Lauren Alexis Arnold: That’s Life

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Lauren Alexis Arnold

That’s Life

Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, April 7, 2023

Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Lauren Alexis Arnold

Lauren Alexis Arnold made her cabaret debut at NYC’s Don’t Tell Mama surrounded by family and friends. She has a very good voice and a strong belt with a wide range that, late in the show, became a lovely soprano. She has a lot of personality and a good sense of humor. What she didn’t have was a director to guide her and help her choose appropriate material to match her youth and her story. And oh, did she need a director. She did have a good music director in Seth Biden-Hersh, but this wasn’t his show to guide.

The problems started with the first song, “That’s Life.
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” No one under 40 has the life experience to put these lyrics across and it was a major miscalculation. She proceeded to tell the story of her life from grade school on, with a major emphasis on her love for theater and performance. Curiously, it wasn’t until halfway through the show that she performed a number from a musical. For instance, a delightful story about her discovery of the joy of performance after playing Ursula in The Little Mermaid was followed, not by a number from the show, but by “I Feel the Earth Move.” She delivered it well, but it began to seems as though her song list and her patter were from two different programs.

For variety, she did have friend Sarah Taylor join her for two duets (one with Taylor on guitar). “Close to Fine” (Emily Saliers) and “Landslide” (Stevie Nicks). It proved that talented people tend to group together, but this moment didn’t really tie in with the story of the show.
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When she finally did get to songs from the theater, she performed a heartfelt “The Hill” from Once, the Musical, on which she accompanied herself and showed that she was also an adept pianist. Where she really soared was on a medley of Sondheim songs: “No One Is Alone,” “Being Alive,” and “Finishing the Hat.” In addition to providing a vehicle for her until-then hidden shimmering soprano, these songs made for a fiercely intelligent and dramatic blend and demonstrated her powerful acting and vocal abilities. If only there had been more of this in her show; a director might have told her that.

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 & Nobel, 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."