Here\u2019s the not-so-good, in order of increasing importance: shoving exposition into prosy lyrics. Compressing some plot elements so much that a viewer unfamiliar with the story might find it hard to follow. In service of fashioning comfortable musical-theater tropes, turning some of the book\u2019s nuanced characters into cartoonish simplicities. Worst of all \u2013 and I guess for the same reason: inventing a laughably pat romantic ending that amounts to nothing less than literary desecration.<\/p>\n
Plus \u00e7a change\u2026<\/p>\n
Right off the bat the show gets something right: Those were, and these are, \u201cdangerous times.\u201d With a \u201ccountry divided,\u201d \u201cjournalists charged with treason\u201d and the like, France in the chaos of Napoleon\u2019s fall, rise, and fall resembles our own time not a little. Theatrically, \u201cDangerous Times\u201d sets a mood of political drama that resembles that of Evita.<\/p>\n
![\"Norm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Norm-Lewis-v1_Photo-by-Shawn-Salley.jpg\")
Norm Lewis (photo by Shawn Salley)<\/p>\n
But what defines the tuner\u2019s tone more accurately, as it turns out, is the first romantic number, \u201cYou Guide Me Home,\u201d in which Edmond Dant\u00e8s, the future Count (a solid Adam Jacobs in brilliant voice), proposes to his beloved Mercedes. If Mercedes\u2019 merits are of anything like the caliber of Sierra Boggess\u2019 soul-gripping, precision-modulated vocals, who wouldn\u2019t propose to her?<\/p>\n
In fact the musical proceeds to make Mercedes much more of a focus than she is in the novel \u2013 right to its execrable ending.<\/p>\n
As in the book, Edmund (here in anglicized spelling) is whisked off to jail on what was to be their wedding day. He\u2019s been set up by his jealous shipmate Danglars (James Judy), who later becomes a financier, and Fernand (Daniel Yearwood), Edmund\u2019s rival in romance, later a war hero who becomes a (real) Count.<\/p>\n
The pair plot their evil deed in a borderline-hokey number called \u201cOne Small Thing.\u201d Enabled by the deceit of the local prosecutor, Villefort (a glorious Norm Lewis), their betrayal, and the setup for Edmund\u2019s ultimate revenge, is complete.<\/p>\n
The Innkeep and the Abb\u00e9<\/p>\n
Thrust into a dreary prison for reasons unknown to him, Edmund sings a plaintive \u201cIs Anyone There?\u201d The song being merely serviceable, my distractible brain couldn\u2019t help tumbling to \u201cIs Anybody There?\u201d from 1776. But Jacobs\u2019 impassioned delivery at the climax brought me back.<\/p>\n
Danny Rutigliano is a fusebox of energy throughout the show as Caderousse. But the character is most unfortunately rendered here as a comic and submissive Sancho Panza-type rather than the novel\u2019s gruff, cowardly yet threatening grump. Rutigliano also ably plays the Abb\u00e9 Faria, Edmund\u2019s fellow prisoner who, over the course of 18 years in their dank cells, educates Edmund in world culture and eventually leaves him the key to the vast treasure he has secreted on the forbidding isle of Monte Cristo.<\/p>\n
The Abb\u00e9\u2019s comically clever number \u201cYou Sent Me This\u201d is a highlight of Act I. The show makes of him more of a joke than I would have liked, but not as egregiously as it does with Caderousse.<\/p>\n
![\"Sierra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sierra-Boggess-and-Adam-Jacobs-v1_Photo-by-Shawn-Salley.jpeg\")
Sierra Boggess and Adam Jacobs (photo by Shawn Salley)<\/p>\n
Boggess is wonderful singing the fine melody of \u201cThis Stupid Heart of Mine.\u201d Karen Ziemba as Caderousse\u2019s wife La Carconte is equally good, and very funny, in her parallel number, \u201cThis Stupid Man of Mine.\u201d The synched songs with obverse meanings create just one example of the show\u2019s flowing integration of simultaneous and handoff scenes and numbers. Director Peter Flynn and choreographer Marcos Santana make these inventive manipulations flow beautifully throughout.<\/p>\n
Memorable Songs<\/p>\n
Lewis towers with the regretful Villefort\u2019s \u201cA Great and Noble Man,\u201d despite some clunky lyrics. Music writer Stephen Weiner is at his best in the bracing ensemble number \u201cHe Calls Himself the Count of Monte Cristo.\u201d Eug\u00e9nie (Kate Fitzgerald) and Albert (Jadon Lopez), the next-generation subplot couple, deliver a winning \u201cWhat If There\u2019s More than This?\u201d \u2013 but outside that number, the show takes the easy way out by depicting the former as something of a ditz.<\/p>\n
In the novel Eug\u00e9nie has an implied romantic bond with her (female) friend and music tutor, a minor character understandably absent from the musical. The show redirects that story element into an attraction for the mysterious and exotic Haydee (Stephanie Jae Park), the Count\u2019s ward\/mistress\/adopted daughter (the relationship is uncomfortably unclear, both in the novel and in the show). In parallel with Albert\u2019s own attraction to Haydee, the whole thing is played for laughs.<\/p>\n
![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Daniel-Yearwood-and-Stephanie-Jae-Park_Photo-by-Shawn-Salley.jpg\")
Daniel Yearwood and Stephanie Jae Park (photo by Shawn Salley)<\/p>\n
That\u2019s in contrast with Haydee\u2019s own tale, rendered by Park intently and sensitively in \u201cHaydee\u2019s Story,\u201d the show\u2019s darkest number and one of its best.<\/p>\n
Park is also good holding her own with Boggess \u2013 not a given \u2013 in another cleverly parallel number, the delicate and lovely \u201cIt\u2019s Not What You Think,\u201d another high point. And in still another good duet, \u201cGoodbye,\u201d Edmund and Mercedes part.<\/p>\n
But then \u2013 there\u2019s that ending. I won\u2019t spoil it. I will tell you that it partly spoiled for me this superb production realized by a veritable symphony of stage talent.<\/p>\n