Christina Bianco: Party of One

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Christina Bianco

Party of One

Birdland, NYC, September 21, 2015

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes

Christina-Bianco-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212Christina Bianco—actress, singer and pint-sized powerhouse of a thousand voices—hosted a Party of One, performing two 75-minute solo shows in two days at Birdland. If she broke a sweat, we could not see it. To call her multi-talented is an understatement; Bianco is a live wire, millennium-style pop/rock entertainer wrapped in chiffon and sparkling stilettos.

Party of One has one hostess who does not have to send out invitations to any big-name guests. She can just check her inner celebrity guest list and there they are — Ariana Grande, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Adele, Celine Dion and, of course, Barbra — just to name a few. Singers impress her and she has the ability to ferret out the unique mannerisms that make the sounds of Bernadette Peters and Cher immediately recognizable. Although she also delivered a Marlene Dietrich snippet of Friedrich Hollaender/Sammy Lerner’s “Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It)” and Edith Piaf with “Non, je ne regrette rien,” (Charles Dumont/Michel Vaucaire), it was a rock beat that drove most of the show.

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Refining her impressions to make them fresh, she came up with some hilarious surprises, like Julie Andrews singing “Bang Bang” (Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj). Particularly notable was her sober rendition of Barbra Streisand sharing passages from her book, My Passion for Design, with bits of Drew Barrymore and Keira Knightly included. Now who does that?

In her two-night visit to Birdland, she formed her show into a musical journey with songs that define her. Beginning in her early days in Rockland County, she had her eye on show business and began to maneuver her way through music and theater. It was her mother (seated with her father in the Birdland audience) who helped the young, ambitious Christina find the right audition song. They decided on Stephen Sondheim’s “Anyone Can Whistle.” It worked and she was hired by Nickelodeon company to play Dora the Explorer.  Bianco still uses the song for auditions.

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Years later, she discovered jazz when she began NYU and presented “What Is This Thing Called Love?” (Cole Porter), in an up-tempo jazz rhythm driven by Musical Director/pianist Joshua Stephen Kartes. She also raced through a dizzying Annie Ross/Wardell Gray vocalese classic, “Twisted.”

Bianco is a popular personality on YouTube, garnering over 21 million hits around the world with her impressions. She recently performed Forbidden Broadway in the West End and off-Broadway starred in Application Pending, for which she received her second Drama Desk Award nomination. She can currently be seen as Bianca on the sitcom Impress Me on POP TV.

Undeniably, Christina Bianco can throw a party and if you’re up for pure fun, get yourself there. She created Party of One with musical arrangements by Joe Louis Robinson.

Elizabeth Ahlfors

Born and raised in New York, Elizabeth graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism. She has lived in various cities and countries and now is back in NYC. She has written magazine articles and published three books: A Housewife’s Guide to Women’s Liberation, Twelve American Women, and Heroines of ’76 (for children). A great love was always music and theater—in the audience, not performing. A Philadelphia correspondent for Theatre.com and InTheatre Magazine, she has reviewed theater and cabaret for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City News. She writes for Cabaret Scenes and other cabaret/theater sites. She is a judge for Nightlife Awards and a voting member of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.