Tag: Musical

The next two new musicals presented at NYMF this summer are Abduction and Leaving Eden.  One is a musical comedy about aliens wreaking havoc in Indiana.  The other is a punk-rock retelling of the story of Adam and Eve.

Abduction – Reading

In a small Indiana town named Pluto, Pippa Peterson’s Dad is abducted by an alien.  She quickly realizes that “the Sci is not Fi.”  No one in town believes her story.  Pippa (Amanda Lee Hawkins) is told that “my mom says you are the victim of demonic possession and not to look you in the eye.”  I believe I heard the word perspicuous in the lyric for “I’m Pippa.”  Clever wordplay peppers this entire new musical written by T.J. Pieffer, Brad Kemp and Becki Toth.

Pippa’s self-absorbed mother offers advice to her overachieving daughter not to fly too fast in life.  “You could find yourself alone like cousin June at the Ponderosa buffet.”  Best friend Theo and newly acquired gal pal Quinn (Markia Nicole Smith) want to convince the town that Pippa’s story is real.  Quinn is self-described as a “Tim Burton-esque bitch.”  The “apocalypse is the time to be bold” and they crash a party.  People witness the next abduction.  All hell breaks loose and Father Neil (book writer Pieffer) is on hand to offer the “Repent Lament.”

Act II opens in the spaceship lobby and the characters learn of their impending fate.  Alien leader Ziggy is “Stalin with more lipstick.”  The song “No Tomorrow” is a high point and we wonder if our three heroes can save themselves (and fall in love).  All of this material is obviously silly fun and the jokes are amusing.  The plot machinations move along swiftly with cute devices such as the dream sequence in Pippa’s mind.

Abduction is firmly planted in the sci-fi teen musical comedy genre currently represented on Broadway with Be More Chill.  This one shows a lot of promise with good songs, winning characters and lots of wordplay as in the song lyrics for “Suspicion.”  Directed by Stephen Santa, the cast did a nice job embodying the gleeful spirit of this show.  Rocky Paterra’s standout performance as best friend Theo was marvelously detailed and so very funny.

Leaving Eden – Production

Before there was Adam and Eve there was Adam and Lilith.  The relationship started out well but Adam kept listening to Father’s rules.  Lilith (Sarah-Anne Martinez) was far too independent for Adam’s vanilla patriarchal ways.  He (Ian Ward) banishes her from Eden.  A modern day Adam and Lily (Azudi Onyejekwe and Janet Krupkin) are engaged.  They are struggling through a lost unborn child and the related hysterectomy.  A version of Eve (Gabrielle McClinton) shows up in both stories.

Jenny Waxman wrote the book and lyrics for Leaving Eve.  The story can be appreciated for its risk taking and emotional reconsideration of the famous apple temptation.  Female empowerment may have been the main message but hating men was also a predominant vibe.  When a “smart, strong, beautiful, interesting woman makes a man the center of her universe… well, that’s bad!”

Back and forth this story travels between the Garden of Eden and Lilith’s apartment.  Eventually Eve and Lilith/Lily will both confront the Adams on their two different storylines.  Modern and Ancient Adam sing “Ménage à Song” after Lilith’s “Tedious Sects.”  With Eve’s help, Adam and Lily will have a baby.  The sex is simulated onstage.  In Act II, the modern couple sing “The Joys of Parenthood” which feels like a number from an entirely different show.

Ben Page’s score is pretty good overall and there’s an enjoyable rock groove.  (I heard a little Jesus Christ Superstar in there somewhere.)  The five performers were strong singers and nicely developed these characters.  I admired Leaving Eden for its ambitious conceit rather than its execution.  When strong ideas fizzle throughout a show, a, long, anticlimatic ending is often the result.  Was the biting of the apple a good or bad thing?  I’m not sure.

www.nymf.org

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Billed as the longest running annual LGBTQ+ festival in the world, HOT! is a month long celebration of queer focused stories.  The Off-Off Broadway downtown arts incubator Dixon Place has been hosting this event for 28 years.  Those Musclebound Cowboys From Snake Pit Gulch is an original musical which was performed for one night.

