The Music Man
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The Music Man

and the entire company shines in Denis Jones’s wittily elaborate dance sequences, especially Hill’s slyly seductive “Marian the Librarian.”

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TOOTSIE: A MAN PLAYING A MAN PLAYING A WOMAN PLAYING A
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TOOTSIE: A MAN PLAYING A MAN PLAYING A WOMAN PLAYING A

… 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.

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CALL ME MADAM: POLITICAL SATIRE 70 YEARS LATER, WITHOUT ETHEL MERMAN
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CALL ME MADAM: POLITICAL SATIRE 70 YEARS LATER, WITHOUT ETHEL MERMAN

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.

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'Holiday Inn' at the Marriott: A year of holidays all lead up to that Irving Berlin song 'White Christmas'
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'Holiday Inn' at the Marriott: A year of holidays all lead up to that Irving Berlin song 'White Christmas'

Director/choreographer Denis Jones re-creates his original Broadway staging for Marriott’s in-the-round configuration with brio and wit. In particular, “Shaking the Blues Away,” in which all manner of holiday paraphernalia gets put to creative choreographic use (including strands of Christmas lights used as jump ropes) is exhilarating.

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THEATRE REVIEWS: Holiday Inn
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THEATRE REVIEWS: Holiday Inn

Directed and superbly choreographed by Denis James, this show is filled with great music: “Blue Skies”, “Heat Wave”, , “Marching Along With Time”, “Let’s Take An Old Fashioned Walk”, “Cheek To Cheek”, and of course “White Christmas”. This is just a sampling of the powerful score. There is a number in the second act, “Let’s Say It With Firecrackers”/ Song of Freedom” that will knock your sox off! It is a show-stopper .

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Pre-Broadway Review: ‘Tootsie’ the Musical
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Pre-Broadway Review: ‘Tootsie’ the Musical

The choreography, from Denis Jones, a series of bounces and gyrations, gets satirized by Rogers’ Carlisle early and then makes those movements charming for the best number of the evening, a “Producers”-like tribute to the jittery excitement of opening night.

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In the boffo Broadway-bound 'Tootsie,' Dorothy sings
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In the boffo Broadway-bound 'Tootsie,' Dorothy sings

Still, “Tootsie” gets so very much right. It’s by far the best of this recent crop of Chicago tryouts: I’ve surely never seen a musical comedy so deliciously lampoon the familiar tropes of Broadway choreography (choreographer Denis Jones has both guts and self-awareness) and, by being so palpably warmhearted, it avoids causing any offense in an era much changed from 1982. No easy feat, that.

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Review: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre
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Review: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s new production of Crazy for You brings with it the warm heart and high spirits of the original. Denis Jones has re-choreographed the show to fit the Signature space, and he and director Matthew Gardiner cleverly utilize every inch of that space, with the action often spilling uproariously into the aisles.

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