1927 – What a year!  Charles Lindbergh took his solo flight across the Atlantic, Gerber introduced baby food, talking pictures changed Hollywood, and that season Broadway offered a banquet of 264 plays and musicals.

Small wonder why Scott Siegel chose 1927 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his Broadway by the Year series. With songwriters like George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, Broadway was a musical nexus.

Highlighted was Show Boat, breaking new ground as a serious musical drama, here represented with great renditions illustrating the variety of music. Taking a fresh look at an old song, Christiane Noll shuffled onstage wrapped in a bathrobe and hauling a bag of baby necessities to let us know that "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" “…ain't ever what a girl supposes.” She joined Ragtime colleague Quentin Earl Darrington to "Make Believe" they were in love. Cabaret singer Carole J. Bufford brought a mature nuance and believability to the classic wrist-slasher, "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man."  Unplugged, Alexander Gemignani and Kate Baldwin were stirring with "You Are Love." Also unplugged were Darrington's dramatic rendition of "Ol' Man River" and Kate Baldwin's flawless "Bill."

That's not all.  Director Alexander Gemignani kept the show's brisk pace with a captivating musical mix. Hearing trained theater voices unplugged was thrilling with Ron Bohmer singing "Give Me One Hour" from Brian Hooker and Rudolf Friml's operetta, The White Eagle. Bohmer joined Noll in a romantic duet of the title song from Rio Rita (Joseph McCarthy and Harry Tierney). The winsome Christopher Fitzgerald opened the show with Vinceny Youmans and Irving Caesar's "Sometimes I'm Happy" from Hit the Deck.

'S marvelous to hear Bobby Steggert tickling the sly lyrics of "'S Wonderful" (George and Ira Gershwin's Funny Face). The firecracker from the current Memphis, Chad Kimball, backed by some boogie-woogie from Ross Patterson, pianist/Musical Director, was a charmer with Walter Donaldson's "My Blue Heaven,” a hit for Eddie Cantor in Ziegfeld Follies of 1927.

The series' popular dancing favorite, Kendrick Jones, choreographed and danced "The Five Step" (from B. G. DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson's Manhattan Mary) and joined another series favorite, Melinda Sullivan, to do the "The Varsity Drag" from Good News. Jeffry Denham and Noah Racey lent a few twists of their own to Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly's popular teamwork in "The Babbitt and the Bromide" from Funny Face. With ukulele in hand, Marc Kudisch humorously complained of unrequited lust with Jack Yellen and Milton Ager's "She Don't Wanna" from Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. He was endearing with a lovely song from DeSylva, Brown and Henderson’s Artists and Models, "(Here Am I) Brokenhearted."

Great performers, astute direction, the ever-lovin', kickin' Little Big Band—What a year!  What a night!

(Pictured: Carole J. Bufford & Christopher Fitzgerald. Photo by Maryann Lopinto)

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
February 22, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org