Month: December 2021

Review: Norm Lewis

On By dramaqueennycIn cabaret, review1 Comment

This guy really loves putting on a Christmas show, actually more of a party to hear Mr. Lewis tell it. More of a hootenanny really, with different special guests each night. The night I went one of the guests was Joel Crump, a young alum of Kristin Chenoweth’s Broadway Boot Camp, whose rendition of Donnie Hathaway’s “This Christmas” was both charming and charismatic. The other guest was Norm’s cousin, Pastor Bobby Lewis of New Light Baptist Church. Bobby’s given name is Rudolph, so of course they sang “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, and Bobby also did a heartfelt “What A Wonderful World”. (The remaining show on Christmas Eve will feature Julie James, Honey Beavers and Peter Dager).

Lewis is correct: his show is as festive as a party. In the spirit of his own favorite singer, Johnny Mathis, Norm Lewis’s show leans into holiday fun and warmth. It’s not an entirely shallow show – there are dark shadows here and there, especially Marvin Gaye’s socially-conscious “What’s Goin’ On” – but Lewis lays emphasis on Christmas’s pleasures and joys.

And it’s not strictly a Christmas show. Lewis greets the audience while the band played the tune of “Tornado” from The Wiz. Lewis favors the audience with powerful belting several times throughout the evening in showcases like “Home” (also from The Wiz). He also does “The Little Drummer Boy” which in and of itself is a song I don’t love, but music director Joseph Joubert’s arrangement gives it wonderful new life, especially percussionist Perry Cavari’s magnificent playing on a Doumbek drum.

Many of the above songs are available on his Christmas CD The Norm Lewis Christmas Album (available for sale in the lobby!). He closes with the groovy “Why Couldn’t It Be Christmas Every Day” which Mariah Carey was offered but didn’t record. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: To Build A Soul (Justin Elizabeth Sayre)

On By dramaqueennycIn Off-Off-Broadway, play, review, theatreLeave a comment

Justin Elizabeth Sayre – the long-term chairman of “The International Order of Sodomites” – is back in town! This time with a solo autobiographical show detailing his life-long love affair with the theatre. In Sayre’s own words “Written during the pandemic, To Build a Soul is a love letter to the theatre if I never made it back. For the last two years, like so many artists, I wondered if we would ever make it back. If I would ever be able to return to the magic trick of live performance, to which I have dedicated most of my life. If I had one last chance, if I had one more try to stand on a stage and tell my story, what story would I tell? What would I want people to know? To Build a Soul, is that. A sort of farewell, and a call to the future all in one. Plus laughs, because, my god, I think we all need them.”

As such, this is more impassioned and has higher stakes than the kind of storytelling “stand up” Sayre became noted for in his wildly popular variety show The Meeting* (they returns to the variety format in January with the even queerer Assorted Fruit at Joe’s Pub). Sayre occasionally waxes poetic in this piece, though their sassy sissy wit is never far away. His tough yet femme persona remains in glorious effect, brassy as ever.

Sayre spends much time talking about feeling different as a child, including one occasion where a elementary school teacher labels them “too creative for his own good” in which, even though they were years away from puberty, they felt the underlying meaning of being “too faggot for your own faggot, faggot” (they also more objectively thought it was one of the stupidest things they’d ever heard). Performance, be it music or theatre, was Sayre’s saving grace from a very young age.

Sayre’s stories and thoughts are engaging at every turn. As always Sayre delivers a thoughtful but still very hilarious show I can happily highly recommend.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: Trouble in Mind

On By dramaqueennycIn Broadway, play, review, theatreLeave a comment

It’s no accident that the cast of Trouble in Mind, a play, features musical theatre powerhouses like LaChanze and Chuck Cooper – music features prominently in the play, in both positive and negative ways. Alice Childress wrote this backstage drama in the mid-1950s; it follows rehearsalsfor Chaos in Belleville, a patronizing anti-lynching play written by a white author (never seen), and directed by a white man Al Manners (Michael Zegen), who fancies himself a genius, but turns out to be a talentless tyrannical hack.

The positive musical moments are singing for just the joy of it. The negative moments are stereotypical spirituals written into Chaos which Manners thinks he can coach his black cast members to do better. LaChanze plays leading actress Wiletta Mayer, the person who ends up locking horns with Manners the most, in spite of advising a young actor to keep his head down when dealing with “the man.”

Childress uses the intrigues of the rehearsal process to deeply delve into the psychology of race relations as they stood in the 1950s. While it’s clear that Trouble deals with serious themes, I should be clear that it is a very lively play, brimming over with humor and spirit. Cooper supplies a lot of the comic relief as Sheldon, an older actor for whom humor is a defense mechanism. All of the characters are three-dimensional, however, and as such Sheldon also gets a very emotional monologue about witnessing a lynching.

Trouble in Mind was an Off-Broadway success when it first appeared in 1955, and producers were interested in taking it to Broadway. They asked Childress to soften it, very ironic since major themes of the play include learning to stand up for yourself and ask the important questions. Childress predictably refused, and it has taken 66 years for it to finally arrive. It’s a very engaging play, emotionally and intellectually, and I’m so glad it’s here. Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes

On By dramaqueennycIn musical, Off-Broadway, review, theatreLeave a comment

This show first and foremost earns the right to be called spectacular, driven by the amazing unison dancing of the Rockettes themselves, but hugely abetted by Radio City’s stunning hydraulics system and dazzling projections by Obscura Digital and batwin + robin. It is also unapologetically schmaltzy and sentimental, but all that sweetness is cut by a strain of jazziness – both in the music and dancing – that runs throughout. The sheer virtuosity of all involved also elevates it above mere treacle.

Of course the Rockettes are the star of the show. The opening number “Santa’s Reindeer” totally whets the appetite for what follows. Highlights include a “Here Comes Santa Claus” number where Santas keep multiplying – I’m thinking the entire adult company suited up for this one – and a finale satisfyingly full of high kicks. Some of the best numbers, though, are some of the oldest ones: “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” which has been a part of the show largely unchanged since 1933, a “Living Nativity” which has evolved considerably from that time to this, and a somewhat newer but still classic delight called “Rag Dolls” which at one point features a teddy bear in a pink tutu.

Director/choreographer Julie Branam has pulled together a daunting number of elements and collaborators to put together an extravaganza that can hold its head up in the tradition of Rockettes’ legendary holiday-season shows. Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.