IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT, TYLER PRICE!


An inspired creative team take what might seem unlikely subject matter for a musical and transform it into It’s All Your Fault, Tyler Price!, a feel-good celebration of friendship and family now entertaining and uplifting audiences at the Hudson Backstage Theatre.

It’s a middle school day like any other for eleven-year-old Jackson Hoffman (Charlie Stover) and his bff Coco (Erin Choi), which means putting up with bullies like the titular Tyler Price (Jonah Orona), that is until Tyler taunts Jackson’s older sister Lucy (Faith Graham) one too many times and younger bro punches the bigger, older boy smack dab in the soon-to-be-black eye.

It’s one thing to make fun of Jackson and Erin for being smarter and sassier and more talented than Tyler will probably ever be, but it’s entirely different when the victim of a bully’s wounding words is a girl who’s been battling a rare and severe form of epilepsy since infancy.

Still, warranted or not, Jackson’s action will require a public apology, insists school principal Mrs. McKackney (Desi Dennis-Dylan), in the form of a written statement Jackson is to read in front of the entire school assembly.

Faced with this most distasteful of tasks, one he must keep hidden from his composer dad Daniel (CJ Eldred) and his lawyer mom Emma (Jenna Pastuszek), Jackson is suddenly struck by inspiration.

What if he, Erin, and their favorite teachers Mr. Torres (Enrique Dueñas) and Ms. Friss (Dahlya Glick) were to take the musical that Daniel has secretly written about the challenges of raising a daughter with epilepsy and stage it for all Jackson’s classmates to see?

Not only would that alleviate the humiliation of having to make a public apology for something he feels entirely justified in having done, it would help Lucy’s fellow students better understand her struggles and triumphs and give the stagestruck Jackson, Erin, Mr. Torres, and Ms. Friss the chance to strut their triple-threat stuff.

Now all Jackson has to do is keep this a secret from Mom and Dad until the day of the show.

Based on composer-lyricist-book co-writer Ben Decter’s harrowing but ultimately inspiring experiences as the father of a daughter with epilepsy, It’s All Your Fault, Tyler Price! is blessed by Kristin Hanggi’s dual role as co-writer and director, and as anyone who’s seen Hanggi’s previous directorial work can attest to (both Bare: A Pop Opera and Rock Of Ages transferred from L.A. to New York, the latter earning her a Best Director Tony nomination), It’s All Your Fault, Tyler Price! couldn’t be in more gifted hands.

Musical numbers not only spotlight Jackson’s school and home life (and the cracks that are beginning to manifest themselves in the latter as financial challenges and emotional stress mount) but flash us back to Lucy’s birth, the frightening diagnosis that followed, and her parents’ trips to Mexico to buy meds not available in the U.S., all of the above featuring Maxx Reed’s seamlessly integrated choreography, most notably when Act Two’s musical-within-the-musical takes flight.

Decter’s melodies may not be instantly hummable, but they seem likely to grow on you the more you listen to them, and the multi-hyphenate couldn’t have asked for a more talented cast to perform them under Kyle Puccia’s assured music direction.

As mover-and-shaker Jackson, triple-threat prodigy Stover delivers the kind of assured, charismatic, powerhouse star turn that you’d expect from a Broadway vet many times his age, and supporting players are uniformly fabulous.

Choi is an absolute delight as diva-in-training Coco. Graham makes for the sweetest and pluckiest of snail-loving older sisters, and though his role is considerably smaller, Act Two gives Orona’s Tyler the chance to redeem himself to talented effect.

Glick is wonderfully weird as the quirky Ms. Friss (who truly believes that aliens are among us), Dueñas’s earnest, supportive Mr. Torres is one more example of the caliber of musical theater majors graduating from Cal State Fullerton each year, and Dennis-Dylan is absolutely fabulous as a school principal with more than enough on her plate.

Meanwhile on the home front, Eldred’s Daniel combines paternal warmth and power pipes as Daniel and a terrific Pastuszek reveals not only a mother’s devotion but the stress that comes from holding down a high-powered job while doing her best to see that neither of her children get left behind.

Last but not least, multi-talented adult swings Lee James and Shelley Regner step in from time to time as teachers and more, though I can’t help wishing child swings Anabelle Skye Green and Jude Schwartz had been given more to do throughout the show.

David Goldstein’s home and school paraphernalia-adorned set is a design standout (properties by Nico Parducho) as are costume designer Jessica Champagne-Hansen’s colorful adult and kids’ wear, Jamie Roderick’s vibrant lighting, and sound designer Robert Arturo Ramirez’s pitch-perfect mix of amped vocals and the production’s live five-piece band*.

Kyle DeTarnowsky is conductor/associate musical director. Oken is technical director. Regner is dance captain. Hope Matthews is production stage manager and Parducho is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Zachary Spiegel, CSA. Patty Onagan is publicist.

Don’t let It’s All Your Fault, Tyler Price!’s “disease of the week” premise deter you from discovering this World Premiere musical’s many charms. By the time it reaches its life-affirming conclusion, you too will want to stand up and cheer.

*Aaron Benham, Brian Boyce, Leo Decter, DeTarnowsky, James Fall

Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.
www.tylerpricemusical.com

–Steven Stanley
November 14, 2024
Photos: Jim Cox

 

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