Life On The Wicked Stage
Life On The Wicked Stage
With Laura Hodos
Musical Direction by Chris Leavy
Spotlight Cabaret Series
September 16, 2015
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park FL</strong>
It’s an “All Jerome Kern Night” tonight as Winter Park fave Laura Hodos returns to the Playhouse lobby for another brilliant cabaret. Kern wrote almost as many songs as Johnny Mercer; but while the songs rocked many ended up in forgotten musicals like “The Girl from Utah” or “Oh, Lady! Lady!!” (Note the artistic use of progressive punctuation as a graphic element in the poster). The shows are gone but the music remains; Hodos presents tunes like “A Fine Romance” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” with charm and pizzazz along with small doses of historical information on Kern’s career. It’s like a TED talk but with better accompaniment. There are great obscurities here tonight as well: “My Husband’s First Wife” rings out as does the the silly “Cleopatterer.” You may know Kern’s biggest hit was “Showboat”, and tonight Hodos takes a humorous cut at “Old Man River” with Leavy doing his best to talker out of it. We wrapped up with the de rigueur encore and tonight that’s a short yet inspirational talk about Hodos’ “Fearless” bracelet and then a touching rendition of “Look for the Silver Lining.” It’s a great show, and now if Winter Park residents could just PARK so they only take up one spot we could get more bar patrons into the enlarged WPPH lobby…
For more information on Winter Park Playhouse, please visit http://www.winterparkplayhouse.org
</em>
