Lakeland Civic Theatre finds the fortitude in ‘Freaky Friday’ Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Best known for writing serious stuff, including the music for Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Next to Normal,” composer Tom Kitt also has a history of rescuing the occasional lightweight stray. In 2011, he helped write the music for a screen-to-stage adaptation of “Bring It On,” which was a teenage angst non-musical in its original incarnation with the tagline “Two squads, one mission: claim the title at the National Cheerleading Championships.” In 2016, he wrote the score for the fantasy comedy “Freaky Friday.” Based on a fluffy piece of teen fiction by Mary Rodgers, “Freaky Friday” is about a warring control-freak mother and rebellious adolescent daughter who accidently trade souls for a day courtesy of an enchanted object. The novel was turned into a 1976 Disney film, a lesser known 1995 TV movie on Disney-owned ABC, and a 2003 cinematic remake before becoming a musical comedy with no Broadway aspirations. Most of Kitt’s songs, written with long-time collaborator Brian Yorkey, are tuneful but unremarkable affairs that don’t serve to move along the storyline or contribute to character development. And the show has no shortage of innocuous, high-energy production numbers like “Just One Day” to keep audiences entertained if not particularly engaged intellectually or emotionally. It is, in fact, the musical and thematic antithesis of the complicated and melancholic “Next to Normal.” But then there’s “Parents Lie” and “Bring My (Baby) Brother Home,” which remind us that the guys who actually wrote “Next to Normal” are in the room. For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/