...But what matters most is the heartfelt tone of the show, which some productions have gotten spectacularly wrong. Not only is Beth Stafford Laird all-in, all night, but the scenes between her Belle and her pops (Ron Rains) are very touching, as is old Cogsworth (George Keating), realizing with his old pal Lumiere (Jackson Evans) that his worst fears have not come true. The princess-dress crowd probably won't get that, and let's hope they don't for years to come, but their parents will.
...The visually dazzling and magnificently sung staging of "Beauty and the Beast" running through Jan. 19 at Aurora's opulent Paramount Theatre is So. So. Good. I'm about as romantic as Tuesday morning at the DMV, yet I found myself getting a positively misty when Paul-Jordan Jansen's charismatic Beast sent his good god y'all vocals soaring over the vast theater like a sunrise. "If I Can't Love Her" is an opera distilled into a single love song, and it is extraordinary.
If you'd told me that Disney's "The Little Mermaid" would form the basis for one of the most innovative musical productions of the season…Thanks to a truly breathtaking and counterintuitively designed set from Jeffrey D. Kmiec and a really, really good idea from director Amber Mak, that is exactly the situation this holiday season at the historic, gussied-up-for-holidays Paramount Theatre in Aurora, where Disney's most problematic Broadway musical has been transformed into a spectacle not unlike sticking your head into an aquarium and spending a couple of hours happily blowing bubbles with your delighted kids.
With its outstanding cast, its superb orchestra, its endlessly imaginative direction and choreography by Amber Mak, its wondrous flights and deep dives of fancy — including puppetry, aerial (and Ariel) ballets, eye-popping sets by the masterful Jeffrey D. Kmiec, seductive costumes by Theresa Ham, and a color palette that runs the gamut from deep sea to high sky hues — the show is just the latest evidence of why, in just over five years, Paramount’s Broadway Series has not only been able to transform Aurora into a city where the performing arts rule, but one in which a theater trumps a casino as a major economic engine.
Amber Mak was so NOT expecting a Jeff Award nod for best director of a musical. In fact, when her associate director Megan Farley called up early Tuesday morning, and the first words out of her mouth were “It’s about time!,” Mak asked her single colleague if she’d just gotten engaged.
...If, like me, you see the great Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals as national treasures to be loved by young and old and protected for generations to come, the beautiful, deeply emotional new holiday production of the iconic title “The Sound of Music” at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora will fill you with a warm glow.
...Amber Mak’s warm, very human production of one of the most-produced musicals of all time, is filled with eye-popping spectacle and childlike wonder. Every single character is a real person and exudes a realism and honesty not always found in other productions of this show.
...Anyone who has seen numerous screen and stage creations of the title—for musical theatre aficionados, that’s pretty much everyone—will be taken by Mak’s fresh approach, her Broadway-ready thirty-plus member cast, magical vocals and stunning visuals.
...In shaping the musical "Wizard of Oz" for Aurora's massive Paramount Theatre, director/choreographer Amber Mak and music director Kory Danielson go for broke. Between the cyclone and the Emerald City and the battalion of flying monkey/cow/cyclist puppets, it's pretty clear that the Paramount's special-effects budget could probably rival those of the classic film.
...The result, on all counts, is a Broadway-worthy show of grand scale and exceptional imagination – a production that spins onto the stage with the force of the cyclone (even if some insist the proper term is tornado) that knocks out Kansas farm girl Dorothy Gale just long enough for her to take a scary but fantastical journey to the Land of Oz and Emerald City.