Review: AMANDA GREEN AF!* *AND FRIENDS Gives Voice at Birdland

Amanda Green is that rare Broadway composer who is as comfortable in front of the footlights as she is behind. With golden mane and Carly Simon smile, she combines casual flare and facile ability with a lyric with a pleasant voice, and that 'je ne sais quoi' twinkle in her eye that hints she's got the punchline you're hoping for - just wait 'til she's ready to give it.

This alone would make an hour in her company a guaranteed good time. But when you consider Amanda Green is also that rare contemporary Broadway composer who is also a woman; a chance to hear what she (and her gifted friends) have to say (and sing) during Amanda Green AF!* (*AND FRIENDS) becomes something else: a rare opportunity to traverse the musical theatre landscape from a female perspective.

Over the past 80 years, the American Musical Theatre has seen only a scattering of female composers. Rarely has there ever been more than a couple represented on Broadway at any given time, and rather shocking still, an even smaller few have ever returned to Broadway after their freshman outing.

Amanda Green has been part of the composing team of three musicals that have played the Great White Way (HIGH FIDELITY, BRING IT ON and HANDS ON A HARDBODY, for which she was nominated for a 2013 Tony Award) and she has two more Broadway musicals in the works. As a writer, her style is clean and precise, with lyrical phrases that are at once contemporary, accessible and intimately clever.

And in an evening largely focused on her original work, with a staggering cadre of Broadway guests by her side, Green (and female characters) - rightfully - spent much of it front and center of the Birdland stage.

Following a cheeky opening number, "I'd Rather Be With You" ('I have a nice way of starting the show,' Green began, 'but instead, I'm going to do this') and a jazzy take on the Mother Mother pop tune "Ghosting," Green was joined by Howard McGillin, Kate Rockwell and her HIGH FIDELITY co-writer, Tom Kitt for a look back at material from her Broadway career to date, which has, in addition to her own original works, contained a fascinating sidebar as a 'fixer' of material in classic musicals (KISS ME KATE, ON THE 20TH CENTURY, PETER PAN) which are deemed problematic to contemporary audiences.

Looking to the future, "Tahiti," "There's a Chance" and the playfully nostalgic duet , "My Wonderful Pain" allowed Green and Jason Robert Brown the opportunity to preview three shrewd and insightful songs (and a richly complicated female character, to boot) from MR. SATURDAY NIGHT, their upcoming musical collaboration with Billy Crystal, based on the 1992 film.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most spirited material of the evening came from Green's upcoming musical called FEMALE TROUBLES, a musical alliance with Curtis Moore, Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan. A brash (and anachronistic) look at female empowerment in 1810, which Green jokingly refers to as "Jane Austen meets BRIDESMAIDS," the four song selection (as gamely performed by Green, Kate Rockwell, Bonnie Milligan and Em Grosland) tackles with ribald humor a story of how little we've come over the past two hundred years, and reveals Green at the top of her game as a lyricist in the process.

Amanda Green's father was the lyricist and screenwriter, Adolph Green. Her mother the great musical theatre actress and advocate, Phyllis Newman, who sadly passed on September 15th of this year. The evening's final song, "The Last Time I Looked" commissioned by Newman (with strict and humorous instructions) was dedicated to her memory.

While the spirit of both of her legendary parents is evidently on display whenever she takes the stage, watching and listening to Amanda Green as both a performer and a writer, the person you might find yourself most wanting to compare her to is her father's writing partner: the late, incomparable Betty Comden.

To date, the only woman to have received multiple Tony Awards composing for the American stage, Comden's trademarks: an elegant wit, playful schematics, and a contemporary, urban female viewpoint made her a refreshing and relevant voice in the mid 20th Century. Green's gift seems to spin that same aesthetic from the perspective of today. And what a welcome and needed voice that is.

Amanda Green is a frequent guest at Birdland's Broadway Presents series. See her the next time she returns. And in the meantime, check out fellow female musical theatre composer, Georgia Stitt on Monday, November 18th at 7:00.

Amanda Green AF!* (*And Friends) with Amanda Green, Bonnie Milligan, Howard McGillin, Jason Robert Brown, Tom Kitt, Kate Rockwell and Em Grosland. Musical direction by Andrew Resnick, with Sean McDaniel on drums.

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