Customer Reviews

13 (Double Disc Including Karaoke)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a really sweet, funny musical. The kids involved in this show are extreemly talented with a couple being standouts. The cd includes a couple of songs that were dropped from the show. "Opportunity" is perhaps one of the best songs in the show and it was dropped. Maybe if they would have left the show intact it would have played longer on Broadway. I saw the show two weeks before it closed and I really liked it. I hope it has a long life with tours and local theater because the story and the music are both very good.

Jason Robert Brown outdoes himself with 13. The only work he's done equal to it is Songs For a New World. I wish that more people could see the genius behind this work. I don't think everybody realizes how grown-up 13 year olds are. 8th or 9th graders know WAYY more that people think they do and can speak quite eloquently when they want to

BRAVA JASON ROBERT BROWN!!!!!

Extremely talented kids. The voices of Patrice and Eddie are completely phenomenal, and Lucy (although she's a bad girl) can sing a rumor like nobody's business. My nine-year-old was a little freaked out by the "scary movie" scene, but it was overall a high-energy, upbeat, enjoyable show. Enjoy!

The Broadway Cast Album boasts some lively,tuneful songs by Jason Robert Brown who also provided the witty and clever lyrics...but perhaps a bit too clever and witty coming from the mouths of 13 year olds. It has been many moons since I was thirteen and perhaps times have changed but at that age I can't recall me or my contemporaries rhyming exotic with neurotic. The cast are all unknowns but they acquit themselves really well and have lots of energy but I was especially impressed with Allie Trimm who plays Patrice.

The main thrust of the show revolves around Evan a young Jewish lad from New York about to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah whose life is turned upside-down when his father leaves his mother for a stewardess. Mother takes Evan and transplants them to a small town in Indiana. Evan decides to gain acceptance faster by trying to impress the older and cooler kids at school. He also hopes this acceptance will make for more guests at his post-poned Bar Mitzvah. The rest of the story involves new friends, betrayal,and Evans scheme to arrange a date for a lunkhead school jock named Brett who is anxious to give Kendra a cheerleader, "the tongue".

The show has not caught on but who is the target audience? It's too grown-up for 13 year olds and too childish for grown-ups. This little red-riding hood of a show would probably be more suited to a small regional theatre than the big,bad wolf that is Broadway.

All in all this a pleasant listening experience but will never be a classic and probably will not be the type of musical I would listen to over and over again.

My Broadway obsessed teenager requested this CD, and since listening to it several times, I am quite impressed with the production. Good for 13 year olds and 43 year olds! It has now got me wanting to see the show.

How sad that this show flopped. Not Brown's best work, but from out of left field comes this bright and charming show. My hunch is that junior high school theater groups will adopt this show as a staple. High schools for performing arts have found the perpetual show for freshman and sophmores. The title song and the wonderful A Little More Homework to DO are extraordinary. The sly send-up of Motown seduction songs, Hey Kendra, is actually funny and touching in expressing the angst and horniness early teenagers' hormones collide. This is one album worth buying in these times.

It is unfortunate that this show was affected like most of broadway, and has closed. This cast recording is an extremely enjoyable cd and hopefully, the show will be revived as a traveling show at some point.

I'm still waiting for Jason Robert Brown to write a musical as worthwhile as his "Parade," but in the meantime, "13" is a fun diversion. It's not really ambitious, and it's a tad gimmicky (an ALL TEEN cast! WITH an ALL TEEN band!), but I'm thankful it's not pretentious, like his overrated "The Last Five Years."

The recording is solid from beginning to end, with no real clunkers-- it's a good score with smart lyrics, adding some freshness to what are really the usual teen cliches-- geek going for the popular girl, mean girls, sweet outcast girl who likes the new kid, everyone trying to "fit in," etc. When the jock character sings about giving the popular girl "the tongue" you can't help but smile--feels so quaint in comparison to the sexed up teens of "Spring Awakening"(and come to think of it, quaint in comparison to REAL LIFE 13 year-olds!).

Instead of the angst of "Spring," what we get here is a bunch of catchy, mainly upbeat songs sung by some very capable, and even charming, young performers. To be sure, a cd full of teenage singers (YOUNG teenagers at that) is not one I would expect to be replaying often. But what can I say? They won me over.

Surprising personal sidenote: According to my itunes, my most played song on the cd is "Opportunity," an infectious pop-rock tune sung with great style by the recording's vocal standout Elizabeth Egan Gillies. And wouldn't you know? Cut from the show.

While the score is solid, and the lyrics humorously convey the angst, joy, and myriad of other emotions that are common to the teenage years, the casting directors should have perhaps spent a little more time casting. The performances are uneven: there are several very glaring off-key moments, and several of the singers definitely could have benefited from more vocal training. A disappointing execution of a nice score.

The score is great, however the problem with this particular cd is that it leave out karaoke versions of the most popular songs in the show! "Hey, Kendra" and "It Can't Be True". Having the other songs on the cd in Karoke style and in various keys is great, but why leave these out?