[NEohioPAL]Michael Stanley - SUPERSTAR!

[Jef Etters]

from www.lastcallcleveland.com

Friday Dec 29th and Saturday Dec 30th at the House of
Blues! Come see the third run of Last Call Cleveland's
critically acclaimed stageshow Michael Stanley
Superstar, The Unathorized Biography of the Cuyahoga
Messiah. 

But that's not all! See the REAL Michael Stanley
perform that same night in the main hall at the Hosue
of Blues! Our show is immediately following his, in
the Cambridge Room across the hall. 

What is our show Michael Stanley Superstar? Here are
some reviews of past performances: 

>From coolcleveland.com - 

Michael Stanley Superstar 
What: Last Call Cleveland's rollicking stage
mockumentary about the rise and fall of Cleveland's
home-grown "rock messiah." 

Reasons to go: This comic pastiche of a show-biz bio
is a high-energy barrel of laughs with many funny
local references. A fictionalized Michael Stanley
(Mike Polk, in school-pageant Abe Lincoln beard) joins
a band at Rocky River High, lusts after love interest
Leah (Marcella Gattuso, nubile in leggings and go-go
boots), and sells his soul to the devil in order to
become a rock god -- but is so naive he lowballs it,
settling for being famous "between Brunswick,
Willoughby, and Sheffield Lake". Jef Etters steals the
show as his evil nemesis, Pittsburgh rocker Donnie
Iris. Delightful multimedia clips, from faux family
footage (Stanley grows up in a plastic Tyco playhouse)
to a comic sex scene. 

Caveats: There's plenty of intentional cheese, from a
smirking-wooden narrator (think Rocky Horror) to wigs
so bad they could crawl offstage by themselves. The
show doesn't aim high, and its performers are comics,
not actors, but it hits its low-comedy targets way
more often than not. A similar show in Chicago might
run for 6 months or more -- so what's up with only two
area performances? 

and here is another review from Scene Magazine - the
actual page is here:
http://clevescene.com/issues/2004-12-15/culture/stage2.html


While few among us would actually sell our souls to
the devil, exchanging a brief lifetime of success and
fame for an eternity of pain and damnation, we'd all
probably like to be given the opportunity. Such is the
lure of celebrity. This is precisely the chance
fledgling rocker Michael Stanley is offered in the
rollicking parody now being performed by Last Call
Cleveland. When Beelzebub presents the opportunity for
world renown, Stanley avers that he'd be satisfied
with just being famous in Ohio -- specifically
Northeast Ohio, the area from Brunswick to Willoughby
to Sheffield Lake. 

That's one of the many comedic high points in Michael
Stanley Superstar: The Unauthorized Biography of the
Cuyahoga Messiah, a loose, energetic, and frequently
hilarious faux profile of the Cleveland rock legend.
The Michael Stanley Band played a solid breed of
midwestern rock and set attendance records at such
nearby venues as Blossom and the Coliseum. But he
never achieved much recognition beyond the
broadcasting reach of classic-rock radio station WNCX,
where Stanley is now a drive-time DJ. Still, MSB is
close to the hearts of Clevelanders who were around in
the late '70s and early '80s. 

The Last Call crew has assembled a loving and
occasionally lacerating tribute to Stanley, tracing
his richly fictionalized career in both live scenes
and manufactured video clips. Born into a hardscrabble
Cleveland family in 1948, Michael, we are told, was
forced to live in a Tyco plastic playhouse for most of
his youth. But once in high school, our hero joins
three geek musicians (they all want to be
veterinarians eventually) to pound out "hard-hittin',
no-quittin', girl-gittin' rock and roll." And so he
does, competing with Pittsburgh rocker Donnie Iris (a
swaggering Jef Etters) for stage time and the
affections of lovely Leah (Marcella Gattuso). 

Mike Polk, wearing the worst fake beard ever devised,
plays Stanley with just the right amount of dazed
earnestness (early on, when Leah 'fesses tender
feelings for him, Polk's Stanley tries to respond in
kind, but winds up saying, "I want to put things in
you"). The excellent Aaron McBride plays saxman Barry,
a palsied Dick Goddard, and a hysterical morning DJ
whose brain-dead, machine-gun patter drives Stanley to
the brink of madness. The proceedings are supposedly
narrated by the former TV icon Barnaby, but Keith
Carr's impression doesn't come within shouting
distance of the real character; Carr, however, is much
more successful as the menacing, pratfalling Satan.
Also contributing to the laughter is Chad Zumock as
agent Tony, who has to handle other clients --
mollifying TV and radio personality John Lanigan after
a DUI, saying, "Don't worry, you'll never lose the
Prize Movie." 

All these knowing Cleveland references, plus some
knockoff MSB musical accompaniment and a relentlessly
outrageous script, make this show irresistible. Let's
hope Last Call finds a way to schedule a much longer
run for this Superstar. 

This will be a big show for us and we'd love to see
all of you there. It will be a rocking night...imagine
seeing MS himself at the House of Blues before our
show! And if you've seen Michael Stanley Superstar
before, come again because we will be throwing in a
few surprises here and there...but if you haven't seen
it yet, these will be the two perfect nights of pure,
unadalterated Stanley goodness. 

See you there! 
Your Last Call!

www.lastcallcleveland.com


 
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