Review Roundup: THE TAP DANCE KID at City Center Encores!

New York City Center just kicked off the 2022 Encores! Season with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun), the production also includes new tap sequences by choreographer Jared Grimes (After Midnight) and a concert adaptation by Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly). Broadway's Joseph Joubert (Caroline or Change) will guest music direct The Tap Dance Kid.

Joining the cast are Tracee Beazer (Carole), DeWitt Fleming Jr. (Daddy Bates), Joshua Henry (William), Trevor Jackson (Uncle Dipsey), Shahadi Wright Joseph (Emma), Chance K. Smith (Winslow), Adrienne Walker (Ginnie), and Alexander Bello as Willie.

The Tap Dance Kid runs through February 6, 2022 at New York City Center.

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Jesse Green, The New York Times: That "The Tap Dance Kid" is never sure which of the members of the Sheridan family it's about - the focus seems to change every 10 minutes - is just one of the oddities afflicting this tonally bewildering but intermittently appealing 1983 musical, which Encores!, in its return to live production after a two-year pandemic hiatus, is offering through Sunday at New York City Center.

Matt Windman, amNY: Truth be told, Wednesday's opening night performance felt especially rough and under-rehearsed, even for Encores!, where shows always receive a very limited amount of rehearsal time. The entire production has an aggressively downbeat tone. Dialogue scenes drag on. And in spite of the pleasure of having a large orchestra playing the score, the vocal quality and sound design are very uneven.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: The family dynamic is engrossing enough, and the story takes place during that period when Black life was finally being centered in mainstream American culture, a time when the ghosts of the past seemed to be receding, and an upwards momentum electrified every possibility. This all gets bogged down by the show's many, many numbers, with music by Dreamgirls' Henry Krieger and lyrics by Robert Lorick. These range from thrilling to pleasant but, with a whopping 23 songs listed in the Playbill, it soon gets exhausting. Every emotional beat heralds a new number, even for characters charming but secondary, like Dipsey's love interest Carole (Tracee Beazer), quickly draining much of the plot's tension and drive.

David Finkle, New York Stage Review: As expected, things, as well directed by Kenny Leon, work out eventually but not aided by too much of the Krieger-Lorick score, under the supervision of guest conductor Joseph Joubert and a 25-strong orchestra, Though Shahadi Wright Joseph, as Emma, brings passion to her songs, too many of them seem not only extraneous but mediocre and hardly distinguished by the other singers. Somehow, the songwriting team seems to hit a stride only when it's tap dancing they're promoting.

Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review: The contemporary aims of the score were suggested by the presence of composer Henry Krieger, whose Dreamgirls was still selling out at the Imperial when The Tap Dance Kid moved into the Broadhurst. The undistinguished lyrics came from a one-time-only Broadway visitor, Robert Lorick. The results, as can be heard this weekend at City Center, are fine when everyone is dancing; otherwise, they seem to be playing the same song with the same rhythmic beat over and over. The original orchestrations by Harold Wheeler, also of Dreamgirls, amplify the excitement. Guest music director Joseph Joubert, of Caroline, or Change, expertly whips up the Encores! Orchestra.

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