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Hotchka previously reviewed Back to the Future: The Musical in July 2024, so if you want more background about the show and the movie, please head on over to that review. One thing to note from that production, Caden Brauch, who played Marty, got promoted to London’s West End cast of the production where he is still appearing as of this writing. We knew there was some star-power on that stage! Congrats to Caden on his success.
As you may know, Back to the Future: The Musical is based on the classic 1985 comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Stephen Spielberg, in which 17-year-old Marty McFly accidentally travels to 1955 after his friend Doc Brown ends up with a nasty case of plutonium poisoning, Marty racing to the hospital in Doc’s newly invented DeLorean time machine that kicks into gear when it hits 88 mph. Instead of arriving at the hospital, Marty arrives where he started but thirty years earlier, and his presence in the past creates complications that could affect his very existence in the future. And the biggest complication is that instead of his father, George, falling out of a tree and being rescued by the man who will be his grandfather, George falls on Marty and he is the young man who ends up catching the eye of Lorraine … who will be his mother. After seeing Marty in his purple underwear and thinking his name is Calvin Klein, Lorraine only has eyes for him, and unless Marty can get George and Lorraine to kiss at the Enchantment Under the Sea school dance, he and his siblings will be erased from existence.
That’s the long and short of it. Now, full disclosure, the first time I saw the show, unexpected road closures in DC made it nearly impossible to get to the theatre and by the time we finally arrived, thirty minutes of the performance had passed and Marty was already in 1955. Now having seen the entire show from start to finish … I’m thinking perhaps I came into the show the first time at exactly the right spot, because the first half hour is kind of depressing. Marty is basically told he has no future, and his sad home life seems to support that belief with his mousy dad berated by Lorraine and bullied by his boss Biff (just like Biff bullied him in high school), Lorraine has a drinking problem (which started in 1955 apparently), and Marty’s brother and sister don’t have much going for them either. The two bright spots in Marty’s life are Doc Brown and his girlfriend Jennifer. Once Marty arrives in 1955, the whole show lightens up and it becomes more colorful and, importantly, funny. There are a few caveats, which we’ll get to.
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Thankfully, this is a major touring production with impressive sets, costumes and special effects. There’s no way this show could be done on the cheap. Director John Rando, Scenic and Costume Designer Tim Hatley, Lighting Designers Tim Lutnik & Hugh Vanstone, Video Designer Finn Ross, Sound Designer Gareth Owen, and Illusion Designer Chris Fisher have done a magnificent job of translating the movie to the live stage in eye-popping fashion. The first time the DeLorean appears it seems to come out of nowhere, and the use of the video screens and the mechanics used to make it move, swerve, turn … and fly … well, that is real stage magic. While a lot of the ‘sets’ are painted backdrops, Doc Brown’s house is a fully realized, three-dimensional set packed with all kinds of little details impossible to see from a distance but it just works so well. Even more impressive is the high school scenes that begins in a locker room and transitions to the cafeteria and then a classroom and keeps moving during a chase, using a clever combination of a turntable stage and the video wall background, the two in sync to give you a real sense of motion while you’re sitting in your seat. Probably one of the best uses of a video wall I’ve seen outside of the Peter Pan flight scene. Of course, the DeLorean is the highlight and the climactic moment as Marty is racing to get back to 1985 really makes the whole show worthwhile. One other thing I really appreciated was the inclusion of a lot of Alan Silvestri’s score from the movie, giving the show a nostalgic vibe (unlike the Beetlejuice musical which uses not a single note of Danny Elfman’s score from the movie).
