I also thought the show was quite good, having no previous experience with the show. Ben Platt did a good job of reminding us why he was so critically acclaimed on stage before he essentially became an internet meme, though I can't say his performance was a particular standout--I think he fit the role well, but was about where I'd expect a well-cast actor to be, with nothing particularly special. Micaela Diamond really has a fantastic voice and I hope we see more from her in the future, and I really enjoyed both Manoel Feliciano and Jay Armstrong Johnson a lot as well. I didn't even recognize Howard McGillin was in the show until a previous poster mentioned it, what role does he play? The name listed in the program doesn't ring any bells for me. I really don't think there were any particularly weak links in the cast at all, and I liked how there were a good number of features for all the characters.
I thought the staging worked well in the most part, with much of the ensemble sitting in the benches opposite the podium for a good part of the show, but they made good use of the three different levels of the stage. I did like the miming in That's What He Said, though I wish they had put him in different lighting for the flashback scenes or at least tried to differentiate them a bit more. I think my biggest quibble comes from the transition from Civil War-era to 1913 in Old Red Hills of Home, as it seemed a bit abrupt to me and I couldn't see the connection between including both time periods. I get that it's to tie in Confederacy Day/Georgia pride and history but it just seemed pretty unnecessary to me.
Not sure if this is how it's usually directed, but I liked how a lot of scenes flowed directly into the next one (eg Leo and Lucille would be downstage ending their scene as the song began for the next scene and people filed in upstage), though a lot of the time it seemed the audience was eager to applaud which either delayed or obscured the next scene. The break for intermission was also a little less definitive as (minor staging spoiler!) Ben Platt stays on for the entirety of intermission (which I did think was a good decision), and it seemed the audience was confused about whether intermission had actually started despite the house lights being up. A good chance to run to the bathroom before anyone else though!
I was in the balcony and there are some projections on the back wall that are pretty much impossible to make out, though I could see the bottom portions of them, but they seemed more like added contextual backdrops rather than anything important, and all the necessary text was also printed on the front of the podium section, where it was easy to read.
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