Will Disco-Era Last Dance Be New York’s Campiest Musical?

Last Dance, a new musical getting a five-performance workshop at The York Theatre Company in September, could soon be the campiest musical to hit the New York stage.

Set in the ’70s world of disco, glam and mirror balls, the show is about a young songwriter chasing his dream girl. But what shoots this musical right through the gay roof is that it features the songs of Paul Jabara, the mastermind behind homo classics like “It’s Raining Men,” “Enough Is Enough,” and the show’s title song, which was immortalized by Donna Summer in 1978.

Last Dance also has a book by Shaun McKenna (Lord of the Rings, The Musical, a case study in ostentation) and will be directed by Philip McKinley (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, The Boy from Oz). Giving it a sliver of hetero cred is Rob Morrow (Northern Exposure, Number3s), who has joined the cast.

Theater buffs might recall Jabara, who died of AIDS in 1992, had the dubious honor of writing the campiest, swishiest musical to lay an egg on Broadway: 1973’s woefully misbegotten Rachael Lily Rosenblum…and Don’t You Ever Forget It!, the rags-to-riches tale of a gal from the Fulton Fish Market who rises to become a Hollywood gossip columnist, then famous movie star. (The extra “a” in “Rachael” is the one Streisand dropped from “Barbra.”) Sadly audiences didn’t even have a chance to forget Rachael—the show shuttered after eight previews.

Hopefully this Dance will last a little longer.