Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – High profile musicals inspired by unlikely source material: THE SEAT OF OUR PANTS and THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES

• By drediman
• November 14, 2025
• No Comments

This past week saw the opening of a pair of high profile new musicals about troubled American families that are based on unlikely source material. These would be The Public Theater’s production of Ethan Lipton’s The Seat of Our Pants, which is based on Thornton Wilder’s famously unruly 1942 play The Skin of Our Teeth, as well as the Broadway arrival of Stephen Schwartz’s stage adaptation of The Queen of Versailles, which is adapted from the 2012 cult indie documentary of the same name. As usual, read on for my thoughts on how successfully these two fascinating theatrical reconsiderations have translated to the musical format.

THE SEAT OF OUR PANTS
The Public Theater
2 hours, 35 minutes (with one intermission)
Through December 7

Last night, Ethan Lipton’s singular musical The Seat of Our Pants (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater. As an adaptation that’s been in development for more than ten years, it actually tracks pretty closely to Thornton’s sprawling and fantastically allegorical underlying play, following its three act structure as it meta-theatrically chronicles the “evolution” of the Antrobus family through ongoing iterations of seemingly world-ending catastrophes (e.g., the ice age, floods, wars) over the course of humanity’s five thousand year history. Lipton has created a self-referential love/hate dialogue with Thornton’s play and leans in on its romp-like nature — which pops under Leigh Silverman’s freewheeling direction — in the process freeing the Antrobus family to engage more directly to with contemporary modes of self-expression. This has resulted in a musical whose vibe is more artful music theater than it is formulaic musical theater. If anything, the work most calls to mind the aesthetic of Brecht and Weill’s seminal masterpiece The Threepenny Opera, in which songs function primarily to provide commentary on the action rather than driving the plot forward. For the show, Lipton has written an organic and visceral post-folk score that’s been orchestrated with ravishing orchestral flourishes. Played by musicians that face the playing area, the music hits the audience practically in surround sound, and the sonic effect as an audience member in the Newman is thrilling. As for the cast, they’re absolutely sensational — The Antrobus family is played vividly by Ruthie Ann Miles, Damon Daunno, Shuler Hensley, and Amina Faye — many of them having the opportunity to take the spotlight, which they do with disarming force. As the show’s narrator (and Lipton’s stand-in), the slightly off-kilter, congenially matter-of-fact Andy Grotelueschen is as comforting a guide as you could wish for to lead us through numerous apocalypses. Best of all, however, is the fast rising star Micaela Diamond, who delivers a dramatically penetrating yet comedically robust performance in the role of the restless maid Sabina. Indeed, The Seat of Our Pants comes at a much needed time with its oddly reassuring reminder of the longstanding resilience of the human race — even though the world feels like it’s currently crumbling around us, this isn’t our first time at the proverbial rodeo.

THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES
St. James Theatre
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Open run

Also recently opening is The Queen of Versailles (RECOMMENDED), which has arrived on Broadway at the St. James Theatre as the latest vehicle for the petite yet larger-than-life Kristin Chenoweth. Based on the film documentary of the same name, the musical tells the cautionary tale of a Florida-based billionaire couple — Jackie Siegel and David Siegel — who must navigate their family through a financially disastrous fallout from the Great Recession while in the middle of constructing a massive 90,000 square-foot estate inspired by the world famous French palace. The show is the latest musical concoction by Stephen Schwartz, the beloved composer/lyricist of such iconic musicals as Wicked, Pippin, and Godspell (his little known flop The Baker’s Wife can currently be seen Off-Broadway starring Academy Award-winner Ariana DeBose). Schwartz’s well-crafted score is never less than pleasant, a mature pop-rock leaning collection of songs that highlights his knack for writing engaging standalone numbers. As a whole, however, the score unfortunately fails to create much of an identity of its own. At the center of it all is Chenoweth, essentially the raison d’être for the existence of this musical version of The Queen of Versailles. As Jackie, she essentially carries the show — in the first act portraying Jackie’s rags-to-riches triumph and seeming attainment of the American Dream, and in the second act having to will her family through its financial travails in the wake of the widespread 2008 recession. The Tony-winner works hard, and the results are often compelling due to her pure star power and distinctive personality. What makes the musical more admirable than lovable, however, is the fact that none of the characters are very likable, particularly David as gruffly played by another Oscar-winner, F. Murray Abraham. Even the sadly misunderstood Siegel children don’t pop off the stage as they should — especially glaring in a big Broadway musical — largely because of their limp dispositions. Which leaves us with Jackie, whose ultimate decision to capitalize on a family tragedy (no spoilers here!) should have been depicted with uncompromising satiric bite — taking a more decisive ethical stance on Jackie’s character — rather than sugarcoating it for the audience. Although Tony-winning director Michael Arden has considerably tightened the large, somewhat unwieldy production since its out-of-town tryout in Boston two summers ago, I can’t help the feeling that it will suffer the same fate as Redwood, that other lavish curiosity starring another Wicked alum.