“An Untitled Play by Justin Timberlake” at City Theatre (co-produced by Pittsburgh CLO)

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City Theatre, Pittsburgh CLO

Here’s a sentence I don’t think I ever imagined I would write in my life: In Matt Schatz’s musical comedy An Untitled New Play by Justin Timberlake, the protagonist is a dramaturg named Beth, whose attempts to get a “serious” new play into the season of a fictional New York theater company come into conflict with the artistic director’s plan to produce a yet-to-be-written work by Justin Timberlake.

The protagonist – of a musical comedy – is a dramaturg? That may well be the theater-nerd equivalent of “You had me at hello.” (And if that’s the case for you, you might as well stop reading here).

Still with me? Let’s go over the premise again. Dramaturg/literary manager Beth (Julianne Avolio) is a theater idealist who is sustained by the mantra “do good work, do good plays.” When she discovers a play by the relatively unknown El Yamasaki Brooks (Lara Hayhurst) that she thinks has both social import and theatrical promise, she makes it her mission to convince her artistic director boss, the narcissistic Todd-Michael Smyth (Craig MacDonald) to agree to produce it. She convinces him to let her pitch the project to rising-star director Liz Cohen (Melessie Clark), who initially finds both the play, and Beth, alluring, and eagerly signs on. But complications ensue when Smyth returns from Los Angeles with the opportunity to premiere a new work by Justin Timberlake; to Beth’s surprise and dismay, Liz proves cynically ready to join Smyth in hitching her wagon to Timberlake’s celebrity star. 

L to R: Melessie Clark, Craig MacDonald, Julianne Avolio. Photo by Kristi Jan Hoover, courtesy City Theatre.

Schatz is a writer whom I’ve described in a previous post as someone who makes “devilish comic hay” with language; I’ll double down on that assessment here. I imagine him in front of his laptop with an imp on each shoulder egging him on to further and further heights of delirious linguistic brio. How do you not fall in love with a lyricist who manages, within the first few lines of a musical, to have a character sing that she’s “a transplanted Floridian” on her way to a “Le Pain Quotidien”? It only gets better from there, and it would be meanspirited of me to spoil for you the LOL surprise of some of Schatz’s rhymes; I’ll just say, you gotta give serious props to a guy who can seamlessly work in a rhyme to “Shakespeare” in a rap song titled “Starstruck Starfucker” (more on this in a moment).

Schatz’s music is vibrant and energetic, with a mostly pop-rock feel; I could wish in this moment that I was sufficiently versant in the JT oeuvre to be able to tell you whether there are musical call-outs in the score that match the wit of the lyrics. Alas, I am the kind of boomer who finds that all of the pop tenors I’ve heard on the radio since the mid 1990s sound interchangeable; if Schatz scattered Timberlake- or NSYNC-related musical easter eggs throughout the show, I missed them. Under Douglas Levine’s musical direction the hidden five-piece band is tight and the vocalists shine; excellently balanced sound (Zachary Beattie-Brown) lets you hear every word with crystal clarity.

Comic as the action and subject matter of Untitled are, Schatz manages to work in some sharp digs against the dysfunctional world of the nonprofit theater, and in particular he paints an eerily accurate picture of its power dynamics. I can think of several artistic directors who might have been the inspiration for the psychologically manipulative Smyth; ditto directors who, like Liz, are quick to shift their sails to catch the prevailing winds and who might, like her, justify their self-serving game-playing by claiming that “lying is our business.” The dramaturg who sees herself as a “modestly paid, hardly noticed, quiet person that could make a difference” also rings familiar, as does the anxious and despondent playwright at the bottom of the ladder. Schatz keenly observes how this system tends to absorb and coopt its idealistic young; even the principled Beth finds it hard to resist when Timberlake (Hayhurst, again, drolly caricaturing some of his signature NSYNC looks and moves) arrives and dials up the celebrity charm wattage on her. 

Director Reginald Douglas has pulled together an ensemble that mines hilarity out of these power dynamics. As MacDonald, Smyth’s body language oozes white male privilege and the kind of “hey I’m one of the good guys” informality and unguardedness that so often characterizes charismatic but codependent leaders. Clark rides the rollercoaster of Liz’s flipflopping objectives with panache – costume designer Dominique Fawn Hill helps out by giving her a wig to match each new outfit, mood, and alliance – and she expresses the rage of women everywhere with her powerhouse delivery of the song “Would You Ever Have Said That?” Hayhurst gives the character El Yamasaki Brooks a neurotic unpredictability that both exploits and defies the stereotype of the “serious writer,” and her sendup of JT is pretty pitch-perfect. But it’s Avolio who carries the show with her nuanced and self-aware portrayal of the mission-driven (and somewhat out of her depth) Beth. Many of the funniest lyrics in the libretto are hers to sing, and it’s not just the clarity of her voice, but also the clarity of intention she brings to each thought that gets the lyrical wit to land just right. A highlight is her rendition of “Starstruck Starfucker,” the rapid-fire, expletive-laden rap number Beth sings to vent her anger over Liz and Todd-Michael’s embrace of the Timberlake project. Not only does Avolio manage to navigate its myriad tongue-twisters without incident (try saying the title alone five times fast and see where that gets you), but she also crafts the emotional arc and fury of the song with brilliant precision. I’d see the show a second time just to ride that wave with her again.

Schatz developed this sympathetic portrait of the work a dramaturg does “behind the scenes of the behind the scenes” over many years, receiving feedback and input from many collaborators along the way, including (you guessed it) dramaturgs. In particular, here in Pittsburgh Untitled benefited from the wisdom and insight of Olivia O’Connor, the Manager of New Work Development at Pittsburgh CLO, and Clare Drobot, co-Artistic Director of City Theatre. While I imagine they both had a grand time poking a bit of fun at their own profession, they are also artists who share Beth’s serious commitment to “do good work, do good plays.” Lofty as that sounds, sometimes it can be achieved through light-hearted comedy. With Untitled, I’d say it’s mission accomplished.

“Once” at Pittsburgh CLO

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Pittsburgh CLO

I’ve been puzzling all day over how it came to be that Once won the Tony award for Best Musical in 2012. To be sure, the show features a lot of really excellent music; but music alone does not a great musical make. Or maybe it does? After seeing Rock of Ages and Once two weeks back to back I’m starting to wonder whether I actually understand the genre: both of these shows seem to use plot merely as an excuse to string a bunch of songs together, and while I enjoyed the music of Once far more than that of Rock of Ages, it too left me wondering whether what I was really watching was a concert pretending to be a musical.

Stuart Ward and Esther Stilwell. Photo by Matt Polk courtesy Pittsburgh CLO

Where the plot of Rock of Ages is deliberately and self-consciously silly, the plot of Once is both earnest and flaccid. The setting is Dublin, city of music. A “guy” (no name – played with moody anguish by Stuart Ward) is ready to quit his dream of becoming a musician and settle into a life of quiet desperation as a vacuum cleaner repairman because the girl he loves has moved to New York and now life no longer has meaning. He’s accosted on the street by a “girl” from the Czech republic (Esther Stilwell), who hears him busking and thinks his music is amazing; she is also a musician, and she convinces him not to quit and helps him get a bank loan so that he can record his music and go to New York and be reunited with the ex-girlfriend. Along the way the guy and the girl fall in love with each other, but in that “I can’t admit it” way because besides the New York girlfriend, the girl is also married, to some Czech guy who abandoned her and her daughter in Ireland but whom she expects to return. It’s a plot, in other words, largely without conflict or obstacles or suspense: they seek money from the bank and they get it; they go to the recording studio and make a successful album; the guy calls his girlfriend in New York and she is thrilled he’s coming; the girl resists falling in love with the guy and is rewarded with the gift of a piano and the return of her husband.

The plot is not only lacking drama; it’s also somewhat incoherent. At the play’s begin, the girl comes off as decisive and strong – she’s all positive energy and take-no-prisoners carpe diem – whereas the guy is hampered by fear, “wasting his life because he’s scared of it.” By play’s end, they seem to have switched characters – he’s boldly heading to New York to supercharge his music career while she’s timidly resigned to remain behind in Dublin. I believed his journey more than hers, primarily because we can see him gaining in self-esteem as the tiles of his life fall into place, whereas we are given no explanation as to why she loses her moxie in the course of the action.

