Justin's Theatre Reviews

     The UTEP Dinner Theatre opened their 35th anniversary season with the musical version of the incredibly popular property that is The Addams Family , which was originally created by Charles Addams. The musical version of the show was composed by Andrew Lippa ( The Wild Party) and the book was written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. The musical version of The Addams Family is about how daughter, Wednesday, becomes engaged to a "normal" boy, named Lucas, so the family invites Lucas and his family over for dinner. However, Wednesday has only told her father, Gomez, about the engagement, so they must spend the evening trying to act "normal" and keeping the secret of the engagement from the Addams family mother, Morticia. I had never seen the musical version of  The Addams Family up until this performance and although the UDT did their best with the material, I think that it is not a good musical. I'd feel that way about any production of this show, so I d...

    There are so many jukebox musicals that exist in the musical theatre canon. There's Jersey Boys, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical , On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan, and so many more. These are just a few biographical musicals that use the music of that artist and other music from their genre to tell their story and do a phenomenal job doing it...and then there's Motown .    Although the music and the talent in the show is undeniably great, it's not enough to save the craziness of a show that is Motown the Musical . Motown is about the legendary music producer, Berry Gordy, and the rise of Motown as a recording company and a studio. Major parts of the story include Gordy's relationship with Diana Ross and some of his other employees, including Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. The show is also written by Gordy, so that makes this an autobiographical musical. Based on how some of the characters are portrayed, it honestly feels like Berr...

   In honor of Dia de los Muertos ("Day of the Dead" in English), El Paso's Kids n Co presented a lovely show called Dolores , which is an original play that was written by Lluvia Almanza & Orlando Rodriguez. Dolores told the story of a young boy named Jose Luis, whose sister died of an illness (presumably cancer based off of dialogue in the show) and how he visits her in heaven and other spirits, all while we learn a little bit about Dia de los Muertos.    Dolores was truly a wonderful little show that I truly enjoyed. The show's writing was quite exceptional and the cast did a wonderful job bringing the show to life. Director, Eurydice Saucedo, did a wonderful job casting all of the young talent in the show, in addition to making a very good use of the church that the show was performed in. The shows leads were played by Pilar Gutierrez (Dolores), Tyler Spoon (Jose Luis), Julia Davis (The show's main La Catrina), Aiden Aguirre (Juan, a mischievous spirit ...

   After witnessing Sun City Musical Theatre's production of Into the Woods , I wasn't sure what to expect from their production of Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Show. Anyone who knows anything knows that this show has a huge cult following. So, every time a new rendition of the show is performed, everyone is eager to see what each individual company does with the material and physical production. The Sun City Musical Theatre chose to make their production a replica of the London Playhouse production that was aired in cinemas in the United Kingdom.    The SCMT production  of The Rocky Horror Show was a straight up copy of the London's Playhouse Theatre production (Which can be viewed on YouTube ), even down to simple acting choices. Normally, I wouldn't care about straight up carbon copies, but I am saying it now because as far as I'm aware, no credit was given to this production that they took almost every single move from. Not supplying the creative t...