It’s a fun-filled romp from one island paradise to another this summer at Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, 1828 3rd Ave., Rock Island.
Following its recent run of the ABBA jukebox musical “Mamma Mia,” Circa is opening the Jimmy Buffett jukebox musical “Escape to Margaritaville” this week. Running through Sept. 9, this uplifting musical was lauded by the Hollywood Reporter as “the theatrical equivalent of sipping on a frozen drink while lying on a beach chair in the blazing sun,” according to a Wednesday release from the theater.
Singer / songwriter Buffett has become a pop culture icon. He has recorded more than 50 albums, most of which have gone gold, platinum or multi-platinum and his sold-out concert tours are annual rites of summer passage for his legions of fans, affectionately known as Parrot Heads.
Born in the Gulf Coast town of Pascagoula, Miss., Buffett was raised in Mobile, Ala., is a fourth-generation sailor and fisherman and is also a frequent traveler to remote and exotic places of the world. As a best-selling author, Buffett is one of only nine writers in the history of the New York Times Bestseller List to have reached the top of both the fiction and nonfiction charts. The artist has received two Grammy nominations, many Country Music Association Awards and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Circa release says.
The musical “Escape to Margaritaville” celebrates the music and island-living lifestyle of Buffett through his original story about the choices we make and the people we become, once we’ve had a change in “latitude.”
Revolving around a part-time bartender/singer who falls for a career-minded tourist, the show combines original songs with classic Buffett tunes, the most famous of them all, “Margaritaville,” was inducted into the 2016 Grammy Hall of Fame for its cultural and historic significance.
Returning to Circa to direct and choreograph the show is Amy McCleary, who helmed this year’s Queen musical, “We Will Rock You,” and she’s on staff of the Broadway Palm dinner theater in Fort Myers, Fla.
McCleary is reunited with “We Will Rock You” star Cameron Nies, 26, who plays the lead role of Tully in “Margaritaville.” A Maryland-born and Texas-raised graduate of Pace University’s Musical Theatre program in New York City, Nies’s past work includes “Godspell” (ACT of Connecticut), and new projects such as “Reunion ‘69” (NYC), and “Descendants” (Disney Theatrical Productions).
“I’ve only had amazing experiences here the first two times, with her at the helm of it,” Nies said Tuesday at Circa. He now lives in Dallas, Tex., and hasn’t done a show since this past March. Nies works at a golf pro shop down there.
Loving the jukebox life
McCleary tends to work a lot of jukebox musicals, so this one is perfect for her.
“I love choreographing to modern music, and these arrangements are awesome,” she said. “I’ve been living in Florida the past 20 years and I think I really appreciate the Jimmy Buffett lifestyle. My husband and I have a boat. We go out to islands and out to like the boathouse restaurant. It’s very Jimmy Buffett down there.”
“Escape to Margaritaville” is set on a nameless Caribbean island, similar to Jamaica, McCleary said, noting she has some of the actors do Jamaican accents.
She directed the show a few years ago at Broadway Palm and it’s great to revisit, she said.
“It just feels like a relaxed, chill tropical island,” McCleary said of the fun show. “It puts you in the mood. I decided, when I get back home, I’m going to the beach every single weekend, because of this show.”
She said it’s a really good romantic comedy, with tension and sparks coming from the main couple – Tully (Nies), who plays and sings at the Margaritaville bar and Rachel (played by Circa newcomer Melissa Campbell), his tightly wound love interest. He is super laid-back and chill, and she’s very focused and career-minded.
She’s on vacation in the story, and opposites attract.
“Their journey is really wonderful, because he gives her a little of his philosophy and she gives him some of her philosophy, and they’re inspired to grow,” McCleary said. “It’s really like the yin and yang meeting, and you become a whole human being.”
Nies said it is a kind of “you complete me” situation, between the main couple.
“You learn from their life experience how to grow,” he said. “I learn even more, because I think I need to grow as a character even more in this show, and without her in the story, that would not happen for me.”
Tully doesn’t have aspirations of going further than playing guitar on the island, and Rachel inspires him to think bigger, Nies said. “I’m kind of resistant to that at first and by the end of the show, I want to chase those goals and actually pursue them, rather than let them just be dreams.”
“As someone who loves cliché romantic comedies, it’s very rewarding for me to watch this love story,” McCleary said.
Musical as sitcom
With a book by TV writers Greg Garcia (“Yes, Dear” and “My Name is Earl”) and Mike O’Malley (“Shameless,” “Survivor’s Remorse” and star of “Yes, Dear”), the script is “very relatable,” she said, noting “Margaritaville” has a sitcom style.
