Mill Race’s ‘Damn Yankees’ offers nostalgia, emotional lessons

Actor Joe Smith offers a confession like a humbled hitter who just whiffed on three straight pitches en route to an embarrassing strikeout: In everyday life, he would fail at talking nearly anyone into nearly anything.

So, if folks see him as a cleverly cunning devil of a Mr. Applegate in the classic, comic musical, “Damn Yankees” this weekend, then people may be most assured that he is clearly acting.

The character is the one in the production who convinces central character Joe Boyd to sell his soul in exchange for his favorite baseball team, the Washington Senators, winning the pennant.

“I try to play him like a used-car salesman/game show host,” Smith said with a chuckle.

Smith and the local Mill Race Theatre Company is “selling” the 1950s-era baseball-themed production Friday through Sunday at the local Judson Erne Auditorium, 1400 25th St. Director Nick Hogan, a huge Major League Baseball and Cincinnati Reds fan, selected the show partly to pitch one idea: that men often dysfunctionally express emotion through sports as Boyd does in the book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop.

“I do definitely still want this to resonate with men struggling to properly express emotion,” Hogan said. “But I want people also to see that, no matter what, this is simply a fun story that’s also about being satisfied with your life — and also sometimes being preoccupied with looking for more instead of enjoying what’s right in front of you.”

The director is excited about far more than the story and even costume designer Cindy Patchett’s realistic Washingt0n Senators’ unif0rms. A 1950s-era scoreboard, complete with ads like those done on stadiums during those times, will grace one side of the stage.

“The technical staff really took our ideas and just ran with them,” Hogan said, praising people such as technical director Matt Harding. “And those ideas then evolved beyond my original vision.”

In the same vein, ballpark-style concessions will include Cracker Jacks, hotdogs, and Big League Chew. The director’s brother, Josh Hogan, sharing the central role of Boyd with Colin Hammond, conceived the idea of spotlighting cast and crew members on social media by putting them on baseball cards, with batting stance poses on the front and bio notes on the back.

Plus, intermission will be replaced with a seventh-inning stretch in which Mill Race leaders may ask for someone to come out of the audience to lead the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Josh Hogan, as big or even bigger baseball fan than his sibling, readily feels there is plenty in the plot, the comedy and everything else for those who care little about baseball. The grand old game serves simply as a grand old backdrop.

“Anyone can relate to feeling lost or disconnected, or especially having to give up something they really want to have what they really seem to need,” Josh Hogan said.

He said he expects the audience for this show to readily embrace “more of the golden age” feel of the production.

“I think we’ll have a different crowd (than in the past),” Josh Hogan said. “This is very well known among the classics.”

The biggest challenge for former high school baseball player Josh Hogan is not the appearance of athleticism, but the muscular vocals required amid the tunes.

“I’ve never, ever had to sing quite this much,” he said. “And I’ve never really considered myself an actual vocal performer like my brother,” who is a church worship leader.

The show will afford them an added baseball memory in two lives already filled with such.

“Definitely, some of our fondest memories,” Josh Hogan said, “have been spent at the baseball park.”

A swinging time

What: Mill Race Theatre Company’s presentation of the musical “Damn Yankees.”

When: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Judson Erne Auditorium, 1400 25th St., Columbus.

Tickets: millracetheatre.org.