I’m one of those people who love being surprised – especially happily so. When ACT of Davie (our best and only local community theater) promoted their first musical, playing for only two nights, I knew it was too short a run for a review. But then thought: if I’m free, I just might go and enjoy the rare note-taking-free experience.
I did go, and very much enjoyed [title of show] with music & lyrics by Jeff Bowen and book by Hunter Bell, presented by R&M Productions in collaboration with ACT of Davie. Roie Dahan is listed as producer/director and I did get some “inside information” from a couple sitting next to me (whose daughter was in the show and a student a Northwestern University) saying he’d received a grant to produce the play and they were mounting it here because of ties to South Florida.
Only later, upon reading the QR code program at home, did I discover that several of the company’s rising junior Northwestern U. students had attended American Heritage and other local schools and so were now back home in Weston and neighboring towns for the summer. And their producer/director was not a Northwestern University drama professor, as I’d imagined, but rather a very ambitious rising junior! Whose cast and creative team – very like the play they were mounting – came with a uniquely inspiring tale of its own. One I felt compelled to write about, after all.
Here it might help to briefly introduce what this lesser-known musical, with the weird looking title (it’s truly meant to appear between brackets, in lower case) is about. But first for credentials. [title of show] enjoyed rather brief but critically acclaimed runs off-Broadway in 2006 and on Broadway in 2008 – where it won the 2009 Broadway.com Audience Award for Best Ensemble. Which is a lovely vindication for the show’s creators Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell who, despite increasing pressure to hire big name actors, continued to play themselves as cast members Jeff and Hunter alongside their female friends, Heidi Blickenstaff and Susan Blackwell – also playing themselves as a still-aspiring actress and one who’d mostly given up on that dream.
It’s not like writing about what it’s like for young unknowns who try to make it in the Big Apple hasn’t been fodder for theater, particularly musical theater, before. Most notably, “A Chorus Line.” But never has there been a truer, almost in real time, play-by-play depiction of the thoughts, fears, hopes and wildest dreams of four young friends like these. And once they made it to Broadway and encountered added pressure to replace the female roles with celebrities, Hunter and Jeff refused to abandon the young women who’d supported them in their journey. And they did just fine!
It’s often been said that deadline pressure can be the best motivator. When book writer Hunter learns of New York Musical Theatre Festival’s first contest for new musicals, the deadline is only three weeks away. Yet he and his buddy, composer and lyricist Jeff, make a pact to create something completely original rather then the typically popular adaptations. They discuss, they argue, we laugh at Hunter’s obsession with getting home in time for popular 1980’s trash TV, but also commiserate with his writer’s block and frequent interruptions by phone message recordings.
The creative partners soon realize that their discussions about the process of attempting to write a new musical – coupled with revelations about internal struggles and fantastical dreams – are a lot more interesting than whatever they’ve come up with thus far (not much) and so resolve to make their musical reflect the endeavor itself. And who and where they are in their lives. For example, Hunter and Jeff’s wry, self-deprecating early duet called “Two Nobodies in New York.” In the R&M and ACT of Davie’s presentation, these roles are engagingly performed, and sung, by Miles Levitan as Hunter and Justin Gulbranson as Jeff.
backup singers Miranda Ferreira and Justin Gulbranson sport sunglasses. Photo by Amanda Miller.
What might appear like overly self-conscious navel-gazing at first, does morph into zany comedy while still harboring quicksand possibilities. “Monkeys and Playbills” is as quirkily delightful as it sounds. And when the guys’ two female friends/participant-actors Susan and Heidi (great vocals and comedic expression by Skylar Minett as Susan and Miranda Ferreira as Heidi) find themselves alone together for the first time, each woman, separately, from opposite ends of the room wonders, “What Kind of Girl is She,” the subtext being: does she like me?
Such insecurity is in full-blooded emotional display in Susan’s dramatically caped rendition (with cast back up) of “Die Vampire, Die.” Which should become the battle cry of every creative artist with a dream who finds themselves terrorized by naysayer voices both from within and without. Susan delineates just who the vampires are that will drain your life of self-expression by claiming “you’ll never be good enough” and pointing out every little flaw till you’re attacked by the worst vampire of them all: despair.
Heidi won’t give up, and still attends Broadway casting calls where she’s continually chosen as an understudy or given minor chorus line positions, but she prevails. While Susan, whose boring office day job helps the group financially, has pretty much abandoned her thespian goals. Nevertheless, she is convinced to join her friends and star as herself in this ever-evolving show. Which must be submitted after three weeks, no matter how far they’ve gotten (in real life, their script was later supplemented with more musical numbers and add-ons to reflect their road to Broadway). But as they couldn’t agree on a name for the musical, at the last minute they decide to simply go with the application’s top line instruction: “[title of show].”
The ACT of Davie/R&M production included a comprehensive and frank (in keeping with the play’s no-holds-barred sensibility) Director’s Note in which Dahan praises Heidi’s song, “A Way Back to Then,” with “then” being the sense of play, wild imagination and dreams of childhood. It’s often noted that true creative types never lose their early sense of wonder. For Roie Dahan, encountering this play “lit his flame” to think outside the box and decide he could get with friends and actually produce the musical.
Personally, I also loved the buzz of “Change It Don’t Change It” wherein the cast considers whether or not to succumb to commercial pressure to revise their script. And then they all conclude, happily (at least to my mind), that they’d rather be “Nine People’s Favorite Thing” than 100 people’s ninth favorite thing.
And this is where the second half of this feature’s title, i.e., “theater reflects life” comes into play. For just like the original musical was conceived and developed by a group of young people, practically on a whim and a dare, and then went on – against all odds – to major stage success, Roie Dahan and his crew of theater-loving friends – nurtured in South Florida and now attending university arts programs around the country – attempted what many would call impossible. The ensemble’s median age is around 20 (if we remove their seasoned piano accompanist from the mix). Yet these “kids” managed to put on a professional, full-length 90-minute (with no intermission) musical. It’s a first for Dahan’s newly minted R&M Productions Company, and a first musical presentation by the town of Davie’s community theater. Yet it culminated in a standing ovation at the sold-out opening night.
