I don't think the bolting for the exits proves anything. That's what Seattle audiences do, treat curtain calls (at the Opera and PNB too) like they were the credits at a movie that doesn't have the promise of Nick Fury coming out if they stay till the end.

Mr. Bumble was not a "headmaster." He was the parish Beadle (a lay official of a church), hence the hat and mace, who merely administers the children from the baby farms to the workhouses, etc. Headmasters are for schools. In this case the board would be the "headmasters."

Which leads to the second correction - Oliver Twist was not still the orphanage (baby farm) but a Workhouse.

Workhouses were for profit and run by a board of directors. Under the old English Poor Laws at age of nine children were considered old enough to work and they were taken from the Church and government funded orphanages and sent to work in the for profit Workhouses or factories.

And... well there are other small errors that I won't bother with.

While it's true the musical took great liberty on Dickens original, a review that is accurate with the historical details that the musical DID bother to keep lends much more aggressive resonance and texture to the characters and their motives. And it's hard to take a review seriously that get's so many basic facts of the story incorrect.

It may have been tedious as hell. But the reviewer could have bothered to read the god damned program to get the character titles and settings correct.

Now it's possible it was all so tedious that Frizzelle was in an hypnotic state when sat down to write. But its not too much to expect a theater critic to have a passing familiarity with the English literature canon- including Dickens and Oliver Twist in particular, or at least understand basic fucking fact checking and editing when he dedicates an entire page to a scathing review. He is the god damned editor of the paper, after all.

Hahaha

I can't believe they cut "That's Your Funeral". Allen would have sung the hell out of that.

I bolted for the exits at the last note of Anything Goes (which I thought rather dull) due to the abject terror of being caught in an hour-long traffic-jam getting out of the nearby parking garage. It worked.

The "boy" in the picture appears to be a young adult woman or adult F to M transgender person. Or just poor lighting and makeup?

I agree that this production was dull and uninspiring. The cast advanced to the front and did their number and then moved back to prepare for the next number.

And how could they chop "It's Your Funeral"? To save 5 minutes? Why o why would they chop one of the most clever songs after "Review the Situation". They also chopped "I Shall Scream" - why?

Youth Theatre Northwest with its child cast did better a few years ago.