Broadway Reviews

Review of Jimmy Buffett musical Escape to Margaritaville on Broadway

It has been a busy season for Broadway cartographers, what with all the new and exotic landmasses popping up along the Great White Way. First the Jewel of the Antilles arose at Once on This Island, then SpongeBob SquarePants took us to Bikini Bottom, and now, like a lost flip flop floating up from a low tide, Escape to Margaritaville surfaces, revealing a volcanic Caribbean isle where local inhabitants and vacationing Midwesterners sing only the words of pop songsmith Jimmy Buffett while...

Review of Elf - The Musical at the Theater at Madison Square Garden

"The Story of Buddy the Elf" is back in town and once again delighting New York family audiences this holiday season. One of the main themes of Elf - The Musical is the importance of bringing the Christmas spirit back to a downtrodden, overworked and gloomy population of Americans that we call typical New Yorkers. Well, it does as exactly what it says on the tin, as they say.If you've been hibernating these past fifteen years (or if you are a direct descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge), then you may...

Review of SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway

The print on this review should be in a variety of neon colors. While you are reading it on your computer, it would be fitting if I entered your house from above, suspended from a wire wearing a jet-pack on top of the most outrageous costume you can imagine. I will start singing to you about the show — with dancing and singing fish backing me up — and we'll be interrupted by a Newscaster, a Pirate, and the Mayor. All of them will vie for your attention and meanwhile an evil villain will be...

Review of Once on This Island on Broadway

The musical Once on This Island has held a special place in my heart since I saw the original production back in 1990. The infectious music and romantic tale brought a unique temperament to a traditional medium. The show has lost none of its luster over the years, and in this revival production the beauty of this musical has been given its full due and then some.It tells the legend of Ti Moune (an incandescent Hailey Kilgore), an orphaned peasant girl raised by Tonton Julian (Phillip Boykin) and...

The Lion King

NOTE: This review was written by The Lion King alum Kyle Wrentz in celebration of the show's 20th Anniversary on Broadway...A sunrise on a day. It could be a Saturday or a Wednesday, but regardless, 20 years later, The Lion King is still a timeless piece of artistry and magical allure. The moment you hear Rafiki's clarion call across the pridelands welcoming the new prince to the kingdom, you are lost in the story, as the iconic procession of animals begins. It is no wonder that sold out...

A Bronx Tale - The Musical

It is the rare Broadway show that leaves its audience disturbed by gun violence and racial slurs even as they go happily humming doo-wop on their way out of the theater. And indeed it is the rare Broadway show that attempts to portray gangsters as something other than secretly good-hearted slobs. But such is the case with A Bronx Tale, a winningly performed but losing-ly scripted musical based on a movie based on a one-man show based partially on actual events.Playwright and actor Chazz...

Anastasia

Anastasia is a perfectly crafted Broadway musical fairy-tale that is going to run forever. Family-friendly, romantic, glittery, great sets and costumes, show-stopping second banana (Caroline O'Connor, I'm looking at you), and songs the audience already knows and loves. Wait, what? It's billed as an original musical with book by noted playwright Terrence McNally, and music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, the duo who brought us "Ragtime", and oh yes, the animated movie musical...

The Book of Mormon

An old friend of mine turned Mormon on me a few years ago to the extent that I no longer know who this woman is. I felt like I was watching a perfectly intelligent person be kidnapped by people who believe that God lives on a planet called Kolob, an angel called Moroni delivered golden tablets to Joseph Smith in upstate New York that are the secret basis for this religion, and oh yeah - there is the hair shirt thing. So it was with some trepidation that I saw this show. Even though everyone has...

Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy

A Review by Barbara Mehlman and Geri Manus.Every year, Broadway offers us a surprise. A few years ago, the puppets of "Avenue Q" were the big hit. This season we've seen a green-faced monster do a soft-shoe in �Young Frankenstein,� mermaids and crabs glide across the stage in �Little Mermaid,� Greek roller-skating muses in �Xanadu,� and now a circus, minus, thankfully, the smelly animals. �Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy� has come to Broadway.�Cirque Dreams� is the latest...

Wicked

There have been moments in the history of musical theater when, like a twister, the sheer talent and whirling spectacle of a production have flattened any negative criticism that stood to get in its way. Take October, 2003 for example. That was the month that Wicked opened in New York to generally dour reviews. But since then, more than 8.8 million people have found the heart, nerve and wisdom to pay a visit, resulting in the happy scene of a Broadway house filled with as many teens as adults,...