Review: Andy Mientus with Teen Commandments Introduce 'Manhattan Kids' Musical at Feinstein's/54 Below, Debuting New Musical Theatre Style Along the Way

Andy Mientus won a fictional Tony Award on television before ever actually having appeared on Broadway. However, following his concert debut with Brooklyn band Teen Commandments at Feinstein's/54 Below on August 2, the first of a two-show engagement, it became clear that his fake Tony win may very well have been prophetic.

Mientus' unusual bio is derived from his time on Smash, NBC's musical theatre drama that, well, wasn't. Mientus' character, a season two addition named Kyle Bishop, wrote the book to an ambitious and boundary-pushing new musical, posthumously winning a Tony Award after being fatally struck by a bus (or was it a car? The world still weeps for you, young Kyle). Smash was cancelled three years ago, and I detail it here only because, in this concert, the parallels between Mientus and his character were too uncanny.

The evening did not consist of a traditional, career-introspective set, and though there were a few covers (a mashup of Justin Bieber's "What Do You Mean?" with Beyoncé's "XO" a highlight among them), as well as a selection from Spring Awakening, which Mientus appeared in this past season on Broadway as well as on tour in 2008, the intent was to introduce Manhattan Kids, a new musical that Mientus has been intermittently at work upon for years, alongside Teen Commandments (made up of Brett Moses, synth and piano; Van Hughes, bass and acoustic guitar; Nicholas LaGrasta, guitar, bass, keyboard, computer; and Hampus Öhman-Frölund, drums). Though the majority of the plot was not divulged, through the selections performed it was made clear that the musical is audacious in both its story and its musical style.

The ilk of music pulsing through Manhattan Kids known as synthpop pulls heavily from the electronic realm, but the only component which separates these songs from any other musical theatre score "is just some technology," explained Mientus. He, along with Moses, proceeded to perform Les Miserables' "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," stripped hauntingly to just Mientus' lone voice with a thick layer of digitization. Mientus' point was succinctly proven: Synthpop and musical theatre are in no way mutually exclusive, a conclusion that would be reinforced throughout the evening.

As for content, those titular Manhattan Kids are not your singing Matildas, or even the idealistic bohemians at the center of Rent. These youngsters are a much more perilous subset, entrenched in New York's urban nightlife, establishing the rhythm of their heartbeats at warehouse parties and drug-laden clubs more frequently depicted in premium cable dramas than in musical theatre. Furthermore, the piece is decidedly bleak in some of its depictions of youth. One song, for example, entitled "Big Sweatshirt" details what a girl is hiding under that eponymous piece of clothing and-spoiler alert-includes the lyric, "86 the baby and hit the street." (Jennifer Damiano, who made her own Feinstein's/54 Below debut the week prior, was enlisted to sing that uplifting tune.)

In discussing the writing process, Mientus detailed the quest for a particular song to serve "a moment in the show where it needed to start to feel like everything was getting evil." Seeking inspiration from a former One Direction member, Mientus revealed, "What Zayn [Malik] taught us is that sexy is actually really evil." The result was "Down to You," which Mientus performed with Jo Lampert, a tune that is, in fact, equal parts sexy and evil, lending itself to imagery of slinky bodies in slinky clubs and blackened corners in which only a pair of eyes are illuminated when the flashing of strobe lighting hits them just so. With lyrics including the delightfully crude, "Three hands on your body," the song made crystalline the seductively demonic dichotomy that comprises the Manhattan Kids world.

The musical stylings of Mr. Malik were just one of a vast selection of Top 40 pop which the team devoured in stylistic research for the show. "Most of those songs are about getting laid and the world ending," Mientus quite accurately pointed out. Thusly, in writing what would be the show's 11 o'clock number, a question resurged: What would you do if the world were ending tomorrow? In crowdsourcing for answers, Mientus relayed that while some described urges to commit acts of delinquency and lewdness, most simply wanted to go home, which is what lead to "Pittsburgh" (sung with Nicolette Robinson). Though by all means about an apocalypse, the song's ebullience in the face of horror could not be deterred.

In that same vein was "Burn All Night," a song which, in musical theatre terminology, would be considered a classic "I want" number. Featuring the refrain, "Watch out, I'll illuminate ya," it further demonstrated that Manhattan Kids falls impeccably into the modern musical theatre canon, the synth-drenched little brother to Broadway-bound Dear Evan Hansen, essentially. "Wasted," which included the repeated lyric, "Dreams are just a waste of my time," was similarly angst-hued, elevated by the fact that Mientus was accompanied by Damon Daunno who, fresh off his run in the underworld-set Hadestown, knows a thing or two about depicting unrest and darkness in musical theatre.

The final Manhattan Kids selection of the evening was "Famous," a song with tropes just melancholic enough to be outweighed by the poignancy of one's adolescence in hindsight. With a cascading chorus consisting of the lyric, "No one knows who I am, but I feel famous tonight," it's the kind of song that, when played at a bar, intends for one to step outside themselves with the awareness that what is being described in the song is what they are attempting to create in that instant: the simulacrum of youth. It's what Miley Cyrus aims to capture in 2016, and it is what The Ramones aimed to capture in 1978.

Capturing that feeling, that fleeting moment in time, is what Manhattan Kids does so well. Its radio-ready score, though, which is both rooted in musical theatre theory while unlike anything else on or Off-Broadway right now, is what will compel it forward. Should the piece get a fully staged production, which would in no way be surprising, the Feinstein's/54 Below audience will have been present for a moment of musical theatre history in the making. So then, to relay it back to the Kyle Bishop of it all, it may only be a matter of time before Mientus garners the same level of infamy as his fictional counterpart-hopefully, though, without the ordeal of that precarious bus.

To post a comment, you must register and login.