Broadway Bounty Hunter

What a nutty idea! Build a musical around aging Broadway actors and let them rip! Broadway Bounty Hunter at the Barrow Street Theater jumps along on Joe Iconis’ funky music and lyrics and campy book by Iconis, Lance Rubin, and Jason Sweetooth Williams.

The zippy musical directed and choreographed by Jennifer Werner releases actors throughout the theater because the energetic production can hardly be contained on the Greenwich House Theater’s intimate stage. Led by the inimitable Annie Golden (Annie) and Alan H. Green (Lazarus), Iconis’ soulfully heart-pumping songs get quite the work out by an amply talented cast.

Unable to win an audition and still recuperating from her beloved Broadway producer’s drowning, the aging Annie is recruited by the sleekly attractive Shiro Jin (Emily Borromano) to become a bounty hunter and catch bad guys!

Once at the “School of Bounty Hunters,” Annie learns her mission is to track down a notorious drug dealer whose pills killed Ms. Jin’s brother. Driven by this personal vendetta, she’s coupled with the star bounty hunter and equally talented Lazarus. Tall and buffed he towers over Annie’s diminutive form.

Despite her slight stature, Annie’s amply equipped to spar with the best of them because she knows how to act, and most importantly, improvise—the elixir of life.

Surrounded by a knock-out singing and dancing ensemble, including the engaging villain Mac Roundtree (Brad Oscar), Annie reveals a talent for sniffing out bad customers and confusing them into submission. Adding to on stage commotion, Werner’s Martial arts based movement tipped in R & B swag fuels the dramatic action.

Light and kooky, “Broadway Bounty Hunter” is fine summer fare.
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis