★★★★½

Spreckels Theater Company continues its hot streak with a cool musical adaptation of a classic novel.
‘Little Women: The Musical’ features a spectacular lead performance by Rebekah Pearson in the role of Jo March, the young woman who dreams of becoming a writer, but whose gory storytelling instincts threaten to undermine her dreams—until she turns to the story of her own family as inspiration.

With crisp, lively direction by Thomas Chapman, and a beautifully spare musical direction Jim Coleman, Louisa May Alcott’s enduring story of love, family crises and individual determination is gorgeously and cleverly transformed into a stage musical that not only works, it often transcends the sometime plodding pace of the original novel. Let’s face it—’Little Women’  story has been rearranged a bit, with the bulk of the familiar tale of the March sisters now a flashback in Jo’s grown-up memory in New York (the NYC stuff comes at the end of the novel), where she strives to make a go of it as a writer, far from the home she loves.

It all works marvelously, and the music is exceptional, full of fun, emotion, and melody.

The entire cast is excellent, the singing is stellar, and the remarkably accessible storytelling aims straight for the heart, without forgetting that ‘Little Women’ the novel is also delightfully, humanly hilarious. There’s also a bit of sword fighting.

Spreckels’ ‘Little Women: the Musical’ is a must see this Holiday season.