By: Dean Vaglia | Macomb Chronicle | Published January 13, 2026
MACOMB TOWNSHIP — Put on your pilot hats, sign some bad checks and make sure the FBI is always one step behind.
Dakota Productions’ winter show for 2026 is “Catch Me If You Can: The Musical.” Adapted for the stage by Terrence McNally, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman from the 2002 movie of the same name, “Catch Me” tells the story of 1960s con man Frank Abagnale Jr. The show portrays a number of his frauds — impersonating a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer while writing numerous bad checks — as well as his relationships and his eventual capture by the FBI.
“Catch Me If You Can” had over 200 performances on Broadway in 2011.
“‘Catch Me If You Can’ is, out of the shows that we have done, a very complex, complicated show … And it is not a simple heroes versus villains tale,” Director Christian Boni said. “There’s not one clear moral, upstanding person or one clear villain in this story. It’s a very complicated show that requires a lot of very intelligent performers to portray, and we believe that this group of kids could do that effectively — as well as tackle a new style of music that we are performing on the Dakota Productions stage.”
The music crafted by Shaiman and Wittman — the duo previously responsible for the 1960s-infused tunes from the stage adaptation of “Hairspray” — captures a sound befitting of a mid-century bachelor’s life. Jazz, swing, big band and more genres flow throughout the score, with a full band pit being brought in for the run to make the production feel as alive as possible.
For the student actors, finding their footing with the jazzier sounds proved to be one of the bigger challenges throughout rehearsals.
“The jazzy chords, it’s definitely been a little bit more of a challenge as an ensemble when we come together for the big numbers,” said Nadia Bronzino, a senior playing Paula Abagnale. “There’s so many notes right next to each other that create the cool, jazzy chords, and it’s really hard to hold your part when everybody else is belting out parts that don’t sound like they should go together, when in reality they create the cool chord. And even me personally, with my song ‘Don’t Be a Stranger’ … I’ve gotten the note from our vocal director that I can be free with it and finding that good balance between my own freeness and making sure I stay with the notes is a little tricky.”
With the show framed as a tale told by Abagnale Jr. at FBI gunpoint, much of the complexity in the storytelling comes from the conflict between Abagnale Jr.’s criminal actions and his desire to win the audience’s favor. This dynamic gives “Catch Me If You Can” its murky grayness (despite the bright numbers and eye-popping ’60s aesthetics) and makes Abagnale Jr. an interesting character to play for Dakota senior Salvatore Vitale.
“All of the things that are not very nice that he’s doing, the audience sees as, ‘Wow, he’s faking being a pilot and gets to fly wherever he wants. That’s so cool!’” Vitale said. “‘He’s pretending to be a doctor! He’s pretending to be a lawyer! He can do anything, and everybody gets him what he wants!’ The audience’s view, because this is the way Frank is telling the story, is, ‘Wow, he’s so cool,’ and not, ‘Wow, he’s really doing some bad things that he should be ashamed of.’ In order to tell the story that way it’s harder to take it in while I’m doing all these bad things … I have to kind of take all of the crime and all of the misdirection and mistrust lightly and make it more showy and cheerful.”
Vitale is not the only actor working with the complexities of their character. For senior Allison Fecteau, who plays Abagnale Jr.’s wife Brenda Storm, finding the character came with discovering where they had common ground.
“As I got to know the character more and started analyzing her more, I could pick out little things,” Fecteau said. “Brenda, she’s a very honest and true person. She likes to stay true to her beliefs and her values, and I feel I can relate to that part … She also, because she’s a nurse and one of the younger nurses at the hospital, she has some insecurities. I feel like I can relate to that, too.”
Finding common ground with the mostly middle-aged cast was a challenge all of the core cast had to face, but Frank Abagnale Sr.’s actor, senior Adam Ciaramitaro, found the challenge to be a rewarding one.
“I feel like I have grown as a performer because it has allowed me to step out of my previous acting and try something new with this character,” Ciaramitaro said.
The legacy of “Catch Me If You Can” is long and recent enough that cast members had an idea of the show’s scope before it was announced. Many, like AJ Denomme, a senior playing FBI agent Carl Hanratty, first learned about the show through an acting workshop, while others came to Abagnale Jr.’s exploits through the movie.
“I was part of the workshop we did, but even before that I had heard the name ‘Catch Me If You Can’ thrown around here and there,” Denomme said. “I still have never seen the movie, but I have listened to the soundtrack … and I think there’s a lot of people who have either seen the movie and not seen the musical or have listened to the musical but have not seen the movie. They know the music but they don’t know the story, or they know the music but they don’t know the story, and I think when people come to see the show and see both of them come together, I think they’re going to see something that they definitely were not expecting.”
Dakota Productions will perform “Catch Me If You Can: The Musical” at the Dakota High School Theater Feb. 5-7 and Feb. 12-14. All shows start at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at payschoolsevents.com/events/details/41442.