Andy Halliday wrote the book and plays Miss Daisy LaFleur.  He works for an east coast detective agency but gets sent out west to investigate a murder.  Fond of wearing women’s clothes, this turns out to be a perfect assignment!  Snake Pit Gulch is a town populated only with men.  The gold rush brought them here.  The town’s premier entertainer at the saloon keeps them here.  His name is Topeka (Jordan Ahnquist).  When the “boys meet me, they shout Eureka!”

The saloon is owned by Big Jake Slade (Rob Hatzenbeller) and he runs this town with a firm hand and a deep voice.  In addition to coveting Topeka, he is swindling land claims for his personal benefit.  He killed the last sheriff and the alcoholic Wheezy (Rob Maitner) has replaced him.  Everything is going according to plan except that two brothers inherit a deed from their father.

Fresh-faced young cowboys Sam and Evan Cantrell arrive (Jared Starkey and Scott Harrison).  At first the oddity of an all-male town is a curious thing.  Through nicely written songs, this truly old-fashioned musical will find a way to lasso up the bad guys and let true love bloom.  There is even a dream ballet to propel the story forward like Oklahoma! but this one is far gayer and much funnier.  The music was written by Frank Schiro and lyrics by CJ Critt.

The jokes are funny and remarkably restrained for a drag entertainment.  There is certainly some mild blue material.  Nothing is overly raunchy that would declassify this charming little show as a family entertainment.  The strip poker “game is so tense, my hair is braiding itself.”

Scripts in hand, the cast embodied these fun characters with straight faces.  Directed by Steve Hauck, the evening felt like watching a fun revue in the Catskills.  When Daisy lost her place in the script, the ad libs were even more enjoyable than the written material.  Overall, Those Musclebound Cowboys From Snake Pit Gulch is more than a great title.  This agreeable musical is for anyone who wants an easy laugh and “an old fashioned cowboy.”

www.dixonplace.org

The New York Musical Festival is in its 16th year.  The mission of NYMF is to nurture the creation, production and public presentation of stylistically, thematically and diverse new musicals to ensure the future vitality of musical theater.  These next two readings consider people on the outside of mainstream society – circus performers and the homeless.

The Disappearing Man – Reading

On February 21, 1936, the circus rolls into St. Louis.  This musical begins backstage.  We meet the performers in a series of exceptional songs which develop character and establish conflict.  Sara (Mary Kate Morrissey) is “your favorite sin/She knows what you want and let’s you in.”  She is the Magician’s Lovely Assistant.  His name is Jim Plaster (Erik Lochtefeld) and he is The Disappearing Man of the title.  His act is the headliner of this circus which is struggling to make money during the Great Depression.

Andrew Bellows (Michael Cunio) is the Ringmaster attempting to hold everything together with his willfully strong, ex-lover Daphne (Shakina Nayfack).  She’s the Lion Tamer and the obvious alpha of this enterprise.  Andrew is currently in a relationship with Sara.  Her backstory comes front and center when her brother (Luke Wygodny) arrives.  The magician is also hopelessly in love with her.  “I can see Goldilocks and me/carving hearts in a sycamore tree.”

There is a clown named Lloyd (DC Anderson, brilliant) who is truly dimwitted.  He delivers a monologue so organically perfect for the character that, at its conclusion, the entire audience burst out laughing.  The book and score was written by the very talented Jahn Sood.  The music is nicely tinged with a country flair and a nod to the period.  Songs move the story forward or reflect back so we understand the motivations, dreams and desires of these individuals.  “Tough luck living is rough – but it’s living.”

“Whiskey Blues” is a wailing lament punctuating the heavy drinking of these people.  The plots involving a local Impresario (Chris Henry Coffey) and Sara’s brother are tight and believable.  The ending is dramatic and effective.  Wonderfully realized by Director West Hyler, the entire cast is excellent.  The Disappearing Man is a completely satisfying musical from start to finish.  I eagerly anticipate a full staging filled with the sights and smells of this decaying slice of American history.

