Catch Me If You Can at the Buell Theatre

Catch Me If You can is one of my favorite movies of all time-it’s funny, charming, even quite heartfelt. So when I heard there was a new musical largely based on the film, which of course was in turn based on Frank Abagnale’s Jr story, I was half intrigued, half skeptical.
I was thrilled, then, when Frances hooked me up with 2 tickets for opening night! We had great seats in the lower orchestra. I was already intrigued when the curtain had clouds and blue sky projected on it before the show started, which seemed to set the mood nicely.
The show starts with a bang (literally) and takes a funny turn on how it tells the story-​before he’s finally arrested, Frank Abagnale asks to tell his story his way, and launches the «Frank Abagnale Jr Show» to tell the story.
Throughout the show, I felt like they did a great job of maintaining the sense of fun and charm that the movie had-​it had big musical numbers, some funny gags (some borrowed, some new) and great performances all around. It also did well in terms of covering the story like the movie, while adding a few good changes of it’s own.
I suppose my one «beef» with the show was that some numbers just didn’t work for me-​they felt a little forced and drawn out, and they took me out a little bit.
Overall though, I had a blast-​the acting was great, the music was great (live band on stage!), and the story was funny the whole time and genuinely emotional when it needed to be.
I’d highly recommend it!

Living IN LIVING COLOR, The Musical Was Clear.
I love the Movie, because of the Plot and even better because its based on a True Story.
The Cast Was great, and It comes with lots of laughs. And I will say The language is good enough you can bring kids too see it. The Cinematics and the Big Band Orchestra made me feel like I was back in a Speak Easy in the 60’s. I felt transformed their myself like I may be on the run as Frank Abignale.
The Costumes, the dancing, the singing. I would say Everyone was a star of the show. It followed the movie pretty closely that I could recite it word for word. Yes Ive seen the movie that many times.
The only way it could of been better? Well If Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicaprio came out and performed themselves.

So, I did not think that I would be that interested in this production. After all, I had seen the movie a couple times. I knew all the plot points, and I figured, «How could these stage actors compete with Tom Hanks, Leo DiCaprio, Christopher Walken, and Amy Adams»? Also, the idea of turning this story into a musical seemed a bit odd to me. I am very pleased to report that I was mistaken, and that I found Catch Me If You Can to be very enjoyable.
Sure, I have a few minor complaints. I think they could have cut about every 5^th song without losing anything important (and shortening the total run-​time). Did we really need a Christmas song? My take was «Songs with Dancing = Excellent», «Songs without Dancing = Hit or Miss». And, this is not the fault of the production, but why does it always seem to be so warm in the Buell Theatre? Once humanity is packed into the theatre, I start feeling very «I’m melting! Melting! Oh, what a world! What a world!».
In summation, I really enjoyed 90% of this show. «Live, in Living Color!» (the recurring theme) is stuck in my head today. It is also hard to complain about the very talented singer/​dancers who kept appearing in skimpy stewardess, nurse, etc. costumes. And, among the primary actors, I was uniformly impressed with the performances.
Thank you to Unilocal (and Frances) for providing me another opportunity to soak in some culture and entertainment.

Overall I would give this show an A-​Ok, by no means anything spectacular. I did enjoy the set design with the orchestra in the background, I thought it was a really cool effect!
The singing and dancing were all decent, however, none of the songs really wowed me. The story was pretty easy to follow and the characters did their best with what they had. A couple funny parts and a couple long drawn out parts make the play just an average offering in my book. The long legged beauties dancing in the background definitely gave it a little boost, but I still left with a little longing for more.
I think it was worth my time, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it. If your in town, you may as well check it out!