Playwrights Horizons' upcoming world premiere musical No Singing in the Navy, written by Milo Cramer, has found full casting. The production is set to play March 18-April 19 at the Off-Broadway company's Peter Jay Sharp Theater, with opening night set for March 29. Aysan Celik is at the helm of the On the Town-inspired parody.
Starring will be Bailey Lee as Sailor 1, Ellen Nikbakht as Sailor 2, and Elliot Sagay as Sailor 3, with Kyle Adam Blair on piano.
According to press notes, the work explores "the myth of American innocence" with a three-actor, one-piano parody of the so-called Golden Age of musical theatre. Cramer reportedly had the idea to mash up the "Pollyanna patriotism of the midcentury American musical" with "the country's war-mongering myth-making" as a graduate student in San Diego, drawing inspiration from watching the more-than 110,000 active military service members who reside there.
“It’s like a military paradise,” says Cramer in a statement. “There are ships on the horizon and jets in the sky and you see sailors on the beach and they're walking in threes and you can't believe your eyes—it’s like a genre trope come to life. And they're cute, and it's like, ‘Why are their outfits so cute? Are they gonna start singing?’ And you feel kind of scared of them, but scared for them.”
“I watched a lot of old musicals growing up, and these sailors made me think about On the Town— and it felt like a very apt metaphor," continues Cramer. "The militant optimism of these silly sailors to me feels like America—a doomed optimism, scrubbed clean of detail. ‘I’m this happy, innocent, masculine, sexy baby, and I’m about to die.’ Applied to the very violent and bewildering world we’re in today, these tropes began to feel very existential—but in a bonkers, happy-go-lucky way.”
"These three young actors have a real breadth of craft," adds Celik. "But I am not sure that there are a lot of opportunities right now for them to unleash a particular aspect of that craft: which is the unhinged clown that lives inside each of them and the virtuosity that entails. The piece does still invite the audience to see their humanity and heart as well—their subtlety. The fact that they can do all this in the show is exciting to me, and I love that it’s how New York will meet them.”
The production will feature scenic design by Krit Robinson, costume design by Enver Chakartash, lighting design by Masha Tsimring, sound design by Tei Blow, and music direction by Kyle Adam Blair. Kelsey Vivian will serve as production stage manager.
“Milo Cramer is an extraordinary writer, in both senses of the word ‘extraordinary.’ Their work is utterly unlike anyone’s, approaching the world with a brand of wonder and awe that’s at the same time savvy and deeply skeptical," states Playwrights Horizons Artistic Director Adam Greenfield. "While no one could have predicted that their newest play would riff on the wide-eyed patriotism of mid-century American musicals, it seems inevitable to me somehow. In the weird world of No Singing in the Navy, American innocence lives in a fun-house mirror-world, in an alternate reality that we can’t touch but is always there stalking us. Which strikes me as a remarkably acute way to describe how it feels to be a person lately.”
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