Justin's Theatre Reviews

  After FOX's live televised production of Grease, I simply assumed that their production of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's musical version of A Christmas Story would be fantastic. Boy, was I wrong! I was so excited to watch this program from the comfort of my own home, but FOX's A Christmas Story: Live! was perhaps one of the most boring, uninspired things that I have watched all year. I had such high hopes for this Christmas special and it was highly disappointing. Compared to the rest of the musicals that have been broadcasted live, especially Grease and Hairspray , A Christmas Story: Live! was so lifeless and dull.    My first issue with the show came as soon as it began. When it started, I went to the bathroom thinking it was a commercial for Old Navy, Target, or one of those stores. It wasn't until I returned from the bathroom and saw the opening credits rolling, that I realized that the very commercial like song, "Count on Christmas", was the opening...

   I think that any form of holiday entertainment sets out to do two different things: Evoke nostalgia and spread holiday cheer. Without those two things, a holiday movie, special, or stage show will not succeed. Luckily, the El Paso Playhouse's production of the Christmas classic, A Christmas Story , hits all of the right marks. Given the Playhouse's previous success with a lot of the other shows I have seen there, I knew I would be in for a treat going into this production and it absolutely delivered.  This is one of those shows that just simply made my heart happy and I had such a glorious evening watching this show.   Since A Christmas Story is such an iconic movie, I am not going to waste time describing the plot. Here is the Wikipedia page if for whatever inexcusable reason, you haven't seen it.     The El Paso Playhouse production of A Christmas Story  did a very nice job of capturing the spirit of the original film and that is a huge...

  Whilst watching the national tour of the Tony Award Best Musical winner, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" , all I could think was "WOW, I would have killed myself if I was a Tony Award voter in 2014!" After Midnight , Aladdin , Beautiful: The Carole King Musical , AND A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder ?!? I could never have possibly chosen because they are all wonderful, amazing shows. I could easily see why this show won Best Musical in 2014, because I honestly loved this show.    A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is a delightful show that is about a man named Monty Navarro who has found out that he is eighth in line in the D'Ysquith family to become the Earl of Highhurst (a fictional place, I'm presuming) and he decides that he is going to have to kill all of the people ahead of him in the line of succession in order to become the Earl. I am not going to describe anymore of the plot because I think it is way better when you go...

    For the third year in a row, the UTEP Dinner Theatre has produced another student directed production in their venue. This year, the student show was Jonathan Larson's autobiographical musical Tick, Tick..Boom! . Tick, Tick...Boom! is the story of an aspiring musical theatre composer named Jon who is about to turn 30 and how he is concerned about how his life and career seem to be going nowhere. The show was written entirely by Jonathan Larson, with script consultant, David Auburn. The show has an extremely strong book and score, with songs that easily showcase the talent of whoever may be singing them.   This production was directed by UTEP student, Rachel Robins. Robins' staging was well thought out and she did a lovely job blocking the show. However, there were moments during the show where the cast members would switch characters mid scene and due to the way those moments were staged, it would take a minute for my brain to process that they had become a di...