Loose Leaf Notes

~The Following was published in The Floyd Press on June 4, 2009.

What do you get when you mix a talentless pop band, four teeny bopper fans, a little sister who gives a mean evil eye, an older one who is a blatant hippie, a greedy producer with a Cojo-like wardrobe, a road manager with latent talent that comes to light, a ticket scalper who wears a kilt, and an uptight investigative reporter?

With inventive costumes, creative set designs, and quick change artists reminiscent of the Saturday Night Live cast members, the Young Actors Coop (YAC) presented three packed performances of their latest play MEN2B on a recent weekend.

Directed by Rose McCutchan and written by Haden Polseno-Hensley, the play retained a comedic thread throughout, but there was also drama as the boy band being hyped as the next Beatles were exposed as fakes by investigative reporter Connie Carrington (Bedelia Burris-McGrath). The boys’ British accents were entertaining but phony. They didn’t really play instruments, and they had a Milli Vanilli secret, Carrington eventually revealed.

In the end, the teeny boppers – whose adventures the audience followed as they navigated their way to a concert – prevailed. Because of the catchy pop song Middle School Dance, written by Adam Parks, most in the play (and in the audience) were converted to MEN2B fans, even though the band lip synced the song.

The play included some spoofs on authoritarian parents, overly busy distracted parents, and ones that don’t talk to each other. A bus scene, featuring bizarre riders who played against the four naïve girl fans, was almost a play within a play, or at least a possible Twilight Zone episode. The scene provided a chance to spotlight the talents of two gothic hipsters, Jelly and PB (played by Coriander Woodruff and Emerson Perry), who spoke a street-wise Shakespearean lingo and ended up helping the girls.

A bag boy played by the youngest YAC member, 7 year old Arlo Gilbert-Tanner, won the audience over with a tantrum in the spirit of Harpo Marx. A tough talking bus driver, a group of protesters, a newscaster named Patrick McNaughtnews (Abraham Cherrix) and his sidekick, and a ballet teacher from France rounded out MEN2B’s cast of characters.

In the final concert encore scene, the boy band owns up to their fakery. Joined by their road manager onstage, they are transformed into MEN@last. Their costumes, sewed by YAC parent Sue Osborne and inspired by the cartoon Beatles on the Yellow Submarine album cover, helped set a celebratory atmosphere as the band broke out singing ‘we all live in a yellow submarine’ and the actors and audience sang along.
As YAC’s first full feature play, with 13 scenes and 37 characters played by 19 actors, MEN2B might be the group’s most ambitious production to date. And they pulled it off. ~ Colleen Redman
Photos and Video Clips: 1. MEN2B boy band fans in one of the girl’s bedroom scheme plans to take a bus to the band’s concert. Actors from left to right are Bethlehem Cherrix, Jessica Spangler, Avery Foster, and Vivianna Lynch. VIDEO HERE. 2. Hannah Mitchell and Abraham Cherrix play the worried parents of college girl Marcia (Bedelia Burris-McGrath) and her teeny bop sister Melissa (Avery Foster) in a scene that involves fast paced back-to-back cell phone conversations. 3. Jelly and PB. VIDEO HERE.
4. MEN2B road manager Miles Martin sets a thoughtful mood with the singing of Eleanor Rigby after discovering that the band is a fake. Miles, played by Mars Woddail, is accompanied by Floyd Music School students, and a student of Bernie Coveney, on violins and guitar. 5. Reporter Connie Carrington (Bedelia Burris-McGrath) questions ticket scalper (Cameron Woodruff) as protesters look on. 6. MEN2B, played by Cameron Woodruff, Elias Sarver-Wolf, Emerson Perry, and Ian Gammarino, sing Middle School Dance. VIDEO HERE. 7. MEN2B, transformed into MEN@last, sing Yellow Submarine. VIDEO with cast line HERE.