“Tasteless, discreet, and false” is how composite character “Fletcher Mecklin” (Tyler Milliron) describes radio tributes to the “lifelong bachelor, married to his words,” upon his death at the age of 48, purportedly “after a long illness.” Hogwash, says Fletcher, who knew the real Larry Hart (Ben D. Goldberg) and loved him, not for what he could get out of him (as many did), but for the man that he was—difficult, conflicted, irresponsible, but with a romantic soul that only his lyrics could reveal.

Falling For Make Believe book writer Mark Saltzman introduces us to Fletcher, fresh off a Pennsylvania Dutch farm and auditioning for Rodgers & Hart’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court. The year was 1927, and for someone of Fletcher’s “sort,” the 1920s offered only two options, “living it down low or living it up.” Fletcher chose the latter, while for a deeply closeted Larry, the former was the only conceivable option.

Though prohibition was the law of the land at the time, underground speakeasies like “Vincenzo’s” made it possible not only for New Yorkers to imbibe but also for gay men to congregate, to hold hands, even to dance together before the 21st Amendment made alcohol legal again and pushed men like Larry Hart even further into the closet, bars no longer being secret hideaways.

 It’s at Vincenzo’s that Fletcher meets Larry Hart for the second time, along with composer Richard Rodgers (Brett Ryback), composite Broadway star “Vivian Ross” (Rebecca Ann Johnson), and Doc Bender (Jeffrey Landman), the real-life dentist-turned-agent who made sure his number one client stayed on the down-low even as he supplied him with buckets of booze throughout their long, destructive association.

Next to reminisce is Richard Rodgers, who recalls the awe he felt at the age of 16 upon first meeting 23-year-old Larry, who ended up joining Richard and his new bride Dorothy (Megan Moran) for their “three’s company” honeymoon in France, a vacation à trois that Dorothy takes with a grain of salt, quipping, “It’s not like I’m the first woman to marry a man with a child.”

Vivian rounds out our picture of Larry Hart, expressing regrets that her own platonic love story with the lyricist didn’t start sooner, as well as recalling what a jokester Larry could be when in one of his lighter moods, as during a radio broadcast from the St. James Theater which we get to spy on.

 Throughout these early scenes, Falling For Make Believe treats us to many of the song hits that made Rodgers & Hart the toast of Broadway. “Thou Swell,” “My Heart Stood Still,” “I Wish I Were In Love Again,” and “Isn’t It Romantic?” are just a handful of the nearly two dozen songs performed on the Colony stage by a couldn’t-be-better sextet of performers, adding up to an intermissionless 95 minutes of music and memories.

Unlike the sanitized Hollywood biopic Words And Music, which starred Mickey Rooney as a heterosexualized Larry, Saltzman’s book does not hesitate to present the legendary lyricist warts and all, and it is all the more fascinating and powerful for its honesty.

Again and again, Richard loses patience with Larry’s irresponsibility, his habitual lateness, his drinking, and his days-long disappearances. Richard even goes so far as to threaten seeking out a new lyricist if Larry doesn’t get psychiatric help. Meanwhile, Vivian rejects Larry’s marriage proposal, not for lack of love, but because, plainly put, he wouldn’t be able to satisfy her in bed. As for Fletcher, though the lovestruck ex-farmboy does finally get to consummate his desires for Larry, his closeted paramour finds it impossible to believe that anyone could love him for himself rather than for what they could get out of him.

 Throughout the highs and lows of Larry Hart’s life, Falling For Make Believe keeps those Rodgers & Hart hits coming. Vivian and Richard duet “Bewitched, Bothered, And Bewildered,” Vivian solos “My Funny Valentine” and “Blue Moon,” and in a party sequence at New York’s City Center, we are regaled with “With A Song In My Heart,” “Mountain Greenery,” “Sing For Your Supper,” “Where Or When,” and “Johnny One Note.”

Along the way, lighter comedic sequences keep Falling For Make Believe from ever becoming a downer, as when Richard locks Larry into their office till he comes up with a lyric, something the word whiz does in mere seconds. Later, when it’s time for Larry to write the lyrics for “I Could Write A Book,” it’s a pair of muses played by Johnson and Moran who inspire Broadway’s wittiest wordsmith to come up with his latest confection.

Colony Theatre newbie Jim Fall’s direction is every bit as inspired as the musical he helms, as are the performances of all six of its stars.

Goldberg brings Larry Hart to life in all his dimensions, so that like those around him, we find ourselves both frustrated by Larry’s self-destructive impulses and rooting for him to find the happiness he deserves. Not surprisingly, the popular L.A. cabaret star croons Rodgers & Hart with the best of them.

It’s great to see Ryback once again in musical theater mode following his Scenie-winning dramatic performance in The Prince Of Atlantis. Not only are the quintuple-threat’s acting chops first-rate, he once again shows off terrific pipes and tickles the ivories to perfection.

 In Vivian Roos, Scenie winner Johnson gets the showcase role she so richly deserves, the stunning redhead appearing straight out of the Technicolor 1930s/40s, radiant with glamour and singing the best of Rodgers & Hart like a veritable Broadway superstar.

Landman (like Ryback and Johnson a Lead Performance Scenie winner) gets to sink his teeth into the villainous Doc, a role he makes far more than just a cardboard bad guy. The Broadway vet is particularly memorable singing an aptly-placed “Falling In Love With Love,” having just made sure that Larry cuts ties with Fletcher for fear of blackmail.

Moran makes a standout L.A. theater debut in a trio of deftly delineated turns—as snappy audition accompanist Peggy, as the lovely and very understanding Dorothy Rodgers, and as the butch policewoman who informs “lewd conduct” arrestees Larry and Fletcher that degenerates get incarcerated in the women’s cells—for their own protection.

Finally, there is Milliron, who gives the evening’s standout dramatic performance fresh from his revelatory work in Master Class. Not only does the operatic tenor dig deep into Fletcher’s beautiful, ahead-of-its-time soul, he  looks every bit the matinee idol and sings the bittersweet “Nobody’s Heart” quite movingly indeed. Bring Kleenex to wipe away tears.

Musical director Keith Harrison shares credit for the cast’s topnotch vocalizing. The fabulous four-piece offstage orchestra is composed of Brian Boyce, Kathryn Lounsbery, Larry Tuttle, and Jesse Wiender. Vocals and instrumentals are expertly blended by sound designer Drew Dalzell.

Falling For Make Believe looks as sensational as it sounds, thanks to Jeff McLaughlin’s gorgeous art-deco set, MacAndME’s detailed period properties design/set dressing, and costume designer Dianne K. Graebner’s gorgeous 1920s/30s/40s suits and gowns, all of which Sohail e. Najafi lights with abundant pizzazz. Cassie Russek gets A+ for hair and wigs.

