'Kooky Tunes' about people, their odd quirks, crazy antics

Cincinnati's award-winning summer theatre organization, New Stage Collective, opened their month-long stint at Hamburger Mary's on Vine Street Sunday night with their show Kooky Tunes. Sunday night's show was a benefit performance for the AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati.

New Stage Collective will perform Kooky Tunes at Hamburger Mary's every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night at 8 p.m. until May 2.

While Kooky Tunes might sound like a cheesy name, producing artistic director Alan Patrick Kenny admitted that he hesitatingly picked up the Kooky Tunes CD his junior year of college and was hooked after one listen. He says he still he cracks up every time he hears the cheesy, pun-filled tunes.

Kooky Tunes is a colorful and quirky collection of 20 songs, with different characters and absolutely no plot, according to Kenny. The importance of the show is about people being OK with their own idiosyncrasies and crazy antics.

"It goes right across the spectrum. It's about everybody and everything," said Nigel Cotterill, the co-owner of Hamburger Mary's.

The styles of the songs are just as diverse, jumping from country to rock and pop rock and then to jazz. Kenny describes the basic theme of Kooky Tunes as "the celebration of how we're all so weird."

"As the old adage says, drama is easy and comedy is hard. This show lives up to the fact that it's funny as hell," Kenny said, who claims he is very selective about what he chooses to produce and is extremely excited about the show.

Songwriter Keith Thompson originally wrote Kooky Tunes as specialty material for New York cabaret legend Jay Rogers, which, according to Kenny, grew into something much bigger as the show has been selling out on the cabaret circuit in New York and San Francisco since 1998.

For the show at Hamburger Mary's, Kenny and Thompson collaborated to add two new songs to the original Kooky Tunes set.

Audience members can sit back and enjoy the 90-minute set of eclectic arrangements, cabaret style. Most of the typical musical theater elements are stripped away here, leaving just a piano, a stage and a stool.

With the choreography and intimate stage, barely a few feet between the audience and the actors, it's the most inviting stage performance out there.

Kenny directs and plays the piano. NSC performers include Cincinnati theatre veteran Jim Stump, local actress and cabaret artist Sherry McCamley, 2006 Overture Award Finalist Eric Morris, Northern Kentucky University musical theatre grad Hannah Dowdy and College-Conservatory of Music graduating drama student and NSC core company member Lindsey Valitchka.

New Stage Collective summer 2006 theater ventures involve 50 actors, artists and musicians putting on 50 performances of five different shows in five months.

The Full Monty, Fringe Festival's All We Can Handle, A Number and The Book of Liz are scheduled to follow Kooky Tunes in the coming months.

Kenny, co-founder of NSC, which is entering its fourth summer season in Cincinnati, has attempted to provide local pre-professional artists experience and the opportunity through the real world application of their art form. He employs CCM students as well as other students from Xavier and OSU.

"We want to bridge the gap between the collegiate and the professional equity theatre world," Kenny said.

Tickets are available at www.newstagecollective.com or by calling (513) 826-2060.

For listening samples of Kooky Tunes, log onto www.myspace.com/newstagecollective.