If you love musicals but aren’t in the mood for a familiar warhorse, then head out to 1st Stage in Tysons’ Corner for the area debut of Fly By Night. You will find, as I did, a charming chamber musical with a pleasing folk-rock score, wrapped around the timeless theme of finding your way through the darkness.
Three Yale MFA students, Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock. created this gem. Fly By Night had an acclaimed but too brief off-Broadway run in 2014, winning Drama Desk nominations for best musical and best book but were steamrolled by the Hamilton phenomenon.
The story is mostly a fable about young love, so it stays in a sweetly optimistic tone for the first act. Leavened with abundant humor, it stretches itself into broader reflections on life and allegories about love and fate. Imagine a funny blend of The Fantasticks and Our Town.
Harold (Aaron Bliden) is a geeky New York City sandwich shop assistant who longs to express himself by becoming a folk singer-guitarist. Aspiring actress Daphne (Farrell Parker) drags her astronomy nerd sister Miriam (Caroline Wolfson) from South Dakota to the Big Apple. Fly By Night focuses on a love triangle during a year (1964-65) in the life of these three characters.
Harold longs to break free of his monotonous job under the benevolent tyranny of the gruff deli owner Crabble (Ryan Manning) and move on with his life, unlike his nostalgic and sad father (Sasha Olinick). Once he meets the outgoing Daphne, his life changes. and they quickly become engaged just as she is about to receive her first big acting break courtesy of aspiring playwright Joey Storms (Tiziano D’Affuso). Meanwhile, Miriam receives signs from a creepy fortune teller lady (Jamie Smithson, who plays multiple characters as well as the Narrator) that indicate she is about to meet her True Love.
The musical is bookended by the death of Harold’s mother and the move of Daphne and Miriam to the Big Apple and the Great Northeastern Blackout. The inventive first act jumps back around to show the serendipitous interconnections between them. Serendipitous, perhaps. Or is it cosmic fate?
The music is a blend of folk and early rock elements nicely played by a hidden musical trio. At the deli, Harold and Crabble mechanically turn out sandwiches to the mantra of “mayonnaise, meat, cheese and lettuce” (forming the basis for a funny worker’s lament titled “Eternity” early in the second act). Yet this small but ambitious musical is much more complicated, messier, and sweeter.
Other memorable musical moments; the sweet duet of awakening feelings between Harold and Daphne “More Than Just a Friend” and Daphne’s later realization that “I Need More” and Harold’s catchy number about sea turtles (“Circles in the Sand”) takes on added meaning once we learn the feelings and the issues that inspired the song.
Director Kathryn Chase Bryer has assembled a first-rate cast. Aaron Bliden makes a charismatic nerd of Harold and Caroline Wolfson gives Miriam an earnest charm. Farrell Parker gives depth to the role of the Daphne, which, in less capable hands, could have turned into a comic stereotype. Jamie Smithson nearly steals every scene in which he supplies supporting characters, and even manages to keep the narration sounding more meaningful and less pretentious than it reads on paper.
The musical comes perilously close to losing its way in the second act. The story drags a little as plot and comic routines become repetitive. A dark change in tone through an ominous plot turn feels a little forced. The grieving of Harold’s father over his departed wife takes too much time, although the talented Sasha Olinick, not usually seen in musicals, nails “Cecily Smith” the number that brings that subplot home.
Yet despite these challenges, the musical has a rare intelligence and ambition. Bryer does an admirable job maintaining the story’s focus throughout a complicated narrative structure and helps extract sympathetic yet complicated character portrayals.
The whole artistic team ably supports the production. The versatile set design helps keep the plot moving and the lighting design adds the appropriate mystical atmosphere well before a challenging blackout sequence. Danielle Preston’s costume design predicts that Harold really does fit better with Miriam (similar conservative earth tones), not the flashier star-in-the-making Daphne (mod print dress with purple boots).
Fly By Night offers the rare joy that comes from discovering an entertaining and thoughtful hidden gem of a musical. The story, though eschewing a traditional tidy wrapup, is moving and intriguing.
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Fly By Night. Conceived by Kim Rosenstock. Written by Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock. Directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer. Musical Direction by Walter “Bobby” McCoy. Featuring Aaron Bliden, Tiziano D’Affuso, Ryan Manning, Sasha Olinick, Farrell Parker, Jamie Smithson, and Caroline Wolfson. Set Design: Nate Sinnott. Costume Design: Danielle Preston. Lighting Design: Conor Mulligan. Sound Design: Neil McFadden. Props Design: Deb Crerie & Kay Rzasa. Choreography: Robert Bowen Smith. Stage Manager: Sarah Usary. Presented by 1st Stage. Reviewed by Steven McKnight.
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