Naughty/Nice, the musical comedy revue featuring four adult performers playing a multitude of twisted and desperate children writing letters to Santa Claus, begins its licensing life Dec. 9 when Perrysburg Musical Theatre produces the show for one night only. The revue is available from publisher Steele Spring Stage Rights in 90- and 60-minute versions. The Ohio-based company will present the hourlong version — perfect for concert, cabaret and benefit performances.
“We’ve gotten a lot of inquiries about the 60-minute version from producers interested in fashioning a holiday-themed evening perfect for a cabaret or special benefit that attracts a slightly more adventurous crowd that’s hungry for wicked, offbeat, Forbidden Broadway-style fare,” said lyricist and co-writer Kenneth Jones, who penned the show with composer and co-writer Gerald Stockstill.
Elizabeth Cottle directs the Ohio production, with musical direction by Logan Maccariella. The PMT cast features Pam Williams, Jess Mullins, Craig Cousino and Chuck Kiskaddon. The tech director/scenic designer is Jeremy Allen. Julie Bermudez is the PMT artistic director. Jordan Benavente is PMT board liaison. Learn more about Perrysburg Musical Theatre at its website.
Casting for both versions Naughty/Nice — a piano-and-voice musical — can be adjusted to accommodate a larger ensemble beyond four people. Perusal copies are available through the publisher. The title was among 25 new properties unveiled in fall 2015 at stagerights.com.
“We’re always on the lookout for fresh and exciting new work, and Naughty/Nice certainly fits the bill,” said Roger Bean, president of Los Angeles-based Steele Spring Stage Rights. “A fun concept, great music, wonderful lyrics all add up to a nice package that we feel will fill some holiday seats in theatres around the country. We are thrilled to have Ken and Gerry’s show join our licensing family.”
Hear songs from Naughty/Nice on the show’s website.
Lyricist Jones and composer Stockstill, who conceived and wrote the show, met in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. In 2010 they received the Dottie Burman Award for excellence in songwriting from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC). Naughty/Nice was a membership-recommended semi-finalist in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals.
The creators view Naughty/Nice as perfect for “downtown” commercial venues or “second stage” spaces at resident theatres, and/or as counter-programming to more traditional fare like A Christmas Carol. In addition to it being perfect for a November-to-January programming slot, the show is viable as an off-season summer specialty, presented with a “Christmas-in-July” marketing twist.
Mixing the heart of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with the salty postmodern comedy of The Santaland Diaries, Avenue Q and Spelling Bee, the darkly comic Naughty/Nice was seen in Manhattan concert stagings at the Players Theatre, Ars Nova and TACT Studio, when the writers partnered with ASTEP/Artists Striving to End Poverty and its founder, music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell. In many ways, the show was designed as an affectionate throwback to the Greenwich Village musical revues of the 1950s and 1960s, when a piano and a brick wall and spare costumes and props were all that you needed to support material that was tuneful, satiric and sharply funny.
Here’s what Jones said about the show’s history in an earlier posting on his website: “A couple of years ago I pitched a simple idea to Gerry: A revue of songs featuring broken kids writing twisted letters to Santa Claus, with four adult actors playing the children. Piano and voice. Simple set. Lyrics by me, music by Gerry. It would be comic, dark and tuneful, with a large dollop of pastiche — a lullaby, a tap specialty, a bossa nova tune, a Kurt Weill tribute, a brassy diva number and more — plus a continuous thread of our own songwriting style (melodic and sincere) stitching it together. Free of the constraints of a book or conventional ‘story,’ Gerry and I drew on skills that we had already sharpened in the BMI Workshop. That is, each song would tell a complete story — beginning, middle and end, with specificity of character evident throughout.”
Chita Rivera, flanked by Jones and Stockstill, with (L-R) George Salazar, Alexandra Frohlinger, Stehen Nachamie and Eric Michael Krop, at the Dec. 3, 2013, Caroline’s performance of “Naughty/Nice.”
In 2013, Naughty/Nice was presented in a sold-out concert at Caroline’s On Broadway. Directed by Stephen Nachamie, that presentation — produced by Producer Circle Company as a benefit the New York Center for Children — featured Alexandra Frohlinger, Timatha Kasten, Eric Michael Krop and George Salazar (as the core foursome), with Emily Bindiger, Dennis Deal, Carolee Goodgold and Jim Vincent as guest carolers. David Gardos was musical director.
At that performance, Chita Rivera led a standing ovation following the premiere of a song called “The Shadow of Corcovado,” about an at-risk kid asking Santa for help with a medical issue.
In recent seasons Broadway orchestrator, arranger and music supervisor Lynne Shankel (Allegiance, Altar Boyz) invited one of the show’s songs (“Wish for a Daddy”) to be performed (by Sally Wilfert) in the starry annual New York City Christmas concert, first at the now-gone Zipper Theatre in midtown and subsequently at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater.
Sally Wilfert belts out “Wish for a Daddy” at a past Joe’s Pub presentation of the concert “New York City Christmas.”
Shankel’s frisky arrangement and Wilfert’s vivacious performance are captured on the studio concert-cast album on the Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records label. Listen to Sally and Lynne’s version here. Proceeds from the concerts and the album go to the not-for-profit ASTEP, which “connects performing and visual artists with underserved youth in the U.S. and around the world to awaken their imaginations, foster critical thinking, and help them break the cycle of poverty.”
Read more about the flavor and history of Naughty/Nice here.
Jones and Stockstill are currently working on a new musical. Jones’ play Alabama Story had five regional productions in 2016 following its 2015 world premiere by Pioneer Theatre Company. His new play Two Henrys had enjoyed development by Pioneer and Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, CA. Stockstill is a songwriter, arranger, performer and musical director whose musicals include Too Good to Be True (with lyricist Amy Coady) and Food, the musical (with Donna Kaz). Together, Jones and Stockstill penned the title track of Maxine Linehan’s Petula Clark tribute album, “What Would Petula Do?”
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The authors are grateful to the many performers who took on roles in the many concert versions of our epistolary musical designed for two men and two women, especially Chris Hoch, Cindy Marchionda, Jason Ma and Sally Wilfert, as well as the tireless Mary-Mitchell Campbell.
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Steele Spring Stage Rights is one of the foremost independent theatrical publishers in the United States, providing stage performance rights for a wide range of plays and musicals to theater companies across the country and internationally. Founded in 2000 and based in Los Angeles, Stage Rights’ guiding principle as a licensing agent is to combine high-quality rehearsal materials with top-notch customer service in an ongoing effort to provide each producer with the tools they need for financial and artistic success. Stage Rights maintains a dedication to the future of live theatre through their special programs that champion new theatrical works.