Leesa Freed is production stage manager and Brian Cordoba assistant stage manager. Robert T. Kyle is technical director and Eric A. Mitchell assistant lighting designer.

Scenie-winning Dames At Sea choreographer Lisa Hopkins gets to strut her stuff in Falling For Make Believe’s flashy “what if” grand finale, though creative team Fall and Saltzman make the wise decision not to give their musical too rosy an ending, preferring instead to leave us wondering what might have been if only Larry Hart had been able to live his life honestly and openly—even as we stand cheering the musical that at long last tells his tale.

Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street, Burbank. Through June 30.  (No performances from May 20 to June 5.)  Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00, Saturdays at 3:00 and 8:00 and Sundays at 2:00. Reservations: 818 558-7000X15
www.colonytheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
April 27, 2013
Photos: Michael Lamont

Such is the case with 2008’s A Catered Affair, which despite its pedigree (music and lyrics by John Bucchino and book by Harvey Fierstein, based on a screenplay by Gore Vidal and a teleplay Paddy Chayefsky) and a cast which included Tom Wopat, Faith Prinze, and Fierstein, closed on Broadway after a mere 143 performances and previews.

Still, as its twelve Drama Desk Award nominations and its Drama League Award win for Distinguished Production of a Musical suggest, and as last night’s MTG concert staged reading made abundantly clear, this is one musical deserving of a better fate than the one Broadway gave it.

 Fierstein’s book introduces circa 1953 us to middle-aged Brooklyn cab driver Tom Hurley (David Holmes), who has just learned that he and fellow cabbie Sam (John Sloman) can at last become equal partners, each of them owning 50% of the cab they’ve been driving for twenty years simply by buying about-to-retire Pasternak’s one-third share of the business.

Simultaneously, Tom’s daughter Jane (Melissa Fahn) and her boyfriend Ralph (Jeffrey Christopher Todd) have decided to formalize their own partnership in a quickie city hall ceremony, the better to take advantage of an offer to drive a friend’s car out to California, all expenses paid, have a West Coast honeymoon, and get back to New York in time for Ralph’s teaching job to start back up.

There’s only one catch. Once their respective parents have learned of their decision, there’s no way the adults will let their kids get married in anything less than a grand church ceremony, followed by a gala reception for family and friends, the titular “Catered Affair.”

 Tom’s wife Aggie (Marsha Kramer) sees her daughter’s wedding as a chance to make up to Janie for having always favored their son Terrance, a recently fallen hero/victim of America’s Korean War. Yes, Janie’s marriage to Ralph may someday end up as loveless as Aggie’s to Tom appears to have been, but at least she’ll have that one magical moment to look back on in the future. As for Ralph’s parents, the hoity-toity Hallorans (Sloman and Tracy Lore) can hardly see their son-and-heir married in a civil ceremony. After all, what will their hundred and eighty-six friends and relatives think if they don’t get their very own embossed wedding invitations in the mail?

Complicating matters even further is Janie’s “confirmed bachelor” Uncle Winston (Roy Leake, Jr.), who despite having lived all of Tom and Aggie’s married life under the same roof with them, doesn’t qualify as “immediate family” and will therefore not be invited to join them at City Hall, since how will the rest of Janie’s uncles and aunts feel if only Uncle Win is at the ceremony?

 With a storyline as slight as this, a cast of ten mostly over-fifty actors, and a ninety-minute running time, how could A Catered Affair possibly have made it on Broadway opposite In The Heights, Legally Blonde, and Mary Poppins, to name just three concurrently-running hits?

Still, with a score as gorgeously intricate (and just plain gorgeous) as the one Bucchino has written—kissing cousins to Adam Guettel’s for The Light In The Piaza—and characters whose intersecting stories can’t help touching the hearts of all but the most heartless, A Catered Affair is more than deserving of its brief post-Broadway afterlife with Musical Theatre Guild.

The last time we saw Kramer, Holmes, and Leake on stage together was in 2010’s entirely forgettable 70, Girls, 70, all the more reason to celebrate a musical that does justice to the talents of three of the brightest and most venerable jewels in the MTG crown, each of them doing unforgettable work under Alan Bailey’s supremely nuanced direction.

Watch the pain in Kramer’s eyes as she realizes the short end of the bargain Aggie has given “Our Only Daughter” or her face light up as the long-suffering housewife describes her “Vision” for Janey and Ralph’s “catered affair” and you realize you’re in the presence of a master performer given the proverbial “role of a lifetime” and nailing its every facet.

As Tom, a man who loves his daughter but knows that an expensive wedding will mean extinguishing any hope of finally becoming his own boss, Holmes is a powerhouse of anger and resentment and, in the gut-wrenching “I Stayed,” unexpected marital devotion and even love.

And then there’s Leake in a part Fierstein wrote for himself, not surprisingly the musical’s most scene-stealing role, making “bent” Uncle Win entirely his scene-stealing own, and never more so than in a tour-de-force “Immediate Family,” which has Leake singing out a repressed gay man’s rage even as he repeatedly mangles Mrs. Halloran’s name for laughs, a performance that would have the entire audience erupting in cheers were it not cut short by another character’s entrance (an interruption both inexplicable and indefensible, whoever the culprit).

 Supporting performances are all-around splendid, beginning with Fahn’s exquisite, utterly authentic Janie, proof positive that this MTG treasure can play it straight, and every bit as winningly as she does the bubble-headed bimbos she’s best known for. And as Todd’s recent romantic lead in Call Me Madam made abundantly clear, no leading lady could ask for a handsomer or more charming romantic leading man. The duo get A Catered Affair’s most gorgeous song, “Don’t Ever Stop Saying I Love You,” a heavenly joining of voices if there ever was one.

The inimitable Helen Geller and the one-and-only Carol Kline join the always sensational Lore as a trio of gossiping neighborhood biddies, Geller and Kline doubling terrifically as women who make weddings their business. Guest artist Sloman is every bit the equal of his MTG member costars as two very different characters.

Completing the cast in a pair of non-singing roles is the luminous Melissa Lyons Caldretti as an army sergeant who delivers an American flag and government check with equal parts dignity and heart, and as a friend of Janie’s whose recent marriage has brought her the opposite of wedded bliss.

An entirely justified Tony-nomination went to orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, and if MTG’s four-piece orchestra substitutes synthesized violins for the real thing (impeccably transposed by musical director Brent Crayon), the beauty of Tunick’s orchestrations shines through as performed by Crayon and Cassie Nickols on keyboards, Adrienne Geffen on woodwinds, and Dustin McKinney on trumpet.

