Pretty Woman The Musical has arrived at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre for a three-week run, and if you love the 1990 movie it’s based on as much as I do, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll enjoy its Broadway adaptation. Just don’t expect the First National Tour’s leading lady to fill Julia Roberts’ thigh-high boots.

New York critics may have found fault with book writers Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton for replicating their movie screenplay scene for scene, but for this reviewer at least, much of the pleasure of seeing Pretty Woman live on stage lies in the thrill of reliving moments that made the movie one to watch and rewatch and then rewatch again.

“Welcome To Hollywood” sets the scene for what’s to come, introducing us to megabucks businessman Edward Lewis (Adam Pascal) and his lawyer/friend Phillip Stuckey (Matthew Stocke) at a posh Hollywood shindig, and to Vivian Ward (Olivia Valli) and her fellow hooker/best gal pal Kit De Luca (Jessica Crouch) turning tricks somewhere on Hollywood Blvd.

Unless by some strange chance you’ve never seen Pretty Woman The Movie, you know what comes next, so I won’t go into any plot synopsis except to remind you that Edward agrees to pay Vivian $3000 to keep him company in and out of bed for the length of his week-long stay in La La Land.

Pick a favorite scene from the movie, and you’ll find it in Pretty Woman The Musical.

Vivian goes shopping on Rodeo Drive and gets treated like trash by a couple of snooty saleswomen. Check. Beverly Hills Hotel manager/fairy godfather Barnard “Barney” Thompson (Kyle Taylor Parker) arranges for Vivian to get the wardrobe of her dreams. Check. Vivian returns to Rodeo Drive for revenge. Check. The list goes on and on, all the way up to the movie’s much quoted “She saves him right back.”

But Pretty Woman The Musical isn’t just a carbon copy of the movie like Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage was.

It adds a catchy original rock score by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance and one fabulous dance number after another choreographed by director/Broadway legend Jerry Marshall, all of this adding up to a crowd-pleasing musical for those who, like me, couldn’t care less that what they’re seeing in 2022 is almost exactly what they saw back in 1990 (or on VHS or DVD or Disney+ since then), this time round performed by a 95% perfect Broadway-caliber cast.

Leading man Pascal gives Richard Gere a run for his money as the suave, charming, dashingly handsome Edward, and the Rent legend has a voice that’s perfectly suited for rock ballads like the very Bryan Adams-esque “Freedom.”

Parker does dynamic, charismatic double duty as Happy Man and Barney, Crouch is a statuesque sizzler as Kit (with power pipes to match), Stocke makes for an appropriately smarmy Phillip, and Christian Brailsford is a terrific David Morse.

Last but not least among featured players, Amma Osei shows off a glorious operatic soprano as Violetta and newcomer Trent Soyster proves the most adorable of scene stealers as bellboy Giulio, whose dance duet with Barney is an unexpected showstopper.

Anju Cloud (Amanda, Scarlett), Nella Cole, Michael Dalke, Christian Douglas (Fred, Alfredo), Carissa Gaughran (Susan, Erica), dance captain/fight captain Joshua Kenneth Allen Johnson (Senator Johnson), Chris Manuel (Landlord), swing Keyonna Knight (Rachel), Kaylee Olson, Osei, Alice Reys, Jonathan Ritter, Soyster, and Brent Thiessen add up to a triple-threat ensemble to match Broadway’s best.

And then there’s Frankie Valli’s granddaughter Olivia, who’s a sensational singer and a more than capable actress, but Julia Robert she’s not, which might not matter so much if so much if the success of Pretty Woman The Movie hadn’t depended on the unique attributes Roberts brought to the role.

Julia’s Vivian may have walked the streets to pay the bills, but with a smile to light up a room and a laugh that was positively contagious, she was first and foremost the girl next door, and the role made Roberts a superstar.

Valli’s Vivian, on the other hand, is never anything other than a tough chick out of Jersey, in other words the exact opposite of the Vivian with whom moviegoers fell in love, and try as I might, I never did fall under Valli’s spell the way I’m guessing I would have fallen for the Broadway original’s Samantha Barks.

Kenneth Posner and Philip S. Rosenberg’s lighting is a vibrantly hued stunner and Gregg Barnes adeptly recreates Vivian’s iconic movie costumes (from hooker-wear to Rodeo Drive couture) while adding countless late-1980s outfits for leads and supporting players alike, and hair designer Josh Marquette does precisely the same where wigs are concerned. Add to this Fiona Mifsud’s makeup and John Shivers’ crystal-clear sound design and you’ve got a First National Tour design that’s all-around first-rate (with the slight exception of David Rockwell’s set, stylish and easy on the eyes a bit too bus-and-truck-tour-looking for a multimillion-dollar Broadway musical).

Assistant dance captain EM Hadick, Knight, Devon McCleskey, Hillary Porter, and Jonathan Young are swings. DR Bonds is associate director and Rusty Mowery is assistant choreography.

Pretty Woman The Musical features music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations by Will Van Dyke. Daniel Klintworth is music director. J. Allen Suddeth is fight director. RL Campbell is production stage manager.

I enjoyed Pretty Woman The Musical a lot. It brought back fond memories and created new ones. It’s a musical I’ll gladly see again and again as soon as the rights are released to regional theaters. I just hope that the next time I see it, it will be with a Vivian who steals my heart the way Julia Roberts did thirty-two years ago.

Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood.
www.BroadwayInHollywood.com

–Steven Stanley
June 17, 2022
Photos: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade

Tags: Broadway In Hollywood, Bryan Adams, Dolby Theatre, J.F. Lawton, Jim Vallance, Los Angeles Theater Review, Segerstrom Center For The Arts