ELISA PETERSEN / Courier & Press
Zach Bryant rehearses a scene from
"Smokey Joe's Cafe" at Evansville Civic Theatre.
Dancing in the background, from left, are:
Justin Sears, Jenny Freeman, Troy Rhinefort
and Cheryl Ann Sanders.
The way he tells it, Christopher Tyner grew up in a musical
time warp.
Born in 1972, he came of age listening to songs from the
1950s and 1960s on his parents record collection and on oldies
radio stations.
Figuring himself an anachronism, he anticipated an older
audition pool when he announced tryouts for Evansville Civic
Theatre's production of "Smokey Joe's Cafe," a revue featuring
40 songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the musical hit men
who wrote Top 10 titles in the '50s and '60s for The Coasters,
the Drifters, the Searchers, Elvis Presley, Big Mama Thornton,
Ben E. King and others.
"I expected (auditioners) would be at least my age (35) or
older," says the show's director. "But nearly every person who
came to the audition was between the ages of 20 and 30. It kind
of showed me the timelessness of the music that Leiber and
Stoller put forth. People younger than myself really enjoy this
music."
Many of the titles in the revue have achieved pop standard
status. "Poison Ivy,' "Fools Fall in Love," "Yakety Yak,"
"Charlie Brown," "Little Egypt," "Love Potion #9," "Hound dog,"
"Jail House Rock," "Spanish Harlem," "Stand By Me" and "On
Broadway" exemplify that.
The cast includes professionals and amateur performers,
including college students and recent graduates. The unexpected
youth of his nine-member cast "has really allowed me to explore
a more modern approach to this classic material," Tyner says.
"I've brought a little bit of (Bob) Fosse attitude to the
show's choreography in places," he says, but still kind of
keeping to that doo-wop step-together-step touch you always see"
in groups like the Coasters and the Drifters.
The show, which ran five years on Broadway, (a record run for
a revue), features timeless music, but the show should trigger
lots of nostalgia for those who did grow up on it, says Tyner.
"Its really kind of all about friendship, memories, looking
back into the past, remembering the people you spent time with."
This production takes Tyner back to his elementary school
music classes with Sue Schriber, this show's music director.
"I think I was originally introduced to some of the songs in
this show in her 'free music' days we had at Oak Hill School,"
when Schriber let students pick songs from her collection "and
we would sing it as a whole," says Tyner.
"'Charlie Brown' was always one of my favorites."
