Everybody’s got to be somewhere! Don’t vanish out of thin air— when you can be where it’s all happening. City of Angels, a rarely produced, quirky, diamond in the rough, style musical that nods to the meta notion of play-within-a-play as well as the golden, glimmering era of Hollywood in the 40’s, is now appearing at the New Spire Arts Stages for one weekend only with Landless Theatre Company. Known for their production of obscure works and putting their own unique spin on popular theatre, Landless endeavors to provide a few hours’ stage entertainment with this delightfully odd, questionably whimsical noir-esque musical fairytale of a different color. And by golly, it’s swell!
When asked by a dear friend to explain the premise of the show— even after seeing it— I’m not sure that I can! So it will be a theatrical adventure of discovery, which I assure you is one worth taking! City of Angels, with music, book, and lyrics by Cy Coleman, Larry Gelbart, and David Zippel, respectively, is a madcap send-up to novella-film noir, the golden glitz of Hollywood, and meta conceptualization that will leave you chuckling whilst simultaneously scratching your head. It’s tongue in cheek, loaded with innuendo, brassy, sassy, not-the-least-bit-classy and all-around fun. Co-directed by Andrew Lloyd Baughman and Tori Weaver, with Musical Direction by Baughman and the AngelCity4’s Vocal Direction by Lisa Dodson, this cheeky little ditty of a show will give you a nice hearty chuckle, some delightful tunes, and a good few questions by its conclusion, not the least of which is, “what in tarnation did I just watch and why did I like it so much?”
The scenery is simple, co-directors Tori Weaver and Andrew Lloyd Baughman utilize a few ordinary blocks to create a multi-owner bed, with the clever flip of a bedsheet to delineate whose bedroom we’re in, a desk with a typewriter, a medical gurney, and the gracious scrim which doubles up not only as shadow play for some of the more ka-pow graphic moments of violence but also serves as a projection surface for the black and white, noir-esque scenery shifts like from the morgue to PI Stone’s apartment. (Baughman is hard at work on lights and sound design as well— those gun-shots were pretty effective sounding!) The basic staging and setup encourages the audience to engage their imaginations with the bygone era of Hollywood’s golden glam and effectively keeps the scenic transitions moving swiftly. It also drastically reduces the spatial complications of playing on the flat-open black-box staging space of the New Spire Arts facility.
Praises to the properties department— Melissa Baughman and Amanda Williams (who also serves as the show’s stage manager) for the silver guns, the ‘paper trail’, which is an intrinsic part of all detective-noir style experiences, and most importantly— the iron lung. That thing (though deceptively simple once you watch it strap and unstrap from the gurney bed) has this wildly futuristic science-fiction look about it and it just ups the camp-level of the overall production experience. Costumes (Ginger Ager, Gene’s Costumes) help definitely settle the audience in the show’s timeframe. That alluring white getup for Alaura is just the bees knees and you get a lot of pinstripes featured throughout. The pincurl and finger-wave wigs are delightful on the women and the overall use of black and red— not unlike Sin City— is a nice touch that really ties the show’s aesthetic together in a sordid fashion most becoming of the show’s overall verve.
Musically, one can see Cy Coleman is no Stephen Sondheim; it’s got problematic style-shifts and nuanced complexities that are just outright intimidating. Which is a conundrum because David Zippel’s lyrics are so cheeky, catchy, smart and clever; they’re zippy and refreshing, loaded with innuendo, puns, and double entendre. (Using tracks, which is becoming more and more the standard practice for smaller theatres, doesn’t hamper the production in this case but boy oh boy wouldn’t it be swell to hear some of these talented singing birds being backed by even a four-part brass and reeds section? Or at least a very lively keyboardist with sound-effects programmed into their ivories.)
Lisa Dodson is a musical angel, bringing the Angel City Quartet together so sublimely. As one of the four featured quartet angels herself (alongside Ryan Kieft, Tori Weaver, and Dominic Massimino), Dodson brings those complex quarto-harmonies into perfect balance, particularly when they’re scat-doowopping their way with vocal sounds all through “Prologue.” Add in honest-engine lyrics, like they do for “Everybody’s Got to Be Somewhere” and you’re in for an aural treat that is just sweeter than a honey-soaked bread pudding. Each of the quartet— in addition to appearing at the ‘microphone’ when they appear as the ‘Angel City Four’— plays multiple ensemble roles throughout the performance and some of them are just too wow-for-words! This is particularly true of Ryan Kieft’s Peter, the son who seems just a little too into his step mother, and Weaver, who plays Mallory-the-Missing. Her song, “Lost and Found” is a perfect display of Weaver’s sensual, saucy vocal prowess, in addition to being a fun and flirty number that just really amps up the energy of the first act. Dominic Massimino, as Lt. Munoz also gives the audience a delightful vocal parade during “All You Have to do is Wait” and his slick-curled mustache is an absolute visual masterpiece!
