Reviews for touring company Performances
Review: Chicago
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 21, 2014
An enthusiastic voice behind us as we exited Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas last night: "That was nothing like the movie!" Live performance, even in the cavernous space of the Bass, can seize your attention and send your heart racing in ways that no flat screen image ever can. And that's what happens in the 15th (annual?) tour of Chicago, playing in Austin through this coming Sunday. The story is familiar and, frankly, banal, a …
Review: The Book of Mormon by touring company
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 05, 2013
Mix in with those absurdly over-the-top contrasts all the combustible hormones of adolescence, rev it all up with high-energy clowning and Las-Vegas-style choreography, and you can just ride over the cognitive bumps in the road.
The crowd at Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas was bubbling with gleeful expectation for the opening performance in Austin of The Book of Mormon tour. They responded enthusiastically throughout the evening and went away plainly satisfied with the spectacle and the storytelling. Those South Park guys did it again, as confirmed by all those Tony awards, including the one for best musical, using their cheerful cynicism and satire to tap into the American consciousness. Perhaps television …
Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert by touring company
by Catherine Dribb
Published on May 11, 2013
Priscilla Queen of the Desert is a rambunctious montage of 80s chart-toppers and truly magnificent costuming. The national tour which pulled into Austin last week is no exception. Unlike our trailer eateries, Priscilla (a fabulously renovated old bus) supports no hipsters, cowboys or college students typical to the Austin scene, but rather a trio of performers. Two drag queens and a transvestite are traveling through the outback to perform at one of their member's, Tick's, ex-wife's …
Review: The Lion King by touring company
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 13, 2013
Director Julie Taymore and her imaginative cast and crew created from Disney's animated film something rarely seen on the American stage: a coming-of-age fable that's equal parts ballet, operetta, puppet show and sugarplum dream.
The Gazelle touring company of Disney's The Lion King has settled into the cavernous Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas. The place was filled for the official opening, and the crowd wasn't disappointed. This imaginative spectacle delighted us all with its puppetry, dancing and heroics. I knew the movie, but I'd never seen the stage production. Now I understand the enthusiasm that has greeted this piece since its 1997 debut in Minneapolis and then …
Review: Wicked by touring company
by Thaïs Hinton
Published on January 27, 2012
Wicked is a sympathetic tale of an underdog (after all, as Kermit sang, "It's not easy being green!"), diversity and profiling -- an examination of what it means to be good inside if you happen to look bad on the outside.
Everyone knows how Dorothy Gale came to Oz and killed the Wicked Witch of the West. Judy Garland and pals in the 1939 film by MGM dwell deep in American cultural consciousness, none of them more so than Margaret Hamilton as the vengeful Wicked Witch of the West. In the Oz depicted by the touring company of Wicked currently at UT's Bass Concert Hall we get to hear another side of the story, adapted from the …
Review: Girls' Night by touring company
by Hannah Bisewski
Published on November 08, 2011
The production does achieve the goal announced in that opening announcement: those in the audience -- almost entirely women -- are on their feet, singing their hearts out along with the women on stage.
A booming, exuberant voice blasts a too-casual introduction, announcing what will be a romping performance and warning that more than a few theatre conventions will be broken over the course of the evening. Flashing lights in gaudy colors frame an elevated platform with a lone microphone, suggesting we’re in for a selection of glitzy show tunes. Given that all this is set in the Long Center’s cavernous Michael and Susan Dell Hall, one wonders how Girls’ …