Margaritaville’s lead had two days to rehearse the role.
Forty-eight hours before the opening night of “Escape to Margaritaville” – this summer’s LPC Theater Arts production – Daniel Gilmer got sick. He’d been set to play the leading man, the show’s theatrical stand-in for Jimmy Buffett: fictional islander Tully Mars.
Xander Struckmann was Gilmer’s understudy and principally cast as J.D., a bar-frequenting, one-eyed beachcomber. With imminent clutch, Struckmann had two rehearsals as Tully, the Wednesday and Thursday before Friday, July 19’s opener.
“It was a little stressful,” said Struckmann. “That’s for sure.”
Micheal Patin – originally Chad, the good-for-nothing boyfriend of comedic protagonist Tammy – took up Struckmann’s role. Thomas Forest got Patin’s.
“It’s like this ladder effect,” said the musical’s co-director, producer and theater arts department coordinator, Titian Lish.
Lish is working with Dyan McBride, director of the spring musical, “She Loves Me.”
Margaritaville’s opening weekend of July 19 and 20 will be followed by this weekend’s close – July 26 and 27, at 8 p.m. at the outdoor amphitheater adjacent to the Barbara Mertes Center for the Arts. All things equal, Gilmer’s slated a return for the last two nights.
“Escape to Margaritaville” evokes Jimmy Buffett’s synopsis of his sound, “it’s pure escapism.” The show is a two-act jukebox musical hosting such parrothead anthems as “License to Chill,” “Fins,” “Five O’ Clock Somewhere” and “Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit.”
“We were looking for musicals that were fun, high-energy, and we wanted it to have some kind of name recognition,” said Lish. “(Summer shows) do pull a different audience, who are really coming for the name.”
Speaking before a full crowd at the production’s start, McBride rallied the present parrotheads: Buffett’s most devout fans. According to her, they get arrested more than any group at any concert.
Hawaiian shirt inhabitors rendered the audience as tropical as the set. In attendance was an even mix of white and multi-hued hair. And hands either gripped knee-covering blankets or some variation of alcohol. It was a parrot and juice-head’s paradise. A booth selling fermented grape liquids from the college’s Campus Hill Winery, one with margaritas and hurricanes, and the Grillzillas and Sweet and Mellow food trucks were and will be stationed around the amphitheater. So too is at least one police officer. Parrotheads beware.
“I grew up in a parrothead house,” admitted McBride. Confirmed is the fact that both directors gleefully partake in Buffett’s discography.
The start of act one sees us at Margaritaville Hotel: the vacation-time receiver at the base of a volcano. It’s bar is peopled by employees Jamal (played by the hilarious Renn Ma), Brick (convincingly played by Branden Sandner), Tully (Struckmann), Marley (played perfectly by Anna Wolde) and the man perennially haunting it, J.D. (Patin, fittingly).
In April, Wolde won top speaker honors for LPC at the national Phi Rho Pi forensics (speech and debate) tournament. Her oratory skills are on full-display in “Escape to Margaritaville.”
Considering Struckmann is Gilmer’s understudy, he fills his role well. His acting as Tully – a beach bum, drifter always quick to song – is reminiscent of your high school boyfriend serenading you with a well-intentioned, albeit corny, original. But he’s an oxymoron in his initial superficiality. When we meet Tully, he’s forgetting the name of a woman he’s just been in a vacation-long liaison with.
Simultaneously in Cincinnati, Tammy (Savannah Franson, humorously), with her self-starting best friend Rachel (played smartly by Jackie Garcia), is prepping for her bachelorette trip to Margaritaville. The douchebag fiancé Chad (played to a tee by Forest), is dismissing Tammy for hockey-watching with the boys and justifying his insult as she leaves.
The actors were uniform in performance. They prompted riotous laughter when required and hit their marks without obstacle. It didn’t feel like we were watching a musical — it felt like revelry. Like we were co-conspirators in whatever tomfoolery stood on stage.
Once at the hotel, Tammy’s engagement is threatened by Brick, and Rachel’s compulsive-working is tested by Tully. Alcoholism, love affairs and acid flashbacks ensue.
“We read this book, and it’s bizarre,” said Lish. The musical’s book is by Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley.
“You read it, and you’re like, ‘This is coco bananas.’ But when you read it with a real sense of humor, seeing the sincerity that’s in it,” she continued, “then it was clear that it would be something that could draw in a lot of audiences, and that would be good for us creatively.”
Lish and McBride agreed that the understudy culture of today isn’t what it used to be. Theater companies and classes, since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, have tried improving their handling of actors’ health and wellness, mentioned Lish. In the past five years, all but one play McBride’s been on has used an understudy.
“In any other job, if something happened to you – if you were working at H&R Block – someone would say, ‘Oh, your child is sick? Go get them.’ And in our business it’s always been ‘The show must go on,’” said McBride. “It’s true, the show really does need to go on. We try to stress that. But at the same time, they’re human beings.”
The co-directors were prepared as much as humanly possible for Margaritaville’s understudy domino. They make sure their understudies attend every rehearsal, picking up staging, directing and character development notes as they go. Lish and McBride “just trust them to observe.”
They also celebrate them. In between performance weekends they host an understudy “fun run.” The stand-ins get a chance to act in their secondary part – friends and family get to see the shows for free.
“When you get cast as an understudy, you kind of understand that it could happen at any moment,” Struckmann said. “So I always made sure to show up to every rehearsal. I wrote down all of the blocking. I made sure to memorize, even if I’d never use it.”
“Here we are. It’s what I’ve been practicing for three months.”
“Escape to Margaritaville” concludes the weekend of July 26 and 27. Friday’s performance will feature ASL interpretation. Shows are at 8 p.m. at the outdoor amphitheater adjacent to the Barbara Mertes Center for the Arts. Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs. Seating is first come, first serve. And the food trucks leave after intermission.
Top photo: Jimmy Buffett’s “Escape to Margaritaville” features Anna Wolde as Marley and Xander Struckman as J.D. The musical comedy, featuring many of Buffett’s beloved songs, runs through this weekend at Las Positas College. (Photos courtesy of LPC Theater Arts.)
Olivia Fitts is the News Editor and Opinions Editor for The Express. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @OLIVIAFITTS2.
