Teal Wicks Archives - TheaterScene.net

Teal Wicks

The Cher Show

December 17, 2018

Elice is no stranger to biographical musicals. His "Jersey Boys" is still running off-Broadway. Here he was inspired to divide the eponymous character into three personalities: the Star (the sensational, charismatic Stephanie J. Block), the current, living legend; the Lady (Teal Wicks, fascinating in this bridge role), the mid-career Cher; and the Babe (Micaela Diamond in a gutsy, eager performance) the young Cher just discovering herself guided by her Svengali, Sonny Bono (Jarrod Spector, not a physical match to Bono, but a fine singer and actor). [more]

Finding Neverland

May 3, 2015

Directed by the usually innovative Diane Paulus (whose credits include the critically acclaimed "Hair," "Porgy and Bess," "Pippin"), "Finding Neverland" has been created by the numbers and its staging suggests a great many earlier musicals. The score by Gary Barlow & Eliot Kennedy, long associated with the UK band, Take That, and writing their first musical, is filled with serviceable and prosaic ballads and anthems (with many false rhymes) to pleasant melodies but none which really forward the story. With titles like “Believe” and “Neverland,” they often have an overly familiar feeling. While Finding Neverland steals shamelessly from the 1954 Jule Styne-Comden & Green musicalization of Barrie’s play"Peter Pan," it never comes close to the charm of that earlier musical. [more]

Piece of My Heart: The Bert Berns Story

July 29, 2014

Straight off a Broadway run in that previously mentioned jukebox musical, the magnetic Zak Resnick proves himself exceedingly capable of carrying a production. His Bert exudes raw emotion, boyish insecurity, and irresistible charm. Teal Wicks and Linda Hart shine by his side as the young and old versions of Bert's scrappy, sexy wife Ilene, respectively. However, the true honor goes to Derrick Baskin as Hoagy whose rendition of "Twist and Shout" gives The Beatles a run for their money. [more]

Jekyll & Hyde

April 29, 2013

Director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun does not seem to have trusted the material or wanted this production to be as different as possible from the original Broadway staging. While much of this Jekyll & Hyde is handled as caricature, the sets by Tobin Ost in garish red and black with their walls at steep angles resemble nothing so much as a color version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, without the expressionist weight of that story. [more]