AT THE GALLERY PLAYERS

"...THIS SEASON'S BEST NEW MUSICAL ISN'T ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY – IT'S IN BROOKLYN.
Never underestimate the power of a cast clearly having a ball on stage, as this one does under Igor Goldin's zippy direction; half the fun of the show comes from watching so many talented performers enjoying themselves. ...Excellent songs ...Surprisingly funny choreography. ...The cast is inspired. Who could have imagined that good times could still be had in malls?”

– Mark Peikert, backstage.com
October 24, 2008
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"EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SHOW IS DELIGHTFUL.
Maybe most people do not want to admit it, but there is certain joy to be had in watching those high school movies from the 1980's. Most people would also admit that there is a joy in watching Shakespeare's plays. So what better way to get the utmost joy and entertainment out of a piece of theater than by combining the two? ... The ensemble cast is unified and strong.”

– Amy Freeman, offoffonline.com
October 22, 2008
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"A FEEL-GOOD MUSICAL.
The Gallery Players Theatre in Brooklyn combines the thrills of High School Musical with the beloved Shakespeare comedy of errors in their staging of Like You Like It. Now extended through November 9, this campy, high-spirited romantic comedy by Sammy Buck and Daniel S. Acquisto brings to life the Bard by way of the ’80s of John Hughes’ films. ... A delight, wildly successful."

Winnie McCroy, edgenewyork.com
October 22, 2008
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"REMARKABLE!
Every line, note, lyric and dance number is original... The cast members put on a performance as grand as if they were in a much bigger theater, both in size and scale... You find yourself actually laughing out loud without realizing it. ...I lost all sense of being anywhere but in Arden Mall."

Sarah Portlock, The Brooklyn Paper
October 21, 2008
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"INNOVATIVE!
One day you can tell all your friends about the time you saw that big Broadway show or that super-star at this little theatre in Brooklyn way-back-when."


Meredith Lucio, examiner.com
October 20, 2008
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The Brooklyn Paper interviews Dan
October 15, 2008

Local boy does good with a new musical...

Broadway Bullet
October 9, 2008

Click here to hear a performance of It Could Totally Happen with the leads of the Gallery Players production, Alison Luff and Nathan Johnson, as well as an in-depth interview with director Igor Goldin and creators Dan Acquisto and Sammy Buck.
   AWESOME BUZZ

"Like You Like It deserves great success, too, and will wind up being produced extensively in high schools - but not for years, for a boffo Broadway run will undoubtedly come first."
-Peter Filichia, theatremania.com

 

“Composer Acquisto gleefully sends up the era's music, and the tunes he's devised incorporate various rock, punk, and pop styles.”
-Matthew Murray, talkingbroadway.com

 

“We hope you’ll be seeing a bigger production of this one on the boards before long.”
-gothamist.com

 

“Librettist- lyricist Buck's liberty-taking is the kind of which it's said, ‘If Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written like this.’”
-David Finkle, theatremania.com

 

“Thank you for telling me it will all work out like you like it. Can I give you a hug?”
-An audience member in Issaquah

 

   INTERVIEWS

The Bellaire Examiner, June 14, 2007
about Like You Like It at Theatre Under The Stars

   NYMF REVIEWS

From theatremania.com:
It takes chutzpah to transform a Shakespeare comedy into a musical. The plots, late Renaissance equivalents of the campus musical, are there for the plucking, but there's no escaping the language comparisons that are invited. Sometimes -- as with, for instance, the John Guare-Galt MacDermot tuner Two Gentlemen of Verona and Danny Apolinar's Your Own Thing, the laudable cockiness inherent in such undertakings works into the piece itself.

That has happened again with Like You Like It, the spirited entertainment that librettist-lyricist Sammy Buck and composer Daniel S. Acquisto have made of the Bard's As You Like It. The title alone, recognizing contemporary disregard for correct grammar, signals craftiness and craft. The Buck-Acquisto imaginations extend to moving the Bard's Arden Forest to Arden Mall, where teens celebrating 1983 trendiness try to connect with each other while playing hooky. Rosalind Duke (Rebecca Bellingham) is chased by Orlando Bateman (Charlie Mechling) until she catches him and simultaneously brings together other hormone-happy couples.

Librettist-lyricist Buck's liberty-taking is the kind of which it's said, "If Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written like this." Maybe -- although he probably wouldn't have put "Holy crap, he's talking to me" into Rosalind's otherwise witty mouth, and he might have found a way to keep his amusing first-act wrestling match in the action. He also would have thought twice before eliminating the seven-ages-of-man Jacques from the dramatis personae. Among the welcome additions in this show directed by Jen Bender and choreographed by Stephen Nachamie is a rock singer (Michele Ragusa) who calls Chrissie Hynde to mind.

The score is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Rock is the mode, and a rock band is situated upstage, playing under Gillian Berkowitz's direction. Though tunesmith Acquisto is too busy emulating '80s sounds to establish a sound unique to him, the melodies are serviceable. Buck's lyrics are more than that: "Easy Way Out," "So Close So Far Way" and "Be With Me" would be chart-climbers if this were a time when show tunes still climbed charts.

Like You Like It is so knowing that, at one point, Rosalind -- having strutted through Arden in man's clothes -- cries, "I'm a girl dressed as a boy. Can't anyone see that?" How Rosalind gets away with her thinly-veiled ruse is a question that Shakespeare audiences have asked for centuries. It's clever of Buck to have her call attention to the flimsy disguise, and that's only one of many examples of this musical's cleverness.

-David Finkle, theatremania.com 10/1/04

From gothamist.com:
Like You Like It takes familiar subject matter – Shakespeare’s As You Like It – and reworks it as musical theatre. The twist here is that Rosalind, Orlando, and the other familiar Shakespeare characters have been updated to John Hughes-esque teenagers in the 1980’s. The score is loaded with period musical references like Men Without Hats and the dialogue references pop cultural touchstones such as Swatch watches and Rubicks Cubes. Our eighties obsession was in overdrive, though we were surprised that some of the pop cultural references seemed to fly over the heads of lots of audience members.

It’s clear that librettist-lyricist Sammy Buck and composer Daniel S. Acquisto have a great love for the eighties and for their characters. They have written these teens with a lot of heart. Even the bitchy girl gets an interesting treatment and transcends cliché. We hope you’ll be seeing a bigger production of this one on the boards before long.


-Amy Rosen, gothamist.com 10/3/04