By Karen Kennedy
Four squeaky clean, handsome guys with slicked-back hair and matching white jackets appear and serenade you with songs such as “Heart and Soul,” “Lady of Spain,” “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” in tight, lush, four-part harmony.
Sounds heavenly, right?
Heavenly it is, because these guys are, well, dead.
“Forever Plaid” opens at Actors Theatre of Indiana on Jan. 31 and runs through Feb. 16. It’s a good-natured, nostalgic romp through the 1950s that tells the tale of four high school friends, Sparky, Jinx, Smudge and Frankie, a vocal quartet called the Plaids, with dreams of making the big time. Unfortunately, their dreams are short-lived as they end up meeting the same fate as several of the stars of their time. As they are en route to pick up their plaid tuxedos for their first real singing gig, they are killed, not in a plane crash, but in a collision with a school bus filled with Catholic schoolgirls who are on their way to see the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.
As the show begins, the Plaids return from the afterlife to perform the show they never got to do during their time on Earth.
“Forever Plaid” originated as a skit for an Equity Fights Aids benefit. It was a big hit there, so its creator, Stuart Ross, developed it into a full show and it opened off Broadway in 1990. The show has a storied history and a cult-like following, and Don Farrell, the show’s director and ATI’s artistic director, is a part of that history.
“I first performed the show in 1995 at the Forestburgh Playhouse in Monticello, N.Y.,” Farrell said. “And then it came to Beef and Boards, where it was directed by Larry Raben, a Carmel High School graduate. I played Sparky, and I had to learn how to eat fire. I wish I could say that was the hardest thing about the show, but it’s not. The show is so complicated to learn that directors only ever wanted to cast guys who had already been a ‘Plaid.’”
“And then I started directing the show,” Farrell said. “I was the ‘Plaid Man.’ I directed two or three productions a year for a while there, and that led to my directing Judy (Fitzgerald) and Cindy (Collins) in ‘The Tafettas.’ If I hadn’t been for ‘Plaid,’ I don’t think ATI would exist today.”
For this production, Farrell has bucked tradition and cast four actors who have never done the show before.
“I wanted to pass on the tradition of being a ‘Plaid’ to a new generation,” Farrell said.
Steve Greist, a native Hoosier and Chicago-based actor, plays the self-assured, suave but unfortunately asthmatic Frankie. Greist was most recently seen in Beef and Boards’ production of “Les Miserables.”
Tim Hunt, an ATI favorite who recently portrayed Snail in “A Year with Frog and Toad” and Fred Casely in “Chicago,” plays the role of “Sparky,” the excitable practical joker.
Ohio native Will Hutcheson plays Jinx, who is Sparky’s nosebleed-prone stepbrother and is in the group only because the jacket fits and he can hit the high notes. He was last seen on the ATI stage in “Route 66” last year.
Recent IU grad and New York-based actor Kurt Semmler will make his ATI debut in the role of Smudge, the group’s neurotic, left-handed arranger.
Brent Marty directs the music for the production.
The show is performed in one act and features 32 songs from the era, with snappy choreography interspersed with hilarious patter between the Plaids as they tell the audience about their previous lives and dreams. By the end of the show, they have fulfilled their Mission of Harmony. They return to their heavenly reward, and the audience returns to reality after a highly entertaining evening.
“Forever Plaid” ● Showtimes Jan. 31 through Feb. 16 ● Actors Theatre of Indiana ● The Studio Theater at the Center for the Performing Arts ● For more information call 843-3800 or visit www.thecenterpresents.org.
