What I liked
SPOILER ALERT: The show is PACKED with musical theatre references that had me giggling in my seat. The Spiderman cameo was by far my favorite! Also, the music is well written; each character has a number in the same style as a song from their respective musical, which is BRILLIANT.
The puppetry is SO GOOD. I thought the full body alien puppet was amazing, until Big Mama came out! I wish there was a little more gore effects. I was waiting for a blood explosion when the Chestbuster came out of the Elder’s chest.
Allie Costa (Annie) was wonderful. Her song “There is No Tomorrow” steals the show! And whoever wore the full body alien puppet had amazing timing and knew how to use the suit for the comedy. Taylor Minckley as the Elder is perfect. Not in it for very long, but he commands his role! And when Brianna Sanborn (Maria) unleashes hell on straps on the armor: FLAWLESS. “These are a few of my favorite things!” KILLED ME.
The dog… Oh my God. Absolute yes to that!
What I didn't like
SPOILER ALERT: The first musical number sets up the show and makes you think that the story is going to follow this small band of musical theatre icons against the most vicious creature in cinematic history, but everyone dies off before you have time to grow attached to them, aside from Annie and Maria. It’s understandable that these two heroines would be the main focus, but without a B storyline throughout the musical, the whole “Gotta find and save Annie” thing gets old really quickly. There’s potential for a really strong B story with Valjean seeking revenge on the death of his lover, but he dies much too quickly for anything to develop. Harold makes it surprisingly far in the show before biting the dust, but he doesn’t have a compelling enough story arch to feel bad when he dies. His rap battle with Alexander Hamilton is SPOT ON though.
Going from 60 minutes to 90 minutes is no easy feat, and I commend their hard work, but it’s very obvious what was added for length. The additional scenes didn’t contribute overall to the story. It was a fun nod to Hamilton, West Side Story, etc. and then it moved on. It would have worked much better had they expanded on the characters they had in the beginning than introduce new ones for the sake of a musical reference.
It wasn’t clear if the combat was stylized to be more “theatrical” or if the combat was just poorly executed.
There were a lot of “Let’s Kill the Alien Monster”-esque songs. I’d love to have had more variety.
Not the production’s fault, but allowing twenty late seaters into the theater during the show was incredibly distracting. It was very rude to those who had the decency to be at the performance on time to accommodate those who think theatre has twenty minutes of previews before the show.
My overall impression
It was a fun night of theatre, but the show needs more work to give it that extra oomph to be really amazing!
