'Forever Plaid' Is A Gem
July 23, 2009
''Forever Plaid'' at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, is fast-paced and full of wonderful songs which invite the audience to sing and hum along. As staged by Bill Mutimer, it is also full of vigor and magical surprises.
The first act brims over with delightful musical nostalgia. The second act overflows with clever skits of theatrical mayhem and extravagant costuming and props.
But what really makes this show so sensational is the cast. Zach Chiero, Mike Miller, Gabriel Martinez and Tynan Hooker-Haring, not only harmonize with skill, but project the right chemistry to make this story about a quartet that returns to Earth for a final concert ring true.
They bring to life the Plaids' endearing innocence, naivete and wholesomeness and as they reminisce and dream, it is hard not to shed a tear. And when they sing ... Wow! Who can resist them?
-- Myra Yellin Outwater
 It's a 'Plaid' world, after all, at MSMT
By PAUL WILLISTEIN
"Forever Plaid" is a simple play about a simple time before the likes of the Rolling Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" blew it all away.
The Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre (MSMT) production of "Forever Plaid," through July 26 in the Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, Trexler Pavilion for Theatre and Dance, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, is simply satisfying.
The musical comedy takes its song sheets from 1950's groups such as The Four Aces and The Four Freshmen. You may be familiar with the era's moon-June spoon song sentiments when close-part guy groups were on the charts. If you're too young to have danced or dished to the songs, "Forever Plaid," written by Stuart Ross and first presented in 1990, will affectionately and humorously show you what it's all about.
The show's premise is that the Plaids died in a bus crash on their way to perform on "The Ed Sullivan Show," then the really big TV variety show. They return with their heavenly harmonies for "the biggest comeback since Lazarus."
The Plaids are crooners whose four-part harmonies are as clean as their white tuxedo coats. The harmonies are soothing and often thrilling ("Moments to Remember," "No Not Much," to name but two). "Forever Plaid" transforms the Baker Theatre into the swankiest lounge in Allentown.
Director Bill Mutimer, who also choreographed the show, has a mirthful sensibility, keeping it just this side of parody without mocking the material or performers. He has added a lot of humorous business, which keeps the show peppy. Music director is Ken Butler.
Scenic designer C. Scott Robinson created a lounge, with a small bar and the music trio (Nathan Diehl, piano-conductor; Nick Krolak, bass; and Richard Groller, percussion) on stage, back-dropped by a huge translucent television-screen like area which allows lighting designer John McKernon to wash the stage in swaths of popsicle pastels. And yes, there are plaid tuxedos, which costume designer Campbell Baird has really decked out. Sound designer is Paul E. Theisen, Jr.
The four male singers are superbly cast. Each has several feature numbers.
Mike Miller plays Jinx, with an Arnold Stang-Jerry Lewis geekiness, but nails some powerful notes in "Cry."
Zach Chiero, as Francis, a Wally Cox type, brought an audience member up on stage for "Heart and Soul."
Tynan Hooker-Haring, as Smudge, invokes Tennessee Ernie Ford in "Sixteen Tons."
Gabriel Martinez, as Sparky, is a Desi Arnez type, who is very funny in "Perfida."
The Ed Sullivan TV show segment includes spinning plates, dancing tutus and a 1954 Mercury commercial that typifies the lineup.
Two of the funniest bits in "Plaid" are "A Tribute to Perry Como," including a snippet of "Papa Loves Mambo," and "Caribbean Plaid," where the boys don straw hats, bang a bongo and go all Andy Kaufman.
"Forever Plaid" is uncomplicated entertainment in a complicated world. Sometimes, especially now, that's just the ticket.
Paul Willistein
Editor,
Focus
 'THE PRESS: FOCUS SECTION – TIMES NEWS
Review: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
By Kathy Lauer-Williams
Of The Morning Call
July 2, 2009
For every kid who's had a bad day (and who hasn't?) Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre's children's musical, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," will resonate.
