Starlight Express
OPENING: March 15, 1987
CLOSING: January 8 1989
Seen: May 1987
LOCATION: Gershwin Theatre
Do you ever get the feeling that sometimes people just recycle the same plot….over….and over….and over…?
The Musical She Loves Me is a great example of this. Ever heard of the 90’s Rom Com You’ve Got Mail? The one with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, where the independent bookseller has a secret online lover and publicly is fighting the big chain bookstore owner, only to find they are one and the same? Well, She Loves Me is the 1963 musical version. Let us also not forget the 1949 movie musical, In the Good Old Summertime, with Judy Garland and Van Johnson, which was another version of the same story. It seems that any different kind of medium with a new form of message delivery allowed for a different version of this story to be told.
This brings us back to the subject of this entry: Starlight Express.
I’ll be honest, Theater Kids: This entry is a tough one for me tonight. Because full disclosure, I have never seen this show and short of digging up a bootleg – and one was made available to me, because certain members of my crowd know where to look – I have no way of seeing a production any time in the near future. And I know what I am about to say may get me labelled as “Snob”, but I don’t really care, because I truly believe it: I am a theater professional, therefore I do not watch bootlegs. SAG just had an entire strike over an issue close to this one, and I don’t feel good about being someone who contributes to the problem. So that bootleg? I lost the link.
There have been other shows I have written about that I have not seen and have not been able to watch a version of. But this show was an Andrew Lloyd Webber from the 1980’s, pre-Phantom of the Opera. In short: from the few synopsis that I have read, he most clearly was on something.
When I was a young Theater Kid, I remember my dad telling me vague pieces of this show. I remember him telling me only because I was excited that I was going through the box of Playbills, finding this one, and finding Andrea McCardle’s name in it. He just shrugged and said “It was weird. They were all on a track on roller skates.” And that was the end of the conversation.
I was not to be deterred. I was a very imaginative kid. Well, this was Broadway! The word “Starlight” was in the title, right? And they were on roller skates? Well, this show must be about singing waitresses at a diner!
Preteen me somehow decided that Starlight Express was about Ellen’s Stardust Diner, only now the servers were on skates. Can someone please put me out of my misery for how wrong I was?
As an adult, from what I can gather, Starlight Express is a combination of two Disney Franchises: Cars and Toy Story. Yes, I know, both came out long after Starlight Express had closed – but simple plotlines will always be recycled. Sprinkle in a little Cinderella magic and voila! Instant musical.
Starlight Express came about when Webber decided he wanted to dabble in the world of children’s television for his kids. When he himself was a boy, he adored Thomas the Tank Engine. What fun would it be to make a music version in the same vein, right?
But Andrew Lloyd Webber is Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was going to end up on stage, hell or highwater.
The story follows Rusty, a young steam engine who falls in love with the modern and newly upgraded Pearl. In order to win Pearl’s heart (Or…engine?), Rusty runs a legendary race against other modern-day trains.
I want to say that this is the most bizarre show I’ve ever heard a concept for. But considering that I wrote an entire show involving giant invisible tamed otters and a panda (It’s called Looking for the Little Dipper; hit me up for details for more info!) – I honestly cannot judge here. It wasn’t even meant to be one of Mr. Webber’s main projects – he was writing it for fun for his kids, until Cats blew up and he felt the need to put something up quickly.
The biggest problem? How to have actors keep up the façade of being train cars. This was solved when John Napier, who was designing the show as he did for Cats, was almost run over by a roller skater in Central Park. Bingo! Problem solved.
I guess you can say that Starlight Express is the project that shouldn’t have been. Everything that Mr. Webber demanded about it was eventually reversed or overruled. Do it in a park so younger patrons with less disposable income could see it? Overruled by the investors. Absolutely no transfer to New York? Sorry Andrew, when it does well in London, it makes the jump.
And jump it did. When it opened in London in 1984, the critics loved it. But maybe Mr. Webber was on to something – while it only ran for just under two years in New York, from 1987-1989, it ran for a whopping eighteen years in London.
It closed in 2002.
Even the talent level in the US production could not get skeptical US audiences into the show. The only *Slightly* big name at the time in the US cast was Andrea McCardle of Annie fame, but it had the still unknown talents of Mary Ann Lamb and Jane Krakowski. It’s a trio I would pay insane amounts of money to go see. And my dad’s playbill says he saw all three. And it seems that the bigwigs weren’t thrilled with it either – Ms. McCardle’s agent even dropped her when she insisted on doing it. And to this day, it’s still the only musical that is performed completely on roller skates.
