Given the abundance of jukebox musicals and other shows with scores heavily informed by contemporary pop and rock, it’s likely that many of today’s younger, classically trained singers working in theater feel as if they were born late. 24-year-old Casey Likes, in contrast, had perfect timing—or more accurately, I suppose, his parents did.
Over the past few years, Likes has gained attention playing teenage characters introduced in films released between 1985 and 2000 in musical adaptations of those flicks: Almost Famous and Back to the Future on Broadway and Heathers at New World Stages. It was recently reported that he’s also taking part in a workshop this summer for The Warriors, due on Broadway next spring and co-written by Eisa Davis and some guy named Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Last August, the precocious performer introduced his own show at 54 Below, cleverly titled “Casey Likes: Back to the Past,” tracing his influences, and he’s now brought it back to that cabaret venue. On opening night, he was greeted with whoops and hollers befitting a teen idol, by an audience that included a substantial number of very young women, among them my almost-19-year-old daughter. He sauntered through the crowd before taking the stage, resplendent in a sequined blazer and pants, a maroon boa wrapped around his neck.
The outfit, notably, was a nod to Elton John, the first in a range of icons who would be acknowledged throughout the evening. Like any respectable member of Generation Z, Likes has studied his classic rock and R&B, and his roughly hourlong set included baby-boomer and Gen X staples alongside tunes by latter-day artists ranging from Frank Ocean to the Jonas Brothers.
There were also, naturally, tunes from musicals, though not the ones your grandparents or parents or possibly you grew up with. During a tender reading of “So Close” from Enchanted, two screens sandwiching the stage showed photos of the grandparents who bought him the portable DVD player on which he viewed that 2007 movie as a little boy. The Alan Menken/Stephen Schwartz collaboration was one of several ballads that showcased a breathy quality in Likes’s tremulous tenor.
For more upbeat numbers, like “What You Own” from Rent—sung as a duet with Julian Lerner, a star of Disney Channel’s “Locker Diaries: Zombies”—Likes adopted a swagger worthy of his rock and pop heroes. Before performing the Jonases’ “Burnin’ Up,” he approached a table of female fans to ask if they would join him for the rap portion of that hit; after they giddily obliged, he remarked, “That was lovely. Now I’m burning up.”
At other points, Likes elevated his swoon quotient by playing guitar. He wielded the instrument while singing Jack Johnson’s gently romantic “Banana Pancakes” and Bon Jovi’s more grandiose “Wanted Dead or Alive”; though I’m hardly an admirer of that New Jersey band’s pseudo-Springsteen tripe, Likes’s acoustic version proved a nice vehicle for his singing, mercifully more measured here than Jon Bon Jovi’s generally is.
If a medley of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” was more of a reach, Likes delivered it with the same ingenuous charm he brought to describing his rocky road to Broadway glory; he remembered his “rock band phase” and made Bruno Mars’s “Talking to the Moon” a tribute to the girls who had watched him croon another song by that artist at an eighth grade talent show.
For an encore, Likes turned his focus to any producers or creative types who might be in the audience. Noting he had a pattern of playing previously established characters, he dove into a whirlwind medley of rock hits, channeling stars from Bob Dylan to Billy Joel to Kurt Cobain. While nodding to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” he summoned his inner Mick Jagger, strutting like a wound-up peacock.
Were anyone watching to “want to make a biopic out of any of these people,” Likes offered, “I’m not going to say no.” Casting directors, you’ve been alerted.
Casey Likes: Back to the Past opened August 6, 2026, at 54 Below and runs through August 8. Tickets and information: 54below.com
