Review: THE WHO'S TOMMY THE MUSICAL at Connor Palace

The opening of the 2026 North American Tour of THE WHO'S TOMMY The Musical at Playhouse Square's Connor Palace Theatre on October 7, if you'll pardon the cliché, rocked! 

The third incarnation of the five-time Tony Award®-winning 1993 rock opera was a flashy multimedia spectacle of music, dance, and drama that bridged mid- to late-20th-century and 21st-century British zeitgeists. 

Dubbed "TOMMY 3.0,” in a curtain speech by Tony Award®-winning original director of the musical, Des McAnuff, TOMMY The Musical is based on rock band The Who's 1969 groundbreaking album "TOMMY," with music and lyrics by rock legend and Tony Award® Winner Pete Townshend, with additional music by late Who bassist John Entwistle and blues harmonica giant Sonny Boy Williamson II.  

Following the musical’s original book by Townshend and McAnuff, the updated production, like its predecessor, used the album's lyrics as dialogue to tell the rather disturbing story of young Tommy Walker.

Set in past, present, and future London, the 100-minute, two-act, 23-scene musical with no intermission followed Walker from birth to adulthood. It opened with a futuristic scene of Tommy as an adult and a beloved cult figure, then rewound to his birth. 

The son of WWII RAF pilot Captain Walker (Zach Foge), who was shot down and held in a German POW camp for four years. Tommy and his mother are informed by the RAF that he is dead. Mrs. Walker begins seeing another man (Greyson Taylor), who becomes a surrogate father to Tommy. Tragedy strikes when Captain Walker returns home from the war to find his wife in the arms of her new lover. A fight ensues, and Captain Walker fatally shoots the other man in self-defense.  

Traumatized by his father's seeming return from the dead, his shooting of his pseudo-stepfather, and being emphatically told by his panicked parents that he didn't see or hear anything and that he can never speak of the shooting, Tommy retreats into himself, shutting down his ability to see, hear, and speak. 

Actress Mari Grossman skillfully portrayed young Tommy with a sad-eyed, catatonic stare as his parents ushered him to a string of physicians to figure out what was wrong with him. In several of those scenes, the show's star, Collin Matthew Flanagan, appears as Tommy's inner self, singing songs that reveal Tommy’s inner world and state of mind, including "Amazing Journey" and "See Me, Feel Me." Talented and charismatic Flanagan shone as the older Tommy.

An orchestra of keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums accompanied Flanagan and the cast’s singing throughout, with guitarist Talia Rose, bassist Cat Barker, and drummer Kelvin Newell putting on their best rocker personas during several onstage scene transitions.  

The show's first act also delved into the more troubling aspects of Tommy's existence in his later childhood (1950s and 60s) in scenes telling of his being molested by his uncle Ernie (Peyton Cassity) and of his cousin Kevin (Kyle McFalls) singing of putting lit cigarettes out on Tommy’s hand before he and his friends stuffed him in a trash can at a local youth club. Afterward, Kevin positioned Tommy in front of an abstract representation of a pinball machine to occupy him, only to discover Tommy's savant talent for playing the machine by feel. 

The most compelling scenes in the show’s first act were of Captain Walker taking Tommy to "The Isle of Dogs" and the Acid Queen, a sort of voodoo prostitute, as a last-ditch effort to free him from his catatonic state. Clevelander Kris Lyons thrilled as the sexy-sinister Acid Queen, a role made famous by the late Tina Turner in the 1975 movie adaptation; and when Cousin Kevin, seeing Tommy as a ticket to fame and fortune, took the pinball prodigy to an amusement arcade where he and the ensemble sang and danced to the production's signature tune, "Pinball Wizard." McFalls was boisterously brilliant as the baleful opportunist cousin Kevin, ripping it up with the ensemble in Lorin Latarro's energetic choreography.

Latarro's well-crafted and engaging choreography proved a highlight of the musical. 

Act II took the story to 1960 and followed the Walkers' last-ditch efforts to cure their son. In a research laboratory scene, Tommy became fixated on staring into a mirror, where Flanagan, as Tommy's inner voice, sang another of the show's memorable tunes, "Listening to You," about the boy’s inner being, where he hears the music and feels the magic. 

The Act's pivotal scene comes when Tommy's mother, wonderfully portrayed by Mia Bergstrom, grows fed up with her son's constant staring into a mirror at home, shatters it, and, in doing so, breaks Tommy's sensory isolation, allowing him to hear and speak again. The mirror, a symbol of Tommy's mental imprisonment, was also meant as a metaphor for the hold electronic screens have on today's youth. 

The remainder of Act Two chronicles Tommy's rise to fame for his miraculous recovery and his status as a cult figure for his pinball prowess. Of note were an era-defying scene showing reporters using GoPro cameras to livestream interviews about Tommy’s miraculous recovery to 1960s-era black-and-white televisions, and Flanagan as adult Tommy rebelling against his parents and belting out the tune "I'm Free." 

In the production’s final act, Tommy's fame turns into cult-like worship as a band of acolytes and followers, mesmerized by his extraordinary pinball talent, seek to have him impart his ability to see into himself to them. Then things come to a head when Tommy rejects his cult status after a violent incident involving a female zealot follower and tells his followers that they already have what he always wanted: being connected to the world and to others. Not wanting to hear that message, his followers lash out at and abandon Tommy. 

The musical ended with a glorious, uplifting reprise of "Listening to You" by Flanagan and the cast, who sang from the front of the stage out into the audience. A standing ovation followed.  

Despite its somewhat depressing, dated story and uneven soundtrack, THE WHO'S TOMMY The Musical's timeless themes of love, alienation, and the perils of hero-worship, along with its hit songs, exciting choreography, and marvelous performances, make this rockin’ revival one worth experiencing.  

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