What I liked
I give high regard to the orchestra. The entire band, conducted by Davis, kept the energy strong. Shoutout to the pianist, the viola player, the drummer, the other instrumentalists, and the singers. An album for hip-hop enjoyers can listen to. Good mix and match between scenes and music.
It was great to see accepting parents of color to queerness. The honorable mention goes to Matt, the voice of reason to bring James, the main character, down-to-earth and portrays what a real-life good friend tells you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.
You can feel the amount of work Siders has put with his heart and soul into writing and directing this play.
What I didn't like
Regardless of future improvements to sound tech, a live band over micless vocals makes it a challenge to understand the story told through the lyrics in the music. Subtitles projected over the screen could be useful.
There were some awkward moments of pause, such as the beginning with the first singer standing with no cue-ins until after the next song. There were side characters and name drops that most audience members wouldn’t understand the reference to, and they didn’t advance the plot nor gave development other than to further pity to James’ plight. There were no other interaction to the other assumingly main character, Scarlett, besides being a 2-dimensional object. She was talked at rather than talked to, other than having no other person to interact with. There definitely could be more scenes to swap in for music to give other characters more humanity. Matt was a very important person who was the sole character who gave an opposing perspective/insight to James, which seemed to be dismissed, swept away by the choreography. There didn’t seem to be a resolution to a cycle of trauma the main character stays loaded in.
It would be important to note that the runtime is 2 hours (not the 1hr depicted) which should be updated.
My overall impression
Through the intersectionality of the traumas a Black, queer man experiences in life, Siders bares vulnerability and rawness, loading the audience on an emotional ride through grief, pain, love, loss, and toxicity through music, dance, and vignettes. The music was of excellent composition with a stellar live band and singers in this hip-hop musical. The content is weighty, and you should be forewarned to prepare yourself to bear the weight of Sider’s content.
