By Eileen Jacobson.

​If you try to imagine a grown-up Annie, of the musical by that name, you might easily find her to be a lot like Reno Sweeney, the lead character of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” — sassy and brassy, big-hearted and big-voiced. And still with red hair. It is no surprise, then, that Andrea McArdle, the original Broadway Annie, who won a 1977 Tony nomination for her performance, makes a smashing Reno. The role of the naughty nightclub singer was originated in 1934 by Ethel Merman. Ms. McArdle is the centerpiece of “Anything Goes” at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, but hardly its only asset. She is surrounded by other outstanding actors, a sparkling nautical set and fine musical accompaniment. Jayme McDaniel, the director, has melded all of the elements into a production filled with joyous energy.

The cast also features Sally Struthers, best known for playing Archie Bunker’s daughter, Gloria, in the 1970s television series “All in the Family.” Ms. Struthers gamely and expertly portrays Evangeline Harcourt, a matronly widow intent on marrying off her lovely and compliant daughter Hope to the wealthy Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, so she and Hope can recoup the fortune they lost during the 1929 stock market crash. Ms. Struthers lands her jokes, both verbal and physical, while gracefully remaining sympathetic. The well-behaved terrier that sometimes accompanies her is played by her very own pet, Little Bradford T. Kenney, making his stage debut, according to the program.
This musical, often revived, is more celebrated for its Porter songs, with their clever lyrics (“I Get a Kick Out of You,” “It’s De-Lovely,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” and, of course, the title song), than for its convoluted story line — though the pun-filled dialogue is amusing and snappily delivered by the talented cast. The original book was written by P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, who included a shipwreck, and by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who made alterations after a deadly ocean liner accident made the wreckage plot untenable. Timothy Crouse (Russel’s son) and John Weidman wrote a new book, used in this production, for the 1987 Broadway revival.

Among the lovable, very funny actors in prominent roles are Steve Brady as Elisha Whitney, a hard-drinking stockbroker and excessively proud “Yale man” who secretly carries a torch for Evangeline; Ray DeMattis as Moonface Martin, a bumbling gangster who wants more respect; and Mychal Phillips as Erma, another gangster’s girlfriend, who has just the right raucous voice and strut for her role.
Ian Knauer is spot on as the clueless but kindhearted Lord Evelyn, a reserved Englishman who mangles the American idioms he tries hard to imitate. Mr. Knauer also executes one of the brightest bits of Jason Wise’s lively choreography while recalling an indiscretion from his past in “The Gypsy in Me.”
The young lovers whose star-crossed romance accounts for many complications are ably played by Patti-Lee Meringo (as Hope, Lord Evelyn’s conflicted fiancée) and Josh Canfield (as Billy Crocker, a fledgling stockbroker who stows away to be with Hope). They float through Fred-and-Ginger-like waltzes and make butter of their ballads, including “Easy to Love,” “All Through the Night” and, for Hope alone, a particularly lyrical “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye.”

Billy is also being pursued, brazenly but not entirely seriously, by Reno. Ms. McArdle brings a playful tone to her infatuation, and Mr. Canfield reacts with amusement and warmth. They sing a rousing “You’re the Top,” a standout in a show filled with peaks.
​
Derek McLane’s handsome set (from the tour of the 2011 Broadway revival, which he also designed) provides a fitting background for the action. Martin Pakledinaz’s costume designs (likewise from the 2011 Broadway show and tour) are also splendid. Gateway’s supporting cast members, among them the four “Angels” who are Reno’s backup singers for her nightclub act and the Sailor Quartet, are top-notch, too.
The entire company shows off its pipes and fancy footwork in the finale and in the curtain-call number, “Bows.” The show stays dazzling to the end.

