On Friday, April 17th, I had the pleasure of seeing a phenomenal show at the Warner (specifically the Nancy Marine Studio Theatre) in Torrington, CT, THE WEDDING SINGER, based on the 1998 movie that is set in 1985. The book for this stage adaptation of the film written by Chris Herlihy is written by Chad Beguelin and Chris Herlihy, with music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Chad Beguelin. Director and choreographer Travis Kendrick-Castanho combines his strong directing talents with those of the associate Emily Rafala and the musical director Nate McCuin to help bring out the best in this first-rate cast! Without exception, every lead and ensemble cast member absolutely excels in his or her role or roles!
The music is mostly different from the movie, but includes the two Adam Sandler numbers “Somebody Kill Me” and “Grow Old With You.” The other songs are original for this show, with styles that are very typical of the eighties.
The set features an artistic colorful back wall up on stage, but also uses the area right in front of the stage, simulating a dance floor for wedding events, including round tables for guests to sit. Ensemble cast members are often at these tables. Ignatius Francis Lawrence Bono, Brennan Cummings, Melissa Green, Jeffrey Hanzelik, Amanda Higley, Dani Kay (not to be confused with Danny Kaye who tap danced with Bing Crosby), Ary Namias, and Marlene Scerrato all make the most of their multiple ensemble roles and enhance the quality of the show with their high energy, enthusiasm, positive vibes, strong stage presence, excellent stage chemistry, and unmistakingly observable enjoyment of performing their roles!
The story centers around Robbie Hart (Ron St. John III) a fun and talented wedding singer with a band that includes comedically naive bass guitarist Sammy (Mike Zimmerman), flamboyant keyboardist George (Christian Roach) and a drummer who strictly plays the drums. Robbie Hart takes a very positive view towards love and marriage, even respectfully intervening when a drunk best man gives an inappropriate, yet hilarious toast. Robbie Hart’s initial outlook reflects positivity in a way that inevitably enhances weddings.
Julia Sullivan (Julia Nelson) is a waitress who interacts with Robbie on the job. Julia is waiting for a phone call from her boyfriend when she sees Robbie in the process of writing a song for his fiancé. Julia offers some advice and helps as Robbie and Julia work on the song together. Little did either realize, at the time, that their connection would soon run more deeply than collaborative songwriters. Ron St. John III and Julia Nelson play their respective leads with strong conviction, making the audience genuinely hope to see these two main protagonists end up together.
Rosie (Elyse Jasensky) is Robbie’s grandmother who buys Robbie a gift of a vibrating bed, for his impending wedding. Robbie’s grandmother is very open about personal details that Robbie would rather not know. She makes the situation comedically awkward for Robbie, even though she has no qualms about her own words. Elyse Jasensky brings life to this character, with authenticity that makes the audience forget that Rosie is a fictional character.
Robbie Hart’s life takes a sudden turn when his fiancé Linda (Katie Locascio) stands him up on what was supposed to be their wedding day, leaving him alone at the altar with just a note, presented in the form of a song called, “A Note From Linda.” Katie Locascio’s strong performance on this song, as she enters from house-left, truly humanizes the character of Linda, which is a nice touch to the stage performance.
Despite Julia’s wholesome sweetness and charm, her fiancé is a morally low-class sleazeball named Glen Guglia (Paul Donovan-Lietz), who has a high paying job. Glen’s methods lack integrity and generate revenue through sordid processes. After breaking a date on their dating anniversary, he takes her out to a fancy restaurant and, after watching three other proposals, proposes to Julia, which she accepts. Paul Donovan-Lietz is masterful in his performance of this villainous character.
Following his broken heart, Robbie’s attitude towards love and marriage takes a drastic negative turn, to the point where he becomes an obnoxious downer at the following wedding in which he is hired to perform. From a strictly musical perspective, not accounting for lyrics, his song “Casualty of Love,” is my favorite song in this musical, a rock number. The lighting, dancing, and attitude during this number is consistent with the bitter vibe behind the song. Lyrically, while I have sympathy for those who have had their hearts broken and want to channel that pain into their music, I am not on board if they decide to blame love itself for their hurt emotions, when such feelings are in reality an effect of the absence of love. Love upbuilds and desires the best for those being loved. It is imperative for the emotional well-being of those who have been hurt over a lost romance to realize that true love is not the villain and is worth pursuing with the right person. For Robbie, his despicable behavior stemming from a wrong attitude about love yielded a punch to the face, from the bride. It isn’t often that a theatre audience applauds after the central protagonist gets punched in the face, but that totally happened at this performance, since Robbie was so out of line that the empathy was redirected towards the bride.
Robbie really gets down in the dumps, quite literally hanging out in a dumpster, completely distraught. In fact, his vocal tone on some spoken words from the dumpster reminded me of the WWE’s Danhausen, a very disturbed individual (kayfabe). Julia tries to uplift Robbie, but he is far too distressed. Hearing that Julia is engaged did not help his mood. She does, however, succeed in convincing Robbie to redirect his entertaining talents to a different type of celebration.
Robbie proceeds to have a successful performance at a bar mitzvah. With his band, he performs a song called “Today You Are A Man,” which has a traditional Jewish sound. This is followed by George’s song called “George’s Prayer,” which is musically influenced by Spandau Ballet’s “True.” Christian Roach’s incredible acting talent is evident whenever he is on stage, with this song also showcasing his singing talent. While the thirteen year olds at the bar mitzvah are awkward about dancing, Robbie and Julia dance together, at Julia’s request, which further foreshadows their growing connection.
Holly (Zayda) is Julia’s cousin, a waitress who had formerly dated Sammy. While Julia goes wedding shopping with Robbie, Holly convinces Julia to demonstrate, with Robbie, how she wants to kiss at the wedding. This creates initial awkwardness, but when the kiss happens, it really happens. Holly is impressed and decides that she would like to date Robbie.
Zayda steals the show, leading what becomes a full company musical number called “Saturday Night In the City,” a highly energetic number that closes the first act. During this number, it is revealed that Holly has picked up on Robbie’s crush on Julia. It is also revealed, to Robbie, that Glen has been eyeing other women and plans to continue cheating on Julia, once they are married. Robbie is haunted by Holly’s perspective that the reason Julia plans to marry Glen is that Glen has money. Holly makes the false claim that such is a requirement of all women, which reinforces Robbie’s negative attitude regarding his own romantic desirability in the eyes of women who are seeking husbands.
Robbie decides that he wants a higher-paying job and goes to Glen to seek one. The song “All About The Green,” which at parts seems to be influenced by the rapid-fire lyrical delivery of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” reveals that Glen believes he sold his soul, but was looking to morally drag Robbie down, too, something Robbie seemed willing to allow to happen since he erroneously perceived that it would make him more romantically desirable.
Mike Zimmerman brings sharp comedy to the show in the way, as Sammy, that he is constantly, yet unsuccessfully, trying to win back the heart of Holly. Despite this entertaining subplot that Holly has been rejecting Sammy’s advances throughout the show, Holly soon realizes that Sammy is the guy she truly desires, as they get back together during the song, “Right in Front of Your Eyes,” a song that further showcases the talent of Zayda and Mike Zimmerman and makes the audience happy to see that Sammy and Holly have gotten back together.
Julia is not pleased when she sees Robbie’s new attitude that was influenced by Glen. This sets Robbie down a new emotional tailspin that lands him in a bar with Sammy, George, and two other men. They sing an anti-relationship, ultimately anti-woman song called “Single,” reflecting an absolutely despicable attitude, one that those who feel jaded after failed relationships may unfortunately take, one of wanting to just use women and then kick them to the curb, with no regard for their human dignity. Robbie's mindset is shameful, irrational, and will only spread more misery into the world, with an entitlement attitude to victimize innocent people who belong to the same demographic that the victimizer feels has first victimized him or her. It is essentially a Marxist attitude with a gender twist of, “We (men) are the oppressed. You (women) are the oppressors. We (men) are therefore entitled to do whatever we want to you (women) in the name of gaining liberty over our oppressors.” Since Karl Marx was an evil man with ideas that only lead to bloodbaths, it is imperative that anyone who is suffering from a broken heart or who feels victimized in any way never allows Marxist thinking to creep into their mindsets. For Robbie, this was sinking to an even more depraved worldview than when he sang “Casualty of Love”
Angie (Jennifer Valentine), who is Julia’s mother, is an abomination to motherhood. She speaks ill of Julia’s father, in front of Julia, and gives Julia some terrible advice. Angie dismisses Julia’s valid concerns about Glen as mere “cold feet,” insisting that Glen’s wealth makes him a keeper. I truly feel sorry for any daughter who has a mother who has such a warped viewpoint as to what constitutes a man worthy of marrying, because such a daughter can not go to her mother to seek sound advice on major life choices. Jennifer Valentine successfully makes this difficult character to portray come to life in a believable manner.
Julia starts contemplating being Glen’s wife in the context of how she would introduce herself to others, “Julia Guglia,” and finds the idea cringeworthy. What can easily be overlooked here, though, is how disturbing it is that her mind went to thoughts of third-party social standing, rather than to the day-by-day, moment-by-moment loving interactions that married couples get to experience together. From a bottom-line, have-her-end-up-with-the right-guy perspective, it is easy to support Julia’s thinking, since it was leading her away from wanting to marry Glen and towards wanting to marry Robbie. From a perspective of whether her decision-making methodology shows that she truly understands what marriage is about, however, one can conclude that Julia is not yet mature enough to marry anyone. Her mother raised her poorly. Where does a mindset of prioritizing the impact on your social standing when choosing major life decisions ultimately lead? Will she and her future husband have a whole bunch of kids, just to keep up with the Joneses, but then fail to show those kids the love and attention those kids need?
Robbie planned to tell Julia how he felt about her, but when he saw how happy she was, through the window, smiling in her wedding dress, he cared enough about her not to try to disrupt her life like that, failing to realize that he was the actual reason for her smile at that moment.
While drunk, Robbie happens to meet up with Glen and call him out on his cheating. A physical altercation follows, Robbie getting punched by Glen.
Who is there to pick up the pieces of Robbie’s shattered life? Linda, his runaway bride suddenly wants him back. She appears uninvited with plans to seduce him. He falls asleep, instead. Nevertheless, she spends the night. The following morning, Julia decides she is going to share her feelings with Robbie. When she arrives, and Linda answers the door, however, her emotional reaction is to expedite her marriage to Glen, by hopping an airplane to Vegas, together, to get married there.
What happens next? When Robbie wakes up, does he get back together with Linda? Do Glen and Julia go through with the wedding? Does Robbie find out about Julia’s impending wedding and proactively plan to stop it? If so, does he succeed in stopping it? Does a Billy Idol impersonator get involved? An Elvis impersonator? A Dolly Parton impersonator? A Ronald Reagan impersonator? Do Robbie and Julia end up together? Come to the show and find out!
For mature audiences, I highly recommend THE WEDDING SINGER which is scheduled to run through April 26, 2026. For times and tickets, please go to Tickets.
Image by John Mrakovcich
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