It was a night of triumph for the small-scale but huge-hearted musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” about a teenager with a rare aging disease, but also a night notable for inclusion: Two nonbinary performers, Alex Newell and J. The event was scriptless, to honor a compromise with striking writers, but chock-full of high-spirited Broadway performances drawing raucous cheers from an audience clearly thrilled just to be there at all. On the surface, none of them seems likely to become the next “Hamilton” or “Into the Woods” - but just as with my reaction to “Beetlejuice,” the magic of theater means you never know.įollow me at /matthew.j.palm or email me at Find more arts news and reviews at /arts, and go to /theater for theater news and reviews.There was plenty of uncertainty in the run-up to this year’s Tony Awards, which at one point seemed unlikely to happen at all because of the ongoing Hollywood writer’s strike.īut the ceremony went off without a hitch on Sunday night. Doubtfire,” “Jagged Little Pill” and “Moulin Rouge,” among them. The 2023-24 season opens in October with the umpteenth tour of “Annie,” but includes multiple titles new to Central Florida: “Mrs. And then we had some bona fide winners: The season add-on of “Wicked” was especially powerful, the new concert-style “Six” took female empowerment to rock-star heights, and a return of “Hamilton” reminded us what makes that show so potent.įinally, there were two that hit the highest of heights: Richard Thomas headlined a breathtakingly spellbinding “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and last month’s “Into the Woods,” another extra outside the regular season, was superlative from “once upon a time” to the emotional end. “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” was solidly entertaining. We had some definite clunkers - the aforementioned “Pretty Woman” and a misguided “My Fair Lady” - alongside a production that never quite lived up to the strength of its message: “Chicago.” Lydia (Isabella Esler, left) seeks help from two newbie ghosts (Will Burton and Britney Coleman) in “Beetlejuice,” the final show in the 2022-23 touring-Broadway season at the Dr. So that’s an upbeat ending to a mixed season overall. And the production’s entire run in Orlando is sold out.
Phillips Center on opening night (and there was a similar line on an upper level). “Beetlejuice” clearly has a fan base: The queue for souvenir purchases stretched down the long lobby of the Dr. Is “Beetlejuice” theater for the ages? No, but it is a spirited night of entertainment. The second act is creakier than the first, but the big dance numbers do their job and keep the energy high. Phillips Center)Īnd understudy Lexie Dorsett Sharp displays excellent comic timing as a goofy life coach who gets tangled up with the ghosts.
Isabella Esler stars as young Lydia, grieving her mother, in “Beetlejuice.” (Courtesy Matthew Murphy via Dr. It’s gorgeously lit, by Kenneth Posner, on an inventively askew set, by David Korins, with pitch-perfect costumes, by William Ivey Long. There’s a pleasing sly meta factor in that Beetlejuice himself talks to the audience and knows it’s all a show.
#High spirits cast how to#
(An enjoyable subplot finds a young couple learning how to live their best lives - after they’ve died.) But it’s truly just a smidge of that nothing can get in the way of the double entendres in this story of a girl who’s lost her mom and, like the titular ghost, feels invisible. There’s even a soupcon of depth, if you think about how people cope with grief and loss and loneliness. “Beetlejuice” is loud and crass and weird - and a heck of a lot of fun. With no preconceived notions, I was pleasantly surprised. So, having missed the musical’s Broadway runs around the COVID-19 shutdown, I didn’t know what to expect from the stage musical. It helped that I had never seen the hit 1988 comedy film (we can discuss that oversight in my cultural education later). Phillips Center for the Performing Arts with an open mind.
#High spirits cast series#
And, God knows, Orlando audiences were already burned in this season’s touring Broadway series by a dismal version of “Pretty Woman.”īut I decided to attend “Beetlejuice” at the Dr. There’s an automatic snobbishness among theater purists about a musical adapted from a movie.
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