BANDSTAND -- The New American Musical

 Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

242 West 45th Street

When this baby boomer's 70th  birthday was coming up, there was only one place I wanted to celebrate.  The city that still makes my heart beat just a little faster and makes me feel truly alive, New York City.  I have over 50 years of New York memories that include the  many Broadway shows I have been so very fortunate to see.  One of these days I will have to go through my file of a mind and come up with post about them and my love affair with New York.
           

Today, however, I want to tell you about this exciting new musical, BANDSTAND -- The New American Musical.  With only a three day weekend and considering the prices of tickets to Broadway shows, my retiree budget allowed for only one show.  It is always difficult to choose one show over the many excellent productions in New York.  I really wanted to see something new and fresh.  Living in a small town, I get to see so (too) many rehashes of Broadway shows in the local community theatres.*  The last thing I wanted to do was see an old standard/classic being done by a pop star/celebrity.  At my age, I have to be more and more discriminating.  Too many shows too little time... I had read all the pre-opening hype about BANDSTAND and as usual read it with a grain of salt.

As a post-war baby, I am drawn to stories and songs from WWII so the setting and the music of BANDSTAND was magnetically pulling me.  And oh, yes, the director and choreographer was the two-time Tony winner, Andy Blankenbuehler.  Andy Blankenbuehler won a Tony for the choreography for a little show called HAMILTON.  I can be a bit of a gambler when it comes to picking a show.  I did after all, see Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down The Wind in tryouts at the National Theatre in Washington, DC.  Let's not go there, shall we.  Even with my past history, I plunked down my money for orchestra seats* to see BANDSTAND, for a performance two weeks after it's official opening.

If I had been playing a slot machine, seeing this show, would have given me three cherries all in a row for a jackpot.  The leads are talented and quite competent:  Laura Osnes (Tony nominations for Cinderella and Bonnie and Clyde) as Julia Trojans, and yes there are jokes about her last name in the show; Corey Cott (Newsies and GIGI as well TV credits which include the BBC's My Mother and Other Strangers) as Danny Novitski.  Turns out PBS picked up My Mother and Other Strangers which aired later this summer and I was able to catch Corey as an American flyer during WWII in Ireland.  Always fun to see someone you only recently saw sweating makeup and spitting out words from a front row seat in a New York theatre.  Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic!   

After returning from the war, Danny wants to start a band to compete in a national radio contest in New York City.  He brings together a talented group of the "walking wounded" which includes a young man who drinks to forget the war; another who could be OCDC; a young man who survived a jeep turning over on him, but lost his short term memory.  They are all suffering from what is now called PTSD.  Julia is the widow of one of Danny's friends and as luck (and scripts) would have it, she can sing.  It is 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio and the country is filled with patriotism and love for the returning heroes of the war.

On a scale of one to ten, the energy and enthusiasm of the entire cast and ensemble is a twelve!  With Andy Blankenbuehler at the helm, the dancing is amazing.  Who doesn't love jitterbug, swing and the Lindy?!  The boys in the band actually play their  instruments.  The show is a tapestry of emotions going in many directions trying to decide where to land.  For me as an older patron, I loved the performance by Beth Leavel as Julia's mother, Mrs. June Adams.  Ms Leavel* won a Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and L.A. Drama Critics awards for her performance as the title character in The Drowsy Chaperone.  When she sings "Everything Happens," I instantly connected with her character.  Before she begins the song, she looks at her daughter and says,  (paraphrasing)"The only honest thing your father ever said was, shit happens."  I let out a good, rich, old lady laugh on that one.  The words in the song deliver a punch to my psyche because I will never believe that some things happen for a reason.  The saying  "Everything happens for a reason" has always been for me trite and cliched.  This show delivers a thoughtful and very entertaining show.    
                

"Everything Happens" is a song from Bandstand the musical performed by Beth Leavel (Mrs. June Adams).

JULIA (spoken):
It was his fault! Ma, he's here and Michael isn't and it's his fault!
I want to believe everything happens for a reason-

JUNE ADAMS (sung):
No, no, no
Everything happens, just that
Everything happens
An event, or a death
A catastrophe

Any reason as to why
Is a reason you supply
It just happens
Everything happens

It's not fate, no great plan
It's not destiny
Putting faith in that cliche
Gives your own free will away
When things happen
And they will happen

You can waste your whole damn life
Assigning bits of philosophic meaning
To the failures and misfortunes intervening
And I'll tell you what you'll get
Just a lifetime of regret

No, no, no
There is no reason for why
Everything happens
It's the changing of a season
It's a fact
And it's a constant

And the only sane response
Is to adjust
Not to wish it hadn't happened
When it must

Now the church will tell you one thing
And your friends, perhaps another
If I were you I'd listen
To your slightly dotty mother
Who lost out on her own fair share
Of good times and of laughter
Listen
What matters when things happen
 Is what happens after

• Directed and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler
• Music by Richard Oberacker
• Lyrics by Robert Taylor and Richard Oberacker

Bottom line, this show is a winner...three cherries in a row!  Jackpot!

*Side notes:

1. My remark about community theatre is not a bash, but merely an opinion.  I mean how many times can you see CATS, Hello Dolly, Grease, The Sound of Music or Steel Magnolias?  The sad fact is that community theatres have to have these shows in their season in order to succeed and be financially solvent.  
2. When I purchased our tickets for Bandstand, I thought we would be sitting on the aisle, center, second row.  Turns out they needed the first row for part of the orchestra pit so we ended up with front row seats.  Front row seats are good and bad.  We did quite a bit of looking up and you get to see the actors sweat and the spittle fly.  
3. After I saw the show, I was so taken with Beth Leavel that I googled her and read her bio on Wikipedia.  I read that in 2013, Beth was cast as Bea in the musical Something Rotten and began the workshop for it. Later on in the year she was dropped because she was "too old" and  was replaced.  Too old.  So Sad.  She was 57 years old! That had to hurt.

P.S.
The next day we went to the Rainbow Room for brunch.  As we were leaving, we asked the hostess if she would take our picture.  Twenty years ago we had celebrated my birthday there and thought it would be fun to replicate the photo that had been taken in 1997.  I mentioned that we had seen Bandstand the night before.  Both hostesses were excited to hear our critique.  They were thinking of auditioning as dancers for the show.  They also pointed out very discreetly a woman at the table next to where we had been sitting.  She was Bandstand's company manager, celebrating Mother's Day.  That's NYC for you...always entertaining.               

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