AJS Costumes’ A. Jeffrey Schoenberg gives each character not only just the right 1950s look but one that matches age, income, and social position. A Catered Affair also features some of the most beautiful lighting choices I’ve seen in an MTG production, particularly in “Vision.” Actors mime most props, allowing audience imagination to do the rest.

Jessica Olson is assistant costume designer. Tara Sitser is production stage manager, Kirsten D’Agostaro Shook assistant stage manager, and Art Brickman production manager.

Jill Marie Burke is production coordinator.

A Catered Affair cries out for a 99-seat production, one that would best suit its intimacy and give audiences the chance to see it fully-staged. In the meantime, there’s MTG stripped-down big-stage reading to celebrate—with only one remaining performance in Thousand Oaks this coming Sunday. This is one affair, catered or otherwise, you won’t want to miss.

–Steven Stanley
April 15, 2013
Photos: Stan Chandler

www.musicaltheatreguild.com

So how, then, did Paramount Pictures manage in 1944 to make a movie out of James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, a film in which insurance salesman Fred MacMurray and housewife Barbara Stanwyck plot and execute the murder of her husband—and make it look like an accident so as to cash in on hubby’s insurance policy’s “double indemnity” clause, one which guarantees double the payout in case of accidental death?

Mike Bencivenga’s World Premiere play Billy & Ray not only explains how co-screenwriters Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler found ingenious ways to hoodwink Hays Code czar Joseph Breen into letting them include all of the abovementioned taboos in their movie, under Garry Marshall’s pitch-perfect direction, it does so in the most entertaining of ways.

 “It’s sordid, violent, disgusting. The studio won’t touch it, but if anyone can get this past those production code censors, you and Charlie can,” producer Joseph Sistrom (Anthony Starke) tells Billy (Kevin Blake) in the play’s opening sequence, which is why despite the apparent impossibility of filming Cain’s novella, the studio exec went ahead anyway and bought the rights for a not measly $15,000 (an impressive $325,000 in today’s terms).

Unfortunately for Sistrom, Billy’s longtime collaborator Charles “Charlie” Brackett has recently put an end to their screenwriting partnership, and though Billy is convinced he’ll be back sooner or later, later is unfortunately too late to get Double Indemnity turned into a script in time.

So Joe makes a suggestion. How about getting The Big Sleep author, novelist Raymond Chandler (Shaun O’Hagen), to co-write with Billy?

Despite never having heard of said Raymond Chandler, Billy agrees to give the partnership a try, a quick perusal of Chandler’s prose having impressed the director-screenwriter with lines like, “Nothing is emptier than an empty swimming pool.” “Who writes like that?” exclaims Billy in a combination of disbelief and awe.

Though “Ray” Chandler is as clueless about Hollywood as Billy Wilder is about Chandler (“Who’s Goldwyn?” Ray asks in complete innocence), the novelist agrees to write the screenplay (and promises to do so in a mere ten days), provided the studio lets him do it all by himself at home.  All that’s needed is to get a hold of a script so he can see what one looks like.

Ten days later, Ray is back with a screenplay Joe and Billy dub “shit,” so full is it of things which have no place in a script. Thus, having wasted ten days doing it Ray’s way, Billy and Ray are now going to do it the right way—together, and if collaborating with another writer seems unnatural to Ray, Billy assures him, “It’s like riding a unicycle. It’s completely unnatural, but you get used to it.”

 Billy & Ray recalls 2004’s Moonlight And Magnolias, in which playwright Ron Hutchinson details the week during which David O. Selznick, Victor Fleming, and Ben Hecht wrote the screenplay for Gone With The Wind. Bencivenga takes a similar conceit and adds to it elements of Neil Simon’s classic The Odd Couple to hilarious effect.

On the one hand, there’s Billy Wilder, whose secretary Helen Hernandez (Ali Spuck) seems to spend as much time mixing cocktails for her boss as she does doing office duties, a man whose frequent dalliances make him the equal of any Hollywood “player.” On the other hand, there’s Ray Chandler, an old-school gent so straight-laced, he doesn’t play cards, doesn’t follow sports, and doesn’t even drink—or so he says.

Besides providing considerable “Odd Couple” laughter throughout, Billy & Ray fascinates with its many revelations about just how Double Indemnity made it from page to screen in an era of de facto film censorship dubbed “adhering to The Code.”

We learn, for example, that one of the first things Billy and Ray did was to change the last names of the murderous lovers, Walter’s because there was someone with the insurance agent’s original name living in nearby Encino, and Phyllis’s from Nerdlinger to Dietrichson because, as Billy would surely have put it, who’d want to schtup a woman named Nerdlinger?

But this was nothing compared to the hard stuff, finding way after way to outsmart the Code, since everything in the movie—adultery, cold-blooded murder, even double indemnity—was taboo.

 Over the course of its roller-coaster-ride two acts, Billy & Ray allows us to be flies on the walls of some very special walls indeed. We learn about one of Wilder and Chandler’s greatest strokes of genius—not showing the murder itself but rather Barbara Stanwyck’s face as she witnesses it, and another, having Walter and Phyllis plot the murder in Jerry’s Market—a murder planned not in the darkness of a smoky bar but in the bright light of day.

Obviously, the more you know about 1940s Hollywood (and Double Indemnity in particular), the more you’ll enjoy Billy & Ray. At the same time, Bencivenga’s comedy is so downright entertaining that even those with considerably less Hollywood savvy are likely to have a rollicking good time.

Billy & Ray is filled with Neil Simonesque one-liners (“Somebody bring me a blueprint of George Raft’s brain because I want to build an idiot”), Bencivenga’s extensive research suggesting that Billy Wilder may well have said many if not all of the laugh-getting lines written for him here.

Marshall directs—at the ripe young age of seventy-eight—with his trademark precision and panache, aided by longtime protégé, assistant director Joseph Leo Bwarie. Among Marshall tricks, there’s a hilarious bathroom sequence that exhibits the Hollywood legend’s mastery of comic timing, blocking that appears entirely organic throughout, and a clever recurring window-and-blinds bit that’s an inspired bit of genius.

 Performances are all-around terrific, from Starke’s spot-on work as harried Hollywood exec Sistrom, for whom if Double Indemnity weren’t already headache enough, there was also the matter of attempting to film a script with the godawful title “Hitler’s Children,” to Spuck’s pizzazzy channeling of Rosalind Russell and Eve Arden in her snappy performance as real-life secretary Helen.

