Chris Neuman’s had a busy year. The Hamilton native spends his days working as an office manager at Tonic Design Co. in Philadelphia. At night, he’s busy writing songs for Batman to sing alongside other pop culture superstars in Cosplay Cabaret, an upcoming show his theater production company, Little Wolf Players, is presenting next month.
Neuman co-founded Little Wolf Players in 2016 with Patricia Curley, of Horsham, Pennsylvania. The two actors met while performing in a production of Into the Woods at Somerset Valley Playhouse. Neuman played the big bad wolf and Curley was little red riding hood. Through merging their talents, and their characters’ names, Little Wolf Players was born.
The acting duo launched Little Wolf Players as a way to share their love of performing and their knowledge of the craft with others. Curley and Neuman both studied the performing arts in college—Neuman has a Bachelor’s in music performance from Kean University and Curley had a degree in musical theater from Rider University—and aspire to one day teach as well as perform.
“We thought the easiest way to do that—at least for the time being—is to start this company and to grow that into our eventual plans of making it into a teaching experience as well as performing experience,” Neuman said.
Through Little Wolf Players, Neuman and Curley balance their creative side with running a business. They’re responsible for booking venues, finding actors, and writing, designing and promoting each show. Despite not having an official teaching element to their company just yet, their desire to impart new and interesting information still shines through in the way they design their shows.
Their first production, which debuted in April 2016, was Not So Quiet in the Library. The show featured songs from musicals that were all adapted from books. Neuman said part of the fun of creating the show was blending together songs people knew with some lesser known numbers to “give people a little bit more flavor of things they may now know.”
Another show — Wait, That’s Not Disney? — featured well known songs from shows and movies that people often falsely associate with Disney, such as Anastasia. Neuman said during both productions, people came up to him after the shows and were happily surprised to learn something new about where the songs originated.
Their first show ran for two days and featured a cast of 16 performers, a number that Neuman admitted was a bit too large for a theater company’s first run. Small learning curves have been part of the experience for the duo. Curley’s family helped them out with the accounting and legal behind the scenes work, Neuman said, but the hardest part has been trying to figure out how to get enough support to stay afloat.
“That’s definitely a challenge every single day,” he said. “It’s a theater company, so it depends on the people that come to the shows. It’s difficult having a company that doesn’t really rely on you as much as it relies on the audience.”
Neuman, a 2010 Steinert High alum, and Curley try to plan shows and cabarets that will appeal to a wide audience. Little Wolf Players has performed at the 1867 Sanctuary in Ewing, as well as the United Presbyterian Church in Yardville. The overall reaction they’ve received thus far has been positive.
“So many people look forward to their shows, where you are guaranteed a delightful performance of wonderful show tunes by accomplished singers,” Jean Pinto, pastor at the United Presbyterian Church, said in a statement.
Little Wolf Players’ next production is Cosplay Cabaret, a parody cabaret featuring superheroes and villains from a variety of pop culture fandoms singing pop and rock songs. The show is set for Friday, Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church.
Cosplay Cabaret is an original work by Curley and Neuman, who designed the age appropriate show with enough characters and song parodies—Batman and the Doctor from Doctor Who make an appearance—so everyone will recognize someone.
“It’s kind of funny and surreal to see these characters interact with each other,” Neuman said.
Curley and Neuman have big plans for the future of Little Wolf Players. While they’re currently only working on small productions and cabarets, by 2019 they plan to produce full concert versions of large shows. But no matter what show he’s producing, Neuman is happy to be on a stage making people smile.
“I love entertaining people and giving people a good time,” Neuman said. “It’s not really for any kind of glory for Trish and I… It’s more of just the benefit that you get from making someone’s day.”
The cast of “Not So Quite in the Library,” a production by Little Wolf Players.,
