Since I missed Susan Winter’s 2008 debut show, the MAC-nominated Million Dollar Matinee, I was happy she reprised it for a few nights this summer at Don’t Tell Mama, with Rick Jensen at the piano and direction by Lina Koutrakos, because it confirmed what I had been hearing…this show is a “million dollar winner”!

Opening with Craig Carnelia’s “Old Movies,” she quickly established her theme, musical sophistication, range and ability to act a lyric with straightforward honesty, wit and intelligence. What followed was a carefully chosen song list from her own personal treasure chest of favorite movies, from Dancing on a Dime to Yankee Doodle Dandy. As a child who grew up in Brooklyn, she explained, she and her mother would often go to Radio City Music Hall to catch a film by her favorite actor, James Cagney. As a tribute, she sang several songs in a George M. Cohan medley that captured the spirit of the man and the time.

There were numerous other highlights, including a hauntingly beautiful reading of Rick Jensen’s arrangement of “That Old Black Magic” (bringing to mind Nancy LaMott’s memorable version), a clever take on Burton Lane and Frank Loesser’s “I Hear Music,” incorporating other songs with the same phrase, the injection of anecdotes that coincided with the stages of life depicted in Livingston and Evans’s “Que Sera, Sera,” and a very moving “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” that brought a tear to this empty-nester’s eye.

It would appear that Winter can sing just about anything, but if I had a quibble, it would be for her to find another closing song. Arlen and Mercer’s “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” in addition to being so closely associated with “Ol’ Blue Eyes,” was a bit of a downer in an otherwise totally uplifting hour.

Lynn DiMenna
Cabaret Scenes
June 30, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org