Something Rotten! NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (6,482)
See it if You want to be thoroughly entertained by an original and clever musical about the "invention" of the musical. Brilliant!
Don't see it if You have no sense of humor or sense of the absurd and don't want to be treated to a wonderfully entertaining piece of theater.
See it if I thought it was one of last year's most entertaining shows. Clever show for people who love musicals.
Don't see it if you don't wanna be entertained
See it if You want to be entertained with a light hearted, silly romp with a wicked twist most enjoyed by theater lovers.
Don't see it if You find silly fun somehow objectionable. Read more
See it if You want to laugh your head off and have a new appreciation for eggs. Additionally, it will make you want to buy an egg suit.
Don't see it if You are un-American.
See it if One of the funniest musicals i've ever seen. Great music, VERY clever and the cast is top shelf
Don't see it if You dont like eggs
See it if if you want a quintessential Broadway show that will tickle your funny bone
Don't see it if ... there is no reason to not see this show
See it if You enjoy beautiful costumes, amazing voices, and lots of Shakespeare puns! Great for all ages, like a toned-down Book of Mormon.
Don't see it if You are not a fan of Shakespeare. Although the show is still quite funny, most of the best jokes revolve around Shakespeare references.
See it if You love Shakespeare You are familiar with current musicals
Don't see it if You are indifferent to Shakespeare or musicals (you may get annoyed to miss the tongue-in-cheek humor)
Critic Reviews (42)
"It's pretty safe to assume that 'Rotten!' will not join the ranks of the iconic shows it references any time soon...with enough comic fodder to sustain a briskly entertaining, though ultimately forgettable, ride."
Read more
"Riddled throughout with stage-related gags, the madcap 'Something Rotten!' obviously represents far too much of a good thing, but it undeniably gets mighty hilarious at times."
Read more
""Something Rotten!" arrives on Broadway with Hit! plastered all over it -- and I am not here to doubt it. The advance enthusiasms for the musical-comedy Renaissance spoof have been impossible to duck. Suffice it to say that, despite my sincere desire to be at the party, the show's good-natured silly charms just feel hammered by an unrelenting tsunami of manic, frenetic, zanier-than-zaniest onslaught of collegiate show-biz humor."
Read more
""Something Rotten!" may not be the tidiest new musical of the Broadway season, but it's by far the funniest...A high-spirited, gleefully acted, past-meets-present cultural mash-up, mixing high wit with low jokes. It exists for its individual comic and musical scenes, with plot coherence discarded as excess baggage."
Read more
"“Rotten!” paints musical theater culture in the same broad strokes that the “The Book of Mormon” used to satirize religion—everyone gets to be in on the joke. This new musical makes us do just enough work that we feel satisfied for picking up on them. Go for the production numbers and the big-hearted turns from the leads, whose enthusiasm ultimately proves even more infectious than the plague."
Read more
"Where other Shakespeare-oriented works fail when they superficially reach for the highbrow, Something Rotten! succeeds because it allows itself to be unapologetically silly...There is something a little ingenious about taking the richest period in English literature and using it to write an ode to trashy entertainment. Something Rotten! is that rare piece of fluff that knows exactly where it stands while occasionally betraying an unexpected intelligence. Then again, sometimes it’s just funny."
Read more
""Something Rotten!," written by three guys making their Broadway debuts, is fresh and hysterical and irreverent. It's easily the funniest thing to arrive on Broadway since "The Book of Mormon...led by director Casey Nicholaw at his exuberant, daffy best. There are tap dancing eggs, for God's sake...And this time, thanks to some of Broadway's best pros, these outsiders have created something far from rotten. Or a turd. It's awesome."
Read more
"Seldom does the Great White Way see a sillier version of the highbrow and a smarter version of the lowbrow in one show. The laugh-a-minute book by Kirkpatrick and O’Farrell, observes all the conventional structure of the musical comedy genre, but transports it to a level of unadulterated fun not achieved often enough...Nicholaw moves the whole production in a seamless, happy-go-lucky whirlwind, which barely allows for the audience to stop laughing."
Read more