ANDREA MARCOVICCI Celebrates The TORCH SONG at the Oak Room 11/16

For her record-breaking twenty-fourth year at the famed Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, the Queen of Cabaret, Andrea Marcovicci, returns to her first love - the torch song! "Blue Champagne: The History of the Torch Song" debuts in New York November 16 and runs through December 30 with Shelly Markham on piano and Jered Egan on bass. To honor the occasion, the Algonquin has created the "Blue Champagne Cocktail," its newest signature drink. For the first time in Algonquin history, in addition to its regular show schedule, the Oak Room will host two weekday matinees for "Blue Champagne: The History of the Torch Song," a Monday evening, plus a unique New Year's celebration dubbed "New Year's Eve Eve" on closing night, Thursday, December 30.

"Blue Champagne: The History of the Torch Song" not only revels in the heartbreak inherent in this most vulnerable genre of music, but the show is carefully balanced with zany numbers in the quest for a little comic relief from unrequited love songs, as well as wonderful stories of the earliest ladies of torch - Helen Morgan, Ruth Etting, and Libby Holman, among others. With her latest show, Andrea brings her unique insight to this tale of longing, losing, and gunplay! Highlights: Someone to Watch Over Me, Love Me or Leave Me, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Body and Soul, Just Like a Man, and Shakin' the Blues Away.

Dubbed a "heartbreaker" by People Magazine, while the San Francisco Chronicle was "seduced by a temptress," The New York Times stated, "she has a masterly balance between poignancy and wit." Andrea Marcovicci knows her way around the torch song. The New Orleans Times-Picayune said, "she sings so beautifully that you find tears stinging your eyes."

While still a teenager, unbeknownst to the burgeoning folk singer, Andrea was drawn to the sultry angst found in songs like Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, that her mother, a torch singer herself in the 1940's, would sing at home. When Marcovicci made her debut on The Merv Griffin show she prepared the Rodgers and Hart tearjerker, He Was

Too Good to Me, having no idea that it fell into this genre. She acknowledges, "I just knew of it from a Kingston Trio record." Later in her career, after appearing on the daytime serial, "Love is a Many Splendored Thing," debuting at the legendary club Reno Sweeney in the 1970's, Andrea brought more of this music to her repertoire. "I guess I'm just a Sylvia Plath kind of gal," she laughs.

By the time Andrea brought "Marcovicci at Midnight," to the Gardenia in Los Angeles in 1987, the ‘torch song' was wedded to the singer's bones. "I've always felt drawn to its pathos and the brilliant way lyricists like Otto Harbach, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Gus Kahn capture heartbreak so tenderly. And such evocative melodies by composers like Jerome Kern and Howard Dietz!"

From the Ziegfeld girl to the radio dame, torch singers have interpreted America's greatest ballads from the 1920's to the present day. Despite the overwhelming melancholy of these love songs, Andrea, with her usual panache, not only traces the history of these great singers and their songs, but adds a delicious sense of fun to the proceedings with backstage stories of intrigue and inspiration.

Andrea Marcovicci has sold out Carnegie Hall and appeared in concert with numerous orchestras and at the White House. She has acted in films, television and theatre. Costars include: Danny DeVito, Woody Allen, Sir Michael Caine, Sir John Gielgud, and Sam Waterston among others. Her latest film, Irene in Time, has recently been released on DVD. She has created over thirty nightclub acts.

"Blue Champagne: The History of the Torch Song" plays Nov. 16 - Dec. 30, 2010 at The Oak Room, Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th St. Schedule: Tues. - Sat. at 8:30 PM, plus late shows Fri. & Sat. at 11:00 PM. Christmas Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Monday Dec. 27 at 7:30 PM. Matinees Wed. Dec. 22 & 29 at 2:00 PM. "New Year's Eve, Eve" Dec. 30th at

8:30 PM. For more information and reservations call: (212) 419-9331 or (212) 840-6800 and ask for Oak Room Reservations.

 

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter-Keddy

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