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Event
Rhyme, Women & Song
KT Sullivan was named artistic director of The Mabel Mercer Foundation in 2012, starred in the Broadway revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and headlined for almost two decades in The Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel. On February 11th, 2017, Ms. Sullivan brings her acclaimed show, "Rhyme, Women and Song" to the Hilton Waikoloa Village's new Kona Tap Room, as a benefit for VASH Hawaii Island. Accompanied by pianist, Jon Weber, KT brings the Big Apple to the Big Island. Ticket price includes delicious pupus, free self-parking, a silent auction, and a no host bar. A special rate of $10 for valet parking. The following is a review by Stephen Holden of the New York Times. Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to see one of the best New York Cabaret singers perform on Hawaii Island!
WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS, BALLADS AND EMOTIONS
By Stephen Holden
New York Times
One of the pleasures of cabaret reviewing over the long haul has been to observe the evolution of KT Sullivan from an effervescent musical comedian into the increasingly fearless and complex singing character actor she is today. Her new show, which opened at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel last week, is called Rhyme, Women and Song, but it might just as well be titled The Seven Ages of Woman, for all the musical and emotional territory she covers.
This is not to say that Ms. Sullivan has sacrificed the charm of her original comic persona a voluptuous, eye-batting Lorelei Lee type to plunge into doom and gloom. Not at all. It is to say that beneath the glittery icing, as Luther Vandross once said of Diana Ross, lies a serious cake.
All the songs in Rhyme, Women and Song are written in whole or in part by women. Dorothy Fields, Carolyn Leigh, Kay Swift, Betty Comden, Dorothy Parker, Marilyn Bergman and Joni Mitchell are some of them. Accompanying Ms. Sullivan at the Oak Room are two (unrelated) musicians with almost identical names: Jon Weber, on piano, and John Webber, on bass, who give several numbers a solid jazz kick.
The changes in style and mood from song to song are so quick that at times Rhyme, Women and Song suggests a sequence of lightning-fast blackout sketches. But there is a rough through line under it all. Early in the show a medley of Dont Let a Good Thing Get Away, The Best Is Yet to Come, On the Sunny Side of the Street and The Other Side of the Tracks becomes a suite about a womans determined upward mobility in which Ms. Sullivan doesnt disguise the connections between romantic aspiration and material calculation.
She puts her stamp on a jazzy arrangement of Ms. Mitchells Case of You, by giving the words still be on my feet a defiant emphasis. Two little-known ballads, How Am I to Know? (lyrics by Parker, music by Jack King) and Hell Make Me Believe That Hes Mine (music by Paul Horner, lyrics by Peggy Lee, from the 1983 musical Peg), are exquisitely crooned. Where once Ms. Sullivan might have raised an eyebrow while singing these ballads of abject surrender, she ventures all the way inside their treacherous dream worlds.
For Please Dont Send Me Down a Baby Brother she adopts the voice of a stubborn, willful little child, and for I Can Cook Too she becomes a tough, swaggering go-getter. She locates the desperation inside the housewife subsisting on tabloid fantasies in Amanda McBrooms Dreaming. In the end Ms. Sullivans natural ebullience and perfect comic timing transport you to a blissful plateau.
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LocationHilton Waikoloa Village (View)
69-425 Waikoloa Beach Dr.
Waikoloa, HI 96738
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 16 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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