Songs for a New World NYC Reviews and Tickets

"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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“Each song is well-crafted and terrifically theatrical. But ‘Songs for A New World’ as a whole feels less like an integrated work of theater, and more like a concert...If the revival was unavoidably a concert, director Kate Whoriskey ramped up the stagecraft to make it an especially theatrical concert, with elaborate lighting, a descending moon, and five extraordinary dancers executing Rennie Harris’ thrilling hip-hop-inflected choreography.”
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“Musical nirvana. I wish, I had been at the first performance, so I could have sent ever producer I know in town to see this brilliantly conceived and slightly updated version, because it is spectacular…The cast is perfection…creating complex characters with the heightened thrill of powerful vocal chops…What makes this production even more spectacular is the expanded orchestrations and backup dancers who give the songs and the show a new feel.”
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“A gem, a self-contained, fully developed story that tells of someone on the precipice...the show, with its complex musical styles requires a versatile cast that can go from lullaby to bawdy parody without missing a beat. You get all that and more from these four superb singers...For reasons unclear, this production adds an ensemble of five dancers, and while taking nothing away from their undeniable talent, it is an unnecessary extravagance, often a distraction.”
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“Other than the piece itself, the two main attractions in the current production lie in its talented cast and expert production team. Bean is sharp and funny...Pfeiffer is full voiced and sweet...but with a slight tendency to hyper-emote...The clear audience favorite in the cast was Kilgore, a very animated and appealing performer...Harris’ choreography created a sort of connective tissue for the production, drawing the feel of one song into the world of the next.”
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