A work unfinishing: Margin Notes: The Trouble With Dead Boyfriends

The Trouble With Dead Boyfriends

Zoe Dean and Patrick Voss Davis as
Madison and Zachary. Photo by
Sean Salamon.

Seen on: Friday, 6/16/23.

Plot and Background

Teenage best friends Madison (cheerleader), Grace (valedictorian), and Stella (archetype unclear) cast a spell so they can each find the perfect boyfriend to take to Prom, and in due time they do, though each boy is not without his complications. When the red flag about your prom date isn't that he's a vampire or a ghost or a zombie, you know you're in trouble. The Trouble With Dead Boyfriends, a new musical by Annie Pulsipher and Alex Petti, was originally presented at Carnegie Mellon, and is here produced by Black Watch Theatre.

What I Knew Beforehand

Zombie Prom!

Thoughts:

Play: The show has a lot of fun ambition. It's campy, it's silly, it's fourth wall-breaking, it wants to empower teenage girls. Each boyfriend's supernatural nature speaks to an abusive or toxic element of his relationship with one of our three heroines. But unfortunately the execution of some of these ideas gets in the show's way in some key places. The opening of any show is so important to clue the audience in to what kind of world this is. But when, midway through a first act with no supernatural energy beyond Grace's ambition to be a witch, Stella announces her boyfriend is a vampire and that's why he can't come to Prom, it just sounds like an absurd lie, until--twist!--yep, there he is in leather pants, bouffant hair, and emo moue. Grace's subsequent announcement of her Puritan ghost boyfriend is at least more believable, now we know what show we're in. The other big roadblock for me is that not enough distinction is drawn between Lucian the Vampire and Silence the Ghost, in terms of their red flag behavior; both boil down to coercing consent, negging, and being condescending dicks. In contrast, football player Zachary's transformation into a physically abusive zombie is more clearly sketched (if prone to a few too many jokes about his inability to speak, which start to feel ableist in their repetition). I also have a few questions about when this takes place (the overhead projector and lack of cell phones point to early aughts; the references to hashtags, selfies, and Kim and Kanye point to much more recent), as well as how a prom queen, a valedictorian, and a girl whose archetype seems to boil down to horny and fat (yes, I want more for her than that, too), got to be best friends, but that wouldn't take as much rewriting to address. The bones of this piece are still a good idea, and some of the songs are a lot of fun--"Dissection Dance," Zachary's ill-advised promposal, and "ZomBaby," a girl group paean to an undead love, are right on the money--but Pulispher and Petti need to decide what kind of show they want to write. Is it full pastiche? Camp with a heart? If they lean more into their strongest choices and differentiate the girls' stories a bit more, this could become a really fun piece.

Cast: As the three best friends, Heather Sawyer (Stella), Alia Cuadros-Contreras (Grace), and Zoe Dean (Madison) sound absolutely terrific. There's a reason their end of song harmonies get big cheers from the audience. Will Einbinder (Lucian), Hagan Oliveras (Silence), and Patrick Voss Davis (Zachary) are clearly having fun as the dead boyfriends. But for me, the real star of the night is Patrick Swailes Caldwell, who plays the bio teacher, the gym coach, the janitor, a carnival barker, and the various poor puppets for Silence to manipulate. Their timing, their fun with accents, their physicality, and their agility at improvising when props break onstage, all make every one of their small moments a highlight of whatever scene they're in. Their partner in ensemble crime, Stephanie Hawkins, has perhaps less to play with (Smiley Cindy the class president, the school librarian, and Madison's cougar mom), but she still knows how to make a meal of her moments.

Design: Stephen M. Eckert's scenic design is simple but serviceable: a mylar fringe curtain lining the performing area and an ever-present disco ball reminding us that this will all lead to a make-it-or-break-it Prom night, as well as a flashback-inducing overhead projector displaying each scene's punny title. The curtain also allows for swift scene changes, even when each piece has to be moved by cast and crew. More ambitious but less consistently successful is Oliva Vaughn Hern's costume design. While the custom-made "Rabid Radish" mascot on Zachary's letterman jacket and Madison's cheerleading uniform is pretty damn delightful, this polish--down to the perfect fit of that uniform--is thrown into harsh relief against her clear struggles to dress Stella's larger body. Part of my struggle to name Stella's archetype is the lack of clarity in her costume design, made worse by an ill-fitting robe and a thrown-together prom outfit. Heather Sawyer is a beautiful woman who deserves to be dressed as beautifully as her costars. Will Einbinder's choreography is boppy but not as specific to character and moment as it could be. And props to bringing in Intimacy Director (who is also a talented stage director in her own right) Daniella Caggiano to manage the scenes of intimacy, toeing the uncomfortable line of teenage hormones and red flag o'clock.

***

Running: Now playing at The Player's Theatre (Black Watch Theatre LLC) - Opening: June 17, 2023. Closing: July 16, 2023.
Category: musical
Length: 2 hour, 25 minutes, including intermission.

Creative Team

Book: Annie Pulsipher
Music and Lyrics: Alex Petti
Director: Stephen M. Eckert
Designers: Will Einbinder (Choreography), Stephen M. Eckert (Set), Olivia Vaughn Hern (Costume), Andrew DG Hunt (Lighting), Alex Petti (Sound, Music Direction & Orchestration), Daniella Caggiano (Intimacy Direction), Emily Bubeck (Stage Manager), Katie Rosin/Kampfire PR (Publicity), Dani Joseph (Associate Producer).
Cast: Heather Sawyer, Alia Cuadros-Contreras, Zoe Dean, Will Einbinder, Hagan Oliveras, Patrick Voss Davis, Stephanie Hawkins, Patrick Swailes Caldwell, Sophia Carlin, Jonah McKinley.