Director extraordinaire Kari Hayter strips Carrie: The Musical down to basics to better reveal the heart and soul of the Broadway adaptation of the Brian De Palma horror classic, and the results, performed by an all-student cast at USC’s McClintock Theatre, are nothing short of spectacular, even minus the spectacle that’s been a hallmark of previous productions.

Based on a 1974 Stephen King novel that two years later made a movie star of Sissy Spacek, Carrie: The Musical gives telekinesis a human face in Carrie White (Amanda Angeles at USC), a bullied teen with a religious fanatic of a single mother (Berri Harris’s Margaret White) and an impossible crush on Tommy Ross (Colin Frothingham), the dreamiest boy in school.

 When Tommy’s girlfriend Sue Snell (Emily Pember) convinces him to invite Carrie to the dance as a way of apologizing for a humiliating locker room experience, gym teacher Lynn Gardner (Mackenzie O’Coyne) suspects Sue’s motives while Carrie’s nemesis Chris (Princess Isis Lang) and her fellow bully Billy Nolan (Patrick McCormick) plot revenge.

Not surprisingly perhaps, fireworks erupt.

Carrie’s 1988 Broadway musical adaptation may have flopped big, but as several subsequent SoCal productions have made abundantly clear, there are ample reasons to revive this chill-filled gem, not the least of which are composer Michael Gore and lyricist Dean Pitchford’s infectious, plot-propelling songs.

From its opening number “In” and Act Two Opener “A Night We’ll Never Forget,” to its power-ballad title song, to the heartstoppingly beautiful “Dreamer In Disguise,” “Once You See,” “Unsuspecting Hearts,” and “When There’s No One,” to its show-stopping anthem to bitchery “The World According To Chris,” this is one musical which promises what every musical should deliver, a score you won’t be able to get out of your head.

Book writer Lawrence D. Cohen updates the action to the Facebook-Instagram present, ubiquitous cell phones making Carrie’s humiliation at her classmates’ hands more publicly devastating than it was thirty or forty years ago.

And at USC, Kari Hayter takes what for a less gifted director might be a near impossible challenge (staging the musical minus sets, orchestra, and special effects) and works the same magic she worked on Jason Robert Brown’s Parade a few years back at Cal State Northridge with nothing more than a couple dozen chairs, a bunch of flashlights, a few tables, a handful of props, some ingenious/scary lighting and sound effects (by Martha Carter and Jane McKeever respectively), and a whole lot of cellphones used in multiple ways.

Adding to the excitement are Kitty McNamee’s eye-catching choreography (including plenty of dramatic hand moves) and the exquisite piano-and-cello accompaniment performed by musical director Billy Thompson and co-musician Stephen Green, the former of whom has reorchestrated a score written for a seven-piece orchestra to provide just the right backdrop for eighteen un-amped voices.

And what an all-around fabulous cast of USC triple-threats (most of them juniors in the school’s new musical theater BFA program) director Hayter has assembled, beginning with the electrifying pairing of Angeles and Harris as tormented teen Carrie and her hellfire-and-damnation-preaching young mother. (That even its adult characters are not all that much older than its high school protagonists makes Carrie an ideal choice for schools grown tired of Grease after Grease.)

Angeles and Harris dig deep into Carrie and Margaret’s inner turmoil, and sing Gore and Pitchford’s songs to haunting perfection.

The fresh-faced Frothingham gives Tommy sweetness and heart, a terrific Pember reveals a Sue torn between wanting to fit in and wanting to do what’s right, a stereotype-defying Lang earns top marks for villainy, McCormick’s Billy bullies with the best (or worst) of them, O’Coyne provides warm and caring adult support as a teacher just a handful of years older than the students she educates, and all five have precisely the pipes to perform minus miked amplification.

Roy Gantz (Freddy), Sydney Goldstein (Helen), Jordyn Holt (Jan), Zoe Hosley (Frieda), Ben Larson (Mr. Stephens), dance captain Ava Noble, Senwin Pareja, Maya Reyna, Jordan Rice (George), Claire Tablizo (Norma), and Sander Tancredi (Stokes) add up to the most multi-talented of ensembles, with special snaps to Tablizo as bitch princess Norma and Rice’s not-so-secretly crushing-on-Tommy George, and to director Hayter for adding an openly queer couple to the student body mix.

Completing Carrie’s all-around topnotch design team are USC seniors Dominique Jakowec (scenic design) and Julianne Pagayon (costume design), who along with their professional colleagues prove that Carrie: The Musical can survive quite well indeed on a shoestring budget.

Greta Donnelly is assistant director/dramaturg. Lexey Glouberman is stage manager, and Talia Sinder is assistant stage manager.

Perhaps for the first time ever, USC has four major musicals on its 2022-2023 calendar, and with the 100%-student-run Musical Theatre Repertory once again planning a few of their Grade-A blackbox productions, there’s probably no other major SoCal university that promises this much musical theater excitement over the next seven months.

Though its all-too-brief four-day run most likely means that by the time you read this review, Carrie White will have wreaked destruction for the very last time on the McClintock Theatre stage, if you’re lucky enough to make it there in time, you’ll be richly rewarded with as powerful and memorable a Carrie: The Musical you could ever hope to see.

McClintock Theatre, University Of Southern California.
https://dramaticarts.usc.edu/

–Steven Stanley
October 7, 2022
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Tags: Dean Pitchford, Lawrence D. Cohen, Los Angeles Theater Review, McClintock Theatre, Michael Gore, USC School Of Dramatic Arts