With fire and grace, Liz Callaway scored a triumphant evening with Even Stephen— Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime), Stephen Schwartz (Godspell) and Stephen Sondheim (Into the Woods— concluding The Town Hall’s sixth annual Summer Broadway Festival.  The Stephens may not be “even” to everyone in every way, but each is a vital contributor to the current American musical theater. Flaherty, with lyricist Lynn Ahrens, is a traditional songwriter who moves easily among various rhythmic moods—a flavor of the Caribbean in Once Upon This Island, and a revival of the ragtime nostalgia in Ragtime. Schwartz usually reflects a magical musical optimism and Sondheim, most will agree, is the theatrical musical genius of our time.

For Callaway, however, she chose these Stephens simply because she loves their songs, and so, after one weekend in Pittsburgh conjuring up Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, she hopped a plane and joined three Broadway chums for a Town Hall evening of musical delights.  The guests, all powerhouse divos, were Jason Danieley (Next to Normal), Joshua Henry (The Scottsboro Boys) and Norm Lewis (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess). A fourth guest was Liz’s sister, Ann Hampton Callaway, who joined her “For Good,” a fervent declaration of love and appreciation in Schwartz’s Wicked.

Danieley has a buoyancy that illuminated Flaherty and Ahrens’s “Streets of Dublin” (A Man of No Importance). In Schwartz’s “Out There” (The Hunchback of Notre Dame; music by Alan Menkin ), he palpably evoked Quasimodo’s lonely hunger. Danieley’s outstanding moment was a duet with Callaway from Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, sharing the drama and love as Dot urges George to “Move On.”

Perched on stools, Joshua Henry joined Callaway in  “Love Song” from Schwartz’s Pippin and he also was most poignant with Sondheim’s “I Remember” from Evening Primrose. Norm Lewis showed his trenchant bass-baritone in “Being Alive” (Sondheim’s Company) and with Flaherty and Ahrens’ stirring “Wheels of a Dream” from Ragtime.  With Callaway, the two delivered a fervent “Forever Yours” (Once Upon This Island).

The evening, however, belonged to Callaway. She gathered the audience in her hands, creating intimacy with a warm smile and a voice of resonance and clarity. Seeming relaxed even after her weekend in Sunset Boulevard, she tossed out casual anecdotes about the songs, singers and the writers, two of whom, Schwartz and Flaherty, were in the audience. She delivered 12 outstanding solo renditions. Just a few include Flaherty’s “Back to Before” (Ragtime), Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” (Follies), the tongue-twisting “Another Hundred People” with hilarious lyrics added by Lauren Mayer and Sondheim.  As an encore was a seamless “With So Little to be Sure Of” (Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle).

Seamless is the word for this show, one of those memorable evenings in Town Hall.  Besides Liz Callaway and her guests, salutes go to series creator Scott Siegel and to the onstage quartet led by Musical Director Alex Rybeck on piano, Jered Egan on bass, guitarist Scott Kuney and Ron Tierno on drums.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
July 30, 2012
www.cabaretscenes.org