You Better Find ‘Somebody to Love’ at the Rubicon and More Theater Things

Robert Sternin and Prudence Fraser, the longtime Montecito couple with 40 years of massive successes in TV sitcoms and more, swear that their brand new jukebox musical Somebody to Love isn’t about their own lives, even though the story begins in the early 1970s, right around the same time the couple first got together as undergraduates at Tufts University. 

Four friends meet freshman year of college, where they vow to change the world and be there for each other, life’s roadblocks be damned To be fair, while the story  does indeed have some parallels with their own history, the idea of writing a 70s – 80s jukebox musical was in fact originally pitched to Sternin and Fraser. They are the husband-and-wife famous for writing and producing early episodes of Who’s the Boss, and developing, producing, and writing the first four seasons of The Nanny.

Sean Daniels, a theatrical director friend, called and asked Sternin and Fraser to meet him in Las Vegas to see a band – and talk about doing a musical together with a soundtrack of hits from the era. 

“He said, ‘Do you guys like ‘70s rock?’” Sternin recalled over the phone from his car. The couple did the interview while on a break near the Rubicon, where Somebody to Love will premiere at the end of March.“We said, ‘Are you kidding? It’s the music we listen to on vinyl in the basement,’ which became the tagline of the show.”

Sternin and Fraser spent some time contemplating what a musical propelled by tunes of that era might look like. 

“That was the time that we went to college and then set up to create our lives,” he said. “It made us think about where the time had gone and how we got to where we are today.” 

Added Fraser: “We thought we were never going to get old and now we’re all old. We thought we were going to save the world. And for a minute there, we thought we had.”

With tongue only slightly in cheek, Sternin also explained that the four main characters actually represent portions of their own personalities. 

“One of the two male characters is an egomaniac and the other is a band nerd. I was both. One of the females is the hottest girl in freshman year, and the other one is so smart that it’s unbelievable. Pru is both.”

But while the real life couple who wrote the show have spent half a century happily tied together – moving from Massachusetts to Los Angeles to pursue careers in the arts and working together nearly the entire time – the musical’s characters have a few more trials and tribulations; punctuated, of course, with triumphs. These are moments that turn out to be turning points in their lives. Eventually, the moral is finding the one thing that matters most: somebody to love. 

The show is set to the music that provided both soundtrack and zeitgeist to that generation, selections including “Dance to the Music,” “Call Me,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Feel Like Making Love,” “Locomotive Breath,” and “Taking It to the Street.” Somebody to Love is seasoned with other era-redolent songs by Billy Joel, Little River Band, Chicago, and Earth, Wind and Fire. 

“We picked the songs based on their being well-known, but also on the lyrics telling the story,” Sternin said. “We wanted it to be like these songs were written for the show, not just dropped in for no reason.”

Rehearsals were mildly revelatory, Fraser said. 

“We’re watching them do a scene and then start singing and we’re thinking, ‘These lyrics are just so perfect.’ It’s almost surprising.” 

What’s also been eye-opening, Sternin said, has been working with the cast – a large ensemble that boasts a bevy of Broadway musical credits including Spring Awakening, The Book of Mormon, Wicked, Avenue Q, Motown the Musical, and many others – and feeling the age gap. 

“We lived the first part of these people’s lives in the show, when the rock guitarist is at Venice Beach with the roller skaters and bodybuilders,” he said. “It’s really weird being at least as old as the parents of our entire cast. They’re always asking us what it was like back then.” 

But to be clear, Somebody to Love isn’t a nostalgic trip down memory lane, Fraser said. 

“It’s a story about a man’s search for meaning in his life,” she said. “It’s funny and there’s lots of great music. But it could be about any time and place.” 

Somebody to Love, with book by Sternin & Fraser and directed by Daniels, plays at the Rubicon Theatre’s Karyn Jackson Theater in Ventura March 25-April 19. www.rubicontheatre.org

On the Boards: ‘Bodies’ Bounds Back 

Massage therapist, healer, writer and artist Cynthia Waring will be performing Bodies Unbound, a one-woman theater show based on her book of the same name. The performance piece has energized stages from her hometown to New York City and  stems from her experience as a massage therapist. Having given tens of thousands of massages over the years, honing her innate ability to detect the trauma and other emotional troubles that lie beneath physical problems. The shows are in the afternoon of March 21 & 28 at Fine Line Gallery in La Cumbre Plaza. Visit https://bodiesunbound.com and RSVP to [email protected]. 

SBCC Theatre Group’s production of A Small Family Business, Alan Ayckbourn’s hit dark satire on greed and moral corruption centered around Margaret Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s, winds up its run at the Garvin Theatre with performances through March 21. Katie Laris directs the dramedy that has been praised as one of Ayckbourn’s best works.