Review: Kate Baldwin's THE BUCKET SHOW at 54 Below Belongs On Everyone's Wish List

About halfway through her opening night at 54 Below last night, I had a thought about Kate Baldwin and THE BUCKET SHOW.   Probably everybody who loves Kate Baldwin has a bucket list of roles they’d like to see her play.  I didn’t know she had played Charlotte in A Little Night Music, but if I had, I would have gone out of town to see her.  I wanted to go out of town to see her as Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County; I would have gone out of town to see her as Marian the Librarian.   Every person who has enjoyed Kate Baldwin’s work on the New York stage, every person who has learned of her versatility and proficiency, probably has a wish list of roles they’d like to see her play.  So even though her new musical cabaret centers around her bucket list of roles (a surprisingly short list), it fuels the imagination of fans and admirers with visions of a Kate Baldwin Lily Garland or a Kate Baldwin Abigail Adams or a Kate Baldwin Luisa Contini (and don’t be fooled by her status as a soprano - after seeing The Bucket Show, this writer is driven by dreams of Luisa Contini in her hands).   Kate Baldwin may only have about three real and true bucket list roles in her heart, but, as her recent stint as Roxie Hart has proven (a role on which she did not dream), with a little imagination and an open mind, any new dream can thrive and grow.

So what are Kate Baldwin’s bucket list roles?  Oh, come on, now, you can’t expect me to spoil it for audiences who will attend tonight’s and tomorrow night’s shows, can you?  I can’t, friends, I just can’t.  No spoilers today, ok?  I’m just going to have to write this review in terms that are equal parts vague and specific.  Like, for instance, I can tell you that The Bucket Show is a supremely written club act, meticulous in its construction, executed with style and skill, and a credit to Baldwin and Musical Director Georgia Stitt, who has provided Ms. Baldwin with extraordinary charts.  Throughout the seventy-minute musical entertainment, Stitt and Baldwin have chosen, carefully and wisely, when to present an OG arrangement from a Broadway show (hint: it’s the three bucket list roles), and when to take an old chestnut, deconstruct it, and present it in an entirely new light.  This is the way to do a musical theater cabaret, well and truly.  Ms. Baldwin deftly presents two numbers designed to pay homage to roles she has already done (Irene Molly, Nellie Forbush, Roxie Hart), but with brand new (exciting) arrangements by Stitt and onstage guitarist, the wonderful Chris Peters, who duets with Baldwin on the Hello, Dolly! number.   The South Pacific presentation is straight-up genius, and the Hello, Dolly! cut is simply exquisite.  (And, by the way, The Bucket Show livestreams tonight, March 14th, if your curiosity is getting the better of you.)  

When she is not focusing on those three bucket list roles (the performances of which were evening highlights last night), Ms. Baldwin fills out the performance with reminiscences about the shows she has done (a “My White Knight” is orchestrated to tell a hilarious story about doing The Music Man while caring for a 12-month-old), the artists she has loved and lost (a medley of Irving Berlin and Jerry Herman songs touchingly honors Misses Luker and Mazzie, and Mr. Creel), and the bucket list roles that came along as a surprise.  This last category refers to a performance of Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s LOVE LIFE that played Encores! Last March, a musical that Baldwin explains she did not know because it had received no cast recording.  Now that Kate Baldwin has discovered Susan Cooper, she has found a character she loves, loved playing, loved laying down on a new CD due out next year, and is happy to send out into the world for other women to discover.  This section of The Bucket Show is one that significantly breaks open the concept that Kate Baldwin only sings sad ballads (her words, not mine).  Factually, much of the Bucket Show programming is designed to showcase the funnier, more madcap, kind of wacky, definitely lighthearted side of Kate Baldwin, conjuring visions of an age-appropriate Mame, should anyone ever decide to undertake a new production of the classic (naturally with all racist overtones removed).  The feather boa’d performance of “Mr. Right” is a side of Baldwin that certainly does deserve a little more light and a lot more stage time, just like another evening highlight, a deliciously comedic “The Boy From…” that might be this writer’s favorite, ever (the song is surprisingly and expertly mashed-up with a KD Lang tune that, again, breaks the Baldwin mold with sultry mid-register notes that melt the heart).  

Also featured in the new Kate Baldwin cabaret is a newly-completed Georgia Stitt song titled “Pinnacle Moment” (written with Hunter Foster) from her upcoming musical THE BIG BOOM.  The composition (finished two days before opening night) is an intricate and erudite piece of musical theater writing that captivates while commanding one’s attention.  There is no sitting back to allow the music to wash over you on this one.  Viewers will want to listen, will want to focus, to catch the complexities so artistically and gorgeously woven together, so splendidly presented by Ms. Baldwin.  It is a promise of good things to come with the new musical.

Also splendid last night was a chance to see Kate Baldwin share a stage with her movie-star handsome real-life leading man, husband Graham Rowat.  The parents of a fifteen-year-old son who plays mightily in the hilarious storytelling did a duet from one of those three bucket list shows, a charming and delightful musical theater moment worth catching.  Sadly for subsequent audiences, this was Mr. Rowat’s only scheduled appearance in The Bucket Show, but there is good news yet:  Alex Newell will appear on March 14th, and Robyn Hurder will do the March 15th show.   But (and with all due respect to the marvelous guest artists that sweeten the deal), this is all about Kate Baldwin, an actress who deserves her place in the Broadway community that reaches into regional theaters around the country, a singing artist who has earned her spot in the symphony spaces and concert halls around the world.  Kate Baldwin is an incandescent presence in the field of entertainment, and it is opportunities like a cabaret show that allow us the double down experience we don’t get when she is playing the Irene Molloys and the Sharon McLonergans… the wicked wit, the naughty winks, the goofy guffaws.  It turns out that when you mix soaring soprano singing with ethereal beauty, sultry sexiness, fabulous fashion sense, and high-jinks hilarity, you get the woman who is Kate Baldwin, and, for that, you have to have a Kate Baldwin show.  That’s what they’re getting this weekend at 54 Below - the kind of cabaret that belongs on everyone’s bucket list.  

See The Bucket Show in person at 54 Below on March 14th and 15th at 7 pm.  Tickets HERE.

See The Bucket Show on your home computer via Livestream on March 14th.  Tickets HERE.

Visit the Kate Baldwin website HERE.

HERE is the Georgia Stitt website.

Chris Peters can be found online HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher