by Cari Lynn Pace

You won’t need any coffee to get fired up for this outrageous office comedy. With music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, and direction by Larry Williams, this show is an overtime winner.

Novato Theater Company put in long hours to hire three female leads with confident voices and pencil-sharp acting skills. The entire cast gets a bonus for delivering this professional package of fun. The staging is simple and solid, stapled together with Nick Brown’s live five-piece offstage band. Office workers surround the audience with choreography by Marilyn Izdebski as the familiar theme song 9 to 5 opens the show.

Meet Violet, in a role perfect for Andrea Thorpe. Violet is exactly the boss anyone would want. She’s smart, efficient, and caring. She trains so well that her male underlings are regularly promoted, leaving her to manage the company with no recognition from her boss Mr. Hart.

Pat Barr owns the stage as Hart, the male chauvinist so convincing we almost want to boo him. Dismissive and egotistical, this self-styled sexist sets his lusting eyes on Doralee, his voluptuous and adamantly virtuous secretary. Bethany Cox’s Doralee is hilarious as she rebuffs Hart’s advances with a feisty spirit. Dolly wrote Doralee’s lament “Backwoods Barbie” as one of many original songs in the show.

Judy, a no-skills job applicant, is the new office hire in a role that Lauren Sutton-Beattie clearly enjoys. She learns the ropes from insecure to quasi-competent as the office gals befriend her. She finds loyalty and shares the aversion for Mr. Hart as the trio dream of retribution. Will there ever be fair play and equal treatment for women in their workplace? 

The three ms-kateers spot a sudden opportunity to fix the system, using spunk and spirit and a lot of rope. They risk more than their employment as they carpe the diem. The clever ending, with justice prevailing, is a workplace triumph. Why can’t reality be tied up this neatly?

Novato Theater Company shows off more than a dozen knockout singers and dancers in this high-spirited show. In Act II, Violet’s determination and fierceness to do her job draws Joe, played by Nick Kealy, to invite an office romance. The two sing a lovely duet “Let Love Grow” just before Judy gives a powerhouse rendition of “Get Out and Stay Out” to her ex who dumped her.

When Patricia Resnick wrote the book for the 9 to 5 theater musical based on the 1980 film, it was well ahead of today’s “MeToo” social movement begun in 2006. Dolly was certainly ahead of her time on this theme. What fun to see what a little rope can do!

Playing now through October 12 at the NTC Playhouse, 5420 Nave Drive, Novato.

Fri & Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm

Info and tickets at www.novatotheatercompany.org

Photos by Kara Schutz

Cari Lynn Pace is a long-time Bay Area theatre critic whose reviews were regularly featured in the Marinscope Community Newspapers.