BWW Recap: All Singin,' All Dancin' at Town Hall

All of Scott Siegel's Town Hall events have some kind of theme--from a calendar year (the BBTY series) to the power of the unamplified voice (Broadway Unplugged) to the next generation of Broadway performers (Broadway's Rising Stars). All Singin' All Dancin', on the other hand, has no theme, except for songs that can be sung or danced to. That's it. And so Monday's concert at Town Hall was very much like an old-fashioned revue, with songs and dance ranging from torch songs to tap, and ballads to ballet.

Directed and choreographed by Jeffry Denman, and with musical direction by Ross Patterson (who, for the first time, led his band from offstage to give more room to the dancers), the evening was nicely balanced between song and dance. Cabaret chanteuse Karen Akers got quite a few solo spots, including a powerful rendition of "Be On Your Own" from Nine, which she introduced in the original production nearly 30 years ago. She also got to play with gender-switching, singing Guido's song "Only With You" from the same show to three different men. (It would have been much funnier--and a great reference to her role in Grand Hotel--if the last verse had been sung to a woman, but it was wonderful as is.)
Ron Raines, who allegedly had a cold or illness of some sort (it was hard to tell, really), sang the hell out of "I Won't Send Roses" from Mack & Mabel and "September Song" from Knickerbocker Holiday. Julia Murney, meanwhile, sang a delicious "I Never Do Anything Twice" and a searing medley of "The Man that Got Away" and "The Man I Love"--two sides of the same coin, as it were.

Still, while the songs were all lovely, it was the dancing that really got the heart pumping.  James Brown III danced a lovely solo ballet "Blackbird" featured in the review Dancin'. Lorin Latarro and Noah Racey found a brash way to reinterpret Andrew Lippa's "Life of the Party" from The Wild Party, with help from Patterson's driving rock arrangement of the song. The choreography didn't exactly fit the lyrics, but they made it work by pure force of energy and will. Murney got to show off her footwork skills with Denman in a very clever reinvention of "Ain't Misbehavin'" which cast the dancers as dolls and made the music sweet instead of sultry. (And how often do you hear the words "sweet" applied to "Ain't Misbehavin'"? Exactly. This is why these concerts are so damn awesome.)

Denman sang a lovely "Someone is Waiting" from Company, with five of the female dancers becoming each of the women mentioned in the song, forming a beautiful pas de six as they surrounded--and occasionally overwhelmed--Denman's Bobby. The men performed a very clever and very funny inversion of the "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago, offering the dead husbands' point of view. (John Kander officially approved the new lyrics, which we can only assume will be heard at piano bars around the city and country by the end of the year.) Denman and Racey also shone in a dance arrangement of "Necessity" from Finian's Rainbow, and I hereby request a "Necessity"-off between Denman & Racey and Terri White. It would be a very, very close call.

The evening ended with a fascinating reimagining of "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," that let the ballet stand on its own rather than as part of a larger story (that is to say, there was no plant in the audience threatening to shoot the main dancer at the end). The song retained some of the traditional moments--those 180-degree kicks were still there, but shared between the male and female main dancers--and had a genuine emotional arc that suited the alternately buoyant and plaintive music. The piece, once again, demonstrated why concerts like this are so vital, showing off not only the skill of Broadway's best singers and dancers, but proving the range of a dynamic young choreographer.