THEATRE REVIEW

AUGUST 2025 | Volume 254

 

Krystle Dos Santos is a powerhouse. Give her a stage and a microphone—the girl can SING! Add a couple of dynamic back-up singers, a tight, rockin’ 5-piece band, and the Motown catalogue and you’ve got a very entertaining, nostalgic revue. But Dos Santos can also write, and the stories she tells about Black culture—in this case about the history of Motown—give the music even more life and depth. A History of Motown will have you clapping, singing along and even dancing. Who can complain about a history lesson like that?

Krystle comes out in a classy tight black gown with sequins, a white boa and full Afro. She essentially sings a Motown medley for two hours, the songs connected by her historical and biographical patter, photos of the artists projected on a scrim behind the band. And what a voice. Early on you get a taste of her power in Barrett Strong’s “Money.” She’s most impressive in the lower registers but can sing anything—and she does: Smokey Robinson, Aretha, Michael Jackson, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder. She has a megawatt smile, great energy, and takes obvious joy in the music, and in sharing the music. She also tells a charming story about going onstage and backstage with Stevie Wonder.

The first act ends with her own song, “Feed My Soul,” which is superb.

I have one complaint about the show, a minor one: the second act is too long and too much more of the same, one song after another. But I can’t complain too much because the songs and performances are so very good. Highlights include Dos Santos’ beautiful renditions of a couple more Gladys Knight and the Pips tunes. And both her back-up singers get solos. Sabrielle McCurdy-Foreman does an impressive “Son of a Preacher Man,” and Tiffany Rivera blows the roof off with Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” as the band rocks out: Cole Tinney on piano, Gavin Youngash guitar, Phil Bell bass, Jon Holisko drums, and Dominic Conway blowing his brains out on saxophone. At the end of the show the dance floor was just about full.

This show is a remount of the sold-out Firehall production of last April. This remount is selling so fast that it’s already been extended a week to August 24.

 

 

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