Bret Simmons & David Howard
The Composer Lyricist Cabaret
The Phoenix Theatre Company, Phoenix, AZ, April 23, 2023
Reviewed by Lynn Timmons Edwards
In order to participate in The Phoenix Theatre Company’s Festival of New American Works, now celebrating its 25th season, each composer/lyricist must submit two songs, which will be listened to by a 15-member panel. The talented team of Bret Simmons and David Howard were two of the songwriters chosen this year, along with Britt Bonney (whom I reviewed separately). Lyricist and cabaret emcee Howard was asked whether he considered Phoenix “off Broadway.” His reply was to compliment the cast of Tucker Abney, Matravius Avent, Gina Guarino, and Grace Rogers, calling them “singers at the top of their game, worthy of any stage in New York.” I agree.
Pianist/composer Simmons and Howard live at opposite ends of Los Angeles and have been working together for more than 20 years. It was probably not easy for them to choose 12 songs from their vast repertoire, but they created an entertaining 45 minutes of material from six of their musicals. “Hay Fever” is the title song of their musical adaptation of Noël Coward’s play of the same name. The cast jumped right in with full choral harmony and embodied the comedic styling of Coward’s characters. First Gentleman, is a musical comedy about the fictional redneck husband of POTUS who delights in his newfound “Power.” Baritone Avent as his drinking buddy and tenor Abney as the First Gentleman nailed the amusing duet. Avent then took on the lead role as the first son’s dad in an even funnier “Everybody.” The lyrics included references to contemporary political figures, including Harvey Weinstein and Anthony Weiner, and described how everyone screws up now and then. Avent is a PTC veteran who has taken on many roles with aplomb. To our surprise, Abney is an ASU senior philosophy major last seen in the 2022 Composer Lyricist cabaret.
Guarino is a transplant from the theater and cabaret stages of Chicago making her PTC debut. What a talent! She has a unique look that works for her, and she showed her powerful vocal range in “Where Will I Sleep Tonight?” from Falling for Eve. She clearly has acting chops to go along with her superb voice as he captured the character’s angst and conflict. Howard described the musical as a “what if” story where only Eve eats the apple in the Garden of Eden. The other number from the show, “Just Beyond Where the World Ends,” takes place years later and includes commentary from both a male and a female God, played by Abney and Rogers, who realize that Eve is surviving her banishment, perhaps for the better. Guarino gave me goose bumps when her character saw the ocean for the first time and started to believe the cliché that when one door closes another one opens.
We heard one song from Changing Minds, “Download My Love.” Abney and Rogers play computer geeks in lust, along with their flash drives that flash and their laptops that won’t sleep. It garnered plenty of laughter.
Simmons and Howard’s proudest achievement to date is The Importance of Being Ernest—A Wilde New Musical, adapted from the Oscar Wilde classic (not to be confused with the musical version of that classic that ran in the West End in the 1980s). The writing duo agreed that the play was born to be a musical. Torrance Theatre Company produced it in 2021, and it is under consideration for a production at the Phoenix Theatre Company next season. The four singers jumped into the period characters and four-part harmony, giving us the plot’s exposition with “The Bag, the Book and the Baby.” “Bunburrying” gave Avent and Abney the chance to harmonize and to take delight in their made-up stories that provided them with their escape into town. Rogers, a musical-theater student at ASU, can look forward to years of playing ingenues, and she was perfect as Gwendolen Fairfax in the romantic ballad “Swept Away.” “All Alone” was played for musical farce, and Guarino was particularly funny with her period voice and facial expressions.
We learned in the discussion following the cabaret that Howard had written a spec script 25 years ago for DreamWorks that eventually became Galaxy Quest, the 1999 sci-fi comedy film. The rights to the script were returned to him by inheritance, and Galaxy Quest—A Musical was born. Avent and Rogers traded lyrics that included the words “exotic, hypnotic, erotic” as the ETs fell in love. The cabaret finished with a snappy, upbeat “Never Give Up” that left us awestruck at the talent before us.
The Phoenix Theatre Company, under the artistic direction of Michael Barnard and Festival director Michelle Chin, can take a bow for the successful three weeks of the 2023 Festival of New American Theatre.
