KRCB-FM: Second Row Center

Ten down-on-their-luck Texans gather on a car lot to compete for a cherry red Nissan pickup. They must lay their gloved hands upon the truck and, except for scheduled breaks every six hours, never let go. The last person standing wins. That’s the premise behind Hands on a Hardbody, a 2012 musical now in its Bay Area premiere run at Napa’s Lucky Penny Community Arts Center. Based on a 1997 documentary that followed 24 contestants in an actual endurance competition, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright trimmed the number of contestants to ten and Trey Anastasio (Phish) and Amanda Green composed a Tony-nominated score to tell their backstories. For those who don’t think there’s enough here for a full-length musical, Benny Perkins (Brian Watson) makes it clear to the audience that it’s a “Human Kind of Thing”, and then each contestant explains what they’d do “If I Had This Truck”. Benny’s won the contest before but since lost the truck and his wife. Ronald (Michael David Smith) thinks his all-Snickers