Curtains

The latest in a growing chorus line of Broadway musicals that make campy fun of ... Broadway musicals. One of the last collaborations of the songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb (who died in 2004), with a new book by Rupert Holmes, it looks a little moldy today: a relentlessly tongue-in-cheek tale of a detective (David Hyde Pierce) who investigates a murder backstage at a show on its way to Broadway and manages to save the show as he solves the crime. There's some of the old Kander-Ebb snap, but, as self-mocking Broadway musicals go, The Drowsy Chaperone's was more fun.

Tony Outlook: May get some votes from the old-Broadway diehards, but hipper shows will prevail