The First Revue — A Program for Chalmette
A Proposed Evening for Danny Boy and the Company
By John Murray Anderson
You've just closed Curtains. Six houses. Standing ovations. Alternating casts — because you understand that every performer deserves their night in the light. You did a book musical and you did it well. The audience loved you. The company loved you. The stage is dark and the house is empty and you're already thinking about what comes next.
Here's what comes next: a revue.
Not a book musical. Not another script somebody else wrote for a company they've never met. A REVUE — built for YOUR company, YOUR theater, YOUR town. An evening you OWN from the first note to the last light cue.
I've spent my life making the case for this form. Raoul and I have written fourteen pieces on this website about how and why. The Anatomy series is the blueprint. The Argument series is the manifesto. This document is neither. This is a PROGRAM — the actual sequence of an actual evening, designed for the talent you already have and the room you already know.
WHY A REVUE — FOR YOU, FOR NOW
A book musical demands specific casting. You need someone who can play the lead. You need someone who can carry the second act ballad. You need a chorus that fits the period. The form chooses the people.
A revue lets the people choose the form.
You just ran Curtains with alternating casts. That's already revue thinking — the idea that the evening belongs to whoever is on stage tonight, not to a fixed narrative that requires a fixed cast. A revue takes that instinct and makes it the architecture.
Your company has singers, dancers, comedians, musicians, storytellers. Some of them are extraordinary and some of them are good and all of them deserve a number that fits them like a tailored suit. A revue gives each performer a spot — a three-minute window where the stage belongs to THEM. No understudy. No supporting role. Three minutes of light, and the audience sees them the way they deserve to be seen.
That's the gift a revue gives a community theater company. It uses EVERYONE.
THE PROGRAM — A Draft in Twelve Numbers
What follows is a proposed sequence. Not a script — a PROGRAM. The order of numbers, the pacing, the contrasts, the arc of the evening. You'll change it. You should change it. A revue program is a conversation between the director and the company, and I've only heard one side.
But the architecture is here. The principles of variety, contrast, and escalation are baked into the sequence. You can swap any number for something that fits your people better — but keep the SHAPE. The shape is what makes it a revue and not a talent show.
The Shape
Opening Slot — teaches the audience what kind of evening they're in for. The Rise — three numbers, building in energy and complexity. The Turn — a quiet number that changes the temperature. The Recovery — two numbers that rebuild from the turn. The Feature — the evening's centerpiece. The number the audience will talk about in the parking lot. The Cool-Down — a number that lets the audience breathe after the feature. The Eleven O'Clock — the second-best number in the show. The one that makes them think the evening is ending. The Finale — the best number in the show. The one that proves it was just getting started.
Twelve numbers. Ninety minutes with a fifteen-minute intermission. One band. No set changes. The lighting rig does the scenery.
ACT ONE — Before the Intermission (45 minutes)
Number 1: The Company Number — "Opening Night"
The whole company. Every performer on stage. A number that says: HELLO. WE ARE HERE. THIS IS OUR STAGE AND OUR EVENING AND WE ARE GLAD YOU CAME.
This should be an uptempo ensemble piece — something with a swing feel, something that lets every voice blend. It doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to be JOYFUL. The audience's first impression is the company's energy, and that energy should say: we love being here.
Staging: Full stage. Full light. Warm. Bright. Everyone in their best — whatever that means for each performer. No matching costumes. A revue company is a collection of individuals, not a chorus line. The variety of their appearance IS the design.
Lighting: Full warm wash. The brightest cue in the evening. This is the standard the audience will measure everything against.
Duration: 4 minutes. No more. An opening number that overstays its welcome teaches the audience to check their watch.
Number 2: The Solo — A Singer's Spot
Your best singer. One person. One mic. One spot. The first solo of the evening. After the full company, the stage empties and one voice fills the room. The contrast between twelve people and one person — that's the first lesson in variety.
Choose a song that shows range. Something the audience half-knows — familiar enough to feel comfortable, unexpected enough to feel fresh. A jazz standard, a Motown classic, a show tune reimagined. The singer picks the song. A revue performer who owns their number OWNS the stage.
Staging: Downstage center. Tight spot. The band is audible but not visible — dim the musician lights. This is a portrait.
Duration: 4 minutes.
Number 3: The Comedy Spot
The funniest person in your company. Give them three minutes and a microphone. This can be a comedy song, a monologue, a sketch with a partner, or a bit of business they've been doing at cast parties that everyone says "you should put that in a show."