Then there’s O’Hagan, doing standout work as always as “Felix” to Blake’s “Oscar,” a smartly understated Ray that allows his costar to play Billy with a razzmatazz and dazzle that would likely have suited Wilder to a T. From the twinkle in his eye when he’s about to zap Ray with yet another zinger to the way he commands a stage with Austrian ebullience and élan, Blake’s Billy is bound to be one of the most talked-about performances of the year.

 As for Billy & Ray’s look and sound, it’s clear that no expense has been spared to make this one of the classiest productions around town, beginning with Keith Mitchell’s masterfully detailed set, one which surrounds Billy’s center-stage office with Sistrom’s on the left and Helen’s on the right, the better to facilitate lickety-split scene changes. Heather Ho once again deserves major kudos for her period-perfect props—phones, typewriters, and various ‘40s Hollywood paraphernalia. Jeremy Pivnick’s lighting is equally expert, signaling time of day and upping dramatic moments along with other tricks of the lighting designer’s trade. David Beaudry’s sound design is as good as it gets as are costume designer Terri A. Lewis’ terrific 1944 fashions.

Dale Alan Cooke is stage manager, Heather Hall associate producer, and Amy Lieberman, CSA, casting director.

Only in Billy & Ray’s anti-climactic epilog does playwright Bencivenga make a misstep, choosing to fill us in with the kind of “and this is what happened to” factoids that would work as part of a movie’s end-title sequence but seem tacked on to an ending (courtesy of sound designer Beaudry) that if left alone would conclude Billy & Ray with a gasp-inducing wallop.

Still, that’s about the only nit I can find to pick in just about as splendid a season ender as any theater could wish for. Proving that Garry Marshall (and his Falcon Theatre) are still at the top of their game, Billy & Ray is manna from film buffs’ heaven.

Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank.
www.falcontheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
April 5, 2013
Photos: Chelsea Sutton

 Taking as its inspiration 1930’s Girl Crazy, Crazy For You retains that show’s Out West setting and Broadway Showgirl chorus line along with the best known of its George and Ira Gershwin songs, including “Bidin’ My Time,” “Embraceable You,” “I Got Rhythm,” and “But Not For Me,” adding to them “Someone To Watch Over Me” (from Oh, Kay!), “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” (from Shall We Dance), and “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (from Damsel In Distress). With its “Best Of George And Ira” score and Ken (Lend Me A Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo, Leading Ladies) Ludwig’s puntastic book, one which pays tribute to (and pokes affectionate fun at) the plot-thin pre-Oklahoma! storylines of the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s, Crazy For You more than lives up to its Broadway billing as “The New Gershwin Musical Comedy.” Add to that some of the most thrilling tap numbers since 42nd Street, originally choreographed by Susan Stroman, and you’ve got a musical treat for young and old alike.

Ludwig’s book introduces us to banking heir Bobby Child (Jason W. Webb), a dashing you man who wants nothing more than to escape the clutches of his imperious mother Lottie (Dynell Leigh) and longtime fiancée Irene (Lindsay Kristine Anderson) the better to star in a Broadway Show, particularly one produced by impresario Bela Zangler (Danny Michaels) of Zangler Follies fame. Unfortunately, the Florenz Ziegfeld stand-in is too preoccupied with business to pay even the slightest attention to Bobby’s enthusiastic audition, leaving our hero no choice but to accede to his mother’s latest demand, that he head Out West to Deadrock, Nevada and foreclose on the ghost town’s once flourishing Gaiety Theater.

 Arriving plumb tuckered out in Deadrock, Bobby is greeted by the town’s dozen remaining cowpokes, who have nothing better to do than bide their time singing “Bidin’ My Time.” Deadrock’s population of eight is completed by Gaiety owner Everett Baker (Nick Menecola) and his feisty daughter Polly (Lyndie Renee), the only woman left in this nearly abandoned coal-mining town.

Though it’s love at first sight for Bobby, the peppy redhead takes an instant dislike to the handsome New Yorker, whom she has vowed to get even with for coming to repossess her pop’s prize possession, the theater where his beloved wife (and Polly’s late mother) once ruled the stage. In fact, Polly finds the sight of Bobby Child so disagreeable that she refuses to even consider his master plan—to put on a show which will net enough cash to save the Gaiety from foreclosure.

Torn between his mother’s orders to foreclose and his desire to win Polly’s heart by hook or by crook, Bobby comes up with the perfect solution—to don fake goatee and impersonate Zangler, figuring quite rightly that Polly will be more than willing to have the Broadway big-shot produce and direct the show—that is if the town’s cowboys can learn to tap as show-stoppingly as the chorus girls Bobby has already brought to Deadrock to assist him in his plan.

Fortunately for Bobby, Polly falls head over heels for him in Zangler garb. Unfortunately for Bobby, she still can’t stand the sight of Bobby as himself.

 While Ludwig’s Tony-nominated book isn’t quite as inspired as the 42nd Street-spoofing one George Haimsohn and Robin Miller wrote for Dames At Sea, it does score considerable points for its pun-heavy humor (“You’re next to an idiot!”) and the way it manages in classic jukebox musical fashion to find ways to integrate a dozen and a half Gershwin tunes into its wisp of a plot.

Glendale Centre Theatre audiences know they’re in for something special from the get-go, as director/choreographer Orlando Alexander, not content to let his audience sit back and listen to the show’s prerecorded overture of Gershwin hits, stages a Zangler Follies production number smack dab in its mid-section, spangled showgirls, feathered headdresses, chorus line kicks, and all. This is but a preview, however, of the production number that accompanies Webb’s zingy rendition of “I Can’t Be Bothered Now,” GCT’s in-the-round configuration and steeply raked seating allowing the kind of dazzlingly kaleidoscopic moves made famous by Busby Berkeley in his 1930s movie musical classics. (More about Alexander’s choreography later.)

Bobby is played by StageSceneLA favorite Webb, a Scenie-winning Outstanding Lead Actor for She Loves Me, whose stellar performances in 1776, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, and Sweeney Todd have revealed a leading man’s charm and vocal gifts but did not prepare this reviewer for his deft Fred Astaire/Gene Kelly dance moves in Crazy For You. Add to this his hilarious impersonation of Bela Zangler and you’ve got Webb’s very best work to date—and that’s saying something.

Webb’s partner Renee not only gives Polly the requisite grit and gumption, but proves an excellent dance (and romantic) partner to Webb and sings Berlin ballads with more than a touch of Dolly Parton, the first time I’ve heard Polly sung country, and gorgeously so.

