#regina comet

so i was just tooling around on IMDB as one does and looking up my faves to see if they are in anything they haven’t announced yet

and regina comet is on there

i know they filmed the show because they were offering comps (because of obstructed view) and i couldn’t go because i had a photography gig but could they be actually RELEASING it?

(I realize this doesn’t really have anything to do with Newsies other than Ben was Davey but I’m not going to start a whole-ass blog for Regina Comet unless there’s a proshot and a cast recording coming)

Spoilers ahoy.

OK…so I saw Regina Comet.

I loved it.

Now, to be fair, I knew I was going to love it. I’d never seen Alex Wyse perform live before but I knew of his extensive Broadway/tour/off-Broadway history and I had seen his beautiful “Avinu Malkeinu” video with Ben and Samantha Massell, so I knew I was in for a treat. Bryonha Marie Parham was one of my absolute favorite parts of “Prince of Broadway” (she and Brandon Uranowitz basically WERE the show for me) so I knew the role of Regina was in good hands. Ben was already a fave of mine going into the show, so I knew I would love him in the role. I’ve loved Ben in most of the things I’ve seen him in, even if he was not my favorite Davey (I think his voice and his general demeanor/physicality on stage is far more suited to pieces in a modern/contemporary setting).

So.

The show itself was fun and had a satisfying ending. I liked that the two guys (who never get names) were able to provide something for Regina even though it wasn’t what was promised to her in the beginning, and as much as I was rooting for “Man 2” to succeed with Regina personally and professionally, I liked that she finally got the opportunity she had secretly dreamed of her whole life from the REAL first person to really care about what she thought (not that Man 2 wasn’t genuine, he just wasn’t the first). As someone who began to make their first steps to a better life thanks to a friend from a distant past resurfacing and saving the day (and, tbh, my life) with their kindness, the fact that Regina reached out to someone who fostered her first passion and he offered (after decades!) to be the bridge to her achieving that dream gave me so much joy. I also liked that she became comfortable enough with Other Man and Man 2 to admit where her heart really was, and in admitting that she didn’t even believe in the product she was selling (mostly because she was allergic to it), they could free themselves from the project (which they were technically already free from because of what Man 2 did) and showcase what they both really cared about, which was her. They DID write her hit song, it just wasn’t the jingle.

Another thing that I really liked was Ben and Alex’s chemistry. They’ve worked together quite a bit before, and IIRC actually DID grow up together (I know their characters did but I wasn’t sure how far they personally went back). On the one hand, it made everything so much more real (even more so than the fact that they wrote the piece together), but on the other hand, because their chemistry was so good, it honestly feels like a piece that literally only THEY could do. Like, could I see my other favorite Nice Jewish Boys of Broadway/Broadway-adjacent in this show? I mean, I could see them singing the solos, maybe, but I couldn’t see this show working with any other actors (at least in the roles of the men). I think that their friendship and real-life closeness also benefited the solo work they did within the show. I have an inkling that Ben took more of a lead in the songwriting aspect and Alex took more of a lead in the dialogue, and as a writer in all aspects I know there is always a tendency to want to give the best material to oneself, but I felt like whoever was in charge of the songs (which, again, I’m suspecting was Ben) wanted to make both of the solos equally engaging and true to the character/singer. Alex’s song (the name escapes me right now) had big “forced to do the group project by himself” energy that I identified strongly with, and Ben’s song “Conflict of Interest” was the best horny-anxious-thirtysomething-Jewish anthem since…well, since the existence of Mendel in Falsettos. Not to be crass, but that man (Ben) makes sweet love to every song he sings and that one was no exception. Looking back on that sentence, it almost feels like witnessing that song, having been written by him, is like walking in on a private moment. Anyway, he totally owned it.

I also liked that the female lead character was well-rounded (enjoyed the finer things in life but was also proud of her interest in academic matters and not willing to hide that part of herself), not particularly young (I don’t know how old BMP is but I think Regina is supposed to be around 40), not rail-thin, and not a soprano (no shade to sopranos, I just want to be able to sing along with a potential cast recording without sounding like an unbalanced washing machine).

There were only a few things that weakened the show for me. One was that a lot of the songs that weren’t solos started to sound the same to me. Not so much musically, but narratively. Like, we get it, you have writers’ block and one of you is an overthinker and the other one is a bit of a hornball who isn’t pulling his weight. Most of the songs felt like one big reprise that was interrupted by a song that sounded different every once in a while and then went back to exactly what they were talking about before. Another thing that was weird for me was the joke about Regina taking the collective virginities of the Hanson brothers, and how whatever she did with them inspired them to write “Mmmbop.” Now, assuming the story takes place in the present and assuming Regina is approaching 40, that puts her date of birth in the early 1980s, so somewhere between the ages of the two eldest members of the band. Both Isaac and Taylor would have been age-appropriate crushes for someone born in, say, 1982. However, “Mmmbop” was first recorded in 1995. If whatever she did with the boys happened in 1995, Regina would have schtupped a nine-year-old (Zac’s birthday is in late 1985 so he was probably still 9 when they recorded it) and a twelve-year-old and that would make her a child predator. Not that schtupping a 15 year old (Isaac) isn’t creepy, but if she were 13 at the time, it would make him the creeper. I think they could keep the joke if they switched it to a different song that didn’t come out at the beginning of their career (like if they implied that she was responsible for a comeback album).

That being said, I do highly recommend the show. I think it speaks to a lot of people even if you’re not explicity represented by any of the characters.