Theatre Review by Matthew Murray
If energy necessarily translated to quality, Non-Equity The Musical!, playing at the Players Theater through next Saturday as part of the New York International Fringe Festival, would deserve to be fast-tracked to Broadway. Written by Paul D. Mills (music and lyrics) and Danielle Trzcinski, it's a desperately cute look at six young musical theatre performers who are "living their dream" but not yet part of the actors' union — to say nothing of earning much money. Trzcinski, who stars as the pretty and talented but pushed-aside Wendy, and Keith Antone, Lindsay Morgan, Pierce Cassedy, Joe Donnelly, and Nichole Turner are all delightful as the hopefuls who line up for cattle calls, stand in hallways, try to stay chill during cold readings, and endure pay-to-play meetings unlikely to give them the jobs and recognition they crave.
The show around them, alas, does not capture your imagination so easily. Lodged between "too inside baseball" and "too accessible," it renders the deepest difficulties of the actor's lot into dopey bits that sing endlessly (if seldom effortlessly) without establishing solid emotional connections. Songs about wishing for that big break, being better than producers realize, and struggling to match casting requirements you don't know mingle haphazardly with maudlin tales about the loved ones the stars leave in their careers' wake, inane one-offs that could have come from any show (a song about straight women longing to be men to get better jobs? Really?), and overly glitzy ballads about the wonders of show business, make the 100-minute show at once sluggish and schizophrenic.
Director Christian Amato and choreographer Sam Doblick have staged things well enough, but they haven't overcome the show's inherent flaw: It feels like a revue laden with far too much book. The songs are pleasant, though obvious and forgettable, but Trzcinski needs to either abandon some of the stereotypes she so freely employs (the heavy black girl who belts, the question of how actresses date when surrounded only by gay men, and so on) or cut some characters so they're less noticeable. When everything is this general, it's difficult to achieve either pointed satire or focused entertainment, and Non-Equity manages neither.
It is, however, an outstanding showcase for two of its cast: Dominic Sellers, who blissfully underplays a superbly connected and strangely lucky actor who's always finds a way to get seen, and especially Emily Swan, who plays every audition monitor supervising the members of the lead sextet. Swan hilariously fashions each one as a complete and unique woman, with different voices (from nerd to authoritarian), mannerisms, and even apparent backstories that make them the most sparkling and dynamic fixtures of every scene in which they appear. Her ingenious, detailed work reminds you that serious acting chops can be found even in the least-expected places. Non-Equity The Musical! wants to promote the same goal itself, but never gets as close as Swan does.
Non-Equity The Musical!
Through August 25
The Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal Street (West 3rd and Bleecker)
Tickets and current schedule FringeNYC.org
See the original article here.
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