What if women were in charge? Ovation ready to ‘Succeed’
How do you take a beloved musical and make it even more fun for audiences? For Ovation Theatre, it only required a swap.
Much like its 2018 women-driven production of “1776,” the theater’s new production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” benefits from a gender swap, casting women in the roles of executives and men as secretaries.
The show is one of director Jennifer Resolme’s all-time favorite Broadway shows. She praised the show’s success in hilariously shining a light on “the sexism and incompetence of 1960s corporate America without taking itself too seriously.”
Ovation’s artistic director Hal Friedman suggested the gender-swap to find the humor in a matriarchal society.
Resolme wrote in an email, “While we were brainstorming the concept, we got such a kick out of the idea that the gender roles are completely swapped: women are the executives who flirt with their secretaries and immerse themselves in their work and rising to the top, while men are the secretaries who dream of catching an executive who will allow them to stay home and raise the children.”
Liz B. Williams plays Finch, a window cleaner guided by a book with the same name as the show. The recorded “Voice” narrating the book will be familiar to many in the audience.
Resolme said Mayor Karen Goh was at the top of her and Friedman’s list for the voice that narrates the book’s many tips.
“I was thrilled when she agreed to join our cast,” she wrote. “She is so kind and accommodating, and adds a wonderful, local flair to our performance.”
Karin Harmon plays Biggley, the president of the World Wide Wicket Company, and uncle to Bud Frump (Brittnee George), Finch’s lazy and arrogant rival.
Aiding Finch is young secretary Rosemary (Devin Beasley Jr.), who has her own white picket fence aspirations for the up-andcomer. Fellow secretaries Smitty (Jordan Fulmer) and Hedy (Cody Garcia) also cause a stir, with the latter taking up with the married Biggley.
Resolme and Friedman said the movie “Barbie” helped cement their thoughts on what they wanted the show to be.
“We created a different universe where America in the 1960s is a matriarchal society. It’s completely normal in their world.
Nobody is in drag, the women are not asked to play it as if they are men, and the men are not asked to be too effeminate. I simply placed the women as executives and the men as secretaries. Of course, this results in some slight character changes, but the absurd, satirical humor is exactly the same.”
The director said Williams and Harmon are already bosses in their own right and had an easy time with their roles. For the male secretaries, the key was to find the gentleness and sensitivity of their characters, without being too feminine.
“The guys in our cast are amazing and I think they absolutely nail it,” she wrote. “There are some wonderful moments in ‘A Secretary is Not a Toy’ and ‘Paris Original’ where the secretaries absolutely win over the audience with their portrayal of these characters.”
This show will have audiences questioning the typical gender roles in the male-dominated society in which we live, but Resolme said they shouldn’t take it too seriously.
“Even the original version skirts that line very well,” she wrote. “Ultimately, it is a musical comedy! And a farce, at that. Laugh, enjoy yourself, have a drink, hum the songs as you leave the theatre. We want everyone to have a great time.”