Head Over Heels (NYC) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (874)
See it if you want to escape with some comedy and familiar songs in well designed sets and great costumes. An energetic cast makes it entertaining.
Don't see it if if you are not up for some silliness or do not like the music of the Go Go's.
See it if Shakespearean style comedy, spoken in verse, with gay/trans characters and Go-Go's music. Surprisingly clever and fun.
Don't see it if You don't want to see a silly comedy. Shepherd boy disguises himself as a girl to see the princess etc. Don't have to be a big Go-Go's fan. Read more
See it if you enjoy a light hearted gender bending musical with lively music and wonderful staging. Very entertaining with funny situations.
Don't see it if you do not like gender bending dialogue or you only like sophisticated musicals. Read more
See it if you want to see a fun musical with an unabashedly queer aesthetic.
Don't see it if you're looking for something that takes itself too seriously.
See it if You are looking for something fun
Don't see it if You want to think or be challenged Read more
See it if Straight white cis men (patriarchy) realize their shortcomings and make space for the women and queer folx. Light progressive jukebox comedy
Don't see it if Writing is just ok. Queer / trans folx scare you. Don't like The Go-Go's. Read more
See it if You want to see several really wonderful performances couched within a rather predictable telling. A riot of color and movement.
Don't see it if Mundane repetitive dance moves which were not interesting 1st time. Small garage band "orchestra" with boring arrangements/orchestration. Read more
See it if Loosely based on The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, a royal family pairs up their daughters, finds a successor, and keeps the beat.
Don't see it if You are not OK with non-binary and other gender expressions, or with a rather silly plot that mixes Greek mythology and Elizabethan English.
Critic Reviews (52)
"Feels as timid and awkward as the new kid on the first day of school...'Head Over Heels' lacks the courage of its contradictions. It mutters deferentially when what you want is a rebel yell...What’s lacking in the musical performances here is the go-for-broke exuberance that made the Go-Go’s so irresistible...Its audience might leave the theater less hungry if this oddly earnest show could really kick up its heels and let the message take care of itself."
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"To enjoy 'Head Over Heels,' which offers quite a lot to enjoy, it is probably best to kick up your heels and put your head on hold. That’s not to say that this saucy, boisterous musical doesn’t have a brainy side, starting with its ambitious crossbreeding of four time periods...But at heart the show is a campy romp...Broadway traditionalists may not approve, but that feels like part of the point...A fantasy and celebration of nonconformity, and it puts its casting where its mouth is."
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"If the premise of 'Head Over Heels' sounds a little nutso, that’s because the show is a lot nutso, in the most delightfully daffy, exuberantly heart-open way...'Head Over Heels' is joyfully queering the canon (which isn’t all that straight to begin with) and throwing a heady, hearty party while it’s at it...Part of the appeal of 'Head Over Heels' is that while it’s got Broadway sparkle to it, it depends almost entirely on its ensemble to generate its goofy, big-hearted brand of magic."
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“A bouncy, bizarro, occasionally didactic musical...The amalgam is so brazen as to be immediately disarming: it would take a truly bad sport not to get on board with ersatz Elizabethan verse side by side with eighties earworms, delivered with equal gusto by a game cast...Mayer’s production revels in postmodern whimsy...The familiar tunes give the tale a welcome infusion of nostalgia...but the catalogue is puddle-deep."
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"Relentlessly frothy musical...You'll either find the humor uproarious fun or, like me, an utter trial...The performers certainly give the material their all...Mayer's blithe staging keeps things moving at a fast pace...Despite the ample professionalism on display, the show comes across as painfully strained rather than pleasurably antic. 'Head Over Heels' may be admirably woke when it comes to gender fluidity, but as entertainment, it's strictly retrograde."
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"The feeling of watching Cher kiss Meryl Streep on the lips has been captured on stage in the form of 'Head Over Heels'...It can be a little distracting when the dialogue tries to double as LGBTQ 101, but it still feels like a divine post-Pride Month miracle that this show’s 'Vision of Nowness' is not just to incorporate one or two LGBTQ characters but to foreground a whole host of people of varying identities."
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"An over-written, over-designed, and generally overdone production...Thanks, no doubt, to the Oracle of Delphi (played here by the impishly funny Peppermint), it’s a miracle that at least some of the wit in Jeff Whitty’s original book gets through...The show never recovers from the pervasive feeling of exhaustion. There’s the exertion of making the stilted Spencer Liff choreography seem vaguely vogue. There’s the constant struggle to push and shove songs into places where they don’t fit."
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"The book is still a sophomoric mess, and the 17 songs, which are mostly either fast or rather less so, are lively but unvaried...Michael Mayer has done what he can to put a directorial shine on 'Head Over Heels'...Everyone else in the cast takes care of business, and if you really, really like the Go-Go’s, you might possibly find the results tolerable."
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