Last evening, the phone rang around 8 PM. It was my pal Mark Evanier calling to say that he had an extra ticket for an Audra McDonald concert in Beverly Hills and wanted to know if I'd like to join him and a couple friends at 9:30. The evening was a different sort of thing -- half-singing and half sit-down chatting with Seth Rudetsky (who also accompanied her). I’m not a fan of his, I find him too snarky and self-absorbed, though he's an extremely good pianist. Happily, he was reasonably low-key for him, and since he's known McDonald for decades (he was one of her first accompanists, as far back -- if I understood what was said correctly -- as when she was still in college at Julliard), he therefore knew a lot of stories to throw at her unexpectedly, and even picked random songs for her to sing, several of which she hadn't done in so long that occasionally she'd have to turn to him to prompt a line. (One song was something she had done as a strange, very funny "encore" when in the fourth grade playing the Witch in Hansel & Gretel. I'd have preferred more singing, but the conversation was breezy and enjoyable. So it was all quite good. One quibble. It took us longer to get out of the theater than ideal, walking all the way up the aisle, because when Mark bought the tickets he unfortunately made the decision to get them in the second row. Okay, as far as quibbles go that doesn't register much... Yes, they were great seats. One of the songs she performed was an early cabaret number written by Jason Robert Brown, who subsequently went on to win two Tony Awards for Best Musical Score, for the shows Parade and Bridges of Madison County. This was a piece called "Stars and the Moon," and I thought it was wonderfully written and sung. Here's a video of her singing it elsewhere.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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