Liz Callaway

Pleasantdale Chateau, West Orange, NJ, May 5, 2022

Reviewed by Ron Forman

It was 10 pm, the crowd at the Pleasantdale Chateau for the New Jersey Theater Association Gala had finished their dinner and dessert and had listened to a lengthy period of speeches. I was concerned that when Liz Callaway was introduced there would be a mass exodus from the ballroom or, even worse, there would be a cacophony of voices engaged in conversation. My concerns disappeared as soon as Callaway began singing. The exodus and conversations stopped and all eyes and ears were focused on the stage.

Callaway, who began her career on Broadway, has emerged as one of today’s top cabaret performers and has the ability to instantly capture the attention of an audience. Her voice is a wonderful instrument with a beautiful sound and a great range, and it can be very powerful when necessary. Her cheery demeanor and great confidence on stage have made her a wonderful cabaret artist. She ably interspersed amusing and often laugh-out-loud anecdotes between her numbers. Her music director and pianist, Alex Rybeck, an integral part of the show, was always an addition to the evening and never a distraction from her vocals.

Callaway opened with a lively “Cockeyed Optimist” that put the crowd instantly into a cheery mood. She used her performance of “Broadway Baby” as an autobiographical vehicle, interspersing anecdotes about her life, beginning with her seeing Follies on Broadway as a nine-year-old and ending with her auditioning for a part in Merrily We Roll Along in front of Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince, the same team that created Follies. Recalling her appearance in Merrily We Roll Along, she performed a snippet of a song she performed in the two-week run of the show, and then performed a delightful medley of “Old Friend” and “Like It Was” from the score. Her super-fast performance of “Another Hundred Lyrics,” a parody of Sondheim’s “Another Hundred People,” drew much laughter. After telling how she provided the singing voice of Anastasia in the Disney film of the same name, she closed the show with “Journey to the Past” from the soundtrack of that film. Her encore had the audience singing along, happily, to Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”