Justin's Theatre Reviews

    This year in El Paso, two productions of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods were put on by two local theatre companies. The first of which was El Paso Community College's Production which, as you know if you are a regular reader of my blog, was a mess . The second production was done by Sun City Musical Theatre....The huge difference between the two productions was that while the EPCC production was a conceivable mess, the Sun City Musical Theatre production was such a mess, that it was actually unbelievable. Sun City's production of Into the Woods is a flop of Carrie sized proportions. This production of "Into the Woods" was outrageous and downright ridiculous. Even the chicken who ran out onstage in the EPCC production was taken aback by how truly bad this production was. It's not even that the talent wasn't there, it was, but there were so many obvious setbacks and wrong choices made in this production that made it the mess of a sh...

  The Tony Awards were last night! I have SO MANY thoughts about last night's telecast. I don't even know where to start. In this post, I am going to talk about the winners, performances, the red carpet, and simply the ceremony as a whole. Let us begin with the red carpet.                                                             THE RED CARPET:    Everyone at the Tony awards truly looked STUNNING last night. Last year, I didn't care for everybody's choice of outfit, but this year, I would say that everybody looked fantastic. Standouts on the red carpet included Eva Noblezada (nominated for "Miss Saigon'), Jenn Colella (nominated for "Come From Away"), among many, many others. ...

 Some shows are just so elegant. "Beauty and the Beast", "The King and I", among many others. Another notable show that is simply elegant is "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella", which was given a new book by Douglas Carter-Beane in 2013. After a successful 2 year run on Broadway, the show went on tour and continues to play across the country to great acclaim. I caught the first national tour of the show back in 2015 (read my review here , I didn't quite know how to write yet) and I loved the show. I was so happy when it was announced that the second national tour of the show would be closing the 2016/17 touring season in El Paso because this show really is a treat. As it was when I last saw it, the show was gorgeous. There were some notable differences in the physical production from the first national tour, but the show is in wonderful shape and is still doing beautifully.   As I mentioned, but didn't touch on in my last review of the sho...

   After seeing the national tour of "The Phantom of the Opera" this past July, I revisited the tour as apart of the 2016/17 Broadway in El Paso season. I am happy to report to all of you that this lavish production is still in terrific shape. With a packed house, the city of El Paso seems to be thrilled with this production. Since I have already reviewed this show and production before, I am just going to touch on the cast changes that have occurred since the last time I saw the show and a few other things that I feel the need to talk about.      In the title role, understudy Eric Ruiz took the stage and was absolutely great in the role of the Phantom. He has a lovely voice and he did a wonderful job carrying the role of the Phantom. His rendition of "The Music of the Night" was gorgeous and he certainly did Andrew Lloyd Webber's score justice. I hope the production considers moving him up to the full time Phantom someday because Ruiz truly did a w...

   Not only is "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (also known as "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory") on Broadway right now, but so is "Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812." The reason I bring up "Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" is because that show uses the brilliant idea of immersive staging in which they involve the audience as apart of the action, although there's no real audience participation. "The Great Comet"'s staging works, with the action taking place all over the theatre, but not a single person misses any of the action. The Kids n Co. production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" also used the same idea of this immersive staging and performed the show around the audience. However, that idea did not work for this production. I suppose that it could have worked, but when your audience has to constantly hoist themselves around to the point of discomfort to see the show, the...