Pam Peterson, a fitness specialist and award-winning cabaret performer in her hometown of Chicago, achieved national recognition as the result of a YouTube clip that went viral in which she sings a hysterical parody of the song “Memory,” highlighting the baby boomer’s propensity for “senior moments” and “brain freezes.” She’s also known to Chicagoans as one of the Boomer Babes, a duo vocal/comedy team that has been performing together for some time.

On her own and with her singing, acting and comedy chops in perfect balance, Peterson can best be described by using a “plethora of “Ps”!…a petite, perky, powerhouse performer with a particular proclivity for writing phenomenal parodies! She came into New York for a night and knocked it right out of the proverbial park!

She started the fun with a song called “Transition,” a parody of Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick’s “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof. Her lyrics, describing what one goes through when deciding what to do next, are spot on and she delivers them with the timing of a seasoned musical theater performer.

Her show seemed to fly by, despite the inclusion of some twenty songs, most of which were parodies. For example, “Text Me” was sung to the melody of the Tony Hatch song, “Call Me,” and “Ellen’s a Pygmy,” a song about a woman developing osteoporosis as she ages, to the tune of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”! Both were side-splittingly funny, but she also included a tenderly sung Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson gem, “It Never Was You,” and proved her facility with ballads as well.

She ended with Jerry Herman’s “We Need a Little Christmas”/Hanukkah” and convinced an enthusiastic and appreciative audience that that’s exactly what we all do need right about now!

I look forward to hearing more from this sparkly-eyed dynamo and hope she doesn’t wait too long to return to the Big Apple.

Lynn DiMenna
Cabaret Scenes
November 17, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org