Joanna Gleason.com Reviews

Anne Marie Welsh of The San Diego Union-Tribune reviews Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with these words about Joanna:
Joanna Gleason is gorgeous and vocally deft. She's sheer celebration of contemporary musical theater.

Curtainup.com's review of Joanna's role in The Normal Heart:
Joanna Gleason and Billy Warlock are enormously touching as Dr. Emma and Felix Turner respectively. As the beneficiary of some of Kramer's best comic touches, Gleason is also very funny. She's also very fine when she steps out of her abrasive persona long enough for a wonderful scene with Ned during which he gets her out of her wheelchair to attempt a dance.

John Kenrick of musicals101.com wrote the following about Joanna in The Normal Heart:
Tony winner Joanna Gleason is a kick-ass wonder as Emma Brookner, the wheelchair-bound doctor who finds herself swamped in the first waves of patients infected with this ruthless killer -- those who only know her from her comedy work on TV will find this performance a revelation. Those of us who know and lover her stage work will find this role one of the most unforgettable highlights of her career.

Sam Sutherland writes on amazon.com about Joanna in Into The Woods:
...the standout (and Tony winner as Best Actress) is Joanna Gleason, who gives the Baker's Wife a mixture of warmth, pragmatism, and sudden, poignantly romantic radiance.

Ken Mandelbaum's review on playbill.com gives us some more information about Joanna's performance in the famous-flop Nick and Nora:
After her triumph in Into The Woods, it was inevitable that Gleason would be quickly snapped up for a vehicle, and the one she got was unfortunately Nick and Nora. Gleason was unfairly criticized in the reviews, for while her performance may have been a bit hyperactive, it was necessary for her to pull out every trick in her considerable arsenal. She was actually quite good, in no way the problem with the show, and I can't think of anyone who would have been better. As compensation for the show's failure, Gleason found a new husband in its second leading man, Chris Sarandon.

Another Internet review speaks about her role in Boogie Nights:
Joanna Gleason has a small role as Wahlberg's mother which is hurried by the script. We want a little more than we get here. Yet Gleason gives it such an underlying edge of sickening incestuous allusion with the small amount of a chance she is given that we can't help but understand what her scenes really means.

Recently Joanna performed Wall to Wall Sondheim concert in NYC. This Internet reviewer writes:
Joanna Gleason, who popped in between performances of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, (with props, I might add) to hoist herself up onto a piano and do "The Boy From...," Sondheim's hilarious parody of " The Girl From Ipanema." This song is pretty fool-proof, but Gleason knocked it out of the park. I wish she had a number even half as good in DRS.

For our Latin Lovers, elconocedor.net writes:
La Señorita Gleeson [sic] ilumina el escenario en el sarcásticamente plañidero número musical What Was a Woman to Do?

Fan Reviews

While not official reviewers many of Joanna's fans have written in with congratulatory words and praise. I figured that rather than have a guest book, I'd share some of the words from fans who have written in or posted to the group. I won't credit anyone as it is honestly too much effort to remember who wishes to be anonymous and who doesn't. Thanks to all of you who have written in.


Truely amazing talent at it's finest!

Thank you for the years of class, beauty, charm, and especially, quality entertainment. And may there be many, many more!

I've been lucky enough to have seen Joanna twice onstage, and she was always riveting.

...always classy, ridiculously talented, and drop-dead gorgeous dame!

I love this actress! She is fantastic, funny and fabulous! I used to watch the television show "Love and War" just to glimpse the greatness that is the Gleason!

...one of the true great talents working on the stage today.

I have to admit, I first fell madly in love with Joanna in [Hello, Larry] (which was awful), and I watched it faithfully just to see Morgan! I was only about 11 or 12, but I just knew that Morgan was the most incredibly cool woman on the planet. (Ah, youth.)
- That was from a female fan, too!




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