Awards and Critical Reception
Bat Boy: The Musical won the awards for best Off-Broadway musical including the Lucille Lortel Award, two Richard Rodgers Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Outer Critics Circle Award in 2001. Regional productions of Bat Boy have been nominated for and won awards including the 2003 Elliot Norton Award (New England). and the 1998 Ovation Awards (Los Angeles).
The off-Broadway production received very positive reviews. The New York Times review stated, "It's remarkable what intelligent wit can accomplish". John Lahr of The New Yorker called it "a giggling cult hit" and "the only play in the history of the theatre whose hero ends Act I with a rabbit in his mouth, and who moves on in Act II to an entire cow's head." Curtain-Up praised : "Laurence O'Keefe's peppy and melodic pop-rock score... played by a five piece combo".
The West End reviews were less positive. The Curtain Up review notes: "...unless Bat Boy The Musical gathers a cult audience, I fear it will not linger. The newspaper critics do sometimes get it wrong, ...but they have been less kind to Bat Boy than the West Virginians portrayed in the musical." The subsequent sell-out 2006 Edinburgh Festival production of the revised score used in the West End received very positive reviews, with many suggesting the show suited this more 'scaled-down' style.
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