The composer Milton Schaefer came to Cleveland to assist in the project and ended up—at the last moment—as accompanist! He certainly did have the music in his fingers, keeping the pace brisk throughout. In reality, this was a ‘backer’s showcase’ at the same time as a staged reading. This sort of entertaining evening is done frequently in major theatrical cities such as New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, but not so frequently elsewhere. Usually they’re held for a new, untried play script. However, Bravo, Giovanni had a short run on Broadway (also Detroit and Philadelphia) in 1962 and was nominated for two Tony awards. Theatre devotees know that 1962 was the year of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Metropolitan Opera basso Cesare Siepi starred in the title role, while his love interest Miranda was the very young Michele Lee. Choreographer was Carol Haney and Anton Coppola was musical dircctor. The latter name may be familiar to Clevelanders as he’s conducted many productions of Cleveland Opera in recent years. Ronny Graham wrote the lyrics and the book was by A. J. Russell. The story is based on a novel by Howard Shaw, titled “The Crime of Giovanni Venturi.”

So how did this reading come to be? Some months ago, Clevelander Paul Kroeger stumbled over a reference to the show. Intrigued by what he heard, he searched for and found the original cast recording, which intrigued him even more. He determined to make Cleveland’s theater-goers familiar with the work, now mostly unknown or forgotten.

Overall, that’s too bad, as it’s a perfectly delightful musical comedy of the 1960s. It’s not at all in-your-face, being rather sweet and nice and innocent in its nature. Nothing wrong with that at all. It has tuneful singable songs—bunches of them—with clever lyrics. It has a couple of gorgeous love ballads—one sung by Giovanni to Miranda, his love—and one sung by her to him. There are a couple of comedic patter songs—one of them an Italian menu set to music (which would certainly make one hungry just listening), and one sung by the inebriated antagonist.

There’s a lot to like in this musical comedy. Of course, the absence of the dancing (impossible to do in a staged reading) made a bit of a dent here and there, but that’s where one’s imagination comes in handy. Sets and costumes would also make a big difference. But a musical must stand or fail by its music, and this one would seem to have all the necessary ingredients.

The acting singers engaged by Mr. Kroeger (he took the part of Giovanni) were all experienced in their art. Voices were clear and enunciation was terrific. Furthermore, the acoustics in the Alcazar lobby were impressive, with no rumbling or muddying of the thankfully unamplified words. Pat Mazzarino, David Vossberg, Carrie Hall, Jeannie Task, Aaron Wester, Michael Eschofen, Jean Metz, John Lipian, Sheryl Brodsky, Cheryl Osborne and Everett Quary all have excellent voices and were involved in what they were doing. Everett Dodrill was the narrator.

Mr. Kroeger is in search of a producer who would like to stage the work as it should be done, or enough backers to allow him to do so. They will present another showcase reading on Tuesday May 10 at 8 pm at Actors Summit in Hudson, Ohio. For information, call the theater at (330) 342-0800 or visit http://www.actorssummit.org. from Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz
artswriter@adelphia.net

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