What does it take to bring out a crowd of show music fanciers to the Laurie Beechman Theatre on one of New York’s coldest winter nights?  Well, you might start with the songs of Maltby and Shire, and then add to that the cabaret debut of an attractive, expressive singer.  It doesn’t hurt when that neophyte cabaret artist has a significant Broadway and musical theater history, coupled with the enthusiastic support and encouragement of Maltby and Shire themselves.

For Christa Justus, Throw It to the Wind is a seemingly-necessary cabaret debut rit de passage, an autobiographical show with personal details wrapped about the selected songs.  To her credit, she manages well, such as her “need” be a performer paired with “I Chose Right,” detailing her “eighty day jobs” with “One Step,” and an admittedly-appropriate finale of “I Wouldn’t Go Back.”

Justus is no stranger to the songwriting duo, nor to performing their numbers.  She, and her music director, Andrew Gerle, both have worked on Take Flight, Maltby and Shire’s latest collaboration and the source of the show’s title song, “Throw It to the Wind.”   Following Take Flight’s workshop presentation at the O’Neill Musical Theater Conference and its Manhattan Theater Club production – Justus and Gerle were swept along to its initial international production in, of all places, St. Petersburg, Russia.  That trip offering Justus an opportunity to take the petulant “I Don’t Remember Christmas” from Starting Here, Starting Now, and with her pixie-ish quality, to deliver one of the show’s highlights, a brilliantly clever remake of her own, an irrepressible “I Don’t Remember Russia.”

As a vocalist, Justus is animated, cheerful, youthful and expressive, if at times just a shade too theatrical for the intimate venue.  Her clear and easy voice seems very right for the songs she’s chosen, mostly from Starting Here, Starting Now, but from the composers’ others shows as well.  And she digs her lyrics!

Musical Director Andrew Gerle’s arrangements served Justus well, and Gerle himself added pleasant moments to the show on his own. Other musicians were Noriko Ueda on bass, drummer Bull Lanham and a very versatile Joseph Brent, who constantly seemed to be playing a brand-new instrument as he took up in succession a mandolin, an electric mandolin, violin, guitar, and electric guitar.

For a debut performance, a handsome accomplishment.  Hats off to Justus and her crew, and director Steve Bebout.  Throw It to the Wind will be at The Laurie Beechman again on Sunday and Monday, February 15^th and 16^th.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
January 16, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org