George and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy, the first production of this season's City Center Encores!, runs through Sunday. Four-time Tony and Drama Desk winner Jerry Zaks directs Chris Diamantopoulos, Ana Gasteyer, Wayne Knight, Marc Kudisch and Becki Newton in the "fanciful depression-era musical" with book by veteran West End and Broadway writers Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan. David Ives has done the Encores! adaptation.
With fabulous, classic tunes and an exhilarating cast that will have you going, "I didn't know you could do that!" this is the perfect season opener. The story may be convoluted, but the show is extremely well played and danced.
There are so many highlights and showstoppers, it's hard to know where to start, but let's begin with the score. Girl Crazy features more of the songs that became Gershwin smashes than any other of their shows.
Gasteyer as Frisco Kate, the role 22-year-old Merman created in her Bway debut, has showstoppers: "I Got Rhythm" and "Sam and Delilah." Diamantopoulos, in the playboy role of Danny Churchill and easily matinee-idol material, duets with Newton (who happens to be his wife) on "Could You Use Me?"
Newton, who seems born to the musical stage, may have opened a new career path with her portrayal of Molly (the role created by 19-year-old Ginger Rogers) has her big moments in the duets "Embraceable You," sung with Diamantopoulos, and "But Not For Me," done with Knight, who displays never-before-known characteristics.
Kudisch, who plays Kate's hubby Slick, can always be depended upon for a big moment that stops a show. He does just that with "Treat Me Rough." Jeremy Beck, Mylinda Hull, Richard Poe, Daniel Stewart Sherman and Gregory Wooddell are among the featured players.
Every Encores! makes great use of the ensemble, and Zaks uses them to good effect as cowboys, cow punchers, and dudeens" [female "dudes"] on "Bronco Busters,' "Land of the Gay Caballero," and "Bidin' My Time".
What's an Encores! without the huge orchestra? Rob Fisher, founding music director/conductor for the series (through 2005) makes great use of Robert Russell Bennett's original arrangements including an overture and, that rarity today, an extended entr'acte which mightily benefit from the almost 30-strong musicians.
The ab-fab choreography is by Warren Carlyle, represented on Broadway by Finian's Rainbow, an Encores! hit last season. Costumes and the set are by, respectively, Broadway's celebrated William Ivey Long and John Lee Beatty.
Diamantopoulos joined the cast of The Full Monty in the role of Ethan and earlier appeared as Marius in the original production of Les Miz. After giving a memorable performance as Robin Williams in the NBC movie Behind the Camera: Mork & Mindy, he was cast as Rodney in USA Network's, "The Starter Wife." Newton, who began playing summer stock at age 13, had aspirations to be on Broadway, but went the TV route. She's an Emmy nominee for her role of ditzy/man crazy Amanda on ABC's "Ugly Betty."
Gasteyer is currently on Broadway in The Royal Family.
Knight, an audience fav for his role as Newman on "Seinfeld," "3rd Rock from the Sun," and the web series, "Woke Up Dead," was most recently onstage opposite Christina Applegate in the Sweet Charity revival. Multiple Tony and DD-nominee Kudisch, playing the tailor-made role of Slick, just completed a run in Dolly Parton's 9 to 5.
The story, ah, the story. They don't write 'em like this anymore: The father of New York playboy Danny Churchill sends him to a dusty Arizona cow town and a family-owned dude ranch to get him away from nightclubs, gambling and women. Danny hires a cabbie (Knight) to transport him. On arrival, he aspires to a higher calling. Manhattan femme fatales invade the ranch, which Danny turns into a swinging club with gambling. Of course, he falls in love with Molly, woos her, and eventually wins her.
The Gershwins' music was one of the mainstays of the 20th Century and saw America through some of the dark days of the depression and WWII.
Girl Crazy, which, opened at the Alvin [now Neil Simon] Theater in 1930, had one of the most momentous openings in Broadway history. It ran 272 performances, ranking among the decade's biggest stage hits. George Gershwin conducted on opening night and stacked his orchestra with some of the biggest names in music: Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, and Jack Teagarden.
Girl Crazy has seen many lives. Ken Ludwig did an adaptation retitled Crazy for You, which was directed by the late Mike Ockrent and choreographed by Susan Stroman (which is how they met and later married) that kept four of the original songs and interpolated tunes from other Gershwin show. It went on to win the 1992 Tony Award for Best Musical. The stars were Harry Groener, best known for his TV comedy roles who proved to be quite a song and dance man, Jodi Benson, Jane Connell, Ronn Carroll, John Hillner, and featured Michele Pawk, Beth Leavel, and Casey Nicholaw.
The musical has been adapted three times for film: in 1932, mostly with only the score intact; in 1943, M-G-M's lavish version starring Garland and Rooney; and 1965, when Metro dusted off the property and contemporized it as Where the Boys Meet the Girls as a vehicle for pop idol Connie Francis, with a featured cast that included Harve Presnell, Louis Armstrong, Herman's Hermits, Sam the Sham, the Pharaohs, and, get this, Liberace.
Jack Viertel is Encores!' Artistic Director; Newman's Own Foundation is lead sponsor. The season is also made possible by the Shuman and Steinberg Funds, Roz and Jerry Meyer and Ruthe and Tony Ponturo.
