![]() ![]() (That’s a generous cutoff point.) The acting, singing and dancing (choreographed by Chase Brock) are all, to put it kindly, frenetic. This all sounds like more fun than it is - at least for anyone over the age of 21. ![]() He is also inspired by selfless love - for the madcap Christine Canigula (a hyperkinetic Stephanie Hsu). He is assisted by his bestie, the forever gauche Michael Mell (the highly emotive George Salazar), whom Jeremy had abandoned on the road to social success. His hour of reckoning takes place during a performance of a school play about a zombie apocalypse, during which he wrestles with his bad cyber angel. At first Jeremy - the anxious son of a morose single Dad (Jason SweetTooth Williams) who mopes around the house in his underwear - is ecstatic just to fit in.īut like the leading characters of “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Mean Girls,” Jeremy learns that popularity comes at a dehumanizing price. That basic premise recalls the Eisenhower-era horror classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” which gratifyingly suggested that those who rule the status quo are really mindless pod people. If it sustains that momentum, it will be partly because this latest entry in the puberty musical sweepstakes has traits that undeniably set it apart from its competition. While its characters, inevitably, learn that being popular isn’t everything, the show’s investors would no doubt beg to differ.Īdapted by Joe Iconis (songs) and Joe Tracz (book) from Ned Vizzini’s appealing young adult novel, “Be More Chill” has already broken the Lyceum house record for a single week of ticket sales. Now, after selling out its limited run Off Broadway last summer, the rabidly eager “ Be More Chill,” which opened on Sunday at the Lyceum Theater, has joined the crowded field of shows about hormonally-overcharged outsiders longing for acceptance. ![]() But they mercifully have different ways of expressing their grievances, in shows as different as the sophisticated, brooding “Dear Evan Hansen,” the smart-mouthed “Mean Girls” and the big-hearted “The Prom.” Usually embodied by performers at least a decade older than the characters they’re portraying, Broadway’s swelling throng of anguished adolescents may all share a common grudge against life (and more often than not a basic plotline). The kids I’m talking about have commandeered the stage, to let the world know - preferably in song - that it’s not easy being teen. Not in the lobby, though that might be refreshing given the general grayness of theatergoing audiences. It seems you can’t set foot in a Broadway theater these days without running into a noisy passel of high school students. ![]()
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