By Megan Grumbling
Portland Phoenix

If you’re looking for a lavish, Broadway-quality production of a holiday classic, look to the Portsmouth Music Hall, where you can have a Scotch in its trippy steampunk bar, ascend into its gorgeous 1876 theater, and then watch over a dozen professional singer-dancers hoof stylishly through an all-the-frills production of White Christmas, the Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye vehicle for yuletide sentiment, post-WWII affirmation and all-around love of show-biz.

The Ogunquit Playhouse produces this top-notch production of the classic film, under the direction of Jayme McDaniel.

The story is almost unimportant once everyone starts dancing, but it is as follows: Soldier buddies Bob Wallace (Joey Sorge) and Phil Davis (Jeffry Denman) have gone from pick-up holiday shows during the war to dazzling show-biz success as a duo on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and beyond. What do they lack? Well, Phil can’t keep his hands off of chorus girls, and Bob is a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to romance: What they need, of course, is a sister act. They find it in Betty and Judy Haynes (Kate Loprest and Vanessa Sonon), and off they go to a holiday gig in Vermont. However, in an interestingly prescient plot point, Vermont is 60 degrees in December, and the paying guests split for snowier climes. But shows must go on and Christmas saved and so forth, not least because the owner of the inn turns out to be someone dear to Bob and Phil.

Production design in this production is, across the board, transporting. The main set of the Vermont inn is impeccably drawn; we see both the interior, with clean rustic lines, cream-colored wood and tasteful garlands, and the exterior, with warm windows amid white clapboards. Even minor settings are striking: a sweet switchboard cubby filled with skis; the dark Art-Deco decadence of Jimmy’s Back Room; a train-car filled with svelte, beautiful people in plaid scarves singing about snow. And White Christmas is a candyland of costume changes – if you ever wondered what colors everyone is wearing in all those black-and-white movies, you’ll get an eyeful of Bob and Phil in green-apple green suits on the Ed Sullivan show, with their chorus of girls in pink-and-polka-dots and guys in pale-teal. There are even ugly-Christmas-sweater outfits!

The lead pairings are beautifully cast and executed. As confident womanizer Phil, Sorge is lean, nimble and fast-talking, while the darker, more measured Denman has a voice of slow, barely inflected velvet – especially lovely in his sweet little number “Count Your Blessings.” Betty and Judy, too, counterpoint each other stylishly. As Betty, Loprest, with russet hair, has a classic beauty and reticent elegance, while Sonon makes the blonde Judy sizzle – she’s a sinuous dancer and just snarky enough, with a shrewd smile and sharp little grace notes, like her confident little hop-hop-hop as she goes off to dance with Phil. And to watch the charismatic Phil and Judy dance together – effortlessly sensuous – might make you wish that social dancing had made it into the 21st century.

Supporting actors are just as strong, including Deborah Jean Templin as Martha, inn concierge and, formerly, Broadway hoofer and serial lover of horn-players; and the precocious, cute little Susan (Lily Ramras and Caraline Shaheen, alternating). Finally, the ensemble of singer-dancers is stellar, everything you’d want from Broadway, and the show has some dizzying big-ticket dance numbers: “I Love a Piano” (despite having perhaps the most cursory lyrics in the playbook) lets its dancers show off some stupendously intricate and precise tap riffs talking back and forth to each other.

The Ogunquit Playhouse’s White Christmas at the Music Hall is the real deal in show-biz talent and extravagance, replete with a final little surprise (which I won’t spoil) that’s at once decadent and utterly winning. It may not be a Christmas miracle, exactly, but it’s quite a Christmas luxury.

White Christmas | Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin; book by David Ives and Paul Blake | Directed by Jayme McDaniel | Produced by the Ogunquit Playhouse and presented by the Music Hall, in Portsmouth | Through Dec. 20 | Call 603.436.2400 or visit www.themusichall.org.

The second annual Ogunquit Playhouse and Music Hall holiday extravaganza, Irving Berlin’s "White Christmas, The Musical” is now on stage. Time to dust off the big-time superlatives it deserves.

