Inland Valley Repertory Theatre serves up midweek musical entertainment at Claremont’s Candlelight Pavilion with its revival of the 1955 Broadway smash Damn Yankees.

 Few 1950s musicals have stood the test of time as well as George Abbott, Richard Adler, Jerry Ross, and Douglass Wallop’s modern retelling of the Faust legend set in the world of Major League Baseball and featuring over a dozen catchy songs (including several that went on to become standards) and multiple rousing production numbers.

 The musical’s opening scene introduces us to middle-aged real estate agent Joe Boyd (Jamie Snyder, in fine voice) and the “Six Months Out Of Every Year” he spends in couch potato mode, plunked down in front of his TV set watching his beloved Washington Senators lose game after game after game. If only, muses Joe late one night, the Senators had a long ball hitter—just one would be enough—they could finally beat those “Damn Yankees” and maybe even win the pennant.

As soon as Joe utters the black-magic words, “I’d sell my soul for a long ball hitter,” who should suddenly materialize in his living room but the Devil himself in the guise of “Mr. Applegate” (Aaron Pyle, stealing scenes left and right). All Joe Boyd has to do, Applegate informs him, is sign on the dotted line and presto change-o, he will be transformed into a 20something slugger, precisely the long ball hitter needed to propel the Senators not merely to an American League championship but maybe even win them the World Series.

Intrigued as he is by the offer, Joe Boyd is a sharp enough negotiator to insist on an escape clause. If Joe Hardy decides by midnight on the eve of the season’s final Senators game that he wants out, then the deal is off. If not, then he is “in for the duration” (and we know what that means).

 Realizing that he has, at least for the moment, met his match, Applegate agrees to the escape clause, and lo and behold, instead of Joe Boyd in the living room, there stands Joe Hardy (perky Jeffrey Bonser).

With Mr. Applegate as his “manager,” it doesn’t take long for Joe to become a Washington Senator and turn those perennial losers into the winningest team in the USA.

Meanwhile, young Joe has moved into the spare room which Joe Boyd’s lonely, bewildered wife Meg (Kristen Hamilton, exuding warmth) has been persuaded to rent out, the younger Joe’s proximity to his long-underappreciated wife stirring up feelings he thought he’d lost.

 Fearful that this longing for his old life with Meg might just prompt Joe Hardy to give up baseball stardom for the simple pleasures of Joe Boyd’s hearth and home, Mr. Applegate decides to call in the sexiest reinforcement in hell, the one and only Lola (leggy, luscious Sandra Rice), who as any Broadway buff knows by heart, gets “Whatever Lola Wants,” or at least that’s what Applegate is counting on.

 Under Frank Minano’s direction, IVRT’s Damn Yankees not only features a number of terrific performances including Lauren Mayfield’s feisty reporter Gloria Thorpe and Chris Lindsey’s good-natured team manager Van Buren, choreographer Allison Eversoll gives Senators Sam Bixby (Henry), Dani Bustamante (Smokey), Greg Hardash (Sohovic), Edward Little (Lowe), Scott McDermott (Rocky), Ethan Nelson (Brian), Andreas Pantazis (Smokey), and Aaron Shaw (Vernon) plenty with which to strut their energetic, comedic dance stuff and Rice’s Lola with which to sizzle (including a lively “Who’s Got The Pain” with Shaw as her partner in sass).

The 1996 Broadway revival version stirs in a delightfully pratfall-and-acrobatics-filled “Blooper Ballet” for the baseball boys, transforms “Near To You” from poignant duet to even more harmonious trio, and by letting Mr. Applegate be Lola’s partner-in-commiseration in “Two Lost Souls,” gives Pyle extra opportunities to be devilish (with a little help from magic consultant Jack Freedman along the way).

 The ditzy duo of DawnEllen Ferry and Leah Zimmerman score laughs as Sister and Doris, with Lucca Beene (Baseball Fan), Kaitlyn Boyd (Miss Weston), Michael Buczynski (Commissioner), Mark MacKenzie (Postmaster), Zea Manning (Harriet), Mia Mercado (Miss Lynch), John Nisbet (Welch), Natalie Roberts (Teenager), Cindy Smith (Assistant), and Baseball Kids Michael Clocksin, Cypress Flores, Carolina Flores, Michael Gallo, Ian Ho, Lukas Loza, Adrian Romero, and Thomas Vandegrift completing the cast.

 Mitch Gill and Chuck Ketter’s Annie Get Your Gun set proves so perfect a fit for Damn Yankees, you’d think it was designed specially for it, with kudos to set modifier MacKenzie and props/set decorator Smith for transforming a circus tent into a baseball stadium, one that keeps ace musical director Ronda Rubio and her eight-piece orchestra upstage and center throughout.

 Snaps too to costume coordinator/wig designer Ken Martinez (and seamstress Jeannette Capuano) and lighting designer Caleb Shiba for making Damn Yankees one of the best-looking IVRT productions ever, and sound designer Nick Galvan merits his own plaudits.

Hope Kaufman is assistant director. Bobby Collins is production coordinator. Gavan Wyrick is stage manager. Donna Marie Minano is Baseball Kids’ vocal coach.

 Whether or not the Senators beat the Yankees with Joe Hardy as their star player, audiences will find themselves entertained at Candlelight Pavilion weeknights in March.

Inland Valley Repertory Theatre at Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont.
www.IVRT.org

–Steven Stanley
March 14, 2018
Photos: DawnEllen Ferry

Tags: Candlelight Pavilion, Inland Valley Repertory Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review