The Life NYC Reviews and Tickets

57%
(70 Ratings)
Positive
39%
Mixed
33%
Negative
28%
Members say
Disappointing, Great singing, Indulgent, Entertaining, Excruciating

The 12x-Tony nominated musical returns as part of Encores!'s 2022 season. 

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Show-Score Member Reviews (70)

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109 Reviews | 45 Followers
100
Great singing, Thrilling performers connecting hard with fine material

See it if you don't mind the quirks and obsessions of a passionate novice director, who knows 90% of directing is casting, then letting them soar.

Don't see it if a few stylistic loose ends and clumsy modern polemical interpolations would overshadow what is legendary here. Read more

284 Reviews | 85 Followers
95
Masterful, Thought-provoking, Entertaining, Must see, Great singing

See it if You want to see an impressive restaging of this 1997 Bway musical. The entire show has been successfully helmed by Billy Porter. LEDISI! A++

Don't see it if You want to miss out on fantastic performances. My Body is reason to see this revival alone! It would be great to see this back on Bway!

135 Reviews | 18 Followers
93
Great acting, Great staging, Great singing, Ambitious, Absorbing

See it if you want to be challenged, yet entertained

Don't see it if you are not open minded, or you don't believe that sex work is work/ BLM

318 Reviews | 61 Followers
90
Preachy, Entertaining, Relevant, Great singing, Great acting

See it if You’re a fan of Billy Porter, musicals, believe “sex-work” IS work!, LGBTQ stories, and great singing. I’m in shock of the NEGATIVE reviews.

Don't see it if I do agree that there was, at times, a battle between the vocalists and orchestration. They both sounded great, individually, or in the Read more

194 Reviews | 37 Followers
86
Absorbing, Profound, Great singing, Entertaining, Delightful

See it if Want to see a powerful revival with super talented folks. Grey, Hopper and Ledisi are showstoppers making this show a must see.

Don't see it if Don’t enjoy a musicals that gets a bit preachy and tells the plight of mostly POC caught in a seedy world. Expect a higher quality prod.

158 Reviews | 24 Followers
85
Relevant, Slow, Overrated, Entertaining, Absorbing

See it if You love Encores! I was not familiar with this show, and it is getting a new interpretation.

Don't see it if You like art that is like a mirror that merely reflects.

180 Reviews | 44 Followers
85
Hilarious, Intelligent, Funky, Ambitious, Indulgent

See it if you're craving a healthy dose of melodrama and camp via 70s blaxploitation flicks.

Don't see it if you're the kind of person who demands fidelity to text. Read more

300 Reviews | 64 Followers
84
Thought-provoking, Intense, Dated

See it if you want to see an update of a lesser-known show with a wonderful score by Cy Coleman

Don't see it if tough subject matters offend you or you expect a faithful recreation of the original

Critic Reviews (8)

The New York Times
March 17th, 2022

"Unfortunately the memory-musical format only takes us out of the plot and, most crucially, the emotional impact...The original show let us progressively discover the characters’ distinct personalities through actions, words and songs; now they are archetypal pawns in an op-ed. One can agree with a message and still find its form lacking...Sampliner’s formulaic R&B- and funk-inflected orchestrations and arrangements undermine the score’s idiosyncrasies."
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Theatermania
March 17th, 2022

"Porter's new script ends up even worse than the original. In a noble effort to give a cartoony musical a social conscience, Porter has concocted a disjointed mess that lays on the City Center stage like a lump, and they pump the volume to painful, ear-piercing levels if only to keep the audience awake...'The Life' is the most disappointingly sung and played Encores! production I've ever seen, and that doesn't feel very much like Encores! at all."
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Talkin' Broadway
March 17th, 2022

"'The Life' is nothing if not a showcase for these terrific performers. And Cy Coleman's score is nothing if not eclectic, drawing from jazz, swing, blues, torch songs, anthemic melodies and more...Kudos to Billy Porter for building such a majestic and muscular production. But truth be told, there's an awful lot to take in. The show itself runs over two-and-half hours, what with so many center-of-the-stage solos along with the insertion of several social justice messages."
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New York Stage Review
March 17th, 2022

"4/5 stars...With the support of AC Ciulla’s spirited choreography, the ensemble also shines, incorporating a greater variety of body shapes and sizes than a typical chorus line does, even today...If 'The Life' remains one of Coleman’s less memorable achievements as a composer, Porter and Sampliner have infused it with enough fresh blood to merit another look and listen."
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TheaterScene.net
April 12th, 2022

The ubiquitous Billy Porter was given command of the most recent New York City Center Encores! presentation, the 1997 musical The Life. His direction and re-interpretation of this tawdry portrait of 42nd Street left a great deal to be desired, but strong performances by the leading players made vivid impressions.
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Theater Pizzazz
March 18th, 2022

"Porter (who is the show’s director and adaptor but does not appear on stage) succeeds in his main goal: giving more context to the societal circumstances that led some of these characters to enter 'the life.' But too much of the new material simply feels overwrought or unnecessary, stretching the show to nearly three hours. More importantly, the show’s new, darker tone doesn’t jibe with the essential Broadway brassiness of the Coleman-Gassman score (even though it’s consistently well performed and strongly benefits from James Sampliner’s funkadelic orchestrations)."
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Front Row Center
March 22nd, 2022

"5/5 stars...Porter humanizes the characters as people and coaxes the audience to empathize with them. Instead of laughing at or dismissing their plight and misfortune, we come to know the characters, what motivates them, and how they got the hand with which they were dealt...Antwayn Hopper as Memphis steals the show...The band set prominently on the main backstage was 'out of sight!'"
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Exeunt Magazine
March 21st, 2022

"The revision would be unstageable under normal terms–its preachy sermonizing is less than dramatic–but when presented by a book-in-hand narrator as it is here, its bluntness doesn’t need to be disguised as plot...Porter’s revisions are so close to working in this format, but the narration he gives to Destan Owens’ Old Jojo is too wordy. It requires a dexterousness that Owens is unable to deliver...The revisions succeed even less when Porter abridges or repositions the existing book. There is a lack of cohesion."
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