“Mr. Timbers uses visual wit and gleefully macabre gags to provide awakening jolts during this sustained singing hayride. [The show] clomps, twosteps and square dances along its relentlessly exuberant way, with sprightly choreography by Connor Gallagher and rowdy barn dance music, performed by the band onstage.”

“Equally important are Timbers’ creative partners, choreographer Connor Gallagher and especially music director Justine Levine, whose work makes a modest score soar. Although it’s running off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre, The Robber Bridegroom is a highlight of a season that’s fast becoming a landmark for musicals on Broadway and off...”

“The choreography is epic in terms of movement per square inch, with only a couple of minor collisions evident. The dancing relies on standard reels and barn raising—Seven Brides for Seven Brothers galloping. The most inventive movement has the cast build and break down all the elements of a walk through the forest. Hillocks appear and disappear, streams run, ravines threaten as the lovers head to the hideout—all the up and down created then erased in the moment. It put this writer in mind of expert puppeteers managing the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or the horses in War Horse. It was artful and felt effortless.”

“Smoothly integrated is the thighs-slappin’, feet-stompin’ hoedown-ish choreography by Connor Gallagher. It has a canny way of complimenting the picking, plunking and twanging country music-styled score by Robert Waldman.”

“There’s nary a lull in Alex Timbers’s exuberant revival of The Robber Bridegroom, a raucous hootenanny set in a fanciful version of 18th-century Mississippi. Timbers and his cast of nine hug the story’s wildness in a production that imparts a sly postmodern sensibility to hicked-up story theater.”

“Director Alex Timbers’ rollicking and sexy new Off-Broadway production, this underappreciated gem should prove popular with audiences looking for a swell time. Conductor Cody Owen Stine’s terrific five-piece onstage band and choreographer Connor Gallagher’s square dance-inspired moves add to infectious fun. The Robber Bridegroom will steal your heart, and definitely do it with style.”

“Alex Timbers’ giddy staging makes use of a tireless ensemble and onstage band for maximum foot-stomping, skirt-twirling joy. Who knows if Robber Bridegroom will enter the canon of great American musicals, but it’s a rip-snorting hoedown, one guaranteed to steal your heart.”