Latest news with #ABeautifulNoise:TheNeilDiamondMusical
New York Post
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Neil Diamond surprises fans with rare performance 7 years after announcing retirement
Good times never seemed so good. Neil Diamond made a surprise appearance at Saturday's performance of 'A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical' at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, seven years after he announced his Parkinson's diagnosis and retirement from touring. In an Instagram video, the musical's lead, 'American Idol' winner Nick Fradiani, introduced Diamond, 84, who delivered an impromptu performance of his hit 'Sweet Caroline' from the audience. 11 Neil Diamond visits 'A Beautiful Noise' at the Hollywood Pantages on July 12. Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages 11 Neil Diamond in the audience at 'A Beautiful Noise.' Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages The music icon, dressed in a baseball cap and long-sleeved shirt, was surrounded by fans who joined him and the band in singing the classic 1969 song. At the end of the performance, Diamond thanked the crowd who erupted into cheers and roars for him. 11 Neil Diamond sings 'Sweet Caroline.' Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages 11 Neil Diamond gives an impromptu performance at the musical based on his life. Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages 'A moment we'll never forget. #abeautifulnoise,' the musical's Instagram page captioned the video of Diamond. In the comments section, fans praised the Grammy Award winner for his electric performance. 'A moment in Neil's life, such warmth in ours, thank you Neil,' one fan wrote. 11 Neil Diamond at the July 12 performance of 'A Beautiful Noise.' Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages 11 Neil Diamond with the touring cast of 'A Beautiful Noise.' Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages 'What a treat for this wonderful cast and show! Neil looks great! God bless him,' another fan said. A third person wrote, 'Magic. Neil is a true Hero.' 'I was lucky enough to be in the room. Great show, wonderful surprise, still have goosebumps. Thank you!!' someone else said. 11 Neil Diamond with his wife Katie at 'A Beautiful Noise.' Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages 11 Neil Diamond visits the musical based on his life. Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock for Pantages Fradiani, 39, also posted footage from Diamond's visit to the show with pictures of them posing backstage. 'I built up this day in my head for over 2 years. The day where Neil Diamond himself would see this show,' the singer wrote. 'It sounds cliché, but I don't have the exact words to describe how it felt portraying a music icon as he sat and watched from an audience.' 'But mostly I felt honored and fulfilled,' Fradiani continued. 'He's a great man, a great musician, and he's changed so many of our lives. I was able to tell him how much he's changed mine.' 'A Beautiful Noise,' which is currently on tour at the Pantages Theatre through July 27, opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater in Dec. 2022 and had its curtain call in June 2024. The musical is based on Diamond's life and music. Will Swensen originated the lead role, while Fradiani took over for the tour. Diamond has mostly been out of the spotlight since revealing in 2018 that he has Parkinson's. 11 Neil Diamond performs at the Songwriters Hall of Fame 49th Annual Induction and Awards Dinner in NYC in 2018. Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame 11 Neil Diamond in 1974. Getty Images 'This is me; this is what I have to accept. And I'm willing to do it,' he said during an interview on 'CBS Sunday Morning' in March 2023. 'And, OK, so this is the hand that God's given me, and I have to make the best of it, and so I am,' he added. 'I am.' 11 Neil Diamond posing for a photo at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024. Getty Images for IMDb The 'Song Sung Blue,' who attended the Broadway play's opening night in 2022 and performed a rendition of 'Sweet Caroline,' also admitted that he was 'embarrassed' seeing his life onstage. 'Being found out is the scariest thing you can hope for because we all have a facade,' he shared in the CBS interview. 'And the truth be known to all of 'em. I'm not some big star — I'm just me.'
