Saturday Night Fever Reunion Concert

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Saturday Night Fever Reunion Concert

54Below, NYC, August 31, 2015

Reviewed by Annamaria Alfieri for Cabaret Scenes

Saturday-Night-Fever-Reunion-Concert-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212This concert performance brought together some young performers and a few from the original cast of the Broadway musical taken from the iconic film. All the Bee Gees’ hit numbers from the movie soundtrack were included: “Stayin’ Alive,” “Boogie Shoes,” “If I Can’t Have You,” “Jive Talkin,” and “How Deep Is Your Love.” Some of these were graced with spectacular dance performances by Michelle Marmolejo and Nick Kenkel to Kenkel’s choreography.

The songs written for the original Broadway production and some of those very recently added carried real emotional heft. The young cast set the scene with interspersed dialogue. Shannon O’Boyle stood out, both in her acting and her singing, especially with “Stuck,” baring all the longing, nay desperation, of working class aspirations and paucity of hope so brilliantly communicated in the film. Not all the men looked the part—in fact, many of them looked more like candidates to play Father Frank than Tony, Bobby, or Gus. But Pat McRoberts brought Monty fully to life, with great dramatic skills, looking and sounding one hundred percent the denizen of Bay Ridge in “More Than a Woman.”

The original cast veterans—Paige Price (Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Beauty & The Beast), Paul Castree (9 to 5, Young Frankenstein, High Fidelity), James Carpinello (Rock of Ages, Xanadu), and Orfeh (Legally Blonde, Footloose)—all showed their well-honed stage skills, with Castree taking a genuine star turn, performing an original Broadway production number, “Tragedy.”

Annamaria Alfieri

Annamaria Alfieri is the author of four acclaimed historical mysteries, including the current Strange Gods, which takes place in British East Africa in 1911 and is described as Out of Africa meets Agatha Christie. Writing as Patricia King, she also is the author of five nonfiction books, including Never Work for a Jerk, that landed her on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She is a past president of Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, and Vice President of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. She is a life-long fan of the American Popular song.