Review: AMANDA GREEN AND FRIENDS: VAXXED AF! Is Fun AF at Birdland

Bursting onto the stage, a vision of hip-coolness in her distressed jeans and sparkly spaghetti strap shift, Amanda Green tossed her long golden tresses up out of her face and launched into a sensational crowd-pleaser of an opening number, letting all the lucky folks at Birdland know that she was back, that she missed them, and that she was ready to go. It looks like seventeen months without a live audience gave Amanda Green a lot of opportunities to store up some energy, and this was the night to unleash it, which is exactly what she did.

Amanda Green AND FRIENDS is not a new show at Birdland but it's not a regular show either. The musical theater songwriter and performer turns up at the jazz club now and then to put on a show (this edition titled VAXXED AF!) centered around her compositions, always bringing along some of her talented friends from The Broadway, which is an honest-to-goodness plus for the audience because Green has some amazing and amazingly talented friends. However (and this has to be said) Amanda Green does not need to do a show titled Amanda Green and Friends. She does not need to do this because Amanda Green is enough.

A gifted songwriter who has had some success and who has written some really enjoyable songs, Amanda Green is that thing that actually does not come along every day: a songwriter who can perform. This is no slight to the songwriters who don't, can't, or perhaps shouldn't perform because everyone has their strengths, and everyone should play to their strengths. In fact, Amanda Green is an actress and a very funny girl. Indeed, Amanda Green is the greatest interpreter of her own compositions. Many have sung Ms. Green's songs, and quite well, but if there is anything that was learned by this week's appearance at Birdland, it is that Green gets Green better than anybody. This is not a unique concept to this writer, one who adored the late Carol Hall, a songwriter who had some success on Broadway and in the writing of songs that stood on their own for recording artists like The Streisand Lady. Many sang Hall's compositions, but when Carol sat at a piano, playing as she sang, it was plain to see that the relationship between the singer and the songwriter resonated best with Hall when the singer and songwriter were the same artist. That is the hypothesis proven this week at Birdland when Amanda Green opened her show with "For What?" and closed it with "If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?".

Nevertheless, the show is called Amanda Green And Friends and everyone knows a party is better with friends, and to celebrate the return of live entertainment, Amanda Green was in the mood for a party, so she invited the fun kids over: Darius de Haas, Natalie Douglas, Dan Finnerty, Ann Harada, and Curtis Moore. And they did have fun. Most of the songs performed erred on the humorous side of things (and it's hard not to assume that that is where most of Green's life lands) but there was an especially touching performance by Ann Harada, performing as a character who was (of all things) a mute. Together, this group of scallywags resembling a modern-day adult version of the Our Gang kids, performed songs from Hands On a Hardbody, High Fidelity, For The Love Of Tiffany: A Wifetime Original Musical, Once Upon a Primetime, and new musicals Mr. Saturday Night and Female Trouble (not the John Waters film), clearly having a good time with both the material and one another, particularly Green and Moore, working together on a song from Female Trouble so intricate that the authors required their lyric sheets. It is a wonder how they got through it, but it was exciting as heck. On the subject of lyric sheets, it couldn't go unnoticed that some of the actors required a little assistance in that area - but what was, perhaps, not known is that some members of the cast who were announced for the evening did not make it to the show - clearly, some of the actors were pinch-hitting for their colleagues, which is a trouper thing to do, and good for them. Way to step up - it really brought home how much of a family Birdland houses, with almost all of the performers being folks who had played either of the Birdland rooms in the past, and all of them being obviously dear friends to Amanda; what fun to see the gang at work. And when isn't it a fine time to see these artists in the act? Thank goodness Amanda Green has such a wealth of wacky and whimsical or tender and touching material with which they can play... and a phone list of friends ready to get into the act. Here's hoping Birdland patrons don't have to wait too long for another night like this one... or maybe even the solo Amanda Green show for which we've all been dreaming. #bighint

Amanda Green AND FRIENDS: VAXXED AF! was magnificently Musical Directed by Annbritt Du Chateau, with fabulous Sean McDaniel on drums.

Find great shows to see at the Birdland website HERE.

Amanda Green is on Instagram HERE and Twitter HERE

The cast of Amanda Green AND FRIENDS: VAXXED AF! gets a four out of five microphones rating for the occasional use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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