StageSceneLA

STEEL PIER

Few musicals have faded into obscurity more unjustly than John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Steel Pier, just one reason to celebrate its two-decade-awaited West Coast Premiere, and don’t let the term “student production” scare you away. Though its cast may be younger than many of the characters they are playing, in all other respects this UCLA Department Of Theater stunner is second to none.

Taking as its inspiration the Dance Marathons that were all the rage some 85 years ago when a $2000* grand prize offered a way out of the Great Depression poorhouse, David Thompson’s book (just one of Steel Pier’s eleven 1997 Tony nominations) introduces us to a stageful of characters nearing the end of their collective rope.

There’s been-there-done-him Shelby (Claudia Baffo) and her latest younger love Luke (Ty Koeller), Jeanette MacDonald wannabe Precious (Molly Livingston) and her hick hubby Happy (Michael Wells), brother-and-sister act Buddy and Bette (Calvin Brady and Katie Emery), Olympic Gold Medalist Johnny (Justin Baker) and his partner Dora (Marlena Becker), and most importantly onetime celeb Rita Racine (Shelby Talley), whose Svengali-like secret husband Mick (Jake Levy) keeps promising the current marathon will be their last … and promising … and promising …

But before we meet any of these desperate dancers, an intentionally surreal prologue (just one of director Jeremy Mann’s inspired touches) introduces us stunt pilot Bill Kelly (James Olivas), fresh from what ought to have been a fatal crash and ready to offer Rita hope of a future minus Mick, an opening sequence whose dreamlike quality is the first of several hints that there may be something not quite of this world about the tall, dark, and handsome Bill.

As dancers dance and dance and dance and dance until they drop, the songwriting team who gave the world Cabaret, Chicago, and Kiss Of The Spider Woman treat audiences to what many consider their most gorgeous score.

Songs like “Everybody Dance,” “Second Chance,” “Wet,” “Running In Place,” and the oh-so catchy title tune show off the legendary duo at their smartest and most tuneful best, the raunchy treat that is “Everybody’s Girl” and the Busby Berkeley-ready dream sequence “Leave The World Behind” are gems as well, and never did K&E write more drop-dead gorgeously than in “First You Dream” or “Somebody Older,” all of them performed by a cast with Broadway in their hearts and successful professional careers in their futures.

Anchoring the production as Rita, Talley is simply sensational, singing, dancing, and emoting up a storm as the unfortunately married marathoner puts a smiling face on a woman nearing the breaking point.

Olivas has everything it takes to make it big in musical theater, whether as Billy Bigelow or Sky Masterson or Sid Sorokin or Frank Butler, you name it, the sky’s the limit and Steel Pier’s Bill Kelly is only the start.

Among top featured players, Levy’s outside-attractive-inside-ugly Mick radiates the same charisma as Carousel’s Jigger and Carrie’s Tommy did in his sophomore and junior years; Livingston’s and-I-am-telling-you-I’m-not-going, high-soprano-note-reaching, scenery-chewing Precious is a comedic delight; and Brady’s rubber-limbed gayer-than-gay Buddy is a Gene Wilder-meets-Ray Bolger treat.

As for Baffo’s big-voiced, big-hearted, big-laugh-getting Shelby, the statuesque redhead nails “Everybody’s Girl” and “Somebody Older” with the power and assurance of someone twice her age.

Baker, Becker, Emery, Koeller, and especially Wells’s aw-shucks charming Happy and Nick McKenna’s weaselly Mr. Walker deserve their own cheers as do songbirds Nicolette Norgaard, Naama Shaham, and Aliyah Imani Turner as Mick’s Picks.

Last but definitely not least, Shelby Barry (Hannah Missiano), Toni France, Sara Gilbert, Haleyann Hart, Grant Hodges (Dom Missiano), Kelsey Kato, Charles Platt, Max Risch, Brandon Root, Olly Sholotan, and Kelsey Smith not only sing and dance up a storm, they do so virtually nonstop, acing every challenge Christine Kellogg’s ultra-high-energy, genre-spanning choreography throws their way in “Everybody Dance,” “The Shag,” “Two Step,” and “The Sprints,” with music director Dan Belzer and his onstage orchestra doing big bands proud.

Steel Pier’s entirely student-executed scenery, costuming, sound, and lighting team deliver professional results all the way, beginning with the many wonders scenic designer Tatiana Kuilanoff’s initially stark-seeming steel-bridge set has in store.

Caitlin Kagawa’s multitude of costumes evoke Depression-era glamour and grunge in equal measure, Ryan Marsh’s sound design is as pitch-perfect as sound designs get, and Zach Titterington’s lighting goes from pizzazzy to nightmarishly surreal, just one reason why the musical’s eleventh-hour bolt comes not at all out of the blue if you’ve been paying attention along the way.

In addition to stage manager Brynna Mason, dozens more student names, far too many to be included here, get deserved program credit, evidence of the village it has taken to bring Steel Pier’s to long-awaited West Coast Premiere life.