Someone really did leave the damn cake out in the rain.
That’s my metaphorical summation of “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.” Fans will recognize the allusion, and I’ll throw in one more for good measure. As we have learned over the past couple of decades, when jukebox musicals are bad, they are so, so bad.
“Summer” is a case in point. The hits are all here, performed by two gifted singing actors: LaChanze as the later-career Donna, or “Diva Donna” as she is denoted in the program, and Ariana DeBose as the earlier “Disco Donna,” when Summer’s fame was at its height. There’s a third Donna, too, the young girl “Duckling Donna,” played with mommy-daddy-I-want-to-sing perkiness by Storm Lever.
Review — Summer: The Donna Summer Musical — BN+ — Jessie Mueller — Sergio Trujillo — Donna Summer — Des McAnuff — Colman Domingo — Robert Cary — Giorgio Moroder — Sean Nieuwenhuis — LaChanze — Ariana DeBose — Storm Lever — Mamma Mia — Carole King — Four Seasons — Jersey Boys — Casablanca Records — Neil Bogart — I Feel Love — Love to Love You Baby — Judy Garland — Hair — Barbra Streisand — David Geffen
