Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking spoofs and spins your favorite stage stars

There are just a few things we miss about our years in Madhattan.
One of the biggest: Theater. Real theatre in real theatres. And we miss not being able to see Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking, the latest in Gerard Alessandrini’s wacky and wild series of stage spoofs. We were there when Forbidden Broadway was born in 1982; Alessandrini, a frustrated performer looking for a place to showcase himself and his friends, booked a weekend performance at Palsson’s, and the rest was magical mayhem. Indeed, our friend and college alum, Christine Pedi, was in the first 3,456 productions. Does anyone do a better/bitchier Liza?
Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking parodies Broadway’s biggest shows and brightest stars, including Annie, Newsies, Once, Book of Mormon, Spiderman, Evita, Porgy and Bess, Anything Goes, Follies, as well of send-ups of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Audra McDonald, Matthew Broderick, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, among others.
Now celebrating its 30th year playing and parodying, Forbidden Broadway (it even won a special Tony for “excellence in the theatre”) has joined the ranks of A Chorus Line and The Phantom of the Opera as one of the longest-running shows in New York. Take that, Carrie!
So hot is the show that producers have extended its run through April 28. Another pal, Carol Burnett, went backstage to rave, as did Stephen Sondheim (a usual FB target), Tyne Daly, Marge Champion, Mike Nichols, Lesley Stahl, Harold Prince, Buck Henry, Jim Dale, Norman Lear, Diane Sawyer and Michael Kors.
And though DRG Records sent us the CD of the show, it just ain’t the same as watching the cast (Natalie Charlé Ellis, Scott Richard Foster, Jenny Lee Stern and Marcus Stevens, with David Caldwell on piano) carrying on and caricaturizing.
Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking is running at 47 Street Theatre, 304 West 47 Street, New York City. For tickets, call 212.239.6200 or 800.432.7250. For more info, visit forbiddenbroadway.com.