REVIEWS
HELLO, DOLLY!
"Lyric Stage's Julie Johnson breathes
life back into 'Hello, Dolly!'... How do I love Julie Johnson?
Let me count the ways ... First of all, she can make me like
Hello, Dolly!, a musical I had hoped never to see again. Go
crazy for it, actually... Director Cheryl Denson deserves the
credit for putting all these performers together and convincing
them that Hello, Dolly! deserves more care and respect than
it has been given over the last 40 years of endless touring
and stock versions... this is likely to beat any other performance
you've seen, hands down. As long as Ms. Johnson cares to play
her, we can all hope this Dolly will never go away again."
Read the full Dallas Morning News review
of HELLO, DOLLY!
"From hello to goodbye, this 'Dolly' shines
all show long... Irving Lyric Stage has Julie Johnson as
the title character in its current production of Jerry Herman
and Michael Stewart's classic Hello, Dolly! and it is a match
made in theater heaven... There may be a flaw in this production
somewhere. But if there is, it sure got by me. If you have ever
considered seeing Hello, Dolly!, you would be well served by
saying, "Hello, Julie!"."
Read the full Ft. Worth Star-Telegram review
of HELLO, DOLLY!
LOOK HOMEWARD HONKY TONK ANGEL
"'Look Homeward' hits concert mark... Great voices sell country oldies, new tunes... Lyric Stage gave 'Look Homeward Honky Tonk Angel' its world premiere on Saturday with a performance that couldn't get much better, especially in the vocal department... The new tunes are some of the best written for a musical in years."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of LOOK HOMEWARD HONKY TONK ANGEL
"It's Southern-fried, corny and delicious... It all equals plenty of chuckles... Larry Gatlin's music and lyrics effortlessly fit into the story, both his old tunes and the new ones, a few of which have the potential to become as memorable as 'Houston' and 'Sure Feels Like Love'."
Read the full
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram review of LOOK HOMEWARD HONKY TONK ANGEL
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN'S CAROUSEL
"'Carousel' is big, bold, brilliant and not to miss... Every musical theater fan better get over to Irving this weekend, where the show has four performances left... Turns out, having a 40-piece orchestra in the pit not only enhances every nuance of Richard Rodgers' lush score for Carousel but also brings out the best individual vocals and ensemble chorals from Lyric Stage's cast... Not only does it sound unlike anything you've heard or will hear at the theater, but it's also a good-looking, sprawling but tight production with nicely honed characterizations molded by director Cheryl Denson... You might not be transported like this at a musical again."
Read Mark Lowry's full
Star-Telegram review of CAROUSEL
"A glorious spin on 'Carousel'... Lyric Stage gives classic musical new flair... If you've never quite understood why Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical plays were the dominant American theater pieces of the mid-20th century, you need to see Lyric Stage's Carousel. Those already in the know will want to see it twice... Kimberly Whalen and Christopher Pinnella could hardly be bettered as the faithful-hearted Julie Jordan and her ne'er-do-well Billy Bigelow... this Carousel is cast to strength, top to bottom. They don't make musicals like this anymore – and, until Lyric Stage proved otherwise, you'd have thought they didn't perform them like this anymore, either."
Read Lawson Taitte's full
Dallas Morning News review of CAROUSEL
"Lyric Stage's sparkling Carousel... Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous... This is Carousel as it was meant to be, fully choreographed and elaborately costumed for a wide proscenium stage. Nobody does musicals this way anymore... How fine, how satisfying to be thrilled through and through by a local production of one of the best shows in American musical theater. It's not enough to say the singing, dancing and acting in Lyric's Carousel are Broadway caliber. Broadway rarely casts anything this well anymore. Given the budget limits and space restrictions of regional theater, it's unlikely that a Carousel this big and beautiful will come this way again."
Read Elaine Liner's full
Dallas Observer review of CAROUSEL
Following is the entire Park Cities People Review by Glenn Arbery:
"A New Gold Standard. Lyric Stage’s Carousel changes the stakes for musicals in Dallas...
There’s one major problem with the otherwise superb production of Carousel at Lyric Stage in Irving. In all justice, it should run for a year or two, and it should make the work of Steven Jones and his collaborators, Cheryl Denson and Jay Dias, nationally famous.
But in fact, its last performance is this Sunday — after only two weekends. It’s a shame, a dark injustice, that work of this quality can’t go on indefinitely.
