Overview
FLIGHT OF THE LAWNCHAIR MAN School Edition has been carefully edited, with additional director’s notes throughout, to make the show more producible for high school groups. In some cases problematic language has been changed, while in others an alternate choice is offered at the discretion of the director.Jerry Gorman is a regular guy from Passaic, New Jersey who just wants to fly. The neighbors think he’s nutty and his mother disapproves, but Jerry soars to 16,000 feet with nothing but a lawn chair and 400 helium balloons! Loosely based on a true story, FLIGHT OF THE LAWNCHAIR MAN reminds us that dreams can come true if you believe in yourself.
Casting & Production
Casting
4 female, 4 male and 5 gender flexible featured roles
Expandable ensemble
JERRY GORMAN (34; tenor or lyric baritone): kind of short-ish. Extremely likeable, but the kind of guy whose likeability never seems to get him anywhere in life. A dreamer who until recently never felt he had a right to his dreams. You’d almost call him a loser, if he didn’t have such a great girlfriend.
GRACIE, Jerry’s girlfriend (32-35; soprano/mixed belt): embraces life and all that it offers, including her job as a toll booth operator on I-95, and Jerry, whom she adores despite what others see as his shortcomings, and his sometimes frustrating hesitation to allow their relationship to progress to the “next level.”
BIG JACK PRESTON (35-37; high baritone): is the kind of guy uniforms were created for. He looks really good in one. He is all man, a man’s man, a manly man, an exemplar of manlitude. He’s also quite tall. He exudes self-confidence and never (until later in the show) let’s the cracks show.
BLAIRE (mezzo soprano or soprano/mixed belt): a flight attendant who exudes a bubbly, ditsy enthusiasm that masks a competence and ability that no one has ever imagined, but which will become apparent to us later in the show.
MOTHER GORMAN, Jerry’s mother (late middle age; lyric soprano/mixed belt): can be a bit of a steamroller and a nag where her son is involved, but she does it out of love – and fear. She’s a suburban working mother trying to maintain an upper middle-class lifestyle with a lower-middle class income. She has been hiding what, to her, is a terrible, terrible secret, and lives in terror of it being discovered.
MR. FRANKEL: Jerry’s boss. High strung, often angry, he nevertheless has a heart that starts to pump warm blood when he spends time with Jerry’s Mom later in the show.
FRENCH BOY (mezzo soprano): a classic little French boy from classic French movie.
NASA OFFICIAL (an official from NASA): he’s all business, but hates to have to be the bearer of bad news.
TV REPORTER: a handsome, serious, callow reporter from a major cable news organization.
FAA AGENT: a Federal Aviation Administration Agent of indeterminate gender. Takes his (or is it her?) job very, very seriously.
LEONARDO DA VINCI (legit tenor): the great painter, inventor, and all around Renaissance Man of the Italian Renaissance. Speaks and sings with an alarming similarity to Chico Marx.
CHARLES LINDBERGH (baritone): the great aviator who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic. Speaks and sings with an alarming similarity to Jimmy Stewart.
AMELIA EARHART (mezzo soprano/mixed belt): the great aviatrix who almost became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air. Speaks and sings with an alarming similarity to Katherine Hepburn.
ENSEMBLE PARTS: Should be evenly mixed high and low voices. NEIGHBORS, SHOPPERS, WAL-MART EMPLOYEES, COMMUTERS, PASSAIC CITIZEN’S MILITIA, FLYING MECHANICS, ETC. NOTE: The show can be performed with a cast of eleven, with strategic multiple-casting of parts. For example, the same actor can play the French Boy and Amelia Earhart. Likewise, the same actor can play the NASA Official and the TV Reporter. Different doubling, tripling and quadrupling schemes can also be employed (for example, the NASA Official can be played by any number of actors in the show). All available performers can play additional characters and crowds, such as neighbors, shoppers, etc.
Orchestral Information
9 Musicians
Piano/Vocal (Keyboard 1)
Keyboard 2
Reed 1 (Flute, Clarinet, Piccolo, Alto Sax)
Reed 2 (Clarinet, Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet, Flute)
Trumpet
Trombone
Cello
Bass
Drums (Set, Glockenspiel, Triangle, Toms, Woodblock, Mark Tree, Suspended Cymbal, Tambourine, Bell Tree, Wind Chimes)
Bass
Drums
Credits
THE FLIGHT OF THE LAWNCHAIR MAN
Book by PETER ULLIAN
Music & Lyrics by ROBERT LINDSEY-NASSIF
Based on a concept by ROBERT LINDSEY-NASSIF Flight of the Lawnchair Man was presented at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals in 2004
School Edition adapted by MARC TUMMINELLI
School Edition originally produced at Broadway Workshop in NYC