Posted on October 6, 2008 at 9:45 am

’13’: Teen musical’s days are numbered
Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News
(2 stars out of 5)
Monday, October 6th 2008, 4:00 AM

Thirteen is notorious for being a jinxed number, and anyone heading to “13” hoping to find a story they haven’t seen at least a hundred times before is out of luck.
The surprisingly simplistic show focuses on bar mitzvah boy Evan (Graham Phillips), who moves from bustling New York to blah Indiana following his folks’ divorce. Determined to get the cool kids to come to his party, he treats his geeky new buds badly.

Then he realizes … well, you can guess the rest.

What makes this middle school musical original is that the actors actually are teenagers, and so are players in the band. It is fun watching these fresh-faced youths sell the show, but the novelty wears thin soon enough and one wishes what they were pushing was better material.

Dan Elish, a kids novelist, and Robert Horn, a TV writer, have spiked their script with zippy one-liners — and clichés. Most of Evan’s classmates are one-dimensional: Lucy (Elizabeth Egan Gillies), the tart; Kendra (Delaney Moro), the saint; Archie (Aaron Simon Gross), the outcast (he’s disabled), and Brett (Eric M. Nelsen), the bad boy.

We’re told that Evan’s button-cute pal Patrice (a wonderful Allie Trimm) is the hated one, but we never get any explanation why. If the point is that kids get labeled for no good reason, then someone might have said that.

Or sung that. As is, the score by Jason Robert Brown (“Parade”) is pleasant enough, tripping from pop and Carly Simon-ish ballads to blues. While short on character development, Brown’s lyrics do manage to evoke teen-speak, as when boys lament that their buddy “fell for a slut with a fabulous butt.”

Director Jeremy Sams creates some clever moments, including an amusing scene in a movie theater where the kids watch a horror flick. The pubescent crowd may find this new musical fascinating — but Mom and Dad will be left thinking about 13 better ways they could have spent their ticket dollars.