Nobody Loves You

Nobody Loves You

Itamar Moses (Book); Gaby Alter (Music & Lyrics)

American Conservatory Theater

When reality TV with a “You’re-off-the-island” edge merges with a bachelor/bachelorette dating show format that opens the floodgates for immediate social media inputs, memes, and votes for winners, then the result is a rom-com that is furiously fun from beginning to end, given the comic genius by book writer, Itamar Moses.  Add in ridiculously clever lyrics embedded in a slew of delightfully contagious rock-pop-Broadway-leaning songs by Gaby Alter, and American Conservatory Theatre has a sure-fire hit not to be missed as the company opens a re-worked and updated version of Moses and Alter’s 2012-premiering Nobody Loves You.

Tanya is a bubbly, energetic ball of giggles when watching her favorite show on TV, “Nobody Loves You,” especially as weeks of competition peak in the final reveal of who will be the lucky couple destined to be in love forever.  Her boyfriend, Jeff, has no patience for such ridiculous manipulation of people’s emotions and choices and cannot stop making snarky comments as the big climax approaches.  One snide comment too many sends Tanya out the door and out of his life forever, with her parting promise of planning to find her true love by auditioning for the next season of her fave show.  And while “NLY” represents everything that Jeff as a serious doctoral student in philosophy detests about current pop culture, he decides also to audition to win back Tanya’s love.

While other hopeful contestants submit audition tapes singing with enticing tones, “Come give me a shot so I can find someone to fall for someone like me” (“I Just Want to Be Loved”), Jeff snarls in notes sung with rock-star edge and demeanor, “I hate your stupid-ass show” as his submitted solicitation for inclusion.  For a show that is slumping in the all-important ratings, his unconventional appeal is just what Emcee Byron and Director Nina are seeking, with Nina (Ashley D. Kelley) informing him with an electrically fabulous voice that girl friend Tanya (hilariously, also Ashley D. Kelley) already has found someone else and is thus not a contestant as he had hoped, but that “this show could give you a brand new start” (“You’re Incredibly Real”). 

A. J. Holmes is singularly terrific as the ever-sour, insult-spouting Jeff who does absolutely nothing to be appealing to any of the other love-seeking contestants, barely participating in the weekly contests as the initial fifteen is one-by-one eliminated  to a final five (“like scales falling from ancient lizards,” describes Emcee Byron).  But for some strange reason, the TV and online audience is loving Jeff as he progresses toward the finals, residing each week in the one “Solo Room” while his competition sleep in male-female pairings in rooms named the likes of “Hot Tub,” “Self-Help,” “Leather,” or “Pillow Fight” Room.

With many similarities to a doorbell-ringing boy in The Book of Morman, Bible-quoting, happy-faced, pure-of-voice Christian (Seth Hanson) finds himself embarrassedly paired in the Hot Tub Room with scantily clothed Megan (Molly Hager).  Megan’s sung, sultry notes drip with temptations as her bare legs extend out of the tub and then open in spread-eagle invitation to a wide-eyed but increasingly less-devout Christian.  Their sexy and silly duet, “Come On In,” is just one of several audience-pleasing numbers sporting both hilarity and impressive vocals.

In a later episode, whip-snapping and hand-cuffs-ready Megan has full control of a tied-up-in-bed Dominique (a fantastically funny and always perky John-Michael Lyles) while next-door Christian is now in PJs and in the midst of a pillow fight with an initially reserved but now aching for a kiss Samantha (a beautifully voiced Ana Yi Pulg).  In one of many spectacular scenic set-ups that smack with levity designed by Jason Ardizzone-West, the two couples in their adjoining bedrooms flooded with raging hormones sing together a show-stopping “It Feels Good.”

Jeff, in the meantime, sneaks his way into the Control Room where cameras are recording every minute of the contestants’ sexy shenanigans, sending edited clips to the awaiting social media hordes who in turn, are voicing and voting for their favorites.  There he meets Jenny, a wanna-be documentarian who has been stuck for five years in a job she overall detests.  Together, Jenny and Jeff find with arousing, ever-more intense vocals that they have a lot in common in “So Much to Hate” in the ridiculous people and world around them.  In their projected disgust and despise, the seed is planted; and now it is up to the rom-com to do the rest.

For her part, Kuhoo Verma’s Jenny is a strong, mature personality among a host of crazier, self-centered sorts.  The more outlandish others evolve — including even Jeff — the more she figures out what is important for her life.  With eyes that speak volumes with their silent-movie style and sensation, her Jenny sings a heart-touching, inspiring, and gorgeously intoned “Finally” as she reaches important life resolutions.

 

Overseeing the episodic sequences of the weekly show is the silky smooth and much-too-debonair Byron who cannot stop posing himself with spread arms and stretched legs as if always in the limelight.  Jason Veasey sings with a deep and swooning voice that often echoes with sounds of Detroit as he struts his array of loud-colored and glittering outfits (just a smattering of the constant surprises that parade on stage via the costume genius — and tongue-in-cheek humor — of Sarita Fellows).  His close-ups are enhanced by an eye-popping framework of lights in ever-changing color designed by Russell H. Champa that expands to encompass the entire stage and then collapses to varying shapes to provide live screenshots streamed to an awaiting audience.  

From tango to Broadway-style flair, Steph Paul choreographs numbers in ways to accentuate the hyped-up game-show antics (“The Minefield Tango”) and to insert a bit of magic-making and love-seeding while Jeff and Jenny dance in a duet of lively steps, spiritedly singing their supposed belief that “Love Is an Act.”  Their accompaniment and that of the entire show is resoundingly and robustly rendered by a band of seven under the direction of Jane Cardona.

ACT’s Artistic Director, Pam MacKinnon, does not miss an opportunity as the production’s director to find yet one more way out of hundreds to ensure laughter from the audience.  Yet at the same time, she inserts a path for our discovering some gems about establishing loving relationships and in celebrating the diverse ways those can occur — both in coupling and in deciding the importance of self-love. 

After many twists and turns full of drama, comedy, and also heart, winners emerge in the season finale “Nobody Loves You” but maybe in the way the producers or contestants do not expect.  But this being a rom-com, we in the end are not that surprised of the outcomes; and we are certainly all-smiles.  While the American Conservatory Theatre marquee out front flashes Nobody Love You, it is a pretty safe bet everybody will love this must-see musical.

Rating: 5 E, MUST-SEE

A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production

Nobody Loves You continues through March 30, 2025, in one-hour, forty-five minute (no intermission) production at American Conservatory Theatre, the Toni Rembe Theatre, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco.  Tickets are available online at https://www.act-sf.org, by phone at 415-749-2228, and by email at tickets@act-sf.org.

Photo Credits: Kevin Berne