Bye Bye Birdie: A Review by Isabel F.

I went to New York City over winter break, and got to do something awesome: see the revival of Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway. Birdie tells the tale of Conrad Birdie, a beloved pop star drafted to the US army, and his hardworking manager, Albert Peterson. Rose, Albert’s secretary and longtime girlfriend, has a brilliant idea for Conrad’s sendoff. She picks the name of one of the many Conrad fans out of a hat and draws Kim MacAfee from Sweet Apple, Ohio. Conrad will journey to Sweet Apple and give “One Last Kiss” to Kim before dramatically leaving for duty. This is supposed to raise enough money for Albert to quit the show biz, and of course Sweet Apple is ecstatic. Albert, Rose, Conrad, Kim and the entire town of Sweet Apple find themselves drastically changed by this experience. Birdie is a peppy, playful show with a lot of heart, soul and energy. There are many comic parts of the musical, like when Kim’s father (hilariously played by Bill Irwin) is raised by a crane while on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” The endless resources, costumes and sets a Broadway production has access to really made the show for me. In one opening scene during a number called “Telephone Hour” the teenage actors swung around in brightly colored telephone booths while singing and dancing. The singing was Broadway-caliber, but compared to others in that realm fairly average. I liked the contrast of lighthearted numbers with more tender, meaningful scenes. Natalie Hill played Rose Alvarez: she was the understudy for Gina Gershom but still did a fantastic job. She and Allie Trimm, who played Kim MacAfee, did a pretty duet in “What Did We Ever See in Them”. Conrad Birdie was portrayed by Nolan Gerard Funk, which was not very memorable for me, but he got the job done. John Stamos (from Full House) played a more relaxed Albert than I’ve seen before, but impressive nonetheless. There was one point where he started cracking up in the middle of a solo, which I didn’t mind as much as some would. Overall, Bye Bye Birdie could have been more clean and polished, but it was very entertaining and definitely made you “Put on a Happy Face.”