“Tarrytown”: Fun, Clever, Brand Spanking New Musical And Must See On Your Holiday List.

 Gather your skirts, hitch your trousers and head yourself out to see the world premiere production of Backyard Renaissance exciting entrance into the…well, holiday… (Halloween) spirit with the musical “Tarrytown” at Diversionary's Blackbox through Dec. 17th, directed by Francis Gercke and Anthony Methvin with an eye for fun, wit and cleverness and a bit of a fright factor. It’s all so now!

Playwright Adam Wachter, book, music and lyrics, crafted together a modern day “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, as a premise to move his classic tale forward.

You remember the story of Ichabod Crane who lived in Sleepy Hollow. He vies for the hand of the daughter of the wealthiest man in town, Katrina.  His one rival Brom wants to get rid of Ichabod for wooing Katrina.

On the way home from a party at Katrina’s Ichabod is chased by a Headless Horseman (aka a Revolutionary War Soldier) gets smacked in the head, falls off his own horse and disappears. The ghost of the headless horsman  rises from the dead each Halloween and looks for his head. (Short story in a nutshell)

For his updated version and a bit more detailed, Wachter is giving us a sing through with the very same characters all out of the Irving playbook.

Bryan Banville, Tom Zohar and Kay Marian McNellen

The three protagonists meet up in Tarrytown, NY after Ichabod Crane leaves the fast lane living of Manhattan and heads of to the quite of Tarrytown as the new music teacher at Tarrytown High. (“The Streets Of Tarrytown”)

Katrina (Kay Marian McNellen) is the high school principal’s assistant and her husband Brom (Bryan Banville) a sports enthusiast, teaches history at a nearby college.

Katrina and Ichabod form an instant bond and many dinners follow.  (“My New Gay Best Friend”).

When Brom, whose marriage to Katrina has been going downhill since their wedding day (there’s a story there), finish their first dinner together (“Dinner For Three”) he pulls Ichabod aside to watch football on TV with him. Ichabod (“When He’s Near”) who knows nothing about sports agrees and swoons in his presence. Brom feels the heat.

In Irving’s “Legend”, the two men vie for Katrina’s hand. That issue of who gets whose hand is sorted out when we first meet the three. Katrina and Brom are already married and Ichabod is more interested in Brom as a potential lover than as a romantic interest for Katrina’s hand. It's all so gay and funny. 

The production under the crafty direction of Francis Gercke with musical director Steven Withers, Katie Whalley Banville’s snappy choreography, Curtis Miller’s superior lighting design and Kristen Flores’ capable scenic design in the v e r y small playing black box space using scrims to highlight changes in scenery, all come together for a griping off the wall fun and fast paced (no intermission) new musical that has the potential to gather speed as it is seen by more and larger audiences. 

It’s in the modern day setting that morphs and lures us into a creepy realistic and startling (“Ghost story’s terrify me”) hair raising finale that we find Ichabod in the graveyard (supposedly waiting for Brom) hearing horses galloping with silhouettes of the animals behind scrims. It did give this gal a shiver or two. It happened all so fast.

The chemistry between the three, Tom Zohar, Kay Marian McNellen and Bryan Banville is phenomenal. The music could fall into the categories of catchy, romantic and song talk. The story takes place over the course of twelve days.

Tom Zohar is at his all time personal best as the confused Ichabod “man in the middle” (“Dinner For Three”) attraction. At times he’s like the deer in the headlights confessing his lack of understanding of sports (“Four Downs To The Ten Yard Line”). Other times he bemoans his fate as a recovering addict who has fallen off the wagon.  

Kay Marian McNellen is simply charming with comportment to match. Her voice catches every nuance and she convinces, amuses and pleases.

Bryan Banville and Kay Marian McNellen

Banville’s Brom (“On The 20^th Century”, “My Fair Lady” “Animal Crackers”) has just the right balance as the macho sports guy who does in fact question his own sexuality (but quickly recovers) and still can’t quite figure out what went wrong with his marriage even as Katrina tells him over and over again.

