Setting Her O'Hara on Fire

This is an absolute must-listen, but I’m going to send you over to Mark Evanier’s website, since he posted the video there yesterday.  First though, a bit of background here to put it all in perspective.
 
Though there's nothing Broadway about it, this is a song performed by Broadway star Kelli O’Hara, who has six Tony nominations for starring in such shows as South Pacific, Pajama Game and The Bridges of Madison County, as well as co-starring in The Light in the Piazza – and then winning for the recent revival of The King and I.  She's also gotten an Emmy nomination, been in some films and even performed at the Metropolitan Opera.

I really like Kelli O’Hara a lot.  Though I’ve never though comedy was her strength, or rough edges, but rather very structured and meticulous.  Indeed, she has quipped about being the longest-running ingenue on Broadway.  Those were simply the roles she got -- and to a certain degree still gets them.  Some of the reason may be that she played them so well (note the Tony nominations).  And also because that's simply how she always looked, like The Ingenue.  Some may be because of personality -- I've heard tales of her non-diva kindnesses and thoughtfulness.  But whatever the reasons, those in general have been her roles:  sweet, low-key, fresh-faced, innocent.
 
This video shows the range of her skills otherwise.  Including her slightly-less than G-rated side.  She performed it at "From Broadway with Love: A Benefit Concert for Orlando" at the Disney Theatre in July of 2016.
 
She’s so tremendous doing this that it’s easy to think it was a specialty number written for her somewhat inspired by her life.  I suspect she has such a fun time with it because parts do overlap with her life (though not from Georgia, she's from Oklahoma -- and, in fact, had the same music teacher there as Kristen Chenoweth), but as the storyline unravels it should be clear that it’s NOT autobiographical.
 
The hilarious words fly by, so if you want to follow-along while she sings you can find the lyrics here.  But half the fun is watching her dive into it without a net, so it’s probably best to check the words after, if you miss anything.
 
Actually, not just the words, but the whole performance flies by.  It starts at level 7 and goes up from there, for almost eight barreling minutes.  And seems to be having the time of her life not just singing but performing the bejeepers out of it.  It's a tour-de-force joy.
 
For the record, to give full credit, the song is written by her pianist, Dan Lipton.  So, her life might somewhat have given him a prompting to twist things a bit and write it.  Or not.  I assume that’s him on the video, but don’t know.

Anyway, this is the link to the video on Mark's site.  Know that when it starts to play, you can click "full-screen" icon at the bottom of the video.

As she says -- Hit it, boys...