But much as I found Once dissatisfying on the level of plot and character, I also found it, for the most part, deeply engaging. That’s because what it does most successfully is to explore yearning and need in many dimensions, mainly through beautifully written songs. Ward, as the guy, croons his character’s brooding love ballads with an edgy intensity, and Stilwell has a silky alto voice that flows like liquid, particularly in the haunting and ethereal “If You Want Me.” Every member of the ensemble is a musician as well as a character, and most of the songs are beautifully arranged to swell almost imperceptibly from a solo voice or instrument into a full orchestration and then to settle back again into solo or duet, a pattern that makes the longing for connection that is the show’s overriding theme palpable in the music itself. A particularly breathtaking number is the a capella reprise of the love song “Gold,” which feels less like a celebration of love than a wistful remembrance of something long gone. That song does what the show does at its best: it invites you to sit with the feeling of wanting something just out of reach and to ache with the music, for a moment, for what has been or what cannot be.

I could have wished for a lot of things from Once –more drama, more coherence, better dialogue, less cliché – but I could not have wished for better music, or for a better musical expression of longing. So: musical, or concert? – I guess, if you’re moved by it, does it matter? Something tells me this question is going to come up again this week, as the next production on my calendar is the opening of Looking for Violeta at Quantum Theatre. Stay tuned.

“Rock of Ages” at Pittsburgh CLO

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Pittsburgh CLO

What can I tell you about Rock of Ages, which sent a nearly-packed Benedum into howls of appreciation at the curtain?

I’m likely the least suited person in the world to write about this show. Mainly because I’ve never been a fan of rock music, and particularly of hard rock music. So although I’m the right age to have this “jukebox musical” take me on a nostalgia trip back to the eighties, I don’t really have the kind of associations with the music or culture that would evoke in me that sentimental glow (I never even watched MTV, I’m a little embarrassed to confess).

But I was clearly a minority among the two thousand plus audience members who were having a much better time than I rockin’ out to the music of bands like Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Steve Perry, Poison, and others. As the saying goes, if you like this sort of thing, well – this is exactly the sort of thing you’re going to like.

The rock songs are strung together into a deliberately dippy plot that involves an insecure wannabe rock star Drew (Justin Matthew Sargent) who falls in love with a newly-arrived-from-the-heartland aspiring actress Sherrie (Tess Soltau). They both work at a bar in Los Angeles where famous rocker Stacee Jaxx (Ace Young) launched his career many years ago. The bar is now threatened by a gentrification effort led by the German developer Hertz Klinemann (Jeffrey Howell) and his excitable son Franz (Nathan Salstone); bar owner Dennis Dupree (Gene Wygandt) seeks to raise the money to keep his bar afloat by bringing Jaxx back for a farewell concert. Jaxx wrecks Drew’s budding romance by hooking up with Sherrie and then getting her fired from the bar; Drew abandons Sherrie and struggles to find traction as a rock singer; Sherrie becomes a stripper to make ends meet; and the demolition of the LA strip proceeds apace, despite protest efforts by the comically named Regina (rhymes with vagina, hardeehar – played by Tiffany Tatreau). These complications all get resolved more or less how you’d expect.

L to R: Tess Soltau and Justin Matthew Sargent. Photo by Matt Polk, courtesy Pittsburgh CLO

The tone of the musical is over-the-top cartoonish, delivering a sendup of the eighties, the world of glam rock and MTV videos, and even of the genre of musical comedy itself. The latter is mainly accomplished by the show’s narrator, Lonny (the affable be-mulletted Nick Druzbanski), who at one point even brings on stage the program for the production and comments on his own headshot (this moment of metatheatrical reference was, for me, one of the freshest bits in the show). On opening night, it took a bit of time before the cast found the appropriate level of silliness and self-awareness for the material, but by the middle of the second act the show’s goofiness was in full swing.