 In supporting roles, Michaels milks every comic moment from Bela Zanglar, his mirror-image scene with Webb’s “Bela” (inspired by Harpo Marx opposite Groucho in Duck Soup and Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy) a masterpiece of precisely-timed physical comedy. Anderson is glamour personified as Bobby’s snooty fiancée Irene, her lush soprano featured in a sexy “Naughty Baby” opposite Edward Chamberlain’s rip-roaring (and very funny) Lank. Leigh is a hoot as Bobby’s snobbish mother Lottie, Menecola a warm and folksy Everett (Polly’s dad), and Kate Landro and Todd Andrew Ball a delightfully stiff-upper-lip English Eugene and Patricia Fodor. Among the Zangler girls, a terrific Claudia Dolph makes for a sassy Tess, while the fabulous Christa Hamilton has her dumb blonde act down pat(sy) as Patsy.

Bernadette Bentley (Betsy) Laurie Fedor (Mitzi), Anna Lamonica (Susie), Daron O’Donnell (Elaine), Anne Schroeder (Louise), and Libby Snyder (Margie) complete the glamorous Zangler Gilds, while Raymond Barcelo (Moose), Greg Hardash (Sam), Kevin Holmquist (Harry/Jimmy), Espiridion Magana (Mingo), T.J. McNeil (Wyatt), Travis Morse (Junior), Justin Radford (Billy/Pete), and Paul Reid (Custus) are the time-bidin’ denizens of Deadrock, all of whom get top marks for staying in character regardless of the size of their roles and even more so, for their flawless execution of some of the best (and most ingenious) choreography you’re likely to see in an L.A. musical.

 In addition for the 1930s homework that’s gone into Alexander’s spot-on direction, his choreography proves a winner again and again. In addition to the abovementioned “Overture” and “I Can’t Be Bothered Now,” Alexander takes Broadway superstar Stroman’s Tony-winning choreography as a starting-off point and makes “Slap That Bass” and “I Got Rhythm” two of the show-stoppingest showstoppers you’ll see any time soon. “I Got Rhythm” in particular is a standout, with the most inspired use of noise-making dance props since Matthew Bourne’s breathtaking staging of “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” in the National Tour of My Fair Lady.

Steven Applegate scores his usual high marks for musical directing the cast, while costume designer Angela Woods of Glendale Costumes outdoes herself in colorful, color-coordinated 1930s period wear, both glitzy and rustic. The production’s unbilled sets wisely leave the stage area open for dance sequences, with wall paintings and designs above and around entrance and exit tunnels providing just enough scene-setting for an in-the-round production. (Substituting a phone booth for the usual automobile in “I Can’t Be Bothered Now” is a particularly clever touch.) The show’s unbilled lighting design is striking and effective as well. Sharing program credit are production consultant Michaels, stage manager Caitlin Barbieri, and sound technician Nathan J. Milisavljevich. (Amped vocals and prerecorded instrumental tracks are adeptly mixed.)

It’s been quite a year for musicals at Glendale Centre Theatre—Fiddler On The Roof, Annie, Little Shop Of Horrors, and now Crazy For You, each and every one of them an absolute gem, made even more cheer-worthy by the GCT creative team’s expertise at transferring great big Broadway shows from proscenium to arena stage. Of the three excellent Crazy For Yous I’ve seen in the past eight months, Glendale Centre Theatre’s is the all-a-round best.

Glendale Centre Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale.
www.glendalecentretheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
March 7, 2013

 A cleverly staged opening montage has Taylor (Jeni Incontro) and Zac (Tripp Pettigrew) meeting cute at a wedding she has crashed, exchanging apartment keys, and making their own plans to walk down the aisle.

Before long, news of Taylor and Zac’s impending nuptials has Ryan (Lucas Alifano), Ashley (Emily Clark), and Paul (Bob Simpson) reminding Taylor that as a married woman, she’ll soon need to be saying “Farewell” to her life as a “fag hag,” with only Ashley remaining to uphold the time-honored tradition of women who love being around men who love doing it with men.

Also along for the wedding party ride are Taylor’s half-brother Dave (Jeff Scot Carey) and a pregnant—and about to pop—wedding planner named Allison (Katrina Rennells).

It doesn’t take long for it to become clear that the one-sided feelings sung about by Paul and Dave in “Proposition Unrequited Love” may well be the order of the day for all concerned, with Paul yearning for the affianced Taylor, Dave carrying a torch for dizzy blonde Ashley, and Zac having a hard time resisting those carnal urges around his fiancée’s gay best friend Ryan, happily coupled with the never seen Jack, who’s minding the home front in sunny California.

 Eberhardt’s book, though still in need of work, is a fun and funny one, and the characters she has created are folks we enjoy being around and getting to know. Lyricist Eberhardt and composer Collyer have written songs which advance the plot, allow us to know each character better, and fit the contemporary musical theater model of similarly New York-set shows like [title of show], I Love You Because, and Ordinary Days.

Right Together, Left Together’s current two-week run is but the latest step in the process of bringing a new musical to fruition, beginning with a pair of staged readings in New York in 2009 and 2010 and continuing with a book-in-hand Hollywood workshop also in 2010. Though its current six-performance run and barest-bones set design suggest a work still in progress, performances and staging are every bit as strong as one might expect in a more fully designed, longer run production.

Director Nicole Dominguez elicits sharply etched portraits from her first-rate cast and keeps the pacing swift. Notwithstanding, RTLT runs at least twenty minutes longer than optimal for an intimate, seven-character chamber musical.

What works quite wonderfully already is this production’s terrific young cast, four of whom have been with Right Together, Left Together in various of its previous incarnations, the remaining three of whom are new to the show and to this reviewer as well.

The excellent Incontro, who originated the role of Taylor in RTLT’s first two New York readings, creates a real, three-dimensional contemporary woman faced with the possibility that her marriage just might not be the made-in-heaven matrimony she’d like it to be.

Clark and real-life hubby Simpson have been with Right Together, Left Together since its second NYC reading, and as both are longtime StageSceneLA favorites and Scenie winners (Simpson has two Best Actor Scenies and Clark two in the Best Ensemble category), it’s a thrill to see them sharing a stage once again. No one plays quirky blonde with more panache and pizzazz than Clark, and Simpson is as always a dynamic stage presence, this time as unrequited love victim Paul.

 Alifano joined RTLT in its 2010 Hollywood staged reading, and it’s hard to imagine a more likeable Ryan than the one Alifano creates, or one more believable in his commitment to a left-behind-in-L.A. spouse, to whom Ryan dedicates his “Discovered,” a terrific showcase for Alifano’s rich, resonant pipes.

