Across a Crowded Room, Part Deux (10/1/18)

A reminder, these twenty-minute musicals were written as part of a summer writing workshop sponsored by the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts. The participants grouped up ‘across a crowded room’ and then bent to the task of preparing said twenty-minute musicals. Four were presented on Monday evening.

Handsome Weeping Boy had our heroine bemoaning the fact that her boyfriend/fiancé never cried—even while watching Marley & Me! (a reference lost on me for most of the piece). She hires the title character, who indeed gets the fiancé to break down into sobs (his dad/coach pulled him from the championship Little League game many years ago—I’m not making this up, you know). The music was OK but I didn’t go out the door humming any of it.

Descending had a v-e-r-y lengthy opening with lots of dialogue. Was this a musical? We finally got to a ‘Who Am I?’ song. Literally. One sister got her other sister a DNA kit as a birthday gift. Instead of a pity party, the birthday girl had a spitty party. I’m not … oh, never mind. In a rather awkward scene, the DNA girl’s ex-fiancé asked for his engagement ring back (it was his grandmother’s antique, and he needs it for a new fiancé). I’m not … The music didn’t make a huge impression. Oh, the girl and her sister turn out to be only half-sisters but that doesn’t matter because they’re really sisters in spirit. I’m …

At the Feet of the Master dealt with the situation of a cult—“You’ll find illumination, for a small donation.” There was once again a ‘Who Am I’ song, this one that I actually liked. As you can see, most of my comments have been about plot. That’s because for this iteration there was much more dialogue than music which was a slight problem for me.

Grand Larceny had three gals essentially doing the same thing—trying to put something over on at least one of the others. It was an interesting concept that needs a little more work. At one point, each of the three sang stuff that was similar to (or exactly the same as) the music of the others. While an interesting concept, it was a little confusing.

Over all, I didn’t like these four musicals as much as I liked any one of the four from the earlier September series. I look forward though, I think, to future iterations. Hey, it was free!

ConcertMeister