Not being a 10-year girl, I'm not sure how excited I could be about Cinderella, but I nevertheless found both the book & score to be fairly underwhelming.
Fortunately, they had a good director (Charles Repole) who toned down the camp and did his best to "humanize" the characters. It was a joy to watch Prince Christopher being less than thrilled about the ball to begin with. However, he was still forced to recite lines like "Your hair is the color that EVERY girls' should be." I know this is a fairy tale, but someone got paid to make the Prince say "Your name is the most BEAUTIFUL in the world!" Ick. Ryan Silverman (Tony from West Side Story '03) is good-looking and good enough to pull this off, but his lines still received laughs from the audience.
Deborah Lew as Cinderella was good if not too optimistic in some places. Lisa McMillen as The Wicked Stepmother and Joyce Chittick & Natalie Joy Johnson as the stepsisters were solid and provided some much-needed comic edge.
David Coffee was terrific as the King.
The costumes & set design were elaborate and beautiful. The choreography by Karen Azenberg was amazing and offered some excitement in a production that seemed more sleepy than dreamy. C-
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