One of the things my wife introduced me to when we were dating was the magic of the Ella Fitzgerald songbooks, including the four album set of Gershwin tunes. At around that time, I played for a production of Crazy For You, probably the best-known of the modern Gershwin musicals. You can read about a more recent Stars Theatre production here.
Nice Work if You Can Get It is both a new musical and an old one. Written by Joe DiPietro and premiered in 2012, it adapts plot material from Oh, Kay!, a 1926 musical with music by the Gershwins and book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. The only song that carried over to the new version is the delicious “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
The plot to this one is beyond silly, which is probably to be expected. That was kind of the point of the original, a spoof of Prohibition and so on. So, this one too involves a romance between a female bootlegger and a rich playboy, with gangsters, cops, temperance gals, and crooked politicians. And plenty of song and dance.
“Nice Work if You Can Get It” is one of the best Gershwin songs ever - in fact, it was one of “our” songs when we were dating. Amanda is partial to the Michael Feinstein version. So of course, this song is in the musical, along with an interesting selection of others, some familiar (“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”) and some less so (“Sweet and Lowdown.”)
The best part of this production was the cast. Okay, so the live band was great too, and the score uses other Gershwin music, from the Piano Concerto to Rhapsody in Blue. The casting, though, was great. For the central couple, Stars went with Tessa Ogles and Nick Ono - who have turned into Bakersfield’s go-to cute couple on stage. It is undeniable that they have great chemistry, and over time, their singing, acting, and dancing skills have just gotten better and better.
Special call out to Eric Lempinen for his work as the gangster-turned-butler Cookie McGee, and Nichole Heasley as the ditzy and sex-adverse Eileen Evergreen. And in general, great job by the cast, which was vocally solid and put on a good dance show.
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