“It’s really about a group of people coming to together as a community,” McCleary said.
“It’s about choosing your family,” Nies said, likening it to theater, where each show becomes a family.
The writers did a good job tying the story to Buffett’s original songs; just one – “Three Chords” – was written expressly for the stage version, Nies said.
“The rest are all Jimmy Buffett songs. They might sound a little different, with slight lyric changes to assist the plot, whereas ‘Mamma Mia’ and “We Will Rock You’ pretty much sung straight through the songs in there,” he said.
Nies is thrilled to actually put his guitar-playing skills to use in the new show. He’s played for about 15 years, and his Galileo character in “We Will Rock You” didn’t literally get to play guitar.
“It was a big build-up, he’s about to play guitar in the end, and he sucks – which is part of the joke,” he recalled. “I do play the guitar and I do access the vibe of Tully.”
The second day of rehearsal for the Queen musical, McCleary went up to Circa owner/producer Denny Hitchcock, saying “We have to hire Cameron to be Tully for the Jimmy Buffett show. “He has such a great singer-songwriter vibe, to his voice and guitar-playing,” she said.
Tully has room to grow in the story, and he starts as a kind of playboy, Nies said. “He finds eyes for Rachel very quickly in the show. It just takes more time for Rachel to find eyes for him.”
The New York Times was not kind in reviewing its 2018 Broadway premiere: “Dopey fun is one thing, but ‘Escape to Margaritaville,’ a paean to the pleasures of zipless debauchery, is pitched so low it will temporarily extinguish your I.Q.
“That may be its aim. The story, concocted from clichés that were already droopy when they appeared in almost every other jukebox musical ever written, does not require you to put your thinking cap on,” the review said. “Mostly it asks that you notice the winking way it sets up situations that will later make Mr. Buffett’s lyrics seem as if they were custom fitted to the yarn rather than the other way around.”
Newsday wrote that it was a “delightful, energetic frothy drink of a show.”
McCleary also loves that in this show (about 15 in the cast), the audience really gets to know each character and they’re fleshed out more than a typical story with stars and a chorus.
“Every ensemble member has a little moment where they’re featured, for sure,” she said. The secondary leads are Brick and Tammy – he’s the bartender and she is Rachel’s best friend.
The women on are on this trip together, because Tammy’s supposed to get married. She meets Brick and the plan changes, McCleary said. “She realizes – like Tully and Rachel – that she might not be on the right path. She’s like one of those women that feels she has to get married. Her family expects her to get married and kind of picks this guy she’s been with since high school.”
Cool drink specials
Circa will have margarita drink specials on the show menu (they do drink specials themed to every show).
“I love that they do a menu themed to the show,” McCleary said. “I think that’s what people want now – they want a whole experience.”
Nies said he likes margaritas both frozen and on ice, but if forced, he would choose “on the rocks with a sugar rim” (no “shaker of salt” for him). He likes the classic lime.
McCleary likes fruity margaritas on the rocks. Nies said he’s “an old soul” who loves ‘70s and ’80s music.
Everyone in the cast is a strong singer, McCleary said. “It’s really fun to hear the music sung by such great vocalists.”
Nies plays about a half dozen numbers with guitar, and pre-recorded tracks are on all the songs, as is the tradition at Circa.
Broadway Palm usually performs with live music, McCleary said. Tracks are nice in being clear and always consistent, she said, adding sometimes they use orchestra on top of tracks.
Her next show after Circa will be with a live band – “Bright Star” (by Edie Brickell and Steve Martin) at Timber Lake Playhouse in Mount Carroll, Ill. “There’s something really wonderful about having the live instrumentation, for sure,” she said. That will be her debut at TLP. “It’s my summer in Illinois,” McCleary said.
For “Margaritaville,” local favorite Ron May again assumes music-director duties, having also done so for Circa ’21’s recent productions of “Mamma Mia!,” ”Grumpy Old Men: The Musical” and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”
The show’s ensemble includes such familiar Rock Island performers as Bobby Becher, Brad Hauskins, Taylor Lynn and Kiera Lynn. The cast is completed by Matthew Brightball, Kaleeha Clark, Samuel Colina, Joshua Crawford, Liam Fisher, Abigail Graham, Damaria Quick, Madison Stepnowski and Riley Vogel.
The musical will be performed on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m. and Wednesday matinées at 1:15 p.m. Pre-show entertainment featuring the theater wait staff, the Bootleggers, also will precede all performances. Ticket prices are $60.55 for the evening dinner-and-show productions and $53.73 for the matinées.
Reservations are available through the Circa ’21 ticket office or by calling 309-786-7733 ext. 2.
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