SUGAR BABIES   Role: Gaiety Tenor/Understudy for Juvenile   Production Info: 11/5/04-2/11/05 @ Downtown Cabaret (CT) Director/Choreographer: Richard Sabellico Musical Director: Andrew Gerle

Performing close to home is always a joy, especially when it’s with cast as fun and talented as Downtown Cabaret’s Sugar Babies! This freewheeling musical doesn’t feature a standard theatrical plot or even characters with first and last names. But, what it has instead are some of the funniest comedy sketches and well-choreographed production numbers collected over the many years of touring burlesque! It was a pleasure to slip on some shiny tap shoes and dance with the talented men and women of the Sugar Babies ensemble, and singing barbershop harmonies with my fellow Gaiety Quartet members was always a blast!     Click on this link to visit the Downtown Cabaret Theatre website.

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Travelin’: The Prima Donna (Paula Leggett Chase) makes her grand entrance atop a suitcase trolley, with her four porters (RD, Jeremy Hays, Jonathan Hack and Brian Ogilvie) in tow!

Finale: The entire cast, in full red-white-and-blue regalia, assembles for a patriotic finale, featuring the incredible tap stylings of our Top Banana (Kirby Ward).

   

The Downtown Cabaret Theatre presents SUGAR BABIES!!!!

Kelly Shook and Geraldine Rojas wearing the cotton-candy pink and baby blue costumes of the Sugar Babies!

Dance Captain and Assistant Choreographer Autumn Weidman strikes a pose in front of the feathery blue fans used later in the show.

Paula Leggett Chase and I share a quick backstage hug before tapping our way onstage with Travelin’

The Tapping Travelin’ Porters: RD, Jonathan Hack, Jeremy Hays and Brian Ogilvie.

Frank DiSpigno with a small bevy of beauties . . . Jennifer Stetzler and Anna Lisa Silvers.

Jonathan Hack means business when he’s in his policeman costume!

Yes, I even made a brief one-punchline appearance as a priest.

The Sugar Baby Bounce trio: Marueen Straub, Jessica Leigh Brown and Allison Ritter.

Prima Donna Paula Leggett Chase reprimands Autumn Weidman for being late to the school-room.

Second Banana Frank DiSpigno looks suprised to be caught backstage with his pants on!

Top Banana Kirby Ward doesn’t make a pretty lady, but he sure makes a funny one!

Girls in Garters with the Soubrette (Jessica Leigh Brown).

The Girls in Garters have a surprise guest . . . one of these things is NOT like the others!

Jeremy Hays and Jonathan Hack get chummy barbershop-style in the men’s dressing room right before making an entrance as half of the Gaiety Quartet.

Paula Leggett Chase looking fabulous for the McHugh Medley!

Chorine Allison Ritter lounges backstage before beginning the strenous tap-marathon in the Sugar Babies patriotic finale!

Brian Ogilvie knitting his fingers to the bone before the big Finale!

Kelly Shook and I caught in a passionate pre-Finale embrace!

Before the big Finale, the boys pose with comedian James Corrothers and two beautiful ladies of the chorus (Allison Ritter and Anna Lisa Silvers).

My old friends from the summer stock days of yore (at upstate New York’s Mac-Haydn Theatre), sisters Kelly and Karla Shook.

   

THE STRATFORD STAR/THE HUNTINGTON HERALD, 12/2/2004 by Joanne Greco Rochman   Bridgeport’s current professional Equity production of Sugar Babies at Downtown Cabaret features Kirby Ward and Paula Leggett Chase. It’s easy to get caught up with the onstage shenanigans and lose sight of the fact that what you’re watching is really a tribute to burlesque. The comedy routines inspired by the 1920s and ’30s are practically non-stop. Happily, there’s just enough time between skits to let you catch your breath.   ...As soon as the spunky comedians step on stage, the place comes alive. Kirby Ward as Top Banana is truly a funny man. He has impeccable comedic timing and knows how to put over a joke, deliver a whallop of a punch line and play an audience. As a matter a fact, he played this role once before at the Downtown Cabaret. He’s just as good as ever.   Richard Bell, who plays Straight Man to Ward, is polished and sophisticated - a perfect straight man. What goes on in the Broken Arms Hotel couldn’t be told by anyone else. It is too good to miss. Frank DiSpigno, Second Banana, is a pip, especially when decked out in short pants. “The Court of the Last Resort” is one of the funniest routines I’ve ever seen.   If you’re looking for a good time and lots of laughs, this tribute to burlesque, which started from an unlikely scho­larly source, will fit the bill.

