When English teen Jamie Joseph Campbell decided to wear a dress to prom, he reached out to a number of production companies to see if they wanted to chronicle his journey. The resulting BBC documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, led to a stage musical, and later turned into a film.
That sense of confidence, with an edge of angst-ridden teen desperation, permeates Uptown Players’ clever, winning production of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which premiered in 2017 in Sheffield.
Catchy tunes by composer Dan Gillespie Sells and lyricist Tom MacRae, who also wrote the book, range from light, upbeat rap (opening number “And You Don’t Even Know It“ and the rhythmic, New Wave-y “Work of Art”) to soaring ballads (“Spotlight,” “If I Met Myself Again”) to radio-friendly pop (“The Wall in my Head”).
We meet Jamie New (sunny blonde Henry Cawood) in a classroom buzzing with adolescent energy despite the presence of the appropriately named Miss Hedge (Laura Lyman Payne). With results of their aptitude tests in hand, she’s the careers teacher blocking their view of dream jobs, making them question their futures.
Jamie, who tried on his first pair of high heels at 8, knows he’s destined to be a drag queen instead of a forklift driver. The conviction is bolstered by his supportive single mother Margaret (Mary Gilbreath Grim), her close friend Ray (Brett Warner) and his hijab-wearing Muslim bestie Pritti Pasha (Laila Jalil), who can relate to his outsider status.
The main obstacles in Jamie’s way are his absent, ashamed father (Jericho Thomas), bullying but weak classmate Dean Paxton (Sam Illum) and school rules that would thwart his plans to dress in drag to the culminating rite of passage that is prom. Then he meets a mentor, Hugo Battersby (Doug Fowler), a retired drag queen who went by the name Loco Chanelle and now owns the clothing shop Victor’s Closet. Get it?
Uptown’s production, helmed by director Penny Ayn Maas, gets almost everything right, including a flexible set by Kevin Brown that morphs school chairs into a runway, brick facade and nightclub tables, and rotates the New family kitchen and Hugo’s store out from behind the back walls.
The actors playing Jamie’s classmates are young and energetic enough to pass for Year 11 students, propelled with lively choreography by Evor Wright. The show’s trio of drag queens – Laika Virgin (Jacob Hemsath), Sandra Bollock (Tyler Ray Lewis) and Tray Sophisticay (Arya J. Valley) – are fabulously costumed by Suzi Cranford. Everyone sings well, with Jalil and Grim standing out on signature tunes.
The one flaw, at least in the performance seen last Sunday, are inconsistent, teetering British working-class accents, a frequent if minor distraction.
Despite his precocious cockiness, Jamie learns lessons in how to get what he wants. And despite its lightheartedness, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie becomes a touching look at hard-won individuality.
Details
Through Aug. 3 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd., Dallas. $35-$70. uptownplayers.org.
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