AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

New York Times

Brothers in Flimflammery on a Continental Sojourn
It’s raining greenbacks in “Road Show,” the latest version of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s long-aborning, ever-evolving and eternally slender musical about curdled American dreams.

New York Daily News

Sondheim back on B'way with 'Show'
Stephen Sondheim's musical about the dreaming, scheming Mizner brothers has finally arrived in a full-scale New York production. It goes by the name "Road Show," the latest in a line of aliases

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Road Show
... “Road Show” probably is the least interesting show in the exalted Sondheim canon. Still, the Public Theater deserves much credit for producing the show.

Newsday

Review: Stephen Sondheim's 'Road Show'
...the 100-minute chamber musical is small and sweet and relatively slight. Despite the themes of greed and the betrayals and that ol' demon cocaine, "Road Show" is that rare creature from the genius who gave us, for starters, "Sweeney Todd" and "Sunday in the Park With George": a light musical comedy.

New York Post

Poor foundation for new Sondheim musical
You can't accuse Stephen Sondheim and John Weid man of having commitment issues. The composer and librettist behind "Pacific...

New York Journal-News

Sondheim returns to the 'Road'
Creating a musical from the lives of early 20th century brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner has engaged Stephen Sondheim for years. Now called "Road Show," it has been mounted at the Public Theater by no less a Sondheim interpreter than John Doyle. Yet the show seems small, oddly tentative.

Hartford Courant

Sondheim's Reworked Musical On A Long And Winding Road

Bergen Record

Sondheim's long journey steering 'Road Show' remains a bumpy ride

Philadelphia Inquirer

'Road Show': Offbeat, enjoyable Sondheim
The title suggests the wearying, shabby showbiz tour, the snake-oil carny con, the tattered vaudevillian hustle of a bygone entertainment. This is America - then and now - seen through the cynical, demanding eyes of Stephen Sondheim, who gives us in Road Show (a reworking of 2003's Bounce and 1999's Wise Guys) a thoroughly contemporary and deeply thoughtful entertainment.

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Stephen Sondheim's 'Road Show' opens at New York Public Theatre, and Mizners have the last laugh

Los Angeles Times Culture Monster Blog

Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's 'Road Show' finally hits New York
Odds are that many of the critics who went ape for "Billy Elliot: The Musical," finding it a testament "to the power of the human spirit" to such an extent that all flaws were forgiven, will approach "Road Show" with daggers drawn.

Associated Press

Two brothers are forever seeking success in musical 'Road Show'
Money showers the stage like confetti in ''Road Show,'' the exhilarating Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical that finally has surfaced in New York after a long, arduous journey that included several different titles, directors and casts.

Bloomberg.com

Con Men Mizners Scam, Sing in Sondheim's Traveling `Road Show': John Simon
"Road Show,'' the Stephen Sondheim- John Weidman musical now at New York's Public Theater, has had more titles than British royalty.

USA Today

'Road Show' is rich with despair
Feeling discouraged by the plummeting economy? Have I got a deal for you. ...
Money is literally raining on the Public Theater's stage, where Road Show (**** out of four), the taut, thrilling new musical by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, opened Tuesday.

Variety

Review: Road Show
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman have cooked up a strange and beguiling musical in "Road Show." "In America, the journey is the destination," says one of the enterprising early 20th century brothers whose paths are unconventionally mapped here. ... Is it a major new Sondheim work? No. But it's far from the failure its tortuous path to New York might suggest.

TheaterMania

Review: Road Show
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's long-aborning musical about two brothers in the early 20th Century is sadly deficient.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Road Show
The next-to-last thing a musical needs if it's been gestating for a decade is a different title, especially if it's already gone through three - that's enough to make you think the creators have no clue what they're writing. The last thing a musical needs if it's been gestating for 10 years is direction by John Doyle, who has yet to demonstrate with any musical he's helmed in New York that he's had any clue what their creators actually wrote. Road Show, the energetically uninvolving musical by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman that just opened at The Public Theater's Newman Theater, has both. .

nytheatre.com

Review: Road Show

CurtainUp

Review: Road Show
The Mizner Brothers never got their dreams quite right, but Sondheim, Weidman and Doyle have got it right--if not perfectly so, right enough .