Feature: On having missed BARE: A POP OPERA at Richmond Triangle Players

Recently Richmond Triangle Players' Lucian Restivo posted on Facebook a rough video clip from the theater's 2013 production of "bare: a pop opera". For me, this added insult to injury.

It's not enough that I wasn't living here in 2013, when the show, by all accounts, knocked out its summer audiences. Julinda Lewis's review described it as "highly energized," with "genuine emotional intensity," and David Timberline called it "a slice of angsty excellence." I read the reviews from afar and felt sad at having to miss it.

In 2014 the show--a musical about gay Catholic school students written by Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere--was slated for the summer season of Diversionary Theatre, San Diego's LGBT theater. (It should be noted that the season also included "Thrill Me" and "Miss Gulch Returns," which RTP had done years earlier.) (Also that the original production of "bare" in LA in 2000 was directed by Kristin Hanggi, who directed the new musical "Atlantis" for Virginia Rep in 2019.) I got my tickets, enlisted three companions, drove down to the theater and...bleah. Not very good. Couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about.

I think it was a, uh, lackluster production.

And then, on RTP's Cabaret Season for 2020, what should appear but "bare: a pop opera--The Reunion Concert"! Perhaps I would be able to glimpse the old magic. On April 14.

Enter Covid, exit magic.

Maybe someday I will get another chance. But for now, even though I sort of saw it, I think of "bare" as one that got away.

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