‘SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD’ IMPROVES ON FILM
When Teatro San Diego was launched in 2020 with the goal of providing more work for theater artists of color and the LGBTQ and disabled communities, its first production didn’t get the debut its founders dreamed of.
Because of pandemic worries last August, Teatro filmed and streamed its staging of Jason Robert Brown’s musical “Songs for a New World.” Fortunately, among last year’s online viewers were the leaders of Oceanside Theatre Company, who invited Teatro to remount the show this month at the Sunshine Brooks Theater .
The new production, which runs through Sunday, re-creates the original directorial concept by Teatro cofounders Kevin “Blax” Burroughs and Julio Catano, along with Alyssa “Ajay” Junious’ choreography and Reiko Huffman’s protest slogan-decorated scenic design. But this production has a new cast, new dancers and a live band led by William Ah Sing rather than the recorded tracks used last year. And most important: It’s live. Streaming theater can’t replace the visceral, exciting feeling of live performance.
Written in 1995, “Songs for a New World” is a plotless revue of 16 songs by characters making life-changing decisions at turning points in their lives, like considering
suicide, leaving a bad relationship, having a child, setting out on an adventure or taking a stand for one’s beliefs.
Burroughs and Catano re-set the show in the “new world” of the post-George Floyd/Black Lives Matter era. They also rethought the roles of the four performers — named simply Man 1 and 2 and Woman 1 and 2 in the script — to represent different themes. Woman 1 (played by Brittany Adriana Carrillo) sings songs about female empowerment; Man 2 (Christian Duarte) sings about love relationships; Woman 2 (Keri Miller) sings about White privilege; and Man 1 (in this production played by a woman, TimyraJoi) sings about racial justice. Some of the comic and love-gone-wrong songs are an awkward fit with the new
theme and scenery, but most fit.
Several of the standout numbers are sung by Timyra-Joi, a talented R&B singer who was a teen finalist on NBC’s “The Voice.” She sings with deep passion and heart, particularly “The Flagmaker, 1775,” a Revolutionary War tale revamped as a Black Lives Matter protest song, and “Flying Home,” about a soldier’s body being flown home to his family. Her performance of the struggling-to-overcome-adversity song “The Steam Train” is also moving.
Miller is terrific and funny in a trio of comedic cabaret songs. She’s a drunken Mrs. Claus angry over her husband Santa’s absences, a wealthy but neglected Manhattan wife threatening to jump from
her high-rise apartment building and a never-satisfied gold-digger who wants the stars and the moon.
Carrillo is a sensitive vocal interpreter with a knack for connecting with the audience in songs about vulnerability like “I’m Not Afraid of Anything” and “Christmas Lullaby.” And Duarte brings a youthful exuberance to a trio of songs about unhappy relationships: “She Cries,” “I’d Give It All for You” and “The World Was Dancing.” Two dancers, Mikaela Rae Macias and Joshua Washington, bring sweep, emotion and cohesiveness to the production, though Washington was out sick at the performance I saw.
Even though I saw this production last year, I was happy to see it again in a more robust and fully realized production.