Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – New Off-Broadway musicals worth your while: Adam Gwon’s ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE and Leegrid Stevens’ THE TROJANS

• By drediman
• April 17, 2025
• No Comments

Also this past week, I had the opportunity to catch a pair of worthwhile new musicals Off-Broadway. As usual, read on for my thoughts on them.

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE
Keen Company
Through May 10

This week, Adam Gwon’s new musical All the World’s a Stage (RECOMMENDED) opened Off-Broadway at Theatre Row courtesy of Keen Company (which this season celebrates its milestone 25th anniversary). Known for penning intimate musicals that illuminate the human spirit, Gwon’s latest — about a closeted, theater-loving high school math teacher (the piece is set in the 1990s) who informally doubles as an acting coach to one of his students — continues down this tried-and-true path. As a heartfelt love letter to the theater, All the World’s a Stage calls to mind Ahrens and Flaherty’s 2002 musical A Man of No Importance, particularly in its tenderness and religious small town setting. But instead of being persecuted for staging Oscar Wilde’s Salome, the musical’s protagonist is persecuted for championing Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Musically, one can hear the strong influence of Jason Robert Brown (strands of The Last Five Years especially chime in), which is not in the least a slight to Gwon’s considerable talent and efforts here. Indeed, his score feels of a whole and is strung with meticulously-crafted songs — beautifully orchestrated for four excellent onstage musicians — that ring true. Keen Company artistic director Jonathan Silverstein has staged a wonderfully polished chamber-sized production that efficiently yet eloquently animates Gwon’s affecting if somewhat predictable tale. Indeed, everything feels right in place. The production features a quartet of emotionally resonant, finely-etched, and magnificently-sung performances — Matt Rodin as the conflicted aforementioned teacher, Eliza Pagelle as the rebellious student with a penchant for theater, Jon-Michael Reese as a flamboyant, out-and-proud bookstore owner, and Tony nominee Elizabeth Stanley as a conservative high school secretary.

THE TROJANS
Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre
Through April 26

Then down at Nancy Manocherian’s renegade the cell theatre in Chelsea, you’ll be able to find Loading Dock Theatre’s production of The Trojans (RECOMMENDED), the “synthpop” creation of Leegrid Stevens. Like All the World’s a Stage, Stevens’ new musical — which chronicles the escapist theatrical shenanigans of a group of demoralized, financially-strapped workers in a grim corporate warehouse — is in part an homage to the power of theater to transform its participants (and by extension, us the audience). As inspiration for their unbridled play, the warehouse workers fondly reach back into their memory banks to reenact their glory days in high school during the 1980s, in the process skillfully recasting Homer’s Trojan War saga from The Iliad as a Texas high school football team rivalry. Sounds like a bit of a stretch? I’m happy to report that it all rather pops and hangs together remarkably well, thanks largely to director Eric Paul Vitale and choreographer Melinda Rebman’s immersive, inventively-staged production that uncannily straddles spoof and high stakes real human drama. Stevens’ score is a seductive blend of dreamy 80s inspired electronic bops — think the opening theme of the similarly-set hit television series Stranger Things — and the tongue-in-cheek goofiness of Xanadu (not the film but its hilarious and far more successful stage musical adaptation). Be forewarned, ear wormy songs like “Boys Are Bad” have the potential to be annoyingly lodged in one’s head for a while, despite the intriguing but jarring way they weave into and out of the narrative. Admittedly, the performances are a tad rough around the edges (standouts are Deshja Driggs as the slightly air-headed but sought-after Heather and Erin Treadway as the fiery running back Keeley), but that’s part of the production’s charm. The irresistible and joyous sense of play exuded by the company as a whole trumps any unevenness you’re likely to encounter.