Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton announces Five Course Love, Gregg Coffin’s culinary musical tour of five dates gone hilariously wrong, for its summer slot, opening June 12 in The Loft Theatre.
 
Coffin’s work isn’t new to Dayton. An earlier musical, Convenience, wowed local audiences when it was being developed and rewritten here in 2004, and has gone on to success across the country.
 
Five Course Love is well past the rewriting stage, having drawn rave responses from audiences and critics coast to coast for three years. Even tough New York critics became fans of the Oberlin grad when the show ran off-Broadway. The Associated Press described it as “hilarious and imaginative” and syndicated columnist Liz Smith called it “a smashing production.”
 
Coffin says Five Course Love was inspired by a friend’s tales of her horrible experiences with speed dating. “We were laughing so hard,” he says, “and it put an idea in my head of how it would be even worse if you were eating. So my little composer mind thought, ‘what if the food inspired the music?’”
 
The five courses come in five eateries, with country music at a barbecue joint, Italian opera at a trattoria, and on into German, Mexican and ‘50s do-wop sounds and savories. And as for the disasters encountered by the various would-be Romeos, a Mafia hit is just par for the course.
 
In addition to musicals, Coffin has composed incidental music for dozens of stage productions, including Human Race productions of Proof and The Drawer Boy. He has just completed a new musical, called rightnextto me.
 
The Human Race production of Five Course Love will be directed by HRTC Resident Artist and Wright State theatre professor Joe Deer, who drew raves for his work on Big River and Seussical at The Loft.
 
Tickets for Five Course Love are available by calling Ticket Center Stage at (937) 228-3630 or (888) 228-3630, or via www.humanracetheatre.org <http://www.humanracetheatre.org> .