Actually, Yoshi's my favorite

My family knows me pretty well by this point (after all, they've known me for 31 years), so when I told them that I'd be seeing a musical based on a video game, they were like, "Oh. Sounds good."

Super Claudio Bros. follows the story of Claudio and Player #2, his brother Luis. Once again, Claudio has rescued Princess Tangerine from Bruiser. But instead of a musical just riffing on old Nintendo games (which, trust me, there's a lot of that), the show gets into the characters--what's it like to be Player #2? What motivates Bruiser? How is life for Princess Fish (Princess Tangerine's sister)? Luis is really the main character, and his conflicting feelings about his brother are the focus of the show.

It was an incredibly entertaining show, but it wasn't perfect. At times it was hard to hear the actors (who were sans microphones)--the synthesized music sometimes drowned them out (particularly Gia Mora as Princess Tangerine). The music was good for the most part; the lyrics maybe could've used a little work. It actually reminded me of the musical episode of Scrubs; one of the songs made me think of "What's Going to Happen?" from that episode (so that I wound up with that in my head, mostly because I'm more familiar with that song than the music from Super Claudio).

I had high expectations, because the show stars Sam Ludwig (Luis) and Stephen Gregory Smith (Claudio), and I'm a big fan of both of those guys. And they didn't disappoint. The acting all around was very well done. Ludwig has really impressed me since his turn as Tobias in Sweeney Todd and he brought a real depth to this role. Lauren Williams was super fun as Princess Fish. I realized that I had seen her as Little Red in Into the Woods, and ...yes. It totally makes sense. The two characters are similar and she brings a real likability to the role. Matthew A. Anderson as Bruiser was hilarious. And Smith? I can't say anything bad about the guy. He's just a very consistently good singer and actor. I particularly enjoyed his dancing in a number toward the end of the show.

It was such a fun time out. Really, you can't ask for more from a show than fun music, good acting, an incredibly funny script, and nerdy in-jokes.