What’s the last word I thought I’d ever use to describe a show directed by Harold Prince? Bland.
And yet, sadly, that’s the overall effect of “Prince of Broadway,” a polished but disappointingly rote roll-call of many of the highlights of Prince’s nearly seven decades in the theater.
Certainly the more than 30 songs performed by a superb cast of nine include some of the most beloved, or accomplished, ever written for musicals. A short list of the shows directed or produced (or both) by Prince ranges from the bouncy “Damn Yankees” to the storied collaborations with Stephen Sondheim – “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music” and “Sweeney Todd” among them – as well as two Andrew Lloyd Webber megahits, “Evita” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” Plus “Cabaret” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”
