Review: DEBBIE GRAVITTE PLUS ONE... WITH STEPHEN SCHWARTZ Turns Birdland Into a Living Room

Do you know why chat shows often have big comfy sofas and lush floral arrangements? It's because it is very important for the guests to feel at home with the host, and for the audience to feel that the guest is at home with the host. The level of comfort felt by everyone, whether a participant or an observer, is most important, indeed paramount, to the success of a chat show.

The stage at Birdland isn't particularly homey. It is a stage, much like many others. There are amps, mic stands, cords, a piano, a sometimes slightly worn carpet. It is a stage, barren and empty until the life of the artists comes to it. Last night there was a small platform and a couple of director's chairs, and there was (indeed) a small but pretty arrangement of flowers. But it was, for all intents and purposes, just the stage at Birdland.

Until Debbie Gravitte got there, and then it became home.

Debbie Gravitte Plus One... is the new series helmed by the Tony Award recipient for Jerome Robbins' Broadway. For the series, the singing actress welcomes to the stage another artist who is her personal friend, for a chat and some music. Future guests will be Marc Shaiman and Harvey Fierstein but last night, for the program's inaugural outing, Ms. Gravitte invited to her new home-away-from-home the prolific, indeed iconic, musical theater composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz. And for seventy blissful minutes, it felt like a salon at the Gravitte homestead, as the friends and family of Debbie Gravitte sat around listening to her chat with a cherished chum from the last few decades of her life. It was the start of a good thing and one that this writer hopes that Birdland and Gravitte can keep going for as many years as Jim Caruso's Cast Party, because Debbie Gravitte has hit upon something that, perhaps, she didn't even know she had in her, but now that the genie is out of the bottle, let things stay as they are.

First of all, any chance to catch Debbie Gravitte performing is a chance that must be taken. If she is singing one song in a group show, go; if she is doing a solo show of her own singing, go. If she is presenting a chat show with other famous artists that will include live music, go - it will not be a wasted opportunity. What is so particularly rewarding about this new venture for Ms. Gravitte is that she is a very good interviewer and, whether there is going to be live music or not, that is where a chat show must start. During last night's program Debbie Gravitte said, straight-out, that when the idea came to her, when she took it to Jim Caruso, she said, "I've got all these friends..." and since the guests being welcomed to her show are her friends, they are already comfortable with her - they know it will be fun, they know it will be easygoing, they know it won't be any kind of intimidating or threatening. Also, though, there is the fact that Debbie Gravitte (along with knowing and loving these people - in this case, Mr, Schwartz) has tangible respect for the artistry of her guest and an idea of where they come from, as artists. All of Ms. Gravitte's conversation with Mr. Schwartz last night was knowledgable and reverent, and originating from an informed understanding of what he does, as well as a wish to understand it better. There were no wasted questions because Debbie asked Stephen that which she really wanted to hear the answers to. Furthermore, Ms. Gravitte is completely absent of the irritating habit some interviewers have of asking a question and then either continuing to talk or interrupting their guest as they try to answer. Debbie got all of her exposition out, created the set-up, asked the question and then stopped and (wait for it) LISTENED to Stephen. Not only was she interested in listening to Stephen Schwartz's answers, she was invested in having the audience hear them. She is a conscientious chat host. For a first-time interviewer, Debbie Gravitte is coming out of the gate well ahead of the curve.

And then there is the music.

It is such a pleasure to do an exploration (however brief seventy minutes are) into the canon of Stephen Schwartz. Having created some of the most beloved musicals of all time, hearing the man discuss those shows, the songs themselves, his creative process, and just the little reminiscences and factoids was like being a fish put back into water. This is the man responsible for lyrics like "Blithe smile, lithe limb, She who's winsome, she wins him" and "Let old dreams die now, by now I shouldn't mind too much" and possibly the most poetic lyrics ever written, those to his Oscar-winning song Colors of the Wind - who doesn't want to hear him share his memories, thoughts, and philosophies? Fortunately, perfectly safe in the hands of his friend, ace reporter Debbie Gravitte, Mr. Schwartz put on a pleasant, interesting, and enjoyable performance last night, particularly when it came to the performance of songs like "Chanson" (The Baker's Wife) and "Two's Company" (The Magic Show), the latter with Gravitte as an epic duet. The whip-smart and super-funny Mr. Schwartz was an absolute delight to watch and to hear... but he wasn't the only guest. In classic chat show style, Debbie arranged for a Pippin duet between Sam Gravitte and his WICKED leading lady Lindsay Pearce, and a special appearance by the OG "Colors of the Wind" vocalist herself, fellow icon Judy Kuhn. This was guest programming worthy of a true-blue chat show veteran.

But not every chat show host could do what Debbie Gravitte did when she took her own turn at the mic, for it would be a shame, nay, a crime, to have a musical program and not have one of the great singing actors of Broadway serve up a little Pippin ("Time to Start Livin'") or some Working ("It's An Art") and what was so welcoming, so nourishing about watching Debbie Gravitte in all of her musical performing last night was the ability to see a performer go full-out in the act of storytelling. There was movement, there was magic, there was character, story, and creativity. These performances by Debbie Gravitte last night were the exact opposite of seeing a singer in a club perform while reading their lyrics off of a music stand or a tablet: this was musical storytelling as it was meant to be at the beginning, as it will want to be at the end. Debbie Gravitte singing live is the gold standard to which every person who steps up onto a nightclub stage should be held, and it is the very least to which any actor on a stage should aspire.

There is no chance, at all, that any person in the main room at Birdland might have left the club feeling anything other than uplifted, satisfied, and deliriously happy. It was an auspicious beginning to something that everyone should expect to see grow, evolve, and take over the cabaret and concert industry, just as we all saw happen with Jim Caruso's Cast Party and The Lineup with Susie Mosher.

It kind of makes you wonder what they're putting in the water over at Birdland. May they keep doing it.

Debbie Gravitte, welcome home.

When Mr. Schwartz was not at the piano the Debbie Gravitte Plus One... Musical Director was Jeremy Corren.

Upcoming performances of Debbie Gravitte PLUS ONE... will be May 9th with Marc Shaiman and September 12th with Harvey Fierstein. Information and reservations are at the Birdland website HERE.

THIS is the Debbie Gravitte website.

Stephen Schwartz has a website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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