On his toes

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Who: Lara Teeter
What: Lucky To Be Me
When: April 25 and 26, 2014
Where: The Gaslight Cabaret Festival at the Gaslight Theatre

Gotta sing! Gotta dance! Gotta be a cabaret star! The Presenters Dolan closed out the Gaslight Cabaret Festival with Lara Teeter tripping the light fantastic in his cabaret debut "Lucky To Be Me." 

The show was high-energy entertainment from a veteran of the musical theatre stage both in the Big Apple and here in St. Louis, where Mr. Teeter has been a fixture at The Muny, our big outdoor venue, for over two decades as well as head of the musical theatre program at the Webster Conservatory for Theatre Arts since 2007.

As you might expect from someone with Mr. Teeter's credentials, his show relied heavily on classic songs from musical theatre and films.  He set the tone for the ensuing hour or so early on by using "Please Don't Monkey with Broadway" (from the film "Broadway Melody of 1940," where it was sung and danced by Fred Astaire and George Murphy) to comment on how the Great White Way had changed during his life from "a pornographic mess" in the late 1970s to the massive corporate billboard of today.  What followed was a high-level overview of his life and career, liberally illustrated with hits (and a few rarities) from the Great American Songbook.

Lara Teeter in the revival of
On Your Toes

So, for example, the title song from Rodgers and Hart's "On Your Toes" was used to reminisce about his Tony-nominated performance in the 1982 revival of that show, while "Once Upon a Time" (from Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's "All American," where it was sung by one of Mr. Teeter's heroes, Ray Bolger) became a reflection on how marriage and a family led to an unexpected career change.  "Life happens," he observed, and then went on to reflect on the joys of marriage and parenthood with "I Married an Angel" (another Rodgers and Hart title song) and Maury Yeston's lovely "New Words."

Throughout it all, Mr. Teeter matched his charming stage persona with the physical grace that comes from his years as a song and dance man.  A bit where he paid homage to the dancers that influenced him—Dick Van Dyke, Ray Bolger, Gene Kelly, and others—with quick impressions of their characteristic moves, was typical of the way in which he worked his dance background into the warp and woof of the show without coming across as a simple showoff.

Music director and pianist Greg Schweizer provided arrangements that supported Mr. Teeter well, although some of them seemed to push his voice higher than was entirely comfortable for him.  They had great stage chemistry, as was apparent when they turned a fluffed lyric in "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" (which, to be fair, has an apparently bottomless well of words) into an opportunity for some good-natured byplay.  Director Tim Schall's influence was apparent in the show's sound structure and well–thought out blocking.

Mr. Teeter is taking "Lucky to Be Me" to New York City's 54 Below in July, by which time you can expect any minor hiccups to be gone.  I'd be surprised if it wasn't extremely well received in the city Mr. Teeter used to call home.  It certainly was in the city that he calls home now, where it put the cap on a highly successful inaugural spring season of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival.  The festival continues in the fall; see gaslightcabaretfestival.com for more information as it becomes available.