Set in 1975 Boyle Heights, a time of civil unrest and bright green carpeting, Roommates: the musical! is a campy 1970s musical about 5 LA women whose roommate squabbles and growing pains occur against the backdrop of civil unrest, white flight, and the brown power movement, all while sharing a 3 bedroom apartment above the last and loudest synagogue in Boyle Heights. This coming of age story examines issues of inequity and religious differences through colorful songs and mad cap high jinks.
This show, though high camp and high drama, is based on true events from when I first graduated college and moved in with 5 of my friends. It was such an interesting group because we probably never would have been friends if we hadn’t been assigned to the same dorm. We all came from vastly different backgrounds and religions, and packed ourselves into a tiny apartment with bright green carpeting that happened to be on top of a nail salon, jewish bakery, and a Hasidic synagogue.
As a mixed race woman who lived with 4 other diverse women, I feel I have an interesting and unique story to tell, and in a time when we are all decidedly in our separate bubbles, I think there is something really compelling about the dialogue and disagreements, and ultimately life long friendships we created.
So let’s meet our characters! Newest to the apartment is Stevie, an adorkable mixed race (Filipino and Italian) aspiring thespian who came to LA with big Hollywood dreams. As the show progresses, she holds various entry level lady jobs while unsuccessfully pursuing men and an acting career, in that order.
Gigi is also mixed race (black and white) and comes from a wealthy family, but desperately wants to be a bohemian wild child activist. She speaks her mind and doesn’t do her dishes.
Miri works for a non-profit international education pro-Israel organization, and is the mama bear figure of the group, warm and nurturing, but also neurotic and type A. She is obsessed with Israel and all things jewish.
Leanna is an unemployed apathetic atheist who loves darkness and psychoanalyzing her roommates. She majored in psychology with minors in City Planning, Spanish, and snark.
Christine is a substitute teacher who loves Jesus and the color pink.
Ron Lew, the apparent villain of our story, is in his late 40s, Chinese, closeted, dramatic, power mad landlord. He is intensely by the book, but has an inner campy, effeminate flair, and deep down just wants to be noticed and included. Think Dean Pelton from community.
Velma the Manicurist: Two faced femme fatale, very bubbly and friendly but spies on the roommates for Ron.
Leanna’s boyfriend: Latin American, super quiet and unfriendly. None of the roommates are even sure what his hame is.
The Hasidic jews next door. Loud and proud.
Our show starts early in the morning, the serenity abruptly shattered by a boisterous outdoor celebration at the synagogue downstairs. Miri calls the cops, putting an end to the klezmer rendition of Jennifer Lopez’ “Let’s Get Loud.”
The groggy roommates head to Elat, the jewish bakery downstairs, where they get interrogated by their Landlord, Ron, when he sees Stevie, a new girl in town, and suspects she has spent the night, violating his strict “no overnight visitors” policy.
Though the roommates deny it, the truth is not only did Stevie spend the night, she’s moving in! The roommates unwittingly reveal their transgression through song while getting their nails done at the salon underneath their apartment.
Velma, the manicurist, learned english from watching Film Noir, and relishes being a spy for Ron, in addition to discounted rent for her intel.
When Ron finds out the girls have a new roommate, he demands she leave, convinced that with 5 girls living in his unit, everyone will think he is running a brothel! Ron employs a little known city code to exact his will: no more than 5 unmarried people can live together. Including Leanna’s boyfriend, they are in violation of this code, which is never enforced unless a neighbor files a complaint, and guess what: the Hasidics the roommates called the cops on? Yeah they filed a complaint.
While synagogues used to be Ron’s bread and butter, they have been leaving for the west side, and this is the last synagogue in Boyle Heights! Ron will do anything to keep them here.
Miri desperately wants them to clean the apartment, but the roommates decide to spy on Ron to try and find a way to win him over, and as they don their glamorous disguises and follow him past newspaper stands and Mexican independence parades, they see him go into a doughnut shop and believe they have cracked the case. While the girls are off sleuthing, Miri assesses the messy apartment, singing a passive aggressive post-it note patter song.
When Ron returns to make sure Stevie has left, they offer him homemade doughnuts, which he sees as an effort to poison him. Don’t they know he is deathly allergic to gluten?! He sees miri’s post-its, one of which reveals, to Gigi’s mortification, that she has hemorrhoids, and another one that explicitly states that they moved Stevie in behind Ron’s back. Amped up from his near death by gluten experience, he threatens to evict all of them if Stevie isn’t gone by sundown.
Stevie sings a wistful musical theatre-ized medley to surprising tunes-who knew Proud Mary could sound so sad, and packs her bags. Gigi offers to have Stevie stay with her parents in Beverly Hills while she looks for a place to stay.
Stevie has reminded all the roommates of their dreams when they first moved to the city, and things just don’t feel right without her. So they concoct plan b: Leanna, her boyfriend, and Christine will go over her city planning textbooks and try to find a loophole to the city code, while Miri and Gigi try and win over the Hasidics. Maybe if the Hasidics drop their claim and vouch for the girls, Ron will let Stevie stay. Miri may have an ulterior motive for this plan, as we see her try to flirt with swagger-licious Adam at the Hillel.
Leanna and Christine focus more on arguing about premarital sex than city codes, and Miri and Gigi fail to make a good impression on the Hasidics, partially because Gigi decides to communicate only through post its at the dinner in an attempt to get back at Miri for all her passive aggressive post it notes.
When Miri and Gigi return from Shabbas dinner, Velma mistakes Gigi for Stevie, and immediately notifies Ron. In a big, dramatic, group number, Ron serves the roommates his eviction notice, rejoicing withVelma and the Hasidics.
The roommates visit Stevie in beverly hills and tell her about the case of mistaken identity. Stevie feels awful for the mess she has caused, and has a lightbulb moment: she knows a delicious Filipino gluten free dessert she can make for Ron as an apology! As they cook, the girls marvel at Gigi’s parents fancy apartment and the revelation that Gigi is secretly rich. As they make bibingka, Gigi explains she rejects her family’s wealth and wants instead to make a difference!
The girls start to feel like they are going to make it after all, as they sing to the tune of “you’re gonna make it after all.” Ron is touched by the gesture, and agrees not to evict all of them, but rules are rules, and he can’t have more than 5 unmarried people living in the same apartment!
This is when Christine gets a brilliant idea: what if Leanna and Leanna’s boyfriend get married? Everyone loves the idea except Leanna.
We end on a tag where the roommates once again follow Ron, only to find he walked right through the doughnut shop and into a community theatre! Turns out Ron is an aspiring actor, and auditioning for “Oliver.” The roommates cover is about to be broken, as Stevie jumps up, thrilled to have found a real life Hollywood audition. (even though technically they are in Boyle Heights not Hollywood.)
To these girls, an unwashed dish, loud neighbors, an overbearing landlord, a mysterious shit stain in the toilet are treated with the drama and intrigue of all our favorite musicals, but the upheaval their city is undergoing due to redlining, white flight, and civil unrest, will eventually reach a fever pitch even these self-obsessed post-grads can’t ignore. As they become more socially aware, conversations of religion, inequity, and chore wheels occur through colorful musical numbers and mad cap hijinks. Through laughter and song, my hope is we can gain an understanding for these characters from diverse backgrounds, and consider our roles as citizens in times of injustice.
