“Miracle at Century High School” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

** Written and directed by Anthony Cusumano with music by Mike Kelley, “Miracle at Century High School” is meant as a spoof on what it means to write a good play, especially something suitable to be performed before audiences at Christmas. The idea is an excellent one, that is, to present us with a musical that’s not very good—about a musical that’s not supposed to be good. The script is loaded with possibilities for improvement, but there is certainly something important to work with. While the songs are done decently and generally have fine lyrics, the entire show needs quite a bit of honing to move it from amateur to professional status. The story is at its best when it turns in on itself and the audience is told that the musical “sucks” (which is what the play is about). And with care, the script could pull off this very tricky feat where the audience believes we are watching both a bad and a good show at the same time. If done properly, the show could be as astonishing as the musical “The Producers”, where corniness becomes elevated into amazing irony. As opposed to a story about becoming a producer, this could be the definitive story about what it means to become a playwright.

The main plot revolves around the school’s drama teacher Jacob Lunsford (Jayson Acevedo), who is tasked by his principal Ms. Aykroyd (Barb Jackson) to write a brand new musical for his drama students to perform at Christmastime in the hopes that it will win the coveted Jimmy Award for the best high school musical (obviously a takeoff on the Jeff Awards—ha, ha). Without ruining things for you, Lundford makes two separate attempts at writing his musical: the first being inspired by the famed author Charles Dickens (Miles Cowan), who comes to Lundford seemingly from the dead.* This story  is called “Santa Without a Hat.” When the show proves to be too campy and the rehearsal flops, he turns around and writes “The Curious Death of Santa J. Claus.” The second one seems pretty terrible—almost worse—and Lundford’s students wonder why their teacher would write such garbage. In fact, the principal catches wind of the show and forbids its presentation. Now having said that, the musical would be greatly improved if we were to see much more of the final presentation of “The Curious Death…”, considering that this is truly not the type of musical that would lend itself to widespread acclaim. This kind of quirkiness in incorporating the threat of violence into the Santa theme could be very good, very interesting, and darkly funny if further developed (similar to the scene with Hitler in “The Producers”). This rewrite of the script would immediately shift the focus, and hopefully all sorts of fluff would drop out.

In addition, the show contains several subplots, all of which are generally reasonable. One of them is a surprise takeoff on the “boy meets girl” theme, having to do with a shy young man named Ken (Andrew S. Marshall), who later plays an elf in the musical. There is also the story of an arrogant young actor named Bruce (Jacob Duffy Halbleib) who gets involved in all sorts of student activities because he desperately wants to attend Harvard University. And finally, we have a young man (of rotund build) named Teddy (Aidan Tappert) who is told he is never good enough as an actor, and so he is always destined to play some super-minor role where he can never be noticed. (Was he quietly being fat-shamed?) A special shoutout should be made to Erin Gams who played Molly and made a wonderful elf with her little high-pitched voice. And then there was Piper Burney who played her twin sister Holly, born three minutes apart but looking nothing like each other. Finally, I couldn’t see the need for the news anchor (Karyn Doerfler), who broadcast what was happening at the high school on television.

Now having said all this, I took a guest with me who liked the show more than I did. She was seated on my right. She felt that the second act was better than the first. She also said that the music overshadowed the words and she couldn’t always hear all the lyrics to the songs. (And I just changed the batteries in my hearing aids—but don’t you write that!) To my immediate left was a patron more than half my age who I didn’t know, and after the performance was over he turned to his friends and said, “The second act made the show worth it.” This was followed by “The music was too loud that you couldn’t hear what the people were saying.” Neither one had heard the other’s comments, but they had the exact thoughts in mind! As for myself, yes, the first act goes on much too long: We get the point already. And yes, the sound was off. It was both a sound mix and a sound design problem. The music often overshadowed the words (although I still heard them). And regarding the sound design, some characters were softer than others, and it depended on where they were standing on stage and in which direction they were speaking. Where I disagreed with the person on my left and on my right is that I thought that the second act was much too forced in weaving everything together into a bow (especially regarding the Dickens and Shakespeare themes). This made some portion of the ending much too corny and ridiculous for my taste (although other portions are quite good).

As things currently stand, this is one of those productions that might be funnier if you are closer to high school age. The characters are often overacted and frivolous, and while this is meant to be funny and possibly romantic in spots, sometimes it gets tedious. The self-deprecating wit in this comedy needs to be built on, and there is a lot to work with here, considering the truth behind the jokes and the silly humor. Yet the entirety needs a scalpel to be taken to it if this story were to be told well. If the dialogue were made sharper and  unnecessary uses of foul language were deleted, the  script could potentially become the toast of the Christmas season.

“Miracle at Century High School” is playing through December 18, 2024, at The Annoyance (Annoyance Theatre and Bar). 851 W. Belmont, 2nd Floor, in Chicago.

General admission tickets: $20

There are only three performances left.

Wednesday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 15 at 1:00 p.m.
Wednesday, December 18 at 7:00 p.m.

For more information and to purchase tickets, see: https://theannoyance.thundertix.com/events/237261 or call 773-697-9693.

For general information about Annoyance Theatre and Bar, visit: https://www.theannoyance.com/.

*Dickens is the most obvious choice of authors, since he penned a number of Christmas-themed stories. They are: “A Christmas Carol” (1843), “The Chimes” (1844), “The Cricket on the Hearth” (1845), “The Battle of Life” (1846), “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain” (1848), and “Some Short Christmas Stories”, including “A Christmas Tree,” “What Christmas is as we Grow Older,” “The Poor Relation’s Story,” “The Child’s Story,” “The Schoolboy’s Story,” and “Nobody’s Story.”

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at  “Miracle at Century High School”.