hey since the reprise is out (!!!) i can post my ranking of the songs after seeing them live! so hereās my august review (and since there were minor differences in the pro shot youāll get to hear what happened in my show (which was the curt and mary one!)
okay so i was right because holy shit? some notes heading into this
- they took some of jeffās songs down a key and kept some the same but he is a FORCE on stage oh my god. genuinely sounded amazing the entire time i gotta give him props because i loved ALL OF HIS SONGS this time around. mind you iāve only ever really liked two since i saw the show for the first time FOUR YEARS AGO
- yes okay fine i get show stopping number now. both because 1. itās SO MUCH BETTER IN PERSON and the changes they made were insane and 2. will branner is insane on stage but i fear we knew that. he does play hidgens incredibly well but are we surprised? no
- let it out. oh my GODDDDDDD
- i love this cast man. i love what they do with ted and bill, charlotteās somehow even MORE dorothy-y than she was in the og, curt and mary-kate did great work, and fuck it lets rank this
1. let it out - THE SET. THE SETTTTTTTTT and the song of course, amazing. choreo, amazing. curt didnāt opt up like jon did at the end BUT he did hold out an insane note (aka the āitā and āoutā were the same note) so i canāt even be mad, they have different vocal ranges. the ending went fucking crazy. THE SET
2. this oneās hard now! wow okay letās go with america is great again because i loved a lot. how they march in through the aisles and onto the stage in unison. no blood pack for ted :( but the choreo is really cool and dramatic. thereās almost a freeze frame with paul and emma reaching out towards each other as the infected drag them apartā¦like chefs kiss. so good
3. show stopping number (what? the song i said would shoot up shot up? crazy) mkay like i said already it is so much better in person. i love will and what he does with hidgens so much. i dont think i have a better word for this, but he kind of plays him like a babygirl if that makes sense? like for the āmind if i give you the pitchā line heās standing off to the side looking pitiful itās really funny um he and ted have like a surprising amount of tension here so thatās something, corey knows the choreo, the aliens have no fucking idea what football is (jeff mimics golf, corey mimics basketball, itās great), oh and when they rip his guts out it is way more graphic because they gave him a rib cage. five stars
4. inevitable - so they confirmed itās a loop. time loop i mean because emma wears a different shirt for the opening number than her uniform shirt. why? because thatās the shirt sheās wearing at the end! sheās infected! ITS A TIME LOOP also they went through the trouble of having jaime and mary-kate be charlotte and melissa again for this number which i can appreciate because now itās all significant characters surrounding emma. curt killed the delivery of āthe apotheosis is upon usā line. hidgens just straight heaves emma over his shoulder multiple times to carry her i love it. and im just gonna talk about the set because they layer all of the set pieces together to create this conglomerate of the whole story and itās just so smart
5. la dee dah dah day - frank princely, max, and ruth are here now, so thatās sick. max and whoever jaimeās supposed to be slap paul on the ass. amazing. (this didnāt happen in the pro shot!)
6. join us and die - you know whatās crazy? iāve watched this show like ten times and know it like the back of my hand, but was genuinely surprised when the paul and emma convo got interrupted by charlotte. i was that invested. but obviously jaime kills it. jeff kills it. oh and THE LIGHTING they actually do this thing where they put blue on their mouths to show the infection and when they light it in a specific way it glows itās SO COOL. hidgens appears from a terrace to shoot them now so thatās fun
7. what do you want paul - what. how is this up here. easy! itās like a million times better live. not only is the key slightly lower so jeff can hit the shit out of every note, but they took the comedy up to like 1000% which i thought was impossible. davidson does the too many curves thing but they actually added the āthatās too many!ā line into the dialogue. when heās introduced he slams one foot onto his desk, then the other incredibly loudly and itās great. best part was definitely this new bit they threw in where davidson is so caught up in what he wants that he starts wrapping the phone cord around paulās neck, so when he stands up paul starts fucking choking itās hilarious. also they added a bit where he actually didnāt forget what he was gonna say, just chickened out. jeff is a powerhouse in this song and every song. i love it now. this is insane
8. show me your hands - this oneās fun. the lighting hardcore carries but they add this bit where everyoneās running in slow motion and another where they all look like theyāre crammed into a cop car and swerve around. after āher cat is deadā they all go āawww.ā i just love the rap
9. the guy who didnāt like musicals - THE TRAIN IS BACK THEY ADDED THE TRAIN BACK GUYS. um this was super hype just because itās the opener. choreo was very fun, murder dabbing is gone. also they use rollie chairs to spin the girls around in near the end. they really like chairs in this production lemme tell you
10. not your seed - i heard they made this higher, but i think they kept it in the same key for mary-kate because it sounded the same. uh idk, i love mary kate but thereās usually just something about mariah that makes this number hit for me. they do have this really sad part where sheās leaning into bill and bill just looks devastated. also the aliens pick up the gun and give it to bill now, so thatās horrible
11. you tied up my heart - jeffās wig fell off lmao. this was actually good. lighting does so much for this show i swear. there are comedically long pauses between sections of the bridge. this was the other one they lowered for jeff btw
12. copc - itās like exactly the same. the customers (including pete now) do slump to the ground, then reanimate which is cool. but like other than that no changes
13. corc - again, the same.
14. let him come - does this count as a song? itās like a transition. but iāll give it credit for hyping up the starlight theater set reveal for let it out because HOLY SHIT