By Megan Fraedrich
Welcome to the Renaissance, a time of artistic inspiration, scientific discovery, and, if this show is to be believed, an awful lot of jazz hands. In Something Rotten!, Good Shepherd Players has discovered the alchemical formula to cure the wintertime blues. This show has everything: tap-dancing eggs, a cheery song-and-dance number about the Black Death, Cats! the musical, Elizabethan playwrights hitting the dab, and a firebrand Puritan who can’t help but turn everything he says into an innuendo.
The audience’s rapturous response to GSP’s opening night performance says it all: Something Rotten! is a hit, both riotously funny and emotionally resonant.
The premise is simple enough: brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom are struggling playwrights who can’t seem to catch a break while William Shakespeare is sucking up all the attention. Desperate for a big break, Nick hires a soothsayer to tell him what the next big thing in showbiz will be. The answer? A musical! The rest is … anything but silence. With plenty of disguises, dance breaks, love stories, and homages to all of your favorite musicals, this bawdy take on the Bard is an absolute delight.
Director Nancy Lavallee’s love for the material is evident throughout, with so many creative little touches like a blink-and-you-miss-it Hamilton reference. She has allowed her cast to play with the material and make bold, zany choices — absolutely the right call for this piece.
Jared Diallo set the tone for the musical as the charming Minstrel and narrator, welcoming the audience to the world of the Renaissance with tongue-in-cheek flair and nimble, resonant vocals. From the very start, the large ensemble fills the entire stage with vibrant energy and a dizzying array of period costumes by Donna Sisson. (Best costume award goes to Matthew Bradley as one of the Bard Boys, sporting a black leather doublet with extremely cool pointed shoulders.)
In the Bottom brothers’ oft-told backstory, Nick carried his brother on his back all the way from Cornwall. Appropriately, as Nick, Andy Shaw carries the show with a boundless well of energy, frenetic comic timing, and a true gift for storytelling through song. As his dorky, lovesick poet brother, Nigel, Craig Goeringer truly shines. Nigel is a true innocent with a pure heart and a tendency to hyperventilate, and Goeringer makes him lovable and cringeworthy at once. His smooth tenor voice and beautiful falsetto bring heart to the silly plot. Although both fully embraced over-the-top humor, Shaw and Goeringer’s bond and love for one another as brothers feels true.
Both also showed the same strong chemistry with their characters’ love interests, Bea (Maura Lacy) and Portia (Megan Fisher), respectively. Lacy brightens up the stage as the spunky, can-do Bea and has a chameleonic knack for disguise. As Bea is by far the most competent character onstage, you can’t help but root for her throughout. Fisher plays the Puritan leader’s repressed daughter who is also a closet poetry fanatic. Watching her and Goeringer nerd out about poetry to the point of ecstasy is absolutely adorable, if perhaps hitting a little too close to home for us Shakespeare fans in the audience. Fisher’s clear, strong voice navigates a wide vocal range and blends flawlessly with Goeringer’s.
In a piece this kooky, the strong supporting cast often steals the show with outrageous antics. As daffy soothsayer Nostradamus — no, not that one, his nephew, Thomas Nostradamus — Chris Dockins is utterly side-splitting. He exudes classic musical theater charm with the ease of breathing and leads the show’s biggest production number, simply called “It’s a Musical,” a tour de force that parodies Broadway conventions throughout the decades. Having previously enjoyed Dockins’ performances in several other Good Shepherd Players shows, I couldn’t wait to see him in this larger-than-life role, and he knocked it out of the park. (As Nostradamus would say, “I knew he would!”)
Kevin Donlan was a revelation as Shakespeare, turning the Bard into a swaggering glam rock star with just a hint of Captain Jack Sparrow. He captivates the audience each moment he’s onstage with star power (and “Will power”), belting high notes with ease and embracing each wacky comic bit. Donlan may have outdone the original Broadway production with his portrayal — no mean feat, as the original actor won the Tony Award for it.
Rounding out the strong cast of colorful characters are Margaret McGarry’s flamboyant patron, Lady Clapham (looking amazing in an elaborate Elizabethan gown!), Jamey Pellegrini’s “really nice” producer Shylock (Shakespeare promised to name a role after him!), and Peter Marsh as Portia’s tyrannical puritan father, Brother Jeremiah. His choice to play the role with an exaggerated speech impediment similar to the priest from The Princess Bride or Pilate from The Life of Brian fit the tone of the musical perfectly. Members of the large ensemble cast who stood out for their stage presence in group numbers include Evan Zimmerman as drag-enthusiast troupe member Robin and Mel Gumina as troupe member Francis Flute and the show’s dance captain.
Did we mention the dancing? Oh, there is lots of dancing, particularly of the tap variety, and almost every character gets to participate. This is an all-singing, all dancing, big finish, jazz-hands musical, and Josie Corrado’s energetic choreography leads the way. While not every single cast member executes every step with perfect timing, it’s nevertheless an impressive cast of dancers.
Music director Colin Taylor and Rachel Bradley work musical magic, as every character sounds wonderful, and the live 11-piece orchestra could be in a professional production. As sometimes occurs on opening nights, the sound balance between singers and the orchestra at this performance was occasionally off, and some technical glitches with the microphones made it hard to hear a few key moments, but this was the only noticeable flaw in an otherwise fantastic production and likely a temporary one. The simple but effective set of a Tudor-style half-timbered wall and a raised platform fit the action well — and one of its red velvet curtains is later repurposed by Diallo to amusing effect.
The greatest strength of Something Rotten! is the overwhelming sense of love for theatre, from its theatre-loving characters to its well-placed references to theatre through the ages. Its parody never feels mean-spirited but comes from a place of affection. If you’re a Shakespeare buff, there’s plenty of his words to enjoy, and if you’re not, you’ll still deeply enjoy the send-up of Bardolatry. If you’re a musical theater fan, this piece is a veritable “Where’s Waldo” of motifs and homages to popular Broadway tunes — and if you’re not a musical fan, you may go home from the show as one. After all, nothing’s more amazing than a musical!
Don’t miss it. You’ll leave grinning from ear to ear, humming a catchy tune, and possibly even feeling inspired for your next creative endeavor. After seeing a stage full of tap-dancing eggs, anything seems possible.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and 20 minutes with one intermission.
Something Rotten! plays through March 8, 2026 (2 PM on Sundays and 7:30 on Fridays and Saturdays), presented by Good Shepherd Players performing at Church of the Good Shepherd, 9350 Braddock Road, Burke, VA. Purchase tickets (adults, $24.46; students, $21.40) online.
The program for Something Rotten is online here.
Megan Fraedrich is an actor, director, playwright, marketing professional, and enthusiastic audience member from Fairfax, Virginia. A lifelong DMV denizen, she has taken part in over 50 theater productions in the area since elementary school, most recently playing Rosalind in As You Like It (Globe Openstage) and assistant-directing Our Town (Sterling Playmakers). She is also the Artistic Director of Independent Theatre Company in Springfield, Virginia, where she recently edited and co-directed The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Shakespeare’s Kings and Queens. As a playwright, she has had her work performed by YAM Productions, Globe Openstage, Workhouse Arts Center, and Authentic Community Theatre in Hagerstown. She loves Shakespeare almost as much as Nick Bottom hates him.
