Feels Like Home
Feels Like Home
The Spotlight Cabaret Series Presents Christopher Leavy
October 24, 2013
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park FL</strong>
By now everyone at Winter Park Playhouse has done a cabaret except for the marketing manager and the sound guy. Tonight its stalwart pianist Chris Leavy whom we’ve all enjoyed during every preshow and one stage show performed over that past six years. He’s a self-confessed piano geek obsessed with chord progressions and key changes, his next show might be “My Favorite Modulations in Show Tunes.” Tonight’s selections tended toward AM radio hits and show tunes, “Town without Pity” and “Tracy” vied with “Bare Necessities” and “Feed The Birds,” but it’s Barry Manilow’s “I write the songs” that seems to best sum up the show. Leavy’s personal challenge piece was Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” he had avoided learning for many years, and we still don’t know what a “Real Estate Novelist” does. Leavy’s partner Ned Wilkinson joined in on sax for “New York State of Mind,” and there’s a rather slow and depressing “Happy Days Are Here Again” to remind us of the economy. Leavy filled us in on his early days, including a wonderful fantasy of a trip to an Italian restaurant in Nashua where he pretended to live out the lyrics from “Those Were the Days” while eating parsley covered spaghetti. But I think THESE are the days, you can see people walking down the street during these shows, staring at the crowd and wondering how we are all having so much fun this that storefront window. All they need do is open the door…
For more information on Winter Park Playhouse, please visit http://www.winterparkplayhouse.org
