Review: Carole Demas Brilliantly Illuminates 54 Below With FIREFLY

A long time ago, when the world was young and all of us were even younger, there was a Magic Garden.  All the kids went to the television playland for fun and education and, well, magic.  The magic lasted for twelve mystical, wonderful, memorable seasons, and it lives in the hearts and minds of all the kids who are, now, just kids who have been around for a long time.  But the magic didn’t stop when the show went off the air in 1984, and that is just what audiences at 54 Below discovered on September 6th.  The magic lives on, and it lives on in the person of Carole Demas.

Carole Demas is one of the two women responsible for The Magic Garden (the other is Paula Janis, and she gets some paragraph space later in this article) but she is also a part of the fabric of the theater, having played central female character of Sandy in the original 1971 Broadway production of the iconic musical GREASE.  Delightful Demas spent her years as an actor doing all of it - film, television, recordings, cabaret and concerts.  She has made her mark in the industry, and she has left her legacy in the history of the art form;  she has been presenting her solo musical cabaret FIREFLY to sold-out 54 Below houses, and this writer was beyond grateful to catch the most recent encore of the program, billed as the final performance available in 2025.  If people are lucky (if they are VERY lucky), there are dates of Firefly being scheduled for 2026 because it is one of the loveliest, most heartfelt, and satisfying cabaret shows a person could hope to see

Miss Demas is no stranger to the craft of cabaret.  She has had any number of club acts that she has presented in person and virtually, including a particularly special THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE, which she performed alongside the late Sarah Rice, winning a 2018 Bistro Award.  When it comes to cabaret, Carole Demas knows where it’s at.  Firefly is simply the latest of her triumphs.  That triumph sits, squarely, on her shoulders, for it is she who brings the magic to the eighty-minute cabaret play.  Oh, there are gentlemen assisting Carole in her efforts, and there are ladies lifting her up, but it is abundantly clear that these friends and family do this out of love, which is the reason for all the people in the seats out front.  You cannot be in a room with Carole Demas without falling in love with her.  She glows from within, as though she is carrying the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the firmament.  For eighty minutes I watched her stand center stage, recounting stories and raising her voice in song, and I can safely say that I don’t think I have seen any artist bring so much joy up onto the stage with them.  Even in the quietest moments, the sincerest seconds, the seriousness of storytelling, it was clear to all that Carole Demas recognizes the vast opportunity in being allowed to do this work, in being here to live this life.  She exudes gratitude and grace, joy and jubilation.  And that’s just the foundation of her performance.  There is also the storytelling.

For her Firefly setlist, Carole Demas has curated everything from musical theater to Elton John, from George Harrison to Billy Joel, and (naturally) there are some Carole Demas/Paula Janis originals that all the Magic Garden fans lovingly remembered and maybe even sang along with.  The lady is comfortable in all of these genres and in a variety of octaves, too.  It would normally be ungallant to mention a lady’s age, but Carole Demas washed that etiquette away when she announced her age by way of a clever reworking of a Beatles tune, changing it to “When I’m Eighty-Five.”  The number having been deftly thrown into the conversation, I should like to observe that there have been many times in my life when people more knowledgeable than myself have told me that “a man’s voice grows with age, while a woman’s voice diminishes.”  Well, if that is the truth, then someone forgot to send Carole Demas the memo.  There is power in these pipes, there is versatility in this voice, and there are thrills in these trills.  Miss Demas has a crystalline and pristine soprano that gets a great deal of playtime in her performance, but her Broadway belt brings the brass, and there is rich resonance in renditions of pop music by Billy Joel and Neil Diamond.  The versatility of Carole’s vocal quality and ability is genuinely awe-inspiring, and she is fortunate in her association with Musical Director and arranger Ian Herman, who sees and supports all of her gifts (as do Bassist Tom Hubbard and Drummer David Silliman).  It is an elegant gathering of talented proficients, designed to produce the most professional of sounds.  The treatment of Joel’s “You’re My Home” is new and fresh and fun, the power behind Diamond’s “If You Know What I Mean” is eye-popping, and Carole Demas has the best “Over The Rainbow” this side of Judy Garland, and I am not kidding one little bit.  This is a song I never want to hear.  If I want Over the Rainbow, I get out my soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz.  But Carole Demas has broken that mold for me with her rendition of the classic.  The word stunning comes to mind, only like this:  STUNNING

Other musical highlights in the show included emotional and wistful performances of “Beautiful City” and “Try to Remember,” a surprising “Something” by George Harrison, and back-to-back performances of “Trees” by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (introduced by a fabulous family history), and a self-penned (with Mr. Herman) “When I Grow Up,” that offered a splendid showcase of Demas’ vocal range.  It has to be said, though, that the true treat in this evening of magnificence was hearing Carole discuss the part she played in the creation of one of the greatest songs in musical theater history.  There are those who may not know that Carole was the original Genevieve when Stephen Schwartz was building The Baker’s Wife, and that the song “Meadowlark” was written for her.  Another actress went on to play the part and to record the cast album, and a hundred million trillion million women and men have sung the song (those numbers are made up, but feel accurate), but the song was written for Carole Demas.  And during Firefly, guests were given the honor and privilege of hearing Carole tell the story and sing the song, and with this song (and every song sung on September 6th), Carole Demas brought her impressive acting abilities front and center.  Not one moment of Firefly was delivered with anything less than one hundred percent commitment to the acting, to the emotion, to the telling of the tale.  This is a great actress and great storyteller.

This is also a great girlfriend.  And what do great girlfriends do when they are going to the playground?  They call their girlfriends to come with them, and that’s just what Carole Demas did.  There were two segments of Firefly centered around the two career events for which Carole has the most recognition (and, probably, pride, too, but that’s a guess from an armchair):  Grease, and The Magic Garden.   For her Magic Garden chapter, Carole asked Paula Janis to join her onstage (with her guitar, natch) and the two lifelong besties made the fans happy with “The Hello Song” and “The Magic Garden Theme,” but what really got the crowd going was watching The Magical Two tell their stories while grinning at each other and smiling lovingly while each took her turn to reminisce.  It was all smiles … and a little bit of nostalgic eye-dabbing.  There was no eye-dabbing, though, when Ilene Kristen practically pole vaulted onto the stage for the energetic and enjoyable GREASE segment, featuring “It’s Raining On Prom Night” and Sandy’s section of “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” - and since Sandy and Patty Simcox have no numbers together in the play Grease, forever friends Kristen and Demas did the duet “Here’s To Us” from Little Me.  It was all simply Shoo wap sha whada whadda yippidy boom da boom.  Or, in plainest of terms:  it was wonderful.  Firefly, Carole Demas, her guest stars and her band all added up to a night of cabaret that people should see, whenever and wherever the magical and marvelous Miss Demas might be appearing.  Wherever.

Find great shows to see on the 54 Below website HERE.

THIS is the Carole Demas website. Carole and Paula have a website HERE, and Ilene Kristen can be found online HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher