No one who loves musicals should miss the brilliant staging of “Something Rotten!” at The Muny.

The 2015 Broadway hit is a loving spoof of musical theater set in Elizabethan England. The central character is Nick Bottom, who has the same name as the stagestruck weaver in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Nick and his brother Nigel run a theater company mired in a losing battle with Shakespeare’s. The future looks grim for the Bottoms when their patron tells them Shakespeare’s next play will be on the same subject as theirs. The angry backer promises to end his patronage unless the Bottoms come up with a new idea for original play by the next day.

Nick’s search for the next big thing in theater takes him to Soothsayer Alley, where he consults Donna Nostradamus, her renowned namesake’s niece. Donna has her uncle’s gift, but she sees too far into the future and doesn’t get everything right.

She predicts that the “biggest, most fantastic thing in theater” will the musical. The number that follows, “A Musical,” is a tour de force that has more hilarious references than I can count to much-loved musicals that appear in Donna’s vision. These allusions are set within irresistible music and lyrics by Karey Kirkpatrick and Wayne Kirkpatrick. Don’t miss the Elizabethanized names of musicals in marquees on the video screens.

The staging of “A Musical” grows into a dazzling production number that fills the Muny’s stage with joy. In the picture above, a chorus line of 34 stretches across the James S. McDonnell Stage. Parker Esse’s choreography and the Muny orchestra under music director Anne Shuttlesworth are splendid throughout.

The Kirkpatricks’ songs and the book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell are filled with charm. So are the performances by the stellar cast. Matt Doyle captures Nick’s drive to succeed, his devotion to his family, his obsessive rivalry with Shakespeare, and his underling goofiness. Bryonha Marie is an absolute delightful as Nick’s devoted, resourceful, protofeminist wife Bea, who goes to work to support the family despite Nick’s resistance.

Jacob Dickey fully embodies the flamboyance of Shakespeare’s status as the Elizabethan theater’s rock star and dresses the part, too. Will Burton embodies Nigel’s sweetness, sensitivity, and artistic yearning. It is no wonder that Burton’s Nigel wins the affection of the poetry-obsessed Portia, whose quirky rebelliousness is fully embraced by Elizabeth Teeter.

The father against whom Portia rebels is the Puritan zealot Brother Jeremiah. Lara Teeter relishes every chance to depict Jeremiah’s fanaticism. Like their characters, the Teeters are father and daughter.

Shlylock, the backer who bails out Nigel, is a far cry from his Shakespearean counterpart. Adam Heller gives thoroughly winning performance as the sweet-natured, theater-obsessed moneylender who longs to be a producer.

Gary Glasgow is a hoot both as Lord Clapham, the Bottoms’ outlandish, fair-weather patron, and as a trial judge. Jen Cody is not merely uproarious as Nostradamus; she is definitive.

The Elizabethan setting is firmly established by Edward E. Haynes Jr.’s half-timbered scenic design and by the eye-catching costumes by DW, which are based on the original Broadway designs by Gregg Barnes. Rob Denton’s lighting, Joshua Hummel’s sound, Camilla Tassi’s video, and J. Jared Janas’s wigs show the attention to the detail that contributes so much to The Muny’s work.

The set’s flexibility is due not only to clever use of the turntable but also to a large, stage-left structure that can be rotated manually to show the interior and exterior of the Bottoms’ house. Rob Ruggiero’s direction takes full advantage of the flexibility and displays the meticulous building of character and drama that has been the hallmark of his work at The Muny and The Rep for many years.

“Something Rotten!” is The Muny at its best, which is exactly what we need when we are facing nine months without it.

—Gerry Kowarsky

Photo © Phillip Hamer Photography
Front left to right: Jen Cody as Donna Nostradamus and Matt Doyle as Nick Bottom.
Rear: 34 members of the “Something Rotten!” ensemble.