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“Choreographer Denis Jones infuses the dance sequences with pizzazz, whether via the exhilarating gymnastics for “Luck Be a Lady” or the tangy paso dobles of the nightclub scene in Havana, to which Sky has whisked an increasingly tipsy Sarah away.”
- Peter Marks, The Washinton Post
“…“Hello, Dolly!,” the 1964 Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart musical based on Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” is a human story. That, along with some exceptionally witty and nuanced choreography from Jones, is the strength of this production, a much simpler affair than the epic recent Broadway revival starring Bette Midler that had more scenery than Dolly has business cards. Kettenring, a generous performer, does not approach the role as just desserts for a diva of the musical stage, which is how the part often is seen, but imagines a character whose sociability clearly is something of a cover for a widow’s loneliness.”
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
“Perhaps most impressive about Tuesday’s premiere was how the balance of woe and wit extended into nearly every aspect of the production. Choreographer Denis Jones was as skilled at lending elegance to the skulking denizens of the underworld as with fashioning a wedding party dance that would kill on TikTok.”
- Michael Andor Brodeur, The Wasington Post
“Jones has directed some of the best Muny productions in recent years, including a triumphant version of 42nd Street in 2016. He’s at his feverish best with this version of Chicago, both in his wide-open but disciplined direction of The Muny’s ensemble cast, and with his exuberant and dizzying choreography on numbers such as “Tap Dance,” “Cell Block Tango” and “We Both Reached for the Gun.”
- Mark Bretz, Ladue News
“The Maltz has spared little reviving this 1960 edition of Dickens’ 1838 novel: 18 laudable Equity actors, 14 children surprisingly melded into a whole, an unassailably capable director-choreographer and musical director, at least 10 hard-working crew members and kid wranglers, a superb 12-piece orchestra producing a glorious score from their marrow, scores of costumes from filthy rags to middle-class garb, a kaleidoscope of mood-setting lighting for a dozen locations, and redolent settings of grime and wealth backed up by digital backdrops.”
- Bill Hirschman, Florida Theater On Stage
"Somewhere deep inside the Cook County Jail, circa 1920s, lies the intersection of blind justice and show biz. It is a cynical spot to be sure, but also extremely entertaining, thanks to composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, director-choreographer Denis Jones and a skilled Maltz Jupiter Theatre company of performers and designers.
Jones’s ministrations give a new vigor to “I Can Do That,” the athletic song for ball-of-fire Mike (Trevor Michael Schmidt) and a balletic flow to “The Music and the Mirror,” the big solo accorded Cassie (Emily Tyra), the humbled, sidelined star trying to earn her way back into the business. And the sprawling centerpiece coming-of-age song, “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love,” reveals anew in gawky gestures and herky-jerky shuffles the endless awkwardness of adolescence.
… and direction and choreography by Denis Jones that conjures the bustling energy and high spirits of golden-age Hollywood musicals, “Chasing Rainbows” won me over. I highly recommend it.
… while Denis Jones (Honeymoon in Vegas) provides the sterling choreography. A dance combination from the show-within-the-show’s director/choreographer—“bounce bounce bounce bounce, Fosse arm, Fosse arm” etc.—is so outlandishly successful that they manically repeat it several times. Word to the wise: don’t rush out early in the curtain call.
But it’s the ministrations of choreographer Jones (of Holiday Inn and Honeymoon in Vegas) that most delight the crowd. Let us add that two hapless Local 802 members are pulled from their saxophones and forced downstage in Tyrolean hats to play ocarinas, and I can’t imagine that the lowly mouth organ has ever received such repeated roars from the house on every blessed note.
Things get dusty if you don’t brush them off now and then, and Jones has brushed and polished “A Chorus Line” with genuine insight.
The choreography was gorgeously put together by Denis Jones and was the highlight of the production, especially his work on two numbers, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Step in Time, that need to be seen to be believed. Jones received a Tony nomination this year for his work on “Holiday Inn,” which was equally as fabulous and became the star of that production last winter.
Choreographer Denis Jones is the star player of the production, keeping things playful by finding dance opportunities with wheelbarrows, firecrackers and Christmas garlands — and nearly stopping the show with the exuberant “Shaking the Blues Away,” which evokes the best of MGM musicals.
The Muny’s second production of its 2016 season is a glittering and glorious salute to the heyday of the old-fashioned Broadway musical, dressed up in the contemporary choreography and very inventive direction of Denis Jones.
Denis Jones, the choreographer, deserves equal credit—he knows how to make truly funny dances, a skill given to few—and he runs so close in tandem with Ms. Stone that I wouldn’t dare to guess who did what.
I loved the fact that Jones’s period dances are performed by the small company slightly self-consciously, as though they were kids at a Miami Beach discotheque
But another, sweatier tutelary god of Las Vegas is on hand, too: Elvis, who shows up in the form of a deus-ex-machina chorus of parachuting Presley impersonators whom the choreographer Denis Jones knows just how to use.