P’town cupcake scandal inspires three book group

buddies with Harvard degrees to write a musical

A vacation with friends in Provincetown can yield many things: love, sex, sunburns, hangovers. For Bradley See-man, Michael Wartofsky and David Reiffel, it inspired a musical.

It helps that Wartofsky and Reiffel are seasoned compos-ers and lyricists. Still, they were skeptical when Seeman

came up with idea for a musical based on a headline story in the Provincetown Banner, the local newspaper. During the summer of 2010, a local baker selling his cupcakes on Commercial Street triggered police objec-tion and an ensuing brouhaha. “I thought it would make a fun musical,” says Seeman. “I even had the title, Cupcake. I told

Michael and David and they were like, ‘Why don’t you write the book?” and I said, ‘What’s a book?’”

Not exactly a show queen, Seeman is a grant writer and fundraising consultant for government and nonprofit organizations who worked for the AIDS Action Committee during the 1990s. Still, he gave it a shot and within three days had a draft. By then, Wartofsky and Reiffel were hooked and the trio hammered out the script, including some input from Scott Douglas Cunning-ham, the notorious cupcake-maker himself.

Unlike some collaborations, this one brought out the best in everyone. “We’ve been friends for years and we’re all in a book group together,” says Seeman who lives in the South End and, like Wartofsky and Reiffel, attended Harvard University.

“We’re all joined at the hip now after work-shopping the show, getting it right and spending a long time casting it.”

Cupcake will have its world premiere at Boston’s Club Café from May 10 to June 24, as less of a traditional musical than a fun, interac-tive cabaret. Directed by Guy Ben-Aharon, it is set in the resort “Summertown” where Tom (Grant MacDermott) sells his irresistible cupcakes. But a rookie cop (Mark Linehan) is out to enforce the law prohibit-ing street sales of food. A few locals, such as a hunky life-guard (Max Sangerman) and a librarian (Hallie Brevetti), rel-ish Tom’s contraband cupcakes and help him avoid arrest. Meanwhile, a ruthless realtor (Karen MacDonald) is out to seal her own sweet deal.

“From the beginning I thought a relaxed, interactive,

culture Musical story Loren King

A Musical With Icing on Top

David reiffel, Michael Wartofsky, and Bradley Seeman photo Joel Benjamin)

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drinking setting was perfect for this type of show,” says Reiffel, referencing Varla Jean Mer-man’s shows in Provincetown as a model for the kind of loose, fun, inclusive atmosphere he wanted for Cupcake. “All three creators are gay but the piece isn’t limited to that. We surprised ourselves with where the plot goes. It has real heart. It’s not a campy satire; it has a gentler edge. But still an edge.”

A Chicago native who’s lived in Boston since 1975, Reiffel’s resume includes writing music for productions at the nationally-acclaimed Cor-nerstone Theater Company, Court Theater in Chicago, New York’s Theater for a New Audience, the Chautauqua Institution in Chatauqua, New York and, locally, at Apollinaire Theater Company, Company One, Stoneham Theatre, and Boston Conservatory. He’s the Program Director for the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative (NOMTI) Advanced Writers’ Lab, where he is developing Glory, his latest original musical, which had its first public reading in October at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.

Living just over a mile away from Reiffel in Jamaica Plain is Wartofsky, a composer and professor at Berklee College of Music whose 12 eclectic songs for Cupcake include a samba that echoes Beach Blanket movies; Edie and Steve-style variety shows; Beach Boys pop; and ’70s rock. “It’s mildly satirical but with a sweet emo-tional core,” says Wartofsky of Cupcake, citing musicals such as Avenue Q and Urinetown as influences, though Cupcake is “much less biting,” he says. He has high praise for Reiffel’s lyrics and the ease of their collaboration, helped by the friends’ involvement with NOMTI, which Wartofsky founded in 1997.

Among Wartofsky’s other shows is Running Back, a new musical co-written with Marcus Gardley about a gay football player with a four-person, African-American cast. Wartofsky presented an excerpt from the show at the 2010 National Alliance for Musical Theatre conference. His musical The Man in My Head starred Obie award-win-ning actor Darius de Haas as a young, gay black man coming of age. It was performed in 2006 at the New York Musical Theater Festival.

Wartofsky’s original music, along with Wes Savick’s book and lyrics, will be showcased in Car Talk: The Musical!!! starring Leigh Barrett at the Central Square Theater June 14 to July 15. Inspired by the legendary NPR Radio show, the show will be staged just blocks from where Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, opened their Good News Garage in Central Square, Cambridge. Car Talk: The Musical!!! was produced by Suffolk University at Boston’s Modern Theater in 2011.

“It’s an incredible moment for me to have two shows overlap-ping,” says Wartofsky, who spent 15 years writing shows since graduating (after earning his B.A. at Harvard) from the New England Conservatory of Music and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “You have to just do the work. You never know which project will hit it right and be picked up.”

Now, that project just might be Cupcake. Who can resist sweet and salty?

Performances of Cupcake are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sunday brunch/

matinee shows (June 10, 17, and 24 at 2 p.m.). Tickets are $25-$35. [x]Cupcakewww.clubcafe.com617-536-0966.