Put it in the show.
The comedy spot serves a structural purpose: it tells the audience they have permission to laugh. After the opening and the ballad, the audience is in "watch respectfully" mode. The comedy spot breaks that wall. It says: this is a conversation, not a lecture.
Duration: 3-4 minutes.
Number 4: The Duet
Two performers who have chemistry — romantic, combative, comic, anything. A duet is the revue's most intimate form. Two people, one song, the electricity of relationship on stage. Choose singers whose voices contrast — high and low, rough and smooth, belt and whisper.
Staging: The performers start apart and end together. Or start together and end apart. The physical distance between them IS the story. A duet is a choreography of proximity.
Duration: 4 minutes.
Number 5: The Turn — A Quiet Number
This is the most important structural moment in the first act. After four numbers of energy, variety, and rising stakes — stop. Go quiet. One performer, one instrument, one spotlight, one song that makes the room STILL.
The Turn is where the audience discovers that this evening has depth. It is not a talent show. It is a curated experience, and the curator knows when to whisper.
Staging: Minimal. A chair, a guitar, a piano. Footlight-level illumination. The audience should lean in.
Duration: 3-4 minutes.
Number 6: The Recovery — The Group Number
After the quiet, NOISE. A group number — four or five performers — that breaks the spell of the Turn and reminds the audience they're at a party. This should be the most FUN number in the first act. Choreography if you have dancers. Harmonies if you have singers. Physical comedy if you have comedians.
The transition from the Turn to the Recovery is the moment the audience trusts the director. You took them down and you brought them back. They will follow you anywhere now.
Staging: Full stage. Full light. Movement.
Duration: 4-5 minutes.
Number 7: The First Act Closer
The first act should end on a HIGH. Not the highest — save that for Act Two — but high enough that the audience goes to the lobby talking. An ensemble number with a button — a clean ending, a strong final note, a blackout that makes them clap.
This is also the number that sells the second act. The audience should walk to the concession stand thinking: "If the first act ended like THAT, what's in the second act?"
Staging: Full company optional, or a strong soloist with the band at full volume. The last thing they hear before the intermission should be BOLD.
Duration: 4-5 minutes.
ACT TWO — After the Intermission (45 minutes)
Number 8: The Welcome Back
The audience is returning from the lobby. They have drinks. They're chatting. The second act opener must GATHER them. A mid-tempo number that says: we're still here. The party continues.
Don't start Act Two with your biggest gun. Start with warmth. Re-establish the relationship. The audience needs to settle before you can surprise them.
Duration: 4 minutes.
Number 9: The Specialty Act
Every company has someone who does something nobody else can do. A tap dancer. An impressionist. A juggler who also sings. A spoken-word poet. A twelve-year-old who belts like Merman.
This is their number. The specialty act is the revue's secret weapon — the thing a book musical could never include because it doesn't fit the plot. In a revue, EVERYTHING fits. There is no plot to violate. There is only the evening, and the evening has room for everyone.
Duration: 3-5 minutes, depending on the act.
Number 10: The Feature — The Centerpiece
This is the number the evening is built around. The best piece of material, performed by the best combination of talent, with the fullest production support you can give it. If you only have one lighting effect, use it here. If you only have one costume change, use it here. If you only have one moment of theatrical magic — the kind that makes the audience hold their breath — this is where it lives.
The Feature is also the number that defines what this revue is ABOUT. A talent show has no thesis. A revue does. The Feature is the thesis made visible.
What is the thesis? That's between you and your company. What does Chalmette want to say to itself on a Saturday night? What does this community need to hear in its own voices? The Feature answers that question.
Staging: Whatever the number demands. Full production. Pull out every stop you've been holding in reserve.
Duration: 6-8 minutes. This is the one number that can be long. The audience is invested. They'll stay.
Number 11: The Cool-Down
After the Feature, the audience needs AIR. A gentle number. A lullaby, a torch song, a story told softly. The cool-down serves the same function as the Turn in Act One — it proves the director has range, and it lets the audience prepare for the finish.
Duration: 3-4 minutes.
Number 12: The Finale — The Full Company
Everyone back on stage. The best song you have. The loudest the band will play all night. The most light the rig can throw. The moment every performer has been waiting for — the number where the company becomes one organism, one voice, one heartbeat in the room.
