PORT TOWNSEND — Baby, I’m cookin’ with gas.
Oh, I’m a gumdrop,
A sweet lollipop,
A brook trout right out of the brook,
And what’s more, baby, I can cook!
So goes “I Can Cook Too,” one of the Betty Comden-Adolph Green songs in “Here’s to the Ladies! The Women of Tin Pan Alley,” a club-style musical revue opening tonight at the Key City Playhouse, 419 Washington St.
This is no run-of-the-mill community theater production. “Ladies!” brings together formidable ones: Linda Dowdell, a New York musical arranger who moved to Sequim; Joanne Schmoll, a Washington, D.C., singer who worked with Dowdell to create the show; Seattle singer Marlette Buchanan; and Port Townsend actress Heather Dudley Nollette.
Together, they cook up a repast of 29 songs written by Tin Pan Alley-era women. Listen to just a few sung by Buchanan: “God Bless the Child,” “Fine and Mellow,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” and “Can This Be Love?”
Nollette glides in to sing “No Other One,” “If You Hadn’t but You Did” and “What a Difference a Day Makes” plus duets and medleys — all from the women who shared Tin Pan Alley with men such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.
These composers and lyricists include Tot Seymour, Betty Comden, Kay Swift and Dorothy Fields — see, those names aren’t as known as the guys’ — who worked through the 1930s and ’40s, imbuing the great American songbook with feminine flourishes.
“Ladies!” has been performed just once before, at the Theater Alliance in Washington, D.C., with Schmoll in the cast and Dowdell as musical arranger. The two met in Chicago in the fall of 2001, when they worked together on “Gauguin!” a musical about artist Paul Gauguin, but seven years passed before they reconnected.
Out of the blue in summer 2008, Schmoll called Dowdell to ask if she wanted to collaborate on a project.
“It’s kind of wacky,” Dowdell said. “She called me from Washington, D.C., when my husband and I had just put an offer on a house in Sequim . . . somehow it became clear that where we should meet was Port Townsend.”
So exactly two years ago, on an October Saturday, they met at the Silverwater, a restaurant steps away from the Haller Fountain.
As they plotted the musical revue, Schmoll and Dowdell agreed they wanted to keep it simple: two women, Dot and Dorie, and a man named Mister would sing and tell the story of Tin Pan Alley’s feminine side.
And Dowdell knew where she wanted to stage it: the Key City Public Theatre, where artistic director Denise Winter had impressed her in recent productions.
Winter and Dowdell cast “Ladies!” together, and Dowdell said she couldn’t be more delighted with the results.
Nollette plays Dorie, and Buchanan plays Dot. Dowdell plays piano, and Kia Armstrong, another Sequim resident, plays the upright bass. Lee Harwell — Sequim again — has the role of Mister.
So how is it being the man among “Ladies!”?
“It’s tough,” Harwell said.
Seriously: “It’s absolutely wonderful . . . I go back and forth between being sort of the antagonist, the good old boy of the era, and at times I’m the inferred love interest,” depending on the song.
Harwell gushes a bit about other elements of the revue, such as the medleys, which he predicts will be show-stealers, and the theater’s intimate atmosphere.
And “the music is absolutely gorgeous,” he added.
Dowdell, for her part, sings Harwell’s praises. “I had seen Lee in ‘Cabaret,'” in February at Olympic Theatre Arts in Sequim, she recalled. “He is a song and dance man; he’s been terrific.”
While scouting in Seattle, Dowdell spotted Buchanan, who “chose to do this over something else, which I am so grateful for. And Heather [Nollette] is lovely. I’ve had a ball.
“Marlette and Heather are kind of like night and day,” she added. “Marlette has a rich, deep voice; Heather has a bell-like quality . . . I love the blend.”
Winter, meanwhile, has turned the Key City Playhouse into an art deco cabaret, with table and bar seating sprinkled amid the traditional theater seats. Patrons will be able to enjoy snacks during the show, along with the spicy songs.
For Dowdell, a favorite moment comes when all three singers take “Diga Diga Doo” and “Doin’ the New Low Down,” two cowritten by Dorothy Fields, for a romp. The pairing “has kind of a Charleston feel; it’s just really fun and lively,” she said.
Buchanan calls variety the spice.
“I’m singing everything from blues to traditional musical theater to jazz,” she said. “The only things not in here are hard rock and rap.”
And there’s some dancing and some story woven through, said Nollette. “Ladies!” has Dorie and Dot writing the music as they go along, each slipping a foot in the door of the male-dominated industry.
“We get to interact with the audience,” added Buchanan, though she grew coy when asked to elaborate.
Theater-goers can find out what she meant at 8 p.m. today or Saturday or at 2:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. Sunday. The show continues through Oct. 24, with performances at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. next Sunday, Oct. 17. The final performance is at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 24.
A pay-what-you-wish performance is slated for 2:30 p.m. this Sunday; otherwise general admission is $18 on Fridays and Saturdays, $15 on Sundays and $10 for students at all performances.
Tickets are on sale at Quimper Sound, 230 Taylor St., in downtown Port Townsend and online at www.keycitypublictheatre.org.
More details are also available by phoning 360-385-7396.