If you’re looking for cameo cad hysterical antics, Ally Jenkins is your ticket. Showing up first as Sonny, one of the big-talking, pinstripe-wearing, meat-hooking thugs (alongside Christopher S. Holden as ‘BigSix’), Jenkins gets a firm handle on that gangster-style talk when delivering lines as Sonny. Appearing later at Buddy’s brunch, you see Jenkins as this awkwardly hilarious music-man— Del (Dale?) and the comedic cheap-shots made from behind that ‘piano’ are insane and enjoyable. Jamie Steinman also pops up as the fictitious crooner icon “Jimmy Powers” and lays it on thick for numbers like “Look Out For Yourself.” Steinman is burbling at a delicate simmer on the scale of ‘zero to sleazeball extraordinaire’, and as the whole show is chock-a-block with seedy, derelict characters who are essentially up to no good at the best of times, that puts Jimmy Powers on the milder end of the scale.
With the nature of theatre— anything can happen. And when the show must go on, if one of your principal performers comes down with something akin to ‘a sinus that’s really a pip’ aka a bad, bad cold? You find another actress who maybe did the role a decade ago at a different theatre company and see what she’s up to on a Friday night. Luckily for Landless Theatre Company, Jessica Billones, happened to be free and also happened to have somewhat of an impeccable memory. Script in hand (for reassurance purposes because you’d hardly think she needed it the way she delivered her lines and songs with striking accuracy and meticulously metered patois and cadence, almost exactly the way most of the rest of the cast did) Billones stepped into the dual role of Donna/Oolie at the eleventh hour (she was called at 4:30pm and went in three and a half hours later) and she was beyond serviceable, particularly when it came to her big number “You Can Always Count On Me.” That number in particular was quite humorous and with the hint of deadpan-disaster that Billones was imbuing into her singing voice, the audience was able to really enjoy the edgy, dry wit that accompanies the lyrics of that number. A regular ‘Girl Friday’, Billones was a real life-saver for the production on their opening night.
A lack of microphones (though the tracks were balanced, it would have just been nicer to have the performers picked up more fully when they were singing) and some script-based strangeness aside, the only thing that really stood out from a ‘hmm’ standpoint was the modernity of Andrew Baughman in the role of Stone. Ironically enough, his pre-recorded voiceovers sounded exactly like those voiceovers one would hear in things like The Maltese Falcon or Dick Tracy or any iteration of Dragnet (yes that’s a bunch of different referential decades of entertainment there, but the styles are all the same.) But when it came to delivering lines on stage in the moment, Baughman sounded particularly modern, which was only noticeable because the rest of the cast really mastered that 1940’s delivery cadence, patois, and affectation. When he was facing off with Stine (Stephen M. Deininger), there was a real charged energy between the pair; vocally they’re both quite impressive and brought the gravitas, despite the pluckiness of the number, to “You’re Nothing Without Me.”
There were a couple of missed opportunities for an explosive chemistry build-up with Stone, both between him and the Alaura character and him and the Bonni character. That number, “With Every Breath I Take” could have had more intimate and intense staging to really drive home both the intensity of the lyrics and the campiness of the overall show. City of Angels seems to teeter atop a fence, swaying between being a true-spoof-musical and an earnest dark and gritty thing and this production feels like it’s wavering atop that same fence rather than leaning in one direction or the other with any intense convictions. When Alaura (Jen Ayers Drake) and Stone (Andrew Lloyd Baughman) have their sinful little tête-à-tête during “The Tennis Song” you keep anticipating the build-up, that just falls a little shy of reaching its zenith. Same too with “With Every Breath I Take” where Baughman is dueting almost apart with Bobbi (Stefanie Garcia.) That’s not to say that Baughman isn’t holding his own— he is— it’s just perhaps the strain of being but one man, trying to play a lead, co-direct, do sound, lights, and other production duties all at once that puts him a half-step behind where the character and the libretto want him to be. His voice is impressive, vigorous and strong, particularly for his half of “You’re Nothing Without Me.”
