What would happen if Police Chief Brody and company were joined on their hunt for the great white shark in Jaws by actress Jennifer Coolidge?
That’s the premise for The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Jaws at the White Lotus, the first of writer and producer Kate Pazakis’s shows to debut in Provincetown. Opening on June 24, it’s Pazakis’s 18th comedic conglomeration, combining popular movies and TV shows with pop music. Past iterations of The Unauthorized Musical Parody of… (UMPO) included spoofs of Bridesmaids, Hocus Pocus, Clueless, and Stranger Things.
In 2019, Pazakis brought The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Summer Blockbusters to the Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster, where actors ruthlessly but affectionately parodied movies like Titanic, Dirty Dancing, and Jaws. For The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Jaws at the White Lotus, Pazakis thought she’d expand on the Jaws bit from her earlier production. She soon realized that not much happens in the 1975 thriller besides shark attacks and shark pursuit. But new inspiration struck while watching HBO’s hit black comedy-drama series, White Lotus: the story involves love, betrayal, and death among employees and guests at various White Lotus vacation resorts.
“I was just obsessed with Jennifer Coolidge’s bizarre performance,” says Pazakis. “And I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if Jennifer Coolidge was on the shark hunt?’ ”
In the new parody, a shark threatens a White Lotus resort in Provincetown, and Coolidge — a role Pazakis will play at most performances — tries to help. Pazakis won’t reveal many plot details but says the story is “very weird.”
Pazakis also won’t disclose which songs make up the dozen or so live musical numbers in the hour-long show, but she says they will be recognizable hits. “I always choose songs that propel the story,” she says, “but they have to be songs that everyone knows and loves.” She leans into nostalgia; for Provincetown audiences, she says, that means music from the early 2000s and mid-’90s.
The performances will take place at the Crown & Anchor’s beach club by the pool — and in the pool, Pazakis promises.
Pazakis grew up on Cape Cod. In 2014, she became artistic director at Rockwell Table & Stage in Los Angeles, where she created UMPO. After the theater closed in 2021, Pazakis returned to the Cape with her family. In March 2022, she became producing artistic director at Cape Cod Theatre Company-Harwich Junior Theatre.
One L.A. fan of UMPO was Jonathan Hawkins, who is in his second summer as the Crown’s co-owner. This spring, he and Pazakis were introduced by actress and mutual friend Brittany Rolfs.
Pazakis says she is thrilled to revive UMPO in Provincetown with a crew that includes Tony Award-nominated orchestrator Christopher Jahnke and longtime friend Dani Davis, a Tony-nominated producer who also collaborated on the Cape Rep’s UMPO and Pazakis’s Rock the Bard Shakespeare parody there.
In Jaws at the White Lotus, Pazakis will perform with Rolfs, John Pirroni (but not in his Delta Miles drag persona) and Trish LaRose. Most actors will play multiple characters.
A weekly guest star will play White Lotus creator Mike White. On the list for an unnamed night, Pazakis confirms, is Murray Bartlett, who won an Emmy Award playing Armond in White Lotus’s first season. He’s a Provincetown part-timer and gave a shout-out to the town in his 2022 Emmy speech.
Pazakis and Davis expect audience members will become part of the action, too. UMPO’s style is improvisational.
“There is a calculated looseness,” Davis says. “There’s room for anything to happen at any moment.” She credits Pazakis’s writing style and sense of humor. “We have to keep the space open for moments of surprise, and all the madcap mayhem that can come out of that.”
“If someone in the audience wants to talk, we’ll listen,” Pazakis says.
The charm of UMPO shows, Pazakis says, is that they aren’t taken too seriously. “The crappier the props, the more ridiculous the premise, the more people have fun,” she says. “It’s silly. It’s light. Cocktails are served.”
Pop Culture Mash-Up
The event: The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Jaws at the White Lotus by Kate Pazakis
The time: Saturdays, June 24 through Sept. 23, at 9 p.m.
The place: The Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial St., Provincetown
The cost: $35 general admission; $45 VIP preferred seating; at onlyatthecrown.com or 508-487-1430
