“First Date”

Anyone who has ever been “fixed-up” for a date will get a kick out of watching this 100 minute ( no intermission) musical comedy that employs a cast of five plus a piano player. On a set designed by Spencer Donovan, that truly resembles a corner bar with food, director ( and choreographer) Christina Ramirez sets up a blind date to beat all blind dates.  Our “hero” Aaron ( deftly handled by Adrian Thornburg) who has just been left at the Chuppah ( for those who are not Jewish, this represents the “alter”) is being fixed up with Casey ( well played by Dani Pike), an experienced dater who has yet to find the “right guy”!

What transpires on this “first Date” is their meeting, learning a lot about each other ( and themselves) and as it turns out, finding each other. The other three actors in this play are Kyle Twomey as Man#2, who is the barkeep/restaurateur and does a little ditty of a song, Man #1 ( Nikolai Sorokin) who plays several parts. He is Aaron’s conscience, Casey’s “best friend” for her “bail-out”, and all the other male parts, and last, but not least, we have Woman 1 ( Mari Duckler, who is adorable, sexy and has a nice voice, but needs to have a mic) as all

the other female roles.

Our piano player, Kyra Leigh, is wonderful, but might be confusing the audience when after each song, she picks up a puzzle magazine and starts playing word find or doing a crossword. The lady behind me made a comment and that takes people out of the story. While I enjoyed the production, if Oil Lamp is planning to continue musicals, perhaps it is time to invest in some microphones so the  lyrics can be heard over the piano. I also think that when doing a play like this, having a lot of sit down blocking is unfair to those sitting in the 4th row and back. The way to offset this problem is to either reset the seats so there is space between to view the stage or to redo the audience area to raise the seating more so we don’t see the back of the head of the person directly in front of us.

The lighting (Sam Anderson), props (Ellen Markus) and costumes (Taylor Pfenning) are all workable and as I said, the set was quite realistic. I am hopeful that along the way, microphones will be added so that the quality of the voices can be truly heard. These performers really can sing. I also feel that you should know that with the topic being what it is, there are some discussions and language that are probably classified as ADULT  and this is not a show for youngsters.