Some years ago, there was a song in a not-very-long-lasting musical, Nick and Nora, called “Everybody Wants to Do a Musical.”  Well, look around New York City – especially with the jam-packed Fringe Festival and NYMF Festival (this one now going on) and  well, it seems to be true.

Even the son of the  composer of the aforementioned show has a musical.  And Dad has a revival of his first big hit.  There’s more than one Strouse in the house.  Musicals, musicals, everywhere.  But while every actor in town seems to be acting, you, the audience must act quickly.  The NYMF Festival just lasts for a few weeks and then the shows are gone.  Maybe.  The goal, of course, is to create interest in a longer life--- maybe finding a producer to get a run for their money.  And, speaking of money, you can see these shows for the more-than-reasonable price of twenty dollars.  And there are even some free developmental readings and events.  See the very audience-friendly site www.NYMF.org for a full schedule of the shows – with descriptions and cast lists and lots of samples of the songs ---and check back there for news of shows that add a performance or more when the original run of just a few dates becomes sold out.  Another reason not to wait to get your tickets---that’s already happening. Of course, there’s sometimes luck in the standby line.

You’ll find musicals that feel traditional, and those that are modern and edgy and wild and crazy.  One look at the titles and you’ll be reminded that it seems they can make a musical about just about anything.

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There’s skill and good ideas and an off-center charm with humanity lurking, in a musical called Whatever Man that doesn’t always make whatever it is trying to do and say, clear and consistent enough.  Leaving an audience wondering can be a good device for awhile, but eventually becomes frustrating.  Benjamin Strouse has written music, lyrics and book for the show, directed by Hilary Adams.  We’re not given quite enough detail about the troubled couple, Charlie and Anna, to know and care enough to root for them rather than just watch them stumble along.  Never seeing them when they were happy and getting along well, we aren’t sure we have reason to want them to live happily ever after.  The tone seems to shift and some confrontations and power plays, oddly entertaining though they are at first, become redundant and claustrophobic. The in-the-flesh, in-your-face combative characters from a fantasy world, end up in a group therapy program with Charlie.  Whether seen as real visitors from beyond, or personifications of good and evil in the world, the going gets sluggish after awhile, where there seems potential for either a light touch or something deeper.  Instead, it’s  claustrophobic and muddy.  But when it works, it works, and there’s no denying that talent shines through.  Underneath all the meandering and almosts, there is integrity and a desire to let the human spirit shine through and beat the odds.  From a performance perspective, there are pluses, with Paolo Montalban intriguing with his characterization of Gary, who is so much more than he seems at first (a sweet, mopey puppy dog of a loner).  His charisma is in ample supply as he lights up the stage with his presence, commitment and exciting singing voice. No additional super powers needed. I would have liked to have seen (and heard) more of Laiona Michelle who shows off a dynamic singing voice in a brief segment early on, and never gets her big  solo moment.  Some of the best humor comes in filmed segments with Anna, Kristin Maloney’s lead character, shown in her professional role  as a reporter, trying not to blink on-camera when a superhero/conqueror type plugs his TV cooking show or movie.  The show comes to full life in some songs and some sparks fly.

Marrying Meg is in the more traditional mold, but there’s nothing mouldy about it.  It’s fresh and alive with energy and craft.  Many of the melodies and lyrics are satisfying in ways that made me want to jump out and shout or sit back and drink them in.  There’s wit and wistfulness and wow.  It even gets a laugh before the show officially begins---during the welcome/ turn off your cell phones speech—as the characters stroll on as the audience is also settling in, customers in a 17th century tavern who are drinking and chatting in the background.  One scruffy-looking fellow suddenly walks downstage quizzically as if discovering this odd man from another world and time invading their space.  And then we’re brought into the story of a man seeking a story.  He himself has come to the border of Scotland from  another kind of place, too:  Elfland, where he captured the romantic interest of their magical queen.  The Scottish are skittish believing this old neighbor is really back and really himself because they’d thought this storyteller had been long dead. It’s a long story. Meanwhile, there’s a story unfolding before his eyes about 22-year-old no-prospects-to-be-marrying Meg (old enough to be an old maid) and a headstrong young man she may or may not fancy and begins to talk to: Willie, who is being held prisoner in the dungeon. Talk about your captive audience! She has the obstacles of an oversized mouth  and getting long in the tooth, too. To add to that (or rather, subtract), she has no dowry. Then, there are her ever-squabbling mother and father.  It may not sound like your average musical, but it is way above average in entertainment value and is very, very satisfying.  With a deep romantic core (great love ballads to melt the heart!) with sassy wit and a splash of goofiness, it is, at its bountiful heart, a traditional and rewarding musical. Standout songs include the male-bashing vent “Menfolk” (led by the spot-on Kathy Fitzgerald as the put-upon wife and marvelously mugging Tory Ross) and the “The Moment o’ Truth” which is an exquisite moment indeed.  This gem is sung by Harris Doran who is spunky and sparring as the down-but-not-out prisoner and Stephanie Youell Binetti, appealing and endearing as Meg.  Lisa Howard as  the Queen brings class and slyness, though one wishes she were moreoften integrated into the action; her solo lament, “Love Lives Alone,” is sublime.   At their best, Mark Robertson’s music and lyrics are a musical theatre lover’s delight---  alternately moving and tender or lively and boisterous.  The script is his, too, based on a 1950 play which in turn was based on old folktales.  Dave Solomon’s direction with musical staging by Bethany Pettigrew weave all the disparate elements together with no evidence of Scotch tape holding the pieces together—it just flows.  There’s great payoff here and crisp characterizations.

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Fasten your seat belts for a wild ride that’s original and insane (in the best way possible) and full of laughs.  It’s called R.R.R.E.D. A Secret Musical, and paranoia and hostility have never been so much fun.  The idea of the play, is that we are at a meeting to learn about the dangers in the world where redheaded people could become extinct because the gene that gives people the minority hair color is mutating and will disappear soon.  Yikes!  What to do?  Redheads unite and stand tall and procreate with other redheads (never mind if you’re gay) to keep the line going.  To say the least, the show is colorful and to say the most, it’s a sensation.  It stars Katie Thompson, who also wrote the music and lyrics and co-wrote the book with her co-star Patrick Livingston as well as Adam Jackman.  A laugh a minute---and a hearty laugh a minute, I should say--- it’s loopy and wild and one of a kind.  Songs proclaiming the rights and history of redheads and the quirks of the participants are wacky and wonderful. Though I wish there were some more moments when there were justifiable reasons for her to pace herself or be calmer (it becomes a bit exhausting), Katie Thompson sings with a lioness’s force and voice to burn.   Patrick Livingston is an adorable bundle of nerves and eagerness to please her (the boss) and a desire to steal some spotlight for himself.  They are supported by Kathy Deitch as a loose cannon and Nathan Balser as a shy but game guy with his own bright energy.  They make a terrific team, with the extra bonus of a celebrity guest (Tovah Feldshuh, Kate Shindle) in each show at a climactic moment.  The most marvelous part of the whole thing is the interaction between the two leaders of the meeting/organization --- she crazed and intimidating and with a trigger temper and him blustery and bungling and quivering each time she corrects him or he makes a mistake or dares to be a teensy weensy bit assertive.  Physically and vocally, they are comic dynamite with this never-gets-old interplay.  The songs themselves are lively, loopy or liquid lightning, with Shea Sullivan’s creative choreography (she’s also the producer)  adding flash and splash and zip, very much on the same page.  Three cheers for this three-ring circus's brave and oh-so-smart supervisor, the director Andy Sandberg.  He has the knack for the attack, seemingly knowing just how far over the top to let the performers go -- and how close to the abyss -- in this daring endeavor.  Especially in a piece where the performers have done so much of the writing, it takes the right outside eye to know when to wink.  This bundle of surprises and audience-tickling is a big, fat, silly, spectacular looney bin success.

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The Gay Bride of Frankenstein? Hmmm… I know what you’re thinking.  It sounds campy and silly and pushes all the usual horror story buttons with references to the original freak show and very gay-friendly, and it’s just in time for Halloween. Well, yes. If you’re looking for that, you’ll be satisfied, but you’ll also get a whole lot more. You’ll get a musical that’s a hilarious hoot on the outside but has a soft marshmallow core on the inside. Yes, it’s possible to laugh at characters and care about them at the same time—because, as broad as this is, there’s a lot of sweetness in the way the characters care about each other. “Gay” in this case specifically means lesbian. In the beginning, we see a teacher reading Frankenstein to a high school class and it comes up in an after-class chat with an in-the-closet female student, that some might say there’s a lesbian relationship in the story. The student (Emma Hunton, showing cool moves, warm characterization  and a red-hot singing voice that soars---she’s just great)  pines for her best friend, Chloe. And Chloe (versatile and appealing Dana Aber) dresses up as the bride of Frankenstein, but her heart (but not her virginity) goes seemingly to boyfriend, Thad, Jonathan B. Wright, from Spring Awakening, who breezes through the role affably with wide-eyed or bug-eyed good cheer and comic flair when the going gets spooky and spoofy. Christopher Hudson Myers is likable as gregarious, grinning good guy pal Hairy, tromping around merrily in his gorilla Halloween costume. His singing in the wistful “Hanna” is so charming that the audience emits a collective “Awwwww,” and might be tempted to come onstage for a group hug.  Some do come onstage for audience participation in a dance scene, so sit in the first few rows if you are in a dancing mood, or come in costume.

There are a lot – I mean A LOT -- of laughs here, some the result of splashy originality and surprise, and some that come with that satisfaction of recognition with deliciously familiar traditions of suspense and horror movies, classical farce (a chase scene with four doors) and teen angst and romance. Adding to the special flavor is having comic strip panels reinforcing some moments. They are flashed on the screen to help tell the tale and make this whole endeavor more special. And yes, in some ways it all feels like a cartoon, and we’re not always reality-based with the madcap doings, but the acting does not make the comic panels redundant. Rather than be satisfied, as so many others have been, with overplaying or sentimentalizing teen characters, this play is the best of all possible worlds: finding a balance between those indulgences and giving them some heart and respect.   But it never loses sight of entertaining us. Quirky, irreverent, daring, with some shtick and with a contemporary-sounding score that can rock out  and wail, jump and jive,  and strong youth appeal, one might be tempted to shout from the rooftops that this is the next big cult musical. The only problem with that, is its appeal might be too wide to be so simply pigeon-holed.  But I can see a real future here (it’s also had a past; a New Hampshire production spawned a cast recording that is available at the ticket table). Billy Butler is not only the very imaginative and fearless songwriter and musical director of the crack band (known as The Monster Makers), he also co-wrote the book with Dane E. Leeman, who is also scenic designer and technical director. They wear many hats, and all of mine are off to them and their director Stephen Nachamie for this show that is freakishly entertaining and so funny at times it’s almost scary. Or is that the other way around?