Review: Alexandra Silber Lands Like The Blue Fairy, Granting Wishes to Her Talented Friends With I WISH: THE ROLES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN at Feinstein's/54 Below

Alexandra Silber Brings A Cast Of Her Hopefuls To 54 Below To Celebrate The Dawn Of A New Age Of Theatre Where All Roles Are Open To All People With The Power To Wish It So... Even In Their Showers.

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you all the T!

So my lambkins, Bobby is THRILLED two octaves up to announce the return to F/54B on Monday night of the cabaret sensation and brainchild of Her-Fierceness... Alexandra Silber, I WISH: THE ROLES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN. Now, fans of this series and those that read our 2019 review of this ongoing parade of musical theatre switch-ups, allow us to put newbies in the picture... So, in 2019 La Silber (Master Class, Fiddler on The Roof), who is that rarest of all rare birds - a soprano WHO IS FUNNY - tweeted "... that somebody needs to do a concert where I get to do this." and by this, she meant to sing the songs from roles she never got to do or got close to doing but lost out in the audition process OR would never actually do, owing to casting brackets that just don't include... well, HER! So, joining with producer, Jen Sandler, she made her wish come true and it became this ongoing cabaret/concert on the basement stage until... well, you know what happened. But now we're back, and so is this high-larious SOPRANO with her hijinks that fracture our faces, and high notes that thrill our tympanums (what? Bobby knows words!?). Opening, as she always does, with her tweaked lyric rendition of Sondheim's I WISH from INTO THE WOODS, our manic musical mistress of ceremonies proceeded to set the tone with songs, patter, and barbs that left no casting restriction un-stoned. Taking aim, throughout the evening, at our overly caucasian Broadway and its productions with little to no cross-cultural representation, Silber (with a little help from the naughty pen of Robbie Rozelle) used music and humor and her friends to point out foibles and faults in a system that is on the brink of change... but also there was the music, the faces, and the voices of the evening's line up:

Ali Ewoldt (The Phantom of the Opera, The King and I)

Mason Alexander Park (Netflix's "Cowboy Bebop", Hedwig and the Angry Inch)

Jelani Remy (Ain't Too Proud, Disney's The Lion King)

Matthew Scott (An American in Paris, Sondheim on Sondheim)

Alexandra Silber (Master Class, Fiddler on The Roof)

Hosted and Conceived by Alexandra Silber

Musical Direction by Drew Wutke

Produced by Jen Sandler

With the world of showbiz finally getting the message that casting brackets need to go, that all parts should be for all people, this installment of I WISH, with all of these hard-working musical theatre performers presenting roles that coulda been, proves that they, in fact, shoulda been. Ali Ewoldt's, soprano rendition of the Phantom's MUSIC OF THE NIGHT with a hilarious self-performance of the Michael-Crawford-inspired hand-to-face acting, showed there's no reason little Eric could not be an Asian Erica. As all our minds open we realize that all of the love and passion in that Paris opera could well be between 3 women or 3 men of any ethnicity, or even gender non-conforming souls like Mason Alexander Park; whose rendition of the Spider Woman's DRESSING THEM UP clearly showed that Molina could be a gender-fluid role that should be theirs one day, as should the drag role of MATILDA's Miss Truchbull. MAP's performance of THE SMELL OF REBELLION, where they "claimed" to need their phone for lyric assist and then, when the song broke into a fast patter that woulda made Gilbert lose his Sullivan, dropped the device and hit the number out of the "PARK" (see what we did there?) adding another role to the evening's SHOULDA been list. On that same list, mention must be made of cis-male Adam Scott, one of the best voices ever, who, while not really reaching out of his casting bracket, showed that the leads of BIG FISH and EVENING PRIMROSE are also shoulda's he should do. And then there was Jelani (Ooh La La) Remy who sang a little Barbra that got him through the COVID break and his recent break-up, but then closed out the evening with an OVER THE RAINBOW/RAINBOW CONNECTION mashup where he dueted between his voice and a spot-on Kermit impression that sent us all home with a smile... Now my dears, that reads like the end of the review, but no, because Alexandra Silber.

Flashing her new wedding ring to the crowd near the end of the show, AL, as she is known to her friends, told the tale of how, during all the recent mess, she eloped with, believe it or not, Alec Silver. At this point, Bobby's little brian ran amok positing if this union now makes her Alexandra Silber-Silver or Silver-Silber or maybe there's no hyphen, but her nickname is AL and she's married an Alec so maybe is AL and Alec Silber-Silver, oh the heck with it, it's THE 2 ALs! Busting out SOUTH PACIFIC's WONDERFUL GUY in tribute to her guy, AL demonstrated that, if ever the production in which she was pre-covid cast gets off the ground, a California born Hispanic, Irish, Jew with hefty doses of neurotic Catholic & Hebrew guilt can take on that show's Kansas Korny Nurse Nellie and make the world fall in love as deeply as she has. With all of her talent, humor, and smarts, Silber used this latest installment with her cabaret cronies to evolve I WISH into something bigger than just their funny little "club act." In 2021 this show has morphed, in very entertaining ways, into a battle cry in the hopes that, as our stages re-open, audiences the world over and across all lines of gender, race, and identity will begin to see themselves as part of ALL the stories we tell. That a more welcoming, fair, and multifaceted artform rife with all the possibilities of the imagination for telling OUR stories is where we are headed. I WISH returns to F/54B October 24, 2021 - January 23, 2022, and is a show not to be missed as Bobby gives Al and Pals our full

5 Out Of 5 Rainbows. Get your 10/24 and 1/23 I WISH Tickets: HERE

YOU MUST Follow Al Silber's Tweets: HERE

See F/54B's Calander: HERE

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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