America is too big and diverse and good and bad and right and wrong to be represented by a single defining story, although if it could, Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man would rank high in the running. The country had changed in the half-century between when Wilson set his musical and when he wrote it, providing a built-in nostalgia that has endured the half-century since. Yet as demonstrated by the Encore Musical Theatre Company’s production, change itself can be a constant: the push of the outside world on a complacent society and the excited tumult it brings still feels defiantly American and abundantly contemporary. Readers should note the performance I attended was the final preview, so the version I saw has likely adapted further, but the production’s prevailing theme of resisting and subsequently transforming in unlikely and welcome ways shone clearly through.

The story of a seasoned con and the spell he casts on little 1912 River City, Iowa, is handled with love by director Jon Huffman and an exuberant cast of more than thirty adults and children. Here, the emphasis is on a buttoned-up community on the precipice of discovery and change, for which traveling salesman and supposed band director Harold Hill (Zachary Barnes) is merely the catalyst — he bilks the town’s parents into enrolling their children in a boy’s band, whose expensive instruments and instruction books and uniforms are billed as a kind of insurance policy against youthful indiscretion. Under the encouragement and tutelage of the “professor,” nearly every member of the population bursts out of his shell and embraces some vibrant form of self-expression that was previously frowned upon by the prim, puritanical town. From a story standpoint, these developments are cast as merely a distraction to keep Harold from being found out, but Huffman’s staging finds traction in these moments; the approach lends a creaky pace to the overarching story of a long con, but pays off in positively sterling discoveries that forgive the weaker fare.

As Harold, Barnes relies on an innate charm that lends genuineness to his dishonesty, even as the performer subtly demonstrates the character spinning the lie to his advantage. Part of his modus operandi is to chastely seduce the local piano teacher, the only person who could reveal him as a musical fraud, and River City’s Marian Paroo (Stephanie Souza) presents a formidable challenge, doubling as the town librarian (read: Uptight Spinster Alert!) and smarty-pants at large. Souza’s turn as Marian casts an independent woman from the sad-old-maid mold, her interest lying not in Harold directly but in his startling influence on her self-conscious younger brother, played with practiced unease by Linus Babcock. The conflict comes to a head with the entrance of a vengeful fellow salesman (Keith Allan Kalinowski), whose brutishly comic grandstanding brings necessary distaste to a character technically in the right, both legally and ethically. A dozen or more small stories intersect to round out the portrait of an isolated, repressed city coming into its own, each of which is given ample attention and care that rewards a watchful viewer.

The action takes place in the positively quaint town square, whose stage-filling, two-story facades are further supplemented with a handful of other idyllic and innovative locales by set designer Leo Babcock. Lighting designer Daniel Fowler contributes a series of sunny July days and comfortably muggy twilights. The setting is amply fleshed out with lovely period costumes and properties by Sharlon Larkey Urick and Jennifer Colby, respectively; overall, it’s the closest a viewer can get to Greenfield Village with air conditioning. Music direction by Brian E. Buckner is at its best in its play with vocal tone and affectation, resulting in some supporting voices far funnier than the lyrics they’re singing; however, this is not to discount the musically sound ballads and company numbers, nor the giddy precision of the improbably impromptu barbershop quartet. Resonant brass and drums from the five-member orchestra just offstage are admittedly too aggressive for the Encore space; however, general amplification by sound designer Chuck Colby helps to quell the battle between voice and accompaniment. Nearly every number is florid with Barb Cullen’s choreography, from the restrained expression of a library scene to the unadulterated joy of teenagers allowed to cut loose. That the playing space never feels too crowded and only rarely too stagnant is a commendable accomplishment of the entire production team.

It’s The Music Man, two and a half hours of some of the best-loved songs in the genre. It’s how summer lets people not be themselves for a while. It’s America, back when it was unassailable; it’s America when bending the rules was the surest path to success. It’s a time capsule, yet the excitement of new personal and societal frontiers will forever feel timely. With its long view of River City and its many residents, this production is a celebration of progress and growth, which here rings out like the ultimate patriotic refrain.

