Dream A Little Dream

For me, the Mamas-and-Papas musical, Dream a Little Dream, is a flash to my past. I performed in the coffee houses and night clubs of Greenwich Village and, after 1965, in Los Angeles, and knew the people the Denny Doherty character (played in the performance I saw by the very engaging Eric Michael Gillett) talks about on the stage of the old Village Gate, now called the Village Theater, on Bleecker Street. So for me, the show may have more resonance than for other, younger, people. But from the audience response, people of all ages in the smiling, foot-tapping, crowded theater loved the story of the formation of the hit singing quartet, their individual and group stories, love lives, drug lives, music lives.

Written by Doherty and Paul Ledoux, and fashioned into a full musical show by the master of such, Randal Myler, Dream a Little Dream is as much a picture of America in a special break-free time as it is of the band. The cast is an exciting group of first rate singers and musicians, and the set by Walt Spangler, projections by Jan Hartley, costumes by David C. Woolard, all enhance this very moving historical musical drama. The show, which closes August 31, 2003 deserves to have a longer life somewhere. It's a wonderful nostalgic excursion (and the songs are still great).