Perfect Harmony
Written by Andrew Grosso and The Essentials
Directed by Andrew Grosso
The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street
212-714-2442
Review by Sara Hottman

Perfect Harmony takes the typical cast of high school characters — the jock, the tramp, the priss and the nerd — and places them in an ultra-competitive a cappella environment with non-stop lunacy in speech and actions, making for sore-cheek laughter as the Acafellas and Ladies in Red pursue national championships.

The Acafellas are a high school a cappella group, consisting of the existential Pitch, or head Acafella (Vayu O’Donnell), the preppy, victory-obsessed second-in-command (Benjamin Huber), the mute who sings (Clayton Apgar), the jock-turned-fella (Scott Janes) and the mama’s boy freshman (Sean Dugan) who has never lost a national championship. The females are represented by the Ladies in Red, with an awkward ESL Russian (Kathy Searle), an ophthalmophobic who has perfect pitch but whose motto is “Don’t look at me” (Margie Stokley), a boy-crazy Jesus freak (Amy Rutberg), and a manager with Tourette’s syndrome (Nisi Sturgis) — all led by a bossy, faux-lexicon-educated Pitch (Dana Acheson). The Ladies have never won a championship, despite their well-choreographed a cappella rendition of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Each caricature evolves to be surprisingly more ridiculous as infighting threatens to tear apart the Acafellas and start a catfight among the Ladies in Red before the national championship.

Pitch Hitters: Scott James and Kathy Searle muddle through the cutthroat world of high school a cappella in Perfect Harmony.

In a script that induces nearly indescribable hilarity, Grosso, the artistic director for The Essentials theater company, strings together subtle puns and slapstick humor that a hyper-talented cast perfects. Some of the actors’ flair for caricature pulls double duty: Searie, for instance, masters the Russian Lady in Red, who confuses English adages (“Yeah, mine has the balls of a moth.”), as well as vulgar, Jersey-accented talent manager Kiki Tune.

Each scene is humorous to the most minute detail — as in silent Jasper’s (Apgar) quick peck on his girlfriend Melody’s (Acheson) arm as she shouts commands from atop a chair while chaos ensues below her — and the a cappella songs are hysterical in content and delivery. Perfect Harmony’s extraordinary cast and impeccable script combine for a performance whose non-stop comedy must be seen to be believed.