'Celebrity Autobiography' Broadway review — award-winning comedy show returns to NYC for its latest chapter

Read our review of Celebrity Autobiography on Broadway, a comedy revue created by Eugene Pack and co-developed with Dayle Reyfel, featuring a rotating cast of stars.

Summary

• Celebrity Autobiography is a comedy revue featuring stars reading funny excerpts of other stars' memoirs
• The show is strongest in its final third but features standout performances throughout from Andrea Martin and Jeff Hiller
• The celebrity cast of readers will rotate throughout the run
• The show is recommended for Saturday Night Live fans and new Broadway-goers looking for familiar faces on stage

If you're disappointed that the bid for a Times Square casino was ultimately rejected, you can at least seek excitement in the casino-fication of NYC theatre. Multiple pieces of recent Midtown entertainment hail from the slot-machine scene, like this past fall's illusion show Rob Lake Magic and the upcoming dance spectacle Magic Mike Live. And in between, there's the Broadway debut of Celebrity Autobiography, which fits the category vibes-wise. It would feel right at home in an Atlantic City comedy club.

At the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, a bit less so. The conceit of the comedy revue, developed and directed by Eugene Pack and Dayle Rayfel, is simple: celebs read bits of other celebs' memoirs that weren't meant to be funny but are, whether for being excessively detailed, oozing ego, or else just so badly written it's comical. More accurately, Celebrity Autobiography is intermittently comical, with much of the material intact from the show's Off-Broadway premiere in 2008. To those who know who Neil Sedaka and Suzanne Somers are, it may feel timeless; to those who've watched Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus mature from when they released their first memoirs as teenagers, it may feel dated.

The laughs truly come from the rotating cast of celebrity readers as they add their own sensibilities and inflections to the material. It's unfortunate that by the time you read this, you might not get to see the truly inspired casting of Andrea Martin as Kris Jenner, nor Jeff Hiller giving fully committed comic performances as Cher and as the original dog from Annie, if it talked like Rachel Berry from Glee.

That latter skit is a genuine hoot, during which Celebrity Autobiography finally picks up momentum as it enters its back third. It's a mashup of memoirs by three Broadway stars: Hiller-as-dog, Martin as Ethel Merman, and Mario Cantone doing the most as Carol Channing (among other divas throughout the show). The segment was newly conceived in honor of this Broadway run, Pack tells the audience, and it succeeds in feeling the freshest. The follow-up is a sports mashup whose highlight is Pack-as-Tiger Woods unintentionally(?) making an extended innuendo as he describes his putting technique.

And the grand finale — a reenactment of a scandalous chain of old Hollywood love affairs involving Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Debbie Reynolds, and Eddie Fisher — is the most capital-T Theatrical part of the whole enterprise, with a full cast of characters and soapy melodrama galore that comes closest to befitting its massive venue. I ended up laughing a lot in those last 30 minutes. I just wished the show didn't save its best material for its last chapters.

Celebrity Autobiography summary

Celebrity Autobiography is a comedy revue in which stars read unintentionally funny excerpts from other stars' memoirs (and a few poetry collections), adding their own flair. Some perform "mashups" of multiple memoirs side-by-side to amplify common themes or contradictions between different sides of a story.

Celebrity Autobiography won a 2009 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience for its Off-Broadway premiere the year prior. The show also played a three-night Broadway stint in 2018, but this production marks its first full-length Broadway engagement.

What to expect at Celebrity Autobiography

Celebrity Autobiography is a no-frills affair, performed behind a row of microphones and in front of a table of memoirs, with massive typewriter-esque keys framing the stage. (The set is by Derek McLane.) Pack, as the emcee, or the stars themselves will introduce each segment and who they're reading for, and they launch right into the recitations with little preamble or filler. By and large, Celebrity Autobiography delivers exactly what you expect — no more, no less.

What audiences are saying about Celebrity Autobiography

Audiences at early performances of Celebrity Autobiography's Broadway run have shared mixed reviews on Reddit.

• "I’ve seen this a few times over the years and the material doesn’t get updated. Worth seeing if you haven’t yet, but don’t expect the latest celebrities getting skewered." - Reddit user u/ryanmgarcia
• "I was there today and my friend and I were laughing a lot. We had a great time, and Jeff Hiller was a riot - as was the always-funny Mario Cantone. It's a sweet show, very enjoyable, and it definitely could be longer!" - Reddit user u/ZhemGuen
• "Just focus your energy on who you’re excited about in the cast and you should be ok! I just wish it wasn’t SO dated. At one point they are reading a book from an A list celebrity who is in their 30s now that was written 15 years ago. The material would have been better from their current book." - Reddit user u/Big-Contribution6444
• "I don’t get the hate. I won a lottery ticket and I really liked it. I thought they did a good job of curating the excerpts for comedic effect and it’s nice to see so many Broadway favorites in one place." - Reddit user u/justmeisje

Who should see Celebrity Autobiography

• Celebrity Autobiography is great for Saturday Night Live and other sketch comedy fans who love the over-the-top celebrity impressions.
• Celebrity Autobiography is a great option for a first-time or infrequent theatregoer looking for faces and names they'll recognize. There are plenty both on the page and the stage.
• Fans of both Celine Dion and comedy can make a double feature of Celebrity Autobiography (in which Dion's memoir features) and Titanique across the street (in which a parody version of Dion is the lead character).
• Vanna White, if she hasn't yet. (Pack got the idea for Celebrity Autobiography after reading her memoir, in which she writes about the difficulties of turning over the letters on Wheel of Fortune.)

Learn more about Celebrity Autobiography on Broadway

Celebrity Autobiography isn't much to write home about, but it offers a lighthearted 90 minutes and a unique opportunity to see numerous stars of stage and screen live in one place.

Learn more and get Celebrity Autobiography tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Celebrity Autobiography is at the Shubert Theatre through September 6.