THE HEART previews & reviews (Off-Broadway)

THE HEART - Off Broadway (Roundabout - Laura Pels)

A young surfer’s life is cut short. A stranger suddenly has a second chance. And the life-force of one beating heart drives two families and a medical team through 24 hours that couldn’t matter more. Christopher Ashley

• DIRECTOR: CHRISTOPHER ASHLEY
• CHOREOGRAPHER: MANDY MOORE

CAST: Heidi Blickenstaff, Lincoln Clauss, Nick T. Daly, Drew Gehling, Bre Jackson, Joaquina Kalukango, Max McKenna, Wren Rivera, Jason Tam

• BOOK: KAIT KERRIGAN
• MUSIC: ANNE EISENDRATH, IAN EISENDRATH
• LYRICS: ANNE EISENDRATH, IAN EISENDRATH
• ADDITIONAL LYRICS: KAIT KERRIGAN

• 1st PREVIEW: October 8, 2026
• OPENING: October 29, 2026
• CLOSING: December 6, 2026

Updated On: 10/29/26 at 10:27 PM

Beautiful evening. Christopher Ashely came out to introduce the evening’s events since it’s his first time at Roundabout. Some interesting tonal shifts inside a heavy plot, but the music is really the star here. Most tuneful songs I’ve heard in a while. Cast was great.

I saw the show on Saturday evening. Here are my semi stream of consciousness thoughts I sent a friend immediately after:

It’s aiming to be Next to Normal but for organ donation. There are parts of it that are very moving. It handles the topic, 99% of the time, with the appropriate care.

The cast is strong.

The music is good but not great. There’s not a single standout number that anyone is going to be signing at Marie’s Crisis anytime ever. The score needs that. Joaquina, in particular, deserves a real banger.

There are too many characters for me to have to try to care about. It does best when it stays really focused on the donor and receiver families. It’s a couple tweaks and one or two bangers away from being a really great show. But in its current form it’s good but falls short of special.

This was, I think, only the second preview, so I’m curious how much they are willing to change. If the reviews are raves, then maybe they got there. In current form I think they will be respectful of its ambition and intent but not call it a slam dunk

I cried. I felt things. So at that it was effective. But I could have felt more and bigger.

I won’t be mad if it does well, and people won’t be wrong to like it. But I don’t see it inspiring fervor or fandom.

The Heart musical is like an episode of The Pitt, but with only one case. Only 90 minutes, no intermission, but it packs a lot into those 90. Based on a French novel, the propulsive (mostly) EDM score mirrors the frantic 24 hours at an ER and then operating floor of its hospital after a 19-year-old young man is declared brain dead after an automobile accident, to the moment his heart is transplanted into a 55 year old woman. Christopher Ashley directs this thing at a really thrilling pace! Drew Gehring and Heidi Blankenstaff are terrific but so is the entire cast, really. Like Ashley's Come From Away they move from character to character with ease and delineation, from the parents, to the poor boy's girlfriend, to the doctors--even the woman in charge of the organ donation network. The book is very solid (she wrote Great Gatsby's) and it's hard to believe the married songwriters have never written a theater score before; along with the EDM there's some very traditional (and good) Broadway numbers. It moves so quickly there is no time for applause, although the nurse's number is so fantastic the audience didn't care and applauded anyway. This should definitely have a life outside of off-Broadway and I still can't believe I only paid $40 for the fifth row side in the tiny Laura Pels! A very moving and different new musical!

Looking forward to seeing this show!

I saw the matinee today and I'm definitely still processing my thoughts. The material is very heavy and I didn't realize until after when friends of mine were asking about it how very few knew what it was about. One friend felt immediately triggered by the subject matter of organ donation as they had recently lost a family member and been through that process.

I went to check the Roundabout website and they do have some trigger information on their website but it's a click for more information.

Again I'm still processing it all but I do think they need to be a bit more upfront about what the plot is since it seems a lot of people don't know.

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^Appreciate the wishes on his behalf. Thankfully he wasn't with me today - he reached out to ask me about it and we got to talking about it.


I guess to me it just feels a bit too vague overall, but clearly that's not an overall experience.


I also have to say - I don't know if I feel like this needs to transfer. It doesn't really feel like something that will be commercially viable. I also felt kind of like they're trying to replicate Come from Away a bit.

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Updated On: 10/18/26 at 09:00 PM

^Again, I fully admitted that the issue was me thinking it was too vague a few posts ago and this is more about the several friends who reached out after who had no idea what the plot was.

Anyway, I have collected my thoughts and while I can admire what they're trying to do with this, I just don't think it fully knows what it wants to be.

The cast is incredible - Bre Jackson is an absolute star and her number was one of my absolute favorites in the show. Joaquina is belting for days and handles the gravitas of what Simon's mother must be going through so beautifully. Other standouts - Lincoln Clauss, Max McKenna, and Wren Rivera.

