Kristin Chenoweth Shines in a Messy ‘Queen of Versailles’

Published November 19, 2025 | By Rob Shuter

Broadway has welcomed back one of its most beloved firecrackers, and she’s arrived wearing sequins, a hard hat, and a 90,000-square-foot dream. The Queen of Versailles, now playing at the St. James Theatre, is an oversize, over-stuffed, frequently confounding new musical — and yet, somehow, it’s also impossible to look away from.

Think of it as a glitter-bomb detonation: messy, loud, chaotic… but still sparkling.

At its center is a house — an unfinished Florida mega-mansion that looms like a monument to ambition and excess. As a metaphor for the American Dream, it’s obvious.

As the foundation for a Broadway musical? Well, that’s more complicated.

Let’s be honest: this show has issues. Major ones. Structural ones. Ones that could keep contractors in business for years. The book, by Lindsey Ferrentino, wobbles between satire and sincerity; Stephen Schwartz’s score swings from earnest to camp to puzzling; and director Michael Arden throws in so many stylistic ideas — Wild West numbers, French court framing devices, documentary video feeds — that the production sometimes feels like three musicals stacked on top of each other, all asking for permits at once.

And yet… and yet.

There is something here. Something chaotic, yes, but also compelling, funny, and occasionally touching. And the reason — the glue, the glitter, the gravitational center — is Kristin Chenoweth.

Making her long-awaited return to Broadway musicals after a decade away, Chenoweth practically vibrates with star power. She plays Jackie Siegel — the pageant-queen-turned-billionaire spouse whose life inspired the hit documentary — with both a wink and a heart. Her Jackie is a woman who dreams in square footage and speaks in champagne bubbles, a peacock in platform heels armed with an arsenal of jokes, poses, and perfectly timed squeals.

Does the show fully understand who Jackie is? Not really. Is it sometimes unclear whether we’re meant to root for her or run from her? Absolutely. But Chenoweth makes the foggy characterization feel like a feature rather than a flaw. She leans into the contradictions and plays Jackie as both cartoon and human, empty and yearning, ridiculous and surprisingly relatable. When she belts, the theater exhales — because there is the reason this musical exists.

It helps that she’s paired with the always-intriguing F. Murray Abraham as David Siegel, the timeshare king who gives Jackie her palace in the sky. Abraham plays him with a smirking dryness that suggests he knows exactly what kind of musical he’s in — somewhere between satire and fever dream. Their dynamic gives the production a much-needed emotional anchor.

The biggest weakness remains the show’s structure. Act One is a carnival of bright colors, cheeky pageant numbers, and the irresistible spectacle of watching Chenoweth strut. Act Two, aimed at deeper family drama, loses momentum. Emotional beats involving Jackie’s daughter Victoria and her niece Jonquil feel sketched rather than sculpted, and a lizard requiem followed by a Sundance sequence may inspire whiplash.

Some choices — like the live documentary footage and a baffling framing device involving Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette — can feel like the creative team throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Spoiler: not all of it does.

And yet, for all its flaws, The Queen of Versailles is never boring. It’s brash, bold, and goes for broke in a way that many safer, slicker musicals don’t. There are moments — a sly lyric, a visual gag, a Chenoweth high note that slices through the rafters — when the show finds exactly the tone it’s chasing: a glittery, self-aware romp with something to say about American excess.

This musical may feel like it is still under construction — emotionally, structurally, tonally — but you can’t deny the ambition. It wants to be big, loud, and definitive. It wants to be a palace.

And sometimes, ambition itself is worth applauding.

Is The Queen of Versailles a perfect musical? No. But as a showcase for Kristin Chenoweth’s hilarious, heartfelt, defiantly high-voltage performance, it delivers exactly what Broadway fans have been craving.

If the house onstage still needs a wrecking ball, Chenoweth herself is the chandelier: dazzling, iconic, and impossible not to admire.

Chenoweth talks Big Return to Broadway

Rob Shuter is a celebrity journalist, talk-show host, and former publicist who has represented an A-list roster including Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, Kate Spade, Diddy, Jon Bon Jovi, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, Jessica Simpson, and HRH Princess Michael of Kent.

He is the author of The 4 Word Answer, a bestselling self-help book that blends Hollywood insight with deeply personal breakthroughs. Rob hosts Naughty But Nice with Rob, a Top-20 iTunes entertainment podcast, and previously served as the only dedicated entertainment columnist at The Huffington Post. A veteran of television, magazines, and red-carpet crisis management, he also led OK! Magazine during its most competitive era.

Rob’s latest exclusives and insider reporting can be found at robshuter.substack.com.

His forthcoming novel, It Started With A Whisper, is now available for pre-order