Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Think Of HEAD OVER HEELS? Updating Live!

The Broadway-Bound new musical Head Over Heels began performances at San Francisco's Curran Theater last week and had it's official opening night on April 18th!

An inspired mash-up of posh and punk, Head Over Heels is an unpredictable, Elizabethan romp about a royal family that must prevent an oracle's prophecy of doom. In order to save their beloved kingdom, the family embarks on an extravagant journey wrought with mistaken identities, jealous lovers, sexual awakening, scandal and self-discovery, where everything (and everyone) is not quite what it seems.

The principal cast of Head Over Heels features Andrew Durand (Spring Awakening), Taylor Iman Jones (Groundhog Day), Jeremy Kushnier (Cirque du Soleil Paramour), Bonnie Milligan(Kinky Boots tour; Broadway debut), Peppermint ("RuPaul's Drag Race"; Broadway debut; the first trans-woman actress to create a principal role on Broadway), Tom Alan Robbins (The Lion King, original cast), Alexandra Socha (Spring Awakening) and Rachel York(Disaster!).

Head Over Heels features 17 of The Go-Go's iconic hit songs including "We Got the Beat," "Get Up and Go," "Cool Jerk," "Vacation," "Our Lips Are Sealed," "Lust to Love," "Head Over Heels" and Belinda Carlisle's solo hits "Mad About You" and "Heaven is a Place on Earth."

Broadway tickets are available via TheHudsonBroadway.com, by calling (855) 801-5876, or in-person at Broadway's Hudson Theatre (141 West 44th Street). Visit www.thehudsonbroadway.com for full performance schedule. For San Francisco tickets click here!

Let's see what the critics have to say!

Karen D'Souza, Mercury News: Overall, "Head Over Heels" bends over backwards to be as meaningful as it is fun, which is a fool's errand. As a journey of self discovery, the epiphanies don't feel earned. Plus, the '80s anthem "Vacation" gets squandered and that's just gnarly (and not in a good way).

Lily Janiak, SF Chronicle: If the calibre of singing varies, Socha's voice spins gold, especially on the lesser-known Go-Go's song "Good Girls," and York's weathered rock star timbre, with a yowl waiting to erupt from every note, is so perfect for the material you wish she had more numbers. But even with little stage time, she proves what fans already knew: that the Go-Go's music was ripe for musical theater.

Robert Sokol, San Francisco Examiner: If you don't know the music before you enter the Curran, you may not have many A-ha moments of '80s awareness at "Head Over Heels." Frettest thou not, though, for - Wham! Habemus percussio! ("They've got the beat!") - and they make it big. It's that kind of punditry, accent on the first syllable, mashed into iambic pentameter, with a broad wink, and tongue fiercely in cheek, that makes for a fizzy, athletic, stylish and very funny night of musical theater.

Chris Willman, Variety: The show could also be subtitled "A Very LGBT Thing Happened on the Way to the Masque" (masque as in 17th century court performance, and Masque as in the Hollywood punk club where the Go-Go's learned their chops - take your pick). That's one juxtaposition that's really anything but odd, since the Go-Go's and Carlisle have ended up amassing a huge gay fan base over their decades of breaking up and reuniting. The plot of "Head Over Heels" really gets underway well into the first act, when the lowly shepherd Musidorus (Andrew Durand), banished by the king from pursuing the princess Philoclea (Alexandra Socha), cross-dresses as an Amazonian warrior to get quality time with his unsuspecting sweetheart. It's a setup right out of "Some Like It Hot" or "Tootsie," if not time immemorial, but imagine a "Some Like It Hot" that just gets less and less straight until it ends with a succession of same-sex marriages.