Underground:  An Urban Tale – Reading

John Viscardi (book) and Thomas Hodges’ (music and lyrics) story begins promisingly.  Brandon (Colin Carswell) is begging on a subway platform, homeless and hungry.  “Somebody give me my life!” is the scream “in the land of the so-called free.”  For those of us living in New York, the moment humanizes an every day occurrence.  Unfortunately everything that follows is either silly or lurid.

On the silly side, young Maddie (Casey Wenger-Schulman) heads “down into the hole” to make a documentary for school.  Her brother Max (Patrick Brady) will film her interviews for “The Beautiful People.”  She meets an underground charmer known as Doormat (Trevor Viscardi) but his real name is Aldo Giuseppe Verdi Puccini.  He escorts them to a magical subway station with a grand piano and a chandelier.  Both Maddie and Max are smitten with him.

Grace (Mara Cecilia) is a student struggling to get used to life down under and focus on her homework.  Her mom (Aléna Watters) loses her job and becomes a whore.  Grace finds out.  This is the lurid side of the tale.  We also learn that Brandon has a similar lifestyle briefly described as “all those old dudes you go down on.”

Back to the Fame plot we go to escape these harsh realities.  Turns out Grace wants to attend the High School of Performing Arts.  Puccini happens to be a great pianist and teaches her a new song.  Add in a few emotional revelations and the kids learn that “it is easy to judge from a distance, harder when they are living next to us.”  Underground: An Urban Tale misses the mark by not choosing a tone.  As currently written, it feels too inky for a kid’s show and too preposterous for anyone else.

www.nymf.org

These next three readings at NYMF tackle subjects very familiar to me.  A few years ago I read Eighty Days:  Nellie Bly and Elizabeth’s Bisland’s History-Making Trip Around the World.  Mississippi takes place during the troubled civil rights era circa 1959.  The third musical is the story of the slave rebellion lead by Nat Turner.

Bisland & Bly – Reading

This extraordinary tale is about two women who race each other around the world in 1888.  One is the hardscrabble journalist Nellie Bly (Danielle Frimer).  She had herself committed to an insane asylum for ten days then famously wrote a story for the New York World about the horrible conditions.  Elizabeth Bisland (Susannah Jones) was “the most beautiful woman in metropolitan journalism” and penned stories for the ladies’ society pages for a rival newspaper.

These two pioneering women could not have been more different.  Nellie was the girl with the big ideas and proudly boasts:  “I said I could, I said I would, And I did.”  This world trip was Bly’s idea and Bisland, who wanted more substantial stories, was convinced to do the same thing in the opposite direction.  They were looking to beat the fictional trip taken in Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days.  Elizabeth writes to Nellie:  “We live in a world where two women can race around the world.  We may leave our old selves behind.”

Marialena DiFabbio and Susannah Jones’ musical is invested in the emotional journey.  “Free American Girl” and “The Light” help illuminate what they are thinking.  The nail biting world-wide obsession with the race seems less significant.  When it does come up near the end of Act I, the section felt like a very long travelogue.  Act II has a lot of additional locations and relationships to cover culminating in scenes which are both anticlimatic and melodramatic.  Bisland & Bly is at its best when exploring what drives these groundbreaking feminist icons.

Mississippi the Musical – Reading

Gregory James Tornquist has written another show which addresses race issues in the deep south at the dawning of the Civil Rights movement.  Given our country’s continued problems, this is not a surprise.  Mississippi packs a lot of topics into this musical including interracial relationships, lynching, incest, juke joints, murder, revenge and justice.

In Hope River everyone knows everyone.  Church folks were the same as those who went to the all-night juke parties.  The score of this show reflects the gospel, blues and “Hill Country” music from this area.  The songs are tuneful but the lyrics repeat themselves too frequently.  Even the Act II opener “Gravy on Top” which boasts about the merits of putting “gravy on gravy with gravy on top” repeats the line turning amusing into repetitive.

