Review Roundup: New Musical ROLLING THUNDER Opens Off-Broadway

The new musical Rolling Thunder is making its New York City debut and the critics have weighed in! Read the reviews for the new musical which marries legendary songs of the ‘60s and ‘70s to storytelling inspired by Vietnam veterans and their families.

The new musical features a book by journalist/writer Bryce Hallett and is directed by Kenneth Ferrone. The draft, combat, civil rights movement, and homecoming are evocatively reawakened in this intimate and epic work. At heart, it’s a deeply moving love story of courage, longing, loss, and hope.

The cast includes Drew Becker (Johnny), Cassadee Pope (Linda), Justin Matthew Sargent (Thomas), Daniel Yearwood (Andy), Courtnee Carter (Nurse Kelly, Andy’s Mother, & others), and Deon’te Goodman (Mike, Jimi, & others). Understudies for this production are Ethan Hardy Benson and Erin Ramirez.

Part rock concert, part documentary, this exhilaration and moving show tells the heartfelt stories of young soldiers caught in the abyss of the Vietnam War and the galvanizing protest movement that sought to end it. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War with the fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975, when NVA tanks rolled through the gates of the Presidential Palace.

Read the reviews!

Frank Scheck, New York Stage Review: Dramatically, the show feels comparatively undernourished as we’re introduced to soldiers Johnny (Drew Becker), Thomas (Justin Matthew Sargent), Andy (Daniel Yearwood) and Mike (Deon’te Goodman, who also plays several other roles). The characters, who speak via monologues and readings from letters, are defined in the thinnest of terms.

Kyle Turner, New York Theatre Guide: Rolling Thunder's nostalgia is rooted in the effective wail for justice, solidarity, and care that the music (like Edwin Starr’s legendary ‘War’ or Barry McGuire's ‘Eve of Destruction’) articulates in a way the script does not. The letters only offer a thin psychology of the characters, bland first-person accounts of the paranoia and brutality of war, and vaguely condescending descriptions of Saigon’s inhabitants, who are as much, if not more so, victims of Western warmongering as the soldiers.

Average Rating: 50.0%