Like Alifano, Pettigrew and Carey are what we call “finds,” the former digging deep into the confused soul of a man whose desires may not be the same as his wants, the latter a charismatic scene-stealer as devil-may-care Dave. Carey lucks out with a pair of show-stopping duets, the jazzy “Proposition Unrequited Love” opposite Simpson, and the fun and frisky “Flirting” opposite Clark. As for Pettigrew, the L.A. theater newcomer gets to stop the show himself with his big, powerfully performed 11 o’clock solo “Brilliant.”

Last but not least, there’s the vivacious Rennells, new to RTLT but not to StageSceneLA, stepping out of the ensemble to play sassy wedding guru Allison, so committed to planning the perfect ceremony that she gives not a moment’s thought to her water breaking—or to bringing a day-old infant to work.

 Though cuts are recommended, they ought not to include the sensational Act One finale “Black And White,” which has the entire cast harmonizing as each darts longing glances at the object of his or her unrequited or secret passion. “Calm Down” is another winner, with Ryan giving said advice to an Ashley who doesn’t have it in her repertoire to “calm the fuck down.” And then there’s the gang’s salute to “The Big Day,” an oh so clever pastiche that references wedding songs from My Fair Lady, Fiddler On The Roof, and Company. Finally, the “Discovered” reprise that ends the show could be improved upon only by finding a way for all seven cast members to be onstage for the grand finale. And as long as I’m making suggestions, how about turning that show-opening montage into a song?

Besides finding ways to cut its running time down to a more suitable two hours max (including intermission), book writer Eberhardt could make it much clearer from the get-go how each character is related to each other character. Where did these people meet and how long have they known each other? How is it that both Ashley and Taylor have become “fag hags,” and since they both love spending their time amongst the gays, how come there’s only one out gay man in their entourage? Though it’s mentioned that Dave is Taylor’s half brother, I couldn’t figure out how Paul entered the picture? And speaking of Paul, early on he’s told he has to pretend to be gay (the reason for which was given so quickly that I missed it), a plot point that gets dropped since Paul never does play gay, until it’s suddenly brought up late in Act Two. Finally, (and skip to the next paragraph if you wish to avoid a spoiler) Zac’s internalized homophobia and his emphatic denials that he is anything but straight make his “Brilliant” less a liberating coming-out statement than the words of a still deeply conflicted young man—and not the best way to bid adieu to this character.

Still, despite these quibbles, it’s hard not to cheer a musical which has you liking every character and enjoying every minute of the time you spend with them, even if those minutes may end up a tad too many in number.

Keyboardist Graham Jackson and drummer Brian Boyce provide expert live musical backup to Collyer and Eberhardt’s eclectic lineup of songs. Carmen Dominguez is music consultant. The bare-bones set—furniture on a blackbox stage—looks considerably less bare thanks to Nick Saiki’s topnotch lighting design. Uncredited costumes are nice personality fits for each character.

Right Together, Left Together is produced by Clark and Incontro for The Unknown Artists. Cody Clark is stage manager.

Creating a new musical may well be the longest of any theatrical process, a five-to-seven-year trajectory from reading to workshop to preview to production being not all that uncommon. While not quite there yet, Right Together, Left Together is well on its way to becoming a show that could make it to New York and on to regional theaters looking to attract that much sought-after younger demographic. And isn’t that something to sing about?

GTC Burbank, 1111-b West Olive Avenue, Burbank. Through March 2.
http://iamanunknownartist.wordpress.com/

–Steven Stanley
February 28, 2013

Well, if you’re the editor of StageSceneLA, the answer to the above question is “Not until last night,” when the spectacularly one-of-a-kind Cavalia Odysséo opened to a standing-room-only audience dazzled again and again by its myriad of wonders.

 The brainchild of Cirque Du Soleil co-founder Normand Latourelle, Cavalia Odysséo takes spectators on an Around-The-World-In-Two-And-A-Half-Hours tour of Africa, the Arctic, the American Southwest thanks to performers (both equine and human) and a design which includes a hockey-rink-sized stage backed by an ever-changing high-def video backdrop projected onto a surround screen three times as large as the biggest IMAX has to offer.  How about that for spectacular?

 From the first of its fifteen production numbers, “Rêver L’Odyssée,” one which features nine of its stunning stable of horses amidst a lush, verdant forest, to “Odysséo,” the evening’s grand finale performed by three dozen riders and acrobats and a dozen-and-a-half horses on an 80,000-gallon lake which has appeared out of nowhere, Cavalia Odysséo redefines live entertainment for Los Angeles theatergoers and folks who have never seen a play or musical in their lives.

“Épona” is one of several numbers featuring “roman riding,” each of its bevy of riders standing high atop not one but two horses, a foot on each one. “Fête De Village” has riders and acrobats competing to see who can leap highest, several of its two-legged participants defying the laws of gravity on spring-loaded stilts that send them higher aloft than you would think humanly possible. “Tribu” and “Nomads” give us some of the most spectacular trick riding you’re likely ever to see, with riders standing upright on galloping stallions or hanging upside-down off their speeding equine partners’ sides or jumping on and off of them without missing a beat.

 Other numbers take us to Africa, where native-born acrobats execute somersault after somersault after somersault, each faster and more death-defying than the one before, most notably in “Appel D’Afrique,” which invites audience members to join African performers in crying out “O walu guere moufan,” a resounding plea for “No More War.”

 Others in Cavalia Odysséo’s troupe of acrobats and aerialists (most of them North American or European) defy gravity time and time again, whether hanging by hands or even feet from hoops suspended several stories high in “Tempête,” or rising like airborne angels in the appropriately titled “Anges,” or, in “Carousello,” climbing high up the rotating and static poles of a carousel which has descended from the highest reaches of the Cavalia Big Top, the better to allow Odysséo’s acrobatic team to execute feats no human ought to be able even to imagine.

Then there are numbers like “Le Sédentaire,” “Grand Cavalia,” and “Paseo,” which allow us simply to observe bronco beauty, with or without riders, and the stunning Act Two opener “Oasis,” which treats us to the spectacle of horses awakening from sleep in the most surprising and delightful of ways.

 Sharing credit with horses, riders, and acrobats is the creative team behind Cavalia Odysséo’s wonders: artistic director Normand Latourelle, director Wayne Fowkes, equestrian director and choreographer Benjamin Aillaud, set designer Guillaume Lord, visual conceptualist Geodezik, costume designers Georges Lévesque and Michèle Hamel, and choreographers Darren Charles and Alain Gauthier.

Michel Cusson’s evocative musical score is performed live by musicians Éric Auclair, Éric Boudreault, Raphael D’Amour, and David Piché, with flawless Italian vocals by Anna-Laura Edmiston, providing Cavalia Odysséo with a surround-sound musical soundtrack every bit as gorgeous as the feats executed onstage by its performers and behind-the-scenes by its design team.

