Playwright and filmmaker Tyler Perry launched his career with the kind of show that “Futurology the Musical” aspires to be: a pop tuner with flash, sass, and a moral tacked on at the end that soothes those in the crowd who didn’t appreciate the flash and the sass. Such “urban theater circuit” shows are not to everyone’s taste, but at their best they can pull you in with a combination of showy musicianship and raucous, cartoonish humor.
Before the first preview performance began, the show’s director, Charles Weldon, addressed the audience, apologizing for the rough patches he promised would come—and come they did. The biggest technical problem was a sound system that popped, crackled, hummed, and left the actors either blaring or mute. That can be fixed before future performances. It’s probably a bit late in the game, though, to do anything about some of the more essential errors.
The book—by Anthony J. Dixon and Sandra J. Barnes, who also co-wrote the workable but generic-sounding songs—concerns a young woman named Darima (Hillary Hawkins), who is supposedly torn between community-activism work with her affectionate boyfriend Gregory (Rodrick Covington) and her
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