Jordan Donica and Cast Photo by Joan Marcus

Ya want yer cocaine-snorting 14-year olds? Incest? Partner-swapping ménages à deux, trois, ou plus que cela? Same-sex coupling? How about attempted rape or even a dead body? (And all this without an intimacy coordinator on hand to help sort things out!) You've come to the right place. Welcome to Queenie and Burrs' New York apartment, where the gin is cold, but the piano is hot, and where, during Prohibition, nothing is prohibited.

Queenie and Burrs are a pair of vaudevillian performers and lovers whose volatile, sometimes violent relationship, coupled with their individual and collective ennui, leads them to the distraction of throwing the wild party of the title. The guest list includes friends, enemies, hangers-on, and a pair of potential backers who Burrs has convinced himself will help to move them "uptown" professionally.

The production begins with a rousing opening medley, presented downstage in front of the still-closed curtain, that includes a bit of Queenie and Burrs' respective vaudeville/quasi-burlesque acts. In what by most measures surely ought to be a non-issue, there have been some very smart casting decisions here, especially in a show that incorporates almost casually placed attributes of racism, sexism, classism, and antisemitism.

You may notice, for instance, that Queenie (introduced in the opening number, "Queenie Wazza Blonde"), who was portrayed by the white actress Toni Collette in the show's initial Broadway production 25 years ago, is now in the hands of the wonderful Black actress Jasmine Amy Rogers, a Tony nominee for her lead performance in the musical Boop. You may also notice that the Black actor Jordan Donica, a Tony nominee for his portrayal of Sir Lancelot in the Lincoln Center production of Camelot, is Burrs, an exceptionally fierce (and fiercely portrayed) character who was originally played by that ultimate scenery chewer Mandy Patinkin. What kickstarts the show with a jolt of irony is that when we first encounter Burrs, he is performing in blackface. So, yes, a gasp-inducing thumbs up here!

It's likely that most theatregoers seeking out this production will already know that there were two competing versions of The Wild Party (based on the 1928 book-length poem of the same title by Joseph Moncure March) that opened on Broadway in 2000. The other was by Andrew Lippa. Their approaches to the story were widely different, and each has its fanbase. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

An unfortunately canceled preview performance kept me from seeing the original LaChiusa production on Broadway, but the original cast recording knocked my socks off. After seeing the Encores! revival, I remain barefoot and in awe of the three dozen numbers that LaChiusa created for the two-hour (no intermission) show. Both musically and lyrically stiletto-sharp, the songs are performed in naturalistically, often appropriately raspy tones, with one notable exception being the soaringly lyrical number, "People Like Us," a duet between Queenie and her gentle, albeit temporary lover, Black (Jelani Alladin).

I could list every single cast member here, and lean into a thesaurus to come up with words of praise for each of them, including the sensational Tonya Pinkins as Delores Montoya and Adrienne Warren as Kate. As for the gifted creative team, a thousand kudos to director Lili-Anne Brown, to choreographer Katie Spelman, costume designer Linda Cho, and to the always-amazing Encores! orchestra, directed for this production by Daryl Waters, a top-notch composer, arranger, orchestrator, and conductor in his own right. The subject matter of The Wild Party may be downbeat (all right, it most certainly is), but everything about this production shines like burnished gold.