So, anyway, The Last Starfighter got a good reading last night at Issaquah's Village Theater- they had about 20 or 25 hours of rehearsal, apparently, and the music is virtually wall-to-wall - the best the director could do was keep the actors out of the way of the material - which he did nicely. Good voices, for the most part, really showed off Skip Kennon's wonderful songs. Mostly perfect diction, too - and the audience really responded. About 20 in the cast. Some incredibly intricate choral writing really brought the house down.
Towards the end of Act 1, a very catchy tune - It Was a Zandezan - caught most of the peeps in attendance... folks were humming that song and bobbing up and down in the line to the restrooms at intermission. Lovely ballads.
Fred Landau - our own DR FJL - turned a complicated special effects film into an intimate character-driven play. Ultimately, a musical succeeds or fails with story and characters. The audience was really rooting for the small-town reluctant hero and his girl friend. Most wonderful of all is that the house was replete of men and teen-aged boys - an audience that usually doesn't show up for musicals. Since Butts In Seats is the name of the game, this bodes well for the future of this show. Several regional theaters were represented at the reading, looking for shows for future seasons... for example, a representative from The Coronet in LA was there, and several other houses in other big cities... fingers x'd!!!
