Beautiful Dreamer

[This is my review of Jennifer Sheehan's appearance at The Cabaret at Savor for KDHX-FM in St. Louis]

The first time I saw Jennifer Sheehan on stage was almost exactly five years ago, when the then-teenager performed a short set at the end of an appearance by her mentor, legendary cabaret artist Andrea Marcovicci. At the time I commented publicly on her "winning renditions" of "The Way You Look Tonight" and "I Have Dreamed" and wondered privately whether or not I wasn't seeing a future cabaret star in the making.

Having seen her new solo show, This is What I Dreamed, at Savor this weekend [September 27 – 30, 2007] I need wonder no longer. Ms. Sheehan is clearly on track to be a major new player in the world of musical theatre in general and cabaret in particular. All the elements of a first-class cabaret act are there: an honest, unpretentious stage presence (and the resulting quick communication with the audience), a flexible, Julliard-trained voice, a smart choice of repertoire and a musical director – James Followell – who knows how to support and enhance a singer’s performance. It’s easy to see why she has already won awards from the Mabel Mercer Foundation and Glenn Miller Festival and is well on her way to making a name for herself in New York. The kid’s got talent, and she’s going to go far.

The first two-thirds of the Savor show was mostly a collection of favorites from the American Songbook, including a two numbers from Ms. Sheehan’s first theatrical love, West Side Story, and quick medley of Cole Porter songs that she first sang publicly at the age of nine when, by her own admission, she had no idea what lyrics like “I get no kick from Champagne” might actually mean. There was also a heartfelt performance of the Irving Kahal/Sammy Fain World War II classic “I’ll Be Seeing You”. Ms. Sheehan introduced the song by recalling her performance of it for Alzheimer’s patients, thereby giving the lyrics a contemporary poignancy and reminding us that it’s not just shooting wars that can cause us to lose loved ones.

It was, in short, a fairly conventional mix of material, but even here there were surprises, such as Sondheim’s rarely heard “I Remember Sky” (from the 1966 TV special Evening Primrose, where it was originally sung by Charmain Carr) and a very funny Leo Robin/Richard Whiting number -"I Wanna Go Places and Do Things" (from the 1929 film Close Harmony).

More surprises awaited us. Ms. Sheehan spent the last third of the program on songs by contemporary musical theatre composers, including Jason Robert Brown, John Bucchino, and Susan Werner. Memorable moments from this segment included Brown’s “Climbing Uphill” (a song from The Last Five Years about an audition from hell that drew laughs of recognition from the theatre folk in the audience - including yours truly), Werner’s “I Can’t Be New” (from her breakout 2004 album of the same name) and Bucchino’s lovely “Temporary”. This last one deals beautifully with the transitory nature of life and reminds us that the phrase “this too shall pass” applies to both the bitter and the sweet.

Ms. Sheehan’s performances clearly demonstrated that she can be comic, lyrical or sentimental as needed and with convincing sincerity and musical virtuosity. There were, perhaps, a few minor aspects of the show that could use a bit of tweaking. It’s probably not, for example, necessary to explain what “the American Songbook” means to most cabaret audiences and the (very) occasional stock theatrical gesture struck a false note, but these are the kinds of things that fall under the heading of what’s called “polishing” in the theatre – minor alterations to an already solid performance. Their relative unimportance is the reason for relegating them to this penultimate paragraph.

This is What I Dreamed will apparently be Jennifer Sheehan’s last St. Louis appearance for a while. By the time you read this, she’ll already be back in New York preparing for upcoming appearances at The Radio City Music Hall 75th Anniversary Christmas Spectacular and The Mabel Mercer Foundation's 2007 New York Cabaret Convention. Our loss is The Big Apple’s gain. For more information, visit her web site, jennifersheehan.com . For more information on upcoming shows in Jim Dolan’s Cabaret at Savor series (still to come: Marilyn Maye and Anne Kerry Ford), see cabaretatsavor.com .