The large ensemble features several vocal powerhouses. Sargent has the screech and howl of a rock lead singer down pat, and he achieves a superhuman feat of physical and vocal athleticism toward the end of the musical, in the number “Oh Sherrie,” when, after running around the stage for several minutes, he holds a note longer than most of us mere mortals can hold our breath. Tess Soltau is equally fabulous as Sherrie, with the range and flexibility to deliver songs as varied as “Sister Christian” and “Here I Go Again.” As the strip club owner Justice, Aurelia Williams delivers stunning renditions of both “Harden My Heart” and “Every Rose has its Thorn,” and Salstone and Tatreau brought down the house with their energetic “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” The five-piece rock band, with Dan Peters as a charismatic lead guitarist, looks like the real deal, all tight pants, long hair, and bull’s-horn gesturing, and they sound quite authentic, too. In short, this production delivers in spades on a musical level. So if you like this sort of thing . . .

Dan Peters in “Rock of Ages.” Photo by Matt Polk, courtesy Pittsburgh CLO.

“Spamilton: an American Parody” at Pittsburgh CLO

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Pittsburgh CLO

It takes a deep love of a subject to parody it successfully, and Gerard Alessandrini, creator of Spamilton: an American Parody as well as the previous hit sendup Forbidden Broadway, clearly loves Broadway musicals. If you’ve seen Forbidden Broadway, Spamilton’s setup will be familiar – one piano, small cast playing multiple parts, and nonstop spoofing of the tunes, characters, and plots from current (and past) Broadway musicals. And although, as the title and visual branding make clear, the focus of the satire here is on Hamilton, as with Forbidden Broadway Alessandrini grinds the entire industry of musical theatre through his mockery machine.

The loose plot centers on the efforts of “Lin-Manuel Miranda” (T.J. Newton, oddly a dead ringer for the real guy) to shake up Broadway with his new style of musical. He recruits actors “Leslie Odom, Jr.” (Tru Verret-Fleming), “Daveed Diggs” (LaTrea Rembert), the guy who plays George Washington (Justin Lonesome), and a Leading Lady to play all three sisters (the fabulous Erin Ramirez). Dressed in signature Hamilton base costumes – tight white pants, cream-colored vests, shiny knee-high boots, a doo-rag for Washington and big hair for Diggs – the fantastically gifted ensemble busts out many of the signature dance moves from the show as well, but with enough exaggeration and comment to render them a little silly (the choreography, by director Gerry McIntyre, gets the balance between imitation and mockery just right). A prime target for Alessandrini’s satire is the crazy popularity and obscene success of Hamilton, reaching its apotheosis in the song “I wanna be in the film when it happens,” which imagines a slew of (nearly all white) Hollywood stars vying for the chance to board the Hamilton gravy train. Miranda’s success in getting a role on Mary Poppins also gets skewered, à la “Mickey Mouse has his eyes on me.” Even Hamilton’s branding gets roped into the parody, with the trademark star prominently displayed on the back pockets of the ensemble’s pants.

L to R: T.J. Newton, Erin Ramirez, Tru Verret-Fleming, Justin Lonesome, LaTrea Rembert. Photo by Matt Polk, courtesy Pittsburgh CLO.

Music director Fred Barton has shaped the myriad styles of music from the range of shows featured with precision and clarity. Pianist Nick Stamatakis plays through the demanding score with flair, and at one point even has a surprise solo number that brings down the house (I won’t spoil it for you). The five members of the ensemble are all so good they probably ought to be cast in Hamilton itself, and they bring the right combination of sheer talent and self-aware mockery to the task of sending it up. Verret-Fleming, Lonesome, Newton, and Rembert are already familiar to Pittsburgh audiences, and they shine here as vocalists, actors, and dancers as they have in previous productions; Rembert, in particular, steps into his own in this show, with a confident and charismatic turn as “Daveed Diggs.” As the only woman in the cast – a joke in its own right, given the gender politics of Hamilton – newcomer Ramirez takes on more roles than any one else in the ensemble, and her vocal flexibility is extraordinary. In addition to switching back and forth between the vocal stylings of Renee Goldsberry, Philippa Soo, and Jasmine Jones all in the same song – with puppets, no less (“Look Around”) – she also gives credible impersonations of Bernadette Peters, Liza Minelli, Julie Andrews, and Barbra Streisand. Yes, it’s that kind of parody.