Writer composer Adam Wachter  (“Dog and Pony”) ‘New York City based composer/lyricist, music director orchestrator, arranger etc., etc., etc., has blessed our fair city to launch his first original musical thanks to BRTC Ex. Director Jessica John Gercke’s insistence on bringing Wachter’s musical back to San Diego after she got a peek of an earlier version showcased at The Old Globe.

The lyrics are word stories; clever, entertaining and I wouldn’t say you could sing them on the way out of the theatre, but catchy none-the-less.

Bryan Banville, Tom Zohar and Kay Marian McNellen

It’s one of the most entertaining and surprise productions/musicals of the season. Sondheim it’s not, but it does have the Sondheim touch.  

And tales are told in a sleepy place called Sleepy Hollow, “a place where imagination rules and reason fails.”

I'm not in the habit of a thumbs up/down recommendation, but for this it's a sure thumbs up!

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Dec. 17th

Organization: Backyard Renaissance Company

Phone: 619.977.0999

Production Type: Musical

Where: 4545 Park Blvd. San Diego, CA 92116

Ticket Prices: Start at $20.00

Web: backyardrenaissance.com

Venue: Diversionary’s Black Box Theatre

Photo: Studio B Photo Productions

“Black Pearl Sings!” In A Rousing Production at San Diego Rep.

I didn’t know of Minka Wiltz before I went to see “Black Pearl Sings!” by Frank Higgins, now at the San Diego Repertory Theatre through Dec. 17th in the Lyceum Space, but I do now, she has a voice that soars, laments and is soulful! “Trouble So Hard”.

As Pearl in “Black Pearl Sings!” Wiltz teases, tantalizes and plays with us until she unleashes the full extent of her vocal chords in an array of soulful tunes, bringing us to our collective feet at plays end with “African Song”. 

Minka Wiltz

The story, set in 1933/34 of “Black Pearl Sings!” is based on a little known researcher by the name of Susannah Mullally (Allison Spratt Pearce), a musicologist who was hired by the Library of Congress to research long forgotten people and their legacies through music; “If I can find a song that came here on the slave ships…we can prove to the world that a song can be stronger than slavery chains.”

Pearl didn’t come looking for Susannah; she’s ten years into her sentence in a Texas prison for the murder of the man who raped her daughter.  No, Susannah sought out Alberta Rose in the prison after all the women the warden recommended didn’t have what Susannah what looking for.  

“Why you’re in prison is none of my business. But you sing better than the other women. People with good voices usually know a lot of things.” “I’ve found that prisons are a good place to look for old songs.”

“Black Pearl Sings!” is based on the story of Huddie Ledbetter AKA Lead Belly. Originally musicologist John Lomax began making ‘field recordings of various folk music styles’ with the help of Lead Belly.

Harvard folk musicologist Lomax and guitarist/singer Belly made the lecture circuit on the east coast with an eventual recording contract then went on to record over forty songs for the company, but they never sold well.

In playwright Frank Higgins’ current incarnation Lomax and Belly now the women Susannah and Pearl as protagonists seems right as he might have smelled the changing times and put Susannah right in the middle of a, before her time, feminist and a strong voice/movement for women fighting the cultural tide. 

And I confess while I have not heard Belly sing, I can attest to the showmanship and voices on stage with both Pearce and Wiltz, and you won’t hear any complaints from me.

The story pretty much follows the cat and mouse game the women play as they flush each other’s motives out. Susannah is woman of independent mind, very unusual for a woman of her time, whose spirit and chutzpah make her a perfect candidate portraying what it takes to be a strong woman living man’s world.

Allison Spratt Pearce and Minka Wiltz

Pearce is that strong woman and although she has such a marvelous voice herself (“Sound of Music”, “Gypsy” “My Fair Lady”) she is Pearl’s advocate and she excels in that role. She sings in her clear soprano voice some Gaelic folk songs she learned from her families cook as a tease for her next musical role. (conjecture on my part) 

“History can be made through music… and a song can be stronger than slavery shackles.”

