Well, dear readers, Kritzerland at Sterling’s 68 is done and it was a really great show. We had less people than usual, about seventy, I think (we usually have between eighty and ninety-five) but the room looked full and they were a great audience. I was extremely pleased with the patter, which got some nice laughs. All the performers were stellar and the show had many highlights. It was very off the beaten path for us but really we’ve always been about that from show one – it’s just that when other shows have “borrowed” the way we do our shows, right down to printing the lyrics for a sing-a-long at the end of the show (we were the first show of this kind to ever do that), our shows start to feel like they’ve kind of been done before, even though they haven’t. But this one was so much fun because the 70s was such an incredibly fertile period for music and singer/songwriters. I commented after Jean Louisa Kelly slayed everyone with Carly Simon’s That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be that it is unimaginable that a song that adventurous with that much brilliant storytelling could even get heard today, let alone become a chart-topping hit. Guy Haines was, of course, a complete no-show, although he was texting me the entire evening with updates about his whereabouts. Here You Come Again which I did with Keri Safran began the evening and it went over great. By the time I got to Second Avenue I’d already yakked so much my voice was starting to feel weaker, but that song went really well. By the time I got to Rupert Holmes’s Terminal it was pretty shot, but I got through it okay – just bobbled one lyric – it was stupid – a lyric I’ve NEVER bobbled before, just two words actually, but I don’t think anyone had any idea. So, I learned it’s too hard to do three songs in our shows AND do as much patter as I do. Also, the monitors, which I’d asked to be adjusted for my songs, weren’t, and that was really difficult to negotiate in terms of what I like to hear.
Keri Safran’s The Cat Song went over incredibly well. Eric Petersen shined on all three of his numbers, even when he went up on some lyrics – just so charming and the audience loved him. Constance Jewell Lopez shook the rafters of The Federal with her incredible voice and was an audience favorite. Jean Louisa Kelly can do no wrong and her numbers were fantastic, especially her very wry 50 Ways to Leave a Lover. Grant Geissman was amazing, as always, and a great addition to the show – he actually stayed on stage and played for several songs other than my two and his own solo, so that was grand. Kevin Spirtas was our closer and he brought the house down with Peter Allen’s Once Before I Go. But the thing I was most proud of was Sami – very different material for her, but her love of the songs was palpable – she’s like a sponge and had listened to other singers doing the two songs and kind of had their stuff going on, but I kept after her about making it her own and she did and her two songs were just great. Brian P. Kennedy did fine at the piano but it was the songs that made the evening so special. Even though it was a bit of a tough sell (despite the stellar cast), I intend to do more of this kind of thing and people will either smarten up or not. And so, we get July off and come back in August with what I think may be a Rodgers and Hart show, as I love their stuff and you can do so much with those songs. Then again, I may get a different idea.
Prior to that I’d have ten gloriously glorious hours of sleep. I just lounged around the house, did a jog, and relaxed until I was on my way to sound check. After that show some of us went to Little Toni’s for some food. Here are some photographs, and I will have a few videos later in the week. First, here’s our merry troupe (sans Kevin Spirtas, who got there after we’d done the photos).
Here’s Jean Louisa Kelly, Sami, and li’l ol’ me.
Here’s the obligatory Sami and me photo.
And here are a few of my favorite kids, Sami, Hadley Belle Miller, and Brennley Faith Brown.
Finally, here’s a selfie of me, co-producer Doug Haverty, and Kevin Spirtas.
Today, I’ll do some catching up, then I have to go to a banquet at a club downtown, the end of year banquet for the students of the theatre academy. I think that’s a dinner thing so I won’t eat before then.
Tomorrow I have a lot to do, and then I’m taping a radio show with our very own Donald Feltham. Wednesday I’m lunching with Richard Sherman, Friday I’m seeing The Fantasticks, and Sunday I’m seeing Barry Pearl in the play he’s doing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, catch up on stuff, hopefully pick up some packages, and then attend a banquet downtown. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Rodgers and Hart songs? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a wonderful Kritzerland at Sterling’s 68.