2018 Audience Reviews

Company: Backyard to Broadway Productions
Show: Right, Wrong or Bomb! A Dating Musical
Venue: Mixed Blood Theatre

Still great theater for a PC message show

We needed to fill a spot between Kaboom and The Screaming Skull (both great shows that include a Scrimshaw), and musicals are always a safe bet at the fringe. In Kare 11's interview Britany Shrimkin, a co-creater , commented on needing 'a cathartic moment to come together and perhaps laugh at about the situations we were all going through'. This is a show by and for women with a message, and reviews of such shows usually have to be taken with a grain of PC salt. As a 58 year old male, I can remember one hour 'programs' for Freshman in 1979 which included first time dating. We basically discussed dire topics like whether to ask before kissing a girl goodnight, particularly important for a careful physics major like me. I can remember a girl responding that she would never kiss someone who actually asked first. This seemed the general consensus among the girls there, to my initial dismay and later recognition through experience. Times change. Even using the word 'girls' for girls is suspect now. Fortunately, the important feminist messages are sent with sidelong glances through the 4th wall rather than over the head with a hammer. There is male bashing a plenty, with the eventual hero delivering a long feminist supporting line to win the desperate online dater over that is purposely over the top, done with humor that wins the audience over. On a strictly theatrical end, the writing including a great lineup of stock loser male characters for our heroine to electronically peruse. The standouts of the music pieces were a couple of Broadway quality ballads sung by the lead (lost my program and don't want to give the wrong name) that will rip your heart out.