What's in a name? Pop! would suggest an artistic movement, the discharge of a small caliber gun, a drug route of administration, a father-figure, or the rupture of an air filled paper bag, i.e., nothing at all.  Or perhaps it's a pustule, silver cloud, or puffery awaiting release.  You'll have a chance to decide as the Studio Theatre promotes the ad layout that was Andy Warhol's life, now being considered in a most entertaining musical Pop! (extended until 8/28). 

Written by Maggie-Kate Coleman and composed by Anna K. Jacobs.  Pop! deconstructs the seminal event in the artist's life, when he was shot at the Factory in New York City,  June 3, 1968, and presents it as a Borgesian moment wrapped in a CSI search for the culprit.  Over 90 nonstop minutes, you'll be introduced to the usual suspects as you examine the motive, the means, and the opportunity to whack the King of Pop!  Like an Agatha Christie whodunit, this will be a list of just about everyone around him.  The short list includes Edie Sedgwick, Viva (born Janet Susan Mary Hoffman), and Valerie Solanas, but Factory sleuths Gerard Malagna, Ondine (real name Robert Olivo), and sometimes narrator, the transgendered Candy Darling (born James "Jimmy" Lawrence Slattery) also might have grudges to bury in Andy's lithe torso. 

Personally, I think the public's been rather hard on our Andy as evidenced recently in film, the Factory Girl, directed by George Hickenlooper (2006) and biography, Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, written by Tony Scherman and David Dalton (2009).  Artists, as Picasso proudly claimed, steal from everyone; so, why the beef?  Well, when your work gets all the fame and fortune - Eight Elvises fetched 100 million a few years ago and his top ten auction sales passed the 1/2 billion dollar mark - there'll be some grousing.  And when those closest to him, for the most part got nothing, you can expect their memories will be selective.  Also, the artist was a product and spokesman for the 60s, certainly not the greatest of times.  We tend to look at them through our warm rose-colored glasses (me too!), but why shoot the messenger?  Ouch!

You the audience are about to embark on a reflective journey back in time as soon as you climb the steps to Studio's Fourth Floor Funhouse loft.  Along the way are 1960s relics inclined in various poses of intoxication, gratification, and inertia.  By the time you reach Giorgos Tsappas' silver setting, you'll be as loose and laid back as the assembled musicians, led by Christopher Youstra, and circulating cast - Edie and Viva even pass by to say hello.  They look fabulous!

Directed by Keith Alan Baker, with assists from Hunter Styles and Jennifer Harris, along with choreographer Helanius J. Wilkins, Pop! has a loose and fluid look.  Colin K. Bills' consistently outstanding lighting and the provocative costumes of Ivania Stack, along with the AV projections of Erik Trester and Michael Todd, get Pop! under your skin.  

Tom Story is a dead ringer for Andy and, as he shows from the get-go, has some vocal chops.  The first part of the show looks at the characters through his eyes (or lens) or Candy's, while in the second half the gaze is pointed sharply in the direction of the artist.  Playing Candy, the surrogate Factory Mom, Matthew Delorenzo is a runaway scene stealer not only as an actor, but a singer with a comfortable, sleek upper register and 4-octave range.

Deborah Lubega as the take-charge postmodernist-quoting porn queen rides those cowboys, and gets "The Last Laugh" while Rachel Zampelli brings a loopy edge to her characterization of Valerie, the radical feminist editor of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men).  Sean-Maurice Lynch is a fey Ondine, with a nose for a line, who transforms himself into one high-stepping Pope.  Luke Tudball plays the chameleon-like Factory insider Gerard, and the sashaying Marylee Adams is a study in faded sophistication as Edie.  

Pop! is conceived partly as a revue, partly as a series of character sketches, and entirely as a camp send-up of the Warhol crowd.  As such, it comes wired to undermine any criticism.  You can't quibble about the plot when "Nothing" is at the heart of the book and part of Ms. Coleman's, for the most part, witty and right-on lyrics.  (The same could be said for the repetitions and Andy's verbal descriptions of the meaning of his art, which sound like Bob Dylan on music).  And Ms. Jacobs' impressive romp of a score, which quotes everything from Cabaret to Sunset Boulevard to Follies going forward to operatic misadventures going backward, feels somewhat out of place in a Factory scene inhabited by the Velvet Underground (ignored except for one reference which the audience loved), but it seems to work for these characters in Dreamland.  It's all in fun, and there's plenty of it here.  Look for the Poor Little Rich Girl sequence, the Showdown at Cedar Tavern - where Pop confronts Ab-Ex ("Expression!" and "Untitled Brawl No. 1") - the Death of Andy reverie ("Agnus Dei," "Lux Aeterna!," "Mrs. Warhola's Eulogy," and "The St. Vitus Dance" (a form of chorea from which he suffered), and Revolver segue to the finale ("Big Gun"), delivered with slinking comic hipness by the three wannabe superstars.   

It's a very big show too.  Warhol's spare, streamlined style would seem to be out of sync with the multifaceted production that hurtles across your mental horizon like a train down the tracks.  Who can see all that scenery?  While he was about speed, there wasn't much to detract the viewer from the surface.  Here there's a lot going on all the time, where the over-amplified Factory pulsates like a super-organism, a Hive Mind.   Maybe this is the new consciousness.  In any event, the writer and composer have delivered a musical gem from this history and along with Studio's creative team, each has come together methodically like the artist's silkscreen process, making it wrong, just the right way.     

Was Mr. Warhol all at the surface, like he claimed of his art, or was there something deeper there, both negative and positive, to those who knew him best?  At the end, the dream comes to a conclusion in The Act, with you to decide who is the perpetrator and who the victim. Or whether, in fact, they are one and the same. 

Additional cast: Danielle Davis, Daniel Mori, Jorge Portillo, Danae Truhart, and Rob Watts.  Additional designer:  Sound, Aaron Fisher ************************************************************************************

Applause meter: 4 hands (out of 5) - Recommended to Highly Recommended.

Program notes: A Janus-like poster of information and art suitable for easy reference and framing.  Take two!

Sound check:  Beyond loud - bring your earplugs - with some loss of lyrics.

Moment of the play: Death Becomes Him or One Last Look - Andy: "Like wouldn't it be fun to star and direct your own funeral?" A phantasmagoric send-off.  

Stars of the show: 1) Matthew Delorenzo as Candy and Tom Story as Andy (Tied), 2) Maggie-Kate Coleman (writer) & Anna K. Jacobs (composer), and 3) Design Team

For further information check out the Andy Warhol Museum where you can learn more about the Byzantine Catholic artist  who came from a Pittsburgh, working class family, was educated and where he ultimately resides.   Next year marks the 25th anniversary of his death.