Gussy (Noreen Crayton, terrific) entertains us with that number only to immediately and awkwardly shift to the story of her lynched fourteen year old son.  “Trouble Everywhere” nevertheless may be the emotional and musical high point of this piece.  Kitten (Alexa Freeman) is the mentally challenged young white girl who boldly underlines all the messaging.  Pronouncements like “everyone needs to stop treating people like their less” lead to the clever tune “Un-less.”  A heartfelt effort, Mississippi needs further development on its book.  Richer characters and a fuller story arc would enhance the short vignettes outlined so far.

Brother Nat – Reading

Nat Turner was born into slavery in 1800.  He was a deeply religious man who interpreted the visions he saw as messages from God.  Waiting for a sign from the almighty, a solar eclipse became the catalyst for his organized slave rebellion in 1831.  Brother Nat was performed in a reading of the first act and song selections from the second.

An Angel (Aaron Marcellus) opens this show with “The Ballad of Brother Nat” proclaiming “sweet holy freedom is worth fighting for.”  Allyssa Jones and Damien Sneed have written a beautiful, often operatic score.  The book and lyrics are by Liana and Jabari Asim.  Mood setting is well established early on with “Something In The Air” and “Wide Awake in Hell.”  The atrocities of slavery are fully addressed in “Negroes To Buy” and “Whip Song.”

“Whatcha gonna do When I Get My Wings” asks the enslaved?  They are going to “fly, fly, fly, somewhere in the sky.”  The metaphors are memorable throughout this show.  Possibly my favorite one:  “heaven is a note in a songbird’s throat.”  Nat (Joshuah Brian Campbell) has a gorgeous lament at the end called “Father Forgive Me.”  In this incomplete reading, 26 songs were presented.  I’ve seen enough and, more importantly, heard enough to look forward to watch this mournful and soulful musical expand into a fully developed story.  I feel the characters souls and want to know more about their minds.

www.nymf.org

In NYMF’s history, 49 shows went on to mount off-Broadway productions.  Averaging about three successes annually is a pretty good batting average.  This year ten full productions are being staged with sets and costumes.  There are eleven readings with scripts in a rehearsal studio.  All works in various stages of progress, these musicals hope to continue their journey after this four week festival ends.

Hero:  an Origin Story – Reading

HERO is an admitted nerd who runs a comic book store in Jersey City.  That town is mercilessly mocked and begrudgingly labeled an affordable Brooklyn.  He looks for a roommate and finds Herson Morales (Hector Lionel), an illegal immigrant from El Salvador.  Both are gay.  HERO is played by Mark Aaron James, the show’s writer.  He introduces Herson to the neighborhood gay bar where the community hangs out eating burgers and drinking beer.  HERO realizes that he looked for a roommate but “instead I got a sixteen year old daughter.”

Closeted Herson’s mom is a Seventh Day Adventist and she’s coming to visit!  A Bodega Bandit is on the loose!  The bar is located in a building which is being sold for more high rise development!  (The real estate villain is cleverly named Archy Nemi.)  With so many problems to fix, HERO fancies himself a super hero in the show’s theme song, “I’ve Got Super Powers.”  Thank goodness Drag Queen is on hand to fix the ill fitting yellow spandex fashion disaster!

Hero feels like an extended maxi-challenge from RuPaul’s Drag Race.  When the show works (and it often does), the laughs are plentiful.  There’s the requisite shade, plenty of self-aware meta jokes and a heartfelt message to end it all.  We can all be heroes in own little corners of the world.  The cast did a fine job.  They all looked like they were having fun which was contagious.  Brian Charles Rooney (from this week’s Illuminati Lizards From Outer Space) once again showcases his gigantic comic chops playing five roles.  A few edits here and there (the laundry song for one) and this little charmer might find a niche for #dragrace fans waiting for the next season.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis:  The Musical! – Reading

A title can be misleading.  In this new musical by Matt Chiorini, that is not the case.  Two stories run simultaneously through this exceptional work.  One is a presentation of the famous novella written by Franz Kafka.  The other is the story of Kafka himself.  The themes of isolation, guilt, family dysfunction and absurdity are all present.  As this is musical comedy, all existential crises will be served up for maximum hilarity.

