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New musical buzzes into Queens Theatre

By Kevin Zimmerman

Playwright Rob Urbinati believes the Great American Songbook, those musical standards mostly written for the theater and penned by the likes of Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin and the Gershwins, is due for Volume 2.

“There’s a whole second generation of American songwriters who created the music from the 1960s,” Urbinati said.

Urbinati, who works as director of new play development at the Queens Theatre, has a particular affinity for the girl groups from that era. His love of the genre prompted him to pen a new musical, “The Queen Bees,” opening May 8 at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park performance center.

The story of three Flushing High School girls — Brenda, Diane and Connie — who form a singing trio during the heyday of the girl group movement, along the lines of the Shirelles, the Ronettes and, of course, the Supremes, includes plenty of hit songs from the early 1960s.

Although there have been other jukebox musicals about all-female groups, Urbinati thinks those tended to be more satire, such as “The Marvelous Wonderettes” and “The Taffetas,” or simply a pure revue, like “Beehive” and “Leader of the Pack.”

In “The Queen Bees” Urbinati decided to tackle a few more serious issues.

“It’s really about the girls and the different ideas of what they want from life,” he said.

Urbinati wanted to explore how the social changes of that period affected the younger generation of the times.

Set around 1963, Urbinati’s world is caught between the conservative, family-values of the 1950s and the societal upheaval that rears up during the later part of the 1960s.

Each of these women in this three-character piece represent different archetypes.

The oldest character hopes to settle down and raise a family. Another one seeks to have a career for herself, something not very common in those days, Urbinati said. And the third girl anticipates the changes that are coming as a result of the Vietnam War protesters, the Summer of Love and the drug culture.

Throughout the play, the women have the chance to sing a popular tune from the period that relates to their emotions or actions in the preceding scenes.

As Urbinati wrote the show he often found himself thinking what song would help these three tell their story at any given moment in the narrative.

“Each of the songs really grows out of the character,” Urbinati said. “The audience is going to hear songs they know, but they are really coming from the characters.”

Urbinati has been working on this project since about 2008, when the Queens Theatre asked him to create a show set in the borough.

Although his production deals with series subjects, including death, Urbinati made sure the story line never became too dark.

“There are funny scenes and funny moments throughout,” he said. “But I had to strike a balance between comic and dramatic. I had to make sure it was never at the expense of the joy that comes from the music.”

If you Go

“The Queen Bees”

When: May 8 – May 17

Where: Queens Theatre, 14 United Nations Ave. South, Flushing Meadows Corona Park

Cost: $25 – $42

Contact: (718) 760-0064

Website: www.queenstheatre.org

Reach News Editor Kevin Zimmerman by e-mail at kzimmerman@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4541.