The playful production of fun songs and immediately recognizable characters, based on Judith Viorst's popular book about the hapless six-year-old Alexander, follows the story fairly closely, to the delight of many of the younger patrons who clutched copies of the book.
The wiry Erik Fiebiger played the title role, usually performed by Michael Bloom. Fiebiger's Alexander comes off as a little bit of brat, but he's a lovable brat. Parents can relate.
The full cast opening number, "If I Were in Charge of the World," perfectly captures most children's natural desire to rid their world of oatmeal, long division and early bedtimes.
The humor flies fast and is aimed at the 12 and under set. Any musical that includes a song with lyrics about flushing your baby sister down the toilet and rhymes terrible and gerbil (as ger-i-bil) is going to be a kid-pleaser.
The six-member supporting cast is solid and all play multiple roles, from school friends to siblings to store clerks. Natalie Cutcher plays Alexander's mother, as well as a particularly clueless teacher. Cutcher's big moment comes at the end when, as in real life, it falls to Mom to make things all better. Cutcher does so by singing a lullaby in memorable fashion, wearing a sequined nightgown as bubbles surround her.
David Wrigley also is outstanding as Alexander's loving, but exasperated Dad, as well as a befuddled dentist.
Other highlights are a spiffy tap dancing number in a shoe store and an Australia-themed song with dancing kangaroos and a koala puppet.
A simple set with sliding panels and props of a bed, chalkboard, school chairs and shelves complement rather than distract from the action on stage.
After seeing this production of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" the audience is likely to have a very, very good day.
'Forever Plaid' a Colorful Addition to Muhlenberg's Summer Theatre
By Myra Yellin Outwater
SPECIAL TO THE MORNING CALL
July 2, 2009
At a recent rehearsal of ''Forever Plaid,'' which opens Wednesday at the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, Zach Chiero, Mike Miller, Gabriel Martinez and Tynan Hooker-Haring were singing and hamming it up in perfect harmony. The only discordant note was their 21st-century hairstyles.
''They are all getting their hair cut today at the Allentown Farmer's Market Barbershop,'' laughs director Bill Mutimer. ''They will get 1950s-style haircuts -- DAs and crew cuts.''
''Forever Plaid,'' a salute to the clean-cut male singing groups of the '50s, first opened in 1990 at Steve McGraw's, a club in New York's upper West Side. Since then it has become an international sensation.
This is the third time that Mutimer has directed the show. He has also played one of the Plaids.
Mutimer says, ''Plaid's appeal is based on old fashioned nostalgia. This is a trip down memory lane back to a simpler less complicated time of life when family values were strong.''
The story, by Stuart Ross is both simple and poignant. The Plaids, four young working-class men, dream of becoming famous, but on their way to getting their first big break -- an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show -- they are killed in a car crash. Thirty years later they are allowed to return to Earth to perform the show that never was.
They sing such hits as ''Three Coins in a Fountain,'' ''Love is a Many Splendored Thing,'' ''Catch a Falling Star,'' ''Moments to Remember,'' ''Cry'' and ''Magic Moments.''
Mutimer says one of the most difficult parts of doing the show is casting it.
''Ken [Butler, the musical director] and I were looking for an all-American, clean cut, guy next door with a winning smile -- a Perry Como, Ricky Nelson, Wally Cleaver look. We were also looking for four actors who would blend together. To make this show a success, no one should be more dominant than the other. The difficulty is not so much in their vocal harmonizing, but in each singer being able to hold on to his own part in a tight harmony while the others are singing theirs.''
Mutimer says he has reworked the choreography; Scott Robinson, the scenic designer, has designed a ''beautiful set,'' and Campbell Baird has redesigned the Plaids' tuxedos.
Copyright © 2009, The Morning Call
 Express Times
'Sound' of Broadway at 'Berg Summer Theater
By Paul Willistein
East Penn Press
You’d have to go far to find a production on par with the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre (MSMT) production of “The Sound of Music” – all the way to Broadway.