In simple terms, “White Christmas” is a well-groomed piece. Everything is in its place: every step, note, hair, light, costume and sound.

“White Christmas” is based on the 1954 film of the same name, which featured Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. It’s a true period piece with all the delicious schmaltz. There’s the pursuit of romance; a touch of comedy of errors and of patriotism; and a good dose of Christmas spirit and the classic convention “Let’s put on a show and save the barn.”

It also has some widely recognized and beloved tunes: the classic “White Christmas,” “Blue Skies,” “Sisters,” and others. This production is true to the film’s texture, but enhances it for the live element.

Following a cherished movie with iconic performers with a live production can be tricky. This team proves itself magic, creating a memorable collaborative work of art.

The Playhouse and Director Jayme McDaniel have brought together an incredible team.

The cast is memorable, each marking the role as their own, starting with Joey Sorge as the perfectly restrained Bob, Jeffry Denman a lively Phil, and the Haynes sisters, Kate Loprest the sensible Betty and Vanessa Sonon the spitfire Judy.

All four have the pipes and footwork for the job, and lots of pizzazz.

The remainder of the cast follows suit: Deborah Jean Templin as Martha Watson, David Johnson as Mike, Daren Kelly as Gen. Waverly, Elise Kinnon as Rita and Mychal Phillips as Rhoda, the two chorines, and the remainder of the cast, featured and ensemble. They sing, they dance, they impress.

The sole local performers are Lily Ramras and Caraline Shaheen, who alternate as the young Susan Waverley. Ramras performed last Thursday and did a bang-up job.

All the arts contribute to making this spectacular.

Kelli Barclay’s choreography is era perfect, and always graceful and dynamic. Her big numbers are thoroughly engaging, with “I Love a Piano” featuring Denman and Sonon a showstopper.

Costumes by Carrie Robbins work each scene and character perfectly. Richard Latta’s lighting design enhances the whole; ditto Kevin Heard’s sound design, and the wigs and make-up by Emilia Martin.

The excitement starts with the “White Christmas” overture and the accompanying curtain video, and continues through every scene to the finale. It’s a classic done with class, and a big red bow. This one is truly worth your discretionary time.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's names have become synonymous with musical theatre. Even if you've never seen a musical on stage or don't care for the art form it's almost a definite that you have at least heard of their works: Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera. JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT is yet another highlight of the pair's resume, and having been performed all over the world for nearly 30 years, it has become a beloved favorite of theatre goers. The Ogunquit Playhouse's new production of JOSEPH... will leave no doubt in your mind as to why this musical is so loved.

What makes this production so different from other productions of JOSEPH is a clear, precise vision and it's execution in the hands of director/choreographer Jayme McDaniel.   His choreography is not only brilliant and appropriate to the piece, it changes in style with nearly every song to fit the various musical styles (as I had mentioned before). Whether it be his Sharks and Jets-esque choreography for the brothers in "Joseph Dreams" or his island- inspired dance in the "Benjamin Calypso", his strong work is well showcased by his talented team of dancers. Too often directors try to make the piece too contemporary, or try to do too many things with it. I applaud Mr. McDaniel for deciding to add splashes of contemporary references (the Narrator takes a picture of the cast and herself after the opening number on her iPhone), while keeping the majority of the show in the world of the approximate time period.

All in all, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT at The Ogunquit Playhouse is a dazzling theatrical experience from start to finish. JOSEPH may have been done the world over, and you may have seen it a handful of times, but I doubt you have ever seen a production quite like this. Some theatergoers may complain that JOSEPH... is a fluffy piece of music theatre; are you seeing Medea? No. But if you are lucky enough to get tickets to Ogunquit's latest hit, I assure you that your expectations of the show will be met and exceeded.

BEVERLY — Sometimes low expectations are a wonderful thing. Who on earth would drive to Beverly, I thought as I drove to Beverly, to see a fourth-place finisher from “American Idol’’ perform in that staple of church schools and community theaters, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’’?

