Reviews for touring company Performances
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Review: Girl from the North Country by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on May 10, 2024
Characters in Conor McPherson's rework of Bob Dylan's music are like hungry ghosts who broke free from his songs and now wander eternally, unable to remember their sins.
Bob Dylan’s people approached Irish playwright Conor McPherson with the concept of crafting a musical based on songs by our folksy Nobel Prize winner. Girl from the North Country is the second time this concept has been brought to the Broadway stage. The first was Twyla Tharp's The Times They Are a-Changin' in 2006. By all critical and financial accounts Tharp’s attempt was a definitive miss. It was assailed for being full of spectacle but of little …
Review: Wicked by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on March 27, 2024
This WICKED TOUR keeps the dazzle while the leads remake and deepen the frenemies Elphaba and Glinda. Not just good and evil; this story calls into question the stories of history.
It seems a little odd to write an introduction to such a well-known musical phenomenon as Wicked, especially here in Austin in which despite the play’s already huge popularity it was touted by a media storm that included billboards, television commercials, and a bombardment of social media ads. Yet nowadays with ads tailored made for the individual thanks to invasive communication software, that could be just me. As I write this, my computer is probably …
Review: Beetlejuice by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on February 16, 2024
David Korins's set design is amazing, but Eddie Perfect's music is a maelstrom of meandering melodies muddled together.
The name Beetlejuice was derived from Betelgeuse, the second brightest star in the constellation of Orion. yet for many a fan it is the brightest star in the Tim Burton cinematic universe. The idea for the movie came to writers Michael McDowell and Laurence Senelick when they were at home trying to write a screenplay inspired by Ghostbusters and Poltergeist but were increasingly annoyed by their family members. Thus came the clever idea of ghosts …
Review: Tina - The Tina Turner Musical by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 20, 2024
TINA is full of exuberance, energy, and hits (it's a jukebox musical, after all). The cast does a wonderful job. The script is slanted so Tina's victories are without exception either Pyrrhic or monetary.
In 1967 Tina Turner was both the first African American and the first woman to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Her story is well known to many. Born Anna Mae Bullock, she rose to stardom early in her career after joining Ike Turner’s band the Kings of Rhythm in 1956 at the age of seventeen. Her marriage to Ike Turner was marked by sixteen years of physical and emotional abuse, from …
Review: The Book of Mormon by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 23, 2023
THE BOOK OF MORMON, a phenomenon of Broadway 2.0, provokes controversy and inspires thoughtful dialogue, as good art should.
The Book of Mormon, a ground-breaking musical comedy with music, lyrics, and book by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone, premiered on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011, and it is still very much a hot ticket over two decades later. The show is the brainchild of the creators of the notoriously raunchy tv series South Park, so it is reasonable to expect it will have a similar tone—but …
Review: George Gershwin Alone by Hershey Felder, on tour at Zach Theatre, Austin
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on September 23, 2023
Hershy Felder, one of the most naturalistic actors working today, brilliantly tells Gershwin's story and attacks the piano with a visceral ferocity, channeling the man's spirit, personal ambitions, and frustrations.
Was he happy? This inspired question seemed to come out of nowhere, as if plucked from the stratosphere, in order to formulate in words, the thought the whole audience was unknowingly thinking. It was asked during the question-and-answer session that immediately followed Hershey Felder’s unquestionably brilliant performance …