HEAD OVER HEELS is the bold and fierce new musical comedy from the visionaries that rocked Broadway with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Avenue Q and Spring Awakening. Set to the iconic music of the 1980's all-female rock band The Go-Go's, it includes the hit songs "We Got the Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed," "Vacation," Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth," and many more!
It's a hilarious and sexy celebration of love in all its infinite varieties, told through the story of a royal family that must embark on an extravagant journey to save their beloved kingdom and find love and acceptance.
"HEAD OVER HEELS is simply an outrageously over-the-top good time. It may be the most fun you will ever have in a theater!" (Bay Area Theatre Critics Association)
Michael Mayer ('Spring Awakening') has done what he can to put a directorial shine on 'Head Over Heels.' Spencer Liff's choreography is excitingly volatile and the sets and costumes are expensively fancy, while the five-piece pit band is as hot as a runaway atomic pile. Bonnie Milligan, a delightful performer with pipes to die for who previously appeared in the 2015 production, nails best-in-show honors as the horrifically vain Princess Pamela, who searches in vain for a suitable swain, then belatedly figures out that she's a lesbian (GASP!). Everyone else in the cast takes care of business, and if you really, really like the Go-Go's, you might possibly find the results tolerable. I doubt there are still enough Go-Go's fans out there to make 'Head Over Heels' a hit, but stranger things have happened on Broadway.
To enjoy Head Over Heels, which offers quite a lot to enjoy, it is probably best to kick up your heels and put your head on hold. That's not to say that this saucy, boisterous musical doesn't have a brainy side, starting with its ambitious crossbreeding of four time periods: It grafts a 2010s queer sensibility onto songs from the 1980s-by the all-girl pop-punk quintet the Go-Go's (plus two hits from lead singer Belinda Carlisle's solo career)-and fits them into a 16th-century story that is set in ancient Greece. The dialogue, in iambic pentameter liberally sprinkled with thou and thee, contrasts amusingly with the unornamented lyrics of such go-to Go-Go's bops as 'Vacation,' 'Our Lips Are Sealed' and 'We Got the Beat.'
2018 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2019 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Bonnie Milligan |
2019 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | Head Over Heels |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical | Jeff Whitty |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Arianne Phillips |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Bonnie Milligan |
2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | Head Over Heels |
2019 | Theatre World Awards | Outstanding Broadway or Off-Broadway Debut Performance | Bonnie Milligan |
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