The queen’s reign has begun! Tony and Emmy Award Winne Kristin Chenoweth has officially returned to Broadway in The Queen of Versailles, which is now open at the St. James Theatre.
The Queen of Versailles also stars Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham and is directed by Tony Award winner Michael Arden with music and lyrics by Academy Award winner Stephen Schwartz, and a book by Olivier Award nominee Lindsey Ferrentino.
The Queen of Versailles is based on Lauren Greenfield’s award-winning 2012 documentary film and the life stories of Jackie and David Siegel. From computer engineer to Mrs. Florida to billionairess, Jackie Siegel sees herself as the embodiment of the American Dream. Now, as the wife of David “The Timeshare King” Siegel and mother of their eight children, they invite us to behold their most grandiose venture yet: they’re building the largest private home in America in Orlando, Florida – a $100 million house big enough for her dreams and inspired by the Palace of Versailles. But with the Great Recession of 2008 looming, Jackie and David’s dreams begin to crumble, along with their lavish lifestyle. The Queen of Versailles explores the true cost of fame and fortune, and one family’s pursuit of the American Dream – at any cost.
Let’s see what the New York theatre critics are saying about the new musical…
Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times: Chenoweth is a wonder, sounding a little bit country whenever Jackie is most herself, as in “Each and Every Day,” a love song to the infant Victoria; taking her high notes out for a spin in “The Royal We,” a duet with Marie Antoinette (Cassondra James); and convincing us for a moment, in a turn-on-a-dime song called “Grow the Light,” that Jackie has recalibrated her priorities. Not so. For the central character of this tale, living out her American dream, there is no point of satiation. There is only a vast emptiness that must be filled with more, more, more. Preferably, of course, dipped in gold.
Adam Feldman, TimeOut New York: Like the rest of the show, however, the score doesn’t quite cohere; it feels like less than the sum of its parts. Arden’s direction provides good small moments but can’t provide an overall attitude the material lacks, and the production’s look is inconsistent: Christian Cowan’s costumes are great fun, but Laffrey’s TV-set design relies too heavily on a large mobile screen, and the finally marble staircase looks a mess at the bottom. The Yiddish word for The Queen of Versailles is ongepotchket: tacky and busy, with components that might be fine alone but don’t come together. If you want to see it, you should probably see it soon: Like all those unlucky French courtiers, this show seems headed for the chopping block.
Aramide Timubu, Variety: the play’s positive components do not make up for its faults. Broadway is the wrong medium for this story. Musicalizing the story does little to ground the audience in Jackie’s world and instead pulls and stretches the tale, when the themes alone could speak for themselves. The narrative would actually soar if it were given feature-film treatment. Additionally, adding the musical element further bastardizes this tale. Except for “Caviar Dreams,” the third song in Act One, none of the other selections are particularly memorable. Though the opening act is fairly intriguing, by the second act, the nearly three-hour-long performance began to drag, especially as the show’s tone shifted drastically.
Chris Jones, Daily News: I suspect some will want far more blue state judgment with their big Broadway night out. Not I. I’m all for a huge, morally complicated show that sends your head spinning through the mirrored funhouse of Versailles in Central Florida, musing on all-American achievement and aspiration and realizing family and friends are the only way to happiness.
CharlesMcNulty, LA Times: No one could possibly be working harder right now on Broadway than Kristin Chenoweth, who is bearing the weight of a McMansion musical on her diminutive frame and making it seem like she’s hoisting nothing heavier than a few overstuffed Hermes, Prada and Chanel shopping bags.
Naveen Kumar, Washington Post: In a way, “The Queen of Versailles” suitably mirrors Jackie’s extravagant unfinished estate: It, too, is an ostentatious token of excess that ultimately proves hollow. At least these particular horrors of capitalism potential ticket buyers have the option to escape.
Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post: Arden, who delivered a brilliant new musical with “Maybe Happy Ending” last season, drops the ball by juggling too many. The sub-Zoom call live videos as the documentary filmmakers shoot, an intellectually lazy 1661 frame story at the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette that should’ve gotten the guillotine in early development and unappealing staging on a drab construction site all come to naught.
Dalton Ross, Entertainment Weekly:
It’s a situation where Jackie has both won it all yet also lost it all at the same time, and the show seems prepared to end abruptly with its protagonist forced to confront her entire life’s mission that has left her at this crossroads. But the moment is fleeting, as the orchestra strikes back up, the sharp edge is dulled, the curtain falls, and audiences are left to ponder how a show so big could also say so little.