Well, it turns out that Anthony Fedorov, the semi-demi-Idol in question, has a terrific voice and a winsome stage presence. If he’s a bit elfin for the role — who knew Legolas went down to Egypt? — he’s also refreshingly sweet and unforced, both in his acting and in his singing. And the newly revived North Shore Music Theatre has surrounded him with a skilled cast in a snazzy, subtly humorous production that makes the most of the musical’s undeniable poppy fizz.

It’s sometimes hard to believe, in fact, that the lugubrious and bombastic Andrew Lloyd Webber of “Phantom’’ and “Cats’’ was once capable of such lightly entertaining and seemingly effortless music as he provided for “Joseph,’’ with its playful pastiches of everything from rockabilly to French ballad to calypso. On the evidence of “Joseph’’ and “Jesus Christ Superstar,’’ it’s startlingly obvious in hindsight that he never should have split from Tim Rice, whose sportive rhymes and cleverly compressed storytelling provide the necessary leavening for Lloyd Webber’s weightier pretensions.

But all that’s ancient history now, and of little interest to the full audience that was clearly there on opening night just to have a good time — and absolutely did. Little girls and their grandmothers alike relished the show’s fast pace, amusing characters, and snappy tunes, and no doubt Fedorov’s extremely blond cuteness is only an asset, not an oddity, for this crowd.

Director and choreographer Jayme McDaniel also deploys a chorus of 20 local children, who are given just enough to do as they listen to the narrator, the engaging Jennifer Paz, tell the story of the biblical Joseph, his cruel brothers, his dreams, and his eventual triumph. McDaniel keeps the children’s choreography extremely simple — always a wise move — but also shows his expertise with one stylish number after another for the adults.

The brothers’ hoedown after they have sold Joseph into slavery is particularly entertaining, with plenty of high-steppin’, knee-slappin’ tomfoolery, and even a few do-si-dos for the kiddie chorus. Also amusing is “A Pharaoh Story,’’ with Gary Lynch’s late-Elvis Pharaoh swirling his gold-lined cape with gleeful abandon as a bevy of Art Deco Egyptian dancers capers about him. And Daniel C. Levine’s ridiculously over-the-top lamenting as Naphthali in the Piaf-esque “Those Canaan Days’’ benefits as much from the cabaret-style dancers around him as it does from his impressively, and hilariously, long-extended notes.

Costume coordinator Jose Rivera adds to the fun with plenty of lavish gold-trimmed excesses for the Egyptians, and with some ironic touches of modernity for everyone: sunglasses for the pharaoh, ripstop nylon backpacks for the slave traders, and insane flower-child uniforms for Joseph’s fellow prisoners in Egypt — with the nice additional joke of stamping each uniform “1968,’’ in case you were forgetting the show’s vintage. Campbell Baird’s scenic design reinforces the mood of playful ’60s nostalgia; it also gives McDaniel plenty of open space to ease the restrictions of directing in the round. And of course it’s simply wonderful to hear a live orchestra, here under the expert direction of Eric Alsford.

But this is Joseph’s show, and it wouldn’t work nearly so well if Fedorov didn’t carry it on his slender shoulders with unassuming grace. From his first phrases in “Any Dream Will Do,’’ he makes a strong connection with the audience; he uses his lovely voice not to show off his abilities, but to tell the story of each song.

No one really needs to see “Joseph’’ again. But if you want to, this one makes it worth the trip.

Meet our hero: a dreamer who dreams of being a dreamer who interprets dreams. No, this isn’t “Inception: The Musical!” It’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a show that’s essentially about nothing.

But as generations of community and regional theater companies know, it isn’t substance that’s made it a staple, it’s the flash. It makes sense that North Shore Music Theatre would choose it for its reopening season. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical is a buoyant sugar rush - a big, silly biblical variety show - with hippies!

