Bruce Whitney’s work takes centerstage in Harlequin’s summer musical revue

Harlequin Productions music director Bruce Whitney was skeptical when artistic director Linda Whitney, who is his sister-in-law, suggested turning his songs into “Magical Mystery Midsummer Musical,” the latest of the company’s signature summer revues.

“I wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not,” he told The Olympian. “I was totally taken aback. I said, ‘Who’s going to come see that?’ ”

Bruce Whitney let himself be persuaded by Linda and Scot Whitney, his brother and Harlequin’s co-founder, and the result — what Bruce calls “a cirque-style thing” — is opening this weekend at the theater.

“Musical,” based on 30 years of Bruce’s musical compositions, combines the usual summer-friendly song and dance with acrobats, aerialists, a dog and big puppets.

The cast includes Harlequin regulars Amy Shephard, Christian and Maggie Doyle, Bruce Haasl and Christie Oldright, along with an eight-piece band led, of course, by Bruce Whitney, who’s served as bandleader for a decade and a half of summer revues and holiday Stardust shows.

“It’s great to be working on a project with great people,” said Linda Whitney, who’s directing. “It’s one of those special kinds of projects where everyone gets to collaborate and participate and share ideas of what can happen.”

The show includes music Bruce Whitney composed for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (2006), “The Tempest” (2000), “The Taming of the Shrew” (2010), “Dracula” (1995), “The Elephant Man” (2009) and many others.

Bruce has been a lifelong musician. He studied piano and clarinet in his youth, switched to guitar with inspiration from The Beatles, and played in his 20s for the local Grateful Dead tribute band No Toy Boys. But he had little interest in theater until his brother and sister-in-law asked him for help.

“It was never on my radar,” he said. “They dragged me into it, I like to say,” he said, laughing.

“I thank them every day,” he added. “It’s changed my life, basically. I’ve learned a lot about composing and music directing. It’s been a grand journey.”

It’s been a long one, too. Bruce estimates he’s worked on about 60 shows with Scot and Linda — composing, arranging and/or musically directing. He got started before Harlequin was founded, composing for 1988’s “Macbeth,” which Linda directed at the Capitol Theater.

“It was absolutely terrifying, because I’d never done it before and didn’t know what I was doing, but it turned out pretty well,” he said. And so his avocation began.

In the three decades since, he has even done some acting. He’s well known to Harlequin audiences as Nikolai, the irascible bandleader at the Stardust Club in the theater’s annual holiday revues.

“I don’t have very many lines usually, which is a good thing,” he said. “It’s fun. I put on some kind of faux Russian accent and act irritated by people’s unwillingness to work.”

In the current “Musical,” he doesn’t play a character, but he’s in a different kind of spotlight in this retrospective of his work.

It’s been really cathartic,” he said. “I just turned 70. Looking back at all this music and dredging up all these recordings, it’s like this is kind of a legacy. I can look back and say, ‘Well, if I kick off tomorrow, I did something.’”

While the scope of this tribute and his age both might suggest retirement, Bruce Whitney said he’s not thinking about it — either for his musical avocation or his work as a software developer.

“As long as Scot and/or Linda are doing shows,” he said, “I will do them. That’s that.”

This story was originally published June 20, 2018 at 6:23 AM with the headline "Bruce Whitney’s work takes centerstage in Harlequin’s summer musical revue."