Sara Holdren and Jesse David Fox, Vulture: There is a two-hour-and-40-minute luxury-car crash happening at the St. James Theatre. If I were the litigious type, I’d be trying to figure out how to sue for whiplash. Instead, here I am staggering homewards, still trying to twist my head back into position after The Queen of Versailles. If you’re morbidly curious about the experience, you could try for tickets to the new musical by Stephen Schwartz and Lindsey Ferrentino, with Kristin Chenoweth glittering relentlessly at its center. Or you could save the money and have someone slap you back and forth with a large salmon.
Dan Rubins, Slant: if Jackie is the show’s complex centerpiece, the show is most moving in a brief aside, a monologue lifted from the documentary in which the family nanny (Melody Butiu) laments that she hasn’t seen her own kids in the Philippines in decades. Jackie might not grasp the fullness of her nanny’s humanity, but the creators of The Queen of Versailles would have done well to build an extra wing or two for these everyday people living in the socialite’s shadow.
Tim Teeman, Daily Beast: The Queen of Versailles doesn’t come to vanquish the Siegels or skewer their beliefs and lifestyle, or to contextualize or condemn Jackie and the bubble of crazy she lives in. She doesn’t face any personal or moral reckoning; she just carries on. What she really wants, why she really wants it, and what this musical really understands about any of it remains firmly concealed under those dustsheets.
Matthew Wexler, 1 Minute Critic: Even Kristin Chenoweth’s desperate charm can’t salvage this cringy musical about building America’s largest home—a Broadway construction site that never finds its foundation.
Joey Sims, Theatrely: Saddled with an unmemorable score by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and a confused book by Lindsey Ferrentino (Amy and the Orphans), Versailles glides by as bland bio-musical for much of its excessive runtime, the show’s perspective on Siegel meandering confusedly between misplaced sympathy and perverse fascination.
Bob Verini, New York Stage Review: That the show seems to want to have it both ways may bother some. Director Michael Arden, who has tightened things up considerably since a 2024 Boston tryout, controls the pacing and focus with his usual confidence such that audiences may not even register the material’s ambivalence. Me, I was content to revel in Schwartz’s score, perhaps the most heartfelt, varied and robust of his career; in the variety and inventiveness of the production’s scenography; and above all in seeing a genuine Broadway star at the peak of her powers. Chenoweth embraces all her character’s contradictions as if they didn’t exist, translating her own belief in herself into Jackie’s. Unforgettable, the both of ‘em.
David Finkle, New York Stage Review: Final observation: At a point in the 1970s, Schwartz had three shows running on and off-Broadway: Godspell, Pippin, and The Magic Show. (There might even have been a fourth—The Baker’s Wife.) Right now, he’s matched the three-record with Wicked showing no signs of ever closing on Broadway, this one also on Broadway, and The Baker’s Wife currently revived off-Broadway. Congrats to him for that kind of rare happenstance. Imagine the personal pleasure as well as the weekly royalties.
Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: “The Queen of Versailles” nevertheless largely comes off as the Broadway equivalent of a Reality TV show. The societal insights are either too brief, not deep or not new, and indeed the effort can feel too calculated, even disingenuous. (It doesn’t help that Jackie Siegel herself is an investor in the show.)
Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Theatre Guide: Make no mistake, diminutive Tony-winning dynamo Chenoweth works overtime. In short skirts and plunging tops, she showcases her comic chops while fully deploying her voice: big belt, soaring soprano, and warm, mellow middle tones. Like a timeshare broker, she’s up there selling her character and the show. (It’s a contrast from the documentary, where the real Jackie appears more low-key, not exaggerated or overtly performing.)
Mark Kennedy, Associated Press : Chenoweth, who was born to be in a spangly dress and center stage on Broadway, is perfect for the role, an always-welcome jolt of in-on-it theatricality, but is let down by dialogue that’s not as funny as it could be and with a character too unfocused. Despite an out-of-town tryout in Boston, “The Queen of Versailles” still needs the stage filled with construction workers hammering in yellow vests. It’s not quite completed.
Brian Scott Lipton, Cititour:
In the end, “The Queen of Versailles” really is the only show on Broadway that has everything but Yul Brynner – and it firmly remains a puzzlement!
Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: You don’t have to build a musical around characters that the audience wants to root for, but it certainly helps. The most human-shaped figure on stage is Sofia, the devoted servant who keeps the household running and spends a lot of her free time in the luxurious playhouse that the Siegel offspring stopped using years ago. Butiu gives Sofia some genuine dimensions as a woman who backburnered her own family to raise other people’s kids, but she never gets a song of her own to make her more than an accessory. (Stephen DeRosa and Isabel Keating, meanwhile, are wasted as Jackie’s salt-of-the-earth parents.)
Average Rating:
45.5%
.
