New York Musical Theater Festival Report: ‘Legacy Falls’

Springfield is gone. Port Charles isn’t what it used to be. But thanks to the New York Musical Theater Festival, the namesake setting of “Legacy Falls” can fill in for those other fictional soap-opera towns. Even if a character-killing earthquake is planned for the show’s special live episode.

“Legacy Falls” is James Burn and Ian Poitier’s daffy new musical as well as the title of the ratings-troubled daytime drama whose off-screen travails it depicts. Our sympathetic hero is the handsomely aging Edward Trafford (Kevin Spirtas), an actor with regrets. In his youth he accepted a soap-opera role, and here he is, 30 years later, singing, “I’ll play Jack Monroe until one of us dies.”

From 1999 to 2005, Mr. Spirtas was Dr. Craig Wesley on “Days of Our Lives,” so he knows whereof he speaks. Incidentally, his lush singing voice could charm grizzly bears.

There’s a toss-up for most despicable villain. Everlon (Dennis Holland), the show’s narrow-minded and arrogant sponsor, has to win, I suppose, but Fleur (Rachel Stern), the invasive television journalist, does almost as much damage. Frankie (Erin Leigh Peck), the new executive who announces big changes for the soap, turns out to be not all that bad.

Mr. Burn and Mr. Poitier’s lively book owes something to the movies “Soapdish” and “Tootsie” (same live-episode device). And while the show, directed by Mr. Poitier, is thoroughly entertaining, it displays a mild personality disorder. There is no reason “Legacy Falls” can’t be both a touching contemporary romance and an absurdist comedy, but at this point in its development the coexistence is shaky. (The musical’s festival run ended on Wednesday.)

Mr. Burn wrote the music and lyrics, and there is real charm in such such numbers as “The Men From the Network” (although it makes no sense that the TV executives look like Secret Service agents) and “Somebody’s Gonna Get Killed,” sung by three actresses (Tara Hugo, Nikki Van Cassele and Liz Fye) terrified of being written off the show.

Ms. Hugo grabs the aging-glamour essence of the daytime-drama grande dame in every one of her scenes. And “Usually,” sung by Mr. Spirtas and Wilson Bridges, as the sexy younger guy who has entered his life, may be the loveliest man-on-man morning-after romantic ballad this side of “Brokeback Mountain.”