And so began one of the most surprising and moving world premiere musicals I’ve enjoyed. Filled with a stunning and inspiring score composed by Steve Irlen as well as lyrics that develop strong, unique characters, this musical compels from the opening song through its darkest moments to its uplifting conclusion.

The production itself was set, aptly, in the gymnasium at the Boys & Girls Club of San Dieguito with the group of students spread out across the middle of the stage. Friends of Brian, who have a bad rep around the school, are considered “second class” citizens by some of the more mainstream, “popular” kids. They sit together and away from most of the friends of the intelligent and artistic Natalie who hang with the “first class” students, while a couple straddle the lines, facing peer pressure to choose one side or the other.

Using dialogue that feels real (thanks in part to the actors collaborating with Steve Irlen throughout), the show doesn’t feel clichéd or preachy, letting the emotions feel genuine. This genuineness certainly also has a lot to do with sensational performances by the cast. Through their performances, the script, and the music, each member gets to shine on their own as a distinct and important individual while also working with the others to combine for an incredibly powerful story dealing with some of the most critical contemporary issues challenging America’s youth – peer pressure and violence.

Irlen weaves the story and characters together with a masterful hand, resulting in a plot that draws you into their world, their pressures, and their individual lives. Those lives include Will (Matthew Bohrer) as the fair and nonjudgmental one who steps up and guides much of the discussion when the others are floundering or fighting. But he keeps blinding himself to the damage that the beautiful, popular, yet cruel Carissa (Lindsay Geier) is doing to the group. Briona Daugherty is amazing as the jaded Jade, a “second class” citizen who is more intelligent than she likes to acknowledge but whose cynicism threatens any potential healing. She joins Liz (Carissa Duncanson) and Riley (Allison Berl) in great portrayals of the unabashed “bad girls” who always feel on the defensive.

Brittany Doehring is Natalie’s best friend Melissa who over the years drifted to the “second class” and is now teetering between feelings of guilt and callousness over her friend’s death. Blair Hollingsworth stars as Kalli who has followed the opposite route, making a conscious decision to get away from a dangerous situation, and now regretting that she didn’t try harder to warn her friend Natalie from going down that path. Both are in a position to bring understanding and unity between the classes, but it’s easier said than done. Patrice Watson as Natalie’s younger sister and James Patterson as Brian’s younger brother Connor provided some of the most touching scenes as Connor tries not to feel guilty about what his brother did, and Megan tries to find healing through forgiveness and ending the animosity between all the students.

And, of course, there are the two people at the center of the story, though on the stage they are on the wings, not seen by the students in the gymnasium but their presence felt strongly nonetheless. On one side is Brian (Joaquin Leon-Laddon), distraught over the unfixable disaster he has brought in ending Natalie’s life and destroying his. On the other side is Natalie (Alexis Sebring) in her bedroom, silently reflective and sad over the life and dreams she has lost, mostly detached from the proceedings far away in the gym except when her friend Melissa reminisces in the lovely song There Was You.

Other excellent performers and characters include Samantha Patterson as the self-appointed psychologist with a cleanliness fetish and “Little Freak” Eleanor (Allison Finn) who is a living encyclopedia of knowledge and fountain of little-known but relevant quotes.

The extraordinary musical score features such moving ballads as the previously mentioned There Was You, the soul-searching Fork in the Road and Mirror Image, Megan’s I Wonder, and Easy Time about sibling rivalry so beautifully sung by real-life sisters Lindsay and Haley Geier. There’s the amusing Messy World “ballet” sung by clean-freak Monica and the sarcastically amusing Better to be Bad sung by the trio of Bad Girls. And there is the happy, optimistic Day by Day belted out by Megan and Connor, and the great inspiring songs like Will’s For All Our Sakes and Strong Will that he sings with Carissa and the cast, as well as the Bruce Springsteen song Land of Hope and Dreams that wraps up the show with unbridled optimism thanks to an incredibly charismatic performance led by Matthew Bohrer. And last but not least, the song that really drove home the message of the show, What is a Friend? – beginning so upbeat but ending the first act with a stunning reenactment of the moment that ended Natalie’s life and forever changed the lives of all who knew her.

Performed through May 23, 2004.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill

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