An American in Paris (Broadway) NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Christopher Wheeldon's choreography for "An American in Paris", is so spectacular that you have to forgive anything else wrong with the production--and believe you me, there's plenty to forgive--and I mean plenty...As I say, you see this An American in Paris for the dancing. You don't see it for Craig Lucas's libretto...He's tossed aside almost everything else to do what he so often does in his plays: Wax pretentious while believing he's being deep substantive."
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""An American in Paris" is a fine and fanciful entertainment...It has sublime songs and dexterous dancing. ’S wonderful? ’S marvellous? ’S nearly. Where Wheeldon falters is in pacing and storytelling...At times, the action stalls while the actors move. But if you can ignore the stops and starts, there’s so much to enjoy in between, not least some of the Gershwins’ greatest hits."
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"Wheeldon turns the movie’s spectacular “American in Paris” ballet into an abstract ballet, as if designed by Mondrian, and as if Gershwin’s music didn’t make specific references to individual sights and sounds as experienced by an American in Paris...Perhaps Wheeldon opted to go abstract for the finale because his storytelling in act one often makes you want to rewatch the movie to understand what’s going on."
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"There is an airy and dizzying quality to Christopher Wheeldon’s wonderfully imaginative production of "An American in Paris." It feels something like a first gasp of air after holding your breath for a long, long time. Broadway is currently awash in questionable movie-to-musical marquees, but a stage version of the 1952 Oscar-winning picture starring Gene Kelly feels like a foregone conclusion held in suspension. And over half a century later, the wait was worth every minute."
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"Wheeldon has crafted a show that looks and sounds sumptuous throughout..."Paris" fares best when its talented cast is singing and dancing — which is, happily, a good deal of the time...The ballet sequences, not surprisingly, are the soaring high points. The number can't match the cinematic detail of the original, of course. But overall, it's a dazzling achievement in its own right."
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"Ravishing visuals, beautiful dancing, classic Gershwin songs, dandy performances and a pretty good story; this is a blessedly unfaithful Broadway version of the M-G-M film musical...The entire show truly dances along in Wheeldon’s exceptionally graceful staging. The generally dreamy quality with which Wheeldon imbues the production results in a thoroughly enchanting attraction that offers a refreshing change from the hard-driven nature of concurrent Broadway musicals."
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"There are some shows where you linger a moment after the actors' curtain calls, reluctant to part company after sharing a swell evening. That was the feeling at "An American in Paris," a colorful, charming, dazzlingly danced adaptation of the great 1951 Gene Kelly movie. With its score of eternally lovely Gershwin songs, the show is a celebration of movement as an equal partner to song and dialogue in telling a story...In every way, "An American in Paris" offers a marvelous journey back in time."
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"The fusion of the Broadway musical and ballet, set to the sublime music and lyrics of the Gershwin Brothers’ songbook, is an evening of pure enchantment. Forget what you know about the movie, because Christopher Wheeldon, the director and choreographer, has truly reinvented a new, old-fashioned-style musical…The one drawback of the musical is the book by Craig Lucas, and the forced obligatory humor that has to be injected into a serious musical."
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