Christmas comes early to a new Christmas musical!

Well it looks like The New York Times is in an Off-Broadway frame of mind! First, postive reviews of EVIL DEAD -- THE MUSICAL, then HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD AND FIND TRUE LOVE IN 90 MINUTES, and now STRIKING 12!

STRIKING 12 is a "thoroughly winning minimalist musical" performed by the indie pop-rock trio GrooveLily -- Gene Lewin on drums, Brendan Milburn on keyboards, and Valerie Vigoda on electric violin. Written by Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda, in collaboration with Rachel Sheinkin (who, if you didn't already know, is the Tony-award winning writer of the book for THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE), STRIKING 12 is described on the cover of the CD as "a rewired version of "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Anderson".

Charles Isherwood of The New York Times describes it in this review as "an urban fable set in the waning hours of a dreary year in the life of Mr. Milburn's character, called the Man Who's Had Enough"

He goes on to describes the storyline as follows:

Its sweet-and-sour story line is simple: The cranky hero is seduced out of his emotional cubbyhole by a visit from a kooky urbanite, played by Ms. Vigoda, who goes door to door selling "special full-spectrum holiday light bulbs" geared to keep New Yorkers from succumbing to seasonal affective disorder. Musing on her plaintive reaction when he brings up a comparison to the Little Match Girl -- "Do you know what happens in that story?" she asks darkly -- Mr. Milburn's character pulls out his handy Hans Christian Andersen. Forgoing an evening of trolling through the holiday offerings on television (cue a hilarious parody of "Law & Order"), he rereads that touching if gloomy tale, and it springs to life in song. The show then toggles between the urban fairy tale and the classic one.

I haven't seen the show but I have listened to the CD. It's a great score that stands on its own. You can still get into the feel and the mood of the season and the message of the show, without having actually watched the show. It's a really fun listen while you're driving around Christmas shopping, or at home baking Christmas cookies. And who doesn't love electric violin?

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