Using a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Jones assembled a 40-piece orchestra for the first time since the show’s run on Broadway over 60 years ago. Musical director and conductor Jay Dias handles the complexities with consummate skill. The orchestra adds a depth and magnitude to the performance, but never once overpowers the singers.
True, it must be very expensive to put on this show. On the other hand, the audiences it’s sure to get after the first reviews could keep it going for a long time if this were a perfect world.
As the curtain rises and the orchestra plays, there’s a vivid pantomime — like a Breugel painting brought to life —at the seaside amusement park in the New England mill town where the action takes place. What’s interesting is how deeply American Carousel feels, despite being adapted from a 1909 Hungarian play by Ferenc Molnár.
In this production, it captures with light naturalness the regimented life of the girls in the mill, the paternalism of the mill owner, the excitement offered by the carousel world, and a Horatio Alger theme. Director Cheryl Denson lets the story unfold without heavy messages to distort it.
It’s a big production, full-bore, nothing held back, and there’s an electric excitement in the cast. You get the feeling that they know they’re in the middle of a production they’ll use from now on as the standard for whatever else they do, and the elation of it instantly conveys itself to the audience.
It had me at “Mr. Snow.” Dara Whitehead Allen as Carrie Pepperidge, the mill worker telling her friend Julie about the man she’s going to marry, sings with a joyous energy, and her acting perfectly complements what the song says. Kimberly Whalen as Julie Jordan matches her with a quieter, more melancholy charm combined with a superb voice.
Christopher Pinnella plays a forceful Billy Bigelow, Julie’s unlikely boyfriend, the barker at the carousel. Bigelow is so cocky and full of himself he can hardly stand it, a guy who’s never met anybody who really trusts him before he meets Julie. A proud man, full of self-doubt, explosive, he lacks Enoch Snow’s work ethic, but he’s driven by a fundamental attraction to goodness. Pinnella has a voice that does Bigelow’s big solos full credit, and the show rides on his talent.
In other words, a confident ease soon comes over the audience, and more pleasures keep coming, such as the strong, comic tenor of Jackson Ross Best Jr. as Enoch Snow, the fisherman Carrie’s going to marry.
Natalie Arduilo plays Nettie Fowler who runs a boarding house for the girls who work in the town’s textile mills, with lots of sand, as Huck Finn might say, and Stacia Malone gives amusement park owner Mrs. Mullin, who also loves Billy Bigelow, a worldly knowingness that contrasts sharply with Julie Jordan’s passive trust.
And I’m not even mentioning the 12 other fine cast members, such as Joshua Doss and Francis Fusilier, and the ensemble of 29 singers and dancers.
It’s unquestionably the best musical (including the expensive touring productions) that I’ve seen since WaterTower’s Urinetown, which I liked because it made fun of musicals. This one succeeds without once puncturing its own conventions, and it even survives an overlong ballet scene in the second act.
It’s the kind of show you want everyone you know to see — if only they can get a seat. "
DALLAS DIVAS! 2007 in JERRY'S GIRLS
"'Dallas Divas!' delivers... Big sounds of Broadway ring out in Irving..."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of DALLAS DIVAS! 2007
THE WINNER
"A Winning Formula... Irving theater's political musical gets our vote... With so many new musicals these days, you're lucky to get one of these elements: outstanding story, memorable music or a strongly acted production.
Joe Sutton and Lewis Flinn's The Winner, having its world premiere at Lyric Stage, is three-for-three... GRADE: A"
Read the full
Star-Telegram review of THE WINNER
"LBJ's story, in song... He is larger than life in musical's debut... The Winner treats its audience like grown-ups as it portrays the historical figure of the young Lyndon Baines Johnson in all his complexity. Few plays or movies give us this kind of searching look at our collective past..."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of THE WINNER
CABIN IN THE SKY
"What becomes a legend? The kind of mink-and-sable treatment that Lyric Stage is giving the fabled 1940 musical CABIN IN THE SKY... The whole evening flows along on a current of spirited and subtly balanced movement... Anybody with an interest in the history of the American musical has to make the pilgrimage to see
CABIN IN THE SKY."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of CABIN IN THE SKY
"The ensemble for this production deserve a standing ovation for providing some of the most beautiful singing I have heard all year... If you want to hear some of the most exquisite singing being done on a metroplex stage today, then rush to Lyric Stage now!"
