Young American Grows Up
by SEVEN McDONALD
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Weaned on a
combination of Broadway musicals, Lawrence Welk, and classic rock, director-
choreographer Ken Roht spent several years globe-hopping with the Young
Americans (alongside Desperate Housewives creator Mark Cherry) before
moving on to work with Iranian theater provocateur Reza Abdoh. Over the past
four years, his annual 99-cent-store extravaganza has had broad appeal and a
Through the Looking-Glass perversion. This year’s installation,
“Route 99”: Orange Star Dinner Show — the most chaotic and convoluted
yet — takes place in a Wyoming dinner theater run by a stage mom who always
dreamed of spawning the ultimate girl group (à la the Andrews Sisters) and
raised her children as such — despite two of them being boys. The lead, like the
one in Sondheim’s musical Gypsy, is simply known here as Mama, and the
other 25 cast members host a sit-down dinner for 40 audience members, onstage,
amid bar brawls and Fosse-like dance numbers. Roht — whose fans include the
fawning Michael Silverblatt (host of KCRW’s Bookworm) and the Skirball
Foundation, which honored him with its Audrey Skirball-Kenis TIME award —
collaborates here with songwriter John Ballinger and costumer Ann Closs-Farley
(see article), as well as a motley cast of capable talents that includes actor
Don Oscar Smith and actress/choreographer Sissy Boyd.