Boy meets girl, with an Edge, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

The Encore Musical Theatre Company is once again flexing a different set of musical muscles. Its Encore on the Edge series provides a home for more unconventional, contemporary fare, encouraging devotees of the classic American musical to discover just how limitless and creative the genre can be. The second entry in the series, Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years, brings familiar, simple storytelling into a cool new context: As directed by Daniel Cooney, the production is a musically gorgeous depiction of a romance from beginning to end, but it subverts expectations by also portraying it from end to beginning.

Jamie and Cathy (Steve DeBruyne and Thalia Schramm) meet, fall in love, marry, and watch their relationship crumble: This is the entirety of the plot, and how the audience witnesses it – through Jamie's eyes, at least. However, through alternating songs and swapped perspectives, the play also takes the opposite view. That is, Cathy's story begins at the breakup and plunges backward, reliving the milestones of their love in reverse order; by the end of the play, she's fresh off the promise of their first date just as he calls it quits. Husband and wife have utterly opposing timelines, and their perspectives on the relationship are as different as their chronology, although Brown's excellent script and thoughtful staging clearly ease the viewer through the unusual concept. What they do have in common is amazing music, which is the absolute pinnacle of this production. The songs have a contemporary feel and structure, especially in terms of shifting keys and meters, but the two performers and three accompanists (led by music director Brian E. Buckner) triumph as they make such loveliness seem so easy.

Stuart Ross hit on a winning formula for merging musical revue with musical theater. His popular Forever Plaid in essence is a concert by a 1950s-style guy group; however, he introduces potential for character development in its unique concept: the singing group Forever Plaid, killed in a bus collision just as it was reaching its prime, is allowed to perform its first — and last — full show on Earth by virtue of some heavenly reprieve. At The Encore Musical Theatre, director Barb Cullen uses a deft touch with both influences to deliver an entertaining piece of musical theater that’s a spectacular revue in its own right.

The primary reason for this show to exist is to bask in its many songs, and the numbers, led by music director Brian Buckner, are simply a treat. The performers form an outstanding quartet that sparkles in gentle four-part harmony; the voices blend so completely, it’s actually a surprise to hear them sing as individuals. But Ross ensures that the characters can indeed be distinct: Sebastian Gerstner brings jittery nervousness to his youthful Sparky, carried through to his singing in enthusiastic showmanship; in contrast, the iconic nerd-glasses visage befits earnest Smudge, and Phill Harmer’s astounding bass resonates with texture. The music, arranged by James Raitt, applies the guy-group sound to unexpected melodies, but also covers plenty of ground with regard to the standards. Joined by stoic bassist Billy Satterwhite, Buckner provides live piano accompaniment and occasional hammy facial expressions that round out the tableau. Deceptively complex sound design by Jess Preville frequently backs off from handheld microphone input, but doesn’t hesitate to throw in an audio effect from time to time; the result is dually additive and complementary to the musical accomplishment on display.

In its short history, the Encore Musical Theatre Company has found its hallmark in delivering classic crowd-pleasing musicals that draw entire families. Now at the dawn of its third year, the company is hungrily exploring the dark underbelly of the musical by supplementing its mainstage season with the Encore on the Edge series, featuring less-ubiquitous shows with adult themes. As a bold introduction to the series, co-founder Dan Cooney takes a double turn as director and star of Nevermore, a haunting interpretation of the life and tortured creativity of legendary horror writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Having developed and previously debuted the role off-Broadway, Cooney steps into Edgar’s spectrum of attitudes and life stages with confidence and deftness. Set in an apparent purgatory of the artist’s own making, the book by Grace Barnes dives into the writer’s romantic history with childhood love Elmira (Thalia Schramm) and child bride Virginia (Elizabeth Jaffe), as well as less forgiving discourse with his imagined late mother (Marlene Inman-Reilly) and with in-law/surrogate maternal figure Muddy (Sonja Marquis). His darker, carnal female pursuits are manifest in the Whore (Erin Donevan), who serves as a representative for Edgar’s many deviances, in particular his alcohol abuse and regretful emotional distance from the women who care for him. As the play’s single act unfolds, the bottomless unhappiness of Edgar’s life seems to be as much a product of his own addictive behaviors and mental demons as of the real and devastating tragedies that he blames for his extreme alienation and woe. This impression is in no small part attributable to Cooney’s slick performance, showing faces of childlike openness contrasted with deep, pure passion and pleading for connection the likes of which his macabre imagination cannot seem to withstand.

