It’s a musical about girls, written by girls, for girls. The musical is Little Black Dress, and it has checked into the Kirk Douglas Theatre for a holiday run. Irreverent, rambunctious, and filthy-minded , it is definitely not a family show. But it is also funny as hell and immensely enjoyable, a real hoot.
The cast comprises four fiendishly gifted performers, one of whom, Danielle Trzcinski, helped create the show (along with the director, Christopher Bond). Trzcinski plays the lead character, Dee, a slightly ditzy girl who becomes a kind of Everywoman during the course of the long but fast-paced story, always with a sly, bemused look on her face. It’s as if she can never quite believe what’s happening to her. We first meet Dee when she’s thirteen. She and her best friend Mandy (Jennette Cronk) are being lectured by Mandy’s mom (Jenna Corney) on the importance of having a little black dress in their wardrobe. In a song that they all end up singing, the play’s theme is laid bare: the right LBD is the key to success for a woman. It can help land you a job, impress a date, and give you confidence and self-worth. Little Black Dress then follows the trajectory of Dee and Mandy’s maturation. They go from gawky adolescence (“what would it be like to be kissed by a boy?”) to becoming college students—and trying desperately to lose their virginity. Sex is always on their minds, even when they dream of going to Paris one day. Surely a handsome Frenchman will show up and try to seduce one of them (this fantasy eventually becomes a reality). In a series of short, snappy scenes (punctuated by mirthful songs) we watch as Dee and Mandy keep evolving. They watch their friends get married and have babies—a fate worse than death as far as they are concerned. But that changes when Dee falls in love with a handsome stud, Mark (Clint Hromsco). After seeing her in her trusty little black dress, he proposes to her. Reluctantly, almost dazedly, she agrees to marry him. Next thing you know, she gets pregnant and finds herself puking and pissing during an attack of morning-sickness. That’s just one of many hilariously satirical scenes that make Little Black Dress the outrageous comedy it is. Trzcincki also draws laughs when she breaks the fourth wall, comes down stage, and chats with a couple of audience members, riffing on their responses to her questions. A little later another audience member suddenly appeared on stage and took part in a frenzied dance sequence. This was greeted with roars of approval by the audience, which was mostly comprised of groups of women, many of whom were clad in little black dresses. The “girls’ night out” feeling to the evening was a reflection of what transpired on stage, with the four performers poking fun at everything female, only to link arms at the end in praise of sisterhood—and their beloved black dresses.