MSMT bills itself as “Broadway in the Lehigh Valley.” With “Sound of Music,” founding artistic director Charles Richter, directing this extraordinarily delightful production, has every right to that claim.
Even if you’ve seen “Sound of Music” on stage and/or the movie starring Julie Andrews, the MSMT show boasts many reasons to be on your must-see summer theatre list.
First and foremost are the Rogers and Hammerstein songs and the near-perfectly constructed – for a musical – storyline. “Sound of Music” tugs at the heartstrings because you know the back story, the ascendency of Nazi Germany, with Austria and the Von Trapp family stand-ins for the world’s and our own moral compass.
Audibal “aahs” opening night greeted scenic designer Campbell Baird’s interior set of the Von Trapp family home. It’s not only Baird’s rapturous sets, accented by superb lighting design by John McKernon, from the opening darkened cloister to the concluding mountain ascent, but the entire production, set in the Broadway-theatre-like Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, that makes this show a gem.
Top-notch production values include James E. Crochet’s wonderful costume designs, including the adorable-awful-perfect Von Trapp children play outfits Maria fashioned from discarded bedroom curtains and the entire family’s Austrian-themed singing outfits.
The Von Trapp children, on June 12: Meredith Lipson (Brigitta), Giuliana Mary Augello (Marta), Molly Schenkenberger (Gretl), Daniel Youngelman (Kurt)), Caitlin O’Meally (Louisa), Doug Dulaney (Friedrich), and Natalie West (Liesl) seem perfectly cast and are so charming in song, especially, “Do-Re-Mi,” and the brisk choreography by Karen Dearborn, who also creates lavish ballroom dancing for the adults.
Courtnay Griswold is destined for the role of Maria with her theatrical voice and sunny countenance, from the opening title song, to “My Favorite Things” and “The Lonely Goatherd,” where she verges on a yodel.
As Mother Abbess, Traci Ceschin, no stranger to the habit, reprises her 1994 MSMT role, splendidly in “Maria,” with the three sisters, who also create an amazing, reverent a cappella “Preludium,” and with her show-stopping “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”
Troy Dwyer portrays a contemplative Captain Georg Von Trapp and renders an especially evocative “Edelweiss,” accompanying himself on acoustic guitar.
Anna Gothard as Elsa and Bill Mutimer as Max are scene stealers. Their “How Can Love Survive” and “No Way to Stop It,” the latter with Dwyer, are chillingly effective.
The songs are performed exquisitely, thanks to a nine-piece orchestra conducted by music director Barbara Golden Liebhaber: Connie Trach, violin; Nick Krolak, bass; Suzanne Bleiler-Conrad, flute-piccolo; Steve Reistetter, clarinet-oboe; David Golden, trumpet; Jim Daniels, trombone-tuba; Jason Zeidman, guitar-mandolin; Richard Froller, percussion; and Nancianne Metz, piano-InstrumentalEase, the latter augmentation is seamless, with sound design by Paul E. Theisen, Jr.
Copyright © The Morning Call 2009
Summer's New 'Sound'
By PAUL WILLISTEIN Focus Editor
Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre (MSMT) is reviving two well-loved musicals for its 29th season.
"The Sound of Music," June 10-28, will be unlike most you've seen before, says Charles Richter, MSMT founding artistic director who is also presenting one of his personal favorites, "Forever Plaid," July 8-26.
Richter, who directs the show that opens the MSMT 2009 season in Trexler Pavilion at Baker Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, is revisiting issues behind the musical, not unlike the approach taken with last year's revival of 'South Pacific' on Broadway.
"I was very greatly inspired by the production of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center - a production which features Muhlenberg 2005 graduate George Psomas in the ensemble, and had lighting by Donald Holder, MSMT lighting designer for 15 years and a staff member.
"What I learned from the Lincoln Center production is that you can really treat Rodgers and Hammerstein with respect. There's an idealistic vision behind the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein that I feel is very important in our troubled times.
