Justin's Theatre Reviews

  Although the New York production of Kinky Boots is nearing the end of its Broadway run, a touring production of the show is still making its way across North America. Despite the fact that the show has been playing for over 5 years, I never got around to seeing it until this past Saturday night, when the tour played The Plaza Theatre in El Paso, Texas. The show certainly did not disappoint and very firmly justified their six Tony Awards (including Best Musical) and long run on Broadway. With a score by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Harvey Fierstein, Kinky Boots (based on the 2005 film of the same name) is a wonderful show about a man named Charlie Price (Connor Allston) whose father is the owner of a shoe company, known as Price and Son. After his father's sudden passing, Charlie inherits the shoe factory and upon discovering that the shoe factory is starting to go under, Charlie struggles to keep the shoe factory alive. After befriending a drag queen (Lola, played by understudy, J...

   Revisiting Jersey Boys was like visiting an old friend. I was excited to see this friend again, but when you began visiting you started to think that you do not have that much to talk about. You begin to wonder why you wanted to hang out with this person again in the first place, but the more time you spend together, the happier you are and the more you have to talk about. By the time you leave, you are more than thrilled that you visited this friend and you remember how much you love seeing them. Jersey Boys is that kind of a friend for me. Seeing the show for the third time (and first time since 2014) was a true nostalgia trip for me. Jersey Boys , which tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' rise to fame, was actually one of the very first professionally done shows that I saw. I caught the show in Cleveland in 2011 and my parents LOVED it. I loved it too, but my mother especially loved it. To this day, it is one of the only musical cast albums that she...