“INCLUSIVE COMPANY BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO 50 YEAR-OLD CLASSIC”

“As Porchlight’s artistic director, Michael Weber, shared in the before-show Behind the Show Backstory, 1776 met with resistance and dismissal before finding its footing and going on to acclaim, success, and three Tony awards in 1969. In my conversations with other musical theater lovers over the years, it’s clear that 1776 remains an acquired taste, often seeming dated in structure and tone, a problem not helped by casting. I saw the 1998 off-Broadway revival, as well as its Broadway transfer cast, and there wasn’t a single non-white cast member in the lot.

Porchlight solved for that, and a little more, in their exclusive 3-performances-only staging, which ran from November 14-15 as a part of their wonderful Porchlight Revisits series, which “celebrates the lost musical gems of the Great White Way.” Cleverly costumed by Casey Woods as a modern piece for 4/5 of the musical’s 2+ hour run time (presented, as originally conceived in 1969, with no intermission), Weber nudged the audience to see the parallels in the Founding Fathers and their in-fighting and ideological misalignments. Most pointedly, the courier bringing news from the front, barely acknowledged by any of the lawyers and landowners, was dressed in modern Army fatigues and played by a young black actor, Nolan Robinson II; his performance of ‘Mama, Look Sharp’ was appropriately haunting while stirring thoughts of the continued challenges America faces to support its battle-scarred vets once they are home.”

Jessie Bylander, Splash Magazines