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Coffee? Tea? Do Re Mi? Plane Crazy, Musical About Ladies of the Jet Age, Takes Off in NYMF Sept. 15-25
By Kenneth Jones
15 Sep 2005
The high-flying good old days — when flight attendants were called stewardesses and galley meals were made to order — soar again with Plane Crazy, the new musical about a time "when stews were sexy and the world was sexist."
The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) and Michael Rubinoff, in association with Kendra Bator, present the U.S. premiere of Suzy Conn's musical comedy, Sept. 15-25 at The Beckett at Theatre Row.
Plane Crazy features book, music and lyrics by Conn, direction by Jamibeth Margolis, choreography by Randy Slovacek and musical direction by Seth Weinstein.
"Plane Crazy is a very personal story about the challenges that women face as they are pulled between the demands of motherhood and opportunities of a career," lyricist-librettist-composer Conn told Playbill.com. "I set Plane Crazy in the America of the 1960s...the optimism and spirit of those times has always appealed to me, and it gave me an opportunity to really explore my four favorite aspects of that decade: the emergence of feminism; the dawn of the jet age; the golden age of advertising; and the general explosion of pop art and culture. Writing [it] was a real labor of love, and seeing it come to life on the stage is incredibly rewarding."
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The musical is "set against the backdrop and glamour of the swinging '60s jet age — the intersection between the dawn of transatlantic airline travel, the introduction of the Pill, the genesis of the modern Feminist Movement, and the Golden Age of Advertising — a time in history when stewardesses represented an exclusive sorority of women with the freedom to choose their careers and their sexual partners," according to production notes.
Plane Crazy follows the adventures of two young Venus Airlines stews, Faith Hope and Janet Jones, "as they learn about love and life in the high-flying airline business, circa 1965."
Faith (played by Allison Spratt, of Good Vibrations) is billed as "a naïve, virginal Mid-western gal looking for Mr. Right," while Janet (played by Jodie Langel, once of Les Miserables) is a randy, cynical New Yorker who is just looking for a good time."
Plane Crazy also features Hollie Howard as Holly Banks, Richard Todd Adams as Brett Mansford, Kevin Kraft as Clive Miller, William Broderick as Sam Crenshaw and Christopher Guilmet as Larry Stevens.
The ensemble includes Barbara Helms, Craig Laurie, Eric Jon Mahlum, Sarah Mugavero, Kathryn Mowat Murphy, Gina Philistine, Dana Saltzman, Ryland Shelton and Nicky Venditti.
The design team for Plane Crazy is Jason Courson (scenic design), Elizabeth Payne (costume design), Jesse Belsky (lighting design) and Tony Angelini (sound design).
Lyricist-librettist-composer Conn divides her time between Toronto, New York, and Chicago, where she is enrolled in the Theatre Building Chicago, Musical Theatre Writer's Workshop. She's in the workshop process with a second musical, The Tale of Pigling Bland (co-written with Mitchell Kitz), "a classic coming of age pig story based on the Beatrix Potter story of the same name."
Like all NYMF shows, Plane Crazy runs in repertory at various times. The eight performances at The Beckett at Theatre Row, 410 W. 42nd Street, are Sept. 15 at 8 PM, Sept. 17 at 4:30 PM and 8 PM, Sept. 19 at 4:30 PM, Sept. 21 at 1 PM, Sept. 23 at 4:30 PM, Sept. 24 at 4:30 PM,
Sept. 25 at 1 PM.
Tickets are $15 each and available through
(www.TheaterMania.com), or by calling (212) 352-3101 or visiting www.nymf.org.
For more information, visit www.PlaneCrazytheMusical.com.
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From Left: Allison Spratt, Holie Howard, Richard Todd Adams and Jodie Langel in Plane Crazy.
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