FLOYD COLLINS Reviews — Page 5

Just saw this, and wow. Really blown away. I was going in expecting to be bored but the opposite. I knew the music but really only the big songs so I loved seeing the full show. Jordan is my contender for best actor. Just his opening song alone. But the way he made us root for the character. And Lizzy and Jason were in amazing voice. And I loved the staging. I think I’d have liked to have seen some layers to just indicate how far into the ground he was and something to show us how claustrophobic it was. But really loved this production.

To me I found the score melodious and gorgeous. My only issue is that we never get a sense of how compact he is in the cave so there’s no real sense of danger. I think they could have used the height of the stage to show us, but that’s just a quibble. I really enjoyed the show and I did not find it slow.

I went back recently as well, and took note of how much McAlpine had grown in her role. I found her performance one of the signatures of this production: unfettered, authenticity without caricature, and her "Through the Mountain" simply exquisite. If you've seen the video of her recording the number for the OBC, you'll see a glimpse of her development. I remember how many took issue with her acting in previews. She's clearly worked on the part during the run.

I've said it before, but I doubt we'll see a NYC Floyd Collins any time soon with this winning synergy of the epic and the intimate. Again, oppositional components noted in early previews as liabilities finally coalesced, the company filling in the staging in immeasurable ways. For now, we can look forward to the album dropping in July.

I saw this production (and the show) for the first time at yesterday's matinee. I now appreciate what an extraordinary score it has, and was deeply impressed by Jeremy Jordan and the entire cast. I understand some of the problems others have described in the production. I also think as a whole, it's an imperfect piece, but I honestly found it more powerful and beautiful than I'd expected. It's a hard moment right now to sit through a tragic story of a person being excruciatingly stuck under a boulder in a dark, dark cave... and nothing's working to free and save them.

Updated On: 6/22/25 at 04:40 PM

got to see this this week. the performances were all strong (a couple stellar), the score is a masterpiece. while the set was interesting, especially in how it was used to depict spelunking through the cave, i was sat in the first row center mezz and there were multiple instances in which i thought, "this production is absolutely lost on that massive stage." i actually think critics of the physical production might have had a different reaction if the proportions weren't so horribly off.