Mike & Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam

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Mike and Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam, the musical returning Off Broadway in a bigger version than before, has a sophisticated score and unsophisticated book. The title is a bit of a misnomer as there is nothing “wild” about it and the “jam” part leads to unfilled expectations. However, the cast makes the most of the impressive musical portions of the show from Bucky Heard and Timothy D. Lee of the Righteous Brothers, salavaging Mark Corallo and Eileen Nelson’s book which resembles those Afterschool Specials of the past.

In a prologue set in 1982, Mike Harrington and newly transferred student Mindy Pesci meet at the auditions for the Liberty High School Festival of Talent, and audition together. Mr. C, their flamboyant drama teacher, predicts they will both have excellent singing careers. Nina, Mike’s current girlfriend and the most popular girl at Liberty who has style but no musical talent, is furious when she is not chosen for the festival, and their relationship ends. Ten years later Mike and Mindy are married and living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Unable to make a living with their music careers, Mike has become a plumber and Mindy is now a hairdresser for her Aunt Donatella at her salon, the Twisted Scissor, though they take gigs when they find them.

In order to keep their hand in at music, they introduce weekend jams in which singers, musicians and family members are invited to showcase new songs and eat delicious Italian food provided by Mindy’s father Don. On this particular night, Mr. C reveals that he has met a record producer from Vengeance Records who has offered to show up to audition Mike and Mindy at home. Who it is turns out to be a surprise from their past. Will things work out when Mike storms out when it is revealed that he has been furloughed from his job and Mindy’s father insists they give up their dreams of making it in music and move to New Jersey so that Mike can take over running his plumbing business? Billed as a feel good musical, never fear, Mike and Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam ends with a happy ending.

The book by Corallo and Nelson trades in clichés and well known tropes of this kind of coming-of-age drama. As the characters are paper thin, and we learn the minimum about each of them, the cast has trouble making believable people out of stock characters. This is offset by the wonderful score with music, lyrics and arrangements by Heard and Lee. Unfortunately, in the first half of the show at the performance under review the sound by Chris Neuner was up so high that many of the words were lost but the excellent voices impressed nevertheless. Sara Fellini’s set design for the several locations is serviceable but unattractive. However, the uncredited costume design is alternately amusing or pitch perfect.

Director Peggy Lee Brennan appears to have worked harder on the musical portions rather than the dramatic sections. The leads have impressive vocal chops and carry the show. Justin Turner and Mackenzie Godfrey as Mike and Mindy are excellent in both their solos and group numbers. As Mike’s musical minded parents who are always quoting song lyrics, Sonya Godfrey and John Paul Durazzo are best in AJ Heard’s dance numbers. Paul Green’s Mr. C and Emily DeMaio’s Aunt Donatella add much color to the storyline as theatrical types. The slow simmering romance of Mike’s biologist sister Lisa (played by Cydney Heard) and his best friend ophthalmologist Peter (Michael Kirkland) is used as comic relief of two awkward people. Abril López Ruiz as the musically untalented Nina has a great deal of personality and poise. As Mindy’s old-fashioned Italian father, Carmen Romano is given the most clichés but manages to rise above it.

Mike & Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam was previously tried out as Mike and Mindy’s Crazy Karaoke Party at the 2018 New York Winter Theater Festival but that title doesn’t fit this material either as there is nothing wild or crazy about the events of the show. At two hours, the show is too long for the thin plot line and the pale characterizations. As a concert, however, the show is quite accomplished in this latest version.

Mike & Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam (through July 20, 2025)

Eye On the Mark Productions

The Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1218742

For more information, visit: http://www.mikeandmindyswildweekendjam.com

Running time: two hours and ten minutes including one intermission