I Sing!

I Sing! is the type of show that will have the real New York cynics vomiting in the aisles. Could a show be so unassumingly straightforward and unabashed about being a sentimental musical? For those of us who have yet to succumb to the "Everything sucks!" philosophy, I Sing! is one big sweetheart of a show. A full-length new musical (those are rare words to be put together these days) chronicling the day-to-day lives of a group of attractive young New Yorkers, it sounds vaguely similar to Manhattan Theater Club's Spring offering Newyorkers, which was basically a string of satiric numbers about the Big Apple with no real plot. The story of this one is pretty paltry too, but for sheer likability and energy, I Sing! beats the MTC production hands down.

Featuring over two dozen mostly colorful songs, this tuner by Sam Forman and Eli Bolin is, more than anything, a showcase for five bright new faces in musical theater. Billy Eichner, Jeff Juday, Jodie Langel, Michael Raine and Meredith Zeitlin are relative newcomers to the scene but pull each number off as if they'd been doing it for years and transcend the rigid structures of their characters as laid out. Nicky (Juday) is a sleek business type who has been dating Heidi (Zeitlin), a self-proclaimed "daddy's girl" who looks a little like Barbra Streisand and sings a little like her too. They live with Alan (Raine), a bookish Jew who pines for Heidi and likes to act out in their living quarters because he resents their "perfect" existence.

Meanwhile, Pepper (Langel) is a sultry babe who has an oddly personal relationship with her mostly gay roomie Charlie (Eichner), who is perennially left out in the cold romantically. The paths of the five cross and create romantic drama, and give the principals plenty to sing about.

The description of the show can make it sound like a musicalized version of "Friends," which is not too far off, but stick with this one. Where I Sing! lacks originality, it makes up for it tenfold in heart and unalloyed enthusiasm. Most impressive about this production is how it takes such a conventional set-up and makes it something more. The songs display surprising wit, including some great solo numbers (usually the nap break for an Off-Broadway show). Langel powerfully commands the bittersweet "Starting Over" and Raine reigns supreme with "What Alan Likes", chronicling his character's affinity for odd behavior. After you get used to them, the characterizations offer unforeseen depth, a lot of this due to director Benjamin Salka, who effortlessly keeps the evening fleet footed and the cast moving in the intimate Maverick Theater (which resembles MTC's Stage II, even more contained). The space may be too cozy (the actors literally sing right in your face at times), but it highlights how good these young performers are, and how effectively they inhabit the proceedings.

All are noteworthy, but there might be one star-in-the-making: in the seemingly unplayable role of the kooky gay roommate, Billy Eichner (a tall, semi-lanky male with a priceless poker face) spins a cliche into gold, eschewing obnoxious mincing to create a really satisfying portrayal. Many of the others get the more pronounced ditties, but his Charlie proves indelible. Eichner, armed with a lovely voice that never overreaches for effect and an unerring sense for human comedy, can make the simplest exchanges mean more than you think. His simple address of "Hello" to another character had the audience in stitches, and I suspect it was because of his sweetly affected delivery. It seemed just right at that time, and furthermore, revealed the resigned nuances of Charlie's sad-sack Mister Lonelyhearts.

There really isn't a good reason I Sing! had to be set in New York since, despite references to Central Park and the Angelika Film Center, the musical isn't geography-specific. In fact, I believe this show might play even better out of New York, since its wonderfully unpretentious nature might find more admirers in a less dog-eat-dog theater community.