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Entertainment

Musical puts love under microscope

If you've suffered through a chick flick to impress a girl or worn an ugly bridesmaid's dress, you might see yourself in this musical.

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published August 12, 2005

As summer vacations wind down and school starts up, Stage West Community Playhouse is bringing in a troupe of Tampa-based singer-actors to perform the long-running off-Broadway musical, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.

Written by Joe DiPietro, who also did Over the River and Through the Woods, and Jimmy Roberts, who composed A...My Name is Still Alice - two of Stage West's most popular shows - I Love You is a series of 19 vignettes on the subjects of dating, romance, marriage, lovers, spouses and in-laws.

Perhaps fittingly, the show has been called ""Seinfeld set to music."

There are sketches about bridesmaids' dresses being ugly, single men being bad housekeepers, proud new parents pestering their old pals with endless cute-baby stories and romance in the retirement years, among other subjects.

Songs run the gamut, from the humorous Tear Jerk, where a fellow laments letting his date choose the movie - it's a cloying "chick flick," not the violent action adventure he loves - to a bewildered man wondering Shouldn't I Be Less in Love With You? when his romance lasts longer than those of all his friends.

Then there's the bawdy Satisfaction Guaranteed, where your attorney will sue your bed partner if he or she doesn't deliver the goods, and the cynical parents in Hey, There, Single Guy/Gal, who wonder when their grown children will actually grow up and move away from home.

The acting troupe was formed by drama teacher Seth Travaglino, who played Paul in Stage West's A Chorus Line and was Nathan Detroit in Richey Suncoast Theatre's Guys and Dolls. He's joined by his wife, Anita, who was Morales in A Chorus Line and Sister Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls. The couple and two other actors play a total of 60 different roles during the show.

WHAT: I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, a musical.

WHERE: The Forum at Stage West Community Playhouse, 8390 Forest Oaks Blvd., Spring Hill.

WHEN: 8 tonight and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday

TICKETS: $12. Box office is open an hour before each show and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Call (352) 683-5113.

[Last modified August 12, 2005, 00:47:15]