City of Angels

Ogunquit Playhouse, Ogunquit, ME, July 25, 2026

By John Amodeo

Despite having won six Tony Awards, including for Best Musical in 1990, City of Angels hasn’t received a Broadway revival since its highly lauded and successful 1989-92 run. The current highly polished production at Ogunquit Playhouse (OP), directed by Broadway’s Hunter Foster (Urinetown, Bridges of Madison County) and running through August 22, makes a compelling case to mount a revival now—with this production, this cast, and this artistic team. Foster, who returns to OP after brilliantly directing its recent productions of A Little Night Music and Little Shop of Horrors, began working over a year ago with OP’s Artistic Director Brad Kenney to see how they would bring City of Angels to OP. They knew that in some ways it was ahead of its time and more relevant today than it may have been when it first ran. But they also knew Larry Gelbart’s smart and sassy Tony Award-winning book left some loose ends. They concluded “it needs work,” as this show’s own song proclaims. Determined to tie up those loose ends, Foster and Kenney got to work, and as life often imitates art, Foster’s wife, Broadway’s Jennifer Cody (Urinetown, Pajama Game) helped review the drafts. Subtle as the changes are, the results are astonishing. This production preserved Gelbart’s Hollywood glamour and film-noir intrigue, while bringing clarity to the story in places the original somehow missed. Not least of all was the original unearned happy ending that Foster and team resolved far more plausibly and poignantly. They also smartly preserved the Tony Award-winning score that featured Cy Coleman’s sizzling music and David Zippel’s clever lyrics, which had the wittiest wordplay since Cole Porter.

The story, which takes place in the late 1940s, focuses on Stine, a modestly successful New York detective novelist who gets his big break when Buddy, a Hollywood producer/director, hires him to write a screenplay based on one of Stine’s own detective novels. Stine soon discovers that Buddy has ideas of his own on how the story should be told, and he struggles to maintain his literary integrity as he slowly sells out to Hollywood’s allure. While Stine sits at his typewriter writing (and rewriting) the screenplay, the movie version of his novel plays out beside him on stage in film-noir style, as his private investigator protagonist, Stone, tries to unravel a missing-persons case. Stine’s wife, Gabby, who had always smartly and lovingly reviewed his drafts, sees her husband caving to Buddy’s rewrites, which strains their marriage. It doesn’t help that Stine, unlike his morally upstanding alter ego Stone, tends to stray from his marital fidelity, further causing trouble in paradise.

Supporting characters involved in subplots include Donna, Buddy’s secretary, who falls hard for Stine during their several meaningless trysts, a storyline that parallels the movie’s characters. Oolie, Stone’s put-upon secretary carries a torch for Stone, who is in love with the elusive Bobbi. Foster and team give the subplot involving Stone’s former police-force partner, Muñoz a modern treatment, raising topical issues of white privilege, inequality, and passed-over promotions, leading to more clearly understood jealousy and resentment that underscore his motivations for revenge. Buddy, worried that the racism themes are too heavy-handed to be commercially viable, changes their rivalry to a love triangle that involves Stone, Muñoz, and Bobbi that irritates Stine, who nevertheless feels powerless to resist.

Having two stories told simultaneously, Stine’s Hollywood and Stone’s movie, seems far more complex on paper than it played out on stage, thanks to Foster’s skillful directing, a “split screen” set, and an exceptional cast. As Stine, Ben Jacoby (Beautiful, Beaches) is sympathetic, even when Stine’s insecurity compromises his literary fiber and his infidelity threatens his marriage. Jacoby allowed Stine to beat himself up over that, so we didn’t have to. His powerfully delivered eleven o’clock number “Funny,” which was anything but, is a real stunner. Tony Award nominee Tony Yazbek (Gypsy, On the Town) brought just the right mix of swagger and sensitivity to Stone. Yazbek must have been waiting most of his career to play this role, because he excelled here, letting one sarcastic riposte after another roll easily off his tongue. Without dancing a step, this lifelong Broadway hoofer held up his half of the show with a heaping serving of charm, charisma, and chutzpah. Because the chemistry between Jacoby and Yazbek was tangible as rivals and allies, their duet “You’re Nothing Without Me” and its climactic reprise, “I’m Nothing Without You,” rang true both times, especially with the strategic script changes leading into the finale. The equally palpable chemistry Jacoby and Yazbek had with Alysha Umphress (On the Town) as Stine’s Gabby and Stone’s Bobbi heightened the emotional drama between Stine and Gabby, and the sizzling yet star-crossed romance between Stone and Bobbi. Umphress was fierce as Gabby in “It Needs Work” and utterly breathtaking as Bobbi crooning the torchy “With Every Breath I Take,” the best-sung version of that ever heard.