On the book-to-musical front, Little Women (book, Allan Knee; lyrics, Mindi Dickstein; music, Jason Howland) is an excellent candidate. With its epic scope, archetypal characters with heart, and place of honor in the children's literature canon, the Louisa May Alcott novel lends itself well to the conventions of musical theater. Now at the Encore Musical Theatre, as directed by Steve DeBruyne, is a production every bit as fulfilling and heartrending as its source.

The play is relatively faithful to the book, preserving cherished moments but taking some liberties with how and where they occur in order to streamline the plot. (Condensing a book of hundreds of pages into a two-and-three-quarter-hour production requires some sacrifices, and most of the adapters' choices are justifiable rather than frustrating.) Here is the ordinary yet magical Massachusetts upbringing of the four March girls: proper Meg (Thalia Schramm), tomboy Jo (Katie Hardy), saintly Beth (Cara AnnMarie), and petulant Amy (Madison Deadman). With their father away serving in the Civil War, the teenage girls are watched over by mother Marmee (Sonia Marquis), a morally steadfast woman who seems incapable of making a parenting mistake. These five performers have cultivated such a fond family dynamic, it's a pleasure to watch Deadman resent being put in her place, Schramm fall hard and fast in love, AnnMarie demurely resisting expectations of her life, and Marquis privately admitting to feelings of self-doubt. But the play's center ultimately lies where it should, with Jo, and Hardy's exuberant take on the ambitious, unconventional young writer with sky-high aspirations makes the story soar. This Jo is relatable and engaging even when she's being bull-headed or obtuse, and her songs reflect the conviction and energy that propels the character.

October is playoff season, and the Encore Musical Theatre Company hopes to spread some of that baseball fever in Damn Yankees (words and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross; book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop). Indeed, many themes of this 55-year-old musical are still relevant to contemporary audiences: the questionable benefits of all-consuming fandom, the rift that sports causes in romantic relationships, and the timeless YANKEES SUCK.

The show's setting really captures a summer-baseball feeling, with Daniel C. Walker's incredible whirling and folding grass-green set plus bright-orange dirt and chalk line accents. Yet with help from his ambitious lighting, the scenes off the field don't feel like they're still on the diamond. Period costumes by Colleen E. Meyer pop with clean, Rockwell brightness. The play is preceded with the singing of the national anthem, and concessions at the rear of the theater call out to patrons hungry for peanuts or a hot dog. It's a nostalgic take on America's pastime, a simpler era when a grown man could sell his soul to the devil, leave his family and work behind, age negative-forty years, walk on with his favorite team midseason as the best hitter anyone's ever seen, lead the Senators to the pennant, and maybe even get away with it all.

What audiences generally want from The Sound of Music is the closest possible approximation to the Julie Andrews movie. I don’t intend this as a condemnation; the film is wound tightly into our cultural DNA, and few movie musicals are grander. Deviation from such a deeply ingrained classic is a risky proposition: why jar when one can delight? Accordingly, the Encore Musical Theatre Company and director Barbara F. Cullen chose to play it very safe with this production. Although this is no simple mimicry (among other variations, this staging of the original Rogers and Hammerstein script and score includes three songs that did not appear in the film and omits two that did), viewers who attend the Encore production with the movie in mind should be pleased with its familiar feel.

