2009...A FEW MEMORIES

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Is it too early to start missing good ol’ 2009?  Call it “The January Syndrome.”  Looking back at a year just ended, makes an entertainment reporter/addict amazed at how those twelve months flew, or dragged, and, in the blur and whir of shows and songs, some stand out in the memory.  This is not an attempt to have an exhaustive rehash of 2009, but just some thoughts on a few things: reflective, random ramblings.

It doesn’t take New Year’s for me to get warm and fuzzy or fuzzy-memoried about the dear, departed past and its great performers and songwriters.  I welcomed 2009’s centennial tribute shows to Johnny Mercer, and look forward to what I hope will be another glorious glut for Frank Loesser, by a variety of singing guys and dolls.  It’ll make me a most happy fella.  It’s a simple fact of math:  the more years that go by, the more nostalgia deepens and the more we realize how great were the greats.  And living in the present (not always fun, but I’m not expecting the time machine to be perfected in the year), we should especially appreciate it when one of today’s performers inspired by past icons, puts on a pretty inspiring show himself.  With the dazzling dancer-singer-actor-all-around-entertainer JON PETERSON it is a case of being a smash and making a splash. A spectacular tap dancer, and a chameleon who can dip into the styles of the styles of the great entertainers and make them come alive with vibrant energy and unbridled joy, Peterson is pleasure plus pow.  His singing is vibrant, and on the rare occasion this dynamo stops his perpetual motion, there’s emotion galore in a tender tune. His shows at The Triad in 2009, saluting heroes like Gene Kelly, Anthony Newley and the titan he tributed in full theatrical pieces in the past, George M. Cohan, giving his regards to Broadway and Hollywood works like a charm for charming Jon Peterson.  So much for the theory that they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.  Whether it’s his technical skill as a dancer, or the jubilation and solid gold entertainment factor, suffice it to say that when your mouth isn’t simply hanging open in jaw-dropped admiration, you may find yourself grinning from ear to ear.  Jon’s buoyant, boyish blast of energy and razzle dazzle, is also all heart.

I saw Jon most recently, not on stage himself, but in the audience at the cabaret Don’t Tell Mama, where he’s gone to see his stage mama from the past. It was the fun show by a musical comedy actress who’d played his mother in one of the versions of the aforementioned Cohan show some years ago: JOAN JAFFE.  Her show, with truth in advertising, is called Joan Jaffe Sings Funny.  She’s a pip.  Apparently, nobody told her that vaudeville is dead, and thanks to whoever has diligently guarded the secret from her, because she’s an endearing, enduring “old school” pal of a gal, who’ll stick with shtick and is determined to bring chuckles and cheer. It works.  Bright-eyed and bright-spirited, with a wink (or two) and a smile (or several), she enters rushing in from the back of the room lamenting in song about “the trouble with the world today,” as she comically complains about what epitomizes our hardened rush-rush world: “Coffee in a Cardboard Cup,” a song by Kander and Ebb.  When it comes to making misery mirthful she’s the queen--- with “Queens,” the laugh-out-loud gripe about living in the geographically-challenged borough (Francesca Blumenthal’s gem).  And you can almost smell “the blubber frying” as she revives that oldie “April in Fairbanks,” and banks on its jokes worth thawing out for a new generation.  Three cheers for the daffy Jaffe, who amuses with silliness and hokey ha-ha lines.  Like a determined farmer, no big old field of corn is too daunting for her to make thrive and bring to market, and she can milk a joke, too. Strutting, kibitzing with longtime cabaret pianist talent treasure Jerry Scott (who takes an impressive solo along the way), telling a joke about three clergymen at a funeral, she’s plucky and just ducky.  Though she doesn’t have a powerhouse voice that throbs with emotion, she can be effective with an understated but heartfelt ballad, too.  She’ll be back at DTM on January 10 and 14, which means she’ll probably keep some of her “How cold is it?” jokes in the act, but what better to break the ice and warm up an audience along with that coffee in the cardboard cup? And the ageless sprite delight called Joan Jaffe has mucho energy with or without the caffeine.