Playing Donna and Oolie with hapless aplomb, Danielle Wade (Mean Girls) was aptly wistful as she lamented “You Can Always Count on Me,” where she played both roles at once, supported by clever and effective quick changes of set, costume, and lighting. As the fictional millionairess Alaura, who hires Stone to find her missing stepdaughter Mallory, Lili Thomas (Gypsy, Chicago) scorched the ground she walked on, dressed to the nines in the production’s most opulent outfits, which were period perfect, lavishly designed by Jen Caprio (Spamalot, Falsettos). Thomas and Yazbek sparred handsomely in “The Tennis Song,” one of Zippel’s best lyrics, dripping with delicious double entendre. Stephen DeRosa (Boop!, Queen of Versailles) was suitably smarmy as Buddy. Emerging actress Bella Serrano as Mallory packed plenty of bump and grind into a vocally driving “Lost and Found,” though not enough to erase the memory of the original Mallory, Rachel York, who, at 21, created a showstopping sensation with the number. As a glitzy Greek chorus, The Angel City 4—Meghan Olivia Corbett, Rick Faugno, Sam Foti, and Aaron Michael Ray—provided thrilling tight harmony vocalese on well-placed incidental interludes and underscoring for some cinematically choreographed fight scenes, which considerably spiced up the action. Coleman gave them his jazziest moments filled with Zippel’s most tongue-twisting lyrics, handled handily by this talented quartet.

As extraordinarily talented as this cast is, the artistic team was the real star, beginning with Foster, whose light-handed yet impactful changes to the book and creative direction were handled sensitively, better illuminating the story. His treatment of the ending, leaving an ambivalent yet softening Gabby alone on stage with a draft of Stine’s latest novel in her arms, left a lump in my throat. Foster’ collaboration with set designer Nate Bertone, video and projection designer Bryce Cutler, and lighting designer José Santiago was nothing short of brilliant. To create the split-screen set design, Bertone and Cutler skillfully and seamlessly integrated real set pieces with realistic-looking projections to achieve the dazzling color for Stine’s Hollywood-set action and black-and-white palette for Stone’s film noir-set movie. Some theater aficionados claim that the complex technical challenges of the original Broadway production stood in the way of ever reviving it. Somehow, the Foster/Bertone/Cutler/Santiago team cracked the code, not just equaled but surpassed the original creatively using current technology, especially allowing the Hollywood and movie sets to wax and wane as needed. Foster’s addition of a dance chorus added visual delight to the Angel City 4 numbers that tickled the ear.

This was a production in which the whole is greater than the sum of its superbly crafted parts, thanks to the artistic vision of the creative team helmed by Foster and Kenney. A production this good merits a longer run, hopefully transferred completely intact to Broadway.

City of Angels runs through August 22, 2026 at the Ogunquit Playhouse, 10 Main Street, Ogunquit, ME 03907. Tickets $40-$150. For tickets and information, visit: https://www.ogunquitplayhouse.org/show/city-of-angels/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23809425825&gbraid=0AAAAArA5t1TYEQ2vCpC7tvtHRw2IN_1hI&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi5iImo37lQMVj2xHAR3c8TaWEAAYASAAEgKqEPD_BwE