By Michael Portantiere***Maybe the best news about Sean McDermott: The Best of Me!, recently seen at 54 Below, is that the star’s voice is in phenomenal shape. One might say he sounds amazing for his age, but more 
accurate phrasing is that he sounds amazing for any age; McDermott’s present vocal prowess would be thrilling even if he were still as young as he was when he burst upon the scene lo so many years ago.
He made his Broadway debut in the late 1980s, cast in the ensemble and as an understudy in Starlight Express. He then had a brief but impressive string of successes as a replacement in the plum roles of Chris in Miss Saigon, Whizzer in Falsettos and Danny Zuko in the ’90s revival of Grease. At 54 Below, McDermott’s tenor sounded, if anything, even richer and more powerful than when I was lucky enough to have seen and heard him live in those shows. He’s a very persuasive interpreter of lyrics, his sense of dynamics is unerring, and his remarkable ability to handle vocal crescendi and diminuendi so skillfully is quite something to hear.
The program opened with a bit of “The Best of Me,” a sweet song written 
expressly for McDermott, leading into “Once in a Lifetime” from Stop the World…I Want to Get Off (Bricusse, Newley). When he sang a fuller version of “The Best of Me” later in the evening, McDermott revealed that it was tailor-made for him by his partner, Gip Clark, who seems to be quite talented in that area.
Great songs of various provenance were heard as the evening progressed: “The Best Is Yet to Come” (Coleman, Fields) was followed by “Sway,” aka “¿Quién será? “(Ruiz and Demetrio, here sung in the English language version with lyrics by Norman Gimbel), followed by a neat melding of “Lullaby of Broadway” (Warren, Dubin) and “On Broadway” (Mann, Weil) fashioned primarily along the lines of the classic Leiber & Stoller arrangement of the latter.
The next four items offered were all from musicals, but each distinctive in style: “Loving You” from Passion (Sondheim), “Sometimes a Day Goes By” from Woman of the Year (Kander, Ebb), “What More Can I Say?” from Falsettos (Finn), and “Why, God, Why?” from Miss Saigon (Boublil, Schönberg). The Falsettos number was a special delight to hear in McDermott’s voice, since, 
as he told the audience, he did not get to sing that tender ballad in the show but, rather, had it sung to him by Mandy Patinkin while lying in his arms in bed for performance after performance.
A highlight of the act’s home stretch was a fantastic arrangement by Mark Chait and Ivan Koutikov of “Danny Boy” (originally the traditional “Londonderry Air,” transformed in 1913 when Frederic Weatherly set lyrics to it), in a style that sounded like a bossa nova beat. (That may seem odd, but it worked, at least on a musical level.) Then came the one misstep in the entire show: an interpretation of “Being Alive” from Company (Sondheim) that struck this reviewer as smarmy and self-possessed, rather than open-hearted and vulnerable as the composer-lyricist surely intended. Far more appropriate and successful were McDermott’s takes on “This Is the Moment” from Jekyll & Hyde (Wildhorn, Bricusse) and “Defying Gravity” from Wicked (Schwartz), cleverly presented as yet another melding.
A heartfelt encore, “In My Life” (Lennon, McCartney) capped the evening very well both musically and thematically. Throughout the show, McDermott was expertly supported by musical director-pianist Ron Abel, guitarist Sean Harkness, drummer Ray Marchica and bassist Tom Hubbard.