This “Joseph” features “American Idol” season four finalist Anthony Fedorov in the title role. He’s well-suited for it - charismatic and wide-eyed, with a voice like microwave-warmed honey.

The story, culled loosely from the Old Testament, tracks Joseph on a “Candide”-like journey of optimism in the face of a harsh world. Joseph is his father’s favorite son and darn cocky about it, so his jealous brothers betray him and sell him into slavery. He goes from prisoner to prince in short order, meeting disposable characters along the way. The story is told to a choir of children via an all-singing narrator (Jennifer Paz).

Like most Lloyd Webber shows, “Joseph” is filled with simple, repetitive melodies that burrow into your brain and put down stakes. “Close Every Door” is the kind of melodramatic ballad Lloyd Webber built his career on. But he also plays around in a variety of musical sandboxes, parodying everything from French cabaret to Elvis to calypso.

These songs are fine the first time, but most every number in the show has at least two encores, plus a weird, Backstreet Boys-style reprise during the encore. Take out all the repetition, and “Joseph” would probably run less than an hour.

Still, there’s no arguing with an ensemble this talented. Directed and choreographed by Jayme McDaniel, the cast features a bevy of gifted performers. Paz croons and beams like a Disney princess, and Daniel C. Levine flexes chops vocal and comedic in the brothers’ lament, “Those Canaan Days.”

The ensemble belts and dances in an endless variety of Jose Rivera’s shiny costumes on a set that looks like the backdrop to a “Brady Bunch” fever dream. If the show is pure candy, why not go all out?

At its worst, “Joseph” is sickly sweet. But at its best, its whirling dazzle can transport you to a place of pure, silly joy. Kind of like “American Idol,” come to think of it.

If the North Shore Music Theatre may have done "Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat" a few years back, but it wasn't this "Joseph and
the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," that's for sure.

If it had been, the performance would have been far more memorable.
Under Jayme McDaniel's direction and choreography, the musical becomes
far more irreverent, energized, campy and funny and even dares to stick
a toe in social and political satire.

At one point in the second act, Pharaoh cum Las Vegas Elvis (Gary Lynch,
who elicited giggles from the audience at his first Elvis-inflected
utterances) tells Joseph (Anthony Fedorov, an "American Idol" finalist
in season four, if you're counting as they go by), "This is how we do it
on Egyptian Idol."

The audience again responded to the inside joke with peals of laughter.
And for those wondering, yes Fedorov can really sing. He renders the
Andrew Lloyd Webber score with feeling, hitting all the notes, without
becoming too melodramatic and operatic, which is always a temptation and
a danger with Lloyd Webber songs.

As a bonus, Fedorov looks good bare-chested and Rachel Rak, as the
seductress Mrs. Potiphar, has the legs to break down any man's willpower
- if you like that kind of thing.


The large ensemble cast - including Joseph's brothers and a host of
wives - gives the production the punch behind this high-energy show. The
choreography ensures very few down times and usually keeps at least
someone, if not the entire ensemble, moving at all times.

Backing up the choreography is costuming that reinforces the camp and
comedy: Outfits range from orange body suits covered with glittery nets
and Pharaoh's attendants in golden, dog-head headdresses to costumes of
fringe vests, colored wigs and hot pink, orange, blue and about any
other color that comes to mind in a recreation of 1968 psychedelia.

The only times this high-voltage production short circuits is when the
fun and frolic runs into more contemplative songs such as, "Close Every
Door," which Joseph sings from a dungeon. Hard to make that upbeat.

Other than a couple of rough emotional shifts, the production careens
along joyously amid great dancing, singing, all that color and numbers
well worth seeing like "Those Canaan Days" and "Benjamin Calypso."

How dare the Ogunquit Playhouse attempt to reprise Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain"? After all there is only one Gene Kelly.

That was the question posed by one theatergoer Thursday while waiting for the curtain to rise on opening night.

