Composer/lyricist: Jason Robert Brown. At: Bohemian Theatre Ensemble at Heartland Studio Theatre, 7016 N. Glenwood . Phone: 773-791-2393; $20-$22. Runs through: Nov. 4
Jason Robert Brown couldn't have asked for a better calling card than Songs for a New World. Though it ran less than a month during its 1995 off-Broadway debut, this classy and smart revue opened doors for its up-and-coming songwriter.
Brown is best known for composing the Tony Award-winning 1998 Broadway musical Parade, which details the infamous lynching of Jewish factory owner Leo Frank in 1912 Atlanta. ( Bailiwick Repertory produced Parade to much acclaim in 2004. ) Brown is also revered for his 2002 two-character off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years, which spotlights the initial meeting and final disillusionment of a marriage between an author and an actress. ( It's pre-New York tryout engagement played Skokie's Northlight Theatre. )
Songs for a New World is mostly known among die-hard musical theater aficionados who own the cast recording and who are fans of four-time Tony Award-winning actress Audra McDonald, who included a few of Brown's songs on her CDs. So we can be thankful that Bohemian Theatre Ensemble has produced a very savvy and strongly sung Songs for a New World as a reminder of Brown's early talent.
Taking a cue from the multiple references to water, traveling and sailing in Brown's lyrics, director Elizabeth Margolius and set designer John Zuiker have found a visual way to tie the character songs of this plot-less revue together. With bridges and walkways fingering in at all directions like an M.C. Escher illustration and hanging seaside-style lighting jars, Margolius has served up a suggestive nautical setting alluding to the many emotional new worlds the nameless characters are headed to or find themselves reluctantly in.
The seaside look doesn't particularly jibe with a few of Brown's urban sophisticate numbers, such as the one about a suicidal rich bitch in Just One Step or the materialistic dreamer in the show's cabaret hit-single Stars and the Moon. But the fact that Alanda Coon sings the hell out of each number with plenty of character and verve helps you to overlook the ethereal summery garb costumer Theresa Ham provided for the cast.
Coon's castmates weren't quite up to her consistent power-belting level at the performance I saw, but Mike Arthur, Jayson Brooks and Jess Godwin each created strongly rueful portraits of people in uncomfortable relationships and situations. It's a huge pleasure to see and hear this talented cast boom out Brown's songs un-amplified under the great musical direction of pianist Andrea Velis Simon.
Bohemian Theatre Ensemble's Songs for a New World confirms the early promise that Brown possessed as a new voice for modern musical theater. The show also confirms Bohemian Theatre Ensemble as a smart storefront theater company to watch and follow.