Forever Plaid Reviewed!

Forever Plaid is Pure Entertainment

Herb Hammer – Chagrin Valley Times

To find Chagrin Valley Little Theatre finally getting around to doing “Forever Plaid” is a joy. While the show joins the great and not-so-great songs of the ’50s, it can’t be beat for pure entertainment.

Though “Forever Plaid” starts out to be a musical review of the four-part harmonizers who made a big but rather short splash on the pop musical scene some 60 years ago, it becomes as much a comedy as it is two hours of sweet songs sung in four-part harmony.

Pamela LaForce directs and does pleasing work, but it’s the four young singers who win your heart.

Many of us weren’t around when the Four Aces, the Four Lads, the Four Coins and the Four Freshmen first came on the scene, but the way the four performers sing them here is a rare treat.

There’s a thin story line running through the two-hour show, enough of one to give the four young men a reason for showing up. Though there have been some changes since the show first opened 20 years ago, the plot goes something like this: On their way to their very first gig, the Plaids, as they called themselves, were struck by a bus full of nuns, killing the entire group. The nuns apparently were uninjured.

Here we are decades later, and the Plaids, through some spiritual leap, suddenly arrive on the stage to give the one performance they were cheated out of so long ago.

Dressed in white dinner jackets that look more like ill-fitting, overworked busboy outfits, Chad Duwe, Trey Gilpin, Brandon Hood and Steven R. Tiderman, as the Plaids, realize they’ve been given one more chance. And they do make the best of it.

Their harmonies are pure, much like the originals. Two of the songs in the show, “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” were Academy Award winners. The young men appear and sound as though they are singing their hearts out.

“Shangri La” is another that causes tingling. But much is done in comic fashion. “Lady of Spain” is uproarious good fun, as is “Matilda,” the Harry Belafonte tune.

Much of the show has our four young men making fun of everything, including a severe nose bleed.

“Perfidia,” a Four Aces hit, and “No Not Much,” once introduced by the Four Lads, might be less welcome this time around. However, all are performed in good fun. Slip in a little Perry Como and “Sixteen Tons,” and you’ve got a show.

Those who remember the piano version of “Heart and Soul” will love the treatment the old song gets here.

“Forever Plaid” is the brainchild of Stuart Ross and James Raitt. At times their show has appeared in as many as 30 theaters around the country at once. But you won’t find a better production or four better singers-comics than here at CVLT.

Forever Plaid opens at CVLT

Chagrin Valley Little Theatre presents Forever Plaid

by James Raitt

Director: Pamela LaForce
Music Director: David Markle

April 16, 17, 23, 25, 30, May 1, 7, and 8 at 8:00PM
April 25, May 2 at 2:00PM

at Chagrin Valley Little Theatre
40 River Street
Chagrin Falls, OH 44022

One evening in 1964, The Plaids, a quartet of high-school buddies who sang 1950s male harmony in the vein of “The Four Freshmen” and “The Four Aces,” were on their way to their first big performance at a local hotel, when their car was struck by a bus-load of school girls on their way to see The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.  The quartet’s lives and musical careers were put to a swift and ironically metaphorical end.  Now, they’ve been sent back to earth ot do the show that they never got to perform!

Stuart Ross’s Forever Plaid was an off-Broadway hit in 1990, which has since become an international sensation. Chagrin Valley Little Theatre’s production features Chad Duwe as “Jinx” (the nervous tenor), Trey Gilpin as “Sparky” (the goofball baritone), Brandon Hood as “Frankie” (the spirited leader), and Steven R. Tiderman as “Smudge” (the meek but earnest bass).

About the Music

Forever Plaid is a veritable juke-box of iconic 1950s pop harmony! The show features James Raitt’s beautiful arrangements of:

• “Three Coins in the Fountain” (an Academy Award-winning song) by Jule Styne with lyrics by Sammy Cahn for the film of the same name.
• “Undecided” by Sid Robins and Charlie Shavers
• “Gotta Be This or That” by Sunny Skylar
• “Moments to Remember” by Robert Allen, lyrics by Al Stillman
• “Crazy ‘Bout Ya, Baby” by Rudi Maugeri, lyrics by Pat Barrett
• “No, Not Much” by Robert Allen, lyrics by Jimmy Arnold
• “Sixteen Tons” by Merle Travis or George S. Davis (depending on who you believe!)
• “Chain Gang” by Sam Cooke
• “Perfidia” by Alberto Domínguez
• “Cry” by Churchill Kohlman
• “Heart and Soul” by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Frank Loesser
• “Lady of Spain” by Robert Hargreaves, Tolchard Evans, Stanley J. Damerell, and Henry Tilsley
• “Scotland the Brave” – traditional
• “Shangri-La” by Matty Malneck and Robert Maxwell, lyrics by Carl Sigman
• “Rags to Riches” by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross
• “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster

Tickets: $16 regular admission, $14 students and seniors

For reservations and information please call (440)247-8955 or visit www.cvlt.org

Cast:

Jinx – Chad Dewe
Sparky – Trey Gilpin
Frankie – Brandon Hood
Smudge – Steven Tiderman