HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO Broadway Previews — Page 3

Updated On: 11/18/23 at 04:15 AM

BroadwayNoob2 said: "Do you find it uncool that the director is striving for authentic representation? This musical isn't just another Broadway production; it's shaping history. Notably, 45 artists made their Broadway debut through this show. Wondering why so many? Well, there was a lack of autistic artists on Broadway before. Instead of sticking to the easy path of casting neurotypical actors, they took the challenging route. They scouted talented artists from across the nation, helping them achieve their dreams of gracing Broadway's stage."

Yes. This is truly groundbreaking. The commitment is amazing and highly commendable. The show itself is beautiful, entertaining, heartfelt, and Broadway. Fantastic family show - gives us something other than Disney. Rooting for a long run for this talented cast and creative team. Three preview performances in and the buzz among my friend group (families with kids) is off the charts. Going back again today with five friends. Excited to see how things have shifted since Wednesday night (first preview). Will share my thoughts later.

I saw this this past Thursday (the day where the turntable broke and the show was halted for 30 min) and all in all the show is cute and you do leave the show feeling like your soul is full, in some capacity.

I do commend the show for its representation on Broadway with the core 7. The cast is amazing (shout out to Liam Pearce as Drew) and each are doing great work with the material they were given. However, I think my biggest gripe with the show is the sheer amount of subplots and characters. I will put more details in the spoiler and my thoughts.

The music is decent, but some tend to drag. When the turntable broke, we were roughly 30 min into the show. Only 3 songs were performed so far, out of 11 or 12 total songs in Act 1. Also, would like to note a majority of those 30 min were completely sung through and there was very little book scenes between each song, so it just felt like it was dragging. (Sadly, a good amount of people left during the time they were fixing the turntable and at intermission).

Additionally, it was not until the latter half of Act 2 where an overall conflict is actually seen, and characters start to feel less one dimensional. I mean this since each one the core 7 subplots were all based on situations that autistic people encounter everyday, which is great to see this representation on stage, but since a lot of the characters weren't fully fleshed out, it started to feel like autism was their only quality.

All in all, I am curious to see how this show ends up after opening night and if somethings will be cut or not.

Not to split hairs but people are conflating gross break even with operating costs. If a show’s operating costs are $600K, that means the break even is going to be at least $100K more. 9% lost to ticketing fees to give the net gross and some 5-8% to the theatre plus some minimum royalties. For all those quoting the docs please look again at your recoupment charts…

muscle23ftl said: "I just came back from this show and I really wanted to like it, but it failed miserably."

care to expand on that....

I enjoyed this quite a bit today, but I do think it feels like it's in previews (in that I could definitely see changes being made). I actually kind of liked that the first act didn't have stakes, as I found it pretty interesting to just see the kids interacting with each other and with Dr. Amigo, and I almost wish the whole show was just about them in group therapy learning the skills they needed. The concept of the dance felt like it was introduced somewhat abruptly, but it was also interesting to see how that affected the different characters and what approaches each one took. The first act closer felt a little strange because it seemed like it was trying to make an event seem like a big deal just to have something to close on, but it didn't feel like that big to me, especially compared to some of the dramatic stakes in the second act (which in some cases felt like they were just a wrench thrown in for the sake of having stakes).

But I thought the show did a wonderful job of introducing each of the characters and letting them be fully realized (most of them at least). In particular, I liked how Dr. Amigo was clearly a great person to be leading this group, but also made his own missteps, and you could see him coming up with different ideas on the fly for trying new methods. I would've liked to see more about the relationships between some of the core 7, and it was difficult to keep track of how old each one was (before seeing the show I assumed everyone was in high school, but that was not the case).

I think the music serves the piece, but none of the melodies really jumped out at me. They were different enough and had interesting enough orchestration that I enjoyed them while they happened, but there weren't any songs I really had a desire to listen to again. Some of the lyrics felt a bit basic, and for a lot of the rhymes I could complete the line in my head before they said it (which isn't something that I notice a lot), but I enjoyed the sentiment of a lot of them.

Spoiler thoughts regarding some of the side plots:

Overall, I thought the show was really sweet and I definitely had tears in my eyes multiple times through the course of the show.

I can attest that the pedicab situation has been worse than usual. I saw Wicked Saturday night with some company I had in town, and while waiting for a cab home, I must have dodged about ten pedicabs swerving through the area (in addition to the usual line of them right outside the breezeway)... and the Gershwin has some wide sidewalk space too, so it should have been LESS noticeable than usual. It's really become a nasty problem. Leaving the theatre and being bombarded by a row of pedicabs is really quite annoying when the area is already congested with minimal sidewalk space.

The Gershwin, Marquis, Minskoff, Circle in the Square and I imagine the newly lifted Palace are all really the only houses that are insulated from this nuisance.

I was told by a reputable source they are trying to cut 15-20 minutes out of the first act over the next week or so

honestly, cut down the moms, cut the daughter, reduce Amigos romance story

easily 15 minutes gone

muscle23ftl said: "They could chop 45 mins and the show will still be horrible. The characters are not likeable. Well, I only liked the lesbian character and the daughter of Dr. Amigo, who had good moments and sang well. But they were barely in it."

she wasn't a lesbian she was non-binary, my god dude take your clueless nonsense elsewhere