The New Musical ‘Frog’s Legs’ Hops Into the Overtime

Frog’s Legs: Love Among the Lily Pads, an original musical comedy written by Bethany Schwartz, is making its premiere at San Antonio’s Overtime Theater this weekend. Inspired by the Hollywood movie musicals of yore, it begins with a typical love triangle before veering off into a hilariously bonkers dream sequence.

Tad (Ceasar Dueñas) is in love with perky Polly (Jessica Roberts), but the feeling isn’t mutual. After six months of dating, Polly has grown weary of her arrogant beau’s constant pretentious ways. He always wants to dine on peculiar gourmet food and watch foreign films that she can’t understand. She prefers the company of the down-to-earth Hopper (Steven Mortimer), who is more the beans-and-franks and fantasy football type. He and Polly run off together, leaving the heartbroken Tad to drown his sorrows in booze.

Falling asleep in an armchair, he begins to dream…and the fantasy sequence commences. Characters are transformed into frogs that are living in a smelly hot tub, along with feral cats that want to eat them. There’s also a spirit frog who comes from “Swamphalla” to save the other amphibians from the hungry felines. And did I mention there are aliens?

It’s all strange to be sure, but that’s what makes Frog’s Legs fun. The songs are written in various styles, including rock ballads, doo-wop numbers and zydeco, and their lyrics carry out the intrinsic wackiness of the plot. The leads are supported by a game cast, including Robert Moritz, Carrie Rodriguez, Lacey Dalby, Allie Gomez, Sel Tope, Elise Hernandez and Amie Rose.

Gomez, Hernandez and Tope provide the choreography, and Nicole Erwin directs with an emphasis on the show’s tongue-in-cheekiness. Morgan Clyde, whose By Our Hands recently rattled the Overtime, supplies the fight choreography.

For those seeking a delightfully weird evening of musical theater, they can’t go wrong with Frog’s Legs. It plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. from March 1 to 23 (with a special Sunday matinee on March 10 at 3:00 p.m.) at the Overtime Theater, 5409 Bandera Road, Suite 205. Tickets can be purchased online.

Feature photo by Nicole Erwin: L to R: Steven Mortimer (Hopper), Jessica Roberts (Polly) and Ceasar Dueñas (Tad).