WHO NEEDS A HEALTHY CORTEX WHEN
YOU’VE GOT THIRTY-TWO SHOWSTOPPERS?

The urge to create has served as a muse for countless forms of art: literature, opera, film, and theatre are littered with examples of the form. Opening the new season of Pride Arts at Center on Halsted A New Brain, a musical by multiple Tony winners, William Finn (Falsettos) who wrote the score and collaborated on the book with James Lapine (Passion, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, all with Sondheim), presents a tweak on the formula by focusing not on so much on the urge itself but the panic that sets in when the opportunity to create is lost.

Dakotta Hagar, Lena Simone, Beck Hokanson

Jonas Davidow, Britain Shutters, Beck Hokanson, Caitlin Preuss,
Michelle McKenzie-Voigt, Elijah Warfield. Front: Dakotta Hagar

Loosely based on his own recovery from neural surgery, Finn’s delightful musical opens with Gordon Schwinn, a songwriter struggling to write a song about Spring for his day job: writing for a children’s TV show host called Mr. Bungee, an anthropomorphized frog. Temporarily abandoning his assignment for lunch with his best friend Rhoda, Schwinn finds that songwriter’s block is the least of his troubles when he collapses into a plate of spaghetti and wakes in a hospital where a bevy of doctors and nurses inform him that he has an arteriovenous malformation in his brain. In layperson’s terms, a couple of blood vessels in his brain have burst and high-risk surgery is his only option for survival.

Dakotta Hagar

What follows is a show where, confined to his hospital room and convinced he’s going to die, Schwinn imagines the songs he might have written and the paths his life might have taken, all while interacting with doctors, nurses, his partner Roger, his mother Mimi, and Rhoda.

Dakotta Hagar, Beck Hokanson

Interspersed with these are hallucinations of Mr. Bungee in a frog costume (played by a spectacular, scene-stealing Taylor Bailey) and occasional appearances by a homeless woman asking for change. The latter character is only tangentially related to the plot and I confess to some confusion as to why she was there at all, but with the terrific Lena Simone playing her and her stunning solo numbers (I suspect Finn just had some great songs and needed to shoehorn them in), you won’t find this critic complaining.

Beck Hokanson, Dakotta Hagar, Caitlin Pruess

With thirty-two (!) songs in about a hundred minutes, this show is a delight for musical lovers. There are no notable misses and the zippy direction from Jay Españo keeps things moving at a rapid clip. While the show is fast-paced, it is never rushed; when it does slow down, the emotional moments are beautifully realized. Españo should be especially commended on the synergy of the cast members, all of whom are perfectly synced to each other and give it their all. The big production number “Gordo’s Law of Genetics” is not just a highlight of the show but also of the season. (Aside, a hat-tip to Españo: Finn, who passed away earlier this year, is subtly and sweetly memorialized in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it projection early in the proceedings.) The elegant stagecraft is balanced by Britta Schlicht‘s clever choreography—a simple movement with drapery and Connor Blackwood‘s projection beautifully evokes the ocean for the stunning ballad “I’d Rather Be Sailing”).

Lena Simone, Taylor Bailey, Jonas Davidow

Michelle McKenzie-Voigt as Schwinn’s overbearing mother Mimi nails the tricky shifts in her songs (“The Music Still Plays On” is another lovely ballad) as well as the non-musical moments in between. It is a crucial role, and she is more than up to the task. Beck Hokanson, playing the perfect boyfriend, Roger, provides the sole quibble: He has a stunning, remarkably expressive voice and skillfully shades nuance and complexity into his vocals, but his stiff and awkward movement distracts from his singing, which is incredible.

(back) Britain Shutters, Beck Hokanson, Lena Simone, (front) Dakotta Hagar

Flanked by two powerful vocalists, Dakotta Hagar is a bit overwhelmed in the singing department as Gordon Schwinn, but still puts up a fine showing. Where he especially shines though is in the acting department, effectively conveying Schwinn’s anxiety and regret. It’s not Schwinn who is important so much as the songs he might never write.

Cordaro Johnson (obscured), Caitlin Preuss, Jonas Davidow,
Elijah Warfield, Lena Simone, Britain Shutters, Dakotta Hagar

And what wonderful songs they are too. Tuneful and catchy with rhymes that manage to be unexpected, godawful, and delightful at the same time—two days later, I’m still chuckling at “Here’s “A Mother’s Kisses” / Always it’s the missus / Never it’s the tateh / Literary shmatte”—the laughs keep coming. Ratcheting up the difficulty level song after song—“Craniotomy”; “MRI”; claustrophobia during said MRI in “Sitting Becalmed in the Lee of Cuttyhunk”; a coma (”Brain Dead”)—it seems like no subject was too grim or dark for Finn’s prodigious talents. Music Director Robert Ollis brings them to life.

(back) Taylor Bailey, Britain Shutters, Lena Simone, Jonas Davidow, Michelle McKenzie-Voigt,
Elijah Warfield, Cordaro Johnson, (front) Beck Hokanson, Dakotta Hagar, Caitlin Preuss

Let’s be honest: there’s not much to the book. For all practical purposes this is a song cycle and I’ve read criticism of the show in that regard. To which I say, “So what?” To craft a hilarious and touching musical out of a subject as unfunny and serious as arteriovenous malformation and brain surgery is a formidable challenge and Finn and Lapine succeed beyond any expectations.

Dakotta Hagar, Taylor Bailey

Michelle McKenzie-Voigt, Caitlin Preuss, Dakotta Hagar, Beck Hokanson

On what he expects to be his last night alive, Gordon Schwinn has to choose between sleeping in the embrace of the love of his life or writing a song; not a great song or even a good song, but a serviceable one to be used in a cheesy children’s show. That he chooses to write would be unexpected on its own merits. That it comes across as the right choice is reflective of the sneaky power of this show: a tribute to the act, not the art, but the act of creation.

And Mr. Bungee be damned, I think “affinity” is a perfectly cromulent rhyme for “virginity”.

Dakotta Hagar

photos by Logan and Candice Conner, Oomphotography

A New Brain
PrideArts
Hoover-Leppen Theatre in Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted
Thurs-Sat at 7:30; Sun at 3
ends on September 14, 2025
for tickets ($30-$35) visit PrideArts

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago