Theater: McCarter Theater Center / 91 University Place, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540
Synopsis:
Directed by Tony Award nominee Sam Buntrock with musical staging by Lisa Shriver, the show blends fact and fiction to tell the interweaving stories of three pioneers of aeronautics: the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. As their dreams become reality, these aviators discover the real costs of their sky-high ambitions. With style and panache, this lush musical delves to the core of the American experience.
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May 24, 2010: The obsessive urge to get airborne unites the singing dreamers in “Take Flight,” an ambitious concept musical about the pioneering spirits of American aviation making its United States premiere at the McCarter Theater Center here.
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May 24, 2010: An ambitious new musical about aviation pioneers Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and the Wright brothers, "Take Flight" displays considerable craft but only occasionally wings off the ground. More earnest than entertaining, this arthouse piece performed by a 12-member ensemble soberly looks at the obsession that drove those American legends to dizzying heights.
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May 24, 2010: It is a great pleasure to report that there is a new reason for hope and excitement for devotees of the American musical theatre. It can now be seen across the Hudson and about 80 minutes south from the isle of Manhattan in Princeton, New Jersey, in the form of McCarter Theatre's American premiere production of Take Flight, a must see new musical with book by John Weidman and music and lyrics by David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr.
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May 24, 2010: Whee! Here's a breezy if not exactly breath-taking new musical that puts us right (or is it Wright?) up in the air with Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and you guessed it the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville. The long-in-gestation (13 years according to some insider sources) cum work-in-progress project of long-time musical theater collaborators David Shire (music) and Richard Maltby, Jr., (lyrics) and their Take Flight book writer John Weidman can now be welcomed officially to the USA. It had its arguably pre-mature birth at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London in 2007 (review) . The significant thing is that Take Flight, has remained, for better or worse, under the direction of Sam Buntrock. It is at the very least an addition to what is an increasingly rare genre: The truly original musical play, one that integrates a brand new, never heard before score with a brand new never seen on screen or read in print before musical book.
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May 16, 2010: "What are the real coefficients of lift?" might not seem exhilarating in print, but, when Wilbur Wright (Stanton Nash) blurts out these words to his more well-adjusted brother Orville (Benjamin Schrader) in John Weidman, David Shire, and Richard Maltby, Jr.'s musical Take Flight, now playing at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, it sends chills up the spine. This is the moment when the brothers realize they will have to throw out theoretical mathematics in favor of applied mathematics which they will work out themselves -- although they lack high school diplomas and are failed inventors and bicycle salesmen.
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