See it if you're a Patty Lupone fan. Great cast! Overall good story.
Don't see it if you can't stand endless ultra highfalutin quotes from obscures 1950's plays.
See it if You like Patti LuPone or Michael Urie and enjoy behind the scenes stories of the theater
Don't see it if You're not interested in shows about the theater
See it if you can't get enuf of theater about theater. SFD has some charm (Urie and Lupone!) but not much insight. Yes, it's tough to grow up.
Don't see it if you want something memorable. Both the script and the production seem tired. Nothing new under the spotlight. Read more
See it if You work in or just generally love the theatre and backstage humor.
Don't see it if You don't like coming-of-age stories.
See it if You want to see Michael Urie (I did) but the play just wasn't worth it. Forgettable.
Don't see it if Despite the wonderful cast it just wasn't that entertaining or interesting s show.
See it if Patti Lupone was of course great. It's a touching story that resonated with this theatre geek.
Don't see it if It's a bit inside baseball for those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of community theatre.
See it if you grew up in or around a community theater, or if you love coming of age tales.
Don't see it if you're looking for something really meaningful. This is a very autobiographical show that's not always relatable. The end is very indulgent.
See it if you're a fan of the cast or creative team. They all deliver! I had a wonderful time!
Don't see it if you plan to text during the show. Patti's got her eye on you...
"Something went awry in this particular journey from truth to fiction, as if the play had become stuck in midmetamorphosis, like some mutant fairy-tale character frozen in an incomplete spell. 'Shows for Days' wants to be both harshly realistic and charmingly sentimental. And these disparate sides never entirely connect."
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"Few playwrights hone quips as sharply as Beane does, and LuPone is frequently hilarious. Thanks to them, 'Shows for Days' goes by speedily—sometimes too speedily. The uneven cast of six often seems to be rushing; important plot beats are blurry and confusing...Diverting and touching as it often is, there’s not much meat in this pottage."
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"In 'Shows for Days,' he’s written not merely a vehicle for Patti LuPone but a glossy,curve-hugging Ferrari of a comedy...So yes, a star vehicle. But whether it can be steered is a different matter; neither Beane, nor the director, nor anyone else seems to have found a way to keep it from veering all over the place."
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"'Shows for Days' is another prickly valentine to the theater, in a semi-fictionalized recollection of the playwright's simultaneous discovery of his vocation and his sexuality. The personal investment is dulled by characters that too rarely escape stereotype, and by writing that's not short on humor, but sacrifices poignancy through lack of focus."
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"'Shows for Days' is the author Douglas Carter Beane’s muddled, tonally wonky ode to growing up during a Pennsylvania stage troupe’s salad days in the early ‘70s. This memory play aims to be Beane’s own 'Glass Menagerie' via Borscht Belt, but what results here attempts to rise but does not shine."
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"Bor-ring. Douglas Carter Beane tries to minimize the ho-hum factor by setting this play in a 1970s community theater troupe ruled by a diva played by Patti LuPone. Shrewd move, but the scribe neglects to fortify his spirited star and the boychick apprentice with a lucid plot, a coherent structure or even believable supporting roles."
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"While 'Shows for Days' is no masterpiece, it’s unfailingly funny and disarmingly sweet, and if you’ve ever had anything to do with amateur theater, it will fill you with memories of the way you were once upon a time...'Shows for Days' has a loosely knit, Kleenex-thin plot that makes an unconvincing swerve into melodrama after intermission. But the six actors, Ms. LuPone above all, squeeze every drop of comic juice from their campy zingers,"
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"Delicious and toothsome as each of these characters is, 'Shows For Days' comes with an outer costume more like the hard armor of situation comedy. The wise-crackling zingers prevail, and our own laughter, some forced, some guilty, prevents us from getting inside the Prometheus players in any meaningful way. And so 'Shows For Days' dissolves in the ether before we’ve even left the theater."
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