Pearl wants to get paroled, find her 22-year old daughter that she left behind in Houston and bargains with Susannah to that end.

On the other end of the spectrum, Pearl has to fight to get what she wants as a black woman in a white (wo)man’s world. And sing she does, with almost two- dozen songs in the song list; she pretty much captures the audience with jaws dropping.

The two find themselves seesawing back and fourth faces softening as they make plans for Pearl’s ultimate release and Pearl giving Susannah almost what she wants. Ms. Wiltz, an accomplished musician in all fields including opera, stunned and surprised with her powerful vocals.

Under director Thomas W. Jones II deft direction their story unfolds fairly true to form with Wiltz’s Pearl as some match for Pearce’s Susannah, but both holding their own contrasting views.

In the first act we meet up with Pearl as she enters, locked into a ball and chain singing, “Down on me Lord, Down on me” crashing the ball and he foot on the floor as she walks around the stage finally stepping up and meeting Susannah.

Allison Spratt Pearce and Minka Wiltz

It’s serious business, this bargaining back and fourth, but in between we have the privilege of being witness to some terrific acting and even at one time when they both strut their stuff to the tune of “Little Sally Walker”… ‘put your hands on your hips and let your backbone slip.’ “Now shake it to the east. Now shake it to the west. Shake it to the one that you love best.”

After intermission we find that Pearl is released from prison. The two are sharing Susannah’s Greenwich Village flat and getting ready for recordings and concerts. They still have conflicting views on how the concerts will go but as long as Susannah keeps her end of the bargain and does all she can to look for clues about Pearl’s daughter, Pearl conforms, sot of.

And short of ruining all her chances of singing before large academic groups oft times going off at the mouth, she succeeds in giving in to Susannah for the most part but saving the very last treasure for herself.  

Minka Wiltz and Allison Spratt Peaece

 Credits go to Mary Lawson’s for her great period costume design, Sherrice Mojgani’s lighting, Matt Lescault-Wood, sound, and Victoria Petrovich projections that filled the walls around the prison office and Susannah’s Greenwich Village apartment and changed the face of the moveable columns designed by Sean Fanning.

Battling for what women want takes courage, perservance, and moxie. Both women had what it took then.

It’s an uphill battle still given the references in the play that Susannah would have to pay dearly for Pearl’s parole, as covert inferences during some exchanges, were explicit during the give and take between phone talk with Susannah and the warden.

TBC.

For a modern day drama with historical references, this should whet your appetite.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Dec. 17th

Organization: San Diego Repertory Theatre

Phone: 619.544.1000

Production Type: Musical

Where: 79 Horton Plaza, Downtown San Diego, 92101

Ticket Prices: $25.00 and up

Web: sdrep.org

Venue: Lyceum Space

Photo: Daren Scott

Humphrey and Steinberg Shine in NVA “Secret Garden”

When I was in 6^th grade our teacher would read a chapter from Frances Hoggson Burnett’s 1911 children’s book “The Secret Garden at end of week on Friday afternoons.  

To say that it captured my imagination would be an understatement: India, England an overindulged and spoiled thirteen year old girl, nannies, doctors, a brooding uncle, a secret garden.

Mary Lennox, an orphaned girl (then about my age) was sent off to a dark and dreary Manor in Yorkshire England after her own parents died in a cholera epidemic in British India.

There she meets her hermit uncle, Archibald Craven, along with Mrs. Medlock (Dagmar Krause Fields, excellent) Cravens housekeeper, a bevvy of maidservants both friendly and some no so. She is dressed over and fussed over even while acting out in her nastiest personality, rejecting everyone in her path. (“A House Upon A Hill”)

Cast of Secret Garden 

The manor hums with rumors and ghostly sightings/images. Mary’s recluse, hunchback uncle Archibald Craven has been in state of depression since his wife died in childbirth ten years earlier. He wants no part of anything or anyone manor related.

