Cast of Allegro Stage's "Fire on the Bayou" in San Antonio.

"Fire on the Bayou."

"Fire on the Bayou," a "Cajun voodoo musical."

  

Fire on the Bayou

by Tom Masinter (music); Mark Leonard (book and lyrics)

Presented by Allegro Stage

January 29 - February 27

at Woodlawn Theater
1920 Fredericksburg Rd.
San Antonio, TX
210-363-5994

$17

7:30pm Fri-Sat; 3pm Sun
Runtime: 2 hours

Good things are happening in San Antonio theaters these days. Emerging companies such as Overtime and The Vexler Theatre are putting on busy seasons of contemporary plays. The brand new San Antonio Shakespeare company, located in the Blue Star Arts Complex, debuts February 12 with Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

And running through February 28 at the Woodlawn Theatre is the debut production by Allegro Stage Company, a revival of Fire on the Bayou, a 15-year-old "Cajun voodoo" musical by San Antonio resident Tom Masinter (music) and Mark Leonard (book and lyrics). Allegro is positioning itself as the Alamo City's version of Irving's Lyric Stage, as producers of rarely performed American musicals, particularly from the mid-20th century on.

Co-founder Tim Hedgepeth, a graduate of Trinity University, with a master's in directing from University of Wisconsin-Madison, returned to San Antonio a few years ago to teach and direct after serving in the top job at the Commission for the Arts for the State of Mississippi. [And for full disclosure, he's an old friend of mine from Trinity, and knows way too much about me, which means I love pretty much everything he does theaterwise.]

The first company Hedgepeth founded in San Antonio, AtticRep at Trinity University's upstairs theater, is still going strong. With Allegro, says Hedgepeth, he hopes to stage some great American musicals that have been forgotten by an audience now used to season after season of local productions of box office no-brainers like Hairspray, High School Musical and Beauty and the Beast.

The San Antonio theater community already has embraced Allegro Stage. For Fire on the Bayou, Hedgepeth was able to raise more than $30,000 in grants and donations and he secured use of the Woodlawn, an old movie palace on the west side of town, for free. Veteran lighting designer Robin Crews, a fellow Trinity alum who lives just north of San Antonio, volunteered his time and expertise, creating a lighting grid for a space that didn't have one. Masinter and Leonard, also Trinity exes, waived royalties. The cast of more than 30 singers, dancers and musicians includes some of the city's best musical theater pros.

It's a lively show that Hedgepeth has nicknamed "Music Man in the bayou." The plot has a handsome con man, Eduardo (Roy Bumgarner), turning the head of a sweet Cajun virgin named Therese (Katy Moore). That leaves the boy who loves her, Robert (Travis Trevino), moaning in the dust. Robert turns to voodoo priestess Marie Laveau (Cassandra L. Small) for some help in getting rid of the competition. After a sexy bacchanal in the swamps, some sudden switching of souls and identities leads to a happy ending all around.

With a surprisingly upbeat score that's a gumbo of musical styles—not so much Cajun and zydeco as Meredith Willson with a dash of Tabasco now and again—Fire on the Bayou is a showcase for the city's musical theater talent. Small, who played Marie in Fire on the Bayou in the 1990s, is a member of the popular Powerhouse Divas singing group and recently starred in The Church Theater's production of Doubt. Bumgarner, a founding member of Allegro Stage, has performed leads in musicals all over San Antonio, most recently as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, and Officer Lockstock in Urinetown.

Fire on the Bayou continues through the end of February at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m., Sundays. Tickets are $17. For reservations, call 210-363-5994 or go to http://www.woodlawntheatre.com.

For more information about what's happening in San Antonio theaters, check out this site.