"It was one of the great Broadway musicals of its time. And we're taking it very seriously.
"'The Sound of Music' has beautiful songs and wonderful lively performances by a tremendous group of children. But more than anything else, it's about human beings who are willing to take a stand and pursue their dreams.
"I think that people often forget that this is a musical about the rise of Nazism and people's response to it - not a typical topic for a '50s musical. We're really trying in our work on the production to clearly articulate our story and the issues that were so important to these mid-century masters [Rodgers and Hammerstein] of the contemporary musical theater."
"The Sound of Music" opened on Broadway in 1959, three years before "Cabaret" which addressed Nazism head-on.
"In this production, we're presenting the Nazi threat in a more provocative way, which is really adding to the power of the production, " Richter continues.
Richter says that Von Trapp, an Austrian, could have been a sympathizer.
"The movie cut a lot of the stuff that dealt with the more political aspects of the story. It's about Von Trapp's rejection of the Nazis. This was not a popular view in Austria in 1938.
"Von Trapp refuses, and that's the story that we are trying to tell, in addition to the postulant [nun], who has to make big decisions about her life course. In the end, we're asked to 'climb every mountain and ford every stream' and not be passive human beings who allow life to happen to us."
Allentown Native Returns
Courtnay Griswold, Allentown native and Allen High School and Muhlenberg College, Class of 2000, graduate, plays Maria.
"As Maria, the nun in training who loves to sing, we're blessed with sort of a quintessential theater singer in Courtnay Griswold," says Richter.
"For many years she has been one of the resident singers at Ellen's Stardust Diner, a club in New York where the staff sings Broadway show tunes.
"It's been her life's dream to play Maria and we're delighted to make that dream come true," Richter notes.
Griswold started at MSMT at age nine in "Carousel," as one of the Snow children. At 16, Griswold played a postulant in a previous MSMT "Sound of Music."
Says Richter: "She [Griswold] has a great history with us. There's a special poignancy that she's working with a cast of wonderful children because she was one of the original MSMT stage children."
Captain Von Trapp is played by Troy Dwyer, an assistant professor in Muhlenberg's department of theater and dance.
"Troy Dwyer is a very skilled actor who's able to really flesh out Von Trapp's internal dilemma," Richter says.
Bill Mutimer, director and choreographer of 'Forever Plaid' at MSMT, played Max Detweiler.
Anna Gothard, a Muhlenberg student and 2007 Freddy winner as actress in a musical, plays Elsa. MSMT fixture Neil Hever back for his 29th season, is Franz, a role he played 13 years ago at MSMT.
Production Design
"It's going to be one of the most lavish productions that the Lehigh Valley has ever seen," Richter promises.
Production desiner Campbell Baird trained with Oliver Smith, who designed the original production of "The Sound of Music."
"He's [Baird] one of the most highly-regarded scenic artists in the nation. He's the scene painting instructor at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU [New York University]."
Baird, who previously designed MSMT's "Kiss Me, Kate" and "Pump Boys and Dinettes," supervises the graduate design program at Tisch.
The design for "Sound of Music" is in the classic operetta musical theater style, Richter says.
"It's based on a scenic model that comes from the Italian Renaissance, with lots of painted scenery. It sort of exploits the concept of the picture-frame stage. There are lush painted drops, mixed with elaborate three-dimensional sets.
"When we set out on this production, we talked about how it is very much like an old-fashioned operetta and how we would follow through on this. This production is very much mounted in that style.
"And not that many people follow this direction because you need a high-skilled crew of scenic artists, which we have."
Costume designer is James Crochet, associate director of the Theatre Development Fund Costume Collection, New York City.
"We've had access to costumes from recent national touring productions of "The Sound of Music" that are supplementing costumes that we are building in our own shop," says Richter.
John McKernon is lighting designer for the MSMT season.
"Our production will look a lot better lighting-wise [than the original]," Richter says. "The Baker Theatre is built to support contemporary lighting design."
