Reviews for touring company Performances
Review: Love Never Dies by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 29, 2018
This is very much a sequel in the Hollywood sense, in that one gets the impression that the producers and creative team sat down and made a list of everything fans loved about THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and then began checking things off that list.
Love Never Dies is Austin’s latest chance to see Broadway theater on their doorstep. First things first, it is a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, which makes it an ambitious production on multiple levels. Not only was Phantom hugely successful, but it still is, and it continues to run all over the world. The official website reports it has played to more than 140 million people in 35 countries in 166 cities around …
Review: The Book of Mormon by touring company
by Justin M. West
Published on April 24, 2018
If you have yet to see this show, you owe it to yourself. The laughs come fast and furious and straight from the gut, with hardly a moment to spare.
In 2010, you’d have been forgiven for laughing at the suggestion that the 2011 Tony Award winner for Best Musical would discuss such scholarly subjects as magical sex frogs, scrotal parasites, and why one should probably not attempt to engage in coitus with an infant. But, after its premiere in 2011, The Book of Mormon did just that, and had its audiences crying with laughter in the process. The brainchild of South Park creators Matt …
Review: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on March 22, 2018
Frankly, A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER takes its cues from the likes of THE BOOK OF MORMON and AVENUE Q, for a fun-filled night out -- and a family-friendly one aat that.
“Why are all the D’Ysquith’s dying?” The mourners sing in chorus during the opening of Act Two in the Tony-Award-winning A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. And it’s true more than a half of a dozen family members have already been dispatched in the first act alone. But this query can be little more than a rhetorical over-simplification of the play’s classic Shakespearean plot. When young Monty Navarro learns he is no mere Navarro …
Review: School of Rock by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on February 17, 2018
School of Rock is cast pitch perfect, and it's a refreshing break to see a show that is all about having fun and sticking it to the man.
“It’s called growing up, you should try it.” So, says Patty to Dewey Finn, an out of work rock and roll singer and guitarist. Dewey’s just been fired from his last band and has been sponging of Patty’s boyfriend Ned Schneebly, his old, loyal friend and former bandmate. Dewey is at rock bottom, so he does what’s only natural for him: he tries to find a way to sink lower. This he does by stealing …
Review: The King and I by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on December 16, 2017
The stage is set, the fog rolls in, the lights fade up from murky to dim to sensual and then the music explodes, cinematic and powerful. The audience is whisked not only across the globe but deep into the past.
The stage is set, the fog rolls in, the lights fade up from murky to dim to sensual and then the music explodes. Music that can be best described as cinematic and powerful. The mood has been crystalized: it’s like a black and white film come to life. A lone ship crosses the sea, seemingly sneaking into the harbor like a cat owning a midnight alley. We can feel the passengers' tension almost as thick …
Review: Phantom of the Opera by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on April 28, 2017
By bringing each scene to a towering set in the middle of the stage, the director and designers show characters essentially trapped like mice by a prowling Phantom who may appear any place at any time. Yet this setting is intimate and realistic, even gritty.
The play begins with a count-down. An auctioneer’s resonant bellow calls out various lot numbers. The numbers eerily foreshadow as we approach the dreaded lot 666: a once shattered chandelier from what “some of you may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera, a mystery never fully explained.” The chandelier has been fully restored for the auction and before the people’s eyes it bursts into life, rising phoenix-like to the ceiling and …