Twenty-seven years later, Adam Owens and his parents still reminisce about the time he performed “Farmer Tan” on stage at Scharmann Theatre.
Owens was playing L.M. for the JCC Uncommoners production of Pump Boys and Dinettes. It was 1995, and Owens was a freshman at SUNY Jamestown Community College.
“Most people have never heard of the show, even if you’re a musical theater person,” Owens said “Some of the weird, quirky, funny songs, like ‘Farmer Tan’ …. I got to sing that song when I was in it. It’s kind of a ridiculous song about having a farmer tan, but it’s one of those memories that my mom and dad and I kind of talk about that song every now and then. To be able to watch that song be performed up on stage again is a lot of fun.”
With Owens now directing the production for which he once starred, Pump Boys and Dinettes returns to JCC's Scharmann Theatre for three performances at 7:30 p.m. on June 9 and 10 and at 2 p.m. on June 12.
When he took over as Scharmann Theatre manager in 2020, it was important for Owens to bring Pump Boys and Dinettes back to JCC’s main stage – even if it meant putting on the production at an unconventional time of year.
COVID wiped out the scheduled April 2020 production and renovations to the theater moved the fall 2021 showing to Katherine Jackson Carnahan Center’s Weeks Teleconference Hall. Scharmann hasn’t hosted an Uncommoners production in two and a half years.
“Being the new theatre manager, that’s kind of why I chose this show a couple of years ago to produce it,” Owens said. “I’m not really a nostalgic person in general, but this is definitely hitting a lot of those nostalgic aspects for me of putting on a show from that long ago from my childhood.”
The cast, crew, and band that highlighted the fall production returns. Owens said he kept all props and costumes on hand in anticipation of a late-spring showing at Scharmann.
“Pretty much the same thing, but in a different space,” he said. “This time, we don’t have to wear masks. Things are a little more open so we can kind of do the show how it was meant to be originally.”
The cast features Skyler Schapp, of Little Valley, as Jim; Derek DeVlieger, of Lakewood, as L.M.; JoAnn Liffner, of Jamestown, as Prudie; Teal Weatherley, of Jamestown, as Rhetta; Adam Hughes, of Jamestown, as Jackson; and Brandon Milanowski, of Salamanca, as Eddie. Graham Riggle is assisting Owens with technical direction.
“I’ve gotten the cast together. They remember pretty much everything,” Owens said. “The only challenge we’ve had is to figure out restaging things because we’re in a different space physically. The cast has been pretty lucky to get right back into it.”
With 100 to 115 spectators, the smaller Weeks Teleconference Hall was at or near capacity for the fall showings. At Scharmann, Owens said there will be makeshift diner booths located near the stage for “adventurous audience members who want to be right up close,” plus traditional theater seating.
“The audience will be a little bit further away from the actors this time,” Owens said, “but we’re still going to engage in the same way.”
Conceived and written by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel, and Jim Wann, Pump Boys and Dinettes spotlights L.M., Jackson, Jim, and Eddie, four men who work at a gas station, and two waitresses, sisters Prudie and Rhetta Cupp, who work at the Double Cupp Diner, a dinette located somewhere between Frog Level and Smyrna, N.C.
Pump Boys and Dinettes first appeared on October 1, 1981 at the Colonnades Theatre in New York City and was nominated for the 1982 Tony Award for Best Musical and also received nominations for the 1982 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Lyrics, and Outstanding Music.
Tickets are $6 for JCC students, $19 for senior citizens and students 18-and-under, $11 for Faculty Student Association faculty and staff, and $19 for the general public. They can be purchased by calling the box office at 716.338.1187, at the door, or online.