By Stan Jenson

 I just saw Desert Theatricals’ Damn Yankees, one of my faves, at the Rancho Mirage Amphitheater, and I was spellbound from beginning to end.  The acting, singing, dancing, costumes, sets, lighting and sound were all of a top-notch, professional standard. I was late in joining the Desert Theatricals bandwagon.  I resisted them because their ticket price was a few dollars more than the Valley’s community theatres.  Now I realize they can only be compared to our two local professional theatres and as such, their ticket price is the best bargain in town.

Damn Yankees starts with a middle-aged man named Joe Boyd (Michael Hamlin) sitting center stage, staring at a television.  His wife Meg (Joanne Mulrooney Moser) musically tells us that “Six Months Out of Every Year” he is virtually not present because he is so fixated with the baseball games on his television.

After Meg goes to bed, Joe walks outside to the porch and meets a stranger, a smartly dressed man who introduces himself as Mr. Applegate  (Ted Macofsky), tells Joe that he could become the greatest baseball player of all time.  We instantly recognize Applegate as the devil, but Joe is a bit slower on the uptake.  When he finally realizes that the devil wants his soul in exchange for the transformation, he demands an escape clause, something he has used in his real estate career.  Applegate reluctantly agrees.

Joe is then transformed into a strapping, good-looking young man whom Applegate calls Joe Hardy (Patrick Wallace). Applegate manages to get him on the roster of the Washington Senators, old Joe’s favorite team.  By the end of the season, Young Joe’s skills have been enough to bring the Senators to one of the top positions in the league, but Applegate fears losing Joe’s soul because of the escape clause so he tries dirty tricks to hold onto him.  One is bringing in an irresistible bombshell, Lola (Ava Sarnowski), to seduce him, proving that “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets.”  Her attempt at a sexy routine is not enough to get in the way of Joe’s love for Meg, his wife.

Along the way we meet a pair of sisters (Sonia Reavis and Julie Schwaben) who are friends of Meg’s.  I have seen these sisters treated as throwaway characters, but in this production, Director Ray Limon has used them as broad comics, speaking their silly lines with Brooklyn accents that would shame a cab driver.  Both ladies are delights, and it seemed the audience always became a bit more attentive whenever they entered, eager to hear how dumb and inappropriate they would be.

The baseball team was made up of ten very distinctive young men under the leadership of team manager, Mr. Van Buren (Glenn Liggett).  Early on, he tells the players that even though they aren’t very skilled, they’ve got “Heart,” which was the biggest hit from the show’s score.  A lady reporter, Gloria (Mia Mercado), decides to label the team’s new long ball hitter as “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo,” a song that leads into a full-team, full-stage dance number.  Later in the show, she is joined by another reporter, and who could play that role with more credibility than NBC News Anchor Joe Smith!

The performances by the actors are uniformly excellent.  Lola’s dance numbers take advantage of Sarnowski’s long legs which she frequently fan kicks over a seated Joe Hardy’s head, and her transition from bubble-headed seductress to a true friend of Joe’s is handled flawlessly. Tod Macofsky’s Mr. Applegate is a character we love to hate.  He’s always messing with our protagonist, Joe Hardy, so we tense up a bit when he walks on stage, but we can’t wait to see what this skilled actor is going to get up to next.  His second act number, “Those Were the Good Old Days,” was a show stopper which Limon staged on a rolling set of stairs.  Applegate’s glittering red suit and skimmer hat gave him a perfect song-and-dance man look, and the audience lapped it up.

The ensemble work was great and the baseball players managed to give us very individual characters within the team.  We only see the talented female ensemble in the opening number and “Two Lost Souls” in the second act but they are solid, and their costumes cement the 50’s setting.

The Rancho Mirage Amphitheatre has a stage approximately 60’ wide.  Director Ray Limon also functions as choreographer and seeing that wide of a space filled with dancers is exciting indeed.  There are limitations to offstage storage of scenery, but Limon has handled that limitation creatively.

I’m saving the best till last.  Patrick Wallace’s embodiment of Joe Hardy gave him ownership of the stage each time he entered.  His masculine good looks might have been enough, but he sings beautifully, acts even better, and in the second act’s“Two Lost Souls,” we discover that he’s also one hell of a dancer (sorry, Mr. Applegate).  He perfectly embodied the beatnik style of the 50’s (when the show was written) and was absolutely captivating as he and Lola led a dozen or so dancers in what was truly an “11 o’clock number” – typically the strongest number in a show strategically placed so it will linger in the minds of the audience.  I’ve seen Wallace deftly handle the leads in Rent and Avenue Q already this season, and it’s not hyperbole to state that it seems like there’s nothing that he cannot do.  My guess is that his next stop after the Coachella Valley will be The Great White Way.  We will miss him, but we can say that “We knew him when…”

The show’s book is by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, based on the latter’s novel, “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.” The Words and Music for Damn Yankees were written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, who previously wrote the highly successful The Pajama Game.  Those two hits pointed towards a brilliant career for the duo, but Ross died of chronic bronchiectasis at age 29, several months after Damn Yankees opened.  

All technical details of the production were top notch including Gavan Wyrick’s lighting design, Ilana Elroi’s sound design,Leslie Upp’s costumes, Kathryn Scott’s wig design, and above all, the projections designed by Nick Wass (who also managed to play one of the baseball players!).  The stage manager (and co-producer) was Joshua Carr. 

If I had to pick one element that elevates Desert Theatricals above any other live theatre in The Valley it would be their 12-piece live orchestra, led by musical director and conductor Scott Smith.  Most traveling musicals that play the McCallum have between 7- and 9-pieces, and the difference created by adding a few more players is delightful.

The last production of Desert Theatricals’ 2024 season will be Oklahoma, to be presented on May 3-5, 2024, at the Rancho Mirage Amphitheater, 71560 San Jacinto Dr, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270, info@desert-theatricals.com or Call: 760-620-5993. Gates open at 5:30 and general seating is open. There is also a dinner theatre option. See the Web site for more information, www.desert-theatricals.com.