Herbert Paine

Fortunately, once you understand how those lyrics originated, the songs become extraordinary. The music is the show’s main event: a full-throated concert of hits that keeps the audience clapping and, ultimately, singing along. Director Michael Mayer wisely leans into that collective joy. For longtime fans, it’s an irresistible celebration; for newcomers, it’s difficult not to get swept up in Diamond’s melodic directness.

The musical began a decade ago as a discarded stage version of the hayseed sketch TV series Hee-Haw. But SHUCKED has had a complete overhaul as a smart-dumb book musical by veteran comedy writer Robert Horn. There’s a wink in every line with just a hint of satire, and it’s surprisingly good at it.

When it comes down to it, & Juliet isn’t trying to be profound, it’s trying to be fun. And with that it succeeds wildly. It’s somewhere between a rush of teen pop and the campy wink of a drag show; a jukebox musical that knows the world is on fire but hands you a disco ball all the same. If the pink signage and pulsing LED set pieces of lighting designer Howard Hudson, who lets no color go unblasted, didn’t tip you off, this is not your father’s Shakespeare.

Rather than preach, SUFFS lets its politics emerge through personality. Its cheeky, pointed opening number, Let Mother Vote, is led with sly precision by genteel suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy). And when a more youthful Alice Paul (Maya Keleher) enters as a storm in petticoats, conflict follows. It’s old-guard respectability meets next-wave radicalism, and the two immediately clash.

It’s always a risk to transplant a beloved classic film to the stage, particularly when that film is one so thoroughly embedded in its time as SOME LIKE IT HOT. Yet this latest Broadway adaptation, now performing at ASU Gammage until the 16th, with kinetic direction and crowd-pleasing choreography by Casey Nicholaw, not only succeeds in updating the story but breathes new, surprising life into its proceedings.

The songs are taken from the Bob Dylan catalog of music. While they were written between the '60s to the mid-80s and meant to reflect the time and year in which they were originally released, the musical style of presentation, adapted by Simon Hale and performed on instruments of the time, is surprisingly effective when used to reflect the bleakness of the Depression in 1934.

As directed by Schele Williams, this is an adrenaline-fueled, high-energy version of THE WIZ that refuses to quit. Everything, both visually and orally, is loud. Occasionally, the acoustics in the theatre worked against the production, often making it difficult to hear what was being said or sung. But with exaggerated body movements, over-the-top facial expressions, and dialog delivered in big, brassy, broad strokes, audiences are practically prompted when to laugh, whether they correctly heard the line or not.