The New York Times - Somewhat Recommended
"......since revisions have been overseen by the quip-meister Mr. Beane, they are often presented with a wink and a nod and invisible quotation marks. Unfortunately not everyone shares the same approach in this regard. Mr. Fontana probably strikes the best balance between earnestness and archness. The silver-voiced Ms. Osnes seems to believe unequivocally in her character, which is winning in its own way but doesn't quite match up"
Associated Press - Recommended
"...What's this happening in Cinderella's magical kingdom? Is that a challenge to absolute monarchy we hear amid the romance and dancing? My goodness, it is: There's a demand for democracy. Children, there's even a call for economic justice. What kind of fairy tale is this? In the hands of playwright Douglas Carter Beane, a quite fine one actually.... Beane has succeeded, proving he may be Cinderella's real fairy godmother. His script crackles with sweetness and freshness, combining a little "Monty Python's Spamalot" with some "Les Miserables.""
Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"...Reworked for Broadway from its bones as an original 1957 television musical, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella gets off to a halting start and takes some questionable detours. But this pleasurable confection overcomes its conceptual missteps with old-fashioned stagecraft, enchanting design elements, smooth direction and choreography, and most of all, winning contributions from an ideally cast ensemble...The quintessential element that the production gets resoundingly right is the chemistry between downtrodden Cinderella (Laura Osnes) and her lovestruck Prince (Santino Fontana)..."
Bloomberg - Somewhat Recommended
"...You can see light beaming from Laura Osnes at the Broadway Theatre, where she's playing the Cinderella of any girl's fantasy....Osnes has doe-eyed charm, a lovely soprano and whatever it is that separates a star from the chorus without trumpeting the fact. And in this first-ever Broadway production of "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella" she shimmers -- even when just about everything around her is flying off the rails."
Variety - Highly Recommended
"...Helmer Mark Brokaw...has cast this show shrewdly, with actors who can sing, get their laughs, and in one crucial case especially, even dance. That triple threat is Osnes...While her light soprano gives sweet voice to Ella, Osnes' acting chops and dancing skills make her as lovely to watch as she is to listen to...The cheeky humor of Beane's book comes from imposing modern sensibilities (and contemporary lingo) on timeless storybook figures....But all these clever alterations radically change the story we all grew with, the tale about how true love rescues a callously mistreated girl from persecution. Because the evil stepmother and stepsisters are no longer cruel or threatening, our fairytale Cinderella is no longer a despised outcast, the unhappy victim of her sad circumstances. For that matter, Ella is no longer even the hero of her own fairytale."
USA Today - Highly Recommended
"...The new production of Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella (* * * 1/2 out of four) that opened Sunday at the Broadway Theatre finds Osnes less surprisingly cast, but just as beguiling. The musical, appearing on the Great White Way for the first time, began its life as a 1957 TV movie starring Julie Andrews -- leaving the current star with a pretty big pair of glass slippers to fill."
New York Post - Recommended
"......this Cinderella waffles between conflicting tones: full-on romantic fantasy for the kiddie-princess set and a campy romp... Playing fast and very loose with the traditional story, Beane also injected many of his trademark quips... The kids in the audience may not be swayed by this stuff, or by the clunky plot about the quest for democracy a bore for older folks, too. What does work for everybody is the eye candy of Anna Louizos' oversize sets... and William Ivey Long's sensational costumes... And of course there's the unimpeachable score..."