While the production is top notch, the performances are where some of the issues lie. I’m not going to be too harsh because this is a gruelling show that basically gives the cast a day off between cities (for instance, after the show ends in Baltimore on March 1, they are back on the boards in Memphis March 3, and they don’t get a real break until April 6) so I can imagine they are running on fumes at this point but still giving it their all … sometimes a little too much to overcompensate for the exhaustion? Lucas Hallauer has taken on the role of Marty, and he occasionally resorts to volume as comedy, and he has a habit of making a look of surprise by forming an ‘O’ shape with his mouth all the time, as if we the audience don’t understand when something funny or surprising is happening. We get it! He does shine in his first scene with the teenage Lorraine, trying to get away from her and back into his jeans, really handling the physical comedy well. There are times when he gives a nice, subtle performance, usually with Doc Brown or George, but more often than not he’s working at an eleven and he needs to bring it down to a seven. David Josefsberg manages to make the Doc Brown character his own — Christopher Lloyd is a tough act to follow — so that it doesn’t just become an imitation of how the beloved character was portrayed on the big screen. He may be prone to a lot of one liners and dad jokes, but his musical numbers are always entertaining as he is always accompanied by a bevy of chorus girls (and the whole ensemble for his second act opening number) who just magically appear. Josefsberg plays the character very broadly, and he really does a nice job with the physical comedy in the climactic scene (Doc running up the steps to the top of the clock tower is still one of the funniest things I’ve seen, very cleverly executed by the actor and the effects team). Most importantly, Hallauer and Josefsberg work well together, and if we didn’t believe in their relationship none of this would work.
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Where things really improve is with the supporting cast. Mike Bindeman makes for an interesting George McFly. He is all awkward nerd in 1985 and 1955, really the same person 30 years apart. He occasionally resorts to histrionics to sell the comedy, but he completely grows into the character once Marty helps him build some confidence with Lorraine, and when he gets to show Biff who really is the boss, it changes their entire dynamic in the 1985 at the end of the show. I’m not sure I like the way he’s written by the final scene because comes off more as a D-bag than a successfully confident man, but Bindeman does a great job at playing George as written. Kathryn Adeline is the standout of the show. She is totally unlikable when we first meet adult Lorraine, but she brings such charm and energy to the teen Lorraine, making the audience fall totally in love with her. She is very funny in the bedroom scene with Marty, and the way she subverts all of Marty’s expectations (he thinks she’s a ‘good girl’ who would be repulsed by the suggestion of ‘parking’) brings a lot of humor to the character without resorting to raising the volume of her voice. She easily shows her disdain for Biff, and even though it seems to happen rather quickly, her feelings for George after he takes on Biff feel earned and genuine. And her voice — perfection, particularly in the ‘Pretty Baby’ 50s-style number. Adeline totally steals the show.
Another scene stealer is Cartreze Tucker as Goldie Wilson, first seen as a candidate for mayor of Hill Valley, but when Marty goes back to 1955 he’s just an employee at the local diner with bigger aspirations than just slinging hash. When Marty slips that he could be mayor, he stops the show with his ‘Gotta Start Somewhere’ number (even if he did struggle to hit that final note at our performance, but we’ll chalk that up to the grind of the show). Tucker is the one cast member who was also in the 2024 production, and he was a standout there as well. Nathaniel Hackmann does a great job showing both the bully Biff (in 1985 and 1955), and the total change the character goes through in new 1985. He also has a really catchy Act II number, ‘Teach Him a Lesson’. Luke Antony Neville has some funny business as Principal Strickland, and Sophia Yacap brings charm to the role of Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer, but she too had some vocal issues with her first song, although she recovered nicely in her later duet with Marty.
Even though I saw Back to the Future: The Musical less than two years ago, this production had a slightly different vibe as the cast gave some different interpretations of their characters, some louder or more frenetic than they needed to be, perhaps not quite aware that they were being somewhat over-the-top if they are compensating for their own exhaustion, wanting to give the audience the best show possible but giving us just a little too much. That being said, there are some real standouts here, notably Adeline and Tucker, and the production itself is exactly what you want from a big Broadway musical, especially when touring shows have a tendency to scale things down due to the constant traveling they must do. Maybe it’s just opening night in a new city that made everyone feel a bit heightened — and they do go out of their way to break the fourth wall and drop in some references to the city (as well as mention the date of the performance as part of the story) — but in the end it all works out well, and from the Enchantment Under the Sea dance to the final scene, Back to the Future: The Musical is an absolutely fun ride.
Back to the Future: The Musical runs about 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission. Suitable for age 6 and up.
Back to the Future: The Musical runs through March 1 at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre. Other cities on the tour include Memphis, Nashville, Houston, Sacramento, Portland and more. Visit the official website for more information. Use our Ticketmaster link to purchase tickets.
Back to the Future: The Musical – North American Tour (2026)
Back to the Future: The Musical
Check our Ticketmaster link for ticket availability.
