Asolo Rep is singing and dancing to Gershwin favorites in ‘Crazy for You’

Daniel Plimpton and Sara Esty sound like a couple of kids caught living out their dreams and fantasies as they talk about their leading roles in “Crazy for You,” a musical brimming with George and Ira Gershwin songs that opens a new season at Asolo Repertory Theatre.

Plimpton, a veteran of “The Book of Mormon” and “White Christmas” on Broadway, plays Bobby Child, the son of a wealthy New York banking family who just wants to be a song and dance man, despite the objections of his domineering mother.

Esty, a former soloist with the Miami City Ballet who had leading roles in “An American in Paris” and as the final Meg Giry in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway, plays Polly Baker, a strong-willed woman trying to save her father’s struggling theater in the quiet rural town of Deadrock, Nevada.

The two meet when Bobby is sent to foreclose on the theater, and he comes up with a show business way to save the place – he’s going to put on a show.

“This role feels like a right of passage for a song and dance man,” said Plimpton, who makes his Asolo Rep debut with the production. ‘I’ve always loved tap dancing, and this has tap dancing. I get to fall in love, I get to imitate a Hungarian man and I get to fail so hard at so many things. It’s so appealing to me to get to try everything.”

For Esty, who danced to Gershwin songs in “An American in Paris,” playing Polly is a chance to try something different.

“Polly is loud and brash, and as a kid, I knew that was inside me,” she said. “But I was a ballet dancer. Polly’s a tap dancer. I guess it’s intimidating but it feels like such an appropriate moment for me.”

Tapping is far removed from ballet. “You have to make noise. They can hear every move you make,” Esty said. “In ballet, you can play with the music, extend in front of the music or behind the music. But in tap dancing, if you’re off, they can hear that you’re wrong. But I love it. It’s so exciting to me.”

A change of director

Both get a chance to dance a variety of styles in the production directed and choreographed by Denis Jones, who previously choreographed the Frank Loesser review “Luck Be a Lady” at Asolo Rep. He also choreographed the Broadway musical “Holiday Inn” and countless other productions around the country.

Years ago, he also staged another production of “Crazy for You,” which helped him prepare for the call he received just two months ago when Josh Rhodes had to drop out of the Asolo Rep production. The director and choreographer of such Sarasota productions as last season’s “Cabaret,” “Evita,” “The Sound of Music” and “Guys and Dolls,” is making his Broadway directorial debut with a revival of “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” which he staged earlier this year at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. By coincidence, both “Spamalot” and “Crazy for You” open the same weekend.

Jones was the first person Rhodes suggested to Peter Rothstein, Asolo Rep’s new producing artistic director, as a replacement for “Crazy for You,” which had already been cast and designed before Jones came on board.

“I already had a pretty solid frame of reference in terms of what I wanted to bring to the show in terms of dance. The associate choreographer and assistant choreographer who were already cast in the show were people I’ve worked with before,” Jones said.

He’s been calling on what he did in the past and updating and adapting it to make it new and original for Asolo Rep.

“It was important that the production at Asolo Rep be its own thing, for this theater, for this audience. It’s very much being created in the here and now, for this time we’re spending together.”

‘Crazy’ origins

“Crazy for You” first opened on Broadway in 1992, as an updated and revised version of the Gershwins’ 1930s musical “Girl Crazy.” The book by Ken Ludwig (author of “Lend Me a Tenor” and adaptations of “Murder on the Orient Express” and “The Three Musketeers”) is about Bobby’s efforts to break into show business and how he tries to save Polly’s theater by bringing a group of dancing girls from New York to put on a show.

Ludwig recently updated the script for a hit revival in London, and Jones said that script is being used in Sarasota, though the playwright “generously said we could also use the previously licensed script if there were things that worked better,” Jones said. “There are some funny new jokes and some of the scenes have been streamlined a bit, but there are a couple of jokes I liked from the original version that I’ve applied to this one. But with Ken Ludwig, they’re pretty much all gems.”

Jones said he is putting a new spin on the original Broadway choreography by Susan Stroman. He describes a choreographer as one of the writers of a musical, so the way that Stroman crafted the dancing to “I Got Rhythm,” for example, becomes part of the storytelling.

“She created the idea of a cowboy and the dancers creating various rhythms with tap dancing. In a sense, she wrote what that number is, and I honor the writer’s intent. How are the taps relating to these various rhythmic items.”

Misguided love story

In the musical, Bobby quickly falls for Polly, but she doesn’t take much interest until he impersonates Broadway producer Bella Zangler. Polly is smitten with the fake Zangler. But Bobby has a problem when the real one shows up to find out what happened to all of his dancers.

The score of Gershwin classics includes “I Can’t Be Bothered Now,” “Shall We Dance,” “Embraceable You,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Naughty Baby,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “But Not For Me” and “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”

“It’s such a delicious catalog with some of the greatest music ever written,” Jones said. “What ‘Crazy for You’ did so skillfully is adapting this music into dance-specific music. Peter Howard, the dance arranger for the original, blends a number of Gershwin tunes into the body of one routine, and shapes and guides the dance on this incredible journey.” Jones said the original Broadway production marked “the first time I became aware of what a dance arranger does. I was so struck by the way you can take a piece of music and expand on it. And these tunes are pretty perfect to begin with.”

Plimpton said the melodies and lyrics “are so good you almost don’t have to try so hard to sing them.”

Etsy said that “Embraceable You” was her first audition song for any show outside the ballet world. “A couple of weeks ago the director of ‘An American in Paris’ (Christopher Wheeldon) sent me my first audition video. I look like a baby and it’s just wild to sing now and sing other great Gershwin songs. At our first music rehearsal, (music director Angela Steiner) started to play ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ and I started crying. I just couldn’t believe we’re doing this show. It’s taken two weeks to get over the shock that this is happening now.”

Cast and design team

Playing Bela Zangler is Danny Gardner, who portrayed Marcellus in the Asolo Rep production of “The Music Man,” and who starred as Bobby in Jones’ production of “Crazy for You” at Signature Theatre in Virginia. Also featured are Candice Hatakeyama as Irene Roth, Bobby’s supposed girlfriend; Barrett Riggins as tavern and inn owner Lank Hawkins; Lily Rose as Zangler’s favorite dancer, Tess; Madeleine Doherty as Bobby’s mother, Lottie; and Craig Waletzko as Polly’s father, Everett.

The scenic design is by Adam Koch, who has extensive design credits at regional theaters around the country. Lighting is by Jason Lyons and the costumes are by Eduardo Sicangco, who died in October. At Asolo Rep, he previously designed sets and costumes for “Das Barbecu” and “The Plexiglass Slipper” and costumes for “Boeing Boeing,” “Josephine,” “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” and “The Game’s Afoot.”

“I hadn’t worked with Eduardo for many years, but I feel like I’m working with him on this project,” Jones said. “It’s one of his last designs and it’s a great honor to be part of this. His clothes are really beautiful and witty. He’s always had a heightened sense of glamor with humor and wit.”

‘Crazy For You’

Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Directed and choreographed by Denis Jones. Nov. 15-Jan. 4, Asolo Repertory Theatre, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are  $35-$98; 941-351-8000; asolorep.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Asolo Rep goes ‘Crazy’ for Gershwin and tapping in season opener