(To learn more about this show, please visit the show’s page here)

Performance 6/13/26 – Portland Stage Studio

Cinders is a musical retelling of the Cinderella fairytale by the performers who make up the musical group Mockingbirds at Midnight. In the show they incorporate music from their folk album Modern Day Fairytale, which according to online credits was released in June 2025. After the show I listened to the album and liked it. In a professional recording with smooth vocal harmonies and skilled musical backing, I was able to appreciate the music in its natural habitat. If you like folk music, it’s worth checking out.

I don’t know much about the group’s history as musical theater performers, but I am going to go ahead and speculate that this may have been their first stab at this art form. If that is the case, they made a gutsy choice to cross over, because they took on some daunting tasks. I think even the most experienced theater people might find it challenging to make a juke box musical out of folk songs, to retell a fairytale in a way that is fresh, and to incorporate themes of importance such as immigration and LGBTQ issues without being too preachy or on the nose. And then there are the basics of the form, like acting, dialogue, movement, pacing, transitions, cues etc, which are all very hard and a world apart from the wheelhouse of the singer songwriter.

Mockingbirds at Midnight deserve credit for taking a big swing, but suffice to say as musical theater I’m not sure it all came together. That’s ok. Fringe, after all, is not a format reserved for the tried and true, it’s a welcoming place for artists to try things.

Submitted on 6/14/26 by Mark Shaughnessy, PF26 Independent Review Team

Performance 6/14/26 – Portland Stage Studio

Revolving around original folk songs by local group Mockingbirds at Moonlight, Cinders is a modern retelling of the classic fairy tale. Highlighting gender roles reversal, immigration difficulties, and LGBTQ diversity, this show is a work in progress. With quick changes and lines memorization a lower priority than the beautiful harmonies sang by the two main leads, I would be interested to see how it progresses with more rehearsals. An intriguing twist on a well known storyline, there is a lot of potential for this show in the future.

Submitted on 6/15/26 by Christina W. Richardson, PF26 Independent Review Team