"Flourishing in a glorious Encores! Off-Center iteration, savvily directed by Kate Whoriskey...For all the richness of Mr. Brown’s new orchestrations, and the vitality of a five-person dance ensemble choreographed by Rennie Harris, this staging smartly errs on the side of less is more...Ms. Whoriskey has done some sensible problem-solving with her casting, which is multiracial, and with the dancers, using them partly to open up the show’s worldview."
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"At first glance, Jason Robert Brown’s 1995 revue 'Songs for a New World' appears to have no plot or characters. But a closer inspection reveals it to be a complex, thematically-linked work in which each song (written in diverse styles of pop) is a one-act play...The piece is receiving an unexpectedly thrilling concert-style revival...Shoshana Bean, Colin Donnell, Solea Pfeiffer, and Mykal Kilgore provide powerhouse vocals coupled with great acting choices."
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"It's everything someone who was obsessed with the recording could want...The joy of seeing it onstage comes from being able to fully appreciate how certain songs and arcs are connected...It's easy to see why 'Songs for a New World' resonates with so many people. Brown's score is filled with soul-stirring melodies (played here by an excellent nine-piece band), and his lyrics brim with emotion, hope, and soul."
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“Sublime…Music director Tom Murray's nine-piece on-stage orchestra plays Brown's new orchestrations that bring out more of the music's contrasting and blending rock, gospel, chamber and folk textures...The focus, as is should be, is on the characters created by the music and lyrics, performed by a top-shelf quartet of actor/singers. Though each song stands on its own, the recurring theme of opportunities for new beginnings shines brightly…This is a great work of musical theatre."
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“The show offers a great assortment of songs, ranging in style...All four singers are excellent...Where Bean and Kilgore stand out is in their ability to create actual characters drawn from the lyrics to each of their songs...Terrific nine-person orchestra...An exceptionally fine production, and a rare and highly successful example of a plotless song cycle that manages to be as theatrical as a book musical, filled with unexpected pleasures throughout.”
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“A beautiful collection of numbers—including two of the best songs Brown has ever written...Brown could hardly have asked for better performers...But I’m still scratching my head over the inclusion of an ensemble of five dancers, who seem to serve no purpose other than filling the expansive City Center stage...If all the numbers in ‘Song’ share a common theme...You’ll have to search really hard for it...Just appreciate ‘Songs for a New World’ for what it is: an awesome concert.”
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"Whoriskey's well-conceived production doesn't make any more of a case for these rather unrelated songs being put together in one show than the original production did. But it matters very little given how consistently persuasively and often thrillingly these tunes are being performed by a cast of four excellent vocalists, five amazingly athletic dancers (flawlessly executing Harris' hip-hop-inspired choreography) and a glorious sounding nine-piece orchestra."
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“The entire evening is tailored and tweaked to show off the talent assembled. And the audience was appreciative in the extreme from the start...Spectacular voices that blended and soared seamlessly. So seamlessly that within a few minutes they started to sound alike...The music begins to sound like it was a soundtrack for a movie. Not that this is a bad thing – it is just on the dull side. The standout performance, to my mind, was Shoshana Bean."
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