San Francisco Chronicle
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: Just because you're a pop star doesn't mean you deserve a musical
If 'A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical' were instead a Neil Diamond cover band, this review would be a qualified rave. And if all you care about in your jukebox musicals is persuasive covers of your favorite hits, sparkly costumes and bright lights, you can stop reading right now and go and have a wonderful time. Star Nick Fradiani sounds frighteningly like the pop genius who gave us 'Sweet Caroline,' 'Solitary Man' and 'Cracklin' Rosie.' In the show, which opened Thursday, June 5, at BroadwaySF's Golden Gate Theatre, record producer Ellie Greenwich (Kate A. Mulligan) describes Diamond's voice as 'gravel wrapped in velvet,' or 'like you just woke up and tripped over an ashtray.' Fradiani has that. His timbre is like an open range studded with tumbleweeds and barbed wire, cowboy ruggedness crossed with Flatbush grit, schmaltz with singed edges. And he knows just how to deploy it: when to purr, when to rawr, when to strum those vocal cords. But 'A Beautiful Noise' attempts to be more than just a concert, and in so doing, it creates the clunkiest framing device and the least likeable protagonist possibly in the history of jukebox musicals. The show has two Neils. Fradiani is Neil — Then, and Robert Westenberg is Neil — Now, who opens the musical seated silently across from his therapist (Lisa Reneé Pitts), who has purchased a Diamond songbook from which she can conveniently ask her aging client leading questions about what his lyrics really mean. It's as exactly as indulgent and obvious as it sounds. Neil — Then is too stoic to open up, but then the appearance of the book magically snuffs out that flicker of tension. The therapist's questions — 'When did you start writing songs?' — lead to cliches that ChatGPT could write: 'I had music running through my head.' Both Neils come across as sourpusses, leading other characters to pick on the younger version, with one nicknaming him Hamlet. The therapy setup, with Neil — Now and the shrink watching the flashbacks like bumps on a log, teases the possibility that eventually we'll get a deep, dark or at least dramatically interesting reason for all the gloom. Neil — Now's refusal to talk about his childhood for most of the show suggests it might have something to do with his parents. But then when we finally meet them, all they have to say for themselves is 'We're Jews; of course we're anxious.' Childhood Neil has an imaginary friend to cope with the garden-variety angst. That's it. That's his whole reason for being morose and surly to everyone his whole life. But by the way, that's not why he's in therapy; it's that his health is failing and he can't perform any more. It's not a spoiler to reveal that, because the show's book, by Anthony McCarten, throws it in like an afterthought when it could have made for a much more effective mainspring. So let's use this whole creaky contraption to ask what we, the theatergoing public and fans of the oldies station back when it still played '60s hits, get out of touring jukebox musicals. Sure, there are the high production values, the communion with fellow fans as we sing along to old favorites and the chance to measure the distance between our idols and their theatrical substitutes. But a high-quality tribute band could offer all those pleasures without the baggage of a predictable narrative. So it must be something else that keeps us buying tickets. Maybe it's those Wikipedia factoids sprinkled in, like that the opening chords in 'Sweet Caroline' were a new progression in Diamond's oeuvre. Maybe we've worn out all our albums from repeat playing and crave hearing cherished tunes in new arrangements and narrative contexts. Or maybe we hope that theater will be able to work its tools as an art form — just as Diamond fought for his right to write and record serious songs, not merely formulaic ones. But imagine if a supposedly new pop album could use only material that was preexisting, but that wasn't originally intended to be pop music. Or if all its words had to get approved by rich, powerful rights-holders whose heyday was decades ago before anyone could hear them. Maybe you could still make great art under those constraints. But such shackles are heavy for creators in both the Billboard Hot 100 and musical theater.
Axios
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Mark your calendars: Broadway lineup
Walton Arts Center's next Broadway season lineup for this fall through spring 2026 is here. How it works: A subscription starting at $350 covers tickets for the regular six-show lineup and gets you first dibs on tickets for the additional five bonus shows. Single tickets for all shows will be available later. The regular series includes: A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical — Oct. 14-19 "Kimberly Akimbo" — Dec. 9-14 "Water for Elephants" — Feb. 24-March 1, 2026 "Some Like it Hot" — March 17-22, 2026 "Mamma Mia!" — April 21-26, 2026 "& Juliet" — May 26-31, 2026 Plus: Bonus shows "Clue" — Nov. 7-9 "Mrs. Doubtfire" — Dec. 19-21 "The Music Man"— Jan. 16-18, 2026 "Beauty and the Beast" — Feb. 3-8, 2026 "Moulin Rouge! The Musical" — July 8-12, 2026
