Lucky Guy the Musical
Opening Night: May 19, 2011
Closing: May 29, 2011
Theater: Little Shubert Theatre
Welcome to Nashville – a town full of colorful characters all chasing after the very same dream: a smash hit record. To beat the odds and strike gold (or, better yet, platinum), it takes one great song, serious talent, or lots of luck – and preferably all three. Featuring an array of musical styles with salutes to Country, Broadway, Vaudeville, Bluegrass, Pop, and even Hawaiian, Lucky Guy weaves a tale of down-home dreamers and low-down schemers all willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top in the cut-throat world of Music City, USA.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
May 19, 2011
Thanks to two central performances that go a long way toward transcending the occasional placeholder melody and clunky double entendre (O.K., the more-than-occasional clunky double entendre), “Lucky Guy” is more fun than it ought to be.
READ THE REVIEW
May 20, 2011
Musicals don’t get much frothier than Willard Beckham’s Lucky Guy, now playing at the Little Shubert Theatre. And while this corny tuner has the potential to be a wearisome excursion into camp, it boasts a comic zestfulness that’s as refreshing as a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day and a heart as big as a stretch of a Midwestern plain, ultimately winning theatergoers’ hearts and earning their laughter.
READ THE REVIEW
May 19, 2011
Any musical that includes a Hawaiian number featuring that fabulous drag queen Varla Jean Merman sporting a Carmen Miranda fruit salad on her head can’t be all bad, especially when that show is supposed to be centered on country and western music. The two idioms—gay-influenced high camp and down-home regular-folks tunes—should mix about as well as oil and water, but "Lucky Guy," a nifty little show featuring book, music, lyrics, and direction by Willard Beckham, blends the disparate sensibilities into a hilarious, fun-filled spoof.
READ THE REVIEWMay 20, 2011
A new musical that opened Thursday at the Little Shubert Theatre, “Lucky Guy” blithely hee-haws along a well-worn narrative path: Seeking fame as a songwriter, innocent Billy Ray arrives in Nashville only to stumble into the clutches of Big Al, a greedy wheeler-dealer, and Jeannie Jeannine, a glamazon country music star on the wane, both of whom are in cahoots to steal the kid’s surefire song hit. Prosaic though his plotting happens to be, writer-composer-director Willard Beckham gives his script and staging of the musical enough of a comical rainbow twist to make “Lucky Guy” into an amiable hootenanny with a big emphasis on the hoot. The storyline is strictly heterosexual, but Beckham’s silly, frilly treatment of it is very gay indeed.
READ THE REVIEW
May 21, 2011
Hats off to anyone who can enjoy “Lucky Guy,” a country and western musical featuring a drag queen, a diminutive gay icon, and a story and score that could’ve been written over a long weekend.
READ THE REVIEW