VERY Disappointing
by Milliaw74 on 2/1/23James M. Nederlander Theatre - ChicagoWe've been waiting 3 years to see this and were so disappointed by this production. Definitely not worth the time and money spent. We're involved with some local youth theater programs and I'm confident that I could assemble a better cast, character for character, just from the people I know personally through those groups, friends, and family. Granted, we know some really talented people, but I’m not paying “Chicago in Broadway” prices to watch them! The sound was bad - there were moments where the volume would drop suddenly. Not like mic problems, but almost like a built-in gain limit. It was weird. The musicians were amazing, but were victims of the weird soundboard stuff. I think we had an alternate Evan because it was a matinee and none of us liked his voice much so not liking the main character’s singing voice is a problem! His falsetto was actually really beautiful, but his chest and mixed voice wasn’t my fave - sounded almost muppetish, but everyone has different preferences. Zoe was fine, but inconsistent. Alana was a little too popish, voice-cracky for me (I know it’s a popular style, but I don’t care for it). Jared & Larry were pretty flat characters. Heidi was pretty good and did really well on “So Big, So Small.” Cynthia was consistent and did well. Connor was also very consistent, but I could name a dozen guys right now who would do equally as well or better. The ensemble struggled to blend and I don’t know how much of that was clashing singing styles, i.e., pop, pop-rock, Broadway, but it was weird for a professional group. In the end no one blew us away. “You Will Be Found” was good, but didn’t really come together until the unison part after the social media voiceovers.