Packed with musical skits, ‘Forever Plaid’ satisfies

The show will appeal to audiences of all ages.

By TRACEY D’ASTOLFO

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

YOUNGSTOWN — About half way through Easy Street Productions’ “Forever Plaid,” you realize you are really enjoying this loving spoof of a early ’60s male vocal group, and the era in general.

The four-man production, which opened Friday, is a warm and mostly low-key stage show that leaves you smiling, and maybe humming “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.”

The Plaids are a fictional vocal group from Pennsylvania who got killed in 1964 on its way to its first “big” gig at an airport motel cocktail lounge. A school bus took them out.

That much we know from the opening narration.

Their ghosts are revived for a night and dropped right into a lounge — in this case, the Ford Family Recital Hall — where they finally get to perform that show, which was to launch them on their way to stardom.

Of course, it’s all just a conceit to provide an excuse to sing a lot of classic songs, while gently satirizing the lightweight music and the amateurish Plaids.

The Plaids are played by James McClellan (the nose-bleed prone “Jinx”), Todd Hancock (“Smudge”; he also directs), Kyle Snyder (“Frankie” ) and Tyler Clark (“Sparky”).

The boys are rusty at first — being dead for 44 years will do that. But they gladly ham it up as a substitute for experience. And before long, they are starting to click.

The four cast members can handle the harmonies with ease, and McClellan shows off his well-trained voice in “Perfidia.”

But the “Heart and Soul” of “Forever Plaid” is the humor.

The cast pours on the corny comedy with perfect timing, occasionally getting the lounge lizards, errr, audience involved. One particularly madcap sequence about “The Ed Sullivan Show” is a bona fide show-stopper, leaving the audience roaring and clapping.

Because of its small size and narrow depth, the intimate Ford theater works well as a stand-in for a dark suburban cocktail lounge, replete with fake palm trees and three-piece combo in the rear.

The Plaids sing dozens of songs into stand-up microphones. Their intentionally not-so-smooth choreography underlies a genuine fondness for the simpler era, which the all-ages audience came to share.

The show breezes by in about 90 minutes, but it is packed with musical skits, including “Sixteen Tons/Chain Gang” with Hancock going low for the bass part.

Other highlights are the calypso segment (“Papa Loves to Mambo,” “Day-O” and “Kingston Market”) and “Matilda.”

The boys also put The Beatles’ “She Loves You” and “Theme from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” through the Plaid machine and what comes out is unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

Other numbers include “Catch A Falling Star,” “No, Not Much,” “Rags to Riches” and “Three Coins in the Fountain.”

The combo consists of Rich Yocum on piano, Jeff Bremer on bass and Don Yallech on drums.

X“Forever Plaid” will be performed at 2:30 p.m. today; at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 2:30 p.m. March 2, at Ford Family Recital Hall, downtown Youngstown. Call (330) 744-0264 for tickets.