The Metamorphosis is about a young salesman who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a “monstrous vermin.”  He considers his new physical form, noting “I think I’m going to need a lot more shoes.”  The family is repulsed and concerned.  In “We Are the Samsa Family” they sing “we are in a pickle of a dilemma/now that Gregor has an antenna.”  This might sound silly – and the show is immensely so.  The treatment of the absurdist source material and this musical’s riff on that tone is impressive.  Audience members were noticeably smiling throughout.

The four member cast is excellent and has been beautifully directed by the composer who also plays Father Samsa.  As sister Grete and Mother Samsa, Morgan Smith and Meghan Lees make the most of their compassion and revulsion.  Jack Rento has the juicy double role of Gregor and Franz.  The performance is terrific.  I loved how he captured the physicality of a multi-limbed insect with controlled exaggeration and no costume.  Mr. Rento is extremely amusing even during the spot-on meta moments.  He shouts, “Oh no!  It’s the future Kafka scholars.”

Kafka’s Metamorphosis is certainly ready for prime time.  For nerdy wordy bookish people like me, this show is a medium rare T-Bone sizzling on a hot plate of butter.  Right now it’s resting after removal from the grill (with scintillating cross-hatched grill marks) waiting to be devoured.  A little editing on the joke list recitation section and you’ve got a perfect theater meal.

Black Hole Wedding – Production

Sometimes a performance in a show is so good that when the character is not on stage, there is a lull.  That happens in Black Hole Wedding.  Sean McDermott (Miss Saigon, Falsettos) plays Mr. Dean, the CEO of a large fossil fuel company located in the red state of Oildorado.  He loves golf, harassing women and using money to eliminate competition.  The epitome of Make America Great Again leads two showstopping songs, “Ancient & Honorable Game” and “Titan Love Theme.”

The plot revolves around engineers hired for the firm based on their alternative energy inventions.  The evil corporation takes their ideas and buries them.  No need to save the planet, profits come first.  Raymond (Jonathan Miller) is the idealistic hero who falls for Mr. Dean’s new-agey office masseuse Summer (Mimi Robinson).  There’s a muscular security guy (Jay Ellis) with #metoo issues.  Speaking of inappropriate, Calista is head of marketing and the corporate cheerleader.  She implores Raymond to “Show me your laptop.  C’mon expose it.”

Everyone in this good cast works hard but too many jokes fail to land.  “This is almost as bad as the time I forgot to bring my cable crimper to camp.”  Quite a few scenes such as the massage meeting between Raymond and Summer are overlong.  Paul Nelson and Katherine Fredicks’ musical is filled with fun ideas.  The particulate sniffer and the black hole garbage disposal are goofy delights.  If the entire show were as tight as Mr. Dean’s massage needing trapezoids, Black Hole Wedding might be “Something Undreamed Of.”

www.nymf.org

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The New York Musical Festival entries usually explore a wide variety of subjects and situations.  This second batch of three covers the Old Testament Book of Esther, a serial killer romantic adventure and an ocean voyage for female prisoners sentenced to join the convicts in Australia.

Queen E:  The Reluctant Royal – Reading

Esther’s story was the inspiration for Leola Floren Gee (book & lyrics) and Rick Lukianuk (music).  The famous story is about a woman who wins a beauty pageant and becomes Queen to Xerxes.  Her heritage is a closely guarded secret but she will save her people from genocide.  The Jewish celebratory festival of Purim commemorates this event.

