‘VOTE!’ musical tests its rate of success in Bloomington

In the spirit of the recent presidential election, a new, high-energy musical premiered Friday through Sunday at Bloomington’s Harmony School as a test run before its debut in New York this summer.

Ryann Ferguson, co-writer of “VOTE!,” flew in from New York to see the show. Though Ferguson was not present during the rehearsal process, she said the students involved in the show’s production brought her vision to fruition.

“I wrote the show from the perspective of multiple levels of humor,” Ferguson said. “There’s something for everyone, from slapstick to political jokes to historical references. There was a physicality involved in the humor, and I knew once the show got on its feet that humor would come across. And it did.”

Ferguson said she wrote the show from her own interest in politics and relished the idea of capitalizing on the “campiness of the political process” by placing the show in a high school setting.

“It’s a cartoon musical masquerading as live action,” Ferguson said.

Junior Sam Glover, an audience member, agreed.  

“The show was very lively. It should go to Broadway,” he said. “It keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

Muffin Pasquinelli, played by sophomore Jen Saltiel, is the musical’s main character. She is in competition with Mark Boyd, played by sophomore David Coleman, and Nikki Murphy, played by sophomore Taryn Pryor, in a high school election for student body president.

Mark is an overachiever and Richard Nixon fanatic, and Nikki is an advocate for all the good in the world.

Muffin comes off like a high school version of the “Legally Blonde” movies’ Elle Woods.

Her campaign manager and best friend Trish Yoder, performed by sophomore Danielle Sacks, worries that Muffin’s highly processed appearance would cause Mark to run a negative campaign against her.

In a plan to sabotage Muffin’s campaign, Mark takes pictures of Muffin kissing Trish’s snowboarder boyfriend, unbeknownst to Muffin, during the song “D-Gates.”

Trish’s hopes for Muffin to get the popular vote of the students are dashed when Mark shows her the incriminating evidence, and they decide to join forces. Their plans backfire when Muffin, through sheer determination, exposes her dream of becoming a stewardess, or as she said in the show, “flight attendant, the more politically correct term.”

Muffin’s recognition of her actual dreams achieves the show’s larger messages of expressing individuality despite the fear of failure and understanding the impact of a single vote despite a crooked political system.

Senior Quinto Ott said the musical got its message across.

“It was clever for the show to have a high school venue as a way to show what the democratic process was about,” Ott said. “It was topical, but not pretentious.”

Ferguson said she was impressed with the audience turnout and was glad to finally see the audience reacting positively to the subversive material in the script. Of course, she said her main mission is not to be a subject of controversy.

The message hits home in the final lyrics of the show:

“To vote is to try, no matter how naive, to take a chance and wear your dream on your sleeve. You can’t change the weather, but you can put on a coat! You may not like who wins, but you’ve at least got to vote.”