A pop musical using the songs of the Go-gos with a plot drawn from the 16th Century pastoral romance "Arcadia" by Sir Phillip Sidney, "Head over Heels" takes place in a blissful kindgom disrupted by multiple love plots and an oracle's prophecy, involving mixed gender romances including some crossdressing, a threat to the ruler and a trip through the forest on the way to a happy ending. But in this production it's largely an excuse for a whole lot of queer joy with a bunch of performers breaking out in songs like "We Got the Beat", "Our Lips are Sealed", "Vacation", "Beautiful" and the Debbie Carlisle ring-in "Heaven is a Place on Earth". Ellen Simpson directs a clean fun frolicsome production on Josh McIntosh's adaptable set as identities are twisted, rearranged and meddled with all over the place on an adaptable space with clever units used to reveal, conceal and show off the performers.
Stealing a lot of the show is Shannen Alyce Quan as the princessy Pamela who gets carried away by passion in the most delightful of ways - they have a goofy pleasure in their performance that makes everything they do fun. Gaz Dutlow's high-drag oracle Pythio radiates power and poise at all times, setting up and resolving the situation with aplomb. There's also a lot of joy from Nancy Denis as offsider Dametus, mostly observing the consequences of the various nobles running around her until finally getting a part to play in the finale.
Musical director Zara Stanton keeps a tight rocking band working all the way through, and Ryan Gonzalez choreographs with 80s cheese aforefront as the ensemble moves tightly through the pop-rock classics. All in all it's 120 minutes of joy in pop-cultural form.
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