Entertainment Weekly - Recommended
"...Luckily, there are some fairy godmothers behind the scenes who redeem this production, including Anna Louizos for her stellar scenic design and William Ivey Long for his gloriously ornate costumes. Long and director Mark Brokaw also stage how-the-heck-did-they-do-that visual tricks that transform Cinderella from rags into red-carpet-ready riches before our eyes. And on stage, several performances sparkle - notably the hilarious Ann Harada (Avenue Q's original Christmas Eve) as dumpy stepsister Charlotte. Of course, none of the young women seated near me were inclined to nit-pick as they rose for a standing ovation at the end. Never underestimate the power of a ball gown and glass slippers. B"
Bergen Record - Recommended
"......chock-full of visual spectacle... The elaborate dance numbers, choreographed by Josh Rhodes, are busy rather than exhilarating... There's also eye-catching story-book scenery, by Anna Louizos, and dazzlingly colorful costumes, by William Ivey Long... a marvelous, sometimes underappreciated, score... Things begin to bog down in the second [act], with Beane largely abandoning comedy in favor of drab, civics-lesson earnestness... The main plot, meanwhile, becomes drawn-out and repetitive... taken as a whole, "Cinderella" works, providing a solid and congenial framework for Rodgers and Hammerstein's wonderful songs."
Newsday - Highly Recommended
"...a jokey new book by Douglas Carter Beane talks, a bit too often, like a smarty-pants tween... And I had a really good time. Directed with a klutzy sweetness by Mark Brokaw, this is a gentle but not skimpy production... the cast is lovely with overqualified talent... Best of all is Osnes as a Cinderella of intelligence... The message is that people in power should be nicer. And pumpkins can't be carriages forever."
Wall Street Journal - Somewhat Recommended
"...The show itself is a gem, a compact operetta with a radiant score, and virtually every aspect of this production is right on target, starting with Laura Osnes, the star... So what went wrong? Douglas Carter Beane... he smeared cheap, jeering "Family Guy"-style sarcasm and faux-irony... all over the show, thereby wrecking it beyond any possibility of repair. It doesn't help that Mark Brokaw, the director, seems to have told everyone in the cast but Ms. Osnes to camp it up... you've got a musical that's resplendent whenever the members of the cast are singing and repellent whenever they stop singing and start talking."
NorthJersey - Recommended
"...To my surprise the Academy Awards came to mind quite often as I watched this glittery patchwork of a show...It wasn't just the parade of big-skirted, Technicolor dresses in the ball sequence that inspired such reflections, or the presence of a fairy godmother (poor Victoria Clark) in a humped, sparkly number that would have sent Joan Rivers into overdrive. No, the main and most affecting parallel is how these two productions were confronting the knotty problem of being both traditional and up to date in a culture that has no tone to call its own."
Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The fundamental problem with Douglas Carter Beane's perplexing, wholly unromantic and mostly laugh-free new book for this Broadway "Cinderella" - which turns the heroine into a social reformer like a better-looking Jane Addams, the stepsisters (Marla Mindelle and Ann Harada) into sympathetic, wounded creatures of thwarted desire, and Prince Charming (Santino Fontana) into a myopic dunce who needs his eyes opened to the poverty of his people - is that it denies the audience the pleasure of instant reversals of fortune....Not for the first time, Broadway wants it all ways - the hip and the retro, romance and self-aware sniping, Rodgers and Hammerstein melodies and atonal satirical jabs, a golden title for family audiences and yet something else entirely once their credit cards have been charged."
Time Out New York - Recommended
"...Cinderella has gained viability but lost much of its fairy-tale heart in the course of its extreme makeover... A subplot about democracy raises social questions and lowers emotional stakes. But the show's young stars are hugely appealing: Laura Osnes beams with spunky virtue as Cinderella, and Santino Fontana, with his slightly skewed smile, is the rare Prince Charming with genuine charm.... If this production is no more than a lavish escapist family entertainment, it's no less than that either."
NY Magazine - Recommended
"...Beane's book is good-humored and well-tempered, and it stops just short of attempting too much. Why bother with a Chomsky exegesis here? Cinderella may not be an infinitely interpretable text-Beane's always on the razor's edge of ridiculousness-but every age is entitled to its own stock fantasies. Rodgers & Hammerstein's (and Beane's and Brokaw's) Cinderella is as solidly entertaining a commercial proposition as they come, featuring one of Broadway's finest ensembles and what might be its couple of the year: Just a couple of regular folks, the soul-searching blue-blood and the enchanted-orphan, trying to get along, and getting along rather well indeed."
