HOW TO SUCCEED IN
PRODUCING A MUSICAL

Offices tend not to be much fun, which is why they are ripe for exploring undertones of emotion and comedy in scripts like Office Space, Working Girl, 9 to 5, and NBC’s The Office. Throw in some music (okay, a LOT of music) and dynamic choreography and you’ve got a lot to go on. Does it work? In libretto, score, and San Diego Musical Theatre’s production, it does.

Although neither the script nor the playbill give a year, everything about the show – from Patricia Lutz’s great costumes to Danel Volkart’s fabulous hair and wig design to Mike Buckley’s cleverly mobile set design – screams 1961, appropriate to the Broadway debut of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying when it won seven Tonys.

We are introduced to a satirical corporate world where ambition matters more than ethics—and optimism can be a strategy. J. Pierrepont Finch (Frankie Errington), a low-level window washer with boundless confidence, decides to climb the corporate ladder of the World Wide Wicket Company by rigidly following the cynical advice of a self-help business book that he bought. His rise begins not through competence but through timing, charm, opportunism, and an uncanny ability to appear indispensable.

Inside the company, J.B. Biggley (Robert J. Townsend) is the blustering president who presides over an organization ruled by ritual, insecurity, and male ego. Yet he is easily manipulated by his glamorous and dim-witted mistress Hedy LaRue (Autumn Kirkpatrick), whose influence exposes how favoritism often outweighs merit – think Marilyn Monroe minus any class or cunning. Meanwhile, Rosemary Pilkington (Jasmine January), a sincere and capable secretary, becomes Finch’s emotional champion — romantic and idealistic (“Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm”), and eager for stability in a system that rewards guile over honesty. Such guile is deliciously embodied in Bud (Zane Camacho), Biggley’s conniving nephew, employed solely due to nepotism, who is out to undermine our hero Finch at every turn.

Although Finch has been played by the likes of Ralph Macchio and Daniel Radcliffe, and while the role is arguably most closely associated with the original, Robert Morse, it is Matthew Broderick, who played Finch in the 1995 revival, that feels like the perfect type for the role as written. Thus, it is delightful to see how utterly refreshing the role is in Frankie Errington’s hands at SDMT. Errington stole my attention with a powerful voice and presence as Sister Mary Robert in SDMT’s Sister Act in 2019, but I have not caught them in a role again till now. This time, we have Errington playing the central male role with great gusto. Errington is a clown, in all the right ways, contorting their face to coax extra laughs, moving about like a marionette being manipulated by someone else. We may not always approve of Finch’s shenanigans, but anyone would be hard-pressed not to love Errington.

I hadn’t noticed until afterward that Omri Schein was the director, but it was no surprise; his infamous love for and success with tomfoolery permeates the production. While the plot is based on Finch’s desires, this is very much an ensemble show to achieve the great ends that director Schein clearly strove for. Equally grand is Mr. Camacho, virtually unrecognizable from his gentle portrayal of Motel the Tailor in SDMT’s Fiddler on the Roof two years ago. Here, Mr. Camacho gleefully flourishes about the stage, celebrating his own nastiness and sloth, complete with over-the-top evil laughter at himself. He frequently reminded me of Pee-wee’s nemesis Randy with a bit of Paul Lynde thrown in. You can practically feel the moustache twirl to his comic villainy.

Then there’s Mr. Townsend, a San Diego staple who is so perfectly cast as Biggley that I thought, “Oh, well, THAT’S perfect casting.” Another gem is Ms. Kirkpatrick as Hedy, towering above most of the men, unapologetic, almost grotesquely sexual, and just plain funny, milking every line without wearing out the joke. She also powerhouses a note in “Love From a Heart of Gold” that elicited cheers. Shortly afterward, she enters Xavier J. Bush’s sharply-choreographed number (“The Pirate Dance”) with mock clunkiness that draws a huge laugh.

Beyond Finch’s storyline, the book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert (which won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and Frank Loesser‘s astounding score (“I Believe In You,” “Brotherhood of Man”) gives the well-rounded cast of twenty-five plenty to sing about. Early on, a delightful, energetic dance number ensues when a huge crisis hits the office: the coffee urn is empty! Mid-morning! Horrors! The realities of workplace dynamics are mocked with lines like:

Man: We want you to choose your successor based on merit.

Bud: That’s not fair!

One needs to forgive a lot of misogyny and subtle sexual harassment both as a relic of a sixty-year-old script and, hopefully, as the authors’ lampooning of these attitudes. Rosemary takes an awful lot of abuse in stride with lines like, “I don’t mind someone completely ignoring me as long as he pays attention!”

The three-hour show passes quickly, though, because the production is so endearing. SDMT really tries to throw everything they can into it…and succeeds in their business.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

photos by Karli Cadel

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
San Diego Musical Theatre
4650 Mercury Street  San Diego, CA 92111
Thurs & Fri at 7; Sat at 2 and 7; Sun at 2; plus Mon Feb 23 at 7
ends on March 1, 2026
for tickets, call 858.560.5740 or visit SDMT

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