The complete ubiquity of the play’s songs essentially partners the success of a production with the success of its music, and here musical director Jill Quagliata delivers handily. From the engrossing a cappella hymns of the abbey nuns, led by the glorious voice of Jody Doktor as Mother Abbess, to the accurate several-part harmony of the Von Trapp children, every last song is lush and rich. (It’s a good thing, too, because there were never so many reprises as there are in this musical.) Quagliata also provides piano accompaniment, assisted only by CT Hollis on keys, yet the score never stands out as being too sparse. When there’s singing, which is nearly always, the production swells and delights.

Encore Musical Theatre Company has outdone itself with the setting for its Michigan premiere of Club Morocco — as I walked in, I truly didn't recognize the place. The proscenium stage has been ripped out to make way for a towering bandstand, designed by Daniel C. Walker, and the modified seating sets low pub tables adjacent to three sides of the dance floor. The attractive cast mills about before the play begins, chatting up the nearest audience members, giving dance step refreshers, and offering table service. Fortified by live music, drinks, and dancing, the line between the show Club Morocco and the Club Morocco experience is virtually nonexistent, just as intended by is co-creators, Jon Huffman and Barbara F. Cullen (who also serves as director and choreographer).

Within this format, the basic elements of musical theater are broken apart and compartmentalized. Yes, the dancers sometimes sing, and vice versa, but the emphasis on cabaret-style entertainment instead of storytelling allows the show to capitalize on its set list and showcase its performers' best. Viewers get the merest taste of plot in a pat little story, which delves no deeper than man, woman, betrayal, firearms. Film noir conventions are strewn about as hard-boiled Frank McCann (Paul Kerr) discusses the loss of his elusive and mysterious "swing" — repeated attempts to pull double entendres from the word fall flat, as does any pretense that these developments matter in the long run. Happily segregated, meted out in tiny vignettes and otherwise forgotten, the story is no match for this production's real draw: classic swing numbers that get many viewers on their feet.

WHEREAS, the Rogue Critic is a known detractor of the ubiquitous Andrew Lloyd Webber, and WHEREAS, the Rogue — having heard from trustworthy people that his early stuff is worth a listen — went into Jesus Christ Superstar with an open mind, and WHEREAS, the Rogue was indeed not moved by the score of the rock opera, THEREFORE IT IS HEREBY DECREED that the Rogue harbors a black, sucking void in her heart where her love for Webber should reside. Caveat emptor, if you will.

The production now at the Encore Musical Theatre Company has a number of clear strengths. With a cast of twenty-six, staging by directors Daniel C. Cooney and Barbara F. Cullen and choreography by Kristi Davis provide constant visual stimuli without once crossing over into clutter. Thanks in no small part to the set design by Toni Auletti (whose combination of arid boulder backdrop and modern scaffolding looks like a funky archaeological dig), stage pictures are consistently dynamic and thoughtful. A thrilling wordless prologue, inspired by the Stations of the Cross, is made even more memorable by use of an effectively jarring strobe light, which recurs as the same moments play out again later. The strong ensemble helps fill the stage with energy, and some of the voices — my favorite the inhuman tenor of the priest Annas (Andy Jobe) — are exceptional. At the center of the show, Aaron LaVigne is a magnetic presence, making it easy to understand what the fuss is about.

As with so many theaters of southeast and mid-Michigan, the Encore Musical Theatre Company is like a temple of ingenuity, with homemade aisles and risers and essentially no wings (on one side of the stage is an actual brick wall). The company's mission is to bring Broadway talent to its stage to work with local professionals, yet this small space has an intimacy an actual Broadway stage could never reach. For a group that produces only musicals, which traditionally feature huge casts and splashy production elements, this introduces myriad opportunities and challenges, both of which are well met by The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

However long, this is one literal title: behold, the silver anniversary of a county spelling bee (the winner of which qualifies for the national championship in Washington, DC). Aside from a few flashback/fantasies and one literal deus ex machina, the play's uninterrupted nearly two hours are confined to a school gymnasium until the winner is declared. However, with credit to librettist/composer William Finn and writer Rachel Sheinkin, the clearly laid-out structure of the competition is wisely broken up by dances, songs, rants, prayers, slow motion, a juice break, and even a little flirting; the show bounces and bops without straying too far from the story, and the time flies.