City Kid, the Musical to Play at the Hudson Theatre in Santa Monica, CA

Playing now and running through November 25, 2007 days a new play at the Hudson Theatre (6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles - 323-960-7863) which has generated a lot of buzz. This new show entitled City Kid: The Musical plays on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

This new play is heralded as a rite of passage musical about today's youth. City Kid follows the travails of Jimmy, an anxious new kid to the area who is eager to please. Jimmy tries very hard to get others to like him and this is the central crux of the musical. He falls into familiar trappings and ends up making enemies with Slick, the charismatic, albeit very troublesome leader of the city kid.

In traditional musical theater fashion and Jimmy also falls for a girl. This girl, Anna, is first a friend and then ends up promising so much more. As could be expected to this isn't much to the chagrin of Slick, and Jimmy and Slicks conflict begins to escalate.

Our poor new City Kid friend Jimmy is then drawn into a dangerous and risky situation where he is forced to make choices where the consequences are just as good as deadly.

In keeping with the long and storied tradition of musical theater of course there are songs to sing. People break into song for all sorts of reasons and this musical is no different. If they are considering heavy options or if they are wondering about what to do with their lives what better way to do it than to break into a song?

Much in the spirit of West Side Story, this new version of all the events doesn't really give us a whole heck of a lot of insight but is entertaining nonetheless. The Los Angeles Times calls City Kid "A hard-driving, high-amplitude morality tale about at-risk youths grappling with drugs, turf wars, poverty and the rite of passage to adulthood."