On The Air
The brainchild of writer/director and co-producer Shane Houston, On The Air is an original Murder Mystery Musical Comedy set in the golden age of Hollywood radio, 1939. The play centers around the popular K-RAP mystery show "Dark 'Til Morning" starring two washed up actors in Walter Wicks, a drunk and hammy stage actor (played by Michael Tatlock) and the aging, overweight ex-ingénue Deirdra Banks (played by Donna Pieroni). The cast is rounded out by cigar chomping station manager Manny Lowmax (John Moschitta Jr.) and the not-so-bright station intern, or junior station attendant Jimmy(Shane Houston).
The plot gets cooking when a freak LA rain storm knocks out the power at the K-RAP studios and when the lights come back on, Walter is dead. "The Plot Thickens" as Jimmy loves to say when Walter's nephew (Nicholas Harden) arrives... who also happens to be a member of the LAPD, or is he. Songs, dances and a pile up of bodies and who-done-its rounds out the plot of this caper.
While a wonderfully fun and easy night at the theatre seems to be on the docket, this play just never seems to take off. The problems start at the core of the show, either the writing or the directing, and it is hard to tell which is at fault since both are helmed by the same man. The concept of the show is fun and when the pace of the show was cooking, the packed house was right there along for the ride. But numerous times through-out the night the pacing of the play ground to a halt and had a very hard time getting legs again.
There was ample use of a radio commercials as the "cover" for set and scene changes, which could clearly be seen going on behind the action with actors helping in movement and other actors in the commercials in roles you couldn't figure out who they were. This was very distracting and also the seemly excessive amount of the changes hampered the flow of the play, which needed the moving energy to keep an audience engaged.
The set was beautiful, designed by Shane and Sheila Houston as well as Christina Bekert. On the production aspect there was a fine attention to detail, but on the side of the script it just seemed to need more polish. A highlight of the production was the musical number "This Is Not A Love Song" between Mr. Harden and Ms. Pieroni. If the play was filled with more moments like this show stealing number it would have been gang busters.
On The Air is now playing at the Whitefire Theatre through March 6th (Saturdays only) - for more information or tickets go to Ontheairplay.com or call 323.960.4420