The amazing, incandescent, hit Broadway musical Moulin Rouge! The Musical is now onstage at Philadelphia’s beautiful Academy of Music until July 23, 2023. Winner of ten Tony Awards, and based upon a hit film, this amazing spectacle will thrill you every minute from start to finish. 

 

Imagine, dear readers, if the fevered brain of Baz Luhrmann were to take elements of Cirque du Soleil, Rent, La Boheme, La Traviata, Les Miserables, and Phantom of the Opera, adding great pop songs of the modern day, and the real nightclub still in existence, and create a hit motion picture. Then John Logan takes all of this (and a grand, green-hued absinthe hallucination scene) and creates a witty musical adding fantastic stagecraft and a host of accomplished and dedicated theatre professionals, and out pops Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

 

Still playing on Broadway with a terrific cast, Philadelphia is lucky to have a phenomenal North American touring company bring us a miraculously fine production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical. You will find it unbelievable that this entire production travels in an eighteen-wheel rig parked right outside the theatre. It must be magic and stardust, and a lot of talented creatives on the visual and musical teams, and tireless performing artists who appear to live to give only you pleasure. 

 

The story begins with an introduction to the world of Paris, 1899, with three artists with revolutionary ideas, which includes the famed artist Toulouse-Lautrec, and the demimonde of delights at the club Moulin Rouge. There’s the Emcee (Austin Durant), and the star Satine (Courtney Reed). Of course, the young, innocent, impressionable, idealistic youth (the hero always must be one) Christian (John Cardoza) immediately falls in love with the fascinating Satine. Also, naturally, there must be a villain, the Duke of Monroth (Andrew Brewer), who is evil, perverse, jaded, tall, handsome and fabulously wealthy. He decides that Satine will belong to him. And so it goes. 

 

The principals in the cast, Courtney Reed, John Cardoza, Austin Durant, Nick Rashad Burroughs, Andrew Brewer, and Gabe Martinez cannot be topped. They are all uniformly fine, giving revolutionary performances.

 

Adding to this magnificence is the fact that the first four performances of the run were specially-priced Pride performances with great seats discounted to a ridiculously low $49, with part of the proceeds to go to the William Way Center. 

 

There is a Lady Marmalade cocktail, an Aperol, champagne, and blood orange caprice, in homage to one of the dazzling featured numbers. 

 

One of the themes of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, is the phrase “Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love.” We can add “Pride” to that list, meaning “Gay Pride”!

 

You have an absinthe-green light to go to see Moulin Rouge! The Musical.