Doubling up as Gabby and Bobbi, Stefanie Garcia knows how to play the cool-blooded, wild-hearted vixen, as well as the exasperated wife, and she does an extraordinary job of differentiating whilst simultaneously reminding us that one is not so different from the other. Her patter and perfect articulation during “It Needs Work” is delightful and really allows you to snicker at the cleverness of Zippel’s excellent lyrics. Vocally versatile, she smolders in “With Every Breath I Take”, the solo-rendition as a ‘Blue Note’ singer early in the first act. And her duet with Oolie for “What You Don’t Know About Women” is just a radiant gem that showcases her singing and acting skillset divinely.
We mentioned Ryan Kieft as Peter, the stepson, and Tori Weaver as saucy, sexy Mallory the stepdaughter (both who appear as a part of the Angel City Four), but we haven’t really touched on Jen Ayers Drake as Alaura. Of the cast, she’s the most on-point— and that’s saying something because they’re all pretty well-versed in this 1940’s speak— with her vocal cadence, patois, and overall delivery of her speaking like a doll from the 1940’s. Drake carries these characteristics through into her singing voice as well as into her character’s physicality. There’s just something about her that screams ‘timewalker’ as if she truly were pulled out the glimmering silver screen from not-quite-100-years-ago and dropped down on the stage in the middle of this production of City of Angels. Duplicitous and daring, you’ll find one of the wildest rides in this production to be in Drake’s shallow, shallow character arc.
The oddness of ‘show-in-a-show’ is not an unknown quantity for stage drama, though in this case, Larry Gelbert’s libretto certainly does have you puzzling over which moments might be happening inside the writer’s head or what’s actually happening in the writer’s real life…or maybe this is Inception and the whole thing is one big fantastical dreamscape that’s oozing out of Stine’s consciousness. Six of one, half a dozen the other, Stephen M. Deininger as Stine is superb. You got vivacious bombacity from Deininger when his character finally seizes the moment to have a spine and stand up for his work, juxtaposed against the mousy, almost meager existence of a writer kowtowing to the ‘Hollywood process.’ What’s wild is the fact that Deininger’s character is only a shade less unscrupulous and horrid than the Buddy Fidler character; the difference is Buddy Fidler is pompous, obnoxious, and overt about being a jackass, whereas Deininger’s Stine is more subtle in his expressions of tomfoolery in the vein of being a jackass. You got vocally bombarded with powerhouse sounds from Deininger during “Funny”, which is anything but its eponymous sentiment. That number is raw and visceral on an unsettling level and Deininger makes you feel it. He’s also a vocal voice to be reckoned with going up against Andrew Lloyd Baughman during “You’re Nothing Without Me.”
Class-clown, jackanapes, damn cringy-creep, entitled, self-aggrandizing, Hollywood scum producer Buddy Fidler is a piece of work, to put it politely. Matt Baughman— who takes up this role, the in-story role of Irwin S. Irving, and Dr. Mandril— is hands down a comic crackup who is overacting the hell out of these parts to the point of earning him a permanent place in the madcap theatre hall of fame. (And if there isn’t such a place, he’ll be launching it as the inaugural member.) While Baughman is one of the performers who would have benefited tremendously from being body-mic’d, his overzealous enthusiasm makes up for any shortcomings in his vocal projection. He wholly embodies the revolting sleazeball that is Buddy Fidler, right down to laughing at his own jokes with impeccable comic timing. There are truly no words, only laughing, for his portrayal of Dr. Mandril, particularly when he has to quick-change in and out of that character, and his overall stage presence demands attention. The level of unrepentant self-entitlement rolling in tsunami force waves out of the character is delivered with practiced excellence from Baughman and it makes you really long to hate his smarmy, smug, self-satisfied characterization. “Double Talk” and “The Buddy System” are two of his featured numbers and his cadence for those is sublime.
The ending is definitely one that makes you pause, scratch your head, try to rewind it in your mind’s eye, and then do a double-take, but that’s somewhat of a mirror of real life right now. It’s a raucous romp through a bygone era with lots of off-kilter humor, excellent talent on the stage, and a rare opportunity to see a show that’s hardly ever produced. 100% worth attending, investigating, and enjoying, even if at the end of it you have no idea what exactly it was you just witnessed and absorbed. There are absolutely moments of Landless Theatre Company’s City of Angels that will live rent-free in your head for an indeterminate amount of indefinity. Check them out— they play through the end of this weekend!
Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission
City of Angels plays through March 16th 2025 with Landless Theatre Company currently at New Spire Arts Stages— 15 W. Patrick Street in downtown historic Frederick, MD. Tickets are available at the door or for purchase in advance online.
