By Marilyn Lester***Impresario Scott Siegel most often hits ’em out of the park, but this time the Universe pitched him a curve ball. The Omicron variant of the covid virus caused some of Siegel’s planned guest to drop out of the evening, but in true show-biz fashion, the show went on most gloriously, despite the casting setback. Produced, written, directed and hosted by Siegel, the 10th Anniversary of Feinstein’s/54 Below starred Tony Award® Nominees who have performed on the club’s stage. Willy Falk, Bill Hudson, Joe Iconis and Lee Roy Reams each stepped up to the plate, hitting home runs with splendid performances, singing the tunes they made famous in their Tony-nominated roles.
In the peculiar way Fate often acts, the show was charmingly more intimate in its revised form, with the stars reminiscing and telling great stories about their Broadway experiences. It was a taste of what’s to come as well. Siegel plans on these concerts monthly through 2022 (in addition to his already established series, such as Sings Frank Sinatra). With good fortune and a pandemic receding, there will be room for full-blown boffo concerts a la Siegel. Meanwhile, this evening’s performances were a real treat, a delightful bon bon of delicious talent that felt quite special.
First to take the stage was the versatile and gifted, Willy Falk, who was a Tony Award® Nominee for Miss Saigon in 1991. Falk opened with his signature song from that show “Why God,” Why.” For all the times Falk has sung that number, he seems to just get better at it and this rendition was no exception. His delivery was a master class in how to sing a tune that has Tony nomination written all over it. Likewise, in “Sun and Moon” from Miss Saigon, his vocal range and dynamics matched an interpretive authenticity, as he built an emotive arc from first note to last. Genial and with a great sense of humor, Falk also delighted with tales
of coming to New York as a young actor and conquering Broadway. One of those early conquests was the 1983 flop, Marilyn: An American Fable, which played a mere seventeen performances and 34 previews. But young Willy stood out, and he treated us to the song from that show that got audiences cheering him way back then, “You Are So Beyond.”
By the time Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat got to Broadway and Bill Hutton’s starring role as Joseph, the show had several incarnations. It was written in 1965, was first presented as a 15-minute “pop cantata” in London in 1968, and went through even more modifications until reaching the West End in 1973. A full version of Joseph was presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1974. So is it any wonder when Joseph was scheduled to hit the Rialto in 1982 that Hutton was a bit blasé about getting the role? As he explained, he was LA-based at the time. The producers brought him in, identifying him as an actor who sang like an angel. Well, they were right. Hutton offered two of the Joseph songs from the production, “Close Every Door” and “Any Dream Will Do” and his bright, gossamer tenor had lost no gravitas over the intervening years. Into both songs he injected the spirit of show with emotive power. Hutton is a living embl
em of why the musical ran for 747 performances on Broadway and is still a popular show for revival, regional and community theaters around the world.
Joe Iconis is nothing less than an experience. He’s a composer-songwriter and performer whose musical Be More Chill (with book writer Joe Tracz) had a rapid rise to Broadway. It was produced regionally in 2015, Off-Broadway in 2018 and on The Great White Way in 2019. Iconis became a Tony Award® Nominee for Be More Chill that year for Best Original Score. He also explained that he performs regularly as Joe Iconis and Family—a kind of mashup hootenanny with his performer friends and colleagues. And so it was with three stand-alone tunes that the high-ene
rgy Iconis, at the piano, charged the atmosphere with “(Run Away from You),” “The Song” and an unnamed Christmas number with the lyric “I committed a crime at Christmastime.” Iconis, writer of story songs, often with unusual titles, is witty and often downright funny in speech and lyric, perceiving his fans to be a group who both “tolerates and celebrates” him.
There may not be enough plaudits in the English language to describe “Mr. Show Business,” Lee Roy Reams, who was a Tony Award® Nominee in 1980 for 42nd St. That show was produced by the legendary David Merrick, in the waning days when it was still possible that a single person could mount an entire Broadway production. Reams opened with a snappy “Lullaby of Broadway” before reminiscing. A true song-and-dance man, he told how Merrick’s team had cast him in a role he knew he was wrong for, and it was the legendary director-choreographer, Gower Champion, who recast him in his dream role of Billy Lawlor. Equally as vocally agile with a ballad, “I Only Have Eyes for You,” as a razzmatazz number, Reams recounted his friendship with Ruby Keeler, the star of the 1933 Warners Brothers movie and source of the Broadway show. He also
emotively told of that all too famous and tragic opening night, when the ecstacy of success at the curtain call was dampened by Merrick suddenly appearing onstage to announce that Champion had died hours before. Ending on a cheerful note, and raising the energy in the room to joyful, thrilling heights, Reams’ once again showed “how it’s done” with a swinging rendition of the title song, “42nd St.”
Manning the piano throughout (except for the segment of the show featuring Joe Iconis), Ron Abel played with his dependably lush stylings as a singer’s pianist. Accompanist is too limiting a word for this maestro of the keys, who is also a multi-award winning composer, producer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor and musical director.
Photos by Maryann Lopinto
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