Max is singin' backup in the Big Apple

As Jim Kershner reported in today's Spokesman-Review, p. D5, Max Kumangai-McGee has made the jump from North Central High, the Civic, and CdA Summer Theatre to off-Broadway. A Nov. 9 Playbill article places Max as one of the backup singers in a spoof musical entitled "What's That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling." David Pittu (*Is He Dead?*) plays a musical composer who's not nearly as good as he thinks he is -- and who's inflicting all the songs that never made it into any of his musicals upon us -- and David Bartlett (The Drowsy Chaperone) plays his biggest fan. Kumangai and two other singers get to perform these "memorable" nuggets of song.

The musical's Website is here.
Read the letter (and sample lyrics) under "Jacob Sterling Fan Club" -- they're a hoot.
[photo: Max Kumangai in Big River at the Univ. of Michigan, Oct. 2007)
SEE ALSO (added Dec. 3): this article with photos.