Word: orchestra
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...whirlwind schedule of each production (first rehearsal to closing night in two weeks flat). I'm won over by the subtle elegance of its productions, with scenic consultant John Lee Beatty merely suggesting the settings in front of the stage-wide bandstand that holds Rob Fisher's Coffee Club Orchestra. I'm awed by the scholarly passion for detail Fisher, Encores!' musical director, brings to the restoring of each score...
...stage is Fisher, who at 51 still has the brisk, charming air of every coed's favorite professor. He gets the first applause, as he strides to the podium to lead the musicians in the show's overture, and the last cheers after the performers' curtain calls, as the orchestra plays a few final airs - the capper to a beautiful evening. Fisher is the one who has worked with the arrangers to locate the score (or to reimagine what it might have been), who has rehearsed his two dozen superb musicians (a larger number than in the pit of most...
...angel lost in hell, turning a 2684-seat theater into a confessional when she performs "The Man I Love" from "Strike Up the Band"... Ruthie Henshell, beautifully torching the ballad "Words Without Music" from "Ziegfeld Follies of 1936"... The second-act overture to "Babes in Arms," when the orchestra began playing "Where or When" and the audience joined in, dreamily humming along and swaying in unison... The chorale rendition of "Stout-Hearted Men" from "New Moon," which had the crowd stomping and singing along... Another male chorale, "Some Girl Is on His Mind" from "Sweet Adeline" - a rendition so pure...
...show is smartly expanded for the Hirschfeld Theatre without losing its original Encores! feel. Beatty's spare but suggestive sets fly up and down cast in front of the on-stage orchestra (at 24 members, the largest on Broadway). Westfeldt has the requisite innocent allure, and Gregg Edelman, as Ruth's eventual beau, is a cutie with oodles of charm. From the rich supporting cast, I choose Ken Barnett (who plays a tour guide, a magazine staffer, a cop and several other roles) as my star of the future; he's got lots of character personality and the ingratiating comic...
When Zakrzewski thinks back to that first performance with the Sault Symphony Orchestra in Canada, she remembers the innate pull she felt towards playing piano in front of a crowd...