It Works! A Review of the Tour of Back to the Future: The Musical at the Buell Theatre

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

Back to the Future: The Musical is a new adaptation of the classic movie. With a book by Bob Gale, music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, and direction by John Rando, this timeless tale has hit the stage at full speed.

I attended this show twice while it was in Denver. The first was a part of our family’s season subscription. At that first performance, we had the full principal cast and sat in Orchestra C, Row AA, Seat 9. The second time I saw it with a group of friends and had the full principal cast but a new Marty McFly than the one I had previously seen transferred to the West End production. I sat in Orchestra D, Row D, Seat 7.

Back to the Future: The Musical follows the movie to a T, with only slight changes or omissions. I was quite skeptical coming into the show, figuring it’d be good fun but ultimately another forgettable movie-to-musical adaptation. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It works! 

Back to the Future: The Musical is bombastic, strange, and campy. Much of this is achieved through incredible tech work, with many moving parts that come together to create convincing illusions. The most important thing is that they have recreated the DeLorean time machine and put it onstage. This thing can actually drive around the stage and has a fully detailed interior. Credit goes to scenic and costume designer Tim Hatley, who managed to design and bring this beast to life. 

While it can drive around, the effect is really sold through Fin Ross’ video design and Chris Fisher’s illusion work. The car is sandwiched between a downstage see-through scrim and a screen in the background. Here we see videos of the world zipping by the DeLorean, creating an incredible feeling of speed I haven’t really seen on a stage before. It is a particularly effective piece of technical work that sells the scene well despite it being a simple setup. It also displays the logo when you first arrive in the theatre, with error warnings popping up reminding you not to take photos as phones did not exist in the 80’s and it will mess with the space-time continuum. 

While we are on the topic of technical work, I want to applaud the lighting design by Tim Lutkin and Hugh Vanstone. It does not intrude on scenes where it is unnecessary, but it makes great use of the proscenium which lights up in a futuristic circuit-like pattern when the car is speeding by. Towards the end of the show, when the storm begins to pick up, bright white lights flash at the audience to simulate lightning.

At our first performance, Marty McFly was played by Caden Brauch. He has since left the touring production to instead play Marty on the West End and has been succeeded by Lucas Hallauer. Caden’s interpretation of Marty felt unique, he wasn’t weighed down by what Michael J. Fox did in the movies. His Marty seemed to be playing it cooler than Fox’s. There is a specific line that I feel illustrates the point well. When Fox says “You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?”, he sounds exasperated and confused. When Brauch says it, he is in awe, with a hint of “right on dude” in his voice.

Our second performance had Lucas Haullauer, who previously understudied the role. Almost anything I could say about Caden’s performance I could say about Lucas’, they both play a very cool and suave Marty. I prefer how Lucas plays out moments with Lorraine and the few moments Marty does get genuinely panicked, his voice shoots up and the persona comes down. I feel Caden had better chemistry with George, his disappointment in how lame his dad is being almost painful. There are moments where he says nothing, just staring at his dad as you see the hope being extinguished behind his eyes. Neither of them gave a “better” performance, I think they both are doing a lot of the same things but playing into different strengths.

Don Stephenson played Doc Brown and his performance was one of the greatest things I have ever seen a person do onstage. I couldn’t make out many of the words he was saying due to his strange cartoon voice, but his vibes and aura were captivating. He moved about the stage in a herky-jerky manner, speaking with the cadence of a mad scientist. Stephenson says “flux capacitor” like Doofenshmirtz says “evil-inator”. There was a point where he made an expression where he stretched his mouth in opposite diagonal directions, a face so impossible he surely must have detached his jaw from the whole side of his skull. He looked like an animatronic with rubber skin stretched so far it was about to tear away. He’s almost what I imagine Doc Brown would be like if an 80’s Back to the Future cartoon had ever been made, similar to the Beetlejuice cartoon. A goofy caricature of a mad scientist, a zany personality that could sustain an episodic series.

Michale Bindeman plays George McFly, Marty’s father, and is a delight to watch anytime he’s onstage. He is a very tall and lanky man and uses it to his advantage, walking around in an awkward and bow-legged manner. One of the best moments that showcases this brand of comedy is during “Put Your Mind to It”, a song where Marty is teaching his dad how to be cool. Marty dances with swagger and style, and his father flails his arms around as he attempts to replicate the moves. There is a key point towards the end of the show where he gains confidence he never had before, and it is fun watching how his character transforms. He is still gangly and awkward, but he stands tall and stops being hunched over all the time.

