Electric Youth:
Jonathan Van Dyke's debut play
brings high school to the Tampa stage
By Steve Blanchard
The Watermark
June 2007
Tampa- Everyone
remembers that unique
group of students in high school--the ones who weren't quite band
geeks, but who weren't exactly jocks either. They fell somewhere in the
middle--and usually participated in show choir.
That's the setting for Jonathan Van Dyke's debut play, Totally
Electric. The Clearwater native
and 1990 graduate of East Lake High
in Pinellas County took his own experiences and created a musical
comedy based on the high school lives of a very eclectic show choir.
"I always liked ensemble shows, and I wanted to do a group show with
1980s music," Van Dyke says. "I thought about my high school show
choir, and I remembered what an eclectic group that was. It was the
perfect setting."
"Eclectic" may be an understatement. Van Dyke's production includes a
cast of 14, with characters ranging from a French exchange student to
Jessie Newton-John, the closeted gay choir leader who is obsessed with
his Aunt Olivia.
"I think all of these characters reflect a little bit of me," Van Dyke
laughs, "but I guess Jessie is me in this show."
Jessie is played by St. Petersburg resident Keith Rabin, who is
affilliated with MAD Theatre. The theater comany is producing the play
in Ybor City's Ritz nightclub throughout June. Rabin starred as Jessie
in a New York production of Totally
Electric earlier this yer.
"This is such a fun show because we surprise the audience with our
songs," Rabin enthuses. "The crowd goes crazy when they realize what
song we're about to sing. It's a great feeling."
The audiences are usually surprised because the program doesn't list
any of the 15 songs performed in the show. In fact, Van Dyke and Rabin
were careful not to mention any songs by name when Watermark
spoke to them.
"It was hard narrowing the songs down to 15," Van Dyke notes. "I love
'80s music, and there's a lot of great stuff from that era. So I wrote
the script, and the characters kind of told me which songs we needed to
chase down."
Van Dyke said he had to get publishing rights from several different
music companies, but most were willing to give him the rights for free.
The show uses the songs in different ways: Sometimes the choir in the
play is performing the song as part of the plot, and other times
characters use the songs to express themselves.
"You really can't guess all the songs we use because we don't use all
of the main, popular songs that jump into your head when you think of
the 1980s," Rabin says. "We don't do anything by Madonna."
The play only runs for about 90 minutes, but it took Van Dyke nearly
four years to complete his script and secure all the music. He was
inspired, he said, by other small shows he saw in New York, where he
now lives.
"I saw a one-woman show in New York and it went on to become a huge
success," Van Dyke says. "I decided then that I needed to get this play
done, so I told myself to just go ahead and do it."
After finding success in the New York cabaret circuit, Van Dyke decided
to bring the play to his home state.
"The feedback we got was really positive [in New York]," Van Dyke says.
"I thought the play was pretty damn close to perfect, and I wanted to
bring it back here. I'm hoping some of my high school classmates will
check it out."
While developing some of the characters, Van Dyke says he would open
his old yearbooks and try to find a former classmate who best
represented the character in his hehad.
"Of course, I changed names and everything, so nobody should be too
offended," he jokes.
Totally Electric
opens at The Ritz in Ybor City, June 8, at 8
PM, and will run Fridays through Sundays until June 24. For tickets,
visit madtheatre.com.