At the end of the evening, however, the answer was apparent as the audience gave the cast and crew a standing ovation.

Gene Kelly is unquestionably one of the most talented, if not the most talented dancer to appear on stage and screen. That puts an unreasonable burden on any theater company that offers "Singin' in the Rain."

As a result any fair critique requires a look at the overall production — and that is what passed muster with the opening night audience.

Set design, lighting, costuming, choreography and some brilliant talent are what pleased a full house.

"Singin' in the Rain" is the story of Hollywood's transition from silent films to "talkies." It deals with the struggle of actors and actresses to match their silent persona with their ability to talk and sing — to be heard. 

In the real world, many were unable to make the transition. In "Singin' in the Rain" it is the stunningly beautiful Lina Lamont (played by Amy Bodnar) whose screechy fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voice stands in her way.

Playing her handsome male counterpart is Joey Sorge, in the role of Don Lockwood, who is able to make the transition.

As Lockwood, Sorge is required to portray a gamut of emotions only to realize in the end that "all you've gotta do is dance" — and dance he does.

Lockwood's love interest and foil to Lamont is Kathy Selden, played by Amanda Lea LaVergne, a Playhouse alum.

LaVergne's performance is the glue that binds this Playhouse cast together. Her stage presence seems to energize everyone. Her connection with the audience is magnetic.

Also infectious, while providing highly skilled comic relief, is Jon Peterson in the role of Cosmos.

Peterson's facial humor is akin to that of Don Knots, while his fall-down comedy is reminiscent of John Belushi or John Candy, only 200 pounds lighter.

Both LaVergne and Peterson can be considered Broadway-level talent.

Ensemble dance performances, primarily after intermission, were also strikingly well done.

Beyond the cast, there is much that made the audience applaud, lighting and costuming among them. Dazzlingly brilliant is one of the many ways to describe how well both work together. There are also many subtle aspects that make "Singin' in the Rain" work.

The production required the cast and crew to re-created some silent film footage. This was done with just enough of a sarcastic edge to be poignant and witty at the same time.

Supporting this effort was an orchestra that offered notes just tinny enough at times to make you think you were listening to the musical accompaniment of a real silent film.

One not-so-subtle aspect of the production that needs mention is the indoor rainstorm the Playhouse used for the Gene Kelly dance scene as well as the finale.

No spoiling the surprise here. Let's just say the results were impressive.

Theatergoers should be cautioned, however, that the need to make it rain indoors and dry things out during an extended intermission stretched the evening out a bit. Frequent set changes also seem to add to the clock.

But the laughter and repeated applause offered by the audience, seemed to indicate this wasn't much of a problem. 

Review: ‘Grey Gardens’ is an odd little musical about a fascinating fall from glitter and sheen

By David Hawley | Mar 26 2009

The second act of "Grey Gardens," according to someone I overheard Wednesday night in the lobby of the Ordway, takes pains to replicate the elements of the 1975 cult-documentary film about the weird Edith Bouvier Beales, who inhabited a decrepit mansion in the snooty Long-Island Hamptons while their niece and cousin was in the White House and elsewhere.

I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t attest to the patron’s claim. But "Grey Gardens" is certainly a weird character study of a musical. It’s about Edith Beale and her daughter, Edie, who went from musical artist wannabes in the 1940s to grumbling, cantankerous reclusives surrounded by filth and flea-infested cats.

But, oddly enough, the adaptation (by Doug Wright) begins as a close-to-spoof of a pre-World War II musical, with songs (by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie) that have the flavor of Coward and Porter. The first-act setting, too, is right out of the dinner-jacket milieu: an estate in 1941 where names are dropped amid witty cocktail banter. When the second-act squalor is revealed, the songs lose the operetta tingle, the voices acquire that adenoidal Long-Island wheeze, and you wonder if the first act was really a fantasy dreamed up by two crazy old ladies.

