CCP: One Thrilling Combination: Michael Bennett & Marvin Hamlisch

Carla Gordon | December 4, 2015

Chicago Cabaret Professionals

One Thrilling Combination:
Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch

Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago, IL, September 28, 2015

Reviewed by Carla Gordon for Cabaret Scenes

As part of its Musical Mondays series, the Chicago Cabaret Professionals (CCP) presented One Thrilling Combination: Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch featuring songs associated with these talented gents. While Hamlisch, of course, was and now is a much-missed composer, Bennett was not. However as both director and choreographer, Bennett brought life to many stage musicals. With musical direction by Beckie Menzie and stage direction by Laura Freeman, the audience enjoyed a wide variety of show tunes and more.

Standouts included Tecora Rogers’ powerful “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” (Dreamgirls; directed and co-choreographed by Michael Bennett). Freeman, Menzie and Marianne Murphy Orland, who perform together often as Girls Like Us, offered a beautifully harmonized pairing of “Dreamgirls” and “At the Ballet” (A Chorus Line; Hamlisch/Ed Kleban). It is the custom of CCP to invite a student with aspirations in musical theater or cabaret to join its Musical Mondays casts. Keep your eye on young Ariana Burks. This young lady may be in middle school, but she brought big girl vocal and interpretive skills in “Listen,” from the film version of Dreamgirls, and dazzled in the second act with “Disneyland” (Smile).

The pop genre wasn’t ignored as Natalie Myre belted out, with aplomb, Hamlicsh and Carol Bayer Sager’s “Nobody Does It Better. Myre also found both the wit and the self-effacing truth in the lyric of “Nobody Does It Like Me” from Seesaw (choreographed by Bennett). Rob Lindley brought thrum and heart to “At the Fountain,” Hamlisch’s high-hopes musical soliloquy from The Sweet Smell of Success (lyrics: Craig Carnelia). Charlene Brooks was snarky and fun in Sondheim’s “The Little Things You Do Together” from Company, which Bennett choreographed.

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