Liberty: A Monumental New Musical NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (87)
See it if you'd enjoy a blatantly unsubtle yet surprisingly moving story of the value of immigration to America.
Don't see it if you're lactose intolerant. There's a fair amount of cheese for one show. But the actors are talented and earnest, and perfectly cast.
See it if Good singers, bad songs; strained story, great message. Headache inducing digital display is primary setpiece. Very talented teenage lead.
Don't see it if General admission with chairs being scraped around by late arriving tourists chatting with their kids, FREEZING a/c, pretty unendurable.
See it if You need to entertain a child...many elements of the story are brought forth, leaving paths for profitable conversation.
Don't see it if You don't have a child with you.
See it if you're cool with little-known US history facts & anecdotes. Enjoyable, & if you pay attention you'll learn a lot. Young A Shapiro's amazing.
Don't see it if you don't want to see another history-lesson musical. Fun & fact-filled afternoon (NO INTERMISSION), with good singing. Perfect family show.
See it if You want to learn a bit abt the statue of liberty. Great voices, some songs slower than they should be.
Don't see it if You are plan to bring young children, or are expecting a fast paced show.
See it if you want to enjoy a show that is educational ,entertaining,original,and fun for the whole family.Great cast,especially Tina Stafford.
Don't see it if just see it!
See it if you want family-friendly theater. This is a very sentimental & simplistic show at the expense of being smart, clever, or interesting.
Don't see it if you hate uneven productions. It focuses too much on cloying monologues. It’s one-dimensional with no stakes. I lost interest very quickly.
See it if you are dressed for winter and appreciate the fiction in historical fiction and feel that accompaniment is more important than words.
Don't see it if you have any knowledge of the story behind the plot and you are not dressed for winter.
Critic Reviews (21)
"Earnest, sentimental and intermittently charming, this family production offers a slice of American history that here tastes mostly like apple pie. Whether the show engages you will partly depend on how easily you accept a walking, talking statue...The strengths of 'Liberty' include its songs..It also has a winning star in the teenage Ms. Shapiro, who brings pure conviction to her peculiar role. Under Evan Pappas’s direction, the rest of the cast is largely impressive."
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“Designed to spoon-feed a young audience the idea that immigrants are good and those opposed to them are bad...The idea of a girl statue offering little homilies gets old pretty fast, and the show's creators have little more to offer in the way of drama. The songs favor an '80s-'90s middle-of-the-road pop sound that isn't too appropriate given the subject matter and isn't terribly compelling on its own terms...Personally, I'd wait for a revival of ‘Ragtime’, and take the kids.”
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"Because Liberty isn't really a character—and certainly isn't a person—her quest is as meaningless as it is preachy, which is to say quite a lot. And given the stiff posture, unyielding facial expressions, and stilted singing voice Shapiro brings to the part, she's not even especially likable. (She is, however, utterly convincing as a statue.) There's no point to any of this except for Liberty to teach and for us to listen, which is made harder still by the lessons being not that much fun."
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“The question is: who is the intended audience? It is too simplistic for adults and has too little action for children. With a bouncy score and easily accessible lyrics, ‘Liberty’ is pleasant without being exceptional. It does prove timely with lines like ‘America, America for the real Americans,’ ‘Isn’t it time we closed the golden door?’ and ‘You can’t put up a wall’ which suggests nothing much has changed in the last 132 years.”
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"A perfectly timed, unfortunately relevant and utterly thrilling musical…The entire cast is excellent…While the performance of Regina Schuyler veers into caricature, the direction by Evan Pappas is otherwise admirable…It’s a family-friendly show and even very little children were engrossed. It addresses our aspirations, the America of our hopes and dreams and, yes, this reviewer wept!"
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"Family-friendly, it surely beats an old history text for teaching you about that legendary Lady…The 17 musical numbers range from the sassy to the sublime…Goldstein adumbrates the key events of its journey with symbolism rather than retelling its history in a strict sense. And, as helmed by Pappas, it works. Abigail Shapiro turns in a solid performance as the protagonist Liberty. She pulls off her lead role with surprising confidence and has the pipes to belt out her various songs."
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"The show’s pop-oriented songs are serviceable but not innovative or particularly tuneful. Some numbers are sung with ringing fervor...Doing the score no big favors is the fact that it is presented as a recorded soundtrack…The libretto is probably the show’s strongest aspect. Although 'Liberty' seems a little heavy-handed at times in the heart-on-sleeve way it wears its pro-immigrant sentiments, the story clearly drew in most of the adults and kids who saw it with me."
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"Misleading as its history may be, and middling as are much of its book and score (little of which attempts to suggest the music of the day), 'Liberty' nonetheless serves as a moderately effective work of historical propaganda on the importance of immigration in making America great...It really doesn’t get your red, white, and blues unfurled until its final moments when the company sings Lazarus’s words while striking images (I wish there were more) of the statue’s construction are shown."
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