The reviews for Tuck Everlasting are in, and the critics are split…it turns out not all magical stories turn out to be magical Broadway shows. Though there are moments of brilliance in the music by Chris Miller, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw, the heavy-handed book offers more challenges than rewards. The plot is satisfyingly streamlined, but subtext has been abandoned to accommodate the big themes and audiences of all ages. The acting is commendable overall, but the highlight of the show is Terrence Mann as The Man in the Yellow Suit, portrayed as a delightful carnival barker. Go to relive one of your favorite childhood stories, just don’t expect the timeless tale to have been turned into a Broadway masterpiece.
NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF TUCK EVERLASTING
Family-friendly musicals on Broadway generally come in just one flavor: flashy. Enter “Tuck Everlasting,” a warm-spirited and piercingly touching musical that has nothing flashy or splashy about it. The nearest this small-scale production comes to the kind of spectacle we associate with kiddie bait is a toad…
TIME OUT NEW YORK REVIEW OF TUCK EVERLASTING
At the dramatic crux of “Tuck Everlasting,” a 102-year-old man trapped in a 17-year-old body asks an 11-year-old girl to wait six years until she’s legal, at which point she will drink from a magical spring and spend the rest of eternity as his never-aging teen lover. If you can ride out the ick factor of that…
DEADLINE REVIEW OF TUCK EVERLASTING
Immortality, like Krazy Glue, styrofoam and the two-party system, sounds like a fine idea — until you find your fingers stuck together under a mountain of landfill with Donald Trump running for President. The premise of Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 YA novel was that in an earlier century, a rural New Hampshire family…
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER REVIEW OF TUCK EVERLASTING
A new musical adapted from Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 fantasy novel (which became a 2002 Disney film) is the latest show to arrive on Broadway under the assumption that the appetite for theatrical fare geared to children and their well-heeled parents is limitless. The story of an 11-year-old girl encountering a…
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY REVIEW OF TUCK EVERLASTING
There’s one salient takeaway from Tuck Everlasting, the lackluster new Broadway musical based on Natalie Babbitt’s beloved 1975 children’s novel, and it has to do with wardrobe: You can’t trust a man dressed in yellow. Of course, as soon as we see the Man in the Yellow Suit (“Les Miserables’” original Javert…
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