Three strong women make it work
It takes three strong women to put this show over, and the production at the Ordway, a collaboration with Park Square Theatre, has them in Christina Baldwin, Zoe Pappas and Wendy Lehr. Baldwin plays mother Edith as a kind of wounded, self-involved Auntie Mame in the first act and then becomes a twitchy, grotesque Edie in the second act — a fabulous part for any actress. Pappas, a terrific musical-theater singer and a striking actress, is a tragic first-act Edie. And Lehr, one of the treasures of the local theater community, is absolutely raw as the old, invalided Edith.


The show has dream sequences to liven up the second act and a nice crew of hastily sketched caricatures — Richard Ooms as the thundering Bouvier patriarch and (oddly) Norman Vincent Peale, Joshua James Campbell as young Joe Kennedy and a zonked-out hippie, Michael Gruber as the fey, Cowardesque piano player, and child actresses Kacie Riddle and Adelaide as the young Bouvier girls.

In the end, it’s an odd little musical, stacked with name-dropping and quick-sketched characterizations, but also propelled by a fascination that comes from seeing how far afield the human spirit can wander. As it seemingly must, the show ends by drifting away, much like lives wasted.

It's fitting that the Ordway's current production of "The Rocky Horror Show" does a Time Warp number on its audiences: The first half of the bawdy, brash cult-rock musical that spawned a million midnight movie screenings sprints by at the speed of light. But after intermission, it moves along like moped on a superhighway.

This is more the fault of the show itself than of the imaginative, over-the-top and well-cast production staged by Jayme McDaniel: Most of the best and most familiar songs (including the opening "Science Fiction Double Feature," "Sweet Transvestite" and, of course, "Time Warp") are front-loaded into the 50-minute first act.

After "Touch-a Touch Me," the show, as built, slowly loses momentum and its gaudily gilded exterior begins to flake off. It's here that McDaniel might have cracked the directorial whip to move things along. As it is, things stagger and the cast is forced to rely on a reprise of "Science Fiction" and one more set of pelvic thrusts in another dose of "Time Warp" to send the audience out with a smile and a bounce.

McDaniel, keenly aware that most people's familiarity with "Rocky Horror" comes from the film version, does his best to re-create the audience participation aspects of the movie. Though even casual fans know how to respond when the full names of Brad Majors and Janet Weiss are uttered (and if you don't, I can't repeat the epithets in a family newspaper), he employs disembodied voices from the wings to shout out responses that give the show its sense of ribald spontaneity.


This means that, if you're a virgin ("Rocky"-speak for someone who's never seen the show before), you get a pretty good idea of the irreverent, vulgar giddiness that's given the show its cult following. And if you know the routine (and there were a decent number of folks opening night holding their programs over their heads and taking jumps to the left and steps to the ri-i-i-ight), you'll get your money's worth.

The mostly local cast is a strong-voiced and game lot, unafraid to cut loose. Nicole Fenstad and Bradley Beahen start out as nicely nerdy Janet and Brad, then sink convincingly into B-movie debauchery. Randy Schmeling is a rascally Riff Raff who kick-starts the "Time Warp" madness and Phil Kilbourne is spot-on - and just off-center enough - as the smoking-jacket-clad, pipe-smoking narrator. Ben Bakken - last seen as Troy Bolton in "High School Musical" at the Children's Theatre Company - strips down to gold lame briefs and makes Rocky an appealing himbo.

Monte Wheeler was imported to play Frank 'N' Furter, and it was a good choice. Though he seemed to be shouting over his body microphone at Wednesday's opening night performance - and thus garbling the lyrics - he finds the right over-the-top blend of campy sensuality, menace and just plain weirdness to make this sweet transvestite swing. If he's not quite the rocket fuel that turbo-charges the show, his is a sparkplug performance.

The subversive show feels a little out of context in the confines of the Ordway's McKnight Theatre. But that, actually, is all to the good: The lovely, proper lady of a building could use a little goose every once in a while.