Want to know where to find "11 studly men strutting around" in white and black striped baseball uniforms? Here's the answer: the Student Activities Building.
"Damn Yankees" is this semester's offering from the First Year Players, an entirely student-run organization that serves as the University's main dramatic outlet for first-year students. The Tony-award winning musical comedy runs November 9-12 at the SAB.
Full of vim and vigor, the show is based on the novel by Douglass Wallup. Named Best Musical in 1955, the musical is a 14-song, 2-act period of sheer entertainment. Included in FYP's production of "Yankees": singing and dancing, baseball players, an orchestra, the devil and a bevy of talent. What more can you ask for?
The musical follows middle-aged Joe Boyd (played by Logan Byers) as he makes a deal with the devil (in the form of the elusive, diabolical "Mr. Applegate," played by Ben Bolling) to become the greatest ball player of all time.
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Boyd trades his soul for the opportunity to become a hotshot player on his favorite team, the Senators. What he wants most in the world is to "lick those damn Yankees!" Applegate transforms Boyd into the 23-year-old Joe Hardy (Colin Whitlow), who then joins the Senators, a pro baseball team worse than the Bad News Bears, to become the best baseball player in history.
"The audition pool this semester was the largest and most exceptional ever for the entirely student-run FYP," Lindsay Palmer, director of "Yankees," said. The chosen cast is without doubt "the cream of the crop."
Whitlow agrees, saying "the experience has been really different for me, especially since the group is so incredibly talented, and the energy level is so high." Along with Whitlow, Byers and Bolling, the cast includes Kelly Ramsey, who plays Boyd's wife; Shane Lisegang, playing Benny van Buren, the Senators' manager; Kristin Calgaro as Gloria, a sportswriter; and Amber Payne as Lola, Applegate's demonic sidekick.
The energy exuded by the cast at Sunday's rehearsal was both kinetic and contagious. The choreography, songs and dialogue all are fun. Listen to the overture and you'll know where the fun comes from: the music. As Leigh Bladergroen, a cast member, explains: "The music is West Side Story-ish, like Grease - it's a lot of fun to sing and dance to. It's cheesy but not in a negative way." "Damn Yankees" is appropriate for all age levels - it has the potential to entertain anyone.
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Driven by the student-run orchestra pit that's heavy on the horns and saxes, most of the musical's 14 songs are swingin' their own hips as the cast members strut their stuff onstage. There's a bit of jazz, a lot of swing, some big band sounds, all of which fit into the classical '50s musical genre with style and tremendous vitality. Some of the more famous songs are "Heart" and "Whatever Lola Wants" (recently featured in a Levi's commercial).
The FYP has a tradition of culling and developing the significant dramatic talents of incoming University students. "Yankees" showcases these talents and provides a great deal of entertainment in the process. My advice: Take yourself out to the ballgame now, before these players become so good that they decide to go major league.
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