Matthew Kleckner (left) is Tony Richardson, and Jeffrey A. Johns is Anthony Richardson, who meet after a mix-up in their show-biz contracts in Waiting in the Wings.
Waiting in the Wings is the sort of show that materializes every June with a gay-themed subject to celebrate Pride Month intentionally or obliquely. This adaptation of a 2014 movie, in which Sally Struthers, Christopher Atkins and Shirley Jones appeared, stars Jeffrey A. Johns, who wrote the screenplay and reprises his writing (with Arie Gonzalez) and acting roles for the stage.
Tony’s girlfriend Rita (Zoë Schneider-Smith) tries to teach him to sing.
The conceit is simple: A theater-loving Montana hick named Anthony Richardson (Johns), who lives with his boyfriend Trevor (a sympathetic Devin Lee Pfeiffer) in repressed domesticity, enters an online contest for an Off-Broadway show—his dream job. At the same time, a straight male stripper in New York named Tony Richardson (Matthew Kleckner) sends a contest video for “Sexiest Stripper in America” to the same agency. A secretary mixes up the entries, and the dual heroes find themselves stuck with contracts where they don’t belong.
The characters in this screwball set-up range from choir members to chorus boys. They include Lee (Nathan Hoty), a stripper and former ballet dancer who becomes Anthony’s ecdysiast adviser and develops an attraction; an overbearing agency head (Patrick C. Ball) with a pushy secretary named Delores, who’s determined to become a Broadway star (insufferably overplayed by Adriana Nocco); a chorine named Rita (Zoë Schneider-Smith) with the hots for Tony; a chorus boy named Peter (Ryan Borgo) with the hots for Tony; and Kelsey, a snide, often vulgar drag queen (Jonathan Chisolm), who hosts the strip club show.
The pluses and minuses are astonishingly far apart. The songs are rich with first-rate melodies; the lyrics are smart and wink at showbiz tropes—“It’s time! Go big and aim high!/This could be my big break/Gotta reach for the sky!” Theater buffs will spot homages to more famous shows: Cabaret, Funny Girl, Company. The familiar targets sit alongside hilariously edgy numbers such as “Gays, Jews, and Girls Who Need Love” (from the movie), which celebrates the fan base of Broadway shows:
Rita shows Anthony proof of the misunderstanding that has led to him being cast in a strip show.
Gays with their partners who won’t put on weight.
Jews from Passaic and Nyack upstate
Girls who are desp’rate and can’t get a date.
Nobody’s single,
Or gentile,
Or straight.
Much depends on Johns, who plays the naive Anthony with formidable energy and a broad smile. “Your negativity is not affecting me,” he tells Trevor. But even in the early scenes, he pushes the character’s optimism to an irritating degree, and by mid-show his broad smile seems more like a rictus.
Meanwhile, Kleckner, who surely murmurs “Zero body fat” in his sleep, plays sex object Tony with a dimness that is by turns sweet and unbelievable, and sometimes both at once. In one scene, Tony’s dancing lesson with Borgo’s wildly fey Peter is interrupted by Rita, who shows up for a date:
The Off-Broadway musical that Tony is in features “The Dinghy Song,” a celebration of nautical adventures.
Peter: I’m pretty sure Tony’s gay.
Tony: Nope. Straight.
Peter: But you let me manhandle you.
Tony: You did? I was a stripper for years; I didn’t even feel it!
Eventually the Richardsons meet, and Tony teaches Anthony the art of stripping. “So what do you know about stripping?” asks Tony. “Well, since I was seven, I have had the libretto for Gypsy memorized,” replies Anthony. To which the clueless Tony says to the audience: “Sometimes I think people just make up words.”
Funny as it is, that comment is typical of a tonal problem. Broad playing is juxtaposed with nuance, to a point where reaching for a laugh seems an act of desperation. Scenes seem self-contained, then suddenly someone acknowledges the audience. The opening number in a church in Montana treats viewers as a congregation, while “Gays, Jews, and Girls Who Need Love” evolves into a singalong.
Unfortunately, inferior sound design frequently makes lyrics and dialogue incomprehensible, although poor diction and gabbling of lines by some actors often seem to have escaped the notice of director Jay Falzone.
Jonathan Chisolm (left) plays Kelsey, and Nathan Hoty is Lee in the strip-club show. Photographs by Jennifer Kornswiet.
The songs, written by no less than 16 people, are the show’s bedrock asset. Jennifer Kornswiet’s choreography is another: it skillfully embraces strutting strippers and tap numbers. Lyrics abound with double entendres, as in “The Dinghy Song,” wherein a bare-chested Tony carts around a green boat to a chorus that sings:
He’s got the cutest little dinghy in the navy,
And all the girlies know that it’s so.
The cutest little dinghy in the navy,
They love to watch him go heave-ho.
All in all, Waiting in the Wings makes one hope that the whole can be reworked into something resembling its best parts. At the moment, the production is more akin to a scrappy Fringe Festival show than a polished Off-Broadway presentation.
Waiting in the Wings plays through June 4 at Theatre at St Clements (423 West 46th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Monday and Thursday and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. Sunday, with an additional matinee at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 31. For tickets and information, visit jjspotlightproductions.com.
Book: Jeffrey A. Johns and Arie Gonzalez
Music & Lyrics: Danny Abosch, Andrew Abrams, Anthony Asaro, Ken Clifton, Bobby Cronin, Jay Falzone, Mark-Eugene Garcia, Arie Gonzalez, Rob Hartmann, Caleb Hoyer, Trent Jeffords, Paul Louis, Anne Markt, Nick Santa Maria, Robert Shapiro, Ruth Wallis
Direction: Jay Falzone
Choreography: Jennifer Kornsweit
Scenic Design: Cliff Price
Costume Re-design: Maya Faye Gordon
Lighting Design: Casey Duke
Sound Design: Bryan McPartland
