Review: SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL at Black Box Theater

Just saw a new show (for me), “Shout! The Mod Musical” as the kickoff to Theatre In The Park’s indoor 2024 season.  It is a fine job and done without a wonderful book from which to work.   Lucky for the producers at Johnson County Heritage Center, an excellent cast was assembled and the outstanding technical scheme was well executed.  It is, overall, a very entertaining show.

This seems to be my week for hopping into Mr. Peabody’s time machine (The Way Back Machine) and sampling the music of the 1960s and 1970s.  First, I got to enjoy a very good road company of “Mamma Mia!” and then I got to explore another take on a similar period of time with “Shout! The Mod Musical.”

For those of you who don’t get the Mr. Peabody reference, find “Rocky and his Friends” on your favorite streaming service’s search function.  It might afford you a few laughs because Rocky doesn’t take itself very seriously.

“Shout! The Mod Musical” is more of a loose musical revue, than a musical play.  It is costumed and set for London during the period I was emerging from my teenage cocoon years into young adulthood.  I clearly remember the performers who introduced the music from this show into the canon. 

It was the 1960’s and early 1970s.  The clothes were awful.  A new awakening was going on.  We were fighting a hopeless war in Viet Nam. Our young President was murdered along with his brother. Civil Rights were on everyone’s mind and Martin Luther King was murdered.  There were riots in the streets.  Whole cities were burned down.  Picturing a theme here?  But the music was swinging, and we thought we were too.

The Beatles were big until they weren’t.  The Rolling Stones were young.  We lived through the summer of love and the hippies.  And oh, we traveled to the moon.  Britain somehow seemed free and easy and more advanced culturally than their cousins on the west side of the Atlantic.

Costumes in this show are appropriate to the production, but actually toned down from the actual fashions of the time. 

“Shout!” is a collection of songs from famous pop artists of the time.  The actor's characters in this show are broadly drawn cartoons.  None, save one, actually has a name. 

The characters are given colors as names instead.  The overall conceit of the show is that the five “colorfully” attired actors are writing to an advice columnist for a fictional magazine called Shout!  The continuity is the advice delivered by the columnist   She is columnist is Gwendolyn Holmes played by Karen Seaton.  There are five main characters and the magazine columnist.

Yellow here played by Jasmine Lowe is an American described in one review as being loud and brassy.  The comment probably reflects the British view of Americans at the time.  She is obsessed with Paul of “The Beatles.”  Orange, Rachel Hendrickson, is an older lady who suspects her husband has been stepping out.  Blue, Leah Eggimann, is portrayed as a stunner who may have some self-confidence and interpersonal relations issues.  Green, Whitney Armstrong, is a classic, sexy, player of the time.  And finally, Red, Anne Haines, is the youngest and most hopeful of the bunch.  She is the one you instinctively like.

While I am tempted to point out excellent performances, it is difficult to do that without giving short shrift to the other actors.  They are uniformly good and look like they belong together in this piece.

The playwrights of this opus are  Phillip George and David Lowenstein, probably Brits.  It opened as an Off-Broadway production in either 2004 or 2006 at the Julia Miles Theater in New York.  The New York Critics were not enthralled.  I disagree.  It is a fun evening out.

I attempted to research the playwrights but was unable to find out much about them.   The show mostly has an “Austin Powers” aura to it. This production owes a great debt to Ronan and Martin’s Joke Wall.

There are lots of what we might now call “Mom” jokes in this show and lots of dancing that you might have seen on “Hullabaloo” if you were alive backthen.

The show does take a slightly darker turn toward the end of the show and attempts to resolve itself.  Your opinion of the show will depend on your take on the cast performances and your thoughts on the music from another time.

One audience member, seated next to me with what may have been her granddaughter, asked at intermission if her companion knew any of the music.  She got a blank stare and a query about if this was all new music.  We both chuckled.

“Shout” is directed by Guy Gardner. Music Director is Jonnie Brice. Choreographer is LB.  Costumes, hair, and makeup are Fran Kapono-Kuzila. Projections and sets are by Tim Bair.

The set is a multi-level white backdrop with the four-piece band clearly visible.  The projections are time-appropriate illustrations running for most of the show.  They are very clever in themselves and add greatly to the presentation.

“Shout! The Mod Musical” continues are the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center, Theatre in the Park (Indoors) through March 24th, 2024.  It is an enjoyable evening. Tickets are available online at www.theatreinthepark.org or by telephone at 913-826-2024.

 Photo credit: Nicole Scheier Photography

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