The Legend of Georgia McBride – An uplifting experience at 6th Street Playhouse
If you’re looking for an uplifting, thoroughly entertaining night out, look no further. The Legend of Georgia McBride, playing now at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, may sound at first like the show you didn’t know you needed, but trust me, it’s a guaranteed evening of warmth and laughter.
Georgia McBride, written by Matthew Lopez, was an off-Broadway hit in 2016 and has been a popular choice for regional theaters ever since. At a glance, the story may not grab your interest. Casey (Alexander Howard) is a young Elvis impersonator at Cleo’s, a struggling small club in Florida. To boost audience numbers, since Casey’s gyrating hips aren’t doing enough by themselves, the club’s owner Eddie (Peter Downey) invites his cousin ‘Tracy’ to come and put on a show. Miss Tracy Mills (Joseph Abrego) is a drag queen hoping for better times ahead than a show at Cleo’s. Nevertheless, she duly arrives with fellow drag queen Ms. Anorexia Nervosa, otherwise known as Rexy (Tyler Bertolone), to bring some much-needed glamor and pzazz to the club. One night, Casey is obliged to stand in at the last minute for Rexy, starting off a chain of events that leads to finding his own drag persona as Georgia McBride – although he can’t bring himself to tell the truth to his pregnant wife Jo (Jamella Cross).
Georgia McBride is not a musical, but as you might imagine from the storyline, it’s filled with high energy music and dance, together with an expansive good humor that will make you smile almost from start to finish. What makes this 6th Street production so particularly worthwhile is – well, pretty much everything.
Everyone in the cast is exceptional. Joseph Abrego, an experienced drag queen in real life, is the standout star of the show, demonstrating faultless timing in every phrase and move, and avoiding any hint of caricature to create a real flesh-and-blood person who also happens to be a drag queen. He is more than ably supported by Alexander Howard as Casey, who matures from a young man with uncertain dreams to a confident drag performer, while keeping the audience engaged and caring about what happens to him. Tyler Bertolone, who also plays Jason, Casey’s friend and landlord, switches between his two very different roles with aplomb, convincing in both. Jamella Cross plays Casey’s loving but bemused and increasingly worried wife with sensitivity and affection, while even Eddie, in the capable and comic hands of Peter Downey, grows in stature and assurance in his role as owner of the club.
Congratulations to Carl Jordan, director of this highly polished production, and to Paul Gilger for a wonderfully adaptable set, Mae Matos and Tracy Hinman for outstanding costumes, Jacob Gutierrez-Montoya and Devin Parker Sullivan as the show’s first-rate choreographers, and everyone else on the crew from stage manager to hair and wig design and make-up to lights and sound design for all-round excellent work.
Never seen a show about drag performers? Don’t miss this one. There’s nothing that drags about it. And in case you’re in danger of spending half the show like I did, trying to think who on earth Miss Tracy Mills reminds you of – it’s Julia Roberts. Trust me on that one too.
THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA McBRIDE plays at 6th Street Theatre, Santa Rosa until March 20. Show times and tickets at https://6thstreetplayhouse.com/show/the-legend-of-georgia-mcbride/