Read the full
The Column review of CABIN IN THE SKY
SWEENEY TODD
in concert at the Meyerson
"Razor-sharp. 'Sweeney Todd' simply thrills. Lyric Stage, usually based in Irving, has invaded Dallas with a semi-staged concert version, which was reviewed at its Monday dress rehearsal. This one takes Sweeney Todd to the max. An orchestra of symphonic proportions and a huge cast fill up the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center with waves of enormous sound..."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of SWEENEY TODD
JANE EYRE
This is no plain 'jane'
by Mark Lowry
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Published: Tuesday, May 2, 2006
"Will some wealthy reader out there please give about a bazillion bucks to Lyric Stage?
Even when the Irving-based musical company selects a good-but-not-great musical and gives it a slightly imperfect staging, as is the case with the current Jane Eyre, Lyric's productions blow every other local groups' musicals out of the water. Most certainly in the vocal department, but usually in acting and design as well.
Jane Eyre is Paul Gordon and John Caird's overly earnest musical version of Charlotte Bronte's 1847 proto-feminist novel about a plain governess who wins over a wealthy estate owner. It ran for six months in Broadway's 2000-01 season, and was nominated for a Tony in the year of the biggest Tony-sweeping show ever, The Producers.
Jane is the kind of show Lyric founder and producer Steven Jones adores.
It's almost entirely through-composed and features lots of sung dialogue and a sweeping, almost filmic, score. Some have compared Gordon's music here to the work of Claude-Michel Schonberg, of Les Miserables. In Jane Eyre, the song Sirens is so reminiscent of Les Miz you'll want to wave a giant French flag.
Directed by Candace Evans with musical direction by Scott A. Eckert, Jane includes many awe-inspiring moments, mostly in the ensemble musical numbers.
Julie Stirman, a former local now based in New York, plays the title role and exhibits all the resilience and passion Jane needs. She overrides vulnerability, even when the show's creators give her something to be uncharacteristically vulnerable about.
Local leading man Greg Dulcie, stalwart of voice and build, is Rochester, the enigmatic man who falls for Jane but has a dark secret. He's terrific in scenes with Jane and others, but his solo soul-searching songs lean to the bombastic side.
No doubt the audience favorite is Deborah Brown as Mrs. Fairfax. Brown, known to Casa audiences especially, does that Angela Lansbury-esque not-quite-there aging caretaker shtick like none other, with hysterical results.
Wade Giampa's set consists of a main, raked platform with elevated walkways extending into the wings. There's a Victorian elegance about it even in its simplicity.
Backdropping everything is a white scrim on which lighting designer Susan A. White casts mood-setting colors, making the actors and set pieces look almost like silhouettes. Think of the Vivien Leigh "I'll never be hungry again" image from Gone With the Wind and you'll get it."
GRADE: A-
DALLAS DIVAS!
"Star-spangled show. Dallas Divas! join talents to salute Rodgers and Hammerstein. It would be positively un-American not to love this year's Dallas Divas!..."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of DALLAS DIVAS!
EVITA
"An 'Evita' so good, you'll cry. Lyric Stage revives Lloyd Webber classic with stunning soprano."
"'A little touch of star quality,' Eva Perón sings in Evita. When Catherine Carpenter Cox barrels through that line, she's doing herself an injustice. The lady has a whole lot of star quality. Ms. Cox headlines the revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber favorite in a Lyric Stage production that's exciting from top to bottom..."
Read the full
Dallas Morning News review of EVITA
"Lyric gives extra attention to every last note from every person on stage."
"Director and choreographer Len Pfluger has made dead-on casting choices
in Catherine Carpenter Cox, Blake Davidson and Brian Gonzales..."
"...fiery with dramatic passion." GRADE: A-
Read the full
Star Telegram review of EVITA (registration required)
110 In The Shade
"Lyric Stage's spiffy production, perfect in almost every way, proved once again
the worth of this gentle masterpiece... The cast performs brilliantly from top to bottom."
Read the full Dallas Morning News review of 110 IN THE SHADE
"Lyric Stage's musical '110' really cranks up the heat...
a staging that crackles like heat lightning... and touches the heart."
Read the full
Star Telegram review of 110 IN THE SHADE (registration required)
The Fantasticks
"Fantastickly funny...
Lyric Stage's show lives up to name with heart, humor."
Read the full Dallas Morning News review of THE FANTASTICKS
"Exquisite, poetic, heartfelt...
perfect-as-it-gets staging... GRADE: A"
Read the full
Star Telegram review of THE FANTASTICKS (registration required)
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