HUZZAH AND HO-HUM

The curtain speech at Huzzah! — which opened Thursday at The Old Globe — comes with bassoon and tambourine: silence thy phones, feed not ye actors. This bit of business tells you everything. The evening ahead will be enthusiastic, self-aware, and content to play within modest boundaries.

The cast

Nell Benjamin and Laurence O’Keefe, the married couple who wrote Legally Blonde, have set a family reconciliation story inside a failing Renaissance festival. Two sisters, long estranged, must save their father’s business. The premise could not be older. What makes it work at all is the milieu: guild rivalries, turkey legs, privies, the occasional Jedi wandering past the joust.

Leo Roberts as Sir Roland Prowd with the cast

The show has genuine affection for this world. Renaissance Faires appear here not as objects of mockery but as actual communities with their own codes and conflicts. That the musical also finds room for bawdy humor, a few barbed contemporary observations, and sustained jokes about what counts as authentic medieval behavior suggests writers comfortable enough to laugh at what they love.

Anthony Chatmon II and Liisi LaFontaine

Gwen, the sister who escaped to accounting, returns to find the payroll spent on Sir Roland Prowd, a celebrity swordsman whose mania for historical purity threatens to destroy what he was hired to save. Liisi LaFontaine sings beautifully as Gwen. Michelle Lauto (understudying for Cailen Fu) captures real hurt as Kate, the sister who stayed. Leo Roberts, a West End heartthrob with matinee idol looks and a beautiful lyrical baritone, makes Roland both absurd and seductive, no small feat.

Liisi LaFontaine as Gwen Mirandola and Anthony Chatmon II as Gareth

The score tries on different styles. Some songs land. “Dragons” works. So does “The World We Live In.” Others feel dutiful. The first act announces its destinations too early. The second act, shorter and nimbler, earns its ending.

Liisi LaFontaine as Gwen and Cailen Fu as Kate

Annie Tippe directs with speed and clarity. The maypole scene delights. So do the swordfights. Todd Rosenthal built a two-story festival gate where the orchestra sits. Haydee Zelideth‘s costumes do heavy lifting, creating atmosphere the book cannot quite sustain.

Kate Shindle and cast (photo by Katie Spellman)

The creators have cast Broadway veteran Kate Shindle as Anne Bonny the Pirate Queen, complete with the same severe black wig she wore as Vivienne in Legally Blonde. The callback is cute. The role itself gives her little to do. Peyton Crim and Anthony Chatmon II make the most of their supporting parts.

Beth Stafford Laird as Lady Alisoun the Healing Nun, Matt DaSilva
as Troubadour Tim, and Aaron Michael Ray as Guildenstern

Broadway? It is no secret this show is aiming for Broadway. Contemporary commercial theater, however, demands a memorable score, a wickedly funny book, or a star capable of transcendence. This production offers none of the three. What it does offer is a pleasant enough evening in San Diego, which may be all anyone should reasonably expect from a musical about Renaissance Faires.

Cailen Fu as Kate Mirandola with the cast

photos by Jim Cox (unless noted)

Huzzah!
Old Globe Theatre
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way
2 hours and 15 minutes with one intermission
ends on October 19, 2025
for tickets, ($54-$143), call 619.234-5623 or visit The Old Globe