Last week, On Oct. 2-5 in Collins Auditorium at Rose Hill, Fordham’s Mimes and Mummers performed “She Loves Me,” the 1963 musical with book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, about two feuding co-workers who don’t realize that they’re secret-admirer pen pals.
The student company, led by director Stacy Hawking and music director D. Michael Odell, set its story inside Maraczek’s Parfumerie with a bright, bustling ensemble and a catalog of winning tunes.
It is worth noting upfront how quickly this all came together. Auditions took place on the first day of classes and the company opened a month later, then struck the set immediately after closing to begin the next show.
Putting together a full musical on that timetable is impressive. The organization, stamina and craft required to learn such dense songs, build a workable design and move a large cast cleanly on and off Collins’ stage deserves real credit.
I came to this show as a first-time Mimes and Mummers audience member. I did a bit of theater in middle school, but that is the extent of my stage experience. I watched as student artists produced a great show with a clear goal and a limited time frame. Still, a review should speak honestly about what works and what confuses the room. This is offered in that spirit — respect first, honesty close behind.
Hawking’s staging finds easy charm in the early bustle. The opening “Good Morning, Good Day” lands with crisp vocals and efficient movement through side-stage entrances. Audiences feel the perfume shop wake up for business. The period costumes help, too. If you pretend you don’t recognize some of the actors from around campus, you could believe you were in 1930s Budapest.
As Amalia, Katie Scott, FCRH ’26, has a commanding presence from her first entrance. “No More Candy” makes the case for her hire and for the actress, who sells the idea with confidence and a clean tone.
Samuel Howe, FCRH ’27, as Georg joins her in “Tonight at Eight” and later in the title number. Both leads sing with strong feeling, and their scenes gradually warm. The ensemble carries “Twelve Days to Christmas” with brassy, funny panic, precisely the point of that crowd-pleaser.
The supporting company supplies standout turns. Nick Verone, FCRH ’26, as the Head Waiter shapes the café scene, my personal favorite, and the dance team in that sequence is genuinely impressive.
When Emma Carey, FCRH ’28, as Ilona finally steps into the spotlight, the show benefits from her conviction. She gives the character a sharper definition and earns laughs without pushing.
There were some balance and microphone issues on the night I attended, including popping sounds and a few moments when the vocals were overwhelmed by the band. These are fixable problems, but they matter, especially during plot-critical solos.
A note on story clarity. “She Loves Me” is famously gentle, and its pleasures live in character turns and small moral choices. The book does include a darker beat: Mr. Maraczek’s suicide attempt. On this night, that moment felt abrupt and underprepared, tonally at odds with the scenes around it.
The staging and performance gave little warning, so the action read less as tragedy than as a head-scratcher, and the following scenes seemed to shrug it off. Clearer foreshadowing and aftermath would help the audience understand the stakes more effectively. To me, it simply didn’t feel serious, even when we see Mr. Maraczek in his bed after his survival.
The production also battled occasional confusion in names. The playbill did not include some surnames that are used in dialogue. Amalia is often “Miss Balash,” Georg is “Mr. Nowack,” and that mismatch can leave newcomers, including me, left confused. For an audience that may include first-time visitors, a more detailed character list would be a low-effort, high-impact solution.
Taken as a whole, though, the show’s heart is intact. The leads warm each other slowly, as they should. “Vanilla Ice Cream” lands as a genuine turning point. The café sequence, its choreography, its comic restraint and its melancholy as the room cleared, was the evening’s best section. It is where performance, music and design met cleanly and where the company’s discipline was most obviously shown.
So here is the honest balance sheet from a first-timer: The company delivers lively ensemble work, strong leads and an energetic café set piece, all on a one-month build. The production needs cleaner sound, steadier clarity in the program and more careful handling of one jarring plot moment. However, none of that cancels the achievement. It instead highlights how high the bar already is for a student troupe to produce four shows in only a year.
By curtain close, the show earns the same quiet payoff its lead pair finds: love, not in a rush, but through recognition.
