It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play

Part of HappenStance Productions’ cachet is in staging solid crowd-pleasing entertainment, but a large proportion lies in choosing projects that agree with the Andiamo Novi upstairs theater that it’s occupied for a string of productions. With the Christmas season in full swing, and most favorite holiday tales requiring expansive casts and settings, the company now takes a winning scaled-down approach to a time-tested classic. With playwright Joe Landry’s It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, director Aaron T. Moore blends front-and-center character work with backstage magic, putting engaging new packaging on a story many viewers know by heart.

It may be 2011 in the surrounding Italian restaurant and martini lounge, but here it’s December 24, 1946, in the studio of Detroit City radio station WAND. The premise is efficiently established in a few deft strokes, as the sharply attired players welcome the audience to the live broadcast and entertain them with a handful of a cappella carols while making their last-minute preparations for the show. By the time the stage manager calls the countdown and the on-air light toggles on, it’s easy to believe the illusion, especially given the practiced professionalism of this ensemble. The broadcast itself is presented in a single block of three major acts, which are broken up by quick breaks and cute ads from laughable “sponsors.” In all, the show runs less than two hours at a single stretch, quite a bit shy of the original film's running time.

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Five Course Love

Within the first year of its inception, HappenStance Productions has found a home base at Andiamo Novi’s upstairs theater. Now the company brings its latest in a string of musicals, Five Course Love (book, music, and lyrics by Gregg Coffin), a bodice-ripper of an international buffet. Under the direction of Aaron T. Moore, this production plays up the campy, soapy humor of its premise and embraces the addictive appeal of the empty calorie, to delectably tawdry effect.

There’s rhyme and reason behind the paperback book each woman character (all played by Maren Ritter) is reading when we first meet her, but the production wisely drops the through line like a hot potato, giving each of the musical’s five distinct vignettes an agreeably self-contained feel. The scenes, all featuring a woman, a man (Patrick O’Reilly), and a facilitating waiter (Moore), tell stories of first meetings, infidelity, betrayal, and fighting for love; what they have in common is their passionate themes, their restaurant settings, and their unabashed unreality. Befitting a handful of silly capers, the actors play to the audience at every available opportunity, giving the show a cabaret feel ideally suited to the utter absurdity of these pulpy escapades.

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Don't Be Cruel: The Life and Times of the King

In its one act, Don't Be Cruel: The Life and Times of the King is approximately sixty minutes biography set to music, fifteen minutes tribute concert. This multimedia play at Andiamo Novi stars Max Pellicano as Elvis Presley, narrating his own life and singing songs to fit the story. Ironically, it's only after arriving at Elvis's death that Pellicano comes to life in a joyous coda that surges with energy and fun.

Appearing alone on a narrow strip of stage, the character barely ripples the surface of Elvis's well-known and sometimes troubled life, treating events like his mama's death (sad) and meeting his future wife (happy) as though they were revelatory. Other shocking developments include: Elvis bought Graceland, and Elvis had a drug habit. The production gets plenty of support from backstage in the form of a live band and two performers whose silhouettes and voices stand in for many of Elvis's family, friends, and collaborators. Falling short of rock 'n' roll's raw power, the onstage stillness in which the man of the hour must recollect things the audience already knows feels like Walk the Line by way of Disney's Hall of Presidents.

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Late Nite Catechism

Because much of the content of Late Nite Catechism is concerned with Catholic doctrine, Sister asks at the top of the show who in the audience attended Catholic school. From my vantage point near the back of the Andiamo Novi theater, I was surprised by the impressive show of hands. However, given the laughs that welled up from the entire house, neither Catholic schooling, a background in the church, nor working knowledge of the Bible is a prerequisite to enjoy this winning one-nun comedy.

I had heard of this popular show before, but never seen it. My hand was not among those raised; Sister refers to my kind as "the publics," although I was brought up Catholic and knew the answers to questions on topics such as the Immaculate Conception and stigmata. In fact, for most of the two-hour performance, I found myself resisting the urge to chime in — Sister, I was sent to public school because my mother attended twelve years of Catholic school and vowed to never subject her own children to it — for the same reason as a number of my fellow audience members: to see what actor Mary Beth Burns would say. A clear veteran of this show, Burns takes the building blocks of a catechism curriculum and turns it into an interactive standup experience done utterly in character, and wearing a habit to boot.

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Act Your Wage: The Pink Slip and Fall of an Automotive CEO

Having missed Kwame a River and Kwame a River 2: The Wrath of Conyers, the highly lauded predecessors to Andiamo Novi's latest installment in the local-spoof canon, I have no basis of comparison for Act Your Wage: The Pink Slip and Fall of an Automotive CEO. This 60-minute comedy attempts to lampoon greedy, inept auto executives, a topic in which Southeast Michigan has been actively entrenched for months upon months, but shies away from openly mocking; the resulting vague and allegoric premise — albeit mixed in with some great bits — is tepid where it might have scorched.

Fittingly for a production on a former Second City stage, Act Your Wage is strikingly similar to a Second City revue, with a bare set, jump-cuts and other familiar scenic devices, nods to audience suggestions, and a handful of musical numbers. Yet this production puts story first, requiring expository and transitional scenes that aren't always funny; moreover, the story itself is pretty messy. CEO loses job, loses car, loses wife, is briefly introduced to how the other half lives (supposedly in order to "gain perspective," a eureka moment that never quite materializes), panics about money, flails about for a new job, and finds his calling just in time for the finale. Themes are embraced, then put on hold for another narrative thread. The script can't decide whether it wants to deliver a coherent story or just string together as many hilarious scenes as possible, and instead falls short of both.

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