Is this a hard boiled detective tale disguised as a lounge act - or the other way around? Direct from The Red Eye Lounge, Buddy Toupee tickles the ivories and serves up plot concoctions like a Chandleresque Greek chorus. The private eye searches for a missing blonde through a double dealing world of smokey bars, rain slicked streets and more blondes. This quest lures the audience to an unnamed city of mystery, music and demolished dreams.
"Musically more sophisticated than
City of Angels, Mr. Bohmler's torchy swiveling melodies echo the moody grandeur of the 40's film- noir soundtracks." -
The New York Times"With Scott Wentworth's witty book and music and lyrics by Craig Bohmler and Marion Adler that echo, at their most ardent, the best of Sondheim, this chamber musical eschews camp for true style." - The New York Times, 2006
"...intelligent and uplifting...best small scale musical we've see in a long time...brilliantly clever lyrics, and a score that could not be more captivating or sophisticated...a knowing but wistful book." - New Yorker Magazine
"...inventive and lively, in the style of vintage torch songs or jazz ballads, homages rather than echoes...many affecting moments and intriguing themes." - New York Newsday
"...crispy, economical, with funny, original lyrics." - Village Voice
"Gunmetal Blues offers a wildly entertaining spoof of the 1940's movies...Scott Wentworth's clever book and Craig Bohmler's and Marion Adler's sophisticated score distill all the film noir clichés into a delicious musical satire." - Philadelphia Courier-Post
"Scott Wentworth's sendup of film noir, with three actors playing more than twice as many characters, hits scarcely a wrong note in it's serpentine story of a weary private eye on the trail of a missing young woman. Craig Bohmler and Marion Adler who wrote the show's music and lyrics, also know their way around the genre. They've created a bluesy, sinewy, cunningly cynical score that compels admiration on its own terms even as it ribs the conventions within which it operates." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"Stunning...Witty, acerbic, and smooth..." - Philadelphia Times
"Gunmetal Blues is so smoothly written and performed...clever, silly, and serious all at once...Hats off to Citiarts Theatre for importing a winner." - San Francisco Chronicle
"...nicely arty, angular, unpredictable ballads...clever book brims with the hilarious echoes of the flintily colored dialogue in Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett novels." - Houston Post
"Delicious, sophisticated humor!" - Dramalogue Magazine
Gunmetal Blues premiered May 30, 1991 at the Phoenix Little Theatre in association with the Musical Theatre of Arizona and was directed by Michael Barnard.
It was subsequently professionally produced by Theatre New Brusnwick and was directed by Glynis Leyshon.
It was then presented Off-Broadway in New York by the Amas Musical Theatre Inc., Rosetta LeNoire and was directed by Davis Halll.
