Theatre 

9 to 5: The Musical - presented by Baldwin Wallace University
Nov 21, 2025 performance - Pens Cast

Jim Becker
Nov. 25, 2025 (updated 12/22/25 01:01pm)

When the talented students show up, but creative leadership’s not there (yet).

Baldwin Wallace’s 9 to 5 should have been a victory lap for a program, and school, in transition. Instead it plays like a warning shot.

With the former, and community-beloved, program chair, Victoria Bussert, now helming Oberlin’s Musical Theatre department - after nearly three decades shaping BW’s national reputation - the community has every reason to watch closely. BW’s 9 to 5 suggests a program still finding its footing under new leadership of tenable Jennifer Hemphill, BW’s freshly installed Professor of Music Theatre and former dean of the Conservatory of the Performing Arts at Stephens College in Missouri also serving as chair for the Music Theatre Department.

The band, under music direction by Rachel Woods, was audible gold from the time the lights dimmed and worth the ticket price alone. The 13- piece band sounded momentously larger with resonance filling the Kleist main stage without drowning out the performers. Additionally, sound designer Angie Hayes ensured the cast was always well-heard and balanced - even with the seemingly antiquated sound system on the main stage.

Visually, Lindsay Webster’s set hands the production a staging gift: attractive story-driven wagons that move easily and a huge moon-sized clock hung dead center upstage. A literal bullseye for center stage. Instead of clarity, we get exposure. Over and over the dancers seemed incapable of finding center stage. I unwaveringly clocked a numberline on that stage; whether or not the ensemble used it is the question. Don’t even think about auditioning for The Rockettes if you’re not intimately acquainted with a numberline.

Julia Martin has the chops for playing Violet Newstead. She displays confidence and strength in delivery, believability in the matriarch role, and an undeniable dancer’s presence. The audience can see her confidence in how readily Martin stands in fourth and fifth positions; she can clearly handle more intricate choreography than given in “One of the Boys.” The attempt at building this Violet her big “Roxie Hart” from Chicago or “The Story of Lucy and Jessie” from Follies moment tends to fall flat within the limitations of the male ensemble and gets lost behind the shaping of the pictures we’re given.

Martin’s performance reminded me of a conversation I had with Bebe Neuwirth when I asked about her approach to character development: she said she works “from the outside in.” Ms. Neuwirth figures out how her characters walk and hold themselves before she decides where they were born.

Eden Susong’s Doralee is the kind of performance that reminds you why BW has been shorthand for “serious talent.” Susong’s voice is big, agile, and emotionally precise. She flips in and out of head voice with intention and value. Every vocal shift feels like it’s about Doralee’s dignity, not just Dolly Parton cosplay.

Siena Worland’s Judy Bernly was endearing and funny, but her film noir dream sequence shows the character effectively upstaging herself by the brim of her hat hiding her face. In her famous “copier fiasco” scene we’re treated with too few of papers spat out by the Xerox. Technical limitations impeded Worland’s chance to show the range the scene requires (as dependent on the machine having a larger reaction that drives Hart’s next line). The Xerox needs to absolutely betray Judy giving the actor the chance to show comedic panic and problem solving (and maybe even a little prop improv). Instead the copier coughed once and died.

Which brings us to hair and wigs, the most ironic pill to swallow in a Dolly Parton musical. Understanding wig prep and how to navigate a wig fitting is essential training for future professional actors. Even bad wigs would give these actors the opportunity to experience wig care. We don’t expect lace front or wig mics, but I couldn’t help thinking if Judy’s hats were pinned to a wig, we might’ve maintained sightlines to her face. Add in Violet’s ever-present feathered bangs, and a pattern emerges. If the audience can’t see the actors’ eyes, we’re lost.

Jacob Gonzalez gives a deserving performance as Franklin Hart, Jr. He calibrates Hart’s slime just right - smug, sexist, and stupid enough (while maintaining the character’s dignity) that you believe these women could outsmart him in their sleep. In fantasy moments, Gonzalez shows considerable latitude leaning into cartoonish buffoonery without losing the human underneath allowing the audience to feel sympathy for a creep.

Edits to scenes and dialogue leave several plot points undercooked. Violet’s garage-door opener scene with her son (played affectionately by Alexis Castro) sets up the marijuana handoff and the plan to restrain Hart, but we never see how the garage-door opener factors into his captivity. What we do see is a prolonged image of a young man in silk boxer shorts tied to a bed struggling against a bed frame and bindings with his feet, followed by an abruptly armed Hart arriving at the office still in sleepwear. The cause-and-effect the script promises never materializes onstage.

Startlingly, the Franklin Hart bedroom scene is the production’s most glaring staging misstep. I didn’t see where any intimacy coordinator was credited and it showed in the blocking. To me, it read as careless and unimaginative.

Sophia Edwards, as Roz, delivers layered performances with solemn development. Showing professional-level vocal control, Edwards allows Roz’s true self to shine through. She commands the stage with a vulnerability giving Roz truth and likability. We see two Rozes - the one Edwards embodies with Violet and office workers and the other eager to globe-trot for Hart. Of all the future professionals, Ms. Edwards was the actor exhibiting mastered commanding stillness as a weapon to pierce the audience’s heart.

There could have been more texture to the 1970s office design. A 1970s office isn’t just desks and files; it’s ashtrays, newspapers, rotary phones and typewriter covers. On the other side of the door, Webster’s set design for Hart’s office is a very groovy recreation of the Broadway set.

Throughout the show, we rarely see the ensemble used to further the plot. There are missed moments all over the place: Roz’s first entrance chief among them. The juxtaposition between Roz and the office workers was too subtle. I commend the ensemble of dancers trying their best, but they’re saddled with beat- keeping, improvised phrases, and two full bars of stomping and clapping. Unless your goal is to get the audience to stomp and clap with you, that’s the choreographic equivalent of dead air. Could these students handle themselves at a job interview/ audition in front of Andy Blankenbuehler tomorrow?

The evidence BW’s 9 to 5 generated imparts this Berean bereft with a hankering for the days of A Chorus Line and visits from Broadway legends. Has BW’s “pre-professional” branding started to feel aspirational instead of descriptive? I will have to give this new Baldwin Wallace a chance, or, at least, a try.
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Jim Becker is a Berea-based educator, writer, choreographer and director, whose credits include Disney Theatricals, New York City Opera, Disney Cruise Line, Disney World, off-off-Broadway, national tours and regional theaters. A member of Actors’ Equity Association. Jim Becker Personal Training, LLC was the official fitness partner on Broadway’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Teaching credits include Cleveland Play House, Cleveland Ballet, Harlem School of the Arts, National Dance Institute and Baldwin Wallace University.

AI assistance: This review was prepared with research and drafting support from an AI model. All judgements and words are my own and typed by moi and I paid for my admission ticket.