Theater: The Business of [title of show]

Several years ago, composer-lyricist Jeff Bowen and book writer Hunter Bell wrote [title of show] as a submission for the New York Musical Theatre Festival. They chose their title by pivoting off a blank on the entry form. It seemed simplest to write a musical, to be called [title of show], about writing a musical called [title of show] for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, starring Bowen and Bell—so they did. For variety, they had two talented actresses deserving of a big break, Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, join [title of show] because they’re two talented actresses deserving of a big break.

Post-NYMF, as [title of show] ran Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theater, the script, fundamentally a meta-theatrical fantasia, kept evolving. Indeed, the novelty is the idea that [title of show] could evolve as it suited the author-actors or even the show’s director, Michael Berresse, who is also an actor.

During the Off-Broadway run, Bell plainly told audiences that the goal was to get their scrappy tuner to Broadway. Discovering the manna of YouTube, he proceeded to create and promote videos announcing the Broadway transfer of the show before it was remotely close to reality. This was not only ballsy, but a meta-theatrical goof, a chance to build their audience base—and, in the Broadway version of [title of show], an Oprah-style feel-good tale and, therefore, a part of the Broadway script.

Yet none of this explains why [title of show] has turned into one of those watershed events for theater fans that drive others to swear off theater altogether. Taking your seat, you feel that adrenalin-fed murmur as the lights dim and the instantaneous roaring of the audience begins, repeating like a Pavlovian bell every time Bowen—or more often Bell—speaks a line, sings a song, or makes obscure reference to the divas of the stage. Such reactions from the audience are the subatomic particles of a real cult hit, and congratulations are due to the collaborators for achieving their dream.

When I reviewed the Vineyard run of [title of show] two years ago in these pages, however, I inferred that Bowen and Bell have created a stage monster of Frankensteinian proportions—they didn’t know how to end it. In fact, as long as [title of show] is about writing a musical about writing a musical about writing a musical, it’s a pithy, rollicking, gleefully self-referential, charmingly self-mocking addition to the list of meta-theatrical shows from this decade that also sported commercial appeal. The roster includes Urinetown and Avenue Q, two more downtown tuners that became Broadway brands.

But the difference is that those musicals are less self-conscious about it; they trade not on delirious fan-base adulation and more on narrative substance. This may seem a little inside-baseball to you, but among theater folk, [title of show] is a bifurcating phenomenon: either you love it or you hate it; either you believe it’s a triumph of you-can-make-it-happen optimism or a clear sign Armageddon is near. It’s not for nothing that Bowen and Bell sing “I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing/ Than a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing.”

Bowen’s bouncy tunes, Bell’s clever lyrics and three-out-of-four fine performances notwithstanding, I think what’s being celebrated here isn’t the insight of that aforementioned lyric but perhaps something even more powerful: the idea that dreams still can come true.

And [title of show] almost pulls it off. If, during the run at the Vineyard, the chief problem was that it never had a satisfying end, Bowen and Bell could now freeze their project where it is if they wished to. Bell appears, however, resistant—his cheeky, smirky, too-cute, look-how-brilliant-I-am performance has a fetid air of arrogance, self-righteousness and over-entitlement to it, and it’s a turn-off. At least Bowen appears to be humbled by the Broadway firmament; Blackwell and Blickenstaff are so good in their supporting roles that anyone with a pulse is probably writing musicals for them right now. What will Bell do then? Write a musical about that?

Open run. Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-239-6200; $36.50-$101.50.