Christopher Collette: Life of the Party?

Post author:Bart Greenberg
Post published:December 17, 2024
Reading time:2 mins read

Christopher Collette

Life of the Party?

Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, December 5, 2024

Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Christopher Collette entered Don’t Tell Mama wearing a beautiful dark blue suit and lightly holding a martini glass in one hand. He happily announced, “I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight” (Cole Porter, with clever updated additional lyrics by Collette). This suggested we were in for an evening of sophisticated and slightly campy fun. Some of the program definitely was just that, but it also skittered off into other unexpected, and not always effective, directions. Collette and director Michael Kirk Lane seemed eager to emphasize the singer’s versatility by, taking him outside his comfort zone with mixed results.

Collette told a rather bitter story of the breakup of a 20-year relationship, in which both parties evidently shared a good deal of the blame. That put the audience at a certain distance ,and it wasn’t particularly inviting in this most intimate of art forms. He found some humor in Fred Barton’s “Pour Me a Man” and Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me” as he acknowledged his roving eye, and Craig Carnelia’s “You Can Have the TV” contained only the anger of the song, not the sadness. He brought a nice country/western flair to “Out Here on My Own” (Michael & Lesley Gore), but several numbers that verged on a rock beat just didn’t jibe with his delivery and appearance.Throughout, Collette received strong support from music director/pianist Michael Raab and guitarist Ted Stafford. The second of the Porter tunes gave Raab the chance to demonstrate his dazzling piano skills. The show ended on a happy note with the swinging “I Love Being Here with You” (Peggy Lee/Bill Schluger). It incorporated clever additional lyrics that allowed Collette to give out his thanks to the people involved in the production. That was followed by the warmth of “Circle of Friends” (Carol Hall). It was a shame that more of the show didn’t contain the same values.

Tags: Musicals, Christopher Collette, Cabaret Reviews, Cole Porter, Bart Greenberg, Lyricist, Michael & Lesley Gore, CD Reviews, Great American Songbook, I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight, Guitarist, Michael Raab, I Love Being Here with You, Broadway, Out Here on My Own, NYC, Circle of Friends, Michael Kirk Lane, Cabaret, Pour Me a Man, Pianist, Fred Barton, Broadway Musicals, songwriter, Craig Carnelia, American Songbook Association, Vocalists, Clubs, Carol Hall, ASA, CD, composer, Peggy Lee, Don’t Tell Mama, Singer, Cabaret Scenes, It’s All Right with Me, American Songbook, You Can Have the TV, Director, Life of the Party, Nightclubs, Music Director, Ted Stafford, Bill Schluger

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."