Though I’ll refrain from mentioning each horse by name, begging forgiveness from Acero, Amigo, Angel, Aramis, and the rest, it would be remiss of me not to credit the astonishingly talented human performers traveling the world with this extraordinary production. They are acrobats Samuel Alvarez, Ismaël Bangoura, Balla Moussa Bangoura, Alseny Bangoura, Sékou Camara, Mohamed Lamine Camara, Michel Charron, Tomoko Charron, Aly Cisse, Pialli Courchesne-Laurier, B.J. (Brian) Erdmann, Brennan Figari, Kamila Ganclarska, Maksym Ovchynnikov, Jenny Ritchie, Fode Ismael Sylla, Fascinet Sylla, Alseny Sylla, Mohamed Sylla, Chelsea Teel, and Lucas Tormin-Mendonça, and riders Arnaud Attou, Orane Caujolle-Gazet, Iseulys Deslé, Dorian Escalon, Mathilde Fraysse, Lara Gabin, Yoann Levesque, Clément Mesmin, Théo Miler, Ramón Molina González, Fanny Nevoret, Chanel Pearson, Antoine Romanoff, Guennaei Touaev, Batraz Tsokolaev, and Elise Verdoncq, and Pialli Courchesne-Laurier and Majolie Nadeau doing double duty as both acrobats and riders.

Cavalia Odysséo’s 4,700 square foot gleaming white Big Top will remain crowning the Burbank skyline through March 24, after which the many marvels beneath it will remain only memories to those fortunate enough to have witnessed the wonders that humans and their equine companions can accomplish. Trust me when I tell you, this one-of-a-kind spectacular is not to be missed.

Odysseo White Big Top, 777 N. Front Street, Burbank.
www.cavalia.net

–Steven Stanley
February 27, 2013
Photos: François Bergeron, JF Leblanc, Pascal Ratthé

Things do considerably more than merely go bump in the night when Greg and Jan Sanderson leave the big city for life in a haunted country farmhouse in I’ll Be Back Before Midnight, Peter Colley’s Gaslight-meets-Deathtrap suspense thriller now getting a shriek-a-minute Los Angeles Premiere at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.

 It turns out the countryside is the last place Jan (Joanna Strapp) would choose to be post hospitalization for a recent nervous breakdown, and hardly the right spot to rekindle a marriage gone sour. Still, a husband as strong-willed as archaeologist Greg (Tyler Pierce) is a hard man to say no to, and so, now, here they are with only a wood-burning stove to keep out the chill and a faulty electrical system prone to breaking down the very second the night turns dark and stormy.

Making matters worse are the ghost stories gleefully spun by their grizzly bear of a neighbor George (Ron Orbach), tales of a horrendous murder that took place in the very farmhouse Jan and Greg now call home and of a ghost George claims comes out at night to terrify whoever happens to have rented the home where he met his bloody fate.

 And as if this weren’t already enough to send Jan tout de suite back to the sanatorium, who should show up on their doorstep but Greg’s beautiful, imperious sister Laura (Kate Maher), invited by her brother to keep Jan company, or so he insists, though the mere mention Laura’s name seems likely to provoke Jan’s permanent return to the loony bin.

Can you spell recipe for terror?

I’ll Be Back Before Midnight harks back to those haunted house comedies of Hollywood’s Golden Era in which laughter and screams were bound to go hand in hand. Add to that a Charles Boyer/Ingrid Bergman-esque “Is he trying to drive her crazy?” plot with as many twists and turns as an Ira Levin thriller and you’ve got one of the most entertaining evenings in town for audiences in the mood to be tickled and terrified at the same time.

Colley and Colony Theatre vet David Rose have clearly done their comedy-horror homework, directing I’ll Be Back Before Midnight with a just-right blend of thrills, chills, and chuckles.

 The always marvelous Strapp has created a Jan in classic damsel-in-distress tradition, but one with just enough hidden mettle to give us hope that our beleaguered heroine might just come out on top.

The dynamic Pierce follows his superb dramatic turn in How To Write A New Book For The Bible with a Greg who keeps us guessing vis–à–vis his motives in taking Jan so far away from civilization, and though a shirtless scene reveals musculature toned by an actor’s daily hours at the gym and not the undernourished archaeologist of Colley’s script, no one with an eye for the male physique is likely to complain.

Maher makes for a marvelously bitchy Laura, her Hitchcock Brunette beauty proving every bit as right for Greg’s bitch of a sister as it was for her recent star turn as Alice in You Can’t Take It With You, a gust of bone-chilling winter wind in Greg and Jan’s already chilly country abode.

 Veteran character actor Orbach completes the cast terrifically as a seemingly harmless jokester conveniently twice Jan’s size should George turn out to be not quite as mild-mannered as he seems. Then again, is anyone really who he or she appears to be in Colley’s twisty-turny script?

An expert Colony Theatre design team (scenic designer extraordinaire Stephen Gifford, lighting design whiz Luke Moyer, master sound designer Drew Dalzell, and resident properties design/set dressing dynamos MacAndME) combine forces to up Colley’s script’s built-in thrills and chills. Gifford’s country farmhouse offers plenty of doors and curtains for ghosts to jump out of and a serving hatch between kitchen and living room, the sudden opening and closing of which guarantees gasp after gasp. Add to that Dalzell’s thunderous heartbeats and eerie floorboard creaks and ghostly moans, the dark, foreboding shadows Moyer casts on the walls, and MacAndME’s double-barrel shotgun, stone weaponry, and puddles of blood that appear out of nowhere on the living room floor, and you’ve got a couldn’t-be-better design package, completed by costume designer Diane K. Graebner’s perfectly chosen, character-appropriate garb.

 Leesa Freed is production stage manager, Robert T. Kyle technical director, Bjørn Johnson fight director, Maher fight captain, and Sherilyn Stetz makeup consultant. Gifford doubles as scenic artist, with Keirstin Fernandes serving as assistant scenic designer.

It’s been a while since the Colony offered its audiences a thriller, and with one as entertaining as I’ll Be Back Before Midnight, artistic director Barbara Beckley and company have come up with a winner, one that younger single ticket buyers will enjoy every bit as much as post-retirement age subscribers.

Take it from this reviewer. You’ll laugh. You’ll scream. You’ll have a ghostly, ghastly good time.

Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street, Burbank.
www.colonytheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
February 22, 2013
Photos: Michael Lamont

 Newspaper comics staple Charlie Brown had already been around for seventeen years and starred in a pair of animated TV specials when You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown made its off-Broadway debut way back in 1967. West End and Broadway runs followed, along with countless regional, community, and school productions before Charlie & Friends returned to the Broadway stage in the 1999 Best Revival Tony winner, a big-stage revisal featuring a much-tweaked book and a few new songs (courtesy of its Broadway director Michael Mayer and Broadway songwriter Andrew Lippa).

 It is this considerably richer You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown that now reunites the creative team behind last year’s multiple Scenie-winning Miss Saigon—director Neil Dale and choreographer Janet Renslow—and three of its stars (Eymard Cabling, James Oronoz, and Colette Peters) in radically different roles from the ones they played at Candlelight Dinner Theatre.

I must confess to having not been a big fan of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown the first time I saw it a dozen or so years ago, due as I recall to its lack of storyline and a cast that may have been a tad too old to play elementary school kids.

With the passage of time, I have come to love Charlie Brown’s book (by Clark Gesner with additional dialog by Mayer and based on Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip), and the 20something triple-threats who bring the Peanuts gang to life on the Theatre Banshee stage are precisely the right age to convince an audience that despite having twenty or so years on the roles they’re playing, they’re really 5-to-8-year-olds at heart.

 In retrospect, I wish I’d appreciated just how terrific Gesner and Mayer’s book is the first time round—essentially a series of sketches that do precisely what they’re supposed to do, i.e. replicate the 4-panel daily Peanuts strips and their 10-panel Sunday counterparts in short vignettes, each with its own punch line. Take for instance when Lucy attempts to strike up a conversation with her main crush Schroeder, who only has fingers for his piano, leaving Lucy to gripe, “My Aunt Marion was right. Never try to discuss marriage with a musician.”

All the favorite Peanuts themes are there, with the conspicuous exception of the unfailingly hilarious football gag. There’s Charlie’s infatuation with the Little Red-Haired Girl, Linus’s inability to function without his blanket, Lucy’s side-job as a 5-¢-per-consultation shrink, and Snoopy’s fantasy life as The Red Baron, to name just a few.

Many of these situations find their expression in song (music and lyrics by Genser). There’s Linus’s “My Blanket And Me,” which has him attempting in vain to “walk away and leave it, though I know you won’t believe it. I’ll just walk away and leave it on the floor.” (As if.) “The Doctor Is In” has Lucy forcing Charlie Brown to list his many failings, to which she responds with, “You don’t think that mentioning these few superficial failings is going to do you any good, do you? Why, Charlie Brown, you really have to delve.” Know-it-all Lucy later teaches Charlie some “Little Known Facts,” like: “You see that bird? It’s called an eagle. But since it’s little it has another name, a sparrow, and on Christmas and Thanksgiving we eat them.” And let’s not forget Charlie Brown’s signature song, the now classic “Happiness.”

 Lippa’s contributions are some of the show’s best. The R&B “Beethoven Day” has Schroeder attempting to convince his pals to fete his all-time favorite composer with a holiday dedicated to “the man we adore on the day we place the newest face on Mount Rushmore!” Even better is Sally’s “My New Philosophy,” of which she has several, including, “Oh, yeah. That’s what you think?” and “Why are you telling me?” and “No!” and “I can’t stand it!”

  All of this comes together on the Theatre Banshee stage under Dale’s inspired direction, with Renslow creating one sparklingly inventive dance sequence after another. (The Blanket Ballet is a favorite of mine.)

As for the show’s Grade-A cast, the real Charlie Brown may not have towered over his pals the way Chris Duir does, but the tall, gangly look does quite the trick in making Charlie the perennial outsider, and Duir’s performance is a charmer and his vocals terrific as well.

 The reunited Miss Saigon stars are each and every one unrecognizable from their Candlelight roles, each one more splendiferous than the other. Cabling is a combination of endearing and adorable as just about the cutest and most winning a lisping, thumb-sucking Linus as you could wish for. Oronoz nails Schoeder’s head-in-the-musical-clouds attitude and bearing, and his delightfully dry facial reactions are well worth paying special attention to. Peters may well be the best in the cast at channeling her inner child, and her scene-stealing Sally is at her scene-stealingest best in the show-stopping “My New Philosophy.” All three are splendid vocally, by the way.

Carla Jimenez couldn’t be funnier (or sing more sensationally) as Lucy, giving the Original Mean Girl a soft side that makes us love her even as we cringe at just how awful she is to Charlie.

 Finally, there is Theatre Out favorite Frankie Marrone in full-beagle mode, doing considerable scene larceny as the world’s favorite pup, whether in “Curse you, Red Baron!” mode or extolling the virtues of “Suppertime” (“Bring on the soup dish, bring on the cup. Bring on the bacon and fill me up! Cause it’s supper, supper, supper, suppertime!”) in his own show-stopper of a number, one which choreographer Renslow gives a Michael Bennett-meets-Bob Fosse pizzazz.

Kudos go out to musical director Marc Macalintal, who has the cast harmonizing to perfection to prerecorded tracks. Director Dale gets top marks for his side jobs as lighting designer, technical director, and computer graphics designer, assisted in the latter by Adam Trent (who also understudies Charlie Brown at selected performances.) Dale’s scenic design consists of a few colorful comic-strip-type set pieces placed in front of a big screen onto which comic-strip backgrounds get projected, a nifty design choice for a production in an intimate space and on a budget. Dale’s savviest decision was to project those graphics from behind, meaning that backdrops are never drowned out by lighting or hidden by performer’s shadows. A deliberate, hilarious exception is Charlie’s head-to-tree banging, and there’s a quite magical kite-flying sequence that combines an honest-to-goodness flying kite (thanks to an almost invisible thread) in front of wispy, animated clouds.  Eva Capa is credited for the cast’s just-right costumes.

 Behind the scenes crew includes Mary Ann Belinget, Bob Farina, Gina Farina, Logan Grosjean, Daniel Moorefield, Ampi Naranjo, Janis Peters, Lily Vilar, Raun Yanovich, and most importantly stage manager Therese Peters. John Peters is executive producers for J & J Productions, in association with Theatre Banshee. Jennifer Strattan plays Lucy at selected performances.

You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown is that rare production that audiences of truly any age can enjoy, from tiny tots (whose delighted giggles made for an even more delightful Opening Night) to their grandparents, who grew up reading the same Peanuts comic strips and seeing the same Peanuts TV specials as their grandchildren do today. To put it simply, I had a Charlie Brown ball from start to finish and so will you.

Theatre Banshee, 3434 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank.
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/295444

–Steven Stanley
January 18, 2013
Photos: Adam Trent