By Michael Portantiere***Actor-singer-Sirius XM radio host Christine Pedi brought the third edition of her scintillating series of shows titled The Wicked Stage: Songs About Show Business back to 54 Below—and while it 
wouldn’t be accurate to say “the third time was the charm,” as the first two were pretty great in their own right, certainly this new edition was filled with highlights and devoid of any low points or even mediocre filler.
Unfazed by the fact that two of the most popular and well-known performers who were set to appear in the show, Len Cariou and Richard Kind, had to bow out at the last moment due to scheduling conflicts, Pedi and musical director-pianist Michael Lavine presented a delightful evening of songs of various provenance, but all having to do, in some way, with “this business we call show.”
That quoted phrase is from “Welcome to the Theater” from Applause, expertly delivered as the Wicked Stage opener by Penny Fuller, who created the role of Eve Harrington in the 1970 Broadway production of that musical. Here she gave us a hint of how great she might have been as Margo Channing, if she had had the opportunity to play that part later in her career.
Following Fuller’s ovation-inducing opener, the evening offered one hit after another. Broadway veteran Faith Prince gave us a bit of “Broadway Baby” from Sondheim’s Follies as a lead-in to “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls, the latter a cherished memento of her Tony Award-winning performance in the 1992 revival of that classic. Next up was John Treacy Egan, who brought the rare combination of a character actor’s skill and a leading man-quality voice to a mi
ni-medley of “Shall We Dance?” from The King and I and the Murray Grand song “I’d Rather Cha-Cha Than Eat.”
Jak Malone, a newly-minted Tony winner for Operation Mincemeat, delivered such a bravura performance of “(When It) All Falls Down” from the musical Chaplin that I expect he gave many people in the audience the idea to seek out that short-lived show’s cast album. Pedi herself next took the stage for the gloriously tear-jerking Amanda McBroom, Gordon Hunt ballad “Errol Flynn,” followed by Lavine, still at the piano, romping through “The Broadway Song” from Pamela’s First Musical, notable for its bouncy Cy Coleman melody and even more so for David Zippel’s typically witty lyrics.
The latter part of the program showcased return performances by Egan (“The King of Old Broadway,” from The Producers), Prince (the obscure but wonderful Dave Frishberg song “Sweet Kentucky Ham”), Malone (“A Way Back to Then” from [title of show]), Pedi (the outrageously hilarious “My Simple Christmas Wish,” by David Friedman) and Fuller (a tour-de-force rendition of one of her own songs from Applause, “One Halloween”). 54 Below was absolutely packed for this show, and there can be little doubt that all of those in attendance considered their money and time extremely well spent.
Photos by Michael Portantiere
Key: top to bottom—Penny Fuller, Jak Malone, Faith Prince, John Treacy Egan
