Bring It On
Written by Tom Kitt, Amanda Green,
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeff Whitty
Directed by Andy Blankenbuehler
at Cadillac Palace, 151 W. Randolph (map)
thru March 25 | tickets: $18-$85 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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A sure-fire must-see for tweens and teens
Broadway in Chicago presents
Bring It On
Review by Catey Sullivan
The key to enjoying Bring It On lies in not taking it too seriously. Or seriously at all. This is, after all, a musical about cheerleading. It’s pure froth, and definitely the sort of froth geared toward the Justin Bieber demographic. Take it on its own terms – and this is a show that’s smart enough to poke fun at its own not-exactly-Hamlet-level of mental rigor – and you’re in for an evening of spectacular gymnastics and the sort of airborne human catapults that put Spider Man to shame. There’s no wires in this show, and no safety net. Which makes the heights the cast achieves impressive indeed.
If the hip-hop elements of the score sound reminiscent of In the Heights, that’s no coincidence. In the Heights’ Lin-Manuel Miranda worked on both the score and the lyrics for Bring It On, (with help from Tom Kitt with the former and Amanda Green the latter.) The music is a catchy mix of hook-heavy pop lite and percussive hip-hop. It isn’t particularly complex, but sonically it is as much fun as an American Idol season finale.
The initial scenes – wherein cheer captain Campbell Davis (Taylor Louderman) begins her senior year at Truman High in a giddy haze of cheer camp and Queen Bee popularity – are more than a little generic. Campbell’s princess pink bedroom, her perky blonde BFF and hunky blonde boyfriend seem straight out of a Sweet Valley High novel as adapted by Disney. Thankfully, things get more interesting when Campbell finds herself “redistricted” into Jackson High, a seemingly low-income school where students must pass through a metal detector every morning and where – oh, the humanity! – there is no cheer squad. The differences don’t stop there: In contrast to Campbell’s beloved Truman, Jackson has a significant minority population. And where Truman’s any-whiter-and-they’d-be-clear population puts jocks and cheerleaders at the top of the high school caste system, most of the boys at Jackson seem to be aspiring rappers. As for the girls, they wouldn’t be caught dead leaping around as athletic supporters.
The Jackson kids also get the better songs in the score – “Do Your Own Thing,” with its strutting independence is a whole lot zestier than the Truman kids generic anthem “You Are My Heroes.”
As for the plot (libretto by Jeff Whitty), it bears only a passing resemblance to the movie that “inspired” the show. Built around cheer routines that repeatedly send cast members skyward like projectile missiles, the story pits Jackson’s scrappy dance crew- against the Truman cheerios in a national competition that concludes with a ridiculously athletic showstopper by the Jackson kids. An enthusiastic shake of the poms for director/choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, whose dance creations play out like thrill rides.
The performers are a uniformly appealing lot, the sort of shiny, happy group one could imagine starring in a Bennaton campaign. The most memorable of the ensemble? That would be Gregory Haney as La Cienega, an out ‘n proud transsexual who brings a flamboyant, defiant joy to the stage whether he’s in full-on cheer mode or just strutting around the high school hallway. Never mind the travails of the cheerleaders. La Cienega is a musical just waiting to happen.
Rating: ★★★
Bring It On continues through March 25th at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph (map). Tickets are $18-$85, and are available by phone (800-775-2000) or online at ticketmaster.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at BringItOnMusical.com.
All photos by Michael Lamont
