Capital Region Performance Gallery

Theatre Review

El Dorado Musical Theatre

Bye Bye Birdie - April 27 - May 6, 2018

Looking to have your spirits lifted? How about just a good time at a great show? You'll get all that at El Dorado Musical Theatre's production of Bye Bye Birdie. EDMT does 4 productions a year, and I wish there were more. In the comfortable, intimate, state-of-the-art Stage 1 at Harris Center, you can count on a musical theatre production that is in every way professional – even though no one on the stage is older than 20 (or older than 18 in the case of this show).

Inspired by Elvis Presley's drafting into the army in 1957, Bye Bye Birdie builds the story of the drafting of a fictional teenage heart-throb, Conrad Birdie. His record company stages a “last kiss” with a fan in the small fictional town of Sweet Apple, Ohio. It's a fast-moving show, featuring wonderful, often familiar music, and full of laughs, with clever dialog and action that brings out the many comic situations.

Topping the cast are two veteran performers, 18-year-old Zach Wilson and 15-year-old Emily Fritz. They play record producer, Albert Peterson, and his assistant, Rose Alvarez, and it's pure joy to see them act, sing and dance. If you haven't seen them perform before, you will be amazed at the talent these two young people bring to the stage.

Perhaps even more amazing is Ty Rhoades, who plays Conrad Birdie. He has the moves and voice – even the aura – of a rock-and-roll star, all made incredible by the fact that he's just 13 years old.

The show is double-cast, and I saw Izzy Weaver in the role of Mae Peterson, Albert's mother. She played the long-suffering, manipulative Jewish mother to perfection – complete with New York accent. Madeline L'Engle as teenage Birdie-worshipper, Ursula Merkle, was another standout to me: she sparkled from the beginning of the show to the end.

But I don't want to slight the rest of the cast. So many had their moment in the spotlight – the great virtue of every EDMT production – and I saw good comic acting, good dancing and good singing from each one. Much as I enjoyed seeing the talent displayed by the older teenagers in the cast, I was fascinated by the actions of the youngest players. As I watched them, I could see their intense concentration on where to stand, how to move, what to say or sing, and I felt I could see them gaining in confidence and carried away in the joy of performing. And I could easily imagine that many of these with will be the leads in will be playing a lead in some production not too many years from now.

You can go to each EDMT show (as I have for many years) and never get the feeling that you’ve seen it all before. It all feels so fresh. Part of that feeling comes from the fact that that the design of each production is so professional. Transition from one scene to another is smooth, and the variety in sets is such that each scene has its distinctive sense of place. This is due to the constantly growing skill of Zach Wilson in producing realistic and evocative projections. And with this production, he’s taken over the role of set designer. So many sets were so well done, but I especially loved the “Church of Ed Sullivan.”

And speaking of Ed Sullivan, Bye Bye Birdie is a bit of a history lesson. What got my attention was when one character proposed to her husband that he “have a nice cup of Postum and go to bed.” Postum was a caffeine-free grain beverage introduced in 1895 as a hot-drink alternative to coffee. I remember it from my childhood, but I haven’t seen it on store shelves for many decades. Amazingly, though, it’s still available (from one store in Sacramento, per the postum.com website.) That led me to find a website that annotates the 1950s pop culture references in Bye Bye Birdie (www.killerowl.com/snooksville/theater/birdieAllusions.html).  There are 22 of them, and if you’re of a certain age, you’ll enjoy seeing how many you can identify as they come up in the dialog.

The Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie opened in 1960, and has since been revived, taken on tour, and turned into theatrical and made-for-TV movies. But this show has something none of its predecessors had: kids playing kids. Adults in the audience will love to see these young people singing “What’s the matter with kids today?” But the true irony is that there’s nothing the matter with these kids: they put on a great show!

Dick Frantzreb is past editor of the Sacramento Choral Calendar and co-founder and past President of the Sacramento Valley Choral Coalition. He currently edits the Placer Performance Calendar and the new Capital Region Performance Gallery.  He has been loving live performances in the greater Sacramento area and writing about them since 2012.