42nd Street meets Anything Goes in Sierra Madre Playhouse’s deliciously campy Dames At Sea,  a nonstop song-and-dance extravaganza guaranteed to put a smile on your face and a tap in your step.

Thirty-three years after Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler made Warner Brothers movie magic and fourteen years before 42nd Street arrived on Broadway, Dames At Sea made its off-Broadway debut, proclaiming its tongue-in-cheek intentions from the get-go by renaming Powell and Keeler’s characters “Dick” and “Ruby.”

Like 42nd Street’s Peggy Sawyer before her, Dames At Seas’ raven-haired Ruby (Katie Franqueira) has arrived in New York City with “nothing but tap shoes in her suitcase and a prayer in her heart.”

Not having eaten a bite in three days, not even a graham cracker, the damsel in distress soon faints into the arms of sailor/would-be songwriter Dick (Aaron Shaw), and before you know it, the duo are duetting their love at first sight. (“It’s not Leslie Howard, or even Noël Coward. It’s you. It’s you. It’s you!”)

Before long, our stardom-bound heroine has made friends with a redheaded chorine named Joan (Marissa Mayer), met harried director Hennesey (Chuck McLane) and Broadway legend Mona Kent (Jennifer Knox), and been given a spot in the chorus, which doesn’t allow her much time to learn all her dance steps before this evening’s Opening Night.

Well, Dames At Sea would be opening tonight if not for a slight hitch.

A demolition crew is parked in front of the theater getting ready to tear it down posthaste, and either the cast can find another venue or the show will not go on.

Luckily, sailor boys Dick and his best bud Lucky (Ruben Bravo) manage to convince their good-natured Captain (McLane again) to let them stage the show on board ship!

Not only is George Haimsohn and Robin Miller’s book as deliberately outrageous as it is outrageously funny, songs by Jim Wise, Haimsohm and Miller are as catchy as song get, with lyrics and melodies that cleverly spoof better known ditties, from Mona’s torchy “Mister Man Of Mine” (“No Lochinvar, but Lordy he had money, that Mister Man of mine”) to Dick’s “Broadway Baby,” in which he out-42nd-streets Julian Marsh by proclaiming Broadway “Frilly, thrilly, dizzy, jazzy Sassy, brassy, razz-ma-tazzy,” and that’s just for starts.

All of this adds up to a musical that’s every bit as much fun as the Broadway classics it spoofs, and Dames As Sea manages to do it with just six players and a keyboardist.

Director Joshua Finkel’s absolutely terrific cast prove themselves bona fide triple-threats in one sensational song-and-dance number after another, choreographed by SoCal treasure Jeffrey Scott Parsons, who having played Dick at the Colony Theatre and elsewhere, clearly knows Dames At Sea like the taps on his Capezios.

Fresh out of AMDA, Franqueira makes for a captivating Ruby opposite Shaw’s irresistibly peppy Dick, the equally fabulous Bravo and Mayer pay affectionate tribute to Hollywood’s wisecrackingest sidekicks, Knox gives 42nd Street’s Dorothy Brock a run for her divalicious money, and McLane is doubly delightful as both Hennesey and the Captain.

Last but not least, there’s scarcely a moment that onstage musical director extraordinaire Sean Paxton isn’t tickling the ivories to energizing effect, sound designer Danny Fiandaca expertly mixing keyboard and vocals while inserting numerous amusing effects along the way.

Scenic designer Jeff G. Rack frames the Sierra Madre Playhouse proscenium arch with 1930s elegance and flash, his backstage first-act set keeping Act Two’s Anything Goes-ready art deco ship hidden till its post-intermission reveal.

Shon LeBlanc’s gorgeous array of costumes fill the Sierra Madre Playhouse stage with glamour and pizzazz matched by Derek Jones’ flashy lighting, Jen Gies’ picturesque properties, and Judi Lewin’s spot-on hair and makeup designs.

Dames At Sea is produced by Christian Lebano. Kelsey O’Keeffe is production stage manager and KC Read-Fisher is assistant stage manager. Owen Lewis is production manager and Todd McCraw is technical director. Jeff Raum is proscenium scenic artist.

With its clever blend of nostalgia, camp, romance, melody, laughter, and dance, it’s hard to imagine a more scrumdiddlyumptious musical theater treat than Dames At Sea, one of the best and most entertaining summer musicals ever to light up the Sierra Madre Playhouse stage.

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre.
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
June 22, 2019
Photos: Gina Long

Tags: George Haimsohn, Jim Wise, Los Angeles Theater Review, Robin Miller, Sierra Madre Playhouse