After a 26-month hiatus, Musical Theater Guild returned to Glendale’s Alex Theatre on Sunday to once again do what they do best, mount a Broadway musical with just 25 hours of rehearsal, and like its pre-pandemic predecessors, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying succeeded in entertaining a packed house starved for MTG magic.

The 1961 Frank Loesser/Abe Burrow Broadway gem introduces us to Manhattan high-rise window washer J. Pierpont Finch (Travis Leland), who sets out to reach the top of the World Wide Wicket Company with nothing but Shepherd Mead’s 1952 book How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying as his guide to corporate stardom.

Following Mead’s advice (delivered at the Alex by production coordinator Susan Edwards Martin) to the letter, and with a bit of truth-stretching thrown in for good measure, Ponty soon finds himself working in the WWW mail room, “soon” being about five minutes after going through the building’s doors for very first time.

Not only has Ponty almost immediately made the acquaintance of WWW CEO J.B. Biggley (Thomas Ashworth), he has caught the eye of perky, pretty, marriage-minded secretary Rosemary Pilkington (Chelsea Morgan Stock) and raised the hackles of fellow mail-room worker Bud Frump (Joshua Finkel), Biggley’s nephew by marriage who’s not at all averse to using nepotism to beat Ponty up the ladder to the top.

May the cleverer, craftier man win!

A satirical look at the contemporary business world when it debuted on Broadway in 1961, H2$ has since then become a picture-perfect period-piece portrait of a male-dominated universe in which the highest rank a “girl” could aspire was to secretary to the head honcho, the job held at WWW by the conspicuously single Miss Jones (Kim Yarbrough).

 Supporting characters include Smitty (Katie DeShan), Rosemary’s wise-cracking best friend and fellow secretary; personnel manager Mr. Bratt (Bryan Chesters); and Mr. Twimble (James Gleason), a 25-year mailroom vet at World Wide Wickets. (Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert’s book leaves it to our imaginations what exactly a “wicket” is and why so many businesses seem to need scads and scads of them.)

 Last to join the company but definitely not least is the va-va-voomy Hedy LaRue (Melissa Fahn), Biggly’s busty redheaded mistress grown tired of days spent alone in their high-rise love nest and eager to join the secretarial pool despite a noteworthy lack of skills, a deficiency she more than makes up for in curves.

Frank Loesser’s H2$ score may well be his all-time most infectious, including the hits “I Believe In You” and “The Brotherhood Of Man” and the lesser-known but equally catchy “The Company Way,” “Been A Long Day,” “Rosemary,” and the title song, and Loesser’s lyrics have never been cleverer.

Nor has an MTG audience ever been more primed to see what the pros can put together in an hour and a day, going far beyond what the term “concert staged reading” would seem to suggest, i.e., putting on a virtually fully staged production, blocking, choreography, and all, albeit minus sets and with book in hand (though as always, the cast’s scripts seemed more like Equity-mandated props than actual necessities).

Director Yvette Lawrence and choreographer Cheryl Baxter joined creative forces in imaginative ways, staging scenes with the most minimal of “scenic designs” (some desks, some chairs) and managing to do the show-stopping “I Believe In You” with not a single sink, mirror, or razor in sight. (The kazoo quartet was inspired.)

Performances were uniformly terrific, from Leland’s engaging Finch to Ashworth’s harumphy Bigley to Stock’s captivating Rosemary to DeShan’s zesty Smitty to Finkel’s conniving Bud to Fahn’s voluptuous Hedy to Yarbrogh’s big-voiced Miss. Jones, and Jennifer Bennett, Chesters, Todd Gajdusek, Gleason, Nancy Lam, Sharon Logan, Kevin Matsumoto, Mark C. Reis, Brent Schindele, and Paul Wong made for the most multi-talented of quick-study ensembles.

Additional kudos were shared by music director Dan Redfield, the production’s onstage orchestra, and costume coordinator Shon LeBlanc. (Words fail me to describe the “Paris Originals” on display.)

Lulu Snow Bishop was assistant choreographer. Leesa Freed was production stage manager/production manager. Stacy Cortez and Abbey Perez were assistant stage managers. Steve Barr is technical director for the Alex Theatre

The last time Musical Theatre Guild wowed audiences was way back in February of 2020 with It Shoulda Been You. It shoulda been a great year ahead had a certain virus not intervened, and though we’re not out of the woods yet, how great it was on May 1, 2022 to have MTG demonstrate once again how to stage a show with nothing but dedication, hard work, and an abundance of talent

Musical Theatre Guild, The Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Ave., Glendale.
www.musicaltheatreguild.com

–Steven Stanley
May 1, 2022
Photos: Alan Weston

Tags: Alex Theatre, Frank Loesser, Los Angeles Theater Review, Musical Theatre Guild