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A show dedicated to the 'good guys'
[Times photo: 1999]
Cast members of Forever Plaid, which begins Friday at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre, include Joe Lawrence, left, Tony Purvis, Steven Flaa and Ken Robinson. The four also performed in the theater’s 1999 production of the off-Broadway musical. |
By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 24, 2001
Back by popular demand, Forever Plaid opens Friday at the Show Palace Dinner Theater.
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HUDSON -- Forever Plaid is one of those sweet musicals you want to see over and over again -- and a lot of people do.
"We have gotten more requests for (this) show than any other show, even more than for La Cage (aux Folles)," said Steven Flaa, who is directing the production that opens Friday for a six-week run at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre.
"People respond to it in a different way than they do other shows," Flaa said. "They love the story, they love the songs, they love the characters."
It's the second time around for Plaid at the Show Palace (the first was in April 1999), and it stars the same four singers who played in it then: Flaa, Joe Lawrence, Ken Robinson and Tony Purvis.
Plaid is such a big hit around here, Flaa is directing another production that will run July 5-Aug. 12 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. (He also performs in the Tampa run, which will be his 11th production playing the role of Sparky.)
The plot is simple. Four friends who call themselves the Plaids -- Frankie (Purvis), Smudge (Lawrence), Sparky (Flaa) and Jinx (Robinson) -- for years have practiced their harmonies in the basement of a plumbing supply company owned by Smudge's parents. It was here they became the Plaids -- a name meant to suggest the traditional values of family, home and harmony. It's also where they came up with "The Code of Plaid," which says, among other things, "A Plaid remains humble, a Plaid doesn't ad lib, (and) a Plaid never mugs or plays for the joke or the laugh."
On the way to their first big gig, their car is broadsided by a busload of Catholic teens on their way to see the Beatles make their U.S. debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, a sign, perhaps, that the era of close harmony and innocent youth is about to pass. The teens are okay, but the Plaids are killed instantly.
Now, 37 years later, through cosmic forces, they are allowed to come back to Earth and perform the big show they missed; never mind that music has moved on to other things.
The show is full of '50s and early '60s songs -- Three Coins in a Fountain; Moments to Remember; No, Not Much; Cry; Catch a Falling Star; and Heart and Soul -- all sung in four-part harmony.
According to program notes, the show is dedicated to the "good guys," the kind of young men "who saved their allowances to give their parents an extra special night on the town for their anniversary, wheeled the projector carts for the Driver Education Films, didn't go beyond first base, and if, by some miracle, they did, they didn't tell anyone."
The timing of this particular production has special poignancy for Flaa.
"You know, the show has that big section about Perry Como, and now he just recently died," Flaa said. Como is described in the show as the Plaids' ideal person. "We're dedicating the opening night performance to Perry Como, since he is such an integral part of Forever Plaid."
PREVIEW
Forever Plaid at Show Palace Dinner Theatre, 16128 U.S. 19, Hudson, Friday through July 1. Performances are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays; and 1:30 p.m. May 26 and June 2, 9 and 28. Doors open two hours before each performance for buffet and cash bar. Dinner and show, $35.95; show only, $24.95. Ages 12 and younger, $19.95 and $14.95. Call 727-863-7949 in west Pasco; toll-free elsewhere is 1-888-655-7469.
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