Easily one of the very best world premiere musicals of the past year (in a
season which has included stunners like The Breakup Notebook and It
Came from Beyond), Play It Cool (currently at the Celebration Theater) is
a must see for all musical theater and/or jazz lovers!

Play It Cool is first and foremost a compelling story of underground gay
club life in L.A. in the 1950s. Even without music, there'd be a show here.

Add the superlative jazz score (performed by PIC's supremely talented
cast and a 3-piece jazz combo) and it easily crosses over from being a
niche hit to a show that everyone can love, especially jazz aficionados
who will be treated to one of the first honest to goodness jazz musicals, if
not the very first. But even those, like myself, who aren't jazz lovers will
love this show!

The mood is set the moment the audience enters the theater. Dimly lit,
dark blue, and pseudo smoky (thanks I'd guess to dry ice), the
Celebration has been transformed into a 1953 gay bar (thanks to set
designer Kurt Boetchner), and the combo is already performing, the
audience being treated to several jazz standards before the
performance even begins.

Then the show begins and "Mary's Hideaway" becomes electric with the
entrance of 5 tuxedoed performers, singing and dancing (excellent
choreography by Marvin Tunney) to Club Life. One by one they are
revealed to be Mary, the butch (but tenderhearted) club owner; Lena,
the sultry blonde chanteuse; Eddie, the sexy Hispanic heartbreaker;
Henry, the sweet but double-lived married man; and most centrally Will,
fresh off the bus from Kansas and bound (hot young thing that he is) to
win/break a few heart of his own.

When I saw Play It Cool's first reading last August, all it needed was a
cohesive book. It has that now, written by Larry Dean Harris, whose
words never seems cliched, even if the characters may seem to be
archetypes at first glance. Songs it already had, lyrics by Mark Winkler
(music by a bunch of talented jazz composers), but since that first
reading, about half of them are new, most especially the catchy and
character defining In My Drag, in which Mary celebrates the power of
masculine attire.

Sharon Rosen's direction is spot on, and the cast of five couldn't be
better. Broadway's Jessica Sheridan adds a note of femininity to butch
bar owner Mary; Steven Janji makes his Latin lothario a man no one
could resist; Katie Campbell is seductive and vulnerable as lipstick lesbian
Lena Starling; and Michael Craig Shapiro adds sex appeal to what in
other hands might have been just a lumpish businessman. All four are
accomplished jazz vocalists and dancers.

But the breakout star of the evening is Andrew Pandaleon as country
boy Will. With his boy next door good looks and ah shucks charm, a voice
to raise the rafters, and charisma galore, this is a young leading man
we're sure to hear much more from.

The show runs through July 16, and hopefully will settle in for a long run at
the Celebration. See it if you possibly can and tell all your friends after you
do. With solid word of mouth, this could be the Celebration's biggest hit
in years!
JUNE 2006, CELEBRATION THEATRE, WEST HOLLYWOOD.

--Steven Stanley
                                                                       Photos: David Elzer