L to R: Justin Lonesome, Erin Ramirez, and Tru Verret-Fleming. Photo by Matt Polk, courtesy Pittsburgh CLO.

Honestly, dear Reader, I’m trying to remember the last time I laughed as exuberantly in the theatre as I did at Spamilton. Alessandrini is an astute observer of the foibles and flaws of the commercial theatre industry, and he has a genius for weaving those observations into lyrics that surprise and delight. Particularly hilarious are his criticisms of Hamilton itself, encapsulated in lines like “The lyrics go by so fast and you’re in the abyss/ Can you believe you paid eight hundred bucks for this?” or in the moment when Ramirez steps out as “Eliza” and sings, in “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cries,” how she will “make you cry!…just when you think I can’t rinse more tears out of you, I’ll tell you about…the orphanage.”

Spamilton also nails a slew of other Broadway musicals, including (but in no way limited to) Book of Mormon, Wicked, The King and I, The Lion King, Willy Wonka, Harry Potter, Phantom of the Opera, Alladin, and a whole medley’s worth of Sondheim musicals (the extended dig at Sondheim’s music may have been my favorite moment in the show). It’s all a little dizzying to remember; the show clicks along about as fast as Hamilton itself, and much of the fun lies in the way it chews up and spits out new musical victims as it barrels along. At seventy minutes, it’s exactly the length it needs to be, although – and this is such a rarity – at the point where it appeared to be coming to a close with “Eliza’s” final number, I was having so much fun that I really didn’t want it to end.

“Mumburger” at off the WALL productions and “The Double Threat Trio” at Pittsburgh CLO

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off the WALL productions, Pittsburgh CLO

Mumburger

The tagline in the publicity for Sarah Kosar’s new play Mumburger reads “a surreal play about grief, parenting, and alternative meat.” You’d be forgiven for hoping – as I’ll confess I was – that the play’s title is a feint and that it has some bait-and-switch up its sleeve that doesn’t involve cannibalism. The title, however, doesn’t lie:  ground “mom” meat is indeed on the menu.

How does it get there? Well, eco-activist mom Andrea has recently died, after her car was crushed by a Birdseye truck on the highway. Her daughter Tiffany (Jessie Wray Goodman) and husband Hugh (Ken Bolden) are trying to cope with her sudden loss, each in their own way, when they suddenly receive a grocery bag full of ground meat patties, with a note from beyond the grave. Andrea had arranged to have her remains delivered to her family as a “digestive memorial,” and she directs her husband and daughter to consume her over the next several weeks (some of the patties are conveniently already pre-frozen so that they can be saved for later).

Hugh and Tiffany are now faced with a dilemma – should they obey “mum’s” wishes (eeuw) or get rid of her in some other manner? Their choice is complicated by the fact that they are vegan: i.e., does the fact that mom is effectively “road kill” make eating her meat okay?

L to R: Jessie Wray Goodman and Ken Bolden. Photo by Heather Mull, courtesy off the WALL productions.

I guess in the real world their choice would also be complicated by all sorts of other logistical questions, like: Who would have processed her remains in such a way, in such a short time, and how could she have arranged it in advance? Would such “meat” even be edible, given that mom has only been dead a day or two, and most meat is aged a couple of weeks before consumption? And how did they fit a whole human’s worth of burgers into such a small grocery bag?

But this play does not take place in the real world, as is evidenced not only by the oddly askew set, in which all of the furniture floats off-kilter in a void (an apposite visual metaphor for the state of sudden grief, from scenic designer Adrienne Fischer), but also by the nonreferential physical vocabulary that director Robyne Parrish imposes on the text. Bolden and Goodman engage in highly formalized movements and gestures – incessantly circling the table, for example, or shoving each other back and forth, or aimlessly shuffling “mum” patties on the kitchen counter – that seem purposely disconnected from the dialogue. The intention may be to underscore the play’s surrealism, but the effect is to make the emotional content of the story harder to access: the characters seem less like real people than like figures under the control of some befuddling force.

I suspect Kosar intends her play to be something of a black comedy, but Parrish’s physical approach to the work gets in the way: I felt I needed to care more about these characters as humans in order to find their situation, off-putting and weird as it is, funny. The most emotionally real moment in the production is also the stillest one: after Tiffany discovers that her dad has consumed all of the remaining burgers and left none for her, they embrace on the floor, Tiffany wailing in uncontrolled grief in his lap as he tries to comfort her. Whether or not you can get on board with the idea that anyone would want to eat her deceased mother in order to keep her memory alive, Tiffany’s anguished realization that her mother is really gone forever resonates deeply.

No real humans are consumed in the course of the performance, but something resembling meat is cooked on stage and eaten, and as icky as the idea of eating a “mumburger” is, even more disconcerting is the fact that the characters don’t spend enough stage time cooking the “meat” to render it safe for consumption. That is, they seem to be eating their “ground mom” raw.  All of which is to say: bring a very strong stomach.

The Double Threat Trio

Where Mumburger serves a meal that may not be for all tastes, The Double Threat Trio offers the equivalent of a delectable dessert: it’s sweet, light, and pretty much guaranteed to give you a little dopamine kick.

The premise of this new small musical, which was written and composed by Adam Overett, hearkens back to the gloriously goofy “can-do” spirit of those old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland films. Jamison (J. Alex Noble) is an actor who can sing, but not dance; Nina (Drew Leigh Williams) is a singer who can dance, but not act; and Kenny (Jerreme Rodriguez) is a dancer who can act, but not sing.  Each, in other words, is a “double threat” competing for roles against “triple threat” actor/dancer/singers. What are these poor not-quite-talented-enough performers to do?

Why, put on their own show, of course! They seek out a wealthy writer/director/producer named Millicent (the terrific Michelle Duffy) who just happens to have the perfect vehicle to showcase their talents: “Oed!,”  her own musical adaptation of Oedipus Rex. (Yes, you may groan now).

L to R: Jerreme Rodriguez, Drew Leigh Williams, J. Alex Noble & Michelle Duffy; photo by Matt Polk, courtesy Pittsburgh CLO

Millicent is a “multi-threat” herself, explaining to the trio that she wears many hats, which turns out not to be an idiomatic expression but a witty comic device. Duffy wheels in a hat rack festooned with different hats, and with each piece of headgear she precisely and lovingly skewers a theatrical stereotype: as the writer, she’s an awkward introvert with buck teeth; as the producer, an aggressive, stooping lech; as the choreographer, an ebullient and overenthusiastic California Valley Girl; as costume designer, a severe Slavic artiste; and as stage manager, a bossy pragmatist. This quick-change routine is uproariously funny, made even more so by the trio’s bewildered acquiescence to Millicent’s outrageous insistence that she be in control of all aspects of the production.

Of course, everything has to go completely awry in the course of putting on the show within the show – and of course the awryness has to involve each of the characters being compelled to do the one thing they can’t do, and also survive the doing. Meanwhile, along the way Overett sprinkles musical numbers that give a glimpse into each character’s past and add depth to their insecurities and fears. If you’re thinking that this sounds a bit like a stage musical version of Waiting for Guffman you’ve got the right idea: it is simultaneously a lampoon of the people who make the making of theater their business, and love letter to them.

Nothing goes awry in The Double Threat Trio itself, however; on the contrary, director Scott Weinstein shows strong mastery of craft in his staging, and the cast is so fully committed to the peppy zaniness of the premise that you can’t help but cheerily go along for the ride. Overett’s lyrics are chock-full of witty and unexpected rhymes, and he has the good grace not to take himself too seriously, even at one point having Jamison exclaim, apropos Oed!, that  “the characters are cartoons!” – a sentiment that could equally apply to The Double Threat Trio. Tony Ferrieri has designed a playful and clever set that manages, with little fuss or muss, to solve the problem of a hall of talking portraits and the destruction of Thebes (if you want to know what I’m talking about, well, you’ll have to see the show for yourself). And while the characters they play may not have the full range of talents, Noble, Williams, and Rodriguez certainly do, and they achieve the difficult feat of singing/acting/dancing both really well and “badly” with considerable panache.