"The Pin-up Girls: A fantastic experience

     Never having been a theater critic/analyst, we don't intend to start now. We'll leave that to others (see below), but here is what I can tell you:
     The Pin-up Girls, a musical drama/comedy which we saw at the nearby Casa Manana's fairly new cabaret theater Friday night, was a fantastic experience.
     Loved it.

Jessica De Jong (left) and her castmates in The Pin-Up Girls.
   (Theater Jones photo by Chip Tompkins)

     We are a bit partial because we have a connection to one of the five stars -- four actors/singers/dancers, one accompanying pianist.
     Jessica De Jong -- stage name: Jess -- is the granddaughter of one of the most influential people in my life: Leonard D. Ponder.
     He has been Dr. Ponder for many years, long retired as head of the Texas A&M health and education department. To me, he always will be "Coach Ponder."
     To Jessica, 27, and younger brother Clay, he is "Poppa." They are his only grandchildren. 
     Their mother, Jennifer ("Jenni") Ponder De Jong, was born to Coach and Sue Ann Ponder in 1964, two years after they married. 
     And those of us who attended Oak Terrace Junior High in Shreveport in the early 1960s were witnesses -- sort of -- to their union. They were both teachers -- Coach in P.E. and of our football/basketball/track-field teams (with Ellace Bruce), and Sue Ann in English.
     It was Pleasant Hill, La. (Coach Ponder's hometown) meeting Wisner, La. (Sue Ann's hometown) right there in the big city of Shreveport.
     Jenni was born while they were both still on the Oak Terrace faculty, just beginning their journey that eventually would take them to Texas A&M.
     We were all blessed for it, the tall,slim, dark-haired young man -- who my parents treated to dinner several times over my three junior-high years -- and the beautiful blonde young woman who certainly caught the attention of the school's teenage students.
     As I noted in a recent Facebook/e-mail post, Leonard Ponder is one of my heroes. Just repeating the thoughts of a blog piece from 6 1/2 years ago:
https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/dr-ponder-class-act-from-start.html    
     Here is a shortcut: Coach Ponder and Coach Bruce are the ones who got me involved in school athletics (as a manager/statistician) and -- first step to a career -- correspondent to the local newspapers.  
     So it was a great pleasure that Coach, a month ago, told us that Jessica was going to be in this musical at Casa Manana, and that the Ponder family was coming to Fort Worth to attend, and we -- Bea and I -- were invited to join.
      In turn, we invited Coach and second wife Linda to have dinner with us at our seniors residency and we also gave them a tour of the place.
      Coach is 82 now -- he was 22 when we first met, and I was 12 -- and we have visited with him and Linda here and in Bryan (next to College Station). We've traveled together (to the Masters golf tournament, for instance), and they are a delight. She has been a blessing.
     She came into his life a short time after the darkest chapter -- Sue Ann's dealing with, and death from, breast cancer. 
     On Friday night, it was almost all the Ponder family -- Coach ("Poppa"), Linda, Jenni and husband Dr. Andrew De Jong (yes, a Dutch name; his father grew up in The Netherlands, so there is that connection), Andrew and ... Jessica. 
     (Only missing was Jessica's husband, who is a dancer-singer, too, and is home in New York City, where they have lived for five years, during her short stay in Fort Worth.)
     In this cozy cabaret-theater setting, the small stage isn't far away from anyone in the audience. It was easy to be overwhelmed by the performers, and we were.
     The three young women (Jessica, Jillian Louis, Gina Milo) and one young man (Barrett Riggins) were outstanding, in our opinion. 
     But for us, the redhaired Jess was the star of the show. She had the strongest voice and she belted out several numbers, including the most dramatic one near show's end. 
     She brought us, Bea and I, to tears more than once. And when I looked over at her mother, Jenny was wiping away tears.
     To be honest, I could not help but think about Sue Ann several times, think about how proud she would have been.
         "She was here with us; she was watching," Dr. Andrew De Jong said afterward when I wistfully mentioned my thoughts to him. He said Jenny remembers that when Sue Ann was caring for the baby Jessica, she predicted she would be a star someday.
      And Coach remembers that Jessica, even as a little girl,  always was a willing singer and performers    
      Jessica went from Bryan to graduate with a BFA degree in Musical Theater through the highly recommended acting curriculum at nearby Texas State University, and then set out for a career. She has a website: http://www.jessdejong.com/jessica-de-jong
      The move to New York City has enhanced her career, and it was there she was chosen for this production, which was commissioned for Casa Manana by local producer Claudia Stepp.
       OK, again, we are partial, but that's Broadway-type talent I saw from Jessica on Friday night. She is still seeking that big break into upper-level stardom, and so I ask -- with my lack of expertise in the entertainment business -- what determines how a performer gets to "the next level?"
        Has to be the right connections, the right luck, the right time and place. Right?
        I know this: That was one proud family I saw watching her Friday night, especially one proud Poppa. Glad to have been there to experience that.
---
     Here is the review from the website Theater Jones (North Texas Performing Arts News):

