www.broadwayworld.com: Elf the Musical, directed by Philip Wm. McKinley and choreographed by Liam Steel, with book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin and songs by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin opened on Broadway tonight, Sunday, November 17. See what the critics had to say below!
2 comments:
From the general reviews gathered about ELF the musical it seems as though people either love it or they hate it. This show is mostly made to get the audience into the holiday spirit and just enjoy a fun silly comical story about a young orphan turned elf. I’m sure the show in itself is a spectacle, with lots of snow and flashy lights and fun music. I wonder how long ELF will be on Broadway for and if it’s just going to run for the holiday season. From the pictures in the article this show looks like a bunch of fun for the younger audiences, even though the run time seems really long at 2 and a half hours. I know the lead, Grey Henson is a graduate from CMU Drama and it’s always exciting to see alumni performing on Broadway and in the industry doing well. It just continues to solidify that I am in the right place doing the right thing.
I’m a big fan of Elf the Musical! A youth theater group I work at does a yearly production every December, and I always work spotlight on it. It’s nothing to write home about, but the kids are always excited and it’s heartwarming to watch the ten-year-olds in the ensemble grow into themselves as performers and end up playing leads three or four years down the line. I really appreciate how most of the critics of the most recent Broadway production (starring Grey Henson, a Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Alum!) are able to review the show through the eyes of both a child and an adult. Yes, it may be spectacle-heavy, but flying sleighs and snow falling live are exciting for the kids in the audience. We may not enjoy Panto in the US to the same extent that they do in Great Britain, but we have a lot of child-focused theatre traditions around the holidays and I think productions like this one are pretty close in spirit. Go Elf!
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