Laura Osnes
Repertoire Roulette
Birdland Theater, NYC, March 27, 2019
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg for Cabaret Scenes
A diva who admits she normally prefers to plan everything (“I write out my patter”) plunged into the deep end of the pool and rose up like Esther Williams, complete with sparklers. Laura Osnes (or her husband) came up with the audacious idea of selecting 65 songs from her repertoire of mostly musical-theater songs and tossing their titles into two top hats—one for ballads, one for up tunes—and allowing audience members to pluck out the slips of papers and setting the song list for the show.
The format allowed Osnes to demonstrate not only a wide range of styles with songwriters ranging from Cole Porter to Jason Robert Brown but also an astonishing ability to shift characters at a moment’s notice. She was asked to sing “What’s the Use of Wonderin’?
,” and within a few bars Julie Jordan was on stage. In another chosen song it was the innocent but not naive Eileen Sherwood who offered up “A Little Bit in Love.” Nor were all her characters sweet: “How About a Dance” brought back the sultry Bonnie Parker she created on Broadway.
The evening also permitted the songstress to interact with the audience much more than a standard program might have, and she made the most charming of interviewers.
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Guests from Chicago; New Jersey; and Dublin, Ireland, confirmed that she is known far outside of the 10 blocks that make up Broadway.
Osnes topped the fun with a variety of backstage stories from her disappointment at the failure of Bonnie and Clyde after a three-year investment to the thrill of four auditions leading to her being cast as Nellie Forbush, as well as a hysterical tale of a Peter Pan performance that went very wrong.
Throughout, Osnes received the strong support of music director and compadre Fred Lassen, who added some behind-the-scenes tales of his own dealing with the live broadcast of The Sound of Music. He also chose the final two songs of the evening, a heart breaking “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” and a delightful medley of selections from different versions of the Cinderella story, which allowed her to enchant one last time as she ranged from Disney to Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim, demonstrating different aspects of the same character.
