Hamilton native Denise Summerford travels back in time in the off-Broadway musical ‘Shout!’
By: Megan Sullivan
The 1960s are back the flashy fashions, the crazy dances and, of course, the hair. But so are the soulful pop tunes and ballads of the period made famous by the likes of Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and Lulu.
The revival has hit in the form of the off-Broadway musical Shout!, which had its opening July 27 at the Julia Miles Theater. The mod revue tracks five young women as they come of age during the ’60s in England.
Each woman is identified by the color of her costume (blue, yellow, orange, green and red), reflecting a composite personality. Hamilton native Denise Summerford plays the lady in red.
"She’s sort of the Bridget Jones of the group," Ms. Summerford says in an e-mail interview. "(She’s) the romantic, the most naive and sweet and a total crazy mess."
The journey of the women is illustrated through the music, which flips through the years like the pages of a magazine. "Over the course of the show, you watch them discover and learn and grow into smart, independent women," says Ms. Summerford, who is known by friends in Hamilton by her maiden name, Boccanfuso.
Shout! uses letters to an advice columnist, true confessions, quizzes and advertisements as a frame for hits like "To Sir With Love," "Downtown," "You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me" and "Goldfinger."
Co-created by Phillip George and David Lowenstein, the show first debuted in England in 2001. Mr. George got the idea for Shout! while staying in London and directing a show there in 1999.
"(He) first got the idea sitting in a pub in London on the day that Dusty Springfield died," Ms. Summerford says. "When the news came on in the pub and announced Dusty’s passing, the bar broke out into one of her songs. He was so moved by the reaction and realized the impact that the music of the ’60s had on people and came up with the idea for Shout!"<</i>br>
Directed by Mr. George and choreographed by Mr. Lowenstein, the first edition of Shout! appeared on stage at the Duplex in New York in 2000, then transferred to London’s Jermyn Street Theatre in 2001.
The show appealed to Ms. Summerford on many levels, including her love for ’60s music. She discovered this love in the mid-90s while in a production of Beehive in Las Vegas, which features music from artists including Springfield, Lulu, The Supremes and Leslie Gore.
"It was then that I realized I loved to sing this style of music," Ms. Summerford says. "Somehow I connected to those lyrics of love and romance and the melodies are so pure and simple, innocent in a way. We don’t have a lot of that in our music today."
Ms. Summeford says she also loves the "up with chicks" theme in the show. "The show is really a comedy but has such heart and it sneaks up on you at the end," she says. "It’s a celebration of women and how far we have come."
The musical revue is performed eight times a week, but Ms. Summerford says she will be in and out of the show for a while due to injury, with an understudy filling in when necessary.
Ms. Summerford’s love for performing first bloomed after taking dance lessons from Kay Knoblock at Talk of the Town Dance Studio in Hamilton at age 3. "I was bit by the bug very early on and I always wanted to do this with my life," she says. "Of course there was a period of maybe four years after I turned 5 that I wanted to be an astronaut. That was a phase."
While attending McCorristin Catholic High School (now Trenton Catholic Academy) in Hamilton, Ms. Summerford was active in school plays as well as community theater, including Washington Crossing Open Air Theatre and McCarter Theatre. One show that stands out in her mind is a small role she had in Promises at McCarter under the direction of Milton Lyon.
"He pulled me aside and said, ‘Young lady, you have more talent as an actress than I think you realize. You don’t have to be just a dancer,’" she recounts. "That inspired me and to this day I have never forgotten that encouragement. He was a great director and mentor to me."
In 1989, the summer after graduating high school, Ms. Summerford worked at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson as a singer and dancer in the show The Red, White and Blue Revue. That fall, she started at The College of New Jersey (then Trenton State College) with a major in theater. While in college, she continued her dance studies at Princeton Ballet School.
Ms. Summerford also has studied voice with Richard Loatman of Trenton and acting with Miriam Mills of Lawrenceville. "They gave me all the tools I needed to make the big move to New York City way back in 1993," she says.
She lives in Manhattan with her husband, actor and director John Summerford, whom she met while doing summer stock at the Surflight Theatre in Long Beach Island in 1992. Her successes also include roles in a few Broadway shows, such as The Rocky Horror Show and Saturday Night Fever.
"A lot of young actors just want to do TV and film and they focus on that, but I never had a strong desire to do that," Ms. Summerford says. "My passion was live theater. Nothing beats the immediate response of a live audience nothing."
Shout! The Mod Musical will continue at the Julia Miles Theater, 424 W. 55th
St., New York, N.Y. Performances: Tues. 7 p.m., Wed., Sat. 3, 8 p.m., Thurs.-Fri.
8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $55. For information, call (212) 239-6200. On
the Web: www.shoutthemodmusical.com
Denise Summerford on the Web: www.denisesummerford.com