"I can't find a job."  As the lights come up, that's the statement we hear from matter-of-fact, cheerful Amy Persons, spoken with a shrug.  By "job," she means a role in her chosen field: musical theater. She says she doesn't fit most typecasting: too too old for this, too young for that, too full-figured. Oh, well. It won't stop her from wanting to carry on and "Raise the Roof" with her roof-raising brassy bravura belt voice applied to Andrew Lippa's rambunctious number from The Wild Party. Confident and comedic, she barrels through the show with lots of big-voiced, brash singing (as in Cole Porter's "Riding High" and more contemporary powerhouse punches) that needs to be used more judiciously in the small space.  It can get shrill and border on overkill, but there's more in her bag of tricks. Her mature, thoughtful reading of the ballad "I Wish It So" (Marc Blitzstein, from the 1959 musical Juno) is measured and moving.  Likewise, accompanist Andy Roninson nicely settles in there, rather than settling for pounding the piano keys without breaking new ground in arrangements elsewhere.

In this chatty show, self-deprecatingly, amiable Amy recalls the awkwardness of both speed-dating and returning to school at age 31 and taking classes with 18-year-olds, all cannily played for laughs rather than sympathy.  Tales about finding the love of her life and being torn between staying with him and pursuing theater bogs down in TMI (too much information; tender mushy intimacy).  Can you root for someone willing to risk losing rare true love for a chance at making it against all odds in NYC show biz? You decide. There are chuckles along the way and some splashy song-stirring from a performer who's done a couple of national tours and can whip up her own tour de force.

Rob Lester
Cabaret Scenes
January 14, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org