Emily Z. Pettet (center) stars as Polly in “Crazy for You,” a musical featuring the music of George Gershwin, running through June 26 at Theatre Memphis.
When community theater is at its best, you can actually feel the community spirit radiating from the stage. It's a warm, tingly sensation delivered through the ferocious energy and pride of locals who've dedicated a big honking chunk of their lives and buckets of sweat to play dress up for a paying audience.
On opening night of Theatre Memphis' "Crazy for You," each successively grander production number made it harder for the sold-out audience to hold its amazed breath. Count me among those still gasping for air. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a rainbow of chorus members in tap shoes using the stage as an enormous drum: Chocka-THUD-chocka-THUD-chocka-chocka-chocka-THUD.
Or maybe it's just perfect weather to be in a dark, air conditioned theater watching a fun summer musical.
Susan Stroman's original Tony-winning choreography serves as the blueprint for Kathy Caradine's spectacle of happy feet. Just when the dancing starts to get too expansive for the stage, it goes vertical -- on top of tables, on the hood of a car, on a corrugated tin roof, etc. Caradine and her hoofers would make Busby Berkley proud.
While the singing falls short of other big Theatre Memphis musicals, the cast is such a bright, eager-to-please team that you'd root for them if they were pitted against the cast of "Glee."
Granted, "Crazy for You" is a musical with a sole purpose: to put a smile on your face.
The 1992 Broadway musical is a rewrite of George Gershwin's "Girl Crazy," (1930) with a handful of additional Gershwin songs awkwardly tacked on. The plot is of the conventional 1930s "let's put on a show" variety. A young banker travels to a Nevada town to foreclose on an old theater and instead ends up trying to save it. Oh, and he also falls in love with the only woman within 50 miles, a tough-talkin' Western belle named Polly.
Jordan Nichols has the panache of a young Fred Astaire. But what makes him most compelling in the leading role of Bobby Child is a Cheshire grin full of earnest, boyish enthusiasm, except when you think he might be pulling your leg. Yes, he knows when he's playing the nerd.
Director Bob Hetherington allows Nichols and the rest of the cast to poke fun at themselves and the conventions of musical theater. During one epic number, Nichols and Emily Z. Pettet (as Polly) triumphantly climb a tall stack of chairs, only to be left standing there when the song is finished, wondering how they're going to get back down.
As can be expected, costume designer Andre Bruce Ward turns the chorus girls into a neo-vintage fashion show. The numerous scene changes are impressively smooth given Christopher McCollum's enormous set pieces.
Even with all the great dance numbers, the most delightful part of "Crazy for You" is the colorful array of characters played by actors with great instincts. Justin Asher (as a hotheaded barkeep), Lindsey Roberts (as a sassy dance captain), Jonathan Christian (as a European theater producer), Daniel A. Kopera (as a bass-playing hillbilly), and others, have terrific comic timing and never fumble a good line or a sight gag.
"Crazy for You" may be a throwback to the Gershwin age of musical theater, but there's nothing stale or tired about it. The dancing shoes are lined with caffeine and the dresses are hemmed with just the right amount of irony.
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"Crazy for You"
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through June 26 at Theatre Memphis, 630 Perkins Ext. Extra show: 7:30 p.m. June 15. Tickets are $28 adults, $15 students, $10 children. Call 682-8323.
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