Nunsense

A sweet little gem of an impromptu premise brought creator (and writer and composer and lyricist) Dan Goggin’s Nunsense into being, fully formed. Folded into nearly every moment of the franchise-spawning musical is the suggestion that the nuns onstage are not professional entertainers, but were rather compelled by disastrous circumstances to throw together a spur-of-the-moment revue. Essentially, forgivable is written into the show’s DNA, excusing gaffes in less-experienced companies and keeping the supposedly unrehearsed content feeling fresh. Even so, keeping the seasoned performer in sight behind the amateur character is critical, which is made unfortunately evident by its absence in the current production at the Encore Musical Theatre Company.

The play’s framework is predicated on a macabre event: the deadly poisoning of the majority of the Little Sisters of Hoboken, and the dearth of money to bury the last four, who are waiting patiently in the convent freezer. Frequently mined for effective gallows humor, the regrettable, half-reverent situation is somehow even more ridiculous than it sounds. In desperation, a handful of the surviving sisters decide to throw a talent show–like fundraiser to hasten the final internments, which is how the audience winds up looking at the Mount Saint Helen's School auditorium stage dressed up for a high-school production of Grease: the play isn’t merely about the event, it is the event. The craftsmanship of the design is exceedingly well-masked; set designer Leo Babcock outfits his dud of a backdrop with secretly interactive mobile components, whereas Daniel Walker’s lighting scheme starts with impersonal fluorescence and sidles into more theatrical effects. Costumer Sharon Larkey Urick dives into the layering humor of women whose thematic accessories must work around their cumbersome habits, supplementing Goggin’s ample word play with visual jokes that mesh well with the predominating low-budget enthusiasm.

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Avenue Q

Adulthood is horrible in every way, save for the refuge of cursing and self abuse. So says Avenue Q (music and lyrics by creators Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx; book by Jeff Whitty), except funnier. Now at the Box Theater, director Kevin Fitzhenry leads a talented cast and their bevy of puppets appendages-deep into an unsanctioned (and for good reason) parody of a beloved children’s television show, teaching young adults about the many ways in which life after college completely sucks.

First and foremost, it wouldn’t be Shmesshamee Shmeet without puppets, and designer Mark Konwinski deserves accolades for making the felt and fur fly in this supremely appointed production. At the center of the story is Princeton (Eric Niece), fresh from college and unable to conceive of a world in which New York City isn’t lavishly draping opportunities at his feet. Short on income, he follows the alphabetical Manhattan streets down, getting all the way to Q before finding a sufficiently cheap dump for the misbegotten. There he meets plenty of other deferred dreamers, colorful characters with problems that form teaching moments: pretty, single Kate Monster (Andrea Thibodeau) is fed up with anti-monster prejudice and wants to open a school especially for her kind; whereas roommates Rod (Niece again) and Nicky (Steve Xander Carson) have a question mark hanging over their hetero best friendship. Overall, the puppeteer-actors strike a fine balance between creating believable entities and developing empathetic characters. Niece makes for a winning leading man, carrying two major roles with staggering ease and winning the viewer over with expressive singing. A solid vocalist with fine timing, Thibodeau’s best work is as the uninhibited jiggly cabaret singer Lucy; her Kate declines to heighten the expected beats of a neurotic romantic lead. Great vocal range and mimicry only accounts for half of Carson’s impressively familiar-sounding performance, paired with puppet mastery in an amazing partnership with Tim Stone. Whether in tandem work on the same puppet or as a duo of bad-influence bears, they make it easy to forget the black-clad actors supplying these expressive voices and movements — some of which, it must be reiterated, are not remotely appropriate for younger ears and eyes.

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Menllenium Saves the World

Hollywood has taught us well: when something works once, make it pay off twice with a sequel. Go Comedy! welcomes the return of its resident fictitious, flirtatious, flagrant boy band in Menllenium Saves the World (written by the cast, director Tommy LeRoy, and assistant director Michelle LeRoy). An indulgent retread with a detective twist, this Thursday/Friday primetime offering is a winking spoof on the pitfalls and artificiality of the sequel format, hitting as many snags in the execution as it does high notes.

Returning viewers are reminded, and new ones caught up, by a opening number reintroducing the main players and their chief personality traits: egotist Kevin (Andrew Seiler), rebel Jayson (Micah Caldwell), sensitive imbecile Marcus (Tommy Simon), resident pervert J.D. (Clint Lohman), and fallible manager/handler Sarge (Ryan Parmenter). Having spent the first installment developing the characters and making discoveries about the relationships, the sequel requires the band to do something; naturally, they are summoned to the Vatican to solve a murder. Borrowing from 70s-era cartoons such as Scooby-Doo and the Harlem Globetrotters series, the fellas are drawn into a topical mystery full of religious overtones, murderous Mayans, and the end of the world. Joined by their new church-official friends Daphne (Christa Coulter) and Father Oftlen (Dan Brittain), they warble and thrust their way to the case’s resolution.

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The Usual: A Musical Love Story

The boy-meets-girl story is as old as the guy-walks-into-a-bar joke; to keep the listener’s attention, either one had better deliver an unexpected wallop. Enter The Usual: A Musical Love Story, a modern boy-walks-into-a-bar-meets-girl caper with book and lyrics by Alan Gordon and music by Mark Sutton-Smith. In the world-premiere production at Williamston Theatre, director Tony Caselli takes the most shopworn chestnut in the world and plunges into two acts of off-the-wall digression celebrating the latest trends in romance, technology, recreation, and other curios of human behavior.

The scene is a drastically underpopulated watering hole, the perfect place for self-proclaimed nerd king Kip (Joseph Zettelmaier) and frustrated serial Internet dater Valerie (Emily Sutton-Smith) to meet cute. Under the knowing gaze of textbook proprietor-bartender Sam (Leslie Hull), the two hurtle straight into the friend zone, despite showing compatibility that may be visible from space. For this pair, it’s less a matter of whether they will get together than when and how; thus, with self-imposed arbitrary obstacles firmly in place, the plot is free to veer and wind into strange and amazing territory while the realtionship, shall we say, ferments.

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Godspell

The reliance of a production’s success on the people behind it is never more apparent that in a work like Godspell. The book by John Michael Tebelak offers no narrative tension to hide behind; the music and lyrics by Stephen Schrwatz have entered the canon of musical theater classics — a lot for any cast to live up to. Thus, the ten onstage performers of The Encore Musical Theatre Company’s production, as well as director Dan Cooney, have no one but themselves to credit for a vivacious piece of entertainment. Focusing on the tight ensemble and infectious energy of the followers of Jesus, this show is notable for driving its well-hewn story by mood alone.

“Nonspecific” is the name of the game in this telling: set designer Leo Babcock’s architectural details suggest an artfully decrepit abandoned theater, which is inhabited by a small band of ardent believers in the word of God (according to the Gospel of Matthew, upon which the piece is based). The players’ strong and immediate convictions are manifest in make-do, dress-up playfulness (costumes by Sharon Larkey Urick) and space-filling spectacle (assisted by lighting designer Daniel Walker) to match their imaginative explorations of faith. Time period, circumstance, and relationship are inconsequential to this telling; it’s a risky proposition rewarded by the unblemished strength of the ensemble. The approach is helped in no small part by the strong illusion of the first time, drawing the viewer into a string of nonlinear discoveries that appear to be at least half as fun to perform as to watch.

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