| Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...It’s not a legitimate musical. But it contains a great deal of jukebox music, some of it played live and some of it pre-recorded. If you can figure out which is which throughout the show, you’ll do better than I did. And if your audience is only dimly aware of live musicians, why are they even there?"
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Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...If it didn't hew closely to the movie, fans would be outraged. Screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein understood this, sticking to the original script while fleshing out some background stories -- Baby's mom and dad get a number, for instance. About 40 percent of the show is new material, with 25 new songs. It's like a live DVD reissue that includes lots of deleted scenes."
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Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...The audiences to whom this show is built to appeal will surely be satisfied by its gonzo dance numbers, which exceed any expectation, and its fidelity to the class-warfare story of a daddy’s princess who falls for a blue-collar dance instructor. (If you’ve already bought your tickets, it’s because you want to love it, and most likely will.)"
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NewCity Chicago - Not Recommended
"...At the end of the day there is simply no point for this stage show to exist other than to milk the “Dirty Dancing” franchise dry, exploit the eighties nostalgia craze and get those people who saw the movie in the theaters twenty years ago—now grown up with jobs—to pay ten times as much to see it in a theater “enacted by meat puppets”, as Financial Times drama critic Ian Shuttleworth so memorably phrased in his review of the original London show."
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Windy City Times - Recommended
"...Directed by James Powell, Dirty Dancing looks utterly gorgeous. Jennifer Irwin's costumes are Mad Men-authentic and beautiful. In one number, a line of ladies dancing blooms like a riotous bouquet as their skirts flounce and petticoats swish to the music."
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Chicago Free Press - Recommended
"...Given the strange coldness of the love story, the musical’s saving strength is the dancing. Kate Champion’s sizzling choreography regale us with fox trots, sambas, waltzes, the hully gully, the Twist–it’s a hoofing anthology circa 1963. The movie opens up to fill the Palace Theatre to bursting. For many fierce fans that’ll be quite enough pleasure, thank you very much."
Centerstage - Somewhat Recommended
"...A scene-by-scene reenactment of the cheesy 1980s movie, "Dirty Dancing" the play lacks soul, the one transcendent quality that elevated the film. To deliver an infamous line like "Nobody puts baby in the corner," an actor has to wear his heart on his sleeve, and that's something Josef Brown, as the iconic Johnny Castle, misses."
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ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...I think 'Dirty Dancing' will emerge as a major hit because it contains enough sexy dancing and engrossing romance to be entertaining. If cuts and trims are made with less glitz and with the elimination of the flat act two scenes, “Dirty Dancing” could be a first-rate play with music."
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Steadstyle Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Author Eleanor Bergstein claims that her intent was not to reproduce the film onstage, yet that is precisely what she, Director James Powell, Choreographer Kate Champion, and the production designers have accomplished. There is certainly talent in evidence, even if the talent is poorly utilized. There are some attractive voices, though the singers barely seem to be in the same show."
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