Maids and nannies scurry around trying hard not to be noticed. Her invalid cousin Colin, delegated and kept out of sight in his room, is declared ill with an unknown affliction and his doctor Archibald’s brother Neville Craven has his own secret motives for keeping the boy at bay and Mary Lennox out of sight.

Sarah Mahaffey, Samantha Vesco, Jacob Farry (center) Chris Bona and Devin Collins

Dickon the moor boy, who talks to the birds in the skies and charms the animals with his music, befriends Mary while the maidservant Martha Sowerby lets the cat out of the bag and tells Mary about a secret garden that is being taken care of by the gardener Ben Weatherstaff. It’s garden that once belonged to her now deceased aunt Lily.

The book and its intrigue were a perfect marriage for a musical. In 1991 the musical script with lyrics by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Simon premiered on Broadway and ran for 709 performances.

That same year it won the Tony for Best Book of a Musical, Best Featured Actress in a musical and Best Scenic Design. It is currently on stage at New Village arts in Carlsbad through Dec. 24^th under the direction of Rosina Reynolds. 

The musical, with over 30 numbers (a bit excessive) under the musical direction of conductor Tony Houck (oft times too loud for this venue) and his four musicians off stage bring the story into view with strong voices from Humphrey, Samantha Rose Steinberg, Kevane Le’Marr Coleman (Mary’s late father), Chris Bona as Dickon, Samantha Vesco as Martha (“If I Had a Fine Young Horse”) the maidservant and Nadia Guevara as Ayah, Mary’s nanny in India.

Manny Fernandes (background) David S. Humphrey

Guevara also choreographed the many dance numbers with the dreamers or deceased players circling those alive in sequences where the characters, in flashback, play out their otherwise lives. This device gives the audience a chance to glimpse into what brought us to the present and how their otherworldly influences can change the tone and outcome from dark and dreary to hopeful and optimistic.

Overall the cast does well with the overstuffed and repetitive musical numbers as the story brings us out of darkness into a full light when Mary and Colin secretly form a bond of trust and friendship allowing the boy (thirteen year old Jacob Farry is impressive) to gain strength and a chance at happiness away from the watchful and devious eyes of Dr. Craven (Manny Fernandes “Lily’ Eyes”).

Thirteen- year old Sara Mahaffey, making her acting debut and doing a fine job as the spoiled and petulant 13 year old (she is after all in the know) does not quite have the musical chops required as the lead character but does carry the story with an amazing change in personality.

 The rest of the cast, in fine voice overall, carry her along (It’s a Maze”, “Letter Song” “Opening Dream” Come Spirit, Come Charm” “Lily’s Eyes”.)

Sarah Mahaffy and Chris Bona

And charming it is as Chris Bona’s Dickon, who talks to the birds, takes over the spotlight every time he’s on stage. Manny Fernandes’ Dr. Craven is in good hands whether singing or just brooding about his life. 

Both Humphrey (a perfect role allowing him to expand his repertoire) and Steinberg are shining stars. Samantha Vesco is another bright star as Martha the maidservant who brings a smile in the room.

Finally when the door to the garden opens and Lily sings “Come To The Garden”, with Mary, Archibald, and Colin all together as a family, “Come To The Garden. Come Sweet Child”, I have to admit I welled up. 

Sarah Mahaffey David S/ Humphrey and Jacob FArry

The thirteen members cast, all dressed in high necked gowns of lacy white gauze, uniformed outfits for the men (Elisa Benzoni) singing and dancing on Christopher Scott Murillo’s minimalist set lit in shades of dark and darker (Curtis Miller) with hints of vines hanging from the walled off garden, can take credit along with Reynolds for the charm and ease with which this production sails.

The show is about two and a half hours long, and I loved every minute of it.

See you at the theatre.

Come To My Garden

Dates: Through Dec. 24th

Organization: New Village Arts

Phone: 760.433.3245

Production Type: Musical

Where: 2787 State Street, Carlsbad Village

Ticket Prices: Start at $43.00

Web: newvillagearts.org

Photo: Daren Scott