Sadly, Curtains is the final entry in the long and fruitful partnership of lyricist Fred Ebb (who died in September 2004) and composer John Kander. While the show doesn't reach the heights of the team's previous masterpieces, such as Cabaret and Chicago, it's certainly a lot better than, say, their middling 1997 offering Steel Pier. Deliberately old-fashioned (it even features a real overture, something that's fast becoming a rarity), Curtains is a whodunit rolled into a musical--or vice versa. Set in 1959 Boston, it takes place backstage at a singing-and-dancing Western corker titled Robbin Hood. Someone gets killed, and a show tunes-crazy homicide detective (David Hyde Pierce) is called in. The plot is just a pretext for a series of very entertaining, characteristically brass-heavy songs that may not have the bite of old Kander and Ebb but are still very catchy. Above all, Curtains is (both thematically and stylistically) a love letter to old-school showbiz, and it's delivered on a silver platter by a cast of pros that includes the aforementioned Hyde Pierce, Kander and Ebb habituée Karen Ziemba, endearing Jason Danieley and, a notch above the rest, Debra Monk. Unsurprisingly, she chews the scenery and spits it right back in a pair of rowdy numbers: "Show People" and "It's a Business."
1. Overture
2. Wide Open Spaces
3. What Kind Of Man?
4. Thinking Of Him
5. The Woman's Dead
6. Show People
7. Coffee Shop Nights
8. In the Same Boat
9. I Miss the Music
10. Thataway!
11. The Man Is Dead
12. He Did It
13. In the Same Boat
14. It's a Business
15. Kansasland
16. Medley: Thinking Of Him/I Miss the Music
17. A Tough Act To Follow
18. In the Same Boat
19. In the Same Boat
20. Show People
21. Wide Open Spaces
22. A Tough Act To Follow
Curtains
