Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Led by a jaw-dropping Jasmine Amy Rogers, the Encores! revival of LaChiusa’s THE WILD PARTY is drop dead thrilling

• By drediman
• March 24, 2026
• No Comments

Currently over at New York City Center, you’ll find an absolutely drop dead thrilling Encores! revival of The Wild Party. Here’s some background. Somehow way back during the 1999-2000 theater season, two major musical theater adaptations of Joseph Moncure March’s jazz age poem (of the same name) about a gin-fueled party set in a Manhattan apartment during the Roaring Twenties coincidentally premiered in New York. I’ve always favored Michael John LaChiusa’s jazzier, more organic version of the poem — which is the version currently wowing audiences on 55th Street — to Andrew Lippa’s more generically musical theater take (which Encores! has also mounted, in 2015 with Sutton Foster). Now more than a quarter of a century onwards, the folks over at City Center finally have, in vivid fashion, brought back LaChiusa’s restless, raging The Wild Party. In short, it was well worth the wait.

What makes LaChiusa’s version such an underrated masterpiece is how uncannily he understands the cadence of so-called “wild parties”, with their stops-and-starts and eventual yet unpinnable escalation into delirium, which is typically accompanied by the excessive intake of alcohol and various other substances. This is all manifested in LaChuisa’s brilliant pastiche score and its seamless incorporation into his crass yet seductive book, the result of which is a intoxicating patchwork that unspools over the course of two intermission-less hours. Director Lili-Anne Brown — a newcomer to Encores! and a talent well worth watching — also understands all this, as exemplified by her hallucinatory fever dream of a production, which unfolds with mesmerizing vitality on Arnel Sanaciano’s efficient, evocative apartment set, naturally and nimbly weaving in and out of Katie Spelman’s sizzling choreography throughout. Ironically, given the deprave happenings onstage, the production is one of the most polished offerings from City Center’s indispensable series I’ve seen in recent years (impressively, the cast is completely off-book). Also, under the baton of guest music director Daryl Waters, you probably won’t hear a fuller, more scintillating rendition of the score than it’s luxuriously played here by a full orchestra.

The cast is sensational from top to bottom, starting with a jaw-dropping Jasmine Amy Rogers, who is simply electrifying as the volatile Queenie, who hosts the titular party with her mentally unhinged beau Burrs, who is played with prowling vaudevillian, animalistic force and magnificent vocal firepower by Jordan Donica. Simultaneously sensual, uninhibited, and perky in the difficult role, Rogers is proving herself to be one of the most dynamic and versatile musical theater actresses we’ve got. There’s really nothing she can’t do. Other highlights in the ensemble cast include the undeniable star power of Adrienne Warren as Queenie’s best friend Kate, the cool suaveness of Jelani Alladin as the evening’s sexy and earnest interloper, and the irrepressibly defiant presence of the legendary Tonya Pinkins (who played Kate in the original production) as a fading, clenched-fisted actress. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg of the riches provided by this hugely talented and beautifully integrated company of accomplished actors. Collectively, they imbue this Wild Party with a palpable sense of danger, madness, and debauchery.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE WILD PARTY
Off-Broadway, Musical
New York City Center
2 hours (without an intermission)
Through March 29