Review: A De-Lovely Afternoon at the Dutch Treat Club

Yesterday’s (December 9th) lunch at The Dutch Treat Club included Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim on the menu in a De-Lovely presentation that included cabaret singers Jeff Harnar and KT Sullivan, renowned for their expertise with the Porter canon, and lecturer Charles Troy, who from his catalogue of over 60 encyclopedic presentations on various songbooks gave us a fascinating compare and contrast that he calls “Porter vs Sondheim.”

It’s that time of year when Arts organizations give out awards, and here in NYC, President KT Sullivan and entertainment chair Raissa Katona Bennett presented the club's Achievement in the Arts Award medals to Mr. Harnar and Mr. Troy.  The medals have had the same design since the club's founding in 1905.

Jeff Harnar and Music Director Alex Rybeck kicked off the proceedings with, what else, “It’s De-Lovely,” featuring all five choruses of Porter’s clever lyric, notable for its storytelling and internal rhymes.  A haunting “(I’ve Got You) Under My Skin” was followed by a “Friendship” medley between Harnar and Rybeck, in which the duo, who’ve worked together over 40 years, found the playful humor in several songs including “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,” “You’re The Top,” “Cherry Pies Oughta Be You” and “Let’s Be Buddies.”

Mr. Troy then focused his captivating spotlight on five pairings of Porter/Sondheim songs making a powerful case that Porter was the preeminent songwriter of both words and music for the first half of the twentieth century and Sondheim for the latter half. 

KT Sullivan took the stage to sing a rueful “Down in The Depths on The 90th Floor” (with Alex Leonard at the piano) paired with Dee Hoty’s recording of a song cut from Follies, “Uptown/Downtown.”  Harnar again took the stage to help illustrate a pairing of Patter songs, his rapid fire “They Couldn’t Compare To You” (from Porter’s “Out of This World”) opposite Beth Howland’s definitive recording of “Getting Married Today” from “Company.”)  Other recordings on Mr. Troy’s playlist included Ethel Merman, Ann Hampton Callaway and Zero Mostel, among many others.

Throughout, Mr. Troy’s PowerPoint not only included the lyrics, but gave us wonderful photographs, poster art and Hirschfeld’s to illustrate the illuminating anecdotes. Check out my photos of the afternoon below.

About the club:

The Dutch Treat Club was founded in 1905 by Thomas Lansing Masson, an editor of Life (then a humor magazine), and Robert Sterling Yard, a reporter with the New York Sun, and two other men of letters who rode into Manhattan together each day on the Lackawanna Railroad. They enjoyed their conversation with each other so much one of them suggested, "Let's continue this at lunch sometimes." They wanted a New York City club for creative people -- writers, illustrators and later, musical artists and actors -- a club not to be dominated by publishers or editors, who were more driven by profit motive. The original 11 members consisted of four writers, four illustrators, two editors and a publisher who was certified as benign. The lunch was "dutch" -- everybody paid his own bill.

From this beginning grew an institution with over 350 members, including some of the most creative minds in America. In the past the Club produced elaborate musical and dramatic entertainments at an annual banquet. Charles Dana Gibson, David Belasco, Ring Lardner and Otis Skinner were among those involved in early Dutch Treat theatrical productions. DTCers Rodgers and Hammerstein provided many of the original songs for the occasions. The ’20s featured the first performance of Robert Benchley’s famous “Treasurer’s Report” and the first known play by Robert Sherwood. Member George M. Cohan’s last appearance was at the Club in 1942, a week before he died. The great Broadway producer George Abbott had been a member for 52 years when he died at the age of 107.

Learn more about the Dutch Treat Club at www.dutchtreatny.org

Alex Rybeck, Jeff Harnar, Charles Troy, KT Sullivan

Alex Rybeck, Raissa Katona Bennett, Jeff Harnar

Alex Rybeck & Jeff Harnar

Alex Rybeck & Jeff Harnar

Charles Troy

Dutch Treat Club

KT Sullivan

KT Sullivan

Jeff Harnar, KT Sullivan, Alex Rybeck

Jeff Harnar & Alex Rybeck

Craig Rubana & Jeff Harnar

Eda Sorokoff & Craig Rubano