Village Voice - Recommended
"...Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella--which originated as a light and lovely 1957 TV special--has been fleshed out with theatrics, jokes, a political subplot, puppets, extra songs, and anachronisms. The result is an unwieldy but crowd pleasing concoction that ends up being reasonably entertaining despite its jarring multiple tones."
Financial Times - Highly Recommended
"...the production is an absolute joy, marred only by occasional slowness of pace. Douglas Carter Beane, author of a new book, has streamlined the story, peppering it with politician-skewering humour... [Osnes] sings sublimely, and has something unteachable: sweetness that doesn't make one want to retch... Harriet Harris as the Stepmother and Peter Bartlett as the Prince's chief adviser give the kind of old-school comic performances that have come to seem as rare.. the tunes tend not to worm their way very deeply into your brain. But this weakness has a fairytale silver lining: you don't have to spend the entire next week resenting them."
Backstage - Somewhat Recommended
"...There are moments of theatrical magic strewn throughout... Unfortunately, they have little to do with Beane's ambitious but ungainly rewrite, which creates a musical at war with itself, failing to fuse snarky one-liners and self-consciously with-it anachronisms with the romanticism of the source material. Despite three sterling performances and the timeless songs, lovelier than ever in Danny Troob's gorgeous orchestrations, the show never comes together in a satisfying way."
Time Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...an enjoyable show: brightly colored, high spirited and well sung. Laura Osnes is a fetching, if a little generic, Cinderella, and Santino Fontana puts just enough tongue in his cheek as the Prince. The production is opulent without being overwhelming... The score may not be A-1 Rodgers & Hammerstein, but it's still better than almost anything else around"
nytheatre.com - Highly Recommended
"...The good news is that Bean has retained the sweetness and humor, while allowing the actors to have more to play with... Mark Brokaw directs with a sure hand and has added lots of delightful touches throughout. The choreography of Josh Rhodes is twirling, buoyant fun, and shows off the beautiful costumes designed by William Ivey Long"
New Jersey Newsroom - Recommended
"...[the] much-loved TV musical has been blown up into a lumpy but loveable stage attraction. Whenever those graceful and well-remembered Rodgers tunes kick in, which thankfully happens frequently, all is dandy within the fairytale kingdom constructed by writer Douglas Carter Beane... Director Mark Brokaw's production at the Broadway Theater is somewhat encumbered by Beane's conflations... but it rolls along smoothly enough..."
TheaterMania - Somewhat Recommended
"...Will you have a lovely night at the of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, now at the Broadway Theatre? Sure... But, truth be told, the more-is-more approach of Mark Brokaw's 2.5 hour production often makes this first-ever Broadway rendition of the show far harder to fall in love with than its adorable heroine
Show Showdoen - Somewhat Recommended
"...Laura Osnes proves that reality television (Grease: You're the One that I Want ) can occasionally produce star material... the revisions in the current production... aren't unusual; I'm just not sure it makes the show any stronger. The best songs still are the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics... The show, as directed by Mark Brokaw, often offers a Barnum & Bailey mentally: here's the best show on earth... All of William Ivey Long's costumes support the fantasy and the finale-wedding gown offers the confectionery sumptuousness that a princess should expect. Choreographer Josh Rhodes' gavottes and waltzes keep the ball active and elegant--yup, it's a three-ring extravaganza... Ultimately, though, for a show about magic and romance, this Cinderella offers lots of spectacle but little enchantment."
Broadway World - Highly Recommended
"......a rollickingly fresh and funny new take on the tale mounted with spirited zest by Mark Brokaw; a little bit campy, a little bit sharp musical satire and a whole lot romantic, but from a different angle... Costume designer William Ivey Long's gorgeous and often comic creations include a stunner of a quick transformation."