Theater roundup: Dazzling ‘Music Man’; classic Sommers; charming ‘[title]’

Chances are your first impression of Meredith Willson’s The Music Man is not of the dancing. Unless you see the new hyper-kinetic production at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.

It is not that director Mark Martino and choreographer Shea Sullivan ― the Carbonell Award-winning duo that conjured up a tap-happy Crazy for You two seasons back ― have put some conceptual overlay on Willson’s 1957 celebration of small-town values and the traveling salesman con artist who arrives promising to assemble a boys’ band there.

It is simply that they have the services of charismatic, nimble Matt Loehr as Professor Harold Hill, along with an ensemble of light-on-their-feet performers, so it would be a waste to not dust off the show’s cobwebs with a new emphasis on dance.

Dance becomes a metaphor for Hill’s twinkle-toed flim-flammery, as he shuffles his way around River City, Iowa’s blustery mayor (John Felix), a harmonizing quartet of school board members and a parallel creation of Willson’s known as the Pick-a-Little Ladies. Harder to work his usual spell on is the town’s librarian/piano teacher, Marian Paroo, who rebuffs his attempts to charm her and eventually stops him in his tracks.     

Loehr dominates the production, as Harold Hill should, but the rest of the cast is also first-rate. Mandy Bruno (Marian), a six-year veteran of the daytime soap Guiding Light, has a beautiful soprano voice, showcased well on such numbers as My White Knight and Till There Was You. Elizabeth Dimon plays her mother, prodding her at every opportunity to let down her guard to romance. As the mayor’s wife, Anna McNeely makes a daffy dilettante and Dennis O’Bannion, Sullivan’s associate choreographer, turns the superfluous Shipoopi into a showstopper.

The production also looks great, thanks to the clever, numerous scenic designs of Paul Tate Depoo III, Jose M. Rivera’s sprightly, musical comedy-colored period costumes and Donald Edmund Thomas’s Fourth of July bright lighting.

Yes, you’ve probably seen The Music Man before, but the Maltz’s take on this classic show will put a hop in your step and a smile on your face.

THE MUSIC MAN, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, Jupiter. Through Sunday, Dec. 16. Tickets: Starting at $46. Call: (561) 575-2223.

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There’s a new, slimmer Avery Sommers on view at the Colony Hotel’s Royal Room this week. She looks great, but more importantly the reduction in size has done nothing to lessen her big, booming voice.

West Palm Beach’s homegrown singer has the lead-off spot in the swank supper club’s winter season, bringing with her a new act of American Songbook standards. Strong on the masters ― Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers (with both Hart and Hammerstein) ― the 90-minute set was warmly received by an audience that seemed to have a personal connection to the performer.

Sommers opened with Berlin’s There’s No Business Like Show Business, then proceeded to prove the adage with a cavalcade of familiar tunes, mainly from the musical theater. If the act has a weakness, it is that Sommers has not ― or not yet ― developed sufficient introductory patter to explain what these songs mean to her, something she has done so winningly in past Royal Room appearances.

Or perhaps when you select such numbers as Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, The Lady Is a Tramp, From This Moment On and Just One of Those Things, often delivered with a jazzy lilt and occasional scatting, no explanation is necessary.

Adding to the informal mood of the act, Sommers invited to the stage the cabaret’s manager extraordinaire, Rob Russell, for that classic challenge duet, Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better). She then roamed around the club with a wireless mike, asking for audience participation. And yes, I can now put on my résumé that I have sung at the Royal Room.

Sommers’ penultimate segment was a tribute to three legends of the music world who passed away in 2012. It must have been difficult to boil each of them down to just one signature song, but she chose well for her voice as she celebrated Marvin Hamlisch (The Way We Were), Whitney Houston (The Greatest Gift of All) and Donna Summer (Last Dance). Then to leave us assured that she can still raise rafters, Sommers came back for a scheduled encore, God Bless America.

The Royal Room continues to import some of New York’s top cabaret names, but it’s good to see that it keeps a spot for a hometown girl who can hold her own among the Manhattanites.

AVERY SOMMERS, Colony Hotel Royal Room, 155 Hammon Ave., Palm Beach. Through Saturday. Prices: $80 for dinner and show, $45 for show only. Call: (561) 659-8100.

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Since few New Yorkers who write musicals have fathers with barns suitable for putting on a show, getting their work produced is a lot more complicated than in Babes in Arms. Just ask Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, who relate those difficulties in a clever little musical called [title of show], which actually made it to Broadway ― albeit briefly ― four years ago.

This most unlikely of Broadway vehicles is full of inside theater industry jokes that probably went over the heads of the bridge and tunnel crowd. It has no set, except for four mismatched chairs, and it originally starred the show’s writers playing themselves, not exactly box office names.

Still, [title of show] managed to get a cast album recorded, which fostered a cult following and led to productions at adventuresome regional theaters across the country. One such company is the storefront Showtime Performing Arts Theatre in Boca Raton, which is giving the quirky musical its South Florida premiere through Dec. 16.

As described in the show, [title of show] is “a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical.” Bell’s script and Bowen’s songs keep winking at us, as it does from the first number ― titled Untitled Opening Number ― which is about two guys sitting around trying to come up with an opening number.

So it goes, from writing the show, submitting it to the New York Musical Theatre Festival and being chosen for a six-performance run, which garners them attention from producers and an off-Broadway booking in a real theater. But when they beats the odds even more and get the chance to move to Broadway, they wring their hands over whether to replace one of the members of their foursome and whether to make the show more commercial by taking the material in a less oddball direction.

All of this could have been exceedingly precious, but it is saved from that fate by its utter lack of pretension. And at Showtime, it is populated with four talented young performers who ingratiate themselves to the audience, getting us to root for their success and the success of the characters they play.

Noah Levine (Jeff) and Clay Cartland (Hunter) play off each other well, finishing each other’s sentences and convincing us that they are best friends. Both negotiate Bowen’s offbeat rhythms and lyrics with seeming ease and are genuinely funny guys. Sara Greenberg and Kristina Johnson play their pals, offering feedback on the show as it takes shape and filling out the cast of the show-within-the-show in support (as the number Secondary Characters attests).

The score is as amiable as the rest of the show is, studded with arcane bits of show biz lore and references to obscure musicals that aim to amuse theater geeks. If, for instance, you know the show Oh, Brother! or any of the dozens of titles crammed into the number Monkeys and Playbills, you are likely to get a kick out of [title of show].

Beverly Blanchette, recently retired dean of theater at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, stages the show simply, but with knowing attention to details. Showtime is chiefly geared to training and showcasing youngsters, but if it can find unconventional material like this that can fit in its intimate space without many production requirements, the company could become a regular part of the area’s professional theater community.

[title of show], Showtime Performing Arts Theatre, 503 S.E. Mizner Blvd., Suite 73, Boca Raton. Through Sunday, Dec. 16. Tickets: $22. Call: (561) 394-2626.