Review: Good Night, Oscar

Review: Good Night, Oscar | Miners Alley Performing Arts Center | Golden, CO | Curtain Up | Eric Fitzgerald

At Miners Alley Performing Arts Center, director Warren Sherrill’s production of Good Night, Oscar lands as a sharply drawn character study, anchored by David Nehls’ performance that never lets you forget how much volatility can live inside one man. The play gives us Oscar Levant in all his contradictions—brilliant, brittle, funny, and fraying—and Sherrill leans into that tension rather than smoothing it out. What emerges is a portrait that’s less about celebrity and more about the cost of being the person everyone expects you to be. Nehls makes that cost visible in every gesture.

While the play feels heightened, Good Night, Oscar starts with a real moment: Oscar Levant’s 1958 appearance on The Tonight Show, which Jack Paar insisted on booking even though Levant was barely holding himself together. Playwright Doug Wright uses that broadcast as the frame, but he’s not chasing a tidy biographical reenactment. He’s more interested in the pressure points—what happens when a man built on wit and self‑exposure is pushed back into the spotlight. The script keeps the historical scaffolding but moves quickly into the messier, more human territory Levant actually lived in.

David Nehls as Oscar Levant | Photography Credit: RDGPhotography

David Nehls plays Levant without chasing imitation, which is what makes the performance land. Most of us know Nehls primarily as a musician and musical director, and in Act Two he spectacularly demonstrates those musical chops with an elongated, unhinged piano solo that feels both virtuosic and volatile—exactly the kind of brilliance Levant weaponized. But Nehls also leans into the acting with a lived‑in sharpness that suits Levant’s instability. He gives you the wit and the bite, yet lets the exhaustion sit in the posture, in the way he holds a pause a beat longer than comfort allows. The humor is there, but it’s always edged with something frayed. Nehls doesn’t soften Levant or make him easier to absorb; he leans into the contradictions and lets the audience feel how quickly charm can flip into something darker. It’s a performance built on tension, and he keeps that tension alive in every scene.

Lisa DeCaro as June Levant & Drew Horowitz as Jack Paar | Photography Credit: RDGPhotography

The supporting cast keeps the production grounded. Lisa DeCaro gives a quietly devastating performance as June Levant, the long‑suffering wife who has learned how to navigate Oscar’s storms without losing herself. Drew Horowitz, as Jack Paar, delivers a sharp, controlled performance that shows how charm and calculation can coexist in a host’s smile. Cal Meakins plays Max Weinbaum with an easy, fresh‑faced sincerity that makes his scenes pop, especially when he’s caught between duty and disbelief. And Matthew Murry, as the network’s ever‑present “talking head,” brings a steady, understated authority to the role—measured, precise, and exactly what the play needs in those moments.

Matthew Combs as George Gershwin & David Nehls as Oscar Levant | Photography Credit: RDGPhotography

Jozeph Mykaels gives Alvin Finney, Levant’s attending nurse, a steady, almost weary patience—the kind of presence built from long shifts and harder truths. He tries to keep the evening tethered to reality, even as Levant keeps slipping past it. Matthew Combs, meanwhile, appears as George Gershwin in those sudden, disorienting flashes of Levant’s psyche. Combs doesn’t overplay the apparition; he lets Gershwin drift in like a memory Levant can’t quite shake, a reminder of brilliance, rivalry, and the ghosts that won’t leave him alone.

Warren Sherrill’s direction keeps the production taut and unsentimental, moving from scene to scene at a pace that mirrors Levant’s volatility. He doesn’t let the show sag; every transition feels intentional, every beat sharpened to reveal humor or the hurt beneath Levant’s unraveling. Sherrill has a knack for shaping chaos without taming it, giving the actors room to flare while keeping the evening’s frame clean and disciplined. It’s direction that knows exactly when to press and when to let the moment breathe, and the result is a production that never loses its edge.

The physical production is anchored by Jonathan Scott‑McKean’s set, an appropriately austere environment that lets the underlying action stay sharply in focus. Crystal McKenzie’s era‑appropriate costumes give the evening its period texture, with Lisa DeCaro’s look as June Levant standing out for its crisp, understated elegance. Vance McKenzie’s lighting shapes the space with quiet precision, and John Hauser’s sound design supports the shifts in mood without ever intruding. Together, the design team builds a world that frames Levant’s unraveling with clarity, not clutter.

Under Warren Sherrill’s taut direction, the production moves with purpose, giving David Nehls—as Levant—and the rest of the excellent cast the structure they need to let this fractured, compelling narrative unfold. It’s a story that stays absorbing without ever tipping into sentimentality, driven by performances that keep the evening sharp and alive. Good Night, Oscar plays through November 8 at Miners Alley Performing Arts Center.

For Information and Tickets: https://minersalley.com/shows/good-night-oscar/