Jason Tam does a lot with the material he's given and he has a really beautiful moment of connecting with his son that hit me. Nick T. Daly does a great job of making us care about Simon in the little we get to experience him. Drew Gehling is doing what he does best and I love that for him. I really liked his moment with Bre's character late in the show. Heidi is as always wonderful, but her two characters are either unlikable [the Doctor] or undeveloped [Clarie] . Her Doctor character is very stern and cold - especially after an encounter she has with Bre's character early on in the show. Her second character in the show is the most important

The show expects us to embrace this character, but we don't really know much about her, which makes it hard to really be invested in her journey. Heidi does her damndest with this part and sings the hell out of the song she has revolving around a letter she's writing.

I think the biggest issue here is the writing packs so much into 90 minutes and we're left kind of spinning at the end. As I mentioned before, I feel like this is trying to be a sister show in the vein of Come from Away and it just doesn't get there. There's no clear message of what we're supposed to take away from the show overall. Is it that life is short and precious and we should cherish it? Is it a push to be pro-organ donation? Is it to appreciate the work health care workers do and how they give up their lives to save lives? Because it introduces elements of these, but never follows through. Also, there's a couple scenes that just feel odd - especially a scene involving a video game being played by one of the characters which then suddenly shifts to a much more pressing issue.

I overall liked the music and would definitely listen to a cast album of these songs, but after a while they all feel and sound the same. I admire the creatives for trying to use EDM in musical theater, I am just not sure how well it overall worked.

As I said before, I'm not sure I feel like this needs to transfer, because I'm not sure how commercially viable it will be. I think they're trying too hard to find a Come from Away sister show with this and it doesn't have the human connection or warmth the other had.

I'm glad I saw this, and I would absolutely listen to a cast album of the music, but not sure I need to see it again.

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Updated On: 10/19/26 at 11:22 AM

Just found out that Joaquina Kalukango is performing at the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa November 5-7, and as a Southern Californian I’d be there…but for the fact that I’ll be in NY, where I have tickets to The Heart and was really hoping to see her. I managed to exchange my tickets from 11/7 to 11/3, so hopefully she’ll still be in NY then (I called Roundabout and they said they had no info about scheduled absences). I expect the concert was set before she booked this show, but kinda surprised it wasn’t rescheduled once she did.

Dan6 said: "Just found out that Joaquina Kalukango is performing at the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa November 5-7, and as a Southern CalifornianI’d be there…but for the fact that I’ll be in NY, where I have tickets to The Heart and was really hoping to see her. I managed to exchange my ticketsfrom 11/7 to 11/3, so hopefully she’ll still be in NY then (I called Roundabout and they said they had no info about scheduled absences). I expect theconcert was set before she booked this show, but kinda surprised it wasn’t rescheduled once she did."

The original actress from COME FROM AWAY, Ms. Smith is doing the role in Ms. Kalukango's absence. We've moved our tickets to one of the Kalukango absences. Ms. Kalukango is great in a big theater (Paradise Square) - but came across overdramatic in the smaller Saturday Church musical downtown. Hope we made the right decision .

Updated On: 10/26/26 at 01:01 AM

I liked this and I see the potential, but I didn't love it.

There are stretches of the show that are extremely effective - sometimes bordering on manipulative and tropey - but there are also parts of the show that feel chaotic and get in the way of the larger story. The tone is not fully figured out yet. Sometimes it feels like the show is talking louder than it needs to and trying to blend sarcasm and soap opera.

I remember liking a lot of the music, but it has evaporated from my brain. For all the talk about an electronic score, it's no less effective than a modern musical theatre orchestration would have been (strings-and-rhythm-and-guitars).

Joaquina has a tricky role to play because she's the mom of the kid who's dying and you can't have 100 minutes of sobbing. I can see what she, the writers, and Chris Ashley are trying to do to build the character's arc, but it's not fully successful yet.

I don't know how the critics will react to it. I gather this show - like BEN BUTTON - is almost guaranteed to move to Broadway, but I think they'd benefit from another out of town (or at least a hefty workshop after some rewriting) and holding off until next season.

Updated On: 10/25/26 at 10:09 PM

malcs98 said: "ClumsyDude15 said: "I also have to say - I don't know if I feel like this needs to transfer. It doesn't really feel like something that will be commercially viable. I also felt kind of like they're trying to replicate Come from Away a bit."

Gotta say this show truly exceeded my expectations, and while i know a transfer is not entirely impossible, it would need a small stage to do so, and i very much see it going into the Booth"

The Booth is booked for a star-driven play in the spring, though it’s not disclosed what it will be yet since they are finalizing the dates depending on the star’s availability and if DOWNSTATE vacates earlier or extends.

The Golden has OPERATION MINCEMEAT through at least April, with no real indication of slowing down.

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Critic's Pick from the Times (gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/theater/the-heart-review-organ-transplant.html