See it if you love LuPone, you love shows about shows, you love historical, coming of age stories, you love coming out stories.
Don't see it if you hate LuPone, you want to use your phone during the show.
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...
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 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 love great acting (especially Patti Lupone), and interesting, funny script
Don't see it if you don't like Patti Lupone. Who doesn't like Patti Lupone????
See it if you love Patti LuPone and a very contemporary acting feel.
Don't see it if you are easily bored, or cannot follow multiple timelines.
See it if You are a Patti Lupone fan and enjoy theatre about theatre.
Don't see it if You are expecting a big Broadway musical.
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
"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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"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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"Broad-as-a-barn performances are par for the course in this funny — but faulty — comic valentine...As stage reflections go, it’s pretty standard. Characters are paint-by-numbers kooky. Beane is a proven king of the zing. And director Zaks knows his way around fast-paced comedy. But even the gags lose power when a story collapses into implausibility...Fortunately, the cast of pros compensate."
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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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"'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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