No Longer Banned: ‘Forbidden Broadway’, Scrappy Parody, Headed to Broadway

For more than four decades, “Forbidden Broadway” has lovingly mocked the songs, stories and stars of Broadway from afar – in performance spaces in bars or diners, as well as in theaters in New York and beyond.

This summer the show can be seen for the first time in the belly of the beast: on Broadway. A version of the long-running, oft-edited revue, now titled “Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song,” plans to begin previews July 29 and open August 15 at the Hayes Theater.

“Everything else is going to be bigger, so why not ‘Forbidden Broadway’?” said Gerard Alessandrini, the show’s creator and author. “I haven’t done a whole new edition of ‘Forbidden Broadway’ since before Covid, so I thought this would be a good time to come back – we need more laughs, and with all the activity on Broadway there will be plenty of good causes .”

“Forbidden Broadway” is a satirical production consisting primarily of tunes from well-known or current shows rewritten with lyrics that mock something about the production or its performers. The audience’s basic familiarity with the material is critical, so the show’s objectives are often rotated to reflect what is most in the public eye.

“To me, going to a ‘Forbidden Broadway’ is like sitting down to chat with a friend who shares an obsession,” critic Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times in 2019.

The show has had a number of near-death experiences, but so far every hiatus has been followed by rewrites and rebirths.

The Broadway version’s subtitle is both a confession and an allusion to one of the season’s biggest hits, “Merrily We Roll Along,” with music by Stephen Sondheim. ‘Forbidden Broadway’ has long been a parody of Sondheim’s works, and this version is expected to spoof not only ‘Merrily’ but also several other classics from the great composer, including ‘Sweeney Todd’, ‘Into the Woods’ and ‘Company’. That doesn’t mean this season’s other offerings will be spared – a press release mentions ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘Back to the Future’, ‘The Notebook’ and ‘Water for Elephants’ as possible examples.

The plans to bring ‘Forbidden Broadway’ to the big stage were Previously reported by the Broadway Journal newsletter. The production, which features four actors, a pianist and rotating guest stars, is directed by Alessandrini, who created “Forbidden Broadway” in 1982. The producers are Broadway & Beyond Theater Performances (Ryan Bogner, Victoria Lang and Tracey Stroock McFarland) in collaboration with John Freedson and Harriet Yellin.