![]() At the playhouse, not only does the jazz playing sound more than credible, the musicians make the acting part of the gig look easy. Some of the Playhouse on Park cast have done the show before, and it’s clear that a small industry of actor/musicians has formed around this show. One of the hallmarks of the show is that the actors playing the band members actually play their instruments. One of the brilliant strokes of “Bandstand” is to invoke a little music history and show how jazz entered the war as light pop music but transformed into a moodier post-swing be-bop state which explored rawer emotions. “Bandstand” keeps you guessing about whether the band will win the contest or even stay together, but the reasons are compelling and have a lot to do with the characters’ post-war issues. You might be able to guess some of the plot twists, but you certainly can’t anticipate most of them. His struggles inspire him to start a band of fellow war veterans to enter a national contest that will get them onto a live radio broadcast and maybe a Hollywood movie. Suffering from PTSD, Donny finishes his service and moves to Ohio, where he looks up his deceased pal’s wife, Julia (Katie Luke). That really helps the plotline, which concerns a snappy young pianist named Donny “Nova” Novitski (played here by Benjamin Nurthen) who was in the same platoon as his best friend and fellow music lover nicknamed “Rubber” who died in combat. The tone could be brighter, but at least it’s consistent. While other productions bring both depressive lows and euphoric highs to the story, Playhouse on Park’s intense, condensed staging stays mostly on a dramatic, realistic level and doesn’t lift off into a shiny false swing-club dream world. As the show builds and the band is formed, the songs get deeper and more intrinsic to the plot. There’s a train song, a New York City song, a “nobody” song and a “my love is gone” song. Rather than depend on actual nostalgic pop songs from the 1940s, as so many World War II-themed shows do, Oberacker has crafted some impressive originals which evoke the same feelings. “Bandstand” is mainly the creation of Richard Oberacker, who composed the songs and co-wrote the book and lyrics with Robert Taylor. The theater’s low ceiling, dark corners and floor-level playing space with a long revolving rectangular platform serving as the show’s titular bandstand are all used to good advantage. The director, Sean Harris, and choreographer Darlene Zoller (co-credited with Robert Mintz) are co-founders of the playhouse and know the space intimately. Playhouse on Park has its own spirited creative team and doesn’t need to do derivative Blankenbuehler moves. West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park is staging “Bandstand” through Aug. “Bandstand” was on Broadway for six months in 2017, where it was mainly appreciated as a showcase for director/choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler to helm a show on his own after being a key contributor to “Hamilton.” After a long interrupted-by-COVID tour that played the Waterbury Palace and New Haven’s Shubert Theatre, “Bandstand” is now being given fresh productions by regional theaters. It’s about being unable to forget wartime service and wanting others to understand and remember. The original musical “ Bandstand” goes even further. The stage version of the Gene Kelly movie “An American in Paris” rewrote the book to show how parts of Paris and its inhabitants were destroyed by the war. ![]() ![]() Nowadays, we know that such a casual disconnect isn’t possible. In the 1940s and 1950s, musicals about World War II tended to be peppy shows about soldiers and sailors on leave, acting carefree for a few days and leaving the war behind. ![]()
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