Wendy Scherl: Town and Country

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Wendy Scherl

Town and Country
Laurie Beechman Theatre, NYC, November 20, 2019
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Wendy Scherl

The charming Wendy Scherl offered two views of her life—the New York native and the suburban transplant (though her songs were far more truly country-toned than upstate). What she offered to the audience is a strong soprano with a vibrato at the top reminiscent of Christine Ebersole and splendid enunciation. With a strong backup team of director Barry Kleinbort and music director Christopher Denny, plus bassist Steve Doyle and drummer Dan Gross, the singer covered all her bases.

Among the highlights of the evening were a personalized version of “The Lady Is a Tramp” that set up the theme of the evening, her deft handling of a flood of lyrics with David Yazbek’s “Lovesick,” and a clever mix of “Anything Goes” and “The Beat Goes On” to comment on dating in the current culture. Rusty Magee’s “New York Romance” was given a wonderful arrangement, while Carroll Coates’ “You’ll See” was given an effectively bittersweet treatment.

With the “country” section of the evening, Scherl had great fun with “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy?” (Garth Brooks/Mark D. Sanders) in which she added an adroit twang to her voice while Doyle made his bass sound like a fiddle. More humor came with Dan Kicks’ “I Don’t Want Love.” The vocalist also showed her affinity for the works of Marvin Hamlisch (with Carol Bayer Sager) in “I Still Believe in Love” and Burt Bacharach (Hal David) in “Whoever You Are, I Love You” And, of course, she had a clear connection with her director’s work (an emotional “The Kindest Man”).

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Bart Greenberg

Bart Greenberg first discovered cabaret a few weeks after arriving in New York City by seeing Julie Wilson and William Roy performing Stephen Sondheim and Cole Porter outdoors at Rockefeller Center. It was instant love for both Ms. Wilson and the art form. Some years later, he was given the opportunity to create his own series of cabaret shows while working at Tower Records. "Any Wednesday" was born, a weekly half-hour performance by a singer promoting a new CD release. Ann Hampton Callaway launched the series. When Tower shut down, Bart was lucky to move the program across the street to Barnes & Noble, where it thrived under the generous support of the company. The series received both The MAC Board of Directors Award and The Bistro Award. Some of the performers who took part in "Any Wednesday" include Barbara Fasano and Eric Comstock, Tony Desare, Andrea Marcovicci, Carole Bufford, the Karens, Akers, Mason and Oberlin, and Julie Wilson. Privately, Greenberg is happily married to writer/photographer Mark Wallis, who as a performance artist in his native England gathered a major following as "I Am Cereal Killer."