his reunion with his thought-to-be-dead grandfather Beau (Chris Blisset) led him to become a country singer. Most of the story takes place in the high school life of Ace, being raised by a loving-if-gruff single mother, Raven (Amelia Cormack). She has just started dating a likeable but trying-too-hard Larry (Matt Wolpe), who wears the best piece of tacky clothing in costume designer’s Devario D. Simmons’ lived-in collection, whom Ace can’t stand when he gets a call from a Memphis hospital that Beau is in the ICU and Raven is his emergency contact. Without a strong male figure in his life, Ace starts to bond with this man he never knew existed. Beau turns out to be no-nonsense, but also a very compassionate man, trying to coax Ace out of his shell with walks in the country, teaching him guitar and getting Ace to open up about his life. Ace is a closeted, gay kid who is being harassed and makes out with his bully Ferris (Cory Jeacoma). A lot more happens in Beau the Musical, which gives each of the band members a character to play, but at almost two hours with no intermission, the show needed a couple of plot prunings, especially the acting out of a big secret in Beau’s past that could have just been a concise monologue. The acting is the draw in Josh Rhodes’ production. Rodin is better suited here as Ace than he was in All the World’s a Stage earlier this year as a closeted teacher, and Cormack is convincing as a mother who loves and wants to strangle her son at the same time. But the heart of the show (and probably why the musical is named after him) is Blisset as Beau. Blisset may start out a gruff country stereotype, but he gets more interesting as the show goes along, especially the heart-tugging finale. Beau the Musical may focus on the trauma of family life, but it’s mostly an enjoyable and fun country-fried ride. 

GALECA Critics Bestows Dorian TV Award Noms to "Andor," "The Last of Us" and Newbie Series "Overcompensating"

Overcompensating (c) Prime Video

Los Angeles, Calif. - June 16, 2025 - Adding some Hollywood fizz to Pride month, the 560-member strong GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics announced its 16th Dorian TV Awards nominations for the best in television and streaming, mainstream to LGBTQ+ content. Voters in the organization, now the second largest entertainment journalists group in the world, write and work for some of the most respected and buzz-worthy media outlets in the U.S. and beyond. 

Vying for Best Drama: The twisty and surreal office drama Severance, seen on Apple TV+, the Disney Plus Star Wars universe spinoff Andor, and HBO/Max's ever-outrageous hotel drama The White Lotus—each of which took six Dorian nominations. Two more HBO/Max shows, the gritty new medical drama The Pitt and zombie spooker The Last of Us, are in the running with five. 

In the comedy arena, HBO/Max's Hacks—the Dorian Award winner here last year and in 2021—scored six nods, the same streamer's outgoing Somebody Somewhere grabbed four, with ABC's Abbott Elementary (another two-time Dorian winner) chalking up three. Also in the running: Apple TV+’s new, big and boisterous Hollywood satire The Studio and the second season of HBO/Max's genre-defying The Rehearsal, creator-star Nathan Fielder’s societal experiment that aims to prepare average folks for various potential, if wildly unlikely, life snags. 

Film Review: “The Life of Chuck” Wants to be Profound (by Way of Stephen King), and It Mostly Succeeds, While “How to Train Your Dragon” Is a Live-Action Remake of the 2010 Original, but the Best Parts Are Still Animated

Life of Chuck (c) NEON

Film: Life of Chuck 
In Cinemas 

Horror film director Mike Flanagan has directed movie adaptations of Stephen King novels before (Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game), and considering Flanagan’s pedigree (Ouija: Origin of Evil, Oculus) and King’s reputation, actual horror is surprisingly kept to a minimum in both. Now, despite the apocalypse and deathly premonitions woven into the plot, Life of Chuck, based on a Stephen King novella, has both men dealing with a more philosophical approach to death. And while a lot of it feels like new-age hooey, the film mostly gives us an interesting thesis to make the experience quite emotional. In a quiet town, English high school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) notices new billboards that thank a guy named Chuck for his 39 years of service. At the same time, the world seems to be at its endgame with news of California falling into the ocean after a devastating earthquake, as well as other catastrophes hitting around the world. All this makes Marty want to reunite with his ex-wife, Felicia (Karen Gillan), a nurse, and try to make sense of what’s happening, and how Chuck is a part of all this. The film then goes back nine years to focus on the aforementioned Chuck (Tom Hiddleston), who we hear from an omnipresent narrator is soon to find out some devastating new. But on this day, he seems depressed until he runs into a street busker (Taylor Gordon) on the drums, which gets him dancing solo then with stranger (and equally sad) Janice (Annalise Basso) as they find joy in life again. The movie’s last time shift is back to when Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) was a young kid, who after the death of his parents, moves in with his grandparents (Mia Sara and Mark Hamill). Chuck realizes that life is going to be a series of heartbreak and tragedy, but as he learns in English class reading Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, both Chuck and life contain multitudes. 

The Interested Bystander’s 2025 Theater Awards Round-up

Maybe Happy Ending (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Here are some of the major awards given in theater in 2025.

The Interested Bystander: Final 2024-25 Tony Award Predictions

Maybe Happy Ending (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Now that all the pre-award announcements have been made, it’s time for my final predictions for the Tony Awards, which will air Sunday on CBS from Radio City Music Hall with Cynthia Erivo as the host.

Enjoy.