Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” width=“540” height=“270” />
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was given a three-day reprise at The Granada last week, bringing a bit of nostalgia to a crowd made up mostly of golden-agers and kids.
The show is a bright, rather jolly retelling of the biblical tale of Joseph and his coat of many colors, first offered by the then-nascent team of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice as a short cantata at an English school in 1968. This was before the team’s astounding successes with Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Phantom of the Opera. It has been a movie (1999, starring Donny Osmond) and has played at PCPA in Solvang’s outdoor venue.
The Granada show was a production of Theater League, a nonprofit company that brings Broadway shows and plays to community theaters. It brought back fond memories of the defunct and much-missed Civic Light Opera productions at the old Granada.
Webber has been a hit-making machine from the beginning, and Joseph is a reminder of why. The music is catchy, upbeat, with tunes like “Any Dream Will Do.” Webber has worked with a number of lyricists, but his most popular shows have been with Rice.
This version had a solid cast, good pacing and minimal but adequate production values. The Children’s Choir was recruited from Showstoppers Theatre Productions of Santa Barbara, directed by Radu Azdril, and the kids added a bright touch to the proceedings.
The children’s cast included Kate Allison, Sophia Bordofsky, Zach Bordofsky, Kendall Christensen, Kelly Colee, Sommer Fox, Jenny Gonzales, Sydney Hess, Ashley O’Brien, Emma Scigliano, Megan Sonsini, Aria Wiedmann, Siena Wiedmann, Samantha Wiener, Emma York and Paul Zink. Kristen Andersen, Max Avila, Aubrey Cazabat, Kelley Sener and Megan Zink assisted with vocal and staging instruction.
Ross Lekites was a full-voiced Joseph, handsome and commanding in his last-act revelation to his brothers and father. Hallie Metcalf was sensational as “Mrs. Potiphar” (that would be Potiphar’s wife of Bible infamy). Tony Edgerton was a hoot as Pharoah, who transmogrified into a hunka-hunka burnin’ Elvis Presley.
A word about the young woman who performed as narrator: Tricia Tanguay has good acting skills and a nice voice. However, whenever she really cut loose and belted out one of her lines, her diction went south and the words were unintelligible.
The piece was directed and choreographed by Vince Pesce, with some really spot-on results involving Joseph’s brothers. This motley crew tore up the stage in the second act, when the siblings wound up in Egypt begging for Joseph’s help. Webber managed to shoehorn in a calypso number, complete with frayed straw hats, and it was hilarious.
The ladies of the ensemble were fewer, but unvaryingly top of the line. Along with Metcalf, they included Jennifer Cordiner, Jen Jenkins and Melinda Vaggione.
If it’s possible to have witty costumes (and it is), the show had plenty: funny-funky biblical attire from your Sunday school primer, slinky “Egyptian” garments and headdresses, a lop-legged stuffed camel and cute little donkey. Lou Bird did the honors here.
Theater League will bring Mamma Mia to the Granada on March 31 for a short run. Considering the immense popularity of that show, it will probably prove as successful as Joseph.
It was heartening to hear the cheers at the end of Joseph and to know that local audiences will still turn out for restagings of popular Broadway shows. PCPA, with its summer season in Solvang and Santa Maria, probably doesn’t need to worry, but these touring shows add a nice alternative.
Margo Kline covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.