The perfect date show: ‘I Love You! You’re Perfect! Now Change!’

The Garner Galleria Theatre:
Through June 24

Denver Center Attractions’ record breaking I Love You! You’re Perfect! Now Change! is back and well on its way to a second long term love affair with the Denver audience.

This show is perfect for a date.

There are three new actors and one vet in the cast. Shannan Steele’s tragi-comic performance of the very first dating video of the newly widowed – I mean divorced – Rose Ritz is by turns funny, sad and soul-shredding. If your eyes are still dry at the end of this scene, your heart is out of order.

Otherwise, the show is filled with bright music and witty situational comedy mirroring the dating, mating and nesting habits of the young and the nestless. The three newbies in the cast are phenomenal talents one and all.

Robert Michael Sanders’ delivery of the most heart-breakingly tender song, “Shouldn’t I Be Less in Love With You?” is unforgettable. Mr. Langhoff’s performance as a hen-pecked husband who gets his mojo back while driving “On the Highway of Love” is a stitch. Ms. Lauren’s “He Called Me” and “Always a Bridesmaid” give her a chance to go all out with her outrageously brilliant comic acting and awesome set of pipes.

Sanders’ and Steele’s singing and hilarious acting of “A Stud and a Babe” provides high contrast comedy as a couple of delusional daters giving themselves a dose of reality therapy. Langhoff and Shealy are funny and touching as an elderly couple of lonely-hearts finding a second go at love on the viewing and funeral circuit singing, “I Can Live With That.”

Musical Director Troy Schuh on piano and violinist Rebecca Burchfield provide a thoroughly enjoyable accompaniment to the proceedings. As always, Ray Roderick has given us the angel in the details. His attention to those pesky moments when we feel most vulnerable pays off. Roderick also choreographs.

Charles R. MacLeod’s lighting design enhances the show by illuminating Lisa Orzolek’s attractively understated scenic design with a chroma key of festive hues. Meghan Anderson Doyle’s costumes are spot-on.

If you are a I Love You! You’re Perfect! Now Change! virgin you will fall in love at first sight. This reviewer has seen the show five times at The Garner and three times in other venues throughout the city.  The jokes in this production are as fresh and funny as the first time around, and you will still choke up on cue.

Online at denvercenter.org or call 303-893-4100.

DID YOU KNOW?

‘I Love You! You’re Perfect! Now Change!’ is Denver’s longest running musical since 2005.