Posted: 9/6/08 at 5:27pm
I highly recommend Once On This Island at Reprise. After the disappointing production of Flora the Red Menace, Reprise is back in great form with a production of "Once On This Island". Billy Porter proves his mettle as director by doing away with Graciela Daniele's original rather campy staging and framing the show as a fairy tale for adults. Krystollyn Lloyd, a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon Musical Theatre program, is a wonderful discovery as Ti Moune. Jesse Nager sings and dances up a storm as a very sexy Daniel Beauxhomme. The rest of the cast highlighted by R&B singer Ledisi is uniformly wonderful without any weak links. Musical direction and re-orcherstration by Darryl Archibald is R&B flavored but smarly does not tamper with the inherent musicality of the piece.
I highly recommend the show to all musical theatre buffs in LA.
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND
