CONVENIENCE   Role: Ethan/Young Vince   Production Info: May 14-June 23, ’02 @ Geva Mainstage (NY) Book/Music/Lyrics: Gregg Coffin Director: Mark Cuddy Musical Directors: Michael Gribbin and Don Kot

After some rewrites and restructuring by author Gregg Coffin, the new musical Convenience was ready to reappear on the MainStage of the Geva Theatre. The original cast from the 2000 Geva NextStage production (with the addition of Martin Vidnovic as Abe) teamed up to bring this wonderful show back to life for standing-room-only audiences. To add depth to the storyline, new scenes and songs were added that made the show even more emotionally jam-packed (and gave us actors even more fun stuff to do!). There’s definitely a bright future awaiting this incredible piece of music theatre . . . who knows what the future has in store!   Click on this link to read more info about Geva Theatre.

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One Giant Leap: Abe (Martin Vidnovic) and Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) discuss the possibility of marriage.

Standing, Still: Vince (Jim Poulos) describes the broken relationship between himself and his mother.

Waiting Up: Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) reads and thinks while waiting her son, Vince, to arrive.

I Love How We Start Off Our Day: Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) and her younger self (Melissa Rain Anderson) fall right back into their frantic morning routine.

The Traitor King: Young Vince (that’s me) combs the galaxy protecting young kids across the universe from his absent father.

The Traitor King: Young Vince (me) finds an ally in his older self (Jim Poulos).

The Traitor King: Vince (Jim Poulos) and his 6-year-old self (you-know-who) take aim at the forces of evil.

Revolving Door: Vince (Jim Poulos) and Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) come up with an endless array of icy barbs to hurl, morning after morning.

Un: Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) and Young Liz (Melissa Rain Anderson) make a vow to undo the mistakes they’ve made in the past.

In The Morning: Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) and Vince (Jim Poulos) figure out a way to take their past mistakes and make them into a new future.

Love Has This Power: Abe (Martin Vidnovic) does his best to convince Liz (Mary Jo McConnell) that he’s her perfect man.

 
 

Our home for two months in Rochester: the Geva Theatre MainStage.

Our first day of Convenience rehearsal was a wonderful reunion, and a big day of welcome for new castmember Marty Vidnovic.

Here’s a look at the whole set: Liz’s house is on the left and Ethan and Vince’s apartment (and Young Vince’s bedroom) are on the right. Three turntables in the floor made for some fancy footwork!

This is the color ad that ran in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle featuring Jim Poulos and myself.

Right before our big group bow, Jim and MJ take their moment to thank the audience.

Convenience-Fan Cheryl takes a photo in the Geva lobby with MJ McConnell and Melissa Rain Anderson.

Here’s a post-show photo in the Geva lobby with Convenience-Fan Gerry and me.

Convenience-Fan Jana’s mom took this photo of her and me after the show. They knew the show backwards and forwards by the end of the run!

The Sullivans drove in from their home in Connecticut to see the show. They’re friends of our family through one of my mom’s former students, Colleen Topper.

Jim and Linda Sullivan took this photo of Jim, Melissa and I in the Geva lobby after they caught a Saturday evening performance of Convenience.

Here’s a cute photo of MJ and I taking a breather in the lobby after a crazy two-show day.

My mother and her lobby-pal, house manager Andrea Truini, hanging out after one of the EIGHT nights they watched the show! You have to love moms.

My mom and I stood in front of the mother-son lobby display to recreate the original Kodak moment (which was taken the previous November during the Detroit run of Fiddler on the Roof).

A close-up view of my entry in the mother-son lobby display . . . now it’s on my bedroom wall at home!

A photo from the audience during the final bow of our FINAL show! The flowers are courtesy of our wonderful “living author,” Gregg Coffin.

 
 

THE CITY NEWS, 5/22/02 by Herbert M. Simpson   The cast has grown, the musical has grown, and our local theater’s nurturing has paid off in an enormously satisfying new work that should be picked up by theaters across the country.   On Geva’s big mainstage, Convenience’s original designer Louisa Thompson has both simplified and enlarged her sets and costumes to achieve an elegant synthesis. With the aid of Mark Cuddy’s direction, her evocative costumes, props, and sets are now choreographed to move the drama with the music, seamlessly. Cuddy and dramaturg Marge Betley have helped Coffin to tighten and clarify his book and lyrics so that the show’s offbeat story now amusingly points up its mysterious contradictions while driving them to an enormously powerful conclusion.   Audiences leave humming “Love Has This Power,” “Moving Day,” “In The Morning,” “I Love How We Start Off Our Day,” and, above all, “Little Spaceman,” which leaves men, women, and children wet-eyed. Coffin has added five new songs . . . that enrich the score without inflating it. His lyrics are memorably meaningful.   The ensemble’s only cast-change [from last year’s production], rich-voiced superpro Martin Vidnovic, invests Abe with such authority, never pushing a word or note or gesture, that he effortlessly anchors the production. Mary Jo McConnell has grown in the role Vince’s mother, but I was enchanted with her from the first preview and can’t imagine anyone singing or acting Liz better. Melissa Rain Anderson, too, . . . has developed her Young Liz into an effective characterization.   You wouldn’t expect scene-stealer Ron DeStefano’s high voice. Without falsetto, this gifted physical comic hits solid notes in the castrato range, and can make you think you’re hearing a little boy talking if you hear but don’t see him. Jim Poulos sang and moved uncommonly well in the original version, [and] now inhabits the part with the same star-power but adds sensitivity and an involving edginess.   Don Kot conducts the three-man band in co-musical director Michael Gribbin’s rich arrangements to give Coffin’s score its due. People are going to want a recording of this music, especially with this cast.

THE DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, 5/22/02 by Mark Liu   [Convenience] manages to pull a little bit of [many] elements together, weaving something full and satisfying.   It’s executed well . . . with polished songs and clever staging. In fact, the entire musical is smooth and polished, no doubt a testament to Gregg Coffin, who wrote the entire show: book, music and lyrics. A slightly shorter version of Convenience was staged by Geva a couple of years ago, and clearly Coffin has worked the material as a labor of love.   Every actor is perfectly cast, with strong voices and equally strong acting.   Convenience finds its sense of humor. “The Ogre and the Wife,” which rightly explains that nothing prepares you for meeting the boyfriend of your son or your lover’s mom, is wildly funny. That number, and a gorgeous ballad sung between mother an son [“In the Morning”], make for a big payoff . . . .