Zan Berube plays Lorraine, Marty’s mother, who has the onerous task of making the audience believe incest is funny. She is successful at this endeavor, as she is quite overtly horny and Marty has to dodge her wild attempts to get him into her bed. To add some essential context for those who have not seen the movie, Marty accidentally interferes with his parents meeting for the first time in the past. Instead of his mother nursing his father back to health after he falls out of a tree, Marty falls and his mother becomes affectionate towards him. It is ridiculous how infatuated Zan is with Marty, and it is ridiculous how this is a primary obstacle that needs to be overcome so Marty isn’t erased. Perhaps it is the fact it is all so ridiculous that makes her performance work so well.

The whole show lives in its own ridiculous and campy world. When Doc begins to sing, a group of women come out and act as backup singers. Marty asks where all these girls came from, and Doc says “I don’t know! They just appear whenever I start singing!”. A whole chorus of ensemble members appear later during “Future Boy”, and Doc awkwardly shoos them out of his house when the song comes to a sudden halt. Act 1 ends with a spectacularly choreographed chase sequence through the high school, with Marty and George scaling lockers and leaping over tables. There is so much happening onstage during that sequence, so much to look at. It’s a spectacularly fun show.

The music is the weakest part of this show, despite the promise of the name attached to it. Alan Silvestri composed the music for the original movies and came back to create the score for this musical. When the Back to the Future theme is being played, recreating iconic moments from the movie, there is some real magic happening on that stage. That said, Alan is not a musical composer. 

There are a lot of times where it feels like the music is not meaningfully moving the story forward or developing the characters, two essential traits of any good musical theatre song. The first four songs are duds, making it feel like we were stopping the show to sing a song. The best was “Hello, Is Anybody Home?”, where Marty wonders how he ended up with such a lame family. It’s fun seeing how much his family sucks. The show at this point is sitting at like a 7/10, maybe 6 if I’m feeling uncharitable. Then right after that song, the DeLorean comes swerving out of the darkness and the show instantly rockets up to a 9/10. Everything after that point is just ridiculous, campy, fun. It maintains that energy until the very end with a curtain call performance of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Back in Time”. Back to the Future: The Musical is absolutely not high art, but boy is it a real fun ride.

A Review of the Touring Production of Kimberly Akimbo

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer 

The national tour of the Broadway musical, Kimberly Akimbo began its tour at the Buell Theatre on September 22nd, and will be playing in theaters across America for the next year. The show kicked off the Denver Center for the Performing Arts 2024-2025 Broadway Season, bringing the best of Broadway to the Mile High City. Kimberly Akimbo won the 2023 Tony Award for the Best New Musical, a prestigious title that helped it stay popular and relevant, until it closed in April this year. Prior to the performance I saw, I had not listened to any of the cast albums or read any specific plot details. I only knew it was about a teenager with progeria. The performance I attended had the full principal cast.

Kimberly Akimbo is adapted from a 2001 play of the same name, depicting the teenage struggles of Kimberly Levaco, a 16-year-old from New Jersey. Kimberly has progeria, a rare genetic disorder that causes people to age at a rapid pace. The musical role of Kimberly was originated by 64-year-old Victoria Clark on Broadway, and played by 62-year-old Carolee Carmello on the tour. The magic of this show rests on that performance, the suspension of disbelief that a woman in her 60’s is actually a teenager. Carolee Carmello is a star in this role, making the audience truly believe that she is just a teenager, trying to be happy while contending with her disease and mortality. 

All roles in this show are cast so the actors appear as authentic to the age of their characters as possible. This helps Kimberly stand out amongst her young peers and middle-aged family. She is stuck dealing with her alcoholic father (played by Jim Hogan) and her narcissistic, pregnant mother (played by Dana Steingold). At school, she meets Seth (played by Miguel Gil), a charming, awkward boy obsessed with anagrams. In the meantime, her criminal Aunt Debra (played by Emily Koch) tries to drag Kimberly into a check-washing scheme.

First, I’ll start with highlighting the best of the show.. Kimberly Akimbo is a show that is relentlessly positive, without being the trite disability inspiration story we’ve seen many times before. It feels like it belongs in the 2017 season on Broadway, at home with shows like Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away. There’s drama and serious moments but it also has ample use of humor and comedy to provide stretches of levity. It’s a deeply human show, covering the flaws and follies of a parent, teenage friendship and love, and our fickle mortality. 

Kimberly’s “I Want” song is a letter to the Make-A-Wish foundation, talking about everything she’ll never get to do because she won’t live long enough to experience those things. Later, she’s among her peers as they sing about beginning their “real life”, in going to college and starting families. She sits there silently, dejected, knowing she won’t live long enough to have a life after high school. 

As I said earlier, it is worth seeing this show on tour solely for Carolee Carmello’s performance as Kimberly. To be 50 years removed from being a teenager (much less one in 1999) and still being able to portray that authentically is nothing short of spectacular. When the rights to the show become available, local theaters are going to have a hard time finding anyone who can match such a performance.