One thing I notice about my dad’s playbill – he saw it two months after it opened, and the ensemble was slightly different. In addition, some of the actors changed their names slightly. I find this interesting, and that may be an entry for the future: What were the Equity rules surrounding this?
Starlight opens in London again this month. The book is updated. There is a new song. Will this version make the jump? Only time will tell. One thing’s for sure: this Theater Kid would love to see it, just to prove to her inner child that it’s not set at a diner.
And maybe we’ll hit up Ellen’s for dinner before the show.
CAST: REPLACEMENT
BOBO: A.C. Ciulla
ESPRESSO: Philip Clayton
WELTSCHAFT: Michael Berglund
TURNOV: William Christopher Frey
HASHAMOTO: D. Michael Heath
PRINCE OF WALES: Sean McDermott
GREASEBALL: Robert Torti
GREASEBALL GANG: Todd Lester, Sean Grant, Ronald Garza, Angel Vargas, Joey McNeely, Gordon Owens.
RUSTY: Greg Mowry
PEARL: Reva Rice
DINAH: Jane Krakowski
ASHLEY: Andrea McCardle
BUFFY: Jamie Beth Chandler
ROCKY I: Frank Mastrocola
ROCKY II: Sean Grant
ROCKY III: Ronald Garza
ROCKY IV: Angel Vargas
DUSTIN: Michael Scott Gregory
FLAT-TOP: Todd Lester
RED CABOOSE: Barry K. Bernal
KRUPP: Joey McKneely
WRENCH: Christina Youngman
JOULE: Nicole Picard
VOLTA: Mary Ann Lamb
PURSE: Gordon Owens
ELECTRA: Ken Ard
POPPA: Steve Fowler
BELLE: Janet Williams Adderley
VOICE OF THE BOY: Braden Danner
VOICE OF THE MOTER: Melanie Vaughn
STARLIGHT CHORUS: Paul Binotto, Lon Hoyt, Melanie Vaughn, Mary Windholtz
STANDBYS/UNDERSTUDIES: Jamie Beth Chandler (Ashley); Amelia Prentice (Ashley, Belle, Joule, Wrench, Swing); Christina Youngman (Ashley, Volta); Lola Knox (Belle, Buffy, Joule, Pearl, Volta, Wrench, Swing); Mark Frawley (Bobo, Flat-Top, Greaseball, Hashamoto, Krupp, Prince of Wales, Red Caboose, Turnov, Weltschaft, Swing); Anthony Galde (Bobo, Dustin, Flat-Top, Krupp, Red Caboose, Weltschaft, Swing); Ron Morgan (Bobo, Hashamoto, Krupp, Prince of Wales, Turnov, Weltschaft, Swing); Dwight Toppin (Bobo, Hashamoto, Krupp, Purse, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Turnov, Swing); Mary Ann Lamb (Buffy), Christine Langner (Buffy, Dinah, Joule, Pearl, Volta, Wrench, Swing); Nicole Pitard (Dinah); D. Michael Heath (Dustin, Flat-Top, Prince of Wales, Turnov, Weltschaft); Sean McDermott (Dustin, Rusty); Michael – Demby Cain (Electra, Purse, Rocky I, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rusty, Swing); Philip Clayton (Electra); Broderick Wilson (Electra, Krupp, Poppa, Prince of Wales, Purse, Rocky I, Rocky II, Rocky IV, Swing); Joey McKneely (Flat-Top); William Christopher Frey (Greaseball, Rocky I); Frank Mastrocola (Greaseball); Danny Strayhorn (Poppa); Ronald Garza (Red Caboose); Todd Lester (Red Caboose); A.C. Ciulla (Rocky III); Sean Grant (Rusty);
Bordman, Gerald. “American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle.” New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1978.
Internet Broadway Database. “She Loves Me.” Accessed May 2024. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-show/she-loves-me-7927
Internet Movie Database. “In the Good Old Summertime”. Accessed May 2024. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041507/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_9_act
Lloyd Webber, Andrew. “Unmasked: A Memoir.” New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2018.
Ovrtur.com. “Starlight Express”. Accessed June 2024. https://ovrtur.com/production/2881933
Rudetsky, Seth. “Andrea McCardle’s Agent Dropped Her After She Joined Starlight Express.” Playbill, May 11, 2021. https://playbill.com/article/andrea-mcardles-agent-dropped-her-after-she-joined-starlight-express
Wood, Alex. “Starlight Express Reveals Huge London Venue – and New Number for Revival.” What’s On Stage, June 8, 2024. https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/starlight-express-reveals-huge-london-venue-and-new-number-for-revival_1604904/
