'Pageant' tweaks gender roles in song and drag

Stoneham Theatre opens ninth season

Actor Corbitt Williams (left) is helped with his outfit by Stephen Yearick as director/writer/creator Bill Russell (center) looks on during a rehearsal for the musical ''Pageant.'' (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

Note: In case of severe weather, forecast for Saturday, the New England Culture Fest in Lowell, which was featured in this space last week, will be held Sunday at the same time.

'Pageant," the musical comedy opening the ninth season at the Stoneham Theatre next Thursday, has all the trappings of a real beauty competition.

The actors' fabulous swimsuits, the ball gowns with more glitter than an Oscar-bound Cher, the high heels that would make Carrie Bradshaw of "Sex & the City" weep with envy, were designed by Stephen Yearick, a pageant costumer who has designed clothes for 30 Miss Americas.

The lively dance numbers were choreographed by Shea Sullivan, a pageant choreographer and herself a runner-up for Miss Oklahoma in 1995.

And at the end of the musical, five judges chosen from the audience will pick the next "Miss Glamouresse" from the six contestants, a twist that could make the show different every night it runs.

There's just one little thing that sets this apart from other pageants.

All the contestants will be men. Men playing women.

That's right, Miss Great Plains (Nick Cearley), Miss Bible Belt (Michael Joyce), Miss Texas (Danny O'Connor), Miss Industrial Northeast (Corbitt Williams), Miss West Coast (Adam Cochran), and Miss Deep South (John Ambrosino) will strut and vamp in this affectionate spoof of the gorgeous a-go-go world of beauty showdowns.

The only male character is emcee Frankie Cavalier, and actor Nicholas Ryan Rowe is pleased that his exotic suits will be just as outrageously sensational as the ball gowns of the contestants.

"I probably have more costume changes than they do," he said.

The production is directed by "Pageant" cowriter Bill Russell, the Tony-Award-nominated writer of "Side Show," who first helped put together the off-Broadway production in 1991 and has since taken it to London and throughout the country.

So how will Stoneham audiences react to this "Little Miss Sunshine" meets "La Cage Aux Folles?"

"I'm going to be either hero or a goat on this one," said artistic producing director Weylin Symes. "I think it's going to be a hoot for our audiences. It's just silly fun. It's not a risky choice at all."

Indeed, the production has even been done at high schools - but always with male actors. Russell said that he is often asked why not cast women?

"My answer to that is if we put women in these roles and paraded them around the runway in swimsuits, we would be exploiting them," Russell said. "But by having men do that, it makes a large point. I really think this show is about the way beauty is sold to women in our culture and putting men in the roles puts it in high relief."

So is there a message in this plot of antics at a cosmetic company-sponsored contest with madcap production numbers like "Girl Power," "Something Extra," and "Beauty Crises Hotline?"

Russell said he thinks so: "It is silly fun but I don't consider it mindless fun. I think there's a point to it."

The theater will underscore the message by hosting its first "Out Night at Stoneham Theatre" on Sept. 13, when members of the gay and lesbian community are welcomed to the show and invited to a post-show reception with cast members.

The Stoneham production is also unusual in its large number of young actors. Five cast members are alumni or current students in the musical theater program at The Boston Conservatory. Not only are they "fiercely trained," as Russell put it, but many have performed in drag previously in school shows.

Recent graduate Williams, as Miss Industrial Northeast, has to roller skate while playing the accordion for a talent number. Williams already knows how to play the accordion, but he had never skated before and is getting a crash course in performing on wheels.

"It's going to be outrageous," he said.

Boston Conservatory senior O'Connor, as Miss Texas, said - while modeling a leopard-skin-patterned swimsuit - he wanted to do the show because "I thought it would be fun and I have legs for days and I figured what better way" to show them off.

Still, the show is no romp for its actors. They must "sing, dance, look good, 'hold stage' like a standup comedian, and convincingly play a member of the opposite sex, one of the greatest acting challenges," Russell said.

"I want them to make these women real, however wacky the women are. I'm asking them to play it straight."

No pun intended.

Contact Stephanie Schorow at sschorow@comcast.net.