The finale of a revue is not a bow. It is the REASON. The whole evening was building to this — twelve people on a stage in Chalmette, Louisiana, singing their hearts out for an audience that knows their names. THAT is what the revue can do that the book musical cannot. The finale of a book musical resolves a story. The finale of a revue resolves a COMMUNITY. The audience and the company, in the same room, sharing the same song, at the same time, in the same light.
Blackout. House lights. They're on their feet.
Duration: 5-6 minutes. End STRONG. End HIGH. End with the audience standing.
PRODUCTION NOTES
The Costume — Black and the Third Piece
By Raoul Pène du Bois
Everyone starts in black. Plain black. Their own black — not matching, not uniform, just black. Black pants, black shirt, black dress, black whatever they already own. Black is the company color because black is NO color. Black is the bare stage of the wardrobe. Black says: we are a company. We belong together.
Then: the THIRD PIECE. Each performer gets ONE piece that is theirs alone. Not a costume — a PIECE. A red scarf. A gold belt. A denim jacket. A pair of silver earrings. A hat. One piece per performer, chosen BY the performer, that says: this is who I am tonight.
Two pieces of uniform. One piece of identity. The audience sees twelve people in black with twelve different colors at their throat, waist, wrist, or head, and they read it instantly — this is a company of individuals. The black says family. The third piece says star.
In the opening: twelve people, twelve third pieces, a constellation of individual colors against a black sky. In the solo numbers: the performer's third piece is the ONLY color on stage — it catches the spot and burns. In the finale: the constellation returns. But the audience has seen each piece in isolation. They know the red scarf sang the torch song. They know the gold belt did the comedy number. The pieces carry the memory of the evening.
Budget: zero. Every performer chooses their own third piece from what they own or can borrow. The personal investment — "I chose THIS" — makes the piece feel real. It IS real. The performer picked it the way Laveau picks up the scarf. The choice is the costume.
Budget
A revue is the most affordable form in theater. No sets to build. No costumes to rent — the performers wear black and one thing that's theirs. No rights to negotiate if you choose public domain material or original work. The only expenses: the band, the venue, and the light.
Rehearsal
A twelve-number revue can be rehearsed in four weeks. Each performer rehearses their own numbers plus the company numbers. Nobody needs to learn the whole show. A book musical requires everyone at every rehearsal. A revue requires each performer at THEIR rehearsals plus two full run-throughs in the final week.
This is why the revue is the community theater's native form. Your performers have jobs. They have families. They have lives. A revue respects their time.
The Band
Four pieces minimum: piano, bass, drums, guitar. A horn makes it five, and five is luxury. The band should be visible — not in a pit, not behind a curtain. ON STAGE. The musicians are performers. Their presence is part of the design.
The Light
I've written an entire piece on this — "Light as Narrative" — but the essential principle is this: in a revue, the light is the scenery. Every number gets its own temperature. The opening is warm and bright. The Turn is dim and intimate. The Feature is whatever it needs to be. The finale is everything you've got.
If you have a follow spot and a basic dimmer board, you can light a revue. If you have color-changing LEDs, you can light a GREAT revue. The Geyser you used for Curtains — save it. One burst, at the right moment, in the Feature. That's your magic.
Alternating Casts
You already do this. Keep doing it. A revue makes it even easier — individual numbers can feature different performers on different nights. Friday's "Turn" might be a guitar ballad by one singer. Saturday's might be a piano piece by another. The program stays the same. The performers change. The audience comes twice.
THE INVITATION
Danny Boy — you just proved that Chalmette has an audience for live theater. Six sold-out houses. You proved that your company has the talent to fill a stage. And you proved that alternating casts — the revue's natural casting strategy — works for your community.
The revue is the next step. Not because it's easier than a book musical — it's not. It's harder, in some ways, because every number must stand on its own. There is no plot to carry a weak song. There is no story to excuse a dull stretch. Every three minutes, the evening must justify itself.
But that discipline is also the form's gift. It forces you to put your best material on stage and your best performers in the light. It forces you to curate. And a director who curates an evening — who thinks about sequence, contrast, pacing, surprise — is doing the work that matters most.
You have a company. You have a stage. You have a town that shows up. Build a revue. Call it a revue. Raise the curtain.
The firm is here when you're ready.
"A revue is a conversation with the audience. A book musical is a lecture. I prefer conversations."
— John Murray Anderson