Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Carmen Cusack shines in an otherwise pleasantly serviceable BULL DURHAM at Paper Mill Playhouse

• By drediman
• October 13, 2025
• No Comments

Continuing in the long line of screen-to-stage adaptations is Paper Mill Playhouse’s production of Bull Durham, which is based on the 1988 baseball themed movie of the same name starring Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner. For those of you unfamiliar with with the film, it tells the story of a struggling minor league baseball team — the Bulls of Durham, NC — whose fortunes are turned by the sensual involvement of a sultry, poetry-loving groupie named Annie Savoy, as well as the recruitment of Crash Davis, a veteran player whose sage advice to a volatile young pitcher (Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh) is the catalyst for the team’s success.

Original screenwriter Ron Shelton has taken on the responsibility of converting his own movie script into a Broadway-bound musical. Largely, he’s done a pleasantly serviceable job — if not quite a home run — efficiently carving out the right moments for characters to burst out into song. Unfortunately, he’s retained the movie’s misogynistic overtones — which was far more acceptable when the film was first released — rather than massaging them out for contemporary audiences. The original southern-tinged pop rock score by Susan Werner is tuneful if somewhat on the generic side. My main criticism is that the songs seem as if they were written in a vacuum segregated from the book, which lends the musical the feeling of a jukebox musical, although it obviously isn’t.

The company is led by the superb Carmen Cusack, who shines brightly as she usually does. Cusack brings ample charisma, spunk, and sex appeal to Annie, while imbuing her performance with exactly the kind of laidback Southern confidence that the role calls for. She also sings like a dream, her soaring belt sounding as powerful and distinctive as ever. As Annie’s tug-of-war counterpart Crash, the handsome Nik Walker brings an attractively unassuming swagger to his portrayal that melds beautifully with Cusack’s turn. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of chemistry between them. Although the rest of the cast is amusing — like the youthful Will Savarese and Ashlyn Maddox as Nuke and Millie (another groupie), respectively — they rarely register deeper than cardboard cutouts.

The musical has been smartly helmed and packaged by Marc Bruni, the director of such crowd-pleasing Broadway musical fare as Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and The Great Gatsby (the latter of which is a Paper Mill alum that is still going strong at the Broadway Theatre). He has given the musical version of Bull Durham a handsome, kinetic staging that stays refreshingly clear of the usage of video projections that is so common in today’s productions (the sturdy scenic design is by veteran set designer Derek McLane). Another standout of the production is the athletic choreography by Joshua Bergasse, who has given the Bulls a muscular physical vocabulary that reflects the punchy dynamism of sport.

RECOMMENDED

BULL DURHAM
Regional, Musical
Paper Mill Playhouse
2 hours, 10 minutes (with an intermission)
Through November 2