Erika Courtney
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 | 5:45 p.m.
Gleeks, show queens and folks who just like musical theater a lot: The Musical of Musicals: The Musical is for you. The melodramatic plot is shamelessly primitive: Threatened by her lustful landlord, ingenue June can't pay her rent–will the handsome leading man come to the rescue?
Calendar
- The Musical of Musicals: The Musical
- March 18-20, 8 p.m.; March 21, 2 p.m.; $15.
- UNLV's Black Box Theatre, 895-2787, unlvtickets.com.
But as with many musicals, the story is just a framework for the songs—in this case, a mashup of five original mini-musicals, each performed in playfully parodic homage to the instantly recognizable style of an iconic Broadway composer. Getting affectionately tweaked: the homespun hokum of Rodgers & Hammerstein ("Corn"), the anthem-addicted divas of Jerry Herman ("Dear Abby"), the gaudy grandiosity of Andrew Lloyd Webber, the skin-deep stylishness of John Kander and Fred Ebb, and the angsty self-seriousness of Stephen Sondheim.
The off-Broadway hit has been adapted and directed by Josh Penzell, a UNLV MFA student, who beefed up the Nevada Conservatory Theatre cast, and calls Musical "a smart show."
"It's just not especially deep," he laughs.
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