Shana Bousard & Brian Runbeck
Tis the Season
ASU Kerr, Scottsdale, AZ, December 20, 2025
Reviewed by Lynn Timmons Edwards
This is the fifth holiday cabaret show I have seen and reviewed, which I would not believe were it not for proof on the Cabaret Scenes website. Shana Bousard and Brian Runbeck are simply delightful, and one cannot help going back year after year to their holiday celebration with its harmonious and cleverly arranged songs and their joyful spirit. They are consummate professionals; rehearsed but still improvisational. They have fun with each other and bring the audience along for the sleigh ride. At the heart of their magic is singer/songwriter/pianist Joe Bousard. Still young at heart deep into his eighth decade, he and drummer Scott Hay supported every song, which made the singing look easy.
The company’s holiday repertoire is deep and many of the songs came from previous shows, but there is always a new cookie or two on the plate. The opening, a parody of Cole Porter’s “It’s Too Darn Hot” was perfect. Well, maybe you have to live in Phoenix, Arizona to appreciate it, but our temperature high was seventy-nine degrees the day of their show. Act I included songs various segments: “Childhood Imagination and Dreams,” “Childhood Toys,” and “TV Specials.” A highlight was a song that I did not remember hearing before—“Heat Miser and Snow Miser”—with music by Johnny Marks and lyrics by William Keenan for the 1974 film The Year Without Santa Claus. It was fun and pitted Bousard and Runbeck as weather rivals. Runbeck reprised his brilliant rendition of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (Albert Hague/Theodor Geisel aka “Dr. Seuss” from How the Grinch Stole Christmas).
The cabaret included a medley of five original songs by Joe Bousard. He soloed on “The Work of Christmas” and “Christmas Lullaby” and joined with his daughter on “The Beginning of Magic” and “Moment of Love.” The guys had fun together on “It Isn’t Necessarily Christmas.” I asked Joe how it was possible that his clear resonant baritone sounded the same as when I met him nearly twenty years ago. He smiled and said, “bel canto, bel canto.” Runbeck’s rich bass baritone and Bousard’s soaring Broadway soprano were also in perfect synch. They knew just when to speaksing and when to let the notes rip; their harmony gets better every year.
The Bousards and Runbeck do not mind sharing their concerns for the world around us when they perform. They closed Act I with a powerful rendition of “If I Can Dream.” Walter Earl Brown wrote it as a message of hope following the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968 for Elvis Presley’s NBC comeback special which aired in December as a Christmas show. Their performance gave me chills.
Act II was full of favorites from the performer’s previous shows. It just isn’t a Christmas show without “Sugar and Booze” (Ana Gasteyer/Nicholas Williams). The duo is known for their spot-on performances of Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby. (See my review Shana Bousard and Brian Runbeck : Fancy Meeting You Here: A Celebration of Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney – Cabaret Scenes). This year they paid homage with a medley of six songs from the film White Christmas, before they closed the show with their gender-bender version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” (Frank Loesser/Jethro Burns/Henry Haynes). They gave us several encores, all ballads that reflected the solemn, traditional side of Christmas. These were presented in a medley of “Mary’s Boy” (Jester Hairston) and “Mary Did You Know” (Buddy Greene/Mark Lowry). Bousard senior left us with “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” (Meredith Willson), and the audience sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (Hugh Martin) and “Silent Night” (Franz Xaver Gruber/Joseph Mohr).
