CMU School of Drama


Friday, March 21, 2008

Reduced 'Hairspray' is good, but not grade A quality

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "An enthusiastic, responsive audience greeted the national touring production of 'Hairspray' that opened Tuesday at Heinz Hall as a non-subscriber presentation of the PNC Broadway Across America -- Pittsburgh series."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I Love This Show! I enjoyed it and so can anyone of any ages. I admire their philanthropic work the cast and everyone involved is taking with this show. It really shows what theater should really be like. Not pressured by box office revenues but for their work in the community and the enjoyment for the audiences and this show definitely captures that.

Anonymous said...

I think that it is a shame that sometimes shows that once were tony award winning Broadway musicals can e negatively effected by five years in New York and on the road. Unfortunately I think this is one of the truths of live production. The original Broadway show, tour, or revival, will be superior to many other productions. This is not to say that there will not be good productions out there, but that there will be some bad ones. Ans unfortunately professional theatre is expensive, the decision to attend is up to the perspective audience member to weigh the cost with the quality of that production.

Kelli Sinclair said...

Touring shows usually are not as good as the original Broadway show for many reasons that the author explained. The sets have to change for traveling, different actors, and sometimes the people are just hard to hear because of the theatre they are playing in. But I think people should still go see it even if they have seen the original to see what has changed. And these touring shows are not really for those people, but for the people that are not able to go to NY on a regular basis.

Anonymous said...

I think that this review really sounded like a review of a bunch of different touring productions. For reasons that other people have mentioned, the tours just usually are not as good because of the different space and different actors. Hairspray, in my opinion, has enough of a "fun" quality to it that even a "decent" version would be viewed as good as long as the actor's have enough energy. They will still engage you into the show and keep you interested.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, huge pet peeve! I have spent numerous occasions in the pit orchestra and there is nothing more frustrating from either side than when one overpowers the other.
I agree with Kelli in that although people who have already seen the production may not think this is the most spectacular rendition in the world, it will give tons to think about and critique in the sense of comparison.