Review: The Muny’s SOMETHING ROTTEN! is Deliriously Funny
The Rambunctious and Bawdy Comedy Runs through August 23, 2026
The Muny closes its season with its long-awaited premiere of the deliriously funny musical Something Rotten. Director Rob Ruggiero helms his 12th Muny production and delivers big laughs in grand Muny fashion.
Something Rotten stars Tony winner Matt Doyle, in his Muny debut, as the sad sack writer Nick Bottom who lives in the shadow of rockstar playwright William Shakespeare (Jacob Dickey). Nick and his brother Nigel, played with earnest integrity by Muny veteran Will Burton, can’t seem to pen a hit.
The financially strapped Nick spends the money his wife Bea (Bryonha Marie) is saving to get career advice from a shoddy soothsayer (Jen Cody) to produce the theatre’s next great work. The soothsayer’s prophetic suggestions are more than slightly askew and sends the desperate Nick chasing ridiculous ideas that only he believes will work.
With a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, and music and lyrics by Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick, Something Rotten is a laugh-a-minute outrageous love letter to musical theater. It’s chock full of playful nods to dozens of classic musicals and Shakespeare’s most well-known sonnets and soliloquies. The Kirkpatricks and O’Farrell pile on the jokes telling a completely preposterous story of the competition between the Bottom Brothers and Shakespeare.
The Kirkpatrick’s have written one of the catchiest and wittiest scores published in the past couple of decades. Their lyrics and Larry Hochman’s orchestrations have lots of funny bits and musical references. The Muny’s sound team led by sound designer Joshua Hummel, and the magnificent Muny orchestra led by Music Director Anne Shuttlesworth delivered perfectly balanced sound. Nary a lyric or spoken word was lost.
Ruggiero’s direction and his cast fired on all comedic cylinders. Doyle, in true musical comedy leading man form, proves his worth as a generous scene partner with Burton, Dickey, Marie, and Cody. His character-based humor and deadpan delivery make his Nick Bottom a lovable loser.
Something Rotten is penned with outrageous supporting characters giving actors the opportunity to chew scenery and battle to steal scenes. Dickey’s sexy Shakespeare is part Elvis, a bit Mick Jagger, with a little Adam Levine tossed in. His rock anthem “Will Power” and the cheeky “It’s Hard to Be the Bard” are magnetic musical moments.
Jen Cody, as soothsayer Donna Nostradamus, garners huge laughs with her random interjections about what content needs to be included in Nick Bottom’s next play. Her eccentric Nostradamus is quirky, daffy, and wickedly funny. Cody has precise timing and knows how to nail a joke. She and Doyle lead the show-stopping “A Musical” choreographed magnificently by Parker Esse.
Esse fills the stage with a kick line of more than thirty dancers covering the broad expanse of the Muny stage for the show’s signature number. The gloriously theatrical number was rewarded with a lengthy thunderous ovation from the large Muny crowd.
Bryonha Marie had plenty of opportunities to ham it up as Nick’s feminist wife Bea. Her huge voice powered through “Right Hand Man” before disguising herself as various characters to prove to her playwright husband that she could both act and earn a living.
Elizabeth Teeter stepped into an adult role for the first time on The Muny stage as the ditzy puritan daughter Portia. She and Burton amused with their naïve innuendo laced “I Love the Way.” Teeter’s real life father Lara played the conflicted and sexually confused puritan elder with great aplomb and at least a dozen silly innuendos.
Adam Heller and Gary Glasgow laid down comedically memorable portrayals as Jewish producer Shylock and theatre patron Lord Clapham. Glasgow does double duty as the Master of Justice. DeMarius R. Copes sets the stage in both act one and two as the wry and amusing Minstrel.
Set designer Edward E. Haynes, Jr., video designer Camilla Tassi, costume designer DW, and wig designer J. Jared Janas transport the audience to 1595 South London. The oversized Tudor and Elizabethan Era designs, lit expertly by Rob Denton, create an expansive canvas for Ruggiero’s storytelling.
Ruggiero, his cast, and the technical design teams deliver a rollicking comedy with a relentless stream of laughs. Everything about this production screams big budget musical comedy. The performances from the multitalented ensemble are first rate. The Muny’s Something Rotten is a rambunctious, high-spirited, gleeful, and bawdy comedy that leaves its audience laughing.
Don’t miss Something Rotten at The Muny, playing now through August 23, 2026. Visit muny.org for more information.
|
Guys And Dolls Kirkwood Pac (7/24-8/23) |
|
JOB New Jewish Theatre (NJT) (8/06-8/23) |
|
ELVIS, PATSY CLINE & LORETTA LYNN: THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE CONCERT Kirkwood Performing Arts Center (9/12-9/12) |
|
Rob Zombie & Marilyn Manson Morton Amphitheater (9/10-9/10) |
|
The Great American Trailer Park Musical Rehab Bar & Grill (8/19-8/26) |
|
Gateway Dirt Nationals – 3 Day Pass The Dome at America's Center (12/03-12/05) |
|
Wicked Fox Theatre (5/12-5/30) |
|
Mamma Mia! Fox Theatre (3/30-4/04) |
|
WSIE Music Series Event w/ Dawn Weber – August 22, 7-9pm Harold Square Outdoor Amphitheater (8/22-8/22) |
|
Terry Barber: Freddy Mercury Cabaret Kirkwood Performing Arts Center (9/05-9/05) |
Reader Reviews
To post a comment, you must register and login.