It's the first season all MSMT shows will be staged in the Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre, a Broadway-style jewel box of a theater in the Trexler Pavilion.
"We have found that doing large musicals int he Baker brings a sense of intimacy and excitement. In the Baker there's a closer performer-audience interaction," Richter observes.
Curtis Dretsch, an MSMT cofounder, worked with the architects on the Baker Theatre design.
"One of the great things about the Baker Theatre is that it has a fully-equipped stage house based on the Broadway model," Richter continues.
"And 'The Sound of Music' is one of the quintessentialy Broadway musicals. We're going to be able to mount a production that's going to be spectacular, based on the technologies that we have in the room."
Orchestra Twist
There will also be a new approach in sound design for the 2009 MSMT "Sound of Music."
The orchestra includes 10 of the finest musicians in the Lehigh Valley including the highly-regarded area musicians Connie Trach, violin: Suzanne Bleiler-Conrad, flute: Steve Rester, clarinet and oboe.
"This is crucial for "The Sound of Music," because, obviously, it's about music and harmony," Richter says.
The orchestra will be supplemented with new technology, InstrumentalEase, powered by Sinfonia, a contemporary music enhancement from Real Time Music Solutions through the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, allowing the orchestra to be filled out with a full string section. Nancy Ann Metz, MSMT rehearsal pianist, will operate the system, which includes an Apple laptop among the computers and a keyboard.
"It's like a synthesizer times 10. It has variable rhythms. The orchestra and machine work together. We are still totally committed to live music. This is not a track. It's an instrument in its own right," Richter emphasizes.
A high-tech orchestra pit won't be needed for "Forever Plaid," which requires only piano, bass, and drums. MSMT produced "Plaid" 10 years ago. "Plaid" had its Lehigh Valley premier at the former Pennsylvania Stage Company, Allentown, when Richter was producer there.
"'Forever Plaid' is my favorite small musical. I think it's riotously funny. And I love the music," Richter says.
"Our theme is 'Broadway at home in the Lehigh Valley,' and we're trying to bring that style alive for our audiences," he concludes.
'Forever Plaid': from eternity to here at MSMT 
By PAUL WILLISTEIN
Times News
"Forever Young," the song written by Bob Dylan, and "Fame," the hit song from the movie, and "Forever Plaid," July 8 - 26 at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre (MSMT), share intimations of immortality.
"Forever Plaid," celebrating its 20th anniversary from its genesis as an off-Broadway musical, is being reimagined by director Bill Mutimer in the Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre in the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre and Dance, Muhlenberg College, Allentown.
"We're trying to breathe new things into it while keeping the integrity of the piece," says Mutimer, directing "Plaid" for the third time. His first was in 1998 at the former Main Street Theatre, Quakertown, and in 1997 in Lake George, N.Y. This is his first at MSMT.
In the musical comedy, the four Plaids return from beyond after being killed in a car crash to perform their biggest show yet. The some two dozen pop hits include "Catch a Falling Star," "No Not Much" and "Cry."
"So, we've set it in the lounge that is next to the Pearly Gates. It's kind of the Heavenly Lounge, as opposed to a lot of 'Plaid' productions, which are on a bare stage with a piano," said Mutimer, an adjunct Muhlenberg College theater professor who directed "Nunsense" two seasons ago at MSMT and was seen there last season in "Fiddler on the Roof" and this season in "The Sound of Music."
"Forever Plaid," written by Stuart Ross, is one of several so-called environmental musicals, as in audience involvement and not necessarily "green"-themed, including "Pump Boys and Dinettes," which was arguably the first; "Oil City Symphony"; and "Nunsense." The Taffetas," about a '50s female group, and "The Beehives," about a '60s girl group, followed.
These small-scale musicals, usually with from four to six singer-actors, with very little book (dialogue and plot) are somewhere between a revue and a full-fledged musical. "Forever Plaid" keys off 1950's nostalgia of four-part harmonies and a Your Hit Parader sensibility.
