Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...At the performance I saw Saturday, the Northlight audience was clearly enthralled by the direct charm of the piece, McGinnis's enveloping personality and Gordon's sweet and honest music, which avoids the excess of "Jane Eyre" in favor of a musical vocabulary that seems to fit a lively, hopeful young woman who just needs a bit of help with her dreams. We always did. All of us."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...The show is really more of an elaborate song cycle than a musical, and many of the individual songs are lovely in their poetry and lyricism. But the whole enterprise can't quite escape a certain static quality despite the winning performances of the two actors who are reprising the roles they played at California's Rubicon Theatre, where this show was developed."
Daily Herald - Highly Recommended
"...Northlight's beautifully sung production marks yet another stop on this show's inaugural tour. It premiered last fall at the Rubicon Theatre Company in California and was subsequently remounted at California's TheatreWorks and at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park before coming to Skokie. "Daddy Long Legs" richly deserves its growing exposure. Like its heroine, it is most assuredly on course."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Based on Jean Webster's 1912 epistolary novel--best known now as the source for a 1955 movie starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron--this musical by John Caird and Paul Gordon is sweet, charming, and just a wee bit dull, with an overlong first act, songs that lack dynamic variety, and a clear predilection for skating over the class issues it sets up. Still, when I consider what a miserable can of worms would be opened up by a more realistic treatment of the material, I figure a little smooth skating may not be a bad idea."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...That said, those seeking the American counterpart to L.M. Montgomery's Anne Shirley will find plenty to satisfy them in this Northlight Theatre production. Megan McGinnis radiates the bubbly candor required of period ingenues for two hours of almost non-stop warbling, while Robert Adelman Hancock makes a suitably stiff-necked swain ( despite a tendency to rely too heavily on vocal technique ) . Scenic designer David Farley's gloomy library magically opens into a sunny New England meadow and scholars of an age commensurate with the fictional arachnid of the title can sigh nostalgically at Paul Tobin's cursive-hand supertitle projections."
Copley News Service - Highly Recommended
"... Northlight audiences will have the good fortunate to enjoy a fetching young woman named Megan McGinnis as Jerusha. McGinnis is attractive but not glamorous, which would be fatal to the understated realism of the narrative. She sings beautifully and her acting credibly traces the growth of the teen-ager’s mind and spirit. There are probably other actresses who could manage Jerusha physically, emotionally, and vocally, but I can’t imagine anyone but McGinnis in the part. She is an enchantress without forcing the human interest into soap opera."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...
Any possibility for intrigue, suspense or even creepiness in this setup is blunted by the fact that the characters spend most of the show apart, she setting it all down in her dorm room, he reading about it in his book-lined study. The effect is distancing and snooze inducing. McGinnis does her best to imbue Jerusha with all the pluck and nonthreatening feminism of a girls’ novel heroine, while Hancock projects friendly noblesse oblige. But for all that they interact, the two actors, who reprise their roles from last year’s West Coast premiere, might as well be in side-by-side game-show isolation booths."
ShowBizChicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...The crème of the production arrives in the consummately-voiced Megan McGinnis, now a veteran of Broadway’s female paragons having donned both Eponine’s soot and Belle’s gowns. Also no stranger to literary heroines (she originated the role of Beth March in “Little Women”), the buoyant McGinnis vibrantly tackles the core foundling, herself endowing Jerusha with contagious spirit and vital conviction. Hers is a talent that wields the capacity to elevate a piece like “Daddy Long Legs”, although the potentiality of those heights may yet to be seen."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Of course, there are complications, and of course, there is the expected resolution, but along the way it is impossible not to be pleased and charmed by the “easy-listening” music, the personal appeal of the characters and the upbeat, fairy-tale quality of the story. No point struggling, just relax and enjoy Daddy Long Legs’ web."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...This show was a technical dream. The use of the lit up scrim piercing through the bookcases was magnificent. The steamer trunks that adorned the stage to work as precise function and tantalizing form were a nice touch. A few times the lighting stood out but the show was soft and beautiful. Each movement onstage was choreographed to the wonder and genius of the show through the brilliant mind of Caird. This show is one that will stick with me throughout my career in this business not only as a work of art comparable to nothing less than a mentally painted sunset while walking hand in hand with the one you love, but also as an inspiration and a “bar” to shoot for. Thank you Northlight for this wonderful evening of what goes down as one of the best musicals I have ever seen."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...Directed by John Caird ( winner of the Tony Award for his direction of “Les Miserables”) uses the stage and the fantastic set designed by David Farle, who also did the costume design, to perfection, This is a massive stage that works as several locations with Jervis’ study/office always in full view and while we observe and listen to the 24 letters/songs in the production, we do get to feel as if we are the fly on the wall watching these two characters realize what is taking place. It is not often that a two person musical with this many songs is created and except for the length and many of teh melodies sounding like others, this is a beautiful “chamber piece” that should only be done in an intimate venue such as the Northlight at The Northshore Center for Performing Arts in Skokie."
