The Ruins
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The Ruins •••
THE RUINS by George Abud world premieres at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis
September 19 - October 12, 2025
Two master musicians meet in an empty space armed with only a cello, an oud and some old books of poetry. The strangers trade jabs and musical virtuosity until they’re stunned to learn that in a few days, they’ll both be dead. Faced with their untimely end, they become obsessed with a question: Were their lives enough? Over the course of eight movements of blistering music and tender verse, they struggle to find an answer before time runs out.
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“With an equine snarl and the manic eyes of a prophet, George Abud fully inhabited the role Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in the short-lived Broadway musical Lempicka, about the Polish portraitist living in Paris at a time of rapid technological and cultural change (but also between two cataclysmic wars). A character with one foot in the plot and another outside the frame, Marinetti is akin to the Emcee in Cabaret or Che in Evita. His messianic faith in technology makes him a sinister figure at a time of industrialized war, and Abud brought to the role a gleaming chrome-like tenor to slice through history and convention in Marinetti’s crusade for a perfect mechanical future. This is a performance that actors will be studying closely for the next 40 years as Lempicka wanders through the wilderness on its way back to Broadway.”
— Zachary Stewart, Theatermania
Story of the Week: Lempicka Is Dead. Long Live Lempicka.
“Kreitzer and Gould’s score is unlike anything else on Broadway right now, with numbers that hark back to ’80s mega-musicals like Les Misérables (“Our Time” is a song showcasing big flags and even bigger emotions) but also songs that evoke the vibrancy of the Jazz Age (Iman’s intro number “Don’t Bet Your Heart” does this particularly well). Thrillingly, Gould doesn’t limit himself to pastiche, resulting in a score full of unexpected gems.
No song exemplifies that more than “Perfection,” which captures the amphetamine-fueled frenzy of interwar fascism with an anachronistic dance beat. It’s the musical’s greatest earworm (there’s a reason Chavkin opens the show with a few bars), and I’ll give $20 to the DJ who manages to wedge it between “Illusion” and “Padam Padam” at a gay dance party this summer. The brilliant George Abud performs the number as the Italian Futurist Filippo Marinetti (the Che to Tamara’s Evita) simultaneously conveying humor and menace as he invites us into his darkly intoxicating vision. It’s the performance I wish Eddie Redmayne was giving in Cabaret.”
The Nopebook: Who Didn’t Get Nominated for a 2024 Tony Award?
“I didn’t expect much for Lempicka, the ambitious new historical musical about painter Tamara de Lempicka and her life in interwar Paris. It got three nods: scenic design (Riccardo Hernández and Peter Nigrini), a well-earned featured performance nod for Amber Iman, and leading for Eden Espinosa. I was disappointed George Abud wasn’t included for his delirious performance as Italian futurist Filippo Marinetti. I’ve been telling everyone to go see it for him, and for the delicious camp factor (those mesh sweater vests!) that I suspect we’ll be clucking about at Glass House Tavern for years to come.”
GEORGE WINS 2023 CRAIG NOEL AWARD
The San Diego Theatre Critics Circle presents George Abud with the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical, for his role as Richard Nixon in The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical at La Jolla Playhouse, 2023.