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Music, love and other craziness
[Times photos: Brendan Fitterer]
Crazy for You features music by the Gershwins and dancing by, from left, Elena De Wolfe, Jenny Gruby, Randi Kaye, Melissa LaMunyon (foreground), Jocelyn Sharp and Christina Hart. |
By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 10, 2002
Boy meets girl, boy wins girl after large helpings of wackiness and wistfulness. Add some high-stepping dancers and Gershwin tunes, and you have Crazy for You.
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If some of the George and Ira Gershwin tunes in the glitz-and-glamor musical Crazy for You sound familiar, that's because they first appeared in the 1930 Broadway musical Girl Crazy and the 1943 Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney film of the same name.
Playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor) used the tunes, plus a couple of Gershwin songs discovered in a New Jersey warehouse, to build the 1992 Broadway blockbuster Crazy for You, opening Friday at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre in Hudson for a six-week run. The show won the Tony Award for Best Musical and ran for 1,622 performances.
"This is a great, great show," said Shanna Sells, a former Broadway dancer who, with her husband Chris, also a Broadway dancer, is directing the show. The Sellses have recruited several of their New York Equity buddies for the show, including a member of the original national Broadway tour (Jenny Gruby), a Radio City Music Hall Rockette (Christina Hart) and Ms. Sells' brother, Michael Ursua, a Broadway performer and Off-Broadway director.
Crazy for You opens backstage at the mythical Zangler Theater in New York, where the Zangler Follies is just wrapping up.
Elena DeWolfe, left, plays one of the high-kicking dancers in the musical Crazy for You.
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Bobby Child (Michael Stanek), a rich banker's son, wants to be in showbiz, but can't get a role. He's consoled by his even wealthier fiancee, the snooty Irene (Nichole Wright), but his mother (Barbara Wells) orders him to Deadrock, Nev., to foreclose on a rundown theater.
Deadrock lives up to its name, except for the spunky Polly Baker (Meredith Inglesby), who vows to get even with this Bobby Child.
To win her love, Bobby pretends to be theater mogul Bela Zangler (Ursua) and promises to put on a show to save the struggling theater. As luck (and musical comedy) would have it, 10 leggy show girls show up just in time to help out.
To complicate matters, Zangler himself also shows up, in hot pursuit of his former mistress, Tess (Christina Hart), who refuses to see him. Bobby and Bela sing the woes of lost love, and Bobby soon goes back to New York.
After numerous misunderstandings, a couple of raucous drunk scenes and lots of high-kicking dance numbers, everything works itself out to the satisfaction of all concerned.
PREVIEW
Crazy for You, at Show Palace Dinner Theatre, 16128 U.S. 19, Hudson, Friday-Feb. 17. Matinees and evenings Wed.-Sun. Dinner and show, $35.95; show only $24.95. Ages 12 and younger, $19.95 and $14.95, all plus tax and tip. Call (727) 863-7949 or (888) 655-7469.
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