As I walked up to will call about thirty minutes to showtime, I was astounded at the line of people to the right of the Crown Theater entrance. "Damn! Is it like this every night?" I asked the box office person. "Every Saturday night." he said. You'd think that the actual "King of Pop" himself was about to hit the stage. Fortunately, I had golden circle seats and avoided all of that. Maybe tip the guys working the front to get in early and dodge that whole debacle or fake an injury, start limping and tell them you need to be seated immediately. It was 90 percent full.
MJ's Live? Four different cast members play him throughout the week. We were fortunate to see Justin Dean. The moves and mannerisms were as believable as they could possibly be. To his credit, I had a hard time telling when he was actually singing or lip-synching. He would switch from singing into his headset mic and then to a regular handheld throughout while still wearing the headset which was kind of weird but whatever.
The audience took everything over the top. One guy at the table up front was sporting a full on MJ Jheri curl hairstyle with sunglasses that he wore the entire time. At another table was an adorable 3 year old with his own plastic mic that danced his face off, and even did some pop star poses with the guitar player. Then there were the folks looking for a complete suspension of disbelief and going batshit crazy the whole hour. "OMG! We luuuuvvv you Michaaaaaaaaal!" Someone needed a Pepsi.
I can't find the exact word for all of it, but there was a fun, schlocky, "am I really being entertained by this right now?" vibe to the whole deal. Kids would love it. 3.5 stars.