Theater in Review
By CAMILLE SWEENEY
Published: October 1, 2004

The New York Musical Theater Festival is finishing up its three-week showcase on Sunday after presenting 31 shows. Information about times and venues: www.nymf.org.
'Shorts' 'New Voices and Faces in Musical Theater'
Greenwich Street Theater

Sure, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Avenue Q" has done a lot for its creators, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, but it was the 1999 commission of a short musical, "Borreguita and the Coyote," based on a Mexican folk tale, that first enabled them to pay the bills. This program of seven shorts from members of the prestigious BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop offers "Borreguita and the Coyote," a glimpse of the pre-"Q" ingenuity of Mr. Lopez and Mr. Marx, who are workshop alumni. Performed by the duo, the moral of their upbeat Spanish-inflected children's song is hard to miss. And its tale of a persevering little lamb who outsmarts a wily coyote is a fitting metaphor as Mr. Lopez and Mr. Marx venture into showbiz.
Other clever numbers in this 75-minute program are from the composer Richard B. Evans and the lyricist Frank Evans's as-yet-to-be-produced musical "Not Ready for Middle Age." One is a lusty song about how exercise for a bad back and the vision of spandex can revive a marriage. And there is a song suggesting what HMO really stands for: Hail Mary Operations, Horny Male Obstetricians or Harvest More Organs — take your pick. Especially poignant in the program is "Joe Jefferson Benjamin Blow," whose book, lyrics and music by a rising workshop star, Andy Monroe, tell the story of a vaguely dissatisfied vacuum cleaner salesman who lives an ordinary life. And especially funny is the talented Nancy Ringham in "No Trouble at All," a sendup of the Martha Stewart Syndrome. Though the gags are often easy, and the terrain feels retro, Ms. Ringham gets laughs. After trying to serve her husband's boss rock-hard lentil soup, she races from the dining table to the front door, sticks her head out and bellows an expletive, returning to the table purged, sweetly singing, "Oh, excuse me, that was the dog!"