Reviews for touring company Performances
Review: Moulin Rouge by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on May 31, 2025
Stretching the bounds of story, performance, and audience endurance, the surging, glowing, glittering MOULIN ROUGE is still an enjoyable (if exhausting) night at the theatre.
First it was a venue, then it was a movie, then it was a critically acclaimed Broadway musical, and now it 's a touring production. The Moulin Rouge, with its trademark red windmill on the roof, opened in Paris in 1889. It is best known as the home of the world-famous Can-Can Dance (a variation of the square line dance known as a quadrille) which was originally performed by the club’s courtesans. Founders Joseph …
Review: Funny Girl by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on April 14, 2025
Funny Girl is, in effect, the Rosebud of the classic Broadway touring musical: a guilty childish pleasure never intended to be taken out of context.
If you know nearly nothing about Barbra Streisand, it's still likely you will be aware she is an icon. Maybe you'll have heard she has a full-scale private mall in her basement. Streisand is one of only twenty-one E.G.O.T. winners (an artist who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony). She's among the best-selling recording artists of all time, the only artist to have a number-one album in each of the last six …
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 …