THEATRE BREAK

Each year, during the festivities of the jam-packed theatre festivals (Fringe NYC, NYMF, industry presentations, etc.), hopes are high for new musicals that seem to be ready to bloom forth like a field of flowers. Where have all the flowers gone?  OK, it’s not such a long time passing since the summer and autumn presentations, and maybe hopes for New York productions of these developing musicals haven’t all died off at all, but are just in winter hibernation, or being rewritten a bit after audience reactions, or negotiations are in slow-motion process behind closed doors in tough economic times.  Maybe it’s just one reason to catch ‘em while you can as many will not be back.  The often spot-on,  irreverent and clever musical Judas and Me, imagining the what-went-wrong boyhood friendship of Jesus Christ and Judas, and the rivalry between their mothers, is getting professional attention, receiving an award that allows it an industry-only (for now) Actors Equity presentation.  So, I think there’ll be a second coming.  Some in the autumn’s NYMF (New York Musical Theatre Festival) were real winners (with so many shows overlapping times, the show voted as best was one not on my schedule, My Scary Girl).  I particularly liked Academy, a gripping, sometimes funny and often touching tale about life in a boys’ boarding school with a “survival of the fittest” theme I think will survive and come back.  I wasn’t surprised to learn that the strong, very young cast got a special “Outstanding Ensemble” award, and that John Mercurio’s music got the Festival’s “Excellence In Music” award from among the many shows, with his own lyrics getting honorable mention, as did the director John Carrafa, and the show itself.  It also won the “Daegu Award,” which means it gets a new production in the new year, but you’ll have to take a trip in June to South Korea! Yes, that’s what happens when you win the international prize.  But I guess we’ll see it back on these shores for sure.  It rang true, was performed with fervor and had no fat on it; a short script that managed to zero in on characters’ anxieties and relationships with specificity, but touching universal coming-of-age feelings and themes of loyalty and selfishness in the whirlwind of adolescence.  Another whirlwind, literally, was Hurricane. This grand-scale musical about a real-life natural disaster with a huge cast and rather huge emotions and ambitions, seems unlikely to just blow away in the wind. Written  by a NYC cabaret musical regular, Michael Holland, the story of the hurricane’s victims may be the victim of its own big sweep, trying to tell the stories of so many people that we didn’t get to know very well as individuals, despite its length, making it difficult to feel fully pulled in.  Still, it is a striking effort worthy of admiration and further work.  It has a nobility and passion and some admirable musical sections, with a sense of community and some great time-specific theatrical “snapshots” caught along with deep human feelings.  It received “Honorable Mention” for Michael Bush’s direction, and the music.     

Getting one of the “Honorable Mention” citations for ensemble cast, lyrics and book (script co-written by David Eric Davis and Sam Forman, the former also writing the score) has some pleasures, some potential, and some problems.  It’s a show that did at least some things right, even though its title, daringly, was F#@king Up Everything. An audience questionnaire sought to find out if people were offended by the title.  It’s certainly attention-grabbing. For me, I was put off by some unsympathetic slacker characters (not surprisingly, often as eloquent in their speech as the title) whose lives seemed to revolve around being jaded, apathetic, drunk, selfish or all of the above, and the blaring rock music that was sometimes too loud and in-your-face. Yes, it is partially about rock musicians and 20-somethings who are jaded, apathetic, drunk, selfish or all of the above, or above it all.  They could be made more interesting, or more understandable/loveable earlier. The saving grace of the play, and a major element in focus and actual stage time, is the misfit character played marvelously and engagingly by Noah Weisberg, singled out as one of 11 outstanding actors among the many shows in the series.  This welcome underdog character, who is awkward with women, quirky, sensitive, and more comfortable with the large puppets that are part of his work (a creative and original touch), is who we can root for and care about throughout.  There’s sweetness in the relationship that develops between him and the woman he thinks he could never win, played with some nuance and warmth by Kate Rockwell.  The show gets better as it moves along, despite the waste of the fine musical comedy performer Liz Larson, stuck with a vulgar “cougar” character, and has some rewarding surprise ending moments that belatedly win some affection.  The show and writers have too much going for them to give in to the easy laughs and edginess for their own sake. Some of the characters may be constantly lying around “wasted,” but the talents here and the audience’s time shouldn’t be.

SHAYNEE AND SUGAR AND SHOWTIME

One performer I’ve especially enjoyed seeing and hearing and getting to know and watch grow over the last couple of years, is SHAYNEE RAINBOLT. The red-headed Rainbolt is at home with jazz sensibilities, and can also deliver a lyric with understanding, nuance and warmth.  She began 2009, with a solid performance at that great jazz club on Broadway, The Iridium, and had dates at The Metropolitan Room and guested in numerous NYC group shows, in addition to performing out of town. This new year she begins her work at another venue, the very cool place known as The Sugar Bar, on West 72 Street, west of Broadway, the venue of the legendary songwriter/performers Ashford & Simpson. The date is January 19, with two sets.  The Sugar Bar is a sweet gig, I think, and one that should be swinging as the new year gets into full swing. 

Here’s wishing all readers of NiteLife Exchange a lot of good times in 2010, where there’ll be more than 2,010 things to go see, to bring the nite to life.