THE THEATER MIRROR, New England's LIVE Theater Guide
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Bay Colony's current show is the Tony Award winning musical "42nd Street". It is loosely based on the 1933 movie of the same name with Ruby Keeler. The stage musical version opened on August 25, 1980 and ran until January 8, 1989 and starred Jerry Orbach as Julian Marsh. "42nd Street" is the tale of up and coming chorus girl Peggy Sawyer, who arrives in NY seeking a Broadway career. Unfortunately she misses the audition for Pretty Lady but the suave tenor, Billy Lawlor, is attracted to Peggy and gets her to sing with him to get noticed by Julian Marsh who puts her into the show. During an out of town tryout in Philadelphia, Peggy accidentally trips and pushes Dorothy Brock, the prima-donna female lead, causing her to fall and break her ankle. After this, Julian fires Peggy who decides to head back home to Allentown, PA. Billy and the chorus convince Julian to persuade Peggy to stay with show and take over the lead. They convince her to return and she becomes a star. Director Bill Cunningham leads his 24 member cast in this big extravaganza of a dance, musical and with musical director Rob Goldman and choreographer Dori Bryan turns this version of this show into a masterpiece of musical theater. The unbelievable tap dancing and vocal prowess of this show leads the audience to not only give it a standing ovation but to cheer some of the numbers during the show, too.
The gorgeous set and costumes for this show are expertly executed by Dan Kozar while the sound is by Ed DiMarzio and the lighting design by Michael Teixeira ( a father to be on May 28 by his beautiful wife, Jessie) All of the wonderful props are handled by Gail Gilman who had numerous ones in this show. The main ingredient that makes this show stand out is the fabulous choreography by Dori who also plays the bitchy diva, Dorothy Brock. The precision of her dancers is astounding and breathtaking to watch. Her dance numbers include tapping with chairs, tapping with huge dimes and a dance with roller skates. The opening audition tap, "The Lullaby of Broadway" ( a show stopping number) and the tap dancing "42nd Street are outstanding. These performers dance up a storm in this show. Dori's best numbers as Dorothy are "Getting to Be a Habit" and the duet "About a Quarter to Nine". She captures the essence of this character wonderfully. Also topnotch is the vocals of the cast especially in "Dames", Lullaby and the title number. Rob's direction is superb as is his orchestra. Bravo to Bill for assembling a fantastic cast for this show.
Emilee Dennis shines as the ingenue, Peggy Sawyer. This girl is not only a beautiful blonde but she has a fabulous voice and dancing skills, too. Emilee infuses the character with the necessary charm to pull off this role. Having seen her as Marty in "Grease", she shows a wonderful range as Peggy. Bill Roberts tackles the role of Julian Marsh, the hard ass director who builds Peggy's confidence herself to become a star. He sings the lead in "Lullaby" and the finale song "42nd Street". Bill captures the brassiness needed for this role. One of the best voices in this show belongs to Michael Warner who plays Billy. His voice soars off the charts in "Dames" and "Lullaby". Michael is also a fantastic dancer and he gets to strut his stuff all night long. Two scene stealing performers are Chrissy Fresco as Maggie and Nathan Lamont as Bert. Chrissy who was a dynamite Adelaide last year, gets to show off her dancing talent in this show as well as her voice in "Go Into Your Dance", "Getting Out of Town" and in the roller skating dance number, "Shuffle Off to Buffalo". Nathan gets to dance all night long in the chorus number and gets to sing a duet in "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" with Kimberly Palson Frigon. Kim plays Anytime Annie who is a dynamite dancer and singer. She and Heather Dwyer as Phyllis and Liz Harmon as Lorraine, the rich Park Avenue dame, get to tap dance wonderfully and have some scene stealing moments as the bubble headed chorines.
The lead dancer, Andy Lee is played by John Porcaro who is an excellent dancer while Dorothy's two suitors are played by Chris DiOrio as Abner Dillon, her rich sugar daddy and by Donald DeBerardinis as Pat Denning, her true love and vaudeville partner. Both men are topnotch actors and they pull off their roles with ease. Kudos to all of this hard working and superb cast as well as to everyone who helped with this show. So for a trip back to the 1930's and a rollicking good time, be sure to catch "42nd Street" at the Orpheum Theatre in Foxboro.