Review: Carmen Cusack in Concert at Theatre Raleigh

In February 2008, I saw Wicked for the very first time. My mom got us tickets to see the national tour in Cleveland as a Christmas present. The night we went, there was a snowstorm. We got to our seats late. Luckily, the show started shortly after we arrived and got to see Carmen Cusack as Elphaba. Now all these years later, we got to see her again. Only this time, it was in concert at Theatre Raleigh.

Carmen opened the show with two back-to-back songs from Steve Martin & Edie Brickell’s Bright Star. The musical where she made her Broadway debut in 2016 after many years in the industry. While it sadly didn’t last long in New York, it at least got her a lot of acclaim as well as a Tony nomination. Not to mention that during the COVID-19 pandemic, she recorded cameos for virtual productions of Bright Star as a treat for each cast and crew. The first song she sang was ‘Way Back in the Day.’ The second was the opening number, ‘If You Knew My Story.’ The latter of which, she actually did some clever interaction with select audience members. As someone who has heard her sing those tunes on the original cast album countless times, I really got chills watching her perform them live and in person.

This wasn’t her first time working at Theatre Raleigh. She previously worked with them just last fall for an out-of-town tryout of a stage musical adaptation of the 1988 Academy Award nominated film, Bull Durham. I sadly was unable to catch it during the run. Luckily, Carmen treated the audience with a few songs from it, all of which were total bangers. My favorite of the lot would have to be this rousing number titled ‘The Church of Baseball.’ In fact, shortly before the performance began, Theatre Raleigh’s executive director Lauren Kennedy mentioned that Carmen will be in New York next week for a new reading of Bull Durham prior to an upcoming run at Paper Mill Playhouse this fall. We’ll see what the future holds for that show, but let’s hope it makes it to Broadway.

For 14 years, Carmen lived in the U.K., where she performed in countless shows. After finishing up touring as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera, she quickly started rehearsals for her run as Fantine in the West End production of Les Misérables. With Jim Ballenger playing acoustic guitar right by her, she sang ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ I’ve heard countless renditions of that anthem in my lifetime, but no matter how many times I hear it, I’m still left in tears by the end. Carmen not only went on to sing another tune from Bright Star, but for the first time, she sang one that wasn’t sung by her character, Alice Murphy. In the musical, it’s a solo number for one of the featured roles, Margo Crawford. The song in particular is called ‘Asheville,’ which was obviously named for the city here in North Carolina. In fact, my mom actually went to college around that area.

Singing isn’t the only natural talent for Carmen. She’s also written her own original songs. Some of which she also played on guitar. The first one she sang debuted at a private concert she gave in Las Vegas that was live streamed in 2020 while everyone had to follow stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19. It was a very moving tune titled ‘Here We Are.’ Another one she sang was called ‘The Beat of His Heart.’ It was inspired by her husband, actor Paul Telfer (who can currently be seen as Xander Kiriakis on the daytime soap opera, Days of Our Lives). Carmen recalled how when they first met, she was amazed by how he was much smarter than he looked. Whenever they watch Jeopardy, he’d know the answers to about 95% of the questions. One of the last original songs she sang, ‘When This is Over,’ was fittingly enough, near the end of the night.

Whether she’s performing classic hits or her own stuff, Carmen Cusack still gives such an electric onstage presence. She proves to be a real renaissance woman from acting in musicals to playing the guitar to writing original songs. Coming up soon in Theatre Raleigh’s concert series are Tony winner Ali Stroker on May 17th, Broadway alum Drew Gehling on June 28th, and two-time Tony nominee Eva Noblezada on September 6th.