Coney Island Christmas was cute, but not a must-see. It was charming overall, and moving at the end, but slow in parts. In it, a grandmother tells her granddaughter the story of when she was a young girl in a Christmas play in Brooklyn. They had some fun with the grandmother’s memories of her elementary school classmates’ not-so-great acting abilities, which was entertaining, but there was a lot of it.
One of the most impressive things about the show was its lead: Isabella Acres. She really did a fantastic job with a role that required quite a bit from her and was the engine that drove the show forward. You may have seen her previously in the short-lived, critically-acclaimed television show, Better Off Ted, which I worked on. It was exciting to see Isabella doing theater at the mature age of 11 after having worked with her when she was 7.

A gingerbread cookie display in the lobby of The Geffen Playhouse.