I was also delighted with Miguel Gil’s portrayal of Seth, a sincere performance for an equally sincere character. Miguel was the original understudy for Seth during the Broadway run, and I’m so glad he gets to star in the role on tour. Seth is an awkward, wonderful “good kid” who plays the tuba. In his spare time, he creates anagrams, rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to say something new (Federal government can be rearranged to “large fervent demon”). His general weirdness and authenticity gives Kimberly a safe space, away from her deeply dysfunctional family. 

Miguel and Carolee have wonderful stage chemistry. Carolee’s performance doesn’t work if Miguel also can’t convince the audience of their budding friendship and feelings, and he’s able to do that despite the 40 years of age between him and Carolee.

On the other end, here are the not so great things about the show. While I enjoyed my time in the theater, I found upon walking out that I couldn’t really remember any of the songs. Many were fun to watch, fun in the context of the scene they were in, but they weren’t catchy. I hold the opinion that truly great musicals must have songs that are memorable, worthy in their own right. I can’t see myself going back and consistently listening to the Kimberly Akimbo cast album in my spare time. I fear almost all the songs sounded the same, only 3 stand out in my mind with any clarity after the fact. Those three were “Better”, “Happy for Her”, and “How to Wash a Check”. 

I also wouldn’t say this was a spectacularly staged production, or that it even felt “definitive”. It stayed committed to a realistic staging of the songs and material, but it didn’t make any part of it “stand out”. Come From Away is a show that’s grounded in equally realistic material, but it has a creative use of chairs and costumes within its minimal set to switch rapidly between people and places, giving it a feeling of momentum and purpose. And while it does escape being a disability inspiration story, it can’t escape being a dime-a-dozen feel good story. The story as I saw it would’ve worked better as a movie, as only a few parts of the story were elevated by the inclusion of music.

Overall, I give the show a 7/10. There were a lot of enjoyable moments and performances, but there’s a lot of missed potential. I also do not feel as though this show deserves the title of Best New Musical. It was up against Shucked, a corny, sincere, feel-good musical that I consider to be better than Kimberly Akimbo in all respects. Shucked will not be at the DCPA this season, but it has begun its American tour. If you have the chance to see Shucked, see it instead of Kimberly Akimbo.

Theatre Review: Dear Evan Hansen

Photo source: www.nyc-arts.org

By: Allison Upchurch, Staff Reporter

One of the most anticipated Broadway tours of the season has just launched right down the street from Regis University! Playing for the first time outside New York City and then hitting the road to perform in multiple cities across the country, Dear Evan Hansen*is a modern-day musical that shows audiences what it means to spread a message of support and perseverance through all kinds of difficult personal circumstances.

This Tony Award winning show tells the story of high school senior Evan Hansen (played by Ben Levi Ross) and how he ends up in the middle of the attention that surrounds the death of his classmate, Connor Murphy (played by Marrick Smith). Evan is mistaken by the Murphy Family for being Connor’s only friend based on a letter they had found in Connor’s possession. Evan does what he thinks may help the grieving family by teaming up with classmates Alana (played by Phoebe Koyabe)and Jared (played by Jared Goldsmith)to create The Connor Project, a social media community to memorialize Connor and to promote the importance of wanting to be inclusive of everyone’s presence and voice in society.

The show reinforces the modern-day atmosphere because of how social media is used as a physical aspect of the show’s experience. Media feeds, word documents, and photos are flash up on panels strung across the forefront of the stage as the show plays out to reinforce the daily communication of the characters, and the outreach The Connor Project receives on a global scale. The music for the show was written by the Oscar winning duo behind the songs in La La Landand The Greatest Showman, and has been crafted to present rhythmic anthems of hope and finding a voice in such songs like “Disappear” and “You Will Be Found”. 

Dear Evan Hansen takes conversations about mental health, sympathy, and crisis support and puts it into a story that attempts to show how these characters are similar to the people that surround the nature of everyday life. The show acknowledges that these characters are important to show because it opens up opportunities to forge connections to help others in need of support. This idea can actually be connected to one of the Jesuit values that is emphasized here at Regis – Cura Personalis. In the characters’ acknowledgement of building connections and using their voices to make a change, the show emphasizes the importance in having concern and caring for the whole person in mind, body, and spirit.

Dear Evan Hansen played at the Buell Theater at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts until October 13. 

*Author’s Note – In getting the opportunity to see Dear Evan Hansen, some difficult topics of suicide, depression, and mental health are frequently brought to an audience member’s mind. If you or a loved one feel that these issues may be too alarming, please take this into account in deciding whether to see this show or not. If you do find yourself troubled from these issues personally, please reach out to the wonderful counselors at the Office of Counseling and Personal Developmentto make an appointment to get personalized support and find additional resources for 24/7 help.