She was a girl from Boston with a voice from heaven, who shot through the stars from gospel choir to dance floor diva. But what the world didn't know was how Donna Summer risked it all to break through barriers, becoming the icon of an era and the inspiration for every music diva who followed.
Tony Award winner LaChanze (The Color Purple), Ariana DeBose (Hamilton, A Bronx Tale) and newcomer Storm Lever play Donna Summer, taking us through her tumultuous life, tempestuous loves and mega-watt musical hits. Spend the night in her electrifying universe.
Sadly, that's one of the few decent jokes in this tacky little show, a feebly dramatized Wikipedia page with lackluster covers, which was rushed to Broadway following a fall tryout at La Jolla Playhouse that received mostly tepid reviews. And yet it shows no sign of improvements having been attempted. Heaven knows it's not the way it should be.
And that's not even including 'Bad Girl' and 'No More Tears' ('Enough is Enough'); enough, when it comes to Summer, never really being enough. Not for we longtime fans, anyway. And unless you are in the parody business, you then need the actual life-story of the singer to have a structure on which to hang all of those songs, being as they express simple feelings, not complex narratives. So since you need all of these levels of permission from the flame, or the keeper thereof, to even enter the heat of the dance-floor, your chances of telling the warts-and-all truth are, you might say, limited.
2017 | San Diego, CA (Regional) |
World Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse San Diego, CA (Regional) |
2018 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2019 | US Tour |
US National Tour US Tour |
2021 | US Tour |
US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2018 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical | LaChanze |
2018 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Ariana DeBose |
2018 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | LaChanze |
2018 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | The Band's Visit |
2018 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | Summer: The Donna Summer Musical |
2018 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical | Ariana DeBose |
2018 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical | LaChanze |
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