If you enjoy a good musical, you’re going to love this presentation of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and if you enjoy a good tap dance…. Well, this is right up your alley!

Fantastic screen to play adaptation is what you’ll find when you catch this awesome musical.

Early in the play, Cosmo sings ‘You can charm the critics but have nothing to eat!’ That’s the shrewd warning from the legendary song Make ’Em Laugh, from the equally legendary 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain, written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and now being performed “Live” at Broadway Palm Dinner theater. ‘Forget about the hoity-toity critics and the clueless highbrows,’ Cosmo proclaims:’the real duty – and real artistry – lies in entertaining people.’ How true!

And Entertained you will be. 

The unstoppable joy of the musical song and dance numbers, as Loren Stone and Alex Fullerton as Cosmo Brown and Don Lockwood, (originally played by Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly on the big screen) never fail to impress – perhaps especially in “Moses Supposes” as a pompous speech therapist fellow tries to instruct Don how enunciate his vowels and consonants; Cosmo shows up, and soon they have disrupted the entire thing with an anarchic dance number. The prissy business of correct elocution couldn’t be less relevant.

As in the original film, the songs themselves often float surreally free of the story. In Good Morning (celebrating their all-night conversation in which the genre of movie musical has been invented), Kathy, Cosmo and Don prophetically pick up rain coats, anticipating the legendary title number to come.

To some extent, cinema’s crisis of self-doubt is part of what drove the original film. Kathy Selden, played by Shannon Conboy is the wannabe actor and stern ingénue who lectures Fullerton’s genially complacent silent movie star Don Lockwood about the superiority of the legitimate theatre over the movies when they meet-cute. Not really believing it herself, while making ends meet jumping out of cakes at Hollywood parties and going into a sublime song’n’dance routine to All I Do Is Dream of You.

When the silent cinema is forced to accommodate sound, and Don and his co-star Lina Lamont make their first faltering attempts to speak from the screen, for an awful moment their acting looks crass, childish and comical. Are the naysayers right? Are the talkie movies just silly?
You’ll have to go see it for yourself to get the rest of the story but I’ll say this, we truly enjoyed how they pulled off the title cut ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ live on stage…

Also, overall, the choreography was exquisite! At one point I counted 17 actors on stage all singing and dancing with umbrellas and rain-gear… with no mishaps … impressive!

And I’ll add this... Lina Lamont played by Alexandra Nicole Garcia had a most difficult role.... It’s actually very hard to sing off key so bad...... intentionally!

In the end, Fullerton, Conboy, Stone and Garcia do something achieved only by true artists: they made it look easy.

Live at Broadway Palm Dinner Theater through Feb 12th... make some time for this ... you'll be glad you did!

tickets and info:

https://broadwaypalm.com
239-278-4422