Reviews for touring company Performances
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 …
Review #2 of 2: Disney's Frozen by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 20, 2024
The brave sisters of FROZEN inhabit a somewhat confused plot, but the score and voices are magnificent. Caroline Bowman's singing as Elsa incites goosebumps. Great puppetry, dancing, and special effects throughout.
I’ve never seen the movie Frozen. Chalk it up there with all of my other Disney cinematic crimes of neglect which began when I, with adolescent bravado, opted not to see The Little Mermaid. I did know and love the song “Let It Go,” a complete banger. I must also admit I hadn’t seen The Lion King movie before I saw the Broadway version and I wasn’t too lost. Frozen, on the other hand, is …
Review: Disney's Frozen by touring company
by Vanessa Hoang Hughes
Published on June 10, 2024
FROZEN's songs and spectacular action made excited kids bounce in their seats and grown adults cheer as if they were six years old again.
Disney’s animated film Frozen is a core memory for me and for the rest of Gen Z. It was released in 2013, and I’ve been a die-hard fan ever since. I have many fond memories of singing and twirling around to “Let it Go” in front of the TV when I was small. The movie shaped our childhoods. A cultural and social phenomenon, Frozen was inevitably turned into a Broadway musical. It went on tour …
.jpg)
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 …