9 to 5 (musical) score" and said "the squarely old-fashioned show fills a tourist-ready Hollywood slot left vacant by "Legally Blonde" and "Hairspray". The thing feels less created than assembled from recycled musical-comedy components, but Broadway doesn't have one of these right now, and summer approaches." Writing for the "New York Post", Elizabeth Vincentelli rated the show three out of four stars and called it "goofily entertaining." About Dolly Parton she said, "It shouldn't surprise anybody she's taken so well to the stage: She's always been a storyteller first and foremost. Her countrified pop, enhanced by fiddle and pedal-steel guitar, fits perfectly on Broadway.
9 to 5 (musical) out than it needs to be. Director Joe Mantello and his creative team have spent a great deal of time and energy turning a modest story about office politics into a bells-and-whistles Broadway show". Following the Broadway opening, Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" described the show as an "overinflated whoopee cushion" and a "gaudy, empty musical" that "piles on the flashy accessories like a prerecession hedge funder run amok at Barney’s." He thought the stage adaptation turns its "feminist revenge story into an occasion for lewd slapstick (which feels about as up-to-date as the 1940s burlesque revue "Hellzapoppin")