Rogue Machine Theatre’s World Premiere 1950s sci-fi spoof Come Get Maggie has almost everything a new original musical ought to have. It’s funny, it’s quirky, it’s clever, and it’s terrifically performed. What it lacks is an infectiously hummable score.

Melanie Neilan stars as Maggie Wyberry, who spends her childhood gazing up at the stars and thinking that maybe, just maybe her real home is somewhere in outer space.

Not so insist her parents (Bruce Nozick and Melissa Jobe), who are quick to insist that the budding scientist put away her telescope and focus on more feminine pursuits.

Fortunately for Maggie, Mr. and Mrs. Wyberry do allow their daughter to attend college, albeit with the proviso that she graduate with her “M.R.S.” because, after all, finding a husband is what college is all about (if you’re a girl, that is).

Instead, Maggie gets her B.S. in Physics, upon which she so impresses a group of government scientists that she is quickly hired to help figure out how to harness the energy released when a hydrogen atom gets split.

Much to Maggie’s dismay, however, what the government has is mind is not powering a rocket ship into space as she had assumed but building an H bomb to blow up the planet, or at least parts of it.

Profoundly disappointed and disillusioned, Maggie agrees to marry Hugh Hinkle (Chase Ramsey) a neighborhood widower with two bratty kids, Rodney (Eddie Vona) and Little Ruthie (Beth Egan), the latter named after Hugh’s tyrannical Auntie Ruthie (Jacquelin Lorraine Schofield), who cautions her nephew not to wed a woman who “puts on airs like Madame Curie” and, worse still, thinks she’s smarter than his aunt.

But marry they do and before long Maggie finds herself introduced to a cadre of rifle-toting neighborhood wives, aka the Mothers’ Militia. (“Just like all good mothers, our babies at our breasts, we are the mothers’ militia. Mothers know best.”)

No wonder then that when an alien spaceship arrives in search of human specimens, Maggie is not only a willing captive, she tells Commander Varex of the Multiverse Expeditionary Squadron (Dennis Renard) that she’s been waiting for him and his fellow extraterrestrials her entire life.

What to do then, when the spacemen (and women) have returned Maggie to her suburban home and there’s no way back to where she truly belongs?

Book writer Diane Frolov spoofs the Truman 1940s and the Eisenhower ‘50s, sitcoms like Father Knows Best and The Donna Reed Show, and such sci-fi “classics” as Invaders From Mars and Plan 9 From Outer Space to rib-tickling effect, and her lyrics (cowritten with composer Susan Justin) are every bit as fun and inventive.

Unfortunately, to this reviewer’s ears at least, Come Get Maggie’s songs don’t feature the kind of instantly hummable melodies that Broadway’s Marc Shaiman (Hairspray), Alan Menken (Sister Act), and Matthew Sklar (The Wedding Singer) could probably write in their sleep, adding up to over two dozen mostly unmemorable tunes.

Thank goodness then that casting director Victoria Hoffman has assembled a couldn’t-be-better triple-threat ensemble, headed by the perky, pretty, ever so likable Neilan.

Director Michael Pressman elicits one fabulous featured turn after another from a supporting cast of nine multi-taskers in a grand total of sixty-six roles: aliens, abductees, scientists, shoppers, housewives, soldiers, planets and stars, not to mention the President of the United States (Vona) and none other than Elvis himself (Renard).

Schofield’s Aunt Ruthie is a hilarious, imperious delight, Nozick and Jobe score laughs galore as Maggie’s hidebound folks, Renard makes for the most appealing of alien love interests, Ramsey is a handsome, hissable 1950s hubby, Philip Casnoff’s Detective Ziskin does Dragnet’s Joe Friday proud, and Egan, Nicole Ledoux, and Vona earn MVP points in a grand total of three dozen roles. (Sarah Hinrichsen and Alan Trinca are swings.)

Brooke Wendle has choreographed a great big bunch of high-spirited dance moves and the entire cast vocalizes harmoniously to Michelle Do’s expert musical direction and keyboard accompaniment.

Rogue Machine gives Come Get Maggie the most fabulous of nostalgic-retro-futuristic production designs thanks to the combined talents of Stephanie Kerley Schwartz (sets), Ric Zimmerman (lighting), Dana Rebecca Woods (costumes), and Nicholas Santiago (projections), and Glenn Michael Baker (properties), with Christopher Moscatiello once again earning top marks for his sound design.

Come Get Maggie is produced by John Perrin Flynn. Rebecca Larsen is associate producer. Music supervision, arrangements, and incidental music are by Albin Konopka. Krysta Hibbard is associate director. Joe McClean and Dane Bowman are technical co-directors. Baker is associate set designer. Rachel Ann Manheimer is production stage manager.

When you’re as much of a musical theater lover as I am, attending a World Premiere musical is never less than an event, and not surprisingly, Rogue Machine Theatre gives Come Get Maggie Grade-A treatment all the way.

I loved the concept. I loved the plot. I loved the characters. I loved the mid-20th-century nostalgia. I loved the performances. I only wish I could say the same about the score.

Rogue Machine at the Matrix, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.roguemachinetheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
February 20, 2023
Photos: John Perrin Flynn

Tags: Diane Frolov, Los Angeles Theater Review, Matrix Theatre, Rogue Machine Theatre, Susan Justin