Edward Powell

'I've got a little favor to ask of you,' an American president asks the members of the Supreme Court on the night he's lost his re-election bid.

The national tour of DIRTY DANCING at the Eccles Theater is eye-catching and heart stopping with fantastic talent.

The success of the awkwardly titled Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage depends primarily on whether or not you were a fan of the motion picture it was closely modeled after. It's easy to say this since the stage version is nearly identical to the film, and in many ways works better as a live production. For the uninitiated or those who steered clear of the film, Dirty Dancing was one of the most successful motion pictures of the 1980s. The low-budget film became a surprise hit, earning $214 million at the box office and becoming the first film to sell more than a million copies on home video. The soundtrack LP, featuring a combination of original songs and vintage hits from the early 1960s, sold 32 million copies and spent four months on top of the best-selling album charts. Looking at the film from today's perspective, 30 years later, one wonders why it was so big. Though many remember the film as a charming coming-of-age story, critics called it 'schmaltzy,' citing the formulaic portrayal of its stock characters spouting trite dialog.

Last year, when I passed up my first opportunity to see DIRTY DANCING at Belk Theater, I had this naive idea that it would be a musical adaptation of the 1987 film starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. With the return of the national tour Charlotte, this time at cavernous Ovens Auditorium, I persisted in my folly long after the curtain rose. Silly me, I overlooked the fine print in my playbill under the florid romance novel italics of the DIRTY DANCING logo: 'the classic story on stage.'