Once On This Island (NYC) NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Arden's done it again, this time gloriously integrating the art of theater magic with the even older art of storytelling, resulting in the nigh unto perfect revival...Flaherty's score offers a mix of styles. The songs for Ti Moune call on Hailey Kilgore to embrace us with a full-voiced, emotional style that suits her character's certitude...Truly, any quibbles with this impressive and thoroughly engaging production are minimal."
Read more

“Deceptively simple – yet, dare I say, powerful...At times, the show’s physical attributes come close to overwhelming the delicate story, but ultimately, they enhance and burnish it...The show really rises on the casting of central role of Ti Moune, and Kilgore delivers all the goods...I suspect once will not be enough for many viewers of ‘Once on This Island’. Nor should it be if you want to experience every facet of the show’s innate richness and Arden’s often-remarkable production.”
Read more

"An absolutely incandescent revival...The delights of this fable-like show, with a rapturous, rhythmically bewitching score by Flaherty and Ahrens, will hold you entranced...The complicated tale, which relies perhaps a little too much on narration, nevertheless comes across with piercing emotional clarity in the buoyant staging...No matter where you look, the theater seems busy with active life...Kilgore glows with big-hearted life...The supporting cast is virtually flawless."
Read more

“Director Michael Arden's inventive and joyous revival of the 1990 Ahrens and Flaherty musical, ‘Once on This Island,’ reinvents the show as if it were brand new; it is as if you have never seen it before. While the original production seemed inauthentic and labored, the new one now at the Circle in the Square, which can hardly be called a revival as it is such a reinvention, sets a sand-covered island before you in its theater in the round, and the doomed but mesmerizing love story.”
Read more

"Director Arden, choreographer Brown and the design team have made sure we remain captivated by their ever changing vision of the island, the sheer magic of the stagecraft they deploy...It doesn't take long for the immediately endearing Kilgore to win our hearts...This musical may be small in its scope, but when compared to some, it achieves its own sense of grandness by being both magical and seductive— an unbeatable combination."
Read more

"Defined by its miraculous score, which blends calypso realness with Broadway...Ahrens and Flaherty pack into just 90 minutes all the sensory and emotional impact that most musicals take two hours to deliver...Director Arden expresses the intimacy inherent in the piece by staging it in the round...Perhaps its most miraculous quality of all is that, though it may generate copious tears, we don’t begrudge a single one, and leave the theatre happier than when we entered it."
Read more

"It’s long on charm but short on actual commentary about the island’s nuanced color-driven hierarchy...Flaherty’s score is consistently pleasing...Camille A. Brown’s choreography is somewhat pedestrian, but it comes alive in 'Ti Moune’s Dance,' where Kilgore and Brown pull out all the stops for an exciting African number...Yet for all its flaws, 'Once on This Island' still delights with its lilting score and its lucid telling of a guileless folktale."
Read more

“Lost none of its luster over the years, and in the production the beauty of this musical has been given its full due and then some...The ensemble contribute in myriad ways to the performance, handing off the narrative to each other in a verbal dance...The cast infuses every moment with spirit, emotion, and music. Everywhere you look something catches your eye...Every single element blends perfectly to bring this already beautiful musical to dazzling, joyous life.”
Read more