Review: 54 SINGS COCO at 54 Below

Last Monday, on April 14, 2025, Charles Kirsch, Michael Levine and a host of talented performers breathed new life into a forgotten musical. 54 Sings Coco put the spotlight on Coco, an ill-fated 1969 Broadway show with a score by Alan Jay Lerner and André Previn about the iconic fashion designer Coco Chanel. Despite a charming score, it never really took off, closing within a year of opening. One of the show’s first missteps, as Kirsch noted in his introductory remarks on Monday night, involved a casting fumble. The writing team went to Chanel and asked if she had any preference for who should play her in the show. She said “Hepburn.” They thought she meant Katherine, but it turned out that she had Audrey in mind. Unfortunately for the show, Katherine Hepburn was not nearly as gifted a singer as she was an actress. Coco’s cast album is lamentably hard to listen to, with many of the lyrics Hepburn sang garbled and drowned out by the band.

Luckily, Kirsch assembled a winning ensemble for this concert revival, giving the packed audience at 54 Below a chance to hear the songs as crisply as they were intended to be heard. Lerner and Previn’s score is complex, with irregular rhythms and densely packed lines of lyrics, and it was lovely to hear Coco’s songs sung by real professional singers.

The cast included the very talented Christine Andreas, Steven Brinberg, Paula Leggett Chase, Britney Coleman, Josie de Guzman, Ali Ewoldt, Sara Gettelfinger, Adam Grupper, Ben Jones, Jay Aubrey Jones, Isabel Keating, Neal Mayer, Brad Oscar, AJ Shively, Jane Summerhays, Lenny Wolpe, and Penny Worth. Kirsch had the cast doubled or tripled up on some roles, alternating who played Coco and the other characters. With the skilled cast they assembled, it was possible to make out some of Lerner’s clever lyrics on songs like “The Money Rings Out Like Freedom,” sung with excellent comedic delivery by Jane Summerhays. She commanded the stage. Lyrics like “A queen with a lot of jack is a king / So kopeck and lire, / Come nearer and nearer / And let freedom ring” had the audience guffawing.

The evening wove the show’s history in between a full selection of songs from the score. We heard a lovely alternate opening number, “Turn on the Lights,” sung by Sara Gettelfinger (Nine) that was cut during previews, likely because it was too difficult for Hepburn to sing. Gettelfinger gave the song its due worth. Dancer Jean Preece shared some of her memories from the original production, where she understudied on nine different tracks. Some cleverly placed snippets of video on 54 Below’s monitors gave the audience an idea of what those dance numbers looked like in the original production.

The entire night gave a sense of the success Coco could have been if just a few things were different. Singer Ben Jones gave a silky smooth rendition of “But That’s the Way You Are,” the opening they ended up going with, and “Let’s Go Home,” a gorgeous love song. Isabel Keating magnificently handled “Mademoiselle Cliché de Paris / On the Corner of the Rue Cambon,” another very funny number packed with lyrics. Britney Coleman sang the sweet, earnest “A Brand New Dress” as Noelle, the model Coco takes an interest in training. AJ Shively sang “A Woman Is How She Loves,” getting the tone of rage and condescension in the character’s voice just right, and belting out the song with strong vocals. Barbra Streisand impersonator Steven Brinberg performed a moving a section of the show’s dialogue with Lenny Wolpe as her father, who sang the tender “Gabrielle.” Brinberg doing Hepburn as Coco Chanel was wonderful, with just the right amount of over-the-topness to be funny without losing the emotional heart of the scene. Penny Worth, from the show’s original cast, sang a lovely “Coco.” Brad Oscar was fantastic on “Fiasco,” one of the most fun numbers from the show, sung by the fashion designer trying to tear down Coco (and the second ever openly gay character in a Broadway show, right after Lee Roy Reams’ character from Applause from the same season). Ali Ewoldt sang the sweet “Someone On Your Side.” Adam Grupper sang the wryly funny “When Your Lover Says Goodbye.” Paula Leggett Chase stepped in as Coco with Jay Aubrey Jones and Neal Mayer as the American designers who lift her out of obscurity, energetically delivering the comedic number “Orbach’s Bloomingdale’s, Best and Saks.” Jones and Mayer went hilariously over-the-top as the cheerful American businessmen convincing Coco to trust them with her designs. All three were wonderful on the tongue-twisting, rapid-fire number. Christine Andreas and Ali Ewoldt closed out the night with a show-stopping “Always Mademoiselle.” Andreas sunk her teeth into the song, nailing the complex emotions her character feels in the song, one of the only serious numbers Coco sings in the show.

The score of Coco might be a little uneven, but the performers all committed to the song or songs they sung, making them all feel like hits. Across the board, the performers’ poise, stage presence, skill with lyrical phrasing and delivery made the night one to remember. Even when one or two of the singers lost the rhythm for a second, as is wont to happen in a limited one time concert like this with difficult songs, they picked up the rhythm and kept going without letting the momentary stumble interrupt the performance.

Kirsch and Levine put on a wonderful evening. If you’re interested in forgotten musicals, make sure to get tickets to their next show on July 28 where they’ll be doing Wildcat.

Learn where to follow and listen to Backstage Babble podcast here.