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Stage

When friends become lovers

The musical When We Were Singing hums with the universal language of relationships and their complexities.

By LORRIE LYKINS
Published October 13, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - When We Were Singing, a musical written by Canadian playwright and composer Dorothy Dittrich, tells the story of four friends - three women (J.J. Hobbs, Jaime Giangrande and Joleen Wilkinson) and one man (Larry Buzzeo) - and the upheaval in the group when two of the characters become romantically involved.

The script covers a lot of ground: love, loss, longing, regret and the struggle to adjust and redefine relationships that rarely turn out as planned. This is the U.S. debut of the show, which has been produced in Canada and won several Vancouver Theatre Awards, including one for best new script in 1996.

"I'm careful about where it's produced since it's my baby, and the U.S. debut is important to me," Dittrich said during a break last week in rehearsals of the Gypsy production at Suncoast Theater.

"I spent a lot of time reading through Gypsy's Web site before I decided to do the show here. I like what they're doing; I like their mission," said Dittrich, who is the musical director for the show, directed by Trevor Keller.

The music is a contemporary mix of jazzy blues and Broadway-style tunes, and Keller said that the voices of the cast members blend to create rich harmonies that resonate without the need for microphones in the small theater.

"The music is really accessible, and by that I mean people will leave the theater humming the tunes," Keller said. "I'm anticipating that once the first few audiences see the show, it will have its own momentum as word gets around that this is an extraordinary piece."

Dittrich wrote the musical in the 1990s, setting it in an unnamed city during the 1980s. "I didn't want to give people the opportunity to say to themselves, "Oh, I can't relate to this, this is New York,' " she said.

Dittrich said she wrote When We Were Singing during a transitional period in her life. "I had spent 10 years living in New York, and when I returned to Vancouver, I did a lot of reflecting on what it was like and I thought a lot about urban alienation. I wanted to write something that shows clearly that when the penny drops for one person, it affects everyone else around them. And I was dying to write a musical that featured a lesbian character, even though everyone told me not to do it," she said.

"But this is not an in-your-face gay show. Yes, there are gay characters, but the things they talk about and sing about are universal. This is as much about things we don't communicate to one another as the things that we do, and everyone can relate to that."

PREVIEW: When We Were Singing, Friday through Nov. 6, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays, Suncoast Theatre at Suncoast Resort, 3000 34th St. S, St. Petersburg. $16. RSVP: (727) 456-0500.

[Last modified October 12, 2005, 10:18:06]