Review: Telly Leung at Theatre Raleigh

Kicking off Theatre Raleigh’s 2024 concert series is Broadway star Telly Leung. For those unfamiliar, he has appeared in long-running hits such as Rent and Aladdin, revivals of Flower Drum Song, Pacific Overtures, and Godspell, as well as short-lived musicals such as Allegiance and In Transit. Not to mention that he also directed Theatre Raleigh’s 2022 production of David Henry Hwang’s play, Yellow Face. Right from the opening number where Telly lets “the good times roll,” the audience was in for quite a night. He offers up such a charismatic and enthusiastic stage presence from beginning to end.

Throughout the performance, Telly told several stories that were connected to the songs he sang. The first being that he’s no stranger to the Triangle area, having been worked around here several times. In the summer of 2004, he played Lun Tha in North Carolina Theatre’s production of The King & I starring Lou Diamond Phillips. From there, he sang a jazzy rendition of ‘Hello, Young Lovers,’ in the style of how Bobby Darin did it in his heyday. As Telly grew up in Brooklyn with Chinese immigrant parents, his dad learned English by listening to American songs of the 1960s and ‘70s. Not to mention that they were both not only fans of the 1970s television series Kojak, but he was named after the star of that show, Telly Savalas.

After Leung finished his SATs in high school, he went to the TKTS booth in Times Square on a Wednesday afternoon to get tickets to see Carol Channing on Broadway in a revival of Hello, Dolly!. As he made it to the theatre after it started to rain, he was starting to catch pneumonia. By the time the show reached its Act I finale, Telly started to have a fever dream of Channing telling him what he should do regarding college. Following such a spot on impersonation of the Broadway legend, he gave his own powerhouse rendition of ‘Before the Parade Passes By.’

Telly also recalled how when he was a student at Carnegie Mellon University, he starred in a production of Company that was directed by future Emmy, Grammy, and Tony winner Billy Porter. After bringing the house down with ‘Being Alive,’ he sang Stephen Sondheim’s famous tongue-twister of a song with ‘Getting Married Today,’ which he absolutely nailed. In celebration of his near-twenty year relationship with James Babcock, Telly sang a lively rendition of the song ‘Married’ from Cabaret. In highlighting his time as Wes (a recurring character) on the TV show Glee, he talked about how he didn’t realize what an impact it had on kids until he went to fan conventions. That part ended with him channeling Whitney Houston with his rendition of ‘I Am What I Am’ from La Cage aux Folles.

By the end of the night, Telly celebrated his love of performing by singing ‘Nowadays’ from Chicago because it feels like “heaven” to him. Just when everyone thought the show was over, he came back for an encore. This time, Telly acknowledged his two years playing the title character in Aladdin on Broadway. Not only that, but he also pointed out NCT’s current producing artistic director Eric Woodall, who was a casting director on that show, in the audience. So the performance ended with him singing ‘A Whole New World,’ the Oscar-winning hit from the 1992 Disney animated film, in multiple languages, which was very amusing. Overall, Telly Leung’s concert made for a fun night out. He and the audience both played off each other very well. I think this was a great start for Theatre Raleigh’s 2024 concert series. Coming up later this year are Broadway DJ Seth Rudetsky, two-time Tony nominee Eva Noblezada, and Tony winner Stephanie J. Block.