Soft Power NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (148)
See it if some nice tunes derivative of known Broadway musicals. Nice sets. Ricamora is the only saving grace.
Don't see it if Other than Ricamora, the acting is really not great. This is aimless and all over the place. What is the plot? Read more
See it if You want to see an original musical. It's well intentioned.
Don't see it if Show was all over the place. First Act has some strange musical numbers like the Hillary Clinton burlesque number in McDonalds... Strange.
Critic Reviews (24)
"In the Musical ‘Soft Power,’ China Whistles the Tune: A complex look at democracy from an Asian perspective turns 'The King and I' inside out."
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"The awkward first 30 minutes of 'Soft Power' aren't musical at all, and we can tell from all the throat-clearing that the team feels hesitant about jumping into such a wild-spirited spoof…When Tesori's lush music starts, the play sighs with relief: Nothing, it turns out, buoys your post-2016 spirits like an orchestra in full swoon."
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"Flipping the Classic Musical Script in 'Soft Power'"
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"Tony Award winners David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori collaborate on a 'musical-within-a-play,' satirizing American-Chinese relations and featuring a post-election Hillary Clinton as a major character."
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"The American musical — and America — are reconsidered in this powerfully smart and entertaining show."
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"Singing China’s Praises: The new David Henry Hwang-Jeanine Tesori musical tackles cultural diplomacy in the age of Trump in a smart and touching fashion."
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"Directed with the right balance of dry wit and shameless razzmatazz by Leigh Silverman, 'Soft Power' boasts one of the most appealing and hard-working ensembles onstage today."
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"Ever wondered how China sees America? ‘Soft Power’ offers amusing ideas."
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2/4 Stars "A head-scratcher with a twerking Hillary Clinton"
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"'Soft Power' Imagines a Broadway Romance Between a Chinese Executive and Hillary Clinton: David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori create a golden age American musical for the Chinese century."
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"David Henry Hwang, Jeanine Tesori's 'SOFT POWER' Brilliantly Comments on Entertainment's Power To Mislead"
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"With a premise as clever as it is convoluted, 'Soft Power' may be more fun to talk about than to see. Whether you feel that the small nugget of insight produced by all this effort is worth it is hard to predict…a continuously entertaining musical that leaves one faintly dissatisfied and hungering for more."
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"A merry delight with wonderful central performances by Conrad Ricamora and Alyse Alan Louis"
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3/5 Stars: "'Soft Power' is inventive, satiric, caustic and intriguing. But at some point-despite a joyfully singing and dancing Hillary Clinton-the fun stops as the fantasy runs aground."
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3/5 Stars: "A frequently wry, extremely topical cheerfully mocking musical. Expertise, smarts, and speed gloss over the musical's lesser stretches and deliver a national lampoon likely to engage audiences who like their entertainment thoughtful."
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With the key cast members as well as director, choreographer aboard , David Henry Hwang's and Jeanine Tesori's genre busting "Soft Power" has arrived in New York. I can't think of a better place than the Public's Newman Theater for it to find an audience ready to buy into Hwang's dazzlingly original but flawed mash up of fact and fiction.
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"There are threads of musicals within a musical within this complex and engaging play. Musical theatre aficionados will recognize many references to important (and even obscure) Broadway musicals. These references are in both Jeanine Tesori's alluring score and in Sam Pinkleton's powerful choreography."
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"Clever, highly entertaining, hilarious, in places downright inspiring, and chock full of stimulating intellectual, cultural and political argument that forces us to look at American society, and the very nature of democracy, in a different way… confused….but not confusing."
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"Satirizes a host of political and social issues in a generally entertaining but overlong and thematically overstuffed way…Much as liberal audiences will appreciate or even laugh at…the skewed view of America as seen from the outside, the humor falls largely on the heavy-handed side."
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"The thrilling new musical...wears many hats: it’s a funny and touching East-meets-West love story, a postmodern Rodgers and Hammerstein–style book musical with multiple narratives and commentary, and a dazzling celebration of the rhapsodic power of Broadway song-and-dance."
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"This original musical by Tony winners David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori includes a twerking Hillary Clinton atop a Big Mac and a White House made of beer cans in a 'political fantasia' where East meets West."
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B+ "'Soft Power' is a form-busting examination of heartbreak and the American dream"
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"‘Soft Power’ at the Ahmanson: Big, bold, overly complicated and spectacularly unique"
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"'Soft Power' Offers an East-Meets-West Story Wrapped in a Hallucinatory Dream
A highly pedigreed creative duo tackles current events in this world premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre."
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