OK so I saw the tour of this Tonight, and the kids loved it. Sure it was pretty much crap, but it carried a good message and touched on basic social skills that children need to learn. It was fun watching all the fairies flying around. I got free tickets so I took my niece and a friends kids. They were participating and really got into it. To judge this show as if it were broadway quality would be a big mistake. You have to remember that even toys need to reinvent themselves.
However, the set is mostly drops but the costumes are very lavish and sparkly. (Very Barbiesque) They really need work on the book, but being that a lot of it is from their source material (the movie) there's not much they can do. There are a lot of holes/dead air in the dialogue, which could be helped by songs coming in a few beats earlier instead of finishing your line and then starting the music, thus waiting several beats to sing rather than creating fluidity.
The Fungi costumes were cool and scared the kids half to death.
Overall, they need to take a lesson from Seasame Street Live, or at least watch one, because they have been doing this for a long time and know how to do it right.
They filmed a Television commercial with the audience in it after curtain call, so look for me when it comes to your city.
"It's like children's theatre for 40-year old gay people!" - XANADU THE MUSICAL
