Before Damn Yankees was popularly known as the best/worst butt-rock outfit starring Ted Nugent, Damn Yankees was a hit 1955 Broadway musical and 1958 movie-musical. And before it was a hit movie-musical, it was a children’s book called The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. I discovered this book in 1992, effectively ending what had previously been a promising...

Sunset Playhouse rounds out its season with a fair amount of classy retro style in its production of the 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees. Robert Zimmerman plays baseball fan Joe Boyd—a man obsessed with seeing the Washington Senators beat the Yankees to win the pennant that he’s willing to risk losing his soul to the devil. William Jackson plays the devil here in a standout performance. A towering gentleman with a pencil-thin physique, Jackson cuts an almost surreal figure in the role of the impeccably dressed Satan. Jackson has impressive talent that’s been honed through many years onstage, giving the classic villain more than enough personality to drive the story’s central conflict.

Though the show remains highly popular, it’s been more than a decade since the last major revival of Ross, Adler, Abbott and Wallop’s Damn Yankees. And, in an interesting twist, the mid-’90s Broadway revival may have cost the Sunset Playhouse’s Mark Salentine a spot in the Blue Man Group...