Little Miss Sunshine hopefuls could learn a thing or two from the Texas-based partners (business and otherwise) who coach preschool pixies to beauty pageant stardom in Matthew Wilkas and Mark Setlock’s Born To Win, the outrageously funny latest from Celebration Theatre.

 Meet fellow flamers Bobby (Drew Droege) and Bob (Wilkas), whose Touch The Sky Finesse Coaching Biweekly Parents’ Seminar: Is My Child A Pageant Queen And If Not Can I Make Her One? has helped countless tiny tots—the good, the bad, and the ugly—win crown after crown thanks to Bobby’s knack for choreography, poise, finesse, Twitter, and more … and Bob for whatever’s left.

 Unfortunately for the dynamic duo, today’s Gingerbread Regional Pageant winner turns out to be none other than four-year-old first-time contestant Puddle Jackson, music to the ears of Puddle’s mom Marge (Daiva Deupree) but news from hell to an outraged Pinky (Julanne Chidi Hill), whose own spawn Chevrolet has never lost a pageant in her life.

So what’s a duplicitous Pinky to do but make friends with the enemy, even if it means shelling out a hefty $7850 for the kind of personalized coaching only Bobby and Bob can provide, including new headshots, gowns and routines, a spray tan (“She’ll smell like coconut for a week! You’ll just want to eat her!), a false set of baby teeth (aka a “flipper”), and diet pills to get Puddle down to swimwear weight.

With Pinky shelling out the cash, it should come as no surprise that Bobby and Bob’s latest protégé finds herself given the worst possible coaching advice in the history of pageant coaching. (“If every other girl on that stage is smiling, I want Puddle stone-cold dead serious.”)

 Along the way, Wilkas and Droege get to do double duty, the former as Pinky’s ten-gallon-hat-sporting husband Gunnar, known far and wide as the owner of “one of the largest toothpick manufacturing businesses in the world,” the latter as Marge’s incarcerated redneck hubby. (“Buddy, I don’t think they give you ‘con-joo-gal’ visits when you’re in for domestic abuse”)

As cracks begin to form in Bob’s relationship and Pinky’s own mother from hell (Deupree) shows up in flashback form, what starts out as a wild and wacky look at pageant madness acquires considerably darker shadings and unexpectedly rich rewards.

 Since its 2008 debut as Pageant Play, Wilkas and Setlock’s sidesplitting spoof had numerous regional stagings, but none has benefited from director Michael Matthews’ at his inspired best, with two of the play’s original stars reprising roles written for them and a couple of Celebration favorites adding their own trademark touches.

New York visitor Deupree is absolutely stunning in the role she created, a genuinely good-hearted woman suddenly surrounded by vipers, and she gets to do some delectable Faye Dunaway-as-Joan Crawford scenery chewing as Pinky’s very own Mommie Dearest.

Wilkas’s sunshiny delight of a Bob gets even richer when dark clouds show up to block the sun, a performance nicely contrasted by small-town bigshot Gunnar.

 Celebration star Droege not only gets to be his own trademark sassy self as Bobby but revels in revealing the macho menace beneath hetero heavy Buddy, and the divine Hill once again proves to be one of the most watchable actresses in town as a Pinky going bonkers and bonkerser.

Last but not least, L.A. theatergoers concerned about real little girls being put through the ringer on the Celebration stage should rest assured that pintsized Puddle and itty-bitty Chevrolet are portrayed by dresses alternately hanging from wires, tossed about the stage, crumpled up in rage, and only occasionally given a mother’s loving hug.

 A sensational design team give Born To Win a strikingly surreal look, from Stephen Gifford’s bald-wig-stand-bedecked set to Matthew Brian Denman’s stunningly saturated lighting to Allison Dillard’s ab-fab costumes large and extra-small to Michael O’Hara’s pageant-ready props, with sound designer Rebecca Kessin providing a runway-ready disco soundtrack, fight director Sondra Mayer choreographing a Krystal-Alexis-worthy tussle, Tuffet Schmelzle dialect-coaching some terrific Texas twangs, and choreographer Janet Roston consulting on some hilarious dance moves as demonstrated by the divine Droege.

 Tom DeTrinis is assistant director. Estey DeMerhant is production stage manager and Trevor Lee is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Jami Rudofsky. Sierra Marcks takes over the role of Marge beginning April 1.

Born To Win is produced by Rebecca Eisenberg, Nathan Frizzell, and O’Hara. Mark Giberson and David Tran are associate producers.

A sly and scintillating look at the lengths parents will go to for second-hand glory, Born To Run’s Los Angeles Premiere is one mother-from-hell of a ride.

Celebration Theatre at Lex Theatre, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood.
www.celebrationtheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
February 16, 2019
Photos: Michael Brian Denman

Tags: Celebration Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mark Setlock, Matthew Wilkas