SUMMER Reviews

[LimelightMike]

[MadsonMelo]

[BrodyFosse123]

Oh, boy.  This is going to be interesting.  This one is a hit-or-miss with people; there is no in-between.  

[newintown]

Wait, someone actually has liked it?

[BrodyFosse123]

Wait, someone actually has liked it?

Much to my surprise, I know a handful of people who actually liked it.  I think we dissect things way too much here whereas the average theatre goer just goes in blindly with no expectations so they actually enjoy what is being shown to them whereas we see the missing pieces they don't.  

[PThespian]

My friends who work there say people are eating it up.

[raddersons]

Yeah, the audience when I saw it was dancing in the aisles. For most people (esp straight white people, broadway audience's biggest demographic), that's all that Disco is -- fun music. But its roots are steeped in counter-culture, which has been entirely scrubbed from this show. For a show that is biographical... it's disappointing, and almost revisionist. 

[BroadwayConcierge]

amNY is negative, giving it 1.5 stars, and saying the show "is rough in form, rushed in pace, sanitized in content, superficial in characterization and self-glorifying in tone."

https://www.amny.com/entertainment/donna-summer-musical-review-1.18221053

[BroadwayRox3588]

2 out of 5 stars from Adam Feldman

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/summer-donna-summer-musical-review

[broadwaysfguy]

this was not a strong show when i saw it in la jolla and was shocked they were moving to bway basically unchanged. there were some highlights especially some of vocal performances by la chance and the disco donna, but just not enough to get me to recommend it or see it again. i think beautiful and jersey boys set a pretty high bar for biopics and this donna cant even see the bar much less touch it.

i thought the temptations “aint too proud” was infinitely
better

[BroadwayConcierge]

Hollywood Reporter is negative: "hack-job direction," prayed during the show, "'Please God, let The Cher Show erase this memory. And let me die before a JLo musical happens.' Enough is enough."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/summer-donna-summer-musical-theater-review-1105049

[mikey2573]

Wow!  With such negative reviews, this show will probably only run 3 or 4 years. 

[BroadwayConcierge]

TheWrap is mixed to negative, saying it provides a few visual "gems," but calling it altogether "downright lame."

https://www.thewrap.com/summer-broadway-review-donna-summer-queen-disco/

[JBC3]

At this rate, SUMMER may not make it to summer.

[BroadwayConcierge]

NYDailyNews is mixed to negative: says Summer's classics are all there and "contagious as ever," but pans pretty much everything else ("It took three writers for this bummer of a script," "drops the disco ball," "old tricks," "won't make you flip your wig".

http://beta.nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater-arts/summer-review-donna-summer-biomusical-drops-disco-ball-article-1.3949934

[BroadwayConcierge]

Deadline is negative: Donna Summer "deserves so much more than this."

http://deadline.com/2018/04/summer-the-donna-summer-musical-broadway-review-lachanze-disco-1202374030/

[Matt Rogers]

Well this thing is shaping up to be a good old fashioned all Anerican bomb of epic proportions. Then again, you could have said the same thing about Margaritaville, and they found enough pull quotes to run full page ads in magazines post opening. Like Margaritaville, I guess Summer will keep running despite being a creative disaster. Remember the old days when across the board rotten reviews would shutter a show by the following weekend? No more. Producers today are too proud and would rather run at a loss than admit defeat.

[BroadwayConcierge]

Daily Beast is mixed to negative: like other reviews, gives praise to Summer's classic standards, but calls the show "bizarre, bonkers," "weird," "clunking."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/enough-is-enough-the-bizarre-bonkers-donna-summer-musical-on-broadway

[BroadwayNYC2]

Hate to say this, but I'm happy for negative reviews. They sterilized and lobotomized this story of any cultural significance for the sake of belting out ON THE RADIO as a grand finale. 

[Bwayfan292]

Give it like two more weeks and then the Whats next at the Lunt thread will start popping up.

[GeorgeandDot]

I'm so over jukebox musicals. They're NEVER good. Even the "good" ones are bad. I wish they would just stop.

[RippedMan]

Expected more from the book writers. I think this could have just been a great juxebox musical without the story of Summers. Just give us the songs and a silly premise. 

[BroadwayConcierge]

NYTimes by Jesse Green is negative, saying it "reduces" Donna Summer to make her seem "profoundly inconsequential." It adds to the jukebox musical being the "cockroach of Broadway."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/theater/review-summer-the-donna-summer-musical-broadway.html

[HogansHero]

Oh no! Cockroaches are expected to survive a nuclear holocaust.

[greenifyme2]

GeorgeandDot said: "I'm so over jukebox musicals. They're NEVER good. Even the "good" ones are bad. I wish they would just stop."

Hey, we agree on something!