Written by orange• August 4, 2024• 5:56 am• Irvine, Musical, Review, Theater, Uncategorized

My (Unauthorized) Hallmark Movie Musical @ Irvine Theatre Company – Review

Photo Credit: Sam Wilkerson

Written by Patrick Chavis

Irvine Theatre Company presents: My (Unauthorized) Hallmark Movie Musical, playing now in Irvine for its Orange County premiere July 26 – August 10, 2024.

It’s less of a play and more like a movie with built-in distractions. My (Unauthorized Hallmark Movie Musical) is a thinly written one-person show with a charming performer in Eloise Coopersmith. Still, even with her charm, the show misses the mark on delivering the cheesy, fun-hearted, heartwarming schmaltz we all love (maybe I’m speaking for myself here), especially around Christmas.

Story:

My (Unauthorized Hallmark Movie Musical) is about a writer, played by Eloise Coopersmith, who is frustrated with her life and her usual work in real estate. Instead of escaping into one of her favorite Hallmark movies, the writer decides to take control and write her own Hallmark movie, but it’s a musical, so she sings while she does it. The rest is an actual movie that follows Coopersmith’s performance. The film follows Emma, played by Nina Herzog, a younger stand-in for the writer to live vicariously through as she goes through many Hallmark/romcom tropes while breaking some genre stereotypes.

As mentioned earlier in the review, this show alternates between a pre-recorded movie and Coopersmith, and the timing between the video and Coopersmith was fantastic. They timed it so well that you almost felt like maybe someone from the film would have popped out to surprise the audience — missed chance. Still, it is indisputable that the timing from Coppersmith was performed incredibly well in this show. Once the video starts rolling, Coopesmith’s part in this, despite being her show, seems to doddle away, making this feel more like a movie with some commentary that pops up occasionally. This show screams for Coopersmith to do more performing or singing more on stage.

However, her role is limited by the video interludes. That being said, some of these interludes are pretty funny, and the video production quality of some of these scenes are Hallmark quality. However, the sets upon which the performances were shot were not. These were bland backdrops. We have Hollywood, the film industry, and we couldn’t find better backdrops for the film? Hallmark is not a mark in quality when filming gorgeous backdrops, but it’s better than this.

Lighting/Set Design:

The lighting design was quite dramatically attractive in some instances, like during the villain song “Never/Always,” which featured dark red lighting. However, on multiple occasions, the glaring, pointed light on the video screens made it hard to see the visuals.

The warm, homelike environment of the stage matched Eloise’s personality and the kind of experience this show presented well.

Songs:

“Cheesy,” the first song in the musical, is sung by Coopersmith at the beginning. What a great way to start the musical! The Ghouls have a fun tune in “Never/Always,” which is sung by Maestro ( Benjamin Perez) and Prince Holly (Andrew Joseph Perez and the Ghouls).