Forever Plaid

They’re back and they’re plaid. The four members of a semi-pro vocal quartet (more white-bread pop than doo-wop) were tragically killed on their way to their first big engagement; now they’ve got a chance at karmic realignment. Expertly done, this production is funny, touching and packed with full-throated singing.

Forever Plaid is also the opening of California Musical Theatre’s latest endeavor, The Cosmopolitan Cabaret, in collaboration with local restaurant icon Gary Paragary and with redevelopment money from the city of Sacramento. The club, located in what was once a Woolworth’s, is spacious and gracious, but still in need of work on the concept of table service for drinks.

The show benefits from the experience of the performers, who have all been in earlier iterations of Forever Plaid, and from the expert direction and choreography of Guy Stroman, who was in the original New York cast when the show won a Drama Desk Award in 1990. It’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from California Musical Theatre: a top-drawer production that hits all the right notes and leaves no aftertaste.