MSMT "Plaids" are Zach Chiero, Mike Miller, Gabriel Martinez and Tynan Hooker-Haring. The singers are backed up by musicians on piano, bass and drums.
Costumes are by Campbell Baird. "He found a fabric and created our look," says Mutimer, director and choreographer of the show. Ken Butler is music director.
The fictional Plaids, Mutimer relates, "were excited because the day they were killed was the day that The Beatles were on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' But had they lived they would have realized that their kind of music died that night."
"They talk about how The Beatles were going to bring back guy groups. But, in fact, it made their music obsolete," says Mutimer, who directed "Oklahoma!" this spring and "Sweet Charity" last fall at Pennsylvania Playhouse, Bethlehem.
"[Stuart Ross] wanted to bring back that era -- that pure song. Now you have 'American Idol,' where people don't hit notes, they swoop into them."
"I think it ['Forever Plaid'] brings us back to a simpler time. I think it's funny. It's 90 minutes of enjoyment, where you just sit back and take the ride back in time. Everything from ballads to rock and roll numbers to doing the whole 'Ed Sullivan Show' in 3 minutes and 11 seconds."
A 20th anniversary performance of "Forever Plaid" is to be presented in select movie theaters July 9.
Paul Willistein
Editor,Focus
'Alexander' a friendly children’s show at Muhlenberg
By DOUGLAS GRAVES
Special to The Press
The Times News
Little girls in the front rows provided most of the giggles during a recent Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre Saturday morning performance of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," which continues through July 25 in the black box theater, Trexler Pavilion for Theatre and Dance, Muhlenberg College, Allentown.
Judith Viorst's one-act musical, which opened in 1998 at the Kennedy Center, captures a day in the life of Alexander (Mike Bloom), who gets up on the wrong side of bed with gum in his hair. His day progressively turns into a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day" as nothing goes right with plenty of help from every one he knows.
Bloom, with his thin frame and bushy hair, captures the essence of pre-adolescent fears, fashion angst and pain of being rejected by classmates.
When his mother doesn't pack him a dessert for school lunch, he complains bitterly while imagining his mom, played with her mean streak showing by Natalie Cutcher, passing out tasty desserts to everyone, but when she gets to Alexander, snatches back a proffered giant lollipop.
The audience participates in Alexander's misfortunes by repeating what becomes a gleeful chorus of "it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!"
Alexander's "invisible castle" drawing gets no praise when the teacher calls for class homework. His solo song has his classmates holding their ears. His friends gang up on him in the playground. His best friend demotes him to "third best" friend.
After school he has to go to the dentist, dragging his feet all the way. There, his brothers come away cavity-free while the dentist (Muhlenberg alumnus David Wrigley, who later shines as a shoe salesman) finds a cavity in Alexander's briefly unclenched mouth.
Mom then takes the kids to see dad at the office. Again, Alexander is in trouble when he gets dad's (Wrigley again) dander up.
During a trip to the shoe store for new shoes, while the brothers get "hot, hot, hot" shoes, the salesman only has plain white sneakers for Alexander.
Eric Covell's scene design, Lex Gurst's costumes and Natalie West's choreography underpin a delightful number, "Shoes," a song and dance led by Wrigley.
"They can make me buy them," confides Alexander to the young audience, "but they can't make me wear them!"
The players, all Muhlenberg students or recent grads, bring a great sparkle to the children's story that explores about every type of trouble or angst that can bedevil a seven-year-old. Even love trouble gets a turn as Paul (Ariel Messeca) sings a delightful "Lizzie Pitofsky" of whom he just can't get "enoughsky."
Alexander's bedtime scene is sweet when all of his tormentors <\m> his brothers, his mom, his dad <\m> all come in and show their love. Mom, especially well played by Natalie Cutcher, serenades Alexander and charms every child in the packed theater with a lovely "Sweetest of Nights and Finest of Days."
This was director Brendon Votipka's first summer musical and he has produced a very entertaining, kid-friendly show.
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