ON THE RECORD: Goldrich & Heisler's Dear Edwina, and Douglas J. Cohen's The Gig

By Steven Suskin
18 Jan 2009

ON THE RECORD: Goldrich & Heisler's Dear Edwina, and Douglas J. Cohen's The Gig

We listen to studio cast recordings of the bright new Off-Broadway musical Dear Edwina and Douglas Cohen's heretofore unheard The Gig.

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DEAR EDWINA [PS Classics PS-871]
Let joy reign supreme in Paw Paw, Michigan. Dear Edwina, Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler's pint-size musical that takes place on a lazy Sunday afternoon in a Paw Paw backyard, has just extended its Off-Broadway run at the DR2. This is good news for New York theatregoers, too, who might be facing the next month without anything to do or any tuneful musicals left to see.

Producer Daryl Roth mounted the show under the "Kids Theater" series she instituted at DR2 Theatre Off-Broadway last fall. The happy discovery she quickly made (or perhaps planned?) is that this Dear Edwina is not just a kid's show. Perfectly suitable for children, yes, and featuring a group of twentyish actors playing kids; but the level of musical theatre artistry is genuine, thank you very much. Composer Zina Goldrich and lyricist/librettist Marcy Heisler have been standing on the musical theatre sidelines for a decade now, with some pert and enjoyable work along the way (including the Theatreworks musical Junie B. Jones and the cabaret favorite "Taylor, the Latte Boy").

Dear Edwina dates from 1993, in fact; without a major production in sight, the folks at MTI finally decided in 1998 (with the urging of Maury Yeston) to release this unproduced show on the stock and amateur circuit. Edwina and friends have developed quite a following over the years, which has finally led — separately — to the current Off-Broadway production and to a delicious studio cast album filled to the brink with Broadway favorites playing Edwina and her band of 13-year-olds.

The songwriters seemed to have simply called over a bunch of pals and set them up in the backyard with a mike stand, a pitcher of frozen pink lemonade, and a couple of platters of double-stuff Oreos. With friends like Kerry Butler, Danny Burstein, Andrea Burns, Rebecca Luker, Terrence Mann, Kate Shindle, Sean Martin Hingston, Telly Leung, Lynette Perry and Jeff Blumenkrantz, this makes quite a lawn party. The songwriters chime in, too; and they all of them seem to be having a midsummer day's blast. It's a shame we can't see them perform this, actually: Blumenkrantz and Mann (in "Frankenguest"), Luker and Perry (in "Fork Knife Spoon"), Burns (on "Hola Lola" and "Say No Thank You"), Hingston (as Seamus), Jill Abramovitz (as Carrie), Burstein (as Jean-Pierre Fromage de la Croissant — don't ask!), and Shindle and Merwin Foard (on "Put It in the Piggy") all bring the kind of laughter that leaves a genuine smile behind. Mr. Leung gets to sing the puppy love song "Edwina," touchingly so, and Ms. Butler scores with Goldrich and Heisler's effective and lovely theme song, "Sing Your Own Song."

The Dear Edwina CD gives New Yorkers not one but two options, just now, for discovering Goldrich and Heisler's clever and witty little entertainment; one has plenty of starpower, the other has ingratiating performances and an hour's worth of inventive and canny staging from director Timothy McDonald and choreographer Steven Kennedy. A kid's show, but not as in children's theatre; more like You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. And full of musical comedy know-how — as exemplified by the toe-tappin' "Put It in the Piggy." Continued...