On Stage: "9 to 5"

You have one more weekend to catch the comedy musical based on the movie 9 to 5!

Here the story from my pal Dave Lavender:

Before The Office and Dilbert, Mad Men or Parks and Recreation, it was Dolly Parton sassing and singing those working girl blues of 9 to 5, that captured the often bizarre drama of white collar working.

Armed with such leading ladies as Jane Modlin as Violet, Alison Smith as Judy and Jennifer Scott as Parton’s Doralee, Fifth Avenue Theatre Company dials back the work clock to the late ‘70s to take on the nasty boss, Franklin Hart, Jr. (played by Paul Neace) in the hit musical comedy, 9 to 5.

Put together by the veteran team of director Eddie Harbert and choreographer Coni Anthony, 9 to 5 runs at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 11-12, as well as 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 13. Tickets are $12 and $10 for kids 12 and under. Go online at www.cityofhuntingtonfoundation.org for ticket info or call 304-696-5522 for group rates.

Harbert, who’s been soldiering through even though he has been in and out of the hospital, said that when Arts Resources for the Tri-State decided to do the male-dominant show, 1776, he and Anthony sought a good female-led show to strike a good balance.

“It was just released last fall, so we weren’t sure we could get it. So we were initially going to do Legally Blonde but so many other groups around us were going to do it,” Harbert said. “Coni and I started looking at 9 to 5 and I really love the movie. We knew ARTS was doing 1776 and that we would have some dates that would overlap so we decided to do a more women heavy show to keep that spirit of working together. We really do try to work together.”
While the local theater companies try to work together, so do the employees of “9 to 5’s” fictitious company, Consolidated Industries, to get their work done and try to outwit, outlast and outplay their sexist boss.

This office version of Survivor of sorts, gets spiced with the classic snappy and infectious music and lyrics by Parton. The American music legend churned out such singalongs as the title cut, “Backwoods Barbie,” “Heart to Hart,” “Potion Notion” and “I Just Might” in the story that has the three office workers kidnapping their boss and holding him hostage in his own home, while they get ultimate revenge — running the office far more efficiently than he could ever dream.

Although Neace, like Dabney Coleman in the movie, goes at Hart with such gusto it’s an “Office”-esque caricature of a bad boss, he said there’s much more appeal theatrically to play a villain.

“From Jigger in Carousel to Bill Sykes in Oliver ... the villains always seem to appeal to me a little more because, by in large, they’re more interestingly written,” Neace said. “That isn’t to say there are no good hero roles but the villain often seems to have a little more depth and, therefore, is slightly more challenging. In a musical comedy setting the villain not only needs to be hated but he/she also often goes for a laugh. There’s a fine line between hating someone and finding humor in what they do or say.”

Anthony said the throwback music and dance has been a lot of fun, yet challenging as the office workers are all dolled up in heels.

“We’re really hoping to draw good houses because it hasn’t been done by anyone else and this is your first chance to see it,” Anthony said. “It was delightful when it was on Broadway, even though it didn’t run as long as I thought it would. The music is great fun. We wanted to stay true to the period so we’ve got a few little disco things in there, and everyone has had a great time doing it. It’s been much harder vocally than we thought it would be, so they’ve really had to work on it.”

Spearheading the music is conductor Matt Chafin, musical director Eric Akers and vocal director Stephen Burnette.

Since the musical is based on the movie with the same writers, it is technically, well, like an office — fast-paced and multi-tasked with little time for the actors to do anything but rush in and out and take care of stage business.

Throw in the fact that the evil boss gets cabled up about 10 feet in the air, and Harbert said it’s been anything but an easy show to do.

“There’s 14 scenes in Act 1,” Harbert said. “The lady who wrote the musical kept every movie scene in and in some cases the actors are standing there while the scene changes within a song.”

Anthony said some big props go to the Pat Manis and Helga Thorn, who were able to track down some retro pieces from eight rotary phones found on eBay to a trio of vintage typewriters.

Harbert and Anthony both said the show really does capture how solid that glass ceiling was for women working in the 1970s and 1980s, and how far today’s society has come as far as workplace issues.

“We have some young people who were so blown away, and we’d do a scene and we were like that is really what it was like,” Anthony said. “Men were really like that and you put up with a lot in the work place, so it’s been enlightening for a lot of our younger cast members.”