Smokey Joe’s Café
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Smokey Joe’s Café
By Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Directed and Choreographed by Brian T. Vernon
UCF Conservatory Theatre, Orlando FL
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p class=”MsoNormal”>Way back when, the music industry discovered the Cute Boy Band and Sexy Girl Group models, and they never abandoned it. Locked in a backroom were dynamic writers like Leiber and Stoller, pumping out hit material just like Exxon ships Super Unleaded across America. They wrote an unending string of hits and near hits for Elvis, Peggy Lee, The Coaster and every other period group you see on late night TV CD ads.
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p class=”MsoNormal”>Smokey Joe’s pulls out forty of these chestnuts for a blow out revue by a dozen of this year’s top UCF student singers and dancers. There’s no story here, but the material is grouped thematically with the conclusion of one song signaling the beginning of the next. “Fools Fall in Love” (Pascha Weaver) is bracket by two songs about fools falling in love (“Love Me Don’t”, “Poison Ivy”). The slightly depressing down on your luck “On Broadway” introduces the alcoholic (Terry Alfaro) who stars as “D. W. Washburn” and leads into the first act wrapper, a big street corner gospel number called “Saved.” The whole company jumps on poor old D. W., yanking him out of a comfy addiction and pumping some Jesus juice into him. It’s redemption by pop music.
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p class=”MsoNormal”>When there’s no direct connectivity, Kerri Alexander appears in a tight red dress and boa that looks like a giant wooly bear caterpillar and sings some torch songs like “Don Juan” or “Fools Fall In Love”. Most of these numbers were very successful, only Alfaro seemed to get out of control with some of the higher registers in “I (Who Have Nothing)”. A. C. Sanford stole the show with his high stepping dancing-on-one-leg minstrel style, even if only got to sing the humiliating “You’re the Boss.” Vernon’s choreography was clever and energetic, and it challenged the casts dancing skills. No one ever missed a move, but they weren’t a tightly synced as we remember the Supremes and the Ronnettes.
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p class=”MsoNormal”>The blue eyed soul sound of half a century ago has found it’s equilibrium in the canons of classical music. Part pop, part show tune, and part the melodic basis for an orchestral ensemble, Leiber and Stoller deserve that rarified adjective – “Timeless”.
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p class=”MsoNormal”> For more information on UCF Conservatory Theatre, visit http://www.theatre.ucf.edu