Letters in Song

At Casa Mañana's Reid Cabaret Theatre, The Pin-Up Girls is an entertaining tribute to veterans and those who love them.

by Jan Farrington
published Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The Pin-Up Girls at Casa Mañana\'s Reid Cabaret Theatre

Fort Worth — Somewhere in the heartland, VFW Post 5470 is closing forever, and The Pin-Up Girls are onstage for one last show. They aren’t those pin-up girls — not the movie stars or wispily clad Vargas cuties of classic WWII pinups — but a trio of hometown gals (and a brother “subbing” just for tonight) singing their hearts out in honor of “the little guys,” the men and women who’ve put their lives on the line in our foreign wars for the past century and more.
What’s more, we know some of those veterans are in the audience, both at the fictional Post 5470 and in the real seats at Casa Mañana’s Reid Cabaret Theatre. Pin-Up Girls calls itself “a musical love letter,” and so it is, full of nostalgia and pride for all who served and for their loved ones who stayed home — worrying, waiting, and writing back.
The central plot point couldn’t be simpler: A basement clean-out of the old VFW post uncovers a stash of wartime letters from World War I to the present, left for safekeeping — where better? And the “Pin-Up Girls” (nicknamed by one singer’s grandpa when he hired them as sixth-graders) take those letters and use them to make the times, the stories, and the people come alive for us.
Right from the start, this show stands a darned good chance of plucking a heartstring (or three). Pin-Up Girls takes advantage of our built-in good will with a clever (and sometimes unexpected) lineup of songs, outstanding voices, and an easy, conversational way of swinging from sad to comic and back again…just like real life.
This is hardly a hard sell: so many of us walk around with a personal VFW post tucked in our heads anyway, peopled by family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and church friends who have been to war all around the world. We’re more than ready to listen, enjoy, and remember.
Local producer Claudia Stepp commissioned The Pin-Up Girls and worked steadily to get it onstage, collecting talent as she went along. The show’s lively script is from writer/director James Hindman (Pete ‘N’ Keeley, Popcorn Falls, Young Abe Lincoln);  the evocative song list was compiled (with plenty of helpful suggestions, we’re sure) by composer/music director Jeffrey Lodin (Popcorn Falls, Young Abe Lincoln, A Letter to Harvey Milk); and the multi-style choreography is from Eugenio Contenti. A New York City workshop of the show found singer/actors Jillian Louis and Gina Milo, and cast members Jess de Jong and Barrett Riggins signed on a bit later.
And every one of them has a way with a song.
Pin-Up Girls draws from every part of the 20th-century American songbook,  from 1911’s “Oh, You Beautiful Doll” to new material composed for the show by Lodin, whose engaging piano arrangements feel spot-on for the emotions of each song. Numbers include some classics — the ‘40s “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” — and some surprises. Who’d expect a Beyoncé song to fit in — but here’s “Single Ladies” at the end of a flirty letter a girl sends to her soldier, chronicling Every Single Proposal her friends have had from their guys overseas. Newest on the list of popular songs might be the haunting “On a Bus to St. Cloud,” written in the mid-‘90s by Gretchen Peters and recorded by Trisha Yearwood.
De Jong’s character Dana delights with a quiet, guitar-strumming version of “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” a ‘30s song hit for Fats Waller. Louis plays group leader Leanne, and her bright, warm vibrato is perfect for the 1913 Jolson hit “You Made Me Love You.” It’s Leanne’s heartfelt response to the letters her grandfather sent home during World War II. Milo’s flirty Megan character swivels her hips as ‘60s pin-up girl Ann Margret in a sizzling bit of “Ain’t She Sweet” … then settles down for a tender “Someone to Watch Over Me.” And Riggins’ character Joel (Leanne’s little brother, clearly the class clown) has particular fun with a rap-ish version of Irving Berlin’s WWI comic Army-camp song “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.”
The show’s letter motif runs from start to finish, with multiple reprises of “Please Mr. Postman” and the tender “P.S. I Love You” — not the Beatles song you’re thinking of, but the ‘30s ballad with Johnny Mercer’s lyrics. There’s a slight misfire here and there: we aren’t sure about using “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” to commemorate the many on-the-fly weddings that take place in wartime, but it’s giddy enough to get by.
On the whole, though, The Pin-Up Girls is a thoroughly pleasant show in a convivial cabaret setting — full of spirit and music, refreshingly snark-free, blowing a big red-lipstick kiss to our overseas veterans, then and now.