Family friendly in tone, this musical is an easy tutorial about the serious subject of religious persecution.  Esteban Suero is a fine King Xerxes.  His obnoxious self-absorbed dictator is also charming and quite likable.  The drunken scene was particularly fun.  Dan’yelle Williamson plays Esther as a sincere heroine with a brain and a heart.  There was great chemistry between these two performers and the central storyline clicked.

The music is pleasant but a few songs were slightly awkward.  The “Insomnia” scene uses lines like “where’s my Zoloft?” which got easy laughs but had little to do with the story.  The evil Haman (Warren Curtis) is humiliated by Xerxes and sings the lightly rap influenced “You’ll Remember My Name.”  That song is almost as out of place as the Executioner’s number.  Darius Wright razzle dazzles “I’m a Guy Who Really Knows How to Swing” as a flamboyant ham while chewing the scenery mercilessly.  The song, the character and the performance style is certainly funny.  What does it have to do with the story other than some kooky comic relief?  I guess family shows featuring murderous dictators need to laugh through the pain prior to the happy ending.

Buried – Production

Performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, Buried is a perfect example of the kind of surprise one can uncover at NYMF.  The creative team and cast has brought this show from the University of Sheffield via the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Tom Williams directed this show while also writing the book and lyrics.  This dark comedy has a lovely tuneful folksy score by Cordelia O’Driscoll.  The team graduated from college in 2017.  There is a rich connectivity between this material and the performances which are all dead on (forgive the pun).

Rose and Harry meet and bond quickly once they realize they are both serial killers.  “Just like me but in another body.”  We are not normally sympathetic to this type nor are we asked to be in this show despite their troubling backstories.  Buried, however, presents two very flawed outsiders with this interesting mirror-image twist.  Lindsay Manion is the tough and broken Rose.  The performance is relaxed, riveting, understated and unnerving.  She’s neurotic and disturbingly sexy, channeling a little Juliette Lewis in her physicality.  Sebastian Belli’s Harry is every part her equal.  He is perhaps the soul of the play.  His song “Something Ordinary” is a high point.

Four very talented ensemble members play many roles including victims, potential victims, television psychologists, bartenders and other roles.  Very few shows balance light moments and comedic breaks with emotional drama and intensity as effectively as Buried.  Mr. Williams’ direction and attention to detail are to be praised.  I expect this gem to be near or at the top of my Best of Fest list for this year’s NYMF.  More importantly, I will see anything these remarkable young writers try next.

Ladyship – Production

A lead actress was ill for the performance I caught of Ladyship.  One of the composers sat in for her and the cast did a hybrid reading/production in full costume.  The presentation flowed seamlessly and each actor’s nicely developed characterizations were evident.  Laura and Linda Good wrote this satisfying tale of female empowerment in a male dominated world.

Two hundred miscreants are sentenced to a seven year prison term in Australia.  The male colonists need women.  Ladyship is a musical about a handful of dubiously convicted ladies who embark on that ten month journey.  Young girls and women are shipped off to receive whatever assignment they get once landed.  The storytelling is strong and clear, especially in the first act.  The latter stages of Act II cram too much resolution far too quickly.  Without NYMF’s time constraints, that should be easily solvable.

There are good songs in Ladyship and the feminist anthem “I’m Done” could certainly find life outside this show.  The cast seemed well directed by Samatha Saltzman (although I saw only minimal staging).  Caitlin Cohn was outstanding as Mary Reed, the sixteen year old at the center of this story.  The actress playing her sister was the one who was ill.  Ms. Cohn’s ability to create a moving, heartfelt relationship with someone reading from a script on a chair was impressive.

www.nymf.org

The New York Musical Festival nurtures the “creation, production and public presentation of stylistically, thematically and culturally diverse new musicals.”  Four NYMF shows eventually reached Broadway as [title of show], Next to Normal, Chaplin and In Transit.  Ten full productions will be staged with sets and costumes this year.  There will also be eleven readings with scripts in a rehearsal studio.  These shows are all works in progress.  The first three I attended during this four week marathon are discussed in this entry.

Everything is Okay (and other helpful lies) – Reading

Melissa Crum and Caitlin Lewins’ musical concerns a group of friends who frequently congregate at a local dive bar.  The gang is aggressively snarky with the jauntiness of the “dilly, dilly” beer commercials.  The opening song sets the tone.  “No one I love is gonna die today/Cars are not death traps/And drinking everyday is okay.”  There is a significant amount of focus on sex culminating in an a capella “I Can Do It On My Own.”  Three girlfriends dial Meg Ryan’s When Harry Met Sally diner scene to new levels.  Even though one character’s father dies early on, they enjoy the “FUN-eral.”

Their message for living is stated loud and clear: “all you gotta do is laugh through shit.”  Everything is Okay then takes a bumpy turn to more serious fare.  The insults get significantly more mean spirited.  The conflicts are far too contrived such as the fight between two characters when one of their Dads hires the other for a job.  This show seemed to work best when it concentrated on prickly humor.  “I made out with your younger brother/I felt like a cougar/It felt good.”  The best parts of this new musical are the funny jokes written by Ms. Crum and Ms. Lewins.

Freedom Summer – Reading

Covering territory frequently mined for dramatic effect, Freedom Summer feels like a musical version of the movie Mississippi Burning.  It’s June 1964 in Meridian, MS.  Voter registration drives add to the preexisting civil rights tension.  Mickey (Blake Price) and Rita (Talia Suskauer) are members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).  They “Drive” down south to assist in the cause but are initially met with resistance.  Local kid James (Devin J. Hill) cannot be hired in a store due to the color of his skin.  “Don’t Shop Where You Can’t Work” is the protest song which brings focus to everyone.

A young man named Andy (Jason Goldston) tells his mom he wants to be “Part of It All.”  There are no surprises in the book (Charlie H. Ray) of this earnest story.  The music, on the other hand, is often beautifully melodic.  The score was written by Mr. Ray and Sam Columbus.  The piano is unquestionably the star of the show. 

This material is naturally going to be compared to many who have used this history to enlighten and enrage.  For this new musical to meaningfully add to our dialogue on America’s race relations, the characters will need to be brought to life with more dimensions and back stories.  (Duncan Shiek and Lynn Nottage’s fine The Secret Life of Bees opened last month and is still in my head.)  As it stands now, Freedom Summer is a generic civil rights story with a highly listenable score penned by talented composers.

Illuminati Lizards From Outer Space – Production

Comparisons have also impacted my enjoyment of Paul Western-Pittard and Yuri Worontschak’s musical.  Illuminati Lizards From Outer Space was a reading that I enjoyed during last year’s NYMF.   This loony conspiracy theory funhouse had silly humor and quirky characters.  The show was elevated to a full production and selected to open this year’s festival.  A few new songs were added.  A disgraced beauty pageant queen gets caught in a trap orchestrated by alien lizards intent on ruling Earth.  The source material comes from the millions of people who believe interstellar lizards in people suits rule our country.

Drugs, sex and possibly dead humans seem to be in abundance at the alien’s mysterious Scientology-inspired Savra Wellness Centre.  There’s an odd janitor named David who will become a “Man of Action.”  Brian Charles Rooney (so unforgettable as Dionne Salon in Bedbugs!!!) is excellent again here.  Tom Deckman was also funny as Klaus, the “Pharmacological Wonder.” Celia Mei Rubin clowned it up memorably in multiple small roles.

The central characters of the beauty queen Tina (Dani Spieler) and the lizard mate Guy (Joshua Hobbs) seemed to evolve.  Instead of adorably quirky dimwit and scaly creep, we now have sparkly pageant queen and self-absorbed male model.  I could see what they were going for but the resulting laughs were far fewer.  To be fair, the direction (frantic) and choreography (repetitive) did the cast (and the creators) no favors.  The zany and idiotic heart of Illuminati Lizards was extinguished far before the laser guns were drawn.  A big disappointment.

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