Reviews
FOR SONGWRITING
"Adam Wagner's Don't Look Down feels like a New York-ready cabaret. The songs are well-constructed, unabashedly catchy and at times quite meaningful. Wagner, a CCM graduating senior, seems influenced by modern musical composers, but he also makes each song feel fresh and musically inventive. Its four performers are as much showing off Wagner's music as they are the fine training they're getting at CCM."
— RODGER PILLE
"CCM grad Wagner has talent, charm to burn."
— JACKIE DEMALINE | Cincinnati Enquirer
Here's why I think Adam Wagner is going to make it as a songwriter:
He's unexpected.
When he writes about love, and he writes about romance and love a lot in Don't Look Down, a 45-minute original revue getting its world preem as part of Cincinnati Fringe Festival, it's all wonderfully normal.
People get old. They have chapped lips. The most thrilling thing that happens is that when you catch sight of The Girl, she waves first.
Wagner is still finding his way, but you'll feel a tug of recognition in everything he writes, even as it's completely original.
His music takes surprising directions, too, never, ever going where you're expecting it to, because you're so used to knowing what the next note is going to be with too many contemporary composers. (Wagner's classmate Ben Magnuson gets credit for the music in two songs, and his work is just as winsome.)
Wagner just graduated from College-Conservatory of Music's musical theater program. (He had big roles last season in Brigadoon and Merrily We Roll Along.)
The back story to Don't Look Down is that when Wagner was a freshman he mentioned to CCM drama department chair Richard Hess, who directs the Fringe production, that he was interested in songwriting. Do it, Hess told him, and when you have enough material, we'll do a show.
This is the show, and it's one of the best entries in this year's fringe.
Talent is readily available at CCM and under Hess' clean, big-hearted direction underclassmen Preston Boyd, Josh Breckenridge, Katie Klaus and Joseph Medeiros exuberantly perform the baker's dozen songs.
Wagner told the opening night audience, "basically it's my life on stage."
He's young, but he has plenty of strengths as a songwriter already. His honesty just shines through his lyrics. He has a nice ability to paint pictures with words and still sound conversational — if you like The Last Five Years currently at Playhouse in the Park, you have to see Don't Look Down. And Wagner has charm to burn.
Clearly an unabashed romantic, Wagner writes of being "ready to fall in love and fall hard," but it's never moon/spoon/June.
Breckenridge did fine by the anger of "Typical." "What I want to get through to you," the lyric spits, "is you can't get away with it this time." Love, alas, doesn't always result in happy endings.
It does in the giddily romantic "Hypothetically Speaking" in which Medeiros is the modern-day Lochinvar promising knightly deeds (like buying her favorite ginger ale even if it isn't on sale) right up through hip-replacement time.
Extend a big hand to Zachary Dietz, who did the dandy song arrangements and accompanies.
Wagner and Co. have wasted no time in getting a CD recorded and it's for sale after the performances. $10 and worth it.
"I must say first of all that your introspective lyrics are a fine match for your catchy, fresh, and personable music. You are certainly a songwriter who makes the ordinary extraordinary, particularly in the choice to musicalize the burst of joy that comes from a girl waving first to a guy whose smitten by her. It's that kind of writing, that kind of idea, that ensures your place as a songwriter with a promising future. In addition to "When She Waves First," I enjoyed the perfectly tone-setting "We Now Know," the silent commentary provided by the dance section in "Walking Against the Wind," the harsh anger of "Typical," the unabashed cutesiness of "I Like Green," the heartbreaking "Traci's Song" which has such a lovely Jason Robert Brown feel to it, the very endearing "Hypothetically Speaking," and the rather surprising yet fitting social commentary provided by the inclusion of "Unnoticed Angels."
The two numbers written by Benjamin Magnuson are quite strong and slide into the cycle without feeling disjointed. The bouncy chorus of "Kindred Spirits" is an especially wonderful throwback to the pop music of the 1970s. The song was made even more unique with the decision to make the couple in question an interracial one. "Doesn't Take Much" was also well-written and a very appropriate feel-good ending to a song cycle that, as in life, has its share of pain as well as joy."
— RUSSELL FLORENCE, JR. | Theater Critic for Dayton City Paper
"That song was pretty."
— VIOLA WAGNER | My mother
FOR PERFORMING
FOR BRIGADOON...
"As Tommy's friend Jeff, Adam Wagner is a superb comic foil with the fine delivery of a great deal of droll sarcasm."
— SCOTT CAIN | Talkin' Broadway
FOR MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG...
"Despite their relative youth, Mangano's three leads have the talent to convince. Michael Lowe is Franklin, the conflicted composer who's both gifted and selfish. Adam Wagner is Charley, Franklin's outspoken best friend and writing-partner, the production's most memorable character. And Julie Kotarides is both funny and poignant as Mary, their cynical supportive friend who masks her feelings behind jokes and booze.
— City Beat
FOR MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG...
"The one element that keeps Merrily [We Roll] Along afloat is the extraordinary chemistry that Mangano has encouraged among Lowe, Kotarides and Wagner. And though Wagner's Charley is a hot head, he manages to convey real fraternal love for Frank especially with the most winning smiles he bestows on him throughout.
— Cincinnati Post
FOR MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG...
"Adam Wagner is a steady presence. He knocks the song "Franklin Shepard, Inc" out of the ballpark and conveys the sarcasm and frustration of the character well."
— SCOTT CAIN | Talkin' Broadway
AWARDS
Acting
1999 Nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical — Northwest Indiana Excellence in Theater Foundation; Linus in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown
2000 Friends of CCM Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre
2001 Joseph Weinberger Singing-Actor Award
2005 Nomination Cincinnati Entertainment Award for Best Local Actor in a Leading Role (Musical) — Merrily We Roll Along as Charley Kringas
Teeth — The Movie nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in Dramatic Competition at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
Songwriting
2005 Nomination CEA Award for Best Local Actor in a Supporting Role (Musical) — Joseph Medeiros in Don't Look Down
2005 CEA Award Winner for Best Alternative Production (Critical Achievement) — Don't Look Down
2005 Don't Look Down — Cincinnati Enquirer Acclaim Award for Original Songs