Reviews of Laura Osnes as Nellie

She's actually starting tomorrow night. But I am curious to hear the reviews as well.

"She's actually starting tomorrow night."

Yeah I know. I got confused and thought today was Tuesday. My bad.

I saw Laura's first performance tonight (I knew Kelli was leaving, didn't know I'd get her first replacement!).

In all, I was... underwhelmed. The strongest feeling to me is that she's doing her best Kelli O'Hara impersonation. She's not playing Nellie, she's playing Kelli playing Nellie. Now, that's certainly a safe way to play it, and she'll likely grow into the roll over the next few weeks, but it left me feeling a bit disappointed.

The main area where the impersonation fails is the singing. Laura's voice is smooth and pretty and all, but it just doesn't have the pop and energy of Kelli's. I attribute some of it to the sound design (I spent the first act in the loge, I snuck down to the orchestra for act two, and it was a little better), but I almost think they have to cheat and pump up her mic if they want to make it sound better (again, maybe this was a first-night thing).

Her acting also seemed a bit unsure, but promising. On the whole, though, I left without the same magical feeling I had when seeing it the first time on Tony Day 2008.

As for the other replacements, I thought David Pittsinger underacted and oversang at times, even more so than Paulo Szot (how anyone playing that role beat Daniel Evans is a travesty, IMO). Andrew Samonsky was a serviceable Cable--I thought his second act was stronger than his first.

Hope that helps.

Updated On: 3/10/09 at 11:26 PM

Thanks for the review. I do hope Laura grows into the role and makes it her own. Did she have a blonde wig?

thanks for the review vincient,i hope she grews into the role and hope she does not have to be kellie playing nellie but her interpretation of nellie. i wish her all the best.

maybe it's just me, but it seems that if they're making her up to look exactly like Kelli did, they're not starting her off on the right foot to really make the role her own.

---

I attended last night performance as well...Not having seen the production before or anything LCT of course I was blown away by it's beauty. Since I haven't seen Keli's take on the role I thought Laura did quite well. Like TonyV said Laura's voice is beautiful its so clear and smooth. The second she started to sing "Cockeyed Optimist" I was in love with her. But she always left me wanting more, in "Honey Bun" there was not enough power behind her voice and even at the end of "Wash that man.." you couldn't hear her ending note because she was overpowered by the ensemble. Besides power though I loved her voice. Now acting wise I think she needs a few performances under her belt to get comfortable. She was very charming and just adorable the whole show. Loved every minute of her, if she was doing an impression of Keli I can only imagine how phenomenal she must have been. The only times I didn't buy it was when she was upset and crying which Nelie is a couple times in the show...when those moments came I just didn't feel for her. I didn't believe her. But then in a couple of shows I'm sure she will be fine. I was very surprised I enjoyed her performance as much as I did and I am interested to see where her career goes from here.

Well there's a mistake.

Uh..not too good of a method for acting.

---

^^^BINGO^^^

---

Maybe she has been directed to play it similar to Kelli.

"Maybe she has been directed to play it similar to Kelli."

Could be. I remember reading an interview with an actress years ago, can't remember her name, who took over for Celeste Holme as Ado Annie in the original production of Oklahoma! She was directed to watch Celeste's performance and then copy it exactly, which of course she found very frustrating. She also said that was the common practice for non-star replacements at that time.