Rohan Preston

Stirring and powerful, the production feels eerily current because of today’s political discussions around voting and Taub’s sharp framing of a story that has driving music and anthemic lyrics.

The two leads have chemistry for days. When their voices braid together on the title song, you can practically see the sparks ricocheting off the proscenium stage. Their performances pull us deep into two very different quests for freedom — Christine yearning to grow into the prodigy her father believed in, and the Phantom aching for the world to see beyond the mask that hides both his face and his fragility.

But “Noise” would have been better served with a different framing device from playwright Anthony McCarten. If we see a therapist, we expect a rush of breakthroughs. What we get instead in the show is underwhelming piffle — confessional hagiography dressed up as serious introspection. Diamond should have been telling all to Oprah or Barbara Walters.

‘Juliet’ is a lot of wicked fun, a joy that derives from the recontextualized and reorchestrated pop numbers made famous by the likes of Ke$ha (‘Blow’), Jessie J (‘Domino’) and Britney Spears (‘Baby One More Time’ and ‘I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,’ here given a haunting rendition by Drake).

Suskauer is the real star of the show, delivering with heart and polish even as Lucille’s powers are diminished and underestimated by her own husband. Suskauer helps Lucille bloom into a quiet and devoted powerhouse.

This story of Chicago gangsters in the Prohibition era chasing after a pair of musicians who witness mob murders offers loads of fanciful fun. From the orchestra, conducted brightly by Mark Binns, to the splendid cast fronted by blithely gifted Tavis Kordell and Matt Loehr, the “Hot” team earns its giddy keep.

As the body count was notching up Wednesday evening at Minneapolis' Orpheum Theatre, a technical glitch stopped things halfway through the national tour launch of 'Clue,' the old Hasbro board game that was made into a 1985 Paramount film and has now become a theatrical comedy. An art piece that functions as the cover of a safe errantly swung open and stayed that way in the madcap whodunit. The snafu caused a five-minute pause that doubled as an unscheduled intermission for what is ordinarily an 80-minute one-act play that creators have likened to a bullet train.

But as I watched Tuesday's opening of the rah-rah 25th anniversary national tour that runs through Sunday at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, I was struck by a quaint idea: it's not always damning for something to become a parody of itself.

Katerina McCrimmon is the real deal, folks. She brings humor, heart and genuine star power to the title character of Broadway's 'Funny Girl,' which opened Tuesday at Minneapolis' Orpheum Theatre for a six-day run.

From the haunting opening through the rousing coda — and you will want to stay for the gospel-inflected uplift that comes after the plaintive narrative ends — this ballyhooed production is studded with gorgeous moments. But those flashes of brilliance do not cohere into something urgent and vital. And 'Girl' loses its energy and oxygen along the way.