Review: BROADWAY'S BAD GUYS at Revolution Stage Company

The first time I was aware of Erik Scott-Romney was as Mortimer (The Guy Who Dies) in CVRep’s production of The Fantasticks. Henry/Old Actor was played by Wayne Bryan and Mortimer/The Man Who Dies by Erik Scott Romney, and they made a delightful pairing. Here’s what I said back then:

“Bryan's Old Man had us giggling like grade school kids who just heard the teacher fart, and Romney's Mortimer gave us death scenes that could give Bugs Bunny a run for his money.” I never forgot that performance, so when I was alerted to Romney’s show at Revolution Stage Company, I knew I wanted to see it. 

Here’s what I didn’t know: not only can Romney act and sing, he can dance. Not just move well - which he does  - but the guy can dance. He is so talented he can command an audience just by showing up, and he showed up in his show Broadway’s Bad Guys this past Saturday at Revolution Stage Company.

Musical Director Chip Prince did a fantastic job keeping the two-man band tight and did double duty on vocals. Prince has a terrific voice, and could easily do cartoon voiceovers (especially if they sing), and here plays quite a few characters vocally supporting Romney’s rich an dpowerful voice. On percussion, and synth (I think?) was Bob Marino, digitally adding strings or horns wherever needed. There is no doubt that they are both pros, and I was consistently aware of how tight the three of them were - 100% in sync with each other - tight endings and smooth starts.   

Romney considers himself to be too vertically challenged for lead roles, and additionally claims to be aged out of romantic leads. But short kings are in, and with his charm, quirky good looks, and incredible talent, he just needs an opportunity to show up and do what he does best. Wow the crowd. And this time he did it by chillin' like a villain.

The stagebill was digital and I can no longer find it, so I can’t actually tell you which bad guys he chose - although I do recall one was from Oklahoma, and I knew You’ll Be Back from Hamilton because who doesn’t, and Les Miserable which I’ve never seen because a) en anglais the title means The Miserable and who needs that? And b) it’s a bit too close to opera for me. 

Although I used to sing, it was pop, and I’m not giving anything away by saying I am not a musical’s Best Friend, I’ve said this before. So I haven’t seen a ton, and for those of us with remedial musical theatre knowledge, there was no story to reference. But Romney still managed to keep me entertained despite my lack of Broadway musicals. I will say, however, some backstory on the character and why he’s a bad guy would have taken this into the stratosphere. And even though I didn’t know, most of the time I got a pretty good idea of what kind of f’d up these guys were inside (misunderstood, mommy issues, daddy issues, absolute madness) because of Romney’s skill at characterizations. Still, I still wanted to know their story. 

That said, Romney gave us a great show that was absolutely showed off this incredibly talented actor/singer/dancer to a very appreciative audience. I don’t know where he’s going next, but I certainly hope someone recognizes this powerhouse of talent and gets him up on a much bigger stage soon. The theatre community in larger cities would do well by getting some eyes and ears on this guy. We'll miss him, but we can always say, "I saw him way back when, and I knew he was destined for great things." 

Are you listening, Broadway?

Erik Scott Romney

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