Peter Yanowitz, Stephen Trask And Cast Signed This Ain’t No Disco Playbill
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:35264490 | Modified Item: No |
| Original/Reproduction: Original |
Set in the wilting salad days of Studio 54, the New York dance emporium that became the Emerald City of hedonism in the late 1970s, this labored marriage of fact and fiction may begin when its cast of revelers is still pretending to have a good time. But a poisonous pall hangs over the folks who gather at the club’s entrance, alternately chanting, “Let us in” and “Let us sin.” Oooh, sounds like we’ve arrived in Gomorrah. And if you think that capital of doomed decadence won...’t be name-checked before the evening is over, you don’t know your judgment days. From the frenzy of its opening number — which rhymes “velvet rope” with “grind and grope” — “This Ain’t No Disco” wears its retributive grimness like a suffocating, Lycra spandex shroud. The show’s creative team features a host of gifted good-time artists, with songs by Stephen Trask, who gave us the deliciously transgressive score for “Hedwig and the Angry Inch, ” and Peter Yanowitz, the original drummer for the Wallflowers. The book was shaped, in collaboration with the composers, by Rick Elice, a writer of “Jersey Boys, ” that tidiest of blockbuster jukebox musicals, as well as the ecstatic story-theater piece “Peter and the Starcatcher.” And the director is Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony for overseeing the frolicsome mayhem of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.” When, toward the end, a switch is thrown to reveal just how tawdry and shabby the seemingly golden Studio really is, it’s hardly a shock. (Ben Stanton did the smudgy lighting.) That poor guy who begs “Don’t turn on the lights!” as he is being dragged to jail might have saved his breath. That guy, by the way, is Steve Rubell (a woozy, sneery Theo Stockman), a real-life owner and public face of Studio 54. His descent from the heady heights of clubland king to tax-evading jailbird provides the show with an arc that is paralleled by other plot lines. Most notably, there’s the single mother, self-mutilator and rapper Sammy (Samantha Marie Ware), and her best friend, the once and future hustler and graffiti painter Chad (Peter LaPrade), whose nom de spray is Rake. Watch them writhe in the glare of the fame they sought so foolishly. Many famous names are evoked throughout (Liza, Jackie, Baryshnikov, Dali, et al.). But the most identifiable onstage celebrity is referred to only as The Artist, a wig-wearing, deadpan, bespectacled figure who announces that he’s just come from “a retrospective of my work at the Guggenheim hosted by a socialite.”This Warhol by any other name is portrayed by Will Connolly, who, incidentally, has the only (underused) singing voice that feels appropriate to the time and his character. The Artist becomes the mentor and cruel exploiter of Sammy, who is presented to us as a Ramones-worshiping punk, but looks more like a socialite in a toreador suit (before fame) and Whitney Houston (after). The hapless Chad finds himself the pet project of an aggressive, self-promoting publicist and journalist named Binky (Chilina Kennedy). She’s a clunky composite of such prototypes as Carmen D’Alessio, Joanne Horowitz and Nikki Haskell. Binky’s constantly changing wardrobe offers some welcome evidence of period-savvy wit by the costume designer, Sarah Laux. This publicity-conjuring whirlwind turns out to be the naïve Chad’s nemesis, just as Steve is undone by a hate-filled gay district attorney (Eddie Cooper). But fear not: There is wholesomeness on offer in the provisional domestic lair of the happy downtown artist couple (and former Studio coat-check girls), Meesh (Krystina Alabado) and her trans partner, Landon, formerly Landa (Lulu Fall). It is here that our Candide-like Chad may find the family and the sanctuary he seeks. But not before hitting the skids. After a short burst of flashbulb-lighted glory that includes a Studio 54 wedding to Binky, Chad winds up in a bleak hotel room, singing to himself: “It’s 15 minutes later, boy, what a time you’ve hadAnd now you’re turning tricks with menOld enough to be your dad.”Those lyrics, for the record, represent the campy heights as well as the bottom-scraping nadir of Chad’s story. This playbill was signed by the cast: Krystina Alabado, Cameron Amandus, Will Connolly, Eddie Cooper, Tony d’Alelio, Lulu Fall, Hannah Florence, Chilina Kennedy, Peter LaPrade, John-Michael Lyles, Krystal Mackie, Trevor McQueen, Nicole Medoro, Ian Paget, Theo Stockman, Samantha Marie Ware and Antonio Watson; together with the creative team and band members: Matt Duncan and Justin Craig, Music and lyrics by Stephen Trask and Peter Yanowitz; Book by Stephen Trask, Peter Yanowitz, and Director Darko Tresnjak.
