CHICO — What do you get when you combine parodies of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman songs and musical styles? You get what director Gerald Thomson calls a “love letter” to musicals called “The Musical of Musicals: The Musical” which opens July 19 at Chico Theater Company. The show includes one soprano singer, one alto, one tenor, one bass and a non-singing narrator. The story centers around Young June, who is threatened by an evil landlord because she can’t pay her rent.
The story is told and retold in the different musical styles. Will the handsome leading man, Bill, come to June’s rescue? Actor Cass Pate plays variations of Bill throughout the play. Pate was recruited by Thomson to play the part.
“He said ‘I heard great things’ and ‘I think you’re really good,’” said Pate. Pate is relatively new to theater. They performed in two separate productions of “Grease” within a year.
They were a member of the Pleasant Valley High School Theater Club before making their foray into community theater. Pate has enjoyed working with Thomson. “Gerald is a very good director,” Pate said.
“He had the skeleton of the show fully constructed by the time I got the script.” There are quite a few songs in the show — more than three dozen. “It’s definitely challenging,” Pate said.
“I don’t have the strongest singing background. I improve more and more though. It’s an interesting .
