Review: Tanya Moberly A Human Playlist In REPERTOIRE (with Ian Herman) at Don't Tell Mama

Tanya Moberly has a thing.  She loves it, and she does it as often as she can.  She loves to create a series of shows centered around music she loves, gather around her a group of Musical Directors she loves, and present these shows every week or so.  It is usually six shows, six MDs, and six different vibes.  She has mastered the format, and every time she presents a new one of these series, she sells out, gets rave reviews, and takes home awards (her latest is the 2025 MAC Award for Major Female Artist - congratulations, Tanya!).  Tanya Moberly is hailed as one of the best in the business (Google the reviews) and has, twice, been on this writer’s year-end ‘Best of’ list, and she deserves all the praise she gets.  She knows what she’s doing.  And she’s doing it again.

On September 10th, Ms. Moberly kicked off REPERTOIRE - her 2026 series of shows featuring Musical Directors Sean Harkness (September 10th), Ian Herman (September 24th), Ritt Henn (postponed but to be rescheduled), Mark Janas (October 29th), Jon Weber (November 5th), and Steven Ray Watkins (November 19th).  Because of the different natures of each of her MDs' instruments (piano, guitar, bass…) and the vibe created between her and each of the six gentlemen, each set is different, so fans and interested parties can benefit from attending each show.  Speaking personally, I would attend all six shows if I didn’t have to choose judiciously where to spend my Thursday nights.  I chose September 24th because it was the Thursday of this latest run that best suited my schedule … but I was the lucky one because I also hadn’t seen Ian Herman in action in a while, and seeing Ian play (hearing him play) is reason enough to hit the rooms, and REPERTOIRE was no exception.  Moberly and Herman are an exciting and elegant pairing.

When Tanya Moberly does a show, there is very little talk.  She opens the event with a number and a welcome monologue, and then she and her colleague dive right in.  There is, from that point forward, rarely any dialogue- just a journey, a mini-opera, a revue of sorts, that takes the audience into the mind of Moberly.  Also absent from the proceedings is a story arc (if Ms. Moberly has done one of these shows where there is one, this writer has missed that performance).  Going to a Tanya Moberly show is like listening to your playlist, where you created the listening journey to your specific wishes, or a CD where the artist did - but it is an absorption of music without a narrative purpose.  That isn’t to say there isn’t intention; otherwise, why would Tanya Moberly have started her Ian Herman night with an impressive medley of seven showstopping songs (like “Heartache Tonight,” “Mama, Help Me,” and “Bad Romance”) and ended the performance with “Stairway To Heaven.”  There is definite intention in Moberly’s running order; there just isn’t a narrative arc.  But that doesn’t matter because you get to make the story up in your mind based on what you feel from what you’re seeing and feeling.  For example, early in the proceedings, Moberly keeps it upbeat, with a Peggy Lee mashup featuring “New York City Blues” and “I Love Being Here With You,” followed by a dreamy “The Nearness of You” (an evening highlight), but later in the program there are (near) back-to-back numbers that Tanya performed with tears streaming down her face - the Colin Hay composition “Blue For You” (another evening highlight) and the Arlen/Mercer classic “I Wonder What Became of Me.”  This is the experience she wished for her audience, and it is very clear.  One of the benefits of going to a Tanya Moberly show is her emotional availability, her connection with the songs and the storytelling, and it’s all contained in the space in which she stands.  It’s like a gallery of paintings that you hear with your ears, as you are dropped into each painting by Moberly, who has the uncanny ability to emotionally assume each story in a moment. It is the mark of a skilled actor and talented storyteller.  It is an impressive feat to be able to turn on a dime in this manner, just with a new song, and always with reverence to the notes that the songwriter wrote - there is never any variation on the theme with Tanya: she sings it as it was written, then does all the rest with her voice and her face.   And it is a genuine pleasure to be in a room with an artist who knows all the words to all the songs.  Tanya Moberly reads no cheat sheet, ever - not for her lyrics, not for her setlist, not for her thank-yous.  Tanya Moberly is a professional, and she takes her craft seriously.  Did I mention she won a MAC Award?  This is how.

Other highlights in the extremely eclectic song list (at the end of the set, Tanya asked the crowd, “How eclectic was that show?”) were an enthrallingly epic “Captain Walker/It’s a Boy/Sally Simpson” that drew shouts from the crowd, a genuinely enjoyable “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” and a delicious “Mister Sears and Roebuck,” that, coincidentally, all back-to-backed one another.  And although there were tears near the end of the set, there was significant acting on display during Moberly’s presentation of the Jimmy Page/Robert Plant-penned “That’s The Way.”  As for Mr. Herman’s contribution to the offering, the gentleman was on fire all night long - Tanya had no choice but to continually gesture his way, giving the audience permission to interrupt the storytelling with some well-earned applause, and it isn’t just with his prolific piano playing, either, for his arrangements for Moberly were sublime, from the solo piano arrangement for “Stairway…” to a luscious treatment for “In the Still of the Night/I Concentrate on You” by Mr. Cole Porter.   The twosome works extremely well together, but one imagines Tanya works well with anyone.  One also wonders why Tanya was singing in the dark all night, but that is, clearly, a decision she and Tech Director, follow-MAC winner Kelly Wohlford, worked out between them.  

At a certain point during her opening monologue, while explaining the concept of the show and series, of the men and the music, Tanya Moberly referred to this as her “musical slut story” because she truly does love the music, and the variety of the music, and the men, and the various men.  Well, if this is what cabaret promiscuity looks like, let they who are without sin cast the first stone… and they can cast it in my direction because I would happily show up any day of the week to see Tanya and her Gentlemen present their sensational REPERTOIRE.

Get tickets to the October 29th REPERTOIRE on the Don't Tell Mama website HERE.

Visit the Tanya Moberly website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

Reader Reviews

To post a comment, you must register and login.