Ventura Musical Presents the Big Picture

Talk about something for everyone.

By writing a musical extravaganza that begins with the Creation--a Sunday morning 5,759 years ago--and ends at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1999 at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, Ventura lawyer Marty Flam has become Ventura playwright-lawyer Marty Flam.

A cast of dozens, backed by an orchestra led by Ojai resident Bob Birk, will stage two benefit performances of “We Are Here!” on Sunday at the Ventura College Theater, 4667 Telegraph Road.

The production staff includes choreographers, videographers, costumers, cosmetologists, shofar wranglers and language consultants.

Proceeds will benefit the Museum of Tolerance program for Ventura schools, the Ventura College Orchestra and the Ralph Moses Music Fund.

A Ventura County judge, obstetricians, skateboarders and schoolteachers will sing and generally chew the scenery in such roles as Jackie Robinson, Moses, swing dancers and Gestapo agents.

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For example, Ventura resident Ivor Davis, whose day job is that of an internationally syndicated columnist, will trip the light fantastic as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a Cockney music hall singer and Pope Pius XI. And that is all before the first act is over.

Playgoers will see and hear Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Perren sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, and watch various local rabbis and cantors harmonize, and maybe even do a soft-shoe or two, accompanied by such old standards as “Go Down Moses” and “Doo-Wopp Shabbat Shalom.”

The play is fun and sometimes tongue-in-cheek, yet it carries a serious message: People are more alike than different, no matter what their religion.

“The theme is tolerance, and the most important thing is to just do the right thing,” Flam explained.

The final scene in the play is emblematic of Flam’s theme. A pastor, a priest and a rabbi end up at the Western Wall on Christmas Eve. They are surrounded by the Israeli, Palestinian, British, German, Swiss and papal flags. Singers launch into a medley of “God Bless America,” “Go Down Moses,” “Miriam’s Song,” “Moshiach,” “Bei Mer Bistu Shoen” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Definitely, something for everyone.

As for some of the music, Flam called on his lawyerly skills to “borrow” a few of the arrangements. In order to use them, Flam wrote composers and said, “If I don’t hear from you, I assume I have your approval to use your arrangement.”

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His most fervent wish is to take the play on the road. Specifically, to have it so well reviewed that he, the cast and crew are invited to stage a performance at year’s end at the Western Wall.

Directed by Maxine Coz of Oxnard, the play will be performed Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets are $18, $15 for seniors and students. For reservations call Susan Abrams at 647-7800.