NEW YORK — Cameron Crowe’s widely adored “Almost Famous,” an affectionate ode to the transformative power of rock music, is a movie about a shy teenage kid finding his voice. But in the first moments of the new Broadway musical based on the iconic 2000 movie, there’s our 15-year-old hero William Miller, emotionally over-actualized by Casey Likes, singing his face right off like he’s in “Dear Evan Hansen.”
“HEY-EY-EY-EY,” he goes, hitting the high notes of Tom Kitt’s melodic score.
This makes perfect sense in a musical; protagonists have to let you know they’re here, they can sing and they have a problem. But it’s indicative, really, of one of the two intractable problems faced by “Almost Famous,” which opened on Broadway last week at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
