Reviews for touring company Performances
Review: Les Misérables by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on February 20, 2025
For those who pine for the older days or start many a sentence with ‘"It was better back when . . .’" the current national tour is a complete counterstrike. LES MISÉRABLES is as enjoyable and resonant as it ever was.
A debatable but fun subject: what makes a musical different from an opera? New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini has pointed out that the most common argument of what separates the twain is that opera is highbrow with complex music while musicals are not, a contention that's completely unsubstantiated. In his opinion, the difference lies in the fact that in operas the music comes first while in musicals the words come first. Broadway’s …
Review: Clue Onstage by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 29, 2025
Shorter and less pointed than the comic film starring Tim Curry, this staging of the inane search for the murderer is essentially a live-action reel of movie highlights.
I’d like to solve the puzzle: And the murderer is . . . Casey Hushion! Yes, that Casey Hushion, who's associated with such hits as Mean Girls, The Prom, Aladdin, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It was not, as some have surmised, Peter DiPietro, Terry McDonough, or Jonathan Lynn. Heading to the Bass Concert Hall, the most prominent mystery was whether this production was going to be based on the game or …
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Review: Shucked by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on December 18, 2024
The touring musical SHUCKED is so extremely middle of the road (and corny) that it suggests the mindless entertainment that ChatGPT may eventually be capable of churning out.
Oh Henry, you were indubitably a champ, but the ears are buzzing all along the rows that the best punster of them all was James Joyce, so, we should of course rejoice and applaud in O Henry’s efforts to not only stalk his predecessor but o’er take him across the bow and shuck him aside like a tasseled and braced silk suit leaving a mere husk where before the tillers once held strong. While …
Review: Peter Pan by touring company
by Vanessa Hoang Hughes
Published on December 13, 2024
The PETER PAN tour's a fun-for-all production with stunning performances, awe-inspiring theater magic, and a vivid story the entire family will remember.
Magical boy Peter Pan flies into the bedroom of ordinary kids Wendy, John, and Michael to take them on a riveting journey to a fantastical place called Neverland. This new adaptation touring the US is an exciting rewrite of the 1954 musical that featured Mary Martin and Cyril Richard. Writer Larissa Fasthorse of the Lakota nation and director Lonny Price have created a production that keeps all the charm and nostalgia of the original, reviving …
Review: Booger Red by Jim Loucks
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 23, 2024
In his portrait of a fundmentalist preacher father and an unwilling son, Jim Loucks uses quicksilver changes of voice, face, stances, emotion, and movement. And provides some spiritual insight, as well.
Any performance of material derived from one’s family has great authenticity. Jim Loucks emphasizes that his story is “loosely derived” from his life experiences with his father Booger Red, but the depths of feeling and insight revealed in this presentation cannot be gained other than by direct experience. Louck’s talent and commitment to the performance are heightened by the theatrical values of Booger Red. His movement, highly important and sometimes lacking in one-person …
Review: MJ, the musical by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on October 22, 2024
This jukebox yields forty spectacular greatest-hit numbers and a shallow portrait of the superstar.
The first album I ever bought was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, on vinyl no less, which was all the more significant because I didn’t even own a record player. Like many who saw the birth of MTV, the advent of the music video for the titular song, a mini-horror film, was momentous to me. Like many at the time, I had stopped following the outrageous exploits of Jackson’s career which had inarguably become more about …