Playbill Features: THEIR FAVORITE THINGS: Merrily We Roll Along's Celia Keenan-Bolger's Cherished Theatregoing Experiences

THEIR FAVORITE THINGS: Merrily We Roll Along's Celia Keenan-Bolger's Cherished Theatregoing Experiences

By Andrew Gans
February 8, 2012

Playbill.com's new feature series, Their Favorite Things, asks members of the theatre community to share ten of the Broadway performances that most affected them as part of the audience.

This week we spotlight the choices of Celia Keenan-Bolger, one of the stars of the City Center Encores! production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Merrily We Roll Along, which runs Feb. 8-19.

Gavin Creel in The Music Man at the University of Michigan.


	"...thus began my love affair with the talent that is Gavin Creel."

Brian D'arcy James in Titanic.


	"Honestly, that entire cast was extraordinary, but that was my introduction to someone who could act as well as he could sing."

Helen McCrory in Uncle Vanya / Twelfth Night at BAM.


	"I loved both of those productions so much, and she played both Olivia and Yelena and was completely different and equally breathtaking in both roles."

John Ellison Conlee in The Butter And Egg Man at the Atlantic Theatre.


	"I fell so hard for that performance that for years after, even though I didn't know him, I would refer to him as 'John Ellison Conlee, my boyfriend from The Butter and Egg Man.'"

Steven Hoggett's choreography in Blackwatch at St. Ann's Warehouse.


	"That piece was like nothing I had ever seen before."

Vicki Clark in The Light In The Piazza.


	"I think this is the greatest musical theatre performance I have ever seen in one of the most beautiful musicals ever written."

The Colt Coeur ensemble of Seven Minutes In Heaven at HERE Arts.


	"I thought that play was so small and perfect."

Alice Ripley and the cast of Next To Normal.


	"Oh, so much crying. I loved that show so much. It reminded me that when musicals are good they are better than almost anything."

The ensemble of Circle Mirror Transformation at Playwrights Horizons.


	"Every single element—the writing, the direction and the cast—was perfection. I saw it three times."

Reed Birney and Michele Pawk in A Small Fire, also at Playwrights.


	"There was a scene at a wedding where I was offstage, and I would watch the two of them every night. It was the cheapest acting class I ever took."