Some Like It Hot: No Sweat When The Heat Is On - by Aarushi Bahadur

Bold, brassy and unapologetic, the touring production of Some Like It Hot that opened Tuesday is a good old-fashioned spectacle that skillfully remasters the original source material.

Based on the 1959 film of the same name and composed by songwriting partners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can, NBC’s Smash), Some Like It Hot follows two musicians, Joe (Matt Loehr) and Jerry (Tavis Kordell), on the lam from gangsters after witnessing a hit. Disguising themselves as women, they join an all-female band headed for California, where they meet singer Sugar Kane (Leandra Ellis-Gaston) and try to stay two steps ahead of their pursuers.

The show does its best to provide Sugar with a measure of her own agency, a quality largely lacking in the doe-eyed sexpot portrayed by Marilyn Monroe in the original film. We learn Sugar’s compelling motivation to pursue stardom in Hollywood is to become the actress she would have liked to see on screen as a young Black girl. The newly introduced racial tensions also more clearly explain why Joe and Jerry are forced to perform at a shady venue controlled by mobsters — Jerry’s race makes it difficult for the duo to be hired or taken seriously. 

Likewise, the musical successfully updates the story’s queerness. In a charming and unexpected turn of events, Jerry discovers that Daphne, his female alias, is more than a part he has to play — she’s who he really is on the inside.

The show has several standout moments and performers. The consistent use of jazz throughout the score is convincingly immersive and period appropriate, the highlight of which is the uptempo act one number “Vamp!”, where Loehr and Kordell skillfully and amusingly sing a tight duet while getting in drag. Tarra Conner Jones is wonderfully funny as the no-nonsense band leader Sweet Sue, and Loehr and Kordell prove themselves to be true triple threats, nailing extended tap breaks backed by a smoking hot pit orchestra.

However, one artistic decision stood out for less laudable reasons. Distractingly obvious to any seasoned theater fan familiar with Shaiman and Wittman’s other work, Some Like It Hot’s “Let’s Be Bad” reuses the title, several lines, and two entire verses verbatim from the Smash song of the same name. The bizarre decision to reuse the composers’ old material feels rather like deciding to make a salad with a stale head of lettuce instead of going to the store to get a properly crisp new one. Considering that a musical adaptation of Smash (which has a considerably stronger score than Some Like It Hot), now slated to open on Broadway later this year, had its first workshop in the same year that Some Like It Hot hit Broadway, having two concurrent shows using the same lyrics is a questionable decision at best. It also doesn’t help that the performance of the slightly altered song in Some Like It Hot, now split between five characters, isn’t anywhere close to holding a candle to Megan Hilty’s memorable performance of the song in the show. 

“Let’s Be Bad” aside, it’s the successful contemporary adaptation of Some Like It Hot and its straight-up comedic entertainment value that make it enjoyable. The show honors its Golden Age predecessor but finds new life — and heart — in liberation. And that alone makes it worth the watch.