We’ve seen three Broadway musicals in the past five nights: Tarzan, The Wedding Singer, and The Drowsy Chaperone. That’s the order in which we saw them, and it’s also the order in which I’d rank them from worst to best. Keep in mind that these shows are all in previews.

I hate to bad-mouth a show, especially when I sorta know someone who’s working on it (though not on the creative side). But Tarzan sucked. Plain and simple. It might even have been worse than last season’s Dracula, which, at the time, was one of the worst musicals I’d ever seen. But at least Dracula was visually interesting. Tarzan has a boring set consisting essentially of green streamers. It has incredibly ugly ape costumes. (How did Shuler Hensley get involved in this?) It has long stretches of dialogue with static staging. It has unmemorable songs. The plot is, literally, pure Disney, but Matt says the movie is much better (I haven’t seen it). To make matters worse, we were sitting near a group of teenagers who’d attempted to dress up. Some of the girls in their strapless dresses looked like they were on their way to the prom.

The Wedding Singer, based on the movie of the same name about a wedding singer in 1980’s New Jersey, is a really cute show with an appealing cast, a funny book and catchy songs. (Its big earworm, “It’s Your Wedding Day”, keeps getting stuck in my head.) It also takes advantage of the ongoing ’80s nostalgia. Given all that, and the built-in New Jersey audience, it should do very well.

I can’t say enough good things about The Drowsy Chaperone. It’s really a tribute to musical theater – a show for people who love musicals – and it’s hysterical but poignant. The premise is that we’re in the apartment of a lonely middle-aged man, known as Man in Chair, who’s going to share with us his cast recording of his favorite old musical from the 1920’s, The Drowsy Chaperone (which isn’t a real show, of course). As he begins to play the album, the old musical comes alive before our eyes. Man in Chair constantly interrupts The Drowsy Chaperone with his own commentary on the actors, the songs, and the recording. But this is more than a one-gimmick show; the 1920s musical itself has terrifically witty songs and visuals, and Sutton Foster has a showstopper of a number. The whole cast is impeccable. This deserves to win lots of Tonys.

Coming up are two plays: Festen and The History Boys. I think I’m going to need some new Playbill binders.

Last night we saw Grey Gardens, the new musical based on the classic 1975 documentary, and loved it. If this were on Broadway instead of at Playwrights Horizons, Christine Ebersole would be a lock for the Tony.

Matt had the good idea of renting the documentary last week. Neither of us had seen it before (actually, I saw the first 15 minutes at a friend’s place last year, but that was it), and, after a while, I totally got into it. The story of a nutty elderly woman and her nutty middle-aged daughter stuck living together in a creepily co-dependent relationship totally reminded me of my maternal grandmother and my mom’s sister, who lived together for a long time as adults in an absurdly messy house. The movie is simultaneously entertaining and haunting. And it enhanced the musical experience, because we were able to catch many references to the film, some of them subtle.

The musical is unconventional, but it mostly works. The writers constructed the first act out of whole cloth: it takes place in 1941, thirty years before the events captured in the documentary, and the songs are mostly 1940s pastiche. The act goes on a bit too long and there are too many diegetic songs, but the foreshadowing of future events is eerie at times. The second act, more experimental, is a largely musicalized version of the documentary; thirty years have passed and everything has fallen apart. I think Sara Gettelfinger, who plays the daughter, Little Edie, in the first half, was miscast; she seems too sane to turn into the loopy 1975 version of Little Edie, played by Christine Ebersole. And I wasn’t totally convinced by Matt Cavenaugh as Joe Kennedy, Jr. in the first half and as Jerry, the teenage “Marble Faun,” in the second half. But Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson were fantastic, and they totally make the show.

It’s only running for another month, so if you want to see it, get tickets now.

I got to meet Broadway composer Henry Krieger today, best known for composing “Dreamgirls.” He works out at my gym, and he had an appointment with my personal trainer right after I did. The trainer introduced us. I told him that Matt plays “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” several times a week, is obsessed with the show, and is counting down the days until the movie opens in December. He seemed genuinely flattered. After my session, I was on an exercise bike, and I heard him tell my trainer that he’s not used to getting name recognition. I’m sure he’ll be getting more recognition again once the movie comes out.

I couldn’t wait to tell Matt when I got home. Unfortunately, he was still asleep at 2 in the afternoon. Once I got out of the shower, he was awake, and I told him. He was psyched. Then he told me I had to blog about it so he could link to it. (Clearly it’s taken me a few hours.)

Now that I’ve met Henry Krieger, I need to meet the other two famous people who apparently work out at my gym: Victor Garber and the Verizon guy. (One of the desk workers at the gym asked me if I was the latter a couple of weeks ago. Must be the glasses.)