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By SANDY MACDONALD
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Most avid theatergoers fancy themselves undercover talent scouts, capable of scoping out the next big hit. The temptation is especially strong during the annual New York Musical Theatre Festival (creatively acronymized to NYMF), which recently completed its sixth season. Prior showcases have yielded such sui generis works as Altar Boys and Next to Normal.
Production values at NYMF’s various small venues tend to black-box basic. However, the musicals (19 this time around, of which I managed to see half) are given the best possible shot, thanks to the participation of major Broadway stars and the most promising of up-and-comers – the subtext being that, if these pros can’t put a piece over, perhaps it needs more work.
Herewith, a cursory – and incomplete – scorecard:
Max Understood, like Lisa Loomer’s recent play Distracted, draws a parallel between our frantic, media-saturated environment and the spike in ADD and autism. Young Max (Marlon Sherman) is on the extreme end of the spectrum, spazzing with sensory overload; when his mother (Mary Mossberg) isn’t looking, he takes off for meaningful, magical-realist encounters around the neighborhood. Nancy Carlin’s book is, alas, overly sappy, Michael Rasbury’s music too arty to augur a broad audience.
R.R.R.E.D., a Secret Musical starts with a piquant premise based on biological fact: redheads appear to be a dying breed (studies have predicted that the recessive gene could be eliminated as early as 2100). Author/composer Katie Thompson, flame-haired herself, plays the leader of the underground resistance, and Patrick Livingston her put-upon assistant. Their interplay – he toadies, she stifles – is a source of incessant hilarity, right up to the needlessly gruesome ending.
Fat Camp, with music by Matthew roi Berger and book by Timonthy Michael Drucker and Randy Blair (the latter also provided the consistently witty lyrics), is an oversized variation on the old jocks-versus-geeks trope. The characterizations, however, truly achieve three dimensions – especially Randy Blair as a poetic insurrectionist, Carly Jibson as a comic sidekick, and ultra-fit Sarah Saltzberg (from the original Spelling Bee cast) as a counselor who truly cares. This show could – and should – go the distance.
Whatever Man, written in its entirety (text and music) by Benjamin Strouse, whose last name has a certain dynastic ring, suffers from a skimpy concept. Charlie (Colin Hanlon) is mired in commitment-phobic perma-adolescence, so his impatient girlfriend (Kristin Maloney) pressures him into group therapy, where his fellow neurotics all turn out to be secret superheroes. Strong performances by Paolo Montalban and Laiona Michelle can’t compensate for the lack of inherent drama.
Judas & Me might have trouble finding acceptance in the heartland, but what a hoot! Chad Beguelin’s book (he also wrote the clever lyrics, well matched by Matthew Sklar’s genre-jumping score) blames Judas’s betrayal on a hellaciously pushy mother (the brilliant Barbara Walsh). From the moment the Angel Gabriel (a world-weary Leslie Kritzer) bungles the Annunciation, Rheba Iscariot plots to promote her contentedly ordinary son (Nick Blaemire) to Messiah-hood. Potential picketers be damned – a great show.
Plagued: A Love Story, with book and lyics by Vynnie Meli, music by Casey L. Filiaci, takes the by-now familiar tack of fracturing fairy tales to create a fun new feminist fable. Cinderella, long post-ball, is suffering from marital doldrums – not helped by overbearing mother-in-law (Brenda Braxton) and Prince Charming’s enduring shoe fetish. Their daughter, Dusty (Natalie Bradshaw), is a science prodigy whose efforts to enlighten the Dark Ages yields, in equal measure, laugh-inducing gross-outs and tender romance.
All Fall Down takes on a daunting topic (a college freshman’s suicide attempt) with insufficient insight. It would help if we learned earlier on that Ben (the winning Casey Predovic) is a diehard perfectionist. In Greg Turner’s book, which Selda Sahin’s music and lyrics are helpless to enhance, all the characterizations are thin and pat. Moreover, the budget-friendly trick of having actors play multiple roles goes too far when the actress playing Ben’s mother (Jenn Colella) must also portray his main squeeze.
F#@king Up Everything takes the oldest plot in the book (dweeb courts hot chick) and – thanks largely to Sam Forman’s book and a charming performance by Noah Weisberg as puppeteer Christian Mohammed Schwartzelberg - makes it fresh and fun. Kate Rockwell sweetly plays the object of Christian’s seemingly unattainable dreams, and Liz Larsen sings her heart out as an all-too-available cougar. (The semi-nude scene, though, with composer David Eric Davis’s accompanying ballad “Arielle’s Areolas,” is de trop).
The Last Smoker in America, with book and lyrics by Bill Russell (Side Show) and music by Peter Melnick, is an over-the-top send-up of Big Brotherly interventionism, enhanced by a crack cast: power-singer Felicia Finley as the addict, Marcus Neville as her ineffectual spouse, Natalie Venetia Belcon as their over-invested neighbor, and Alex Wyse as their hyper son, whose own addictions support his claim that it’s his family, not tobacco, that’s toxic. If this team can be retained, the show’s a comic lock.
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