SHOWSTOPPER
What the Critics Say
SHOWSTOPPER opened to packed houses and great reviews with its Los Angeles World Premiere! Audiences loved the show and the positive word of mouth was hard to stop! Critics were equally as impressed, but don't take our word for it, see for yourself!
Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros,
NoHo Arts District:
“Showstopper is utterly sublime and musically blissful…truly entertaining and thought provoking.”
“Showstopper is a show about how to survive being a showman. But it is also about how to survive as a human being.”
“Gary Stockdale performs as Jerry Rockwell, and he is astonishingly and often brutally authentic. Superb in fact. I absolutely loved this unique and heartrending play about an artist just being an artist. Beautiful, funny, real and highly entertaining! Bravo, Gary Stockdale, Spencer Green and Matthew Leavitt! Bravo!!!”
Showstopper was nominated for six Broadway World Awards: Best Cabaret/Concert/Solo Performance (Gary Stockdale); Best Musical; Best New Play or Musical; Best Direction of a Musical; Best Performer in a Musical (again, Gary Stockdale); and Best Solo Production.
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Ernest Kearney,
Stage and Cinema:
“The songs…run the gamut from ballads to jingles—but all resonate with emotional sincerity and intellectual sharpness.”
“…the show is well balanced between reminiscences and tunes, and presented to the audience with a skill and subtlety that never overloads either.”
“The offerings of Stockdale and Green never disappoint—and at times even hint at a concurrence of Sondheim and Lehrer.”
“But layered within the stories of Rockwell trying to compose the perfect “showstopper” are the tales of him trying to compose himself: as an artist, a husband, a father, and ultimately a human being. Here, Stockdale manages to capture and convey the simple truth—that artist or not, this is a blank canvas we all must face.”
