Klea Blackhurst: One of the Girls—The Words and Music of Jerry Herman

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Klea Blackhurst

One of the Girls—The Words and Music of Jerry Herman

Chelsea Table + Stage, NYC, February 16, 2025

Reviewed by Jacqueline Parker

Klea Blackhurst
Photo: Christopher Boudewyns

To say Klea Blackhurst sang her heart out would be an understatement; she sang with every fiber of her being and then some. Rarely do singers put so much of themselves, physically and emotionally, into a performance. When that is done by a talent that comes along once in a lifetime (if you’re lucky), what’s left but to thank the gods for the experience.

Strutting up to the stage in a black sequined dress, appropriately slit to accommodate all her movements to come, she encouraged the audience to “Just Leave Everything to Me” and we did!  Thus began a trio of tunes from Hello, Dolly!  which she Klea-fied with her passion for the music and for Jerry Herman. She briefly explained how this boy from Jersey City became one of the most revered and beloved songwriters of our time and cited the challenge he received from David Merrick to write a few numbers for his new show based on Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. Herman met the challenge by writing “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and three other songs over a weekend, and the rest is now Broadway legend. It was impossible not to be infected with Blackhurst’s enthusiasm.

The show was peppered with stories about Herman, who befriended her toward the end of his life.  Blackhurst has always been attracted to his work, and she explained how he and Irving Berlin were similar. Both men wrote songs that seemed to be out there somewhere, just waiting to be fully delivered. They said more with less. She proved her point by juxtaposing Berlin’s “What’ll I Do” with Herman’s “Time Heals Everything”, which I had never heard done better.

Blackhurst is a bona fide “Girl of Jerry,” along with Angela Lansbury, Carol Channing, and a host of grand dames who brought Herman’s ladies to life on stage. New lyrics by Herman to “It’s Today” (Mame) named many of them; Blackhurst sang it with a reverence for the actresses mentioned and a tinge of marvel that she indeed was one of them.

One of the greatest anthems from a Broadway musical is “I Am What I Am” from La Cage aux Folles. Blackhurst summoned up every emotion expressed in that gem as she brought the applauding audience to its feet and some to tears.

Accompanying Blackhurst and seeming to be having a great time doing it were Michael Rice on the piano, Aaron Russell on drums, and Ray Kilday on bass. This show was a rare opportunity to get to know a composer/lyricist and a performer intimately, and it left us wanting more. Blackhurst will be performing at Chelsea Table + Stage every few weeks with a different show until November. Every show will likely be a gem, and many will highlight the life and work of a tunesmith whose work you will recognize. An exception is the final one in November—that’s all about Ethel Merman!

Jacqueline Parker

Like Ethel Merman, lifelong New Yorker Jacqueline Parker began her career as a stenographer. She spent more than two decades at the city's premier public agency, progressing through positions of increased responsibility after earning her BA in English from New York University (3.5 GPA/Dean’s List). She won national awards for her work in public relations and communication and had the privilege of working in the House of Commons for Stephen Ross, later Lord Ross of Newport. In the second half of her career, Jacqueline brought her innate organizational skills and creative talents to a variety of positions. While distinguishing herself in executive search, she also gave her talents to publishing, politics, writing, radio broadcasting and Delmonico's Restaurant. Most recently, she hosted Anything Goes! a radio show that paid homage to Cole Porter and by extension the world of Broadway musicals and the Great American Songbook. Other features of the show were New York living, classical music, books, restaurants, architecture and politics. This show highlighted the current Broadway scene, both in New York and around the country through performances and interviews with luminaries including Len Cariou, Charles Strouse, Laura Osnes, Steve Ross and Joan Copeland. Her pandemic project was immersion into the life, times and work of Alfred Hitchcock, about whom she has written a soon-to-be-published article. Jacqueline has been involved in a myriad of charitable causes, most notably the Walt Frazier Youth Foundation, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Sisters of Life, York Theatre, and the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. She is a proud Founder of Hidden Water. Her greatest accomplishment is the parenting of her son, a lawyer specializing in mediation. She has many pretend grandchildren, nieces and nephews, on whom she dotes shamelessly, as well as a large circle of friends to whom she is devoted. Her interests in addition to theater and cabaret are cooking, entertaining, reading, and spending time on Queen Mary 2.