Theater: Duke on 42nd Street / 229 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036
Synopsis:
This contemporary pop-rock musical road trip ventures to tourist destinations across America, mapping out stories of sightseers in search of fellow travelers: a wanderer believes his destiny is written on rooftops along the North Carolina interstate; a young man yearns to connect with intelligent life in Roswell, New Mexico; a woman at the Alamo steps out of the shadow of her past to take a chance on love; estranged sisters cruise to Glacier Bay to scatter their father's ashes; high school boys face unexpected fears in a Coney Island spook house; and a terrified bride-to-be ponders taking the leap...over Niagara Falls. See Rock City & Other Destinations creates a vivid travelogue of moving characters and connections missed and made along the way.
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July 26, 2010: A tangled pile of beach chairs towers in the center of the Duke on 42nd Street, where the friendly but unremarkable new musical “See Rock City & Other Destinations” opened Sunday night. Audience members were milling about uncertainly in the smoke-filled auditorium before the performance I attended, eyeing the pile warily. Nobody could tell if this impressive assemblage was a sculpture or a challenge.
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July 26, 2010: For a show that touches down in a half-dozen places, "See Rock City & Other Destinations" doesn't really get very far. In fact, this evening of musical vignettes, which opened last night, feels more like it's running in place.
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July 25, 2010: Watching Transport Group's new musical "See Rock City & Other Destinations" is like flipping through a friend's vacation snapshots. Some are eye-catching, some are moving, and some leave you with that "I guess you had to be there" feeling. This patchwork tuner is composed of short vignettes revolving around tourist attractions and the emotional sustenance a handful of sightseers hopes to gain from visiting them. Director Jack Cummings III delivers an innovative environmental production, and the seven-member cast limns its multiple roles with urgency and wit, but Adam Mathias' book is uneven. About half of the sketches land with precision, but the rest miss the bull's-eye, either by a few degrees or several target rings. Also, in an annoying and unnecessary convention, the actors read stage directions to set the scenes and occasionally comment on the action. However, the score is solid, featuring Brad Alexander's fresh, unfamiliar music and Mathias' surprising lyric choices.
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July 25, 2010: Seven disparate wanderers search popular tourist sites across the U.S. looking for the meaning of life -- and an emotional connection with other wanderers -- in "See Rock City & Other Destinations." At least, that seems to be the point of this intriguing but hazy new musical from the adventurous Transport Group. Artistic director Jack Cummings III has assembled a strong cast and provided consistently imaginative staging, but talented authors Brad Alexander (music) and Adam Mathias (book/lyrics) haven't quite connected the dots between the six stops on their road trip. A tourism website might give it an 87% traveler's recommendation.
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July 26, 2010: Theatergoers should give themselves plenty of time to get to the Duke on 42nd for See Rock City & Other Destinations, which features music by Brad Alexander and book and lyrics by Adam Mathias. The musical, exquisitely directed by Jack Cummings III, has one of the most intriguing pre-show environments of recent memory. Even more marvelously, the artistry displayed before the show starts never flags, creating a remarkable -- and moving -- theatrical experience.
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