THE CONNECTICUT POST, 11/19/2004 by Irene Backalenick   Downtown Cabaret brings back Sugar Babies in a lively, toe-tapping production which offers a taste of the highs and lows (and especially “lows”) of burlesque. This art form, if one can call it that, commanded the popular American stage for over a century, from the 1840s through the 1960s. Though sex was the underlying theme of every show (with jokes which cannot be repeated in a family newspaper), it was a rich source of music and comedy, the groundwork for vaudeville and ultimately the American musical.   Now, under Richard Sabellico’s strong direction, Sugar Babies pays tribute to the era, while also laughing at itself. Famous routines and stock characters tumble one over the other in rapid succession-“Meet Me Round the Corner” leading the pack, followed by scenes in schoolrooms, doctors’ offices, courtrooms. Coarse jokes pile up non-stop.   Kirby Ward, in the lead, sets the tone-and keeps the show on a professional level. He is a song-and-dance man of the first order, and a versatile comedian as well. For instance, playing the judge in a murder trial, he recalls the zaniness of Groucho Marx. Ward gets strong support from his cast, with a particularly effective, but all-too-brief appearance from James Corrothers as the Banjo Man. Paula Leggett Chase, as Ward’s co-star, has good comedic skills and a solid singing voice.... When Ward and Chase team up for “McHugh Medley” toward the show’s close, it is a high moment. Richard Bell, Frank DiSpigno, and Jack Doyle all give good account of themselves in featured roles, and Jessica Leigh Brown is a delight as the Soubrette.

WMNR: FINE ARTS RADIO, 11/19/2004 by Garrett Stack   Sugar Babies takes Bridgeport by storm. The Downtown Cabaret’s production, under the direction of Richard Sabellico, is lightning fast in its delivery of dozens of jokes and sketches that are funny in an old-fashioned way. The audience is in stiches one minute and groaning the next before they have to laugh again.   What makes this production so good and accessible is the spare no expense look and feel of the show’s opulent costumes, sharp lighting, and period backdrops. Add to that the comedy performance of the show’s Top Banana, Kirby Ward, who worked with and recreated the role made famous by Mickey Rooney, and you’ve got first-class fun. Ward is an amazing comic with an impish look and perfect timing. Opposite the Top Banana is the show’s Prima Donna, played by the tall and leggy Paula Leggett Chase. A veteran of the Broadway stage Chase delivers sharp-tongued comedy with insouciance.   The sound balance, miking, orchestrations, and vocal performances are right on the money!

THE DANBURY NEWS-TIMES, 12/9/2004 by Chesley Plemmons   As the Top Banana, Kirby Ward throws himself into the routines with physical abandon but calms down nicely for a romantic duet of songs by Jimmy McHugh with the show’s Prima Donna, Paula Leggett Chase.   Chase’s middle name is an apt one for she is a statuesque and leggy dancer. She has the Ann Miller role, and is given plenty of opportunities to display her skill at tap dancing.... She displays a broad comic touch when she plays the lead in “Madame Gazaza,” about an opera singer beset on all sides by interruptions.   Richard Bell, Frank DiSpigno, Jack Doyle and James Corrothers are the supporting comedians. Each has razor-sharp timing, a touch of lunacy and an air of innocence that makes even the smarmiest of jokes seem acceptable.   Chase and the girls are often joined by the Gaiety Quartet, four guys who sing and dance with ease. Together the ensemble fills the stage for precision drill dances, dressed in colorful outfits courtesy of costume designer Jimmy Johansmeyer. The choreography by Richard Sabellico, who is also the director, is as filled with humor as it is with high-kicking.

THE NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE, 12/16/2004 by Christopher Arnott   Maureen Straub [has] the full-bodied hourglass figure of a true burlesque chorine--her round, cherubic face also holds the piles of mascara and blush and frozen-smile lipstick we associate with the overdone cuties of that era; I couldn’t take my eyes off her.   The “Top Banana” character, Kirby Ward, has the goofy good looks of Jim Dale and the addled delivery of Tommy Smothers. He punches gags not with rudeness but with innocent “Who, me?” looks.... The cigar-chomping, raspy voiced Frank DiSpigno has the Benny Hill sass, the sauciness and the squashy features that mark a true burlesque man.   The gags hold up fine, as surefire as a pair of dropped pants. And any show that introduces, without warning or explanation, a gorilla on roller skates has a lot going for it, and no amount of slim attractiveness is going to slow that down.