Something Rotten! – The Musical Is Something Delightful!

Something Rotten! – The Musical Is Something Delightful!

Contributed by Janel Gagnon

Valley Performing Arts’s next show to hit the stage (in collaboration with the Glenn Massay Theater) is a farcical musical entitled Something Rotten! It is Something Delightful! How often does anyone get to use the word farcical? Never!

To be clear, that exclamation point and the one in the title are both Something Intentional! One of the show’s writers, John O’ Farrell wrote of the show and the title, “We had called the show Something Rotten! We wanted to give the critics an easy first shot. Oh, and yes, exclamation marks are compulsory.” The ache in the face and stomach audience members will feel from laughing, however, is not compulsory. It is simply unavoidable.

And, dear Make a Scene readers, therein lies the antidote to the show’s peculiar title: laughter - lots of it - and it comes packaged in the form of a musical-within-a-musical. Cue: metadrama as a dramatic convention to advance the plot of the main piece used so often by Shakespeare and his contemporaries during the Renaissance. And, dear Make a Scene readers, therein lies the time period of Something Rotten!  

Welcome to the Renaissance, where everything is new, including the never before heard of musical. What, pray tell, is the title of the musical-within-a-musical then? It’s Omelette, the Musical, of course. What’s it about, you ask? Eggs! It’s also about Shakespeare’s (or was it Shakespeare’s?!) Hamlet, although the characters are not aware of it at the time.

Set in the 1590s, Something Rotten! Introduces us to brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom, played both valley thespians Jarett Hardy and Paul Lyremann, who wowed audiences’ months earlier in the Massay production of Into the Woods. The Bottom brothers are desperate to write a hit play but are stuck in the shadow of that Renaissance rock star known as "The Bard” (yes, Shakespeare) played by another valley favorite, Bronsen Stewart. When a local soothsayer, Thomas Nostradamus (we promise) foretells that the future of theater involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very first musical. But amidst the scandalous excitement of opening night, the Bottom Brothers realize that reaching the top means being true to thine own self, and all that jazz.

Lovers of musicals will swoon at the numerous allusions to other hit musicals. Naysayers of musicals will come away from Something Rotten! Converted understanding that nothing’s as amazing as a musical, or confirmed as this raucous, uproariously funny show celebrates while simultaneously making fun of Shakespeare, theater, and especially musicals. So, leave your blues-sicals at home! Bright lights, stage fights and a dazzling chorus… Something Rotten! has it all!

Something Rotten! runs October 18 through November 3 at The Glenn Massay Theater on the Mat-Su College campus, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday shows, 2 p.m. on Sundays. Adult $28; Military, Senior, Student, Child $